Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2013

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Ian Johnstone 2013

Cover illustration © Richard Jones

Cover Photography © Eliz Huseyin

Ian Johnstone asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007491223

Ebook Edition ©JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780007491247

Version: 2015-03-23

For Emily, who shares my worlds

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One - The Bell

1 - Gabblety Row

2 - The Shop of Things

3 - The Third Thing

4 - Sundown

5 - The Lie

6 - The Chime

7 - Flight

8 - Passing

Part Two - The Other

9 - The Groundrush

10 - The Ghor

11 - The Mutable Inn

12 - The Lord’s Chamber

13 - Sanctuary

14 - The Other

15 - The Say-So

16 - The Chosen Path

17 - The Water Gardens

18 - The Two Worlds

19 - The Den of Scribes

20 - The Ravel Runes

21 - Burned, Scourged, Forgotten

22 - The Wave

23 - To the Hills

Part Three - The Truth

24 - Our Darkest Shame

25 - The Chasm

26 - Tales Untold

27 - The Glimmer Myth

28 - Deceit

29 - Of Myth and Legend

30 - Betrayed

31 - What Cause So Great?

32 - The Centre of Everything

33 - The Sound of the Moon

34 - Here or There?

35 - The Name of Truth

36 - Nature’s Song

37 - Council at Dawn

38 - Magruman of the Suhl

39 - Through Ending’s Gate

40 - Where None Have Gone

41 - From the Darkness

About the Publisher

“Their voice is clear and true, yet it is not breathed, nor carried upon the air. It echoes like thought inside the skull, speaking words where none are spoken.”

GABBLETY ROW WAS QUITE the most peculiar and ramshackle building in town. Its undulating walls, higgledy-piggledy red tiles and winding iron drainpipes all showed an utter disregard for straight lines. The frontage of four shops with three floors above rose in an astonishing disarray of red brick and dark brown beams, leaning here and lurching there until it reached the garret rooms at its top. These chambers teetered outwards on a forest of wooden brackets, such that they loomed over the pavement below in a manner quaint to behold from a distance, but utterly terrifying to those walking beneath.

The long passage of time had added to the chaos, bending beams and bowing walls to form a miraculous collection of angles, bulges and crannies. In recent years the entire structure had slumped sideways and backwards away from the two main roads that crossed at its corner, as if the whole building was shrinking from the incessant noise and pollution of the traffic. And yet, while it seemed to cower from the twenty-first century, Gabblety Row clung to the slick, hard edges of modern life like a barnacle to a rock. Years came and went, but Gabblety Row remained.

The terrace also had a curious way of settling into the hearts of all of its residents. Sylas Tate, for instance, was often woken by loud, unearthly groans that seemed to issue from every wall, floor and ceiling, as if the tired old structure was easing its great weight one more inch into the earth for a few hours of rest, or perhaps heaving one more straight line into crookedness. Being a boy of extraordinary imagination, Sylas loved these weird sounds. A creak of the building’s old joints would transport him to a swaying bough in the highest reaches of an ancient tree; the groan of a beam would take him to a hammock in a storm-weary galleon; and the sharp crack of a splitting timber would have him at the sights of a musket, firing into the massing ranks of some terrifying and brutal foe. And these moments of escape, these tricks of imagination, were now the happiest moments of his young life.

It was not only the noises that Sylas loved about Gabblety Row. He adored the baffling passageways that ran the length of the terrace above the shops, darting left and right and up and down for no apparent reason, leading to some doors that he’d never seen open and others behind which lived his only friends in the world.

And perhaps, most of all, he loved his room.

Like any good sanctuary, it was extremely difficult to reach. The only way to it was a narrow staircase that led upwards from an undersized door on the third-floor passageway to a creaky trapdoor that opened in the furthest, darkest corner of the room. As the old building had heaved and slumped over the years, so the door and the passageway had become both low and narrow, such that they were now almost impossible for an adult to negotiate. This meant that, in his room, he could be sure to be absolutely alone: a situation that suited him well, for he was not the most sociable boy. He mixed with people perfectly well when it was necessary, at school or on the bus, but kept himself to himself when it was not. Sylas’s uncle sometimes said that his mother’s death had turned him into a moody and melancholy boy – “far too serious for a twelve-year-old” – but Sylas didn’t agree: as far as he was concerned, he simply knew his own mind and found it company enough. Whatever the truth, Sylas was used to filling his life with his own kind of cheer.

This was just what Sylas was doing at four o’clock on that peculiar Friday afternoon. He was lying in his room turning his favourite kite over and over in his hands, imagining it thousands of feet in the air, carving its beautiful path above the distant hills at the edge of town, gliding over caves and waterfalls, forgotten bowers and crevices, great hollowed-out oaks and lakes carpeted with lilies. He pictured it among the great birds that he sometimes saw from his window soaring above the town – eagles, owls, falcons, ospreys – playing with the wind and surveying all the beauty of the world.

