The Bell Between Worlds. Ian Johnstone

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СКАЧАТЬ were the Ghorhund. The Ghor and the Ghorhund are two kinds of the same thing. Sometimes they’re more like men – upright, on two legs, clever, cunning – we call those the Ghor; and sometimes they’re just like dogs, but bigger, faster and stronger – those are called the Ghorhund.” She glanced back towards the lane and the forest. “Hang around here much longer and you’ll get to meet them face to face – would you like that?”

      Sylas saw the fear in her eyes. “No,” he said, “let’s go.”

      “Right then.”

      She whirled about and darted off up the passage, weaving between the townsfolk, leading them deeper and deeper into the warren of wooden buildings. The further they went, the stranger and more unfamiliar everything became. It was not just the peculiar pyramid-like buildings on each side of the passageway, nor the curious little shops and stalls selling a bewildering array of objects whose purpose Sylas could only guess at, but also the strangeness of the people who strolled, chattered and worked around them. Their clothes were simple, made almost exclusively from a crudely woven cloth that many of the men wore wrapped round their waist like a skirt or a long kilt. Some women also wore headdresses, adorned with coloured stones and symbols, and many of them had tattoos of similar symbols on their hands and temples. Some wore thick, starkly coloured make-up around their eyes, accented with sharp black lines. The effect was altogether alien, and yet something about them seemed familiar to Sylas, but he could not think why. While many spoke a language he could understand but had a thick accent, like Simia, others – particularly those wearing the most splendid clothes and headdresses – chattered to each other in a foreign language. It really was as though the bell had transported him somewhere – to a place or a time very far away from the Gabblety Row that he knew so well.

      They passed a huge shop frontage that was packed to the ceiling with pots, pans, containers, cauldrons and all manner of glass objects: globes, jars, phials, measuring jugs, beakers, flasks, straight tubes, coiled tubes, winding tubes, tapered tubes, bulging tubes. Some of these strange items looked a little like devices he had once seen in his mother’s laboratory or in his book of science. But they were also somehow different: more delicate, more natural-looking and organic, almost as though they had been grown rather than shaped or made. He glanced up at the richly inscribed nameplate above the window:

      THE PECULIORIUM

      PURVEYORS OF PECULIAR PARTICULARS FOR THE PRACTICE OF THE THREE WAYS

      He saw that the window was divided into three sections, each with an ornate sign hanging above; one read Kimiyya, the next Urgolvane and the last Druindil. Sylas frowned and turned to ask Simia what all this meant, but she was already far ahead, darting through the crowds. He lingered a moment longer, mouthing the strange words under his breath, then set out after her.

      They rushed on and on, further and further into the warren of lanes and passageways. As they lost themselves in the bustle of the town, Sylas thought less of whatever was behind and took more notice of the strange buildings that rose around them. All were built from rough-hewn rock and timber and none had the straight lines and hard edges of the town he knew so well. Instead they seemed to have borrowed from Gabblety Row some of its odd shapes and crookedness, its undulations and waywardness, so that each and every structure was entirely unique. Nevertheless the majority shared two features: low doors that people had to duck through to enter and whose frames were carved with curious symbols and hieroglyphs; and great sloping roofs that began low to the ground and soared on four triangular sides towards a single point, forming an irregular but perfectly proportioned pyramid. More than once he caught himself staring upwards at these strange structures, and more than once Simia turned and yanked him on, muttering at him to stop gawping and being so conspicuous.

      Finally, as they reached the end of a lane that opened out into a square, Simia stopped to catch her breath and pulled him into the shadow of a shop awning.

      “Let’s rest here for a minute,” she panted, pushing her bright hair behind her ears.

      Sylas leaned gratefully against a wall, his chest heaving. He remembered the bottle of water in his backpack and lowered the bag from his shoulder.

      “Water?” he asked, opening the drawstring.

      Simia glanced down and screwed up her nose. “I’ll stick to water from my own world, thanks very much.”

      “What do you mean, ‘your own world’? Why do you keep saying stuff like that?”

      “Because that’s the way it is,” she said, brushing at her coat. “You’re from the Other and that means your water’s from there too. I’d rather not mix worlds up inside me, if it’s all the same to you.”

      Sylas stared at her and was about to ask again what she meant by the ‘Other’, but she was looking at his rucksack. She crouched down by it and pulled it wider open.

      “Is that–” she cleared her throat, –“is that... the Samarok?”

      Sylas looked down and saw the ancient volume, with its glistening stones and the deep S-shaped groove catching the light.

      “Yes,” he replied, surprised that she knew what it was.

      Simia reached in and touched the supple leather of the cover. “I can’t believe this is the real thing... the actual Samarok.”

      “You know what it is?” asked Sylas. “To be honest, I don’t know much about it. Someone gave it to me.”

      Simia scoffed. “Someone just gave you the Samarok?”

      He nodded. “A man called Mr Zhi just showed up at the row and...”

      Simia’s mouth fell open. “Mr Zhi? You know Mr Zhi?”

      “Do you?”

      Simia laughed incredulously. “Of course I don’t know him, but everyone’s heard of Mr Zhi.”

      “Well, I’d never heard of him until yesterday.”

      “Why aren’t I surprised?” she said with a sigh.

      Someone shouted nearby and her eyes rose to the passing throng of traders and townsfolk. She pulled the drawstring sharply closed.

      “We’ve got to be careful,” she whispered. “We can talk about all of this and drink some proper water when we’re safe. It’s not much further.”

      “Sure, fine,” said Sylas, smiling at her sassiness. “Where to next?”

      “Not far now, but first we need to cross Scholar’s Square,” she said over her shoulder as she plunged into the crowd. “Try not to gawp.”

      Sylas sighed and set out after her.

      They pushed through a queue of shoppers at the end of the lane and emerged into the wide plaza beyond.

      It was a curious scene. Around the edges, hordes of people milled about buying and selling goods from a gathering of ramshackle stalls and open carts, while the space in the centre was almost entirely taken up by three large timber structures consisting of a latticework of legs and supports to about chest height, topped with a flat expanse of boards, like gigantic stages.

      What was even more peculiar was that on each of the three stages was a group of children wearing matching gowns like a sort of uniform, some sitting at desks and others moving about in some or other СКАЧАТЬ