Circles of Stone. Ian Johnstone

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      “ The garden defies expectations, not by breaking its promise, but by keeping it. It has a beauty that breaks the bounds of dreaming.”

      SYLAS WADED THROUGH THE mist at the water’s edge, trying desperately to keep up with their guide while daydreaming about the wonders of the evening before. The enchanting sunset over the Valley of Outs and the lamp-lit forest seemed almost unreal, like a dream. Even now they warmed him on this chilly morning.

      Their guide moved swiftly despite the thick mist, his long ranging steps more than a match for the quick-footedness of his followers. He never looked back, seeming to know exactly where they were: slowing when they fell behind and striding out when they drew near. He paused a few times to relight his pipe, which seemed prone to going out, but always he stayed well ahead.

      Simia pulled at Sylas’s sleeve. “Get him to slow down! I’m exhausted!!”

      “Cat got your tongue?” whispered Sylas, adjusting the rucksack on his shoulder. “Why don’t you ask?”

      Simia eyed the young man leading them. She seemed unusually reluctant to speak up. “I think he knows that we’re tired –” she narrowed her eyes – “I’m just not sure he cares.”

      They both watched their guide as he mounted a boulder and dropped down on the other side amid a cloud of orange pipe smoke. He was not powerfully built, but had a sprightly, lithe figure and his long limbs swept with ease through the undergrowth. He had a perfectly bald head, which glistened a little from his exertions, lending new life to the ring of eyes tattooed into his scalp. They stared back unblinkingly, as though seeing their every move and thought. Sylas remembered the very same kind of tattoos on Bowe’s head, but he was interested to see that there were fewer and that two of them, on one side of his head, were wrinkled and warped. It was as though someone had tried to burn them from his head.

      “Stop fretting, we’re nearly there,” shouted the young Scryer, in a rich, accented voice. He did not slow or look around, but puffed out a cloud of orange smoke, which formed bright wisps in his wake.

      “Told you!” hissed Simia.

      They clambered up a small promontory that jutted into the lake, then skirted a towering cliff face. They became aware of a low rumble, which grew ever more noticeable, and when they looked out at the lake they saw that, although the morning fog was starting to clear, the surface was now clouded by great rolls and swirls of a new, finer mist.

      “The waterfall!” exclaimed Simia, looking relieved. “We’re at the end of the valley.”

      The young Scryer walked up to a great curtain of weeds and grasses hanging from the cliff face and turned to them. His gloomy features broke into a smile.

      “Are you ready for this?” he asked, tapping out his pipe and tucking it behind his ear.

      Sylas and Simia looked at each other.

      “Ready for … what?” asked Sylas apprehensively.

      Their guide pulled back the weeds and waved them into the darkness beyond. “For the Garden of Havens.”

      They peered warily into the cave and, to their surprise, saw a passageway sloping downwards to a bright opening, shrouded in more greenery. The walls of the tunnel had been worn smooth by the powerful currents of the river and, like so much in the Valley of Outs, seemed almost to have been crafted to suit its human residents, with a regular ceiling the height of a man and a gently inclined floor to allow an easy descent.

      This time their guide let them go first. With growing excitement Sylas made his way down the slope, running his hands over the damp rock to keep his balance, treading carefully on the sloping floor. His hand drifted over empty space on one side and he felt a chilly breeze drifting from an opening. He turned towards it, assuming this was the path, only to find himself grasped by the shoulders and pulled back.

      “Not that way!” growled the Scryer.

      “Why?” asked Simia, peering into the tunnel. “What’s down there?”

      “Just the old mines,” he said, pushing them both onwards towards the light. “They’re forbidden now.”

      “Why?” asked Sylas, groping his way down the tunnel.

      The Scryer sighed. “Because they’re dangerous,” he said. “Because of the Black.”

      Sylas was about to ask what “the Black” was, but as they reached the end of the tunnel the thunder of the waterfall surged, resonating in the rock and his chest. The air too had changed, becoming fresher and sweeter, carrying the fragrance of river silt. He drew up to the veil of weeds, which swung limply in a breeze from the bright world beyond. He paused for a moment, then pushed it aside.

      The tunnel opened out into a cavernous bowl of rock, with the sky above and a sandy floor below. Its slick, curved sides rose ever more steeply until at the very top they slightly overhung, trailing grasses and vines into the vast space below. On one СКАЧАТЬ