Suddenly the grating voice of his uncle brought him crashing back to earth.

“Sylas!” came the voice through the old trapdoor. “Mail!”

Sylas sighed, drawing himself reluctantly out of his daydream. He lowered the kite carefully to the floor and pushed himself up from the mattress.

“Coming!” he shouted.

He took down his tatty old rucksack from the shelf, walked to the corner of his room and, as was his habit, kissed his fingers and touched the smooth, worn edge of a photo frame suspended above the trapdoor before heaving it open and descending into the darkness below. As it fell closed, the old picture rocked on its nail, briefly animating his mother’s faded face, her warm, smiling eyes still bright beneath the glass.

The short, dark stairwell led to a not-quite-straight oblong of light in which Sylas could see the silhouette of his uncle.

Tobias Tate was an exceptionally tall man – a fact that was only made more apparent by his thinness. His legs and arms were so long and slight that one might fear for their safety as he swung them up and down the narrow staircases and passageways of Gabblety Row. Even his face was long and narrow, and his hair stood up on end in a manner that suggested that just as gravity pulled him down, some other invisible force tugged at his upper extremities. And yet, perhaps in an attempt to fight this upward tendency, Tobias Tate had developed a graceless stoop – an arching of the shoulders and a thrusting forward of his head – which gave him an ugly, almost predatory appearance. When he entered a room, it was his sharp nose that appeared first, followed by the black plumes of his eyebrows and his furrowed brow, then his long, sinewy neck. A bookkeeper by trade and passion, he spent most of his days in his study poring over piles of papers and tapping on his many computers, all of which made his stoop more pronounced, his face more pallid and gaunt, and his character more unutterably miserable.

“Tardy!” he barked. “Tardy, Sylas, that’s what you are – and if you don’t know what it means, look it up, because on account of your tardiness I don’t have time to explain.”

The voice was dry and expressionless, but Sylas could tell from the unusual length of his uncle’s sentence that he was in an especially irritable mood. A large, thin white hand thrust a pile of letters into Sylas’s chest.

“Sorry, uncle, I’ll post them straight away,” he said, pushing them into his rucksack. He stepped around and over his uncle’s stray limbs and into the corridor beyond.

“Tardy! Look it up!” Tobias Tate shouted after him.

Sylas walked quickly down the meandering grey passageway. Someone less experienced in the curious ways of Gabblety Row might trip over an unexpected rise in the floor or bruise themselves against a bulge in the wall, but these corridors were Sylas’s domain. Small of stature and deft of foot from his many errands, he moved with an assured ease past the many apartment doors on his left and right, until he turned on to the staircase. He took the stairs in twos – a feat of considerable skill given that each pair varied in height and angle – and soon bounded off the bottom step and through the large oak door.

It opened at the end of the terrace, directly opposite the Church of the Holy Trinity. The majestic spire soared above Gabblety Row as if trying to teach a lesson in uprightness, but that was perhaps the church’s last salute to the world: the main roof had fallen in and the grounds were now an overgrown jungle of trees, bushes, ivy and broken stone.

Sylas hesitated – he had not had a chance to lay flowers for his mother this week, and it was already Friday. He looked at his watch. There should be time after the post office.

Suddenly he was assailed by a blast of screeching, honking car horns, and the acrid smell of fumes as the lights on the corner changed to green. The two roads that met at the corner of Gabblety Row were the busiest in town, each four lanes across and jammed with steel and noise and agitated people. These were serious roads, roads that did not like to be interrupted, and they growled irritably at one another each time the traffic lights changed.

Sylas turned the corner and began the familiar walk along the frontage of shops: the sweet, doughy-smelling Buntague’s Bakery, the ominous undertaker’s Veeglum & Retch, and finally Sam Clump’s, the locksmith. Then something very odd caught his eye. It was a movement somewhere ahead of him, inside the dusty window of the final shop in the row, the one that had been empty for years.

He approached the filthy, arched panes that made up the shopfront. Each dirty section of glass had been set into carved wooden frames as crookedly as the rest of the row and bent the light in a unique way, making it almost impossible to see into the dark room beyond. All Sylas could make out was the usual darkness flecked with dust and cobwebs.

He shrugged and was about to turn away when something unfamiliar made him look up. To his surprise, he saw that there, nailed over the dilapidated nameplate that had always been blank, was a new shop sign. The lettering was like none he had ever seen, a dance of outlandish arcs and curves in reds and purples and blues.

He read out loud in wonderment: “The… Shop… of…” He blinked and frowned, “...Things.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Sylas jumped and looked about him, trying to find the owner of the voice. There was no one. The voice had sounded so clear and close, even over the drone of the traffic.

