Circles of Stone. Ian Johnstone

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СКАЧАТЬ grubby little apartment. He laughed at the thought of his uncle Tobias. What would he make of all this? He imagined that accountant’s brain trying to make sense of it all, make it all add up, like a good tax return. Well, nothing about this world added up. It would defeat his uncle absolutely and completely, and something about that made Sylas happy.

      He yawned and put his hands behind his head. What was his uncle doing now, now that he had no one to run his stupid little errands, no one to snipe at, no one to blame?

      His eyes were just beginning to close when he heard a movement in the room.

      He opened his eyes. Simia was leaning on what passed for the doorframe, chewing on an apple.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked disapprovingly.

      “What do you mean? I’m relaxing – I thought that was what you were doing!”

      Simia was incredulous. “Isn’t there a curious bone in your body? I mean, here we are in the great Valley of Outs, and all you want to do is have a kip?”

      Sylas stared at her for a moment and then managed a weary grin. “Come on then,” he said, hauling himself to his feet and brushing off the crumbs. “Let’s go explore.”

      In the forest the sun was just setting, painting the trees with pink and orange, which only added to their magic and beauty. Walking alone they were free to wander and gaze all about them, to take in the sheer scale of the towering trees. But they also tried to look beyond roots and trunks and branches to find any sign of the town Filimaya had mentioned. And the more they explored, the more they discovered.

      They saw the first of the townsfolk in the crevices and folds of tree trunks, in dark openings that now, in the failing light, showed themselves to be entrances to warm, glowing sanctuaries, where people sat around tables and laughed and chatted, where children played and argued and readied themselves for bed. And they saw homes in other, more unusual places. Sylas was the first to see one beneath the roots of a grand old tree, partly in the folds of the tree and partly underground. Then Simia saw one high in the canopy, nestled in the crook of four intersecting boughs, wrapped all about with a lattice of branches like a giant nest. But these branches had not been cut or placed or woven. They were alive. They had grown that way.

      They walked further into the forest and saw more and more of these strange dwellings high in the treetops, some beginning to glow with flickering lamplight. But what was even more magical was that they saw people walking from one to the other along the tops of the largest boughs, as though ambling through the roof of the forest was the most natural thing in the world. The more they looked, the more people they began to see, until they realised that the entire canopy was connected by a network of walkways. Some people walked quickly along the great branches, rushing to a late appointment or to get home for dinner; others walked beside a companion, chatting or taking in the evening air. One woman even walked along reading a book. But what Sylas found most surprising of all was the sight of children running between these great trees without a care in the world.

      “Why aren’t they scared?” he murmured, shaking his head in disbelief.

      Simia followed his eyes and shrugged. “Nature wants to help us,” she said matter-of-factly. “Remember what Merimaat told me that time? When I was trying to cross the river on stepping stones?”

      Sylas remembered well Simia’s story of Merimaat – the great, lost leader of the Suhl – her strange words sticking clearly in his mind: “They aren’t trying to trip you,” she had said of the stepping stones, “they’re trying to help you.”

      “That’s what the Suhl are brought up to believe,” Simia continued, “that Nature is part of us and we are part of Nature. She’s on our side.”

      Sylas looked back up into the treetops in time to see an entire family walking almost directly overhead, laughing and joking, the children racing each other to the next trunk.

      “Well they believe it, that’s for sure,” he said, under his breath.

      They walked on, and as the sky grew darker they began to see a galaxy of orange lamplights dotted throughout the trees, casting a beautiful, magical light across the forest floor.

      Soon they had reached the steep incline to one side of the Valley of Outs. They pressed on, hoping to climb high enough to look down on Sylva. At first they made good progress through the tangle of bushes and branches, but then, quite abruptly, the ground levelled off.

      Sylas stopped. “This can’t be the top,” he said, glancing about. “We’ve only just started.”

      Simia pushed past and parted some branches. The ground ahead fell away. They shared a look.

      “Odd,” said Simia.

      She pushed through the undergrowth and strode down the slope. “Come on, it must go up again in a bit.”

      They set out once more but had only walked a few steps when they came to a halt.

      There, beyond a few branches of trees, was the valley they had just left behind. Lamplights blinked in the treetops, the occasional dark figure wandered through the canopy and just ahead was the stream they had crossed only minutes before.

      Simia turned on her heel and marched past Sylas with a look of fierce determination.

      “We must have circled back somehow. Come on!”

      Sylas opened his mouth to say something, but then just turned to follow. They had only walked a dozen paces through the thicket before the ground again seemed to be levelling out. Again they reached a clearing, and again they saw the ground falling away, and as soon as they started down the slope they stopped in astonishment – for there, through the bushes and wood smoke, were the same lamplights, the treetops and the familiar stream, babbling in the half-dark, seeming almost to mock them. They were back where they had started.

      “I think I know what’s happening here,” said Simia, smiling suddenly. “You know why they call this the Valley of Outs?”

      Sylas shook his head, perplexed.

      “Because no one but the Suhl can find their way in. They always find themselves walking out again!”

      “Right …” said Sylas, trying to get his head round it.

      “Well, isn’t this just the opposite? I mean, we’re inside the valley, and perhaps the same magic that keeps other people out—”

      “… is keeping us in!” exclaimed Sylas, a smile spreading across his tired features. “So however many times we try to climb this hill, and whatever point we try from, we’ll always find ourselves walking back into the Valley of Outs!”

      Simia put her hands on her hips and grinned. “Exactly.”

      Since they had gone as far as they could go, they sat down on a bed of dry leaves and gazed through the branches and bushes to the valley below, framed by the dark silhouettes of the two vast hills. The moon and stars lent everything a trace of silver: the distant hilltops, the curls of smoke rising from hundreds of fires, and somewhere below, only just visible through the fingers of the forest, the glistening surface of the lake.

      For the first time they felt the true power of this place: the ancient and unfathomable magic that bound it together, from root, to trunk, to treetop СКАЧАТЬ