“Do come inside.”

A shiver ran down Sylas’s spine. It was inside his head.

The voice was accented and strange, like none he could remember. Surely, if he was imagining it, it would seem more familiar. He found himself stepping backwards towards the edge of the pavement.

“Careful!”

A horn screamed wildly and Sylas felt the wind of a passing car tearing at his clothes. He threw himself forward, gasping with fright, and steadied himself against a window frame. When he had gathered his wits, he found himself standing right next to the doorway.

“You have nothing to fear.”

He peered again through the dirty glass, but could see nothing but darkness. For some time he stayed rooted to the spot, glancing nervously from side to side. Finally his nerves got the better of him and he turned and started to walk away.

In a few steps he had reached the corner of Clump’s locksmith’s and he heard the sound of Sam Clump chatting cheerfully to a customer as he prodded a screwdriver into a misbehaving lock. Sylas paused and looked out at the busy road and the endless throng of faces peering over steering wheels, then across to the harsh lights of the supermarket, and finally he looked back at the mysterious dark window.

What harm could come to him so close to Sam and to all these people? Surely he had just imagined the voice – after all, he had imagined stranger things before.

He felt the sting of a raindrop against the side of his face and looked up to see the sky darkening. As the heavens rumbled, he drew himself up and walked briskly across the pavement to the Shop of Things.

The rain fell in sheets that moved like silvery curtains across the town. A warm wind caught the drops and hurled them this way and that, so that there was nowhere they did not reach. They swirled into bus shelters and blasted into doorways; they curled beneath umbrellas and danced between the leaves of trees. Soon the town had become a world of shabby greyness, its dull buildings framed by pendulous, smoky clouds above, and murky pools and rivulets below.

The stranger turned out of a lane on to the main road, gathering his loose-fitting coat about him and drawing down the hood so that his face could not be seen. He cursed as a gust threw up spray from a passing car and he quickly slid the black holdall off his shoulder, tucking it under his coat. Even with this awkward burden he moved quickly, pausing only once or twice to look at road signs and to wait for cars as they turned into side roads. He seemed agitated, casting his dark eyes left and right and sometimes muttering under his breath, but his strides were sure and powerful and he moved swiftly past other pedestrians.

As he neared the traffic lights, his attention was drawn to a strange, ramshackle building on the opposite corner of the junction. He put the holdall down and leaned against one of the traffic lights, peering out from under his hood at the peculiar arrangement of beams, drainpipes and brickwork that lay before him.

“And thus at this our journey’s end,” he said in a weathered voice, “is another, just beginning.”

Then he stepped out in the direction of Gabblety Row.

“When the sun sets, it merely sleeps, to rise another day; a path that ends, ends not, but leads back from whence it came; and thus at this our journey’s end is another, just beginning.”

THE DOOR CREAKED ON its old, dry hinges, but opened easily. Sylas heard the half-hearted ring of the rusty shop bell above his head as he stepped into the gloom.

He was immediately aware of the strong odour of decaying wood and damp walls, which hung heavily in the air and caught the back of his throat. The front of the shop was relatively clear, containing a few empty cabinets whose doors hung off their hinges and vast grey spiders’ webs that hung wall to ceiling like drapes. But within, all he could see were stacks of crates and parcels that ascended from floor to ceiling like weird postal sculptures, arranged in long lines stretching the full length of the shop. He glanced at one stack and saw that each parcel and crate carried a shipping label stamped with the city of origin: Beijing… Addis Ababa… Rio de Janeiro… Alexandria… Khartoum…

“Welcome.”

It was the same strange accent, the same deep, gentle voice, but this time it was not inside his head, it was in the room. Sylas became aware of a dull glow in the dark interior of the shop, at the end of one of the stacks.

“Thank you,” he blurted, his heart pounding.

“It is said that the greatest endeavours have modest beginnings,” said the voice, this time with some humour. “So I must ask you to use your imagination.”

Suddenly Sylas saw the sparse light in the shop shift slightly, and a shadow moved. His eyes darted from left to right trying to find the owner of the voice, but there were so many dark corners and strange objects that he was at a loss where to look. He was about to turn and retreat back to the door when the silhouette of a small stooped man appeared against the dusty light at the far end of one of the stacks.

As Sylas walked to the back of the shop, the figure paused and seemed to bow slightly before reaching for something from a shelf. A sudden flare of orange light made Sylas squint and look away, but when he turned back, he saw the room gradually coming to life. The dark figure was lighting a row of candles on what had once been the shop counter, but was now a broken expanse of rotten wood.

The man stepped forward and leaned on the counter, bringing his face into the halo of light.

It was a fascinating face, quite unlike any Sylas had seen before. The pale skin was wrinkled around the mouth, eyes and the wide brow, showing him to be a man of great expression and animation. His bright, oriental eyes were calming and gentle, like nothing could surprise them, as if they had seen much of most things. His white beard was flecked with bluish-grey hairs around the edges, which lent him a distinguished but outlandish appearance, an effect that was only heightened by the way in which it drew to a point below his chin. He wore a grey, foreign-looking velvet cap upon his head, like a crumpled pot that had slumped to one side, and a dishevelled grey suit made of some coarse material that showed the myriad creases of too much wear. Even his shirt, which had apparently once been white, was now turning grey in sympathy with everything else. His tie, which was a rich dark green, provided the only colour.

His most distinctive feature was his warm, welcoming smile, for his eyes twinkled and his features creased into a pleasing, amiable expression of kindness. Sylas found himself smiling back – a broad, bold smile that brightened his spirits and dispelled his nerves.

The old man lit the last of seven candles and sighed, making the flames dance slightly.

“I believe in a certain amount of gloom,” he said, and with a wink he blew out the match. “What your eyes cannot see your imagination must discover. And your imagination is very important, young man.”

Sylas looked at him quizzically. “Important?”

“Yes, for a great many things… and you will put it to very good use in my shop,” said the shopkeeper. “Now, let us dispense with the formalities. They call me Mr Zhi.”

He stepped around the counter and held out his hand. It was covered in a beautifully embroidered velvet glove of the same dark green as his tie. Sylas only had a moment to look at it, but he saw that the stitching on the back of the hand glittered slightly in the candlelight.

As they shook hands, the old man straightened and looked at him expectantly.

“And how should I address my very first customer?”

“Oh... Sylas. Sylas Tate, sir – Mr Zhi, I mean.”

He felt flustered, but almost at once he felt Mr Zhi’s eyes soothing and reassuring him, as though telling him in some silent language that all was as it should be.

“You are very welcome, Sylas Tate,” he said, pronouncing the name with care. He raised himself up. “Now, where shall we start?” He looked into the darkness and seemed to ponder for a moment, then he tapped the side of his nose and his eyes twinkled. “Follow me,” he said.

He grabbed a candle from the counter and set off with surprising speed between some of the stacks. Sylas had to run to catch up. They turned left, then right, then left again, passing opened parcels of what looked like peculiar musical instruments.

“What are all these things?” asked Sylas.

“Ah well, that is a very good question to which there can be no good answer,” said the old man, without turning. “But you have found the right word. I collect and sell Things. Things, by definition, are objects we find hard to explain. Were I to explain them, I think I might have to close up shop!”

At that moment they arrived at a wall of crates. Some had been taken down and opened and the floor was strewn with straw and shredded paper. Mr Zhi turned to Sylas and smiled.

“As you can see, I have many thousands of Things in my shop,” he said, his eyes now peering into one of the crates, “but I consider it my particular talent to know which Things will interest which people. That is why I have never taken to having my wonderful Things displayed on shelves and in cabinets. That would take away all of the mystery, which is the greater part of any good Thing, and a good deal of the discovery, which is much of what is left!”

The shopkeeper bent low over the crate and very gently lowered his gloved hand into the straw.

“This you will like,” he said.

He rummaged for a moment and then, with great care, he raised his hand. He was holding a fragile wheel, made of some kind of metal, from which hung a number of silvery strings. Sylas half expected to see a puppet dangling below but, as Mr Zhi lifted the wheel still further, he saw that each string was tied to a tiny silvery bar, from which were suspended three more strings: one at the centre and one at each end. Each of these additional strings was connected to a further bar and thereby to three more strings, and so on, and so on, until Sylas could see a vast and wonderful structure of silvery twine emerging from the crate. Just as he began to wonder how such a complicated thing could have remained untangled in the straw, Mr Zhi drew himself to his full height and raised the wheel above his head.

Sylas gasped in amazement.

There, on the end of each of the hundreds of strings, were tiny, delicate, beautiful birds, each with its wings outstretched in some attitude of flight. Their feathers shimmered like rainbows in the candlelight and, as each bird turned on its string, they seemed to throw out more light than they received, so that the surrounding walls of crates moved with colour.

“It’s wonderful, just wonderful,” said Sylas, letting his rucksack fall to the floor.

“It is, is it not?” said Mr Zhi, with evident pleasure. “Of course, such wonders are created in part by your very own imagination,” he said, moving the great flock of birds slightly closer to Sylas. “To some, this is a beautiful object that must have taken several years for many careful hands to create. To others, to those with true imagination, it is a marvellous flock of magical birds carried by a wind we cannot feel, calling a cry we cannot hear, united by a purpose we cannot know. To them, each bird is as alive as you or I, because in their imagination they see them soaring, climbing, swooping, turning…”

Sylas found himself staring ever more intently at the delicately balanced parts of the mobile, watching closely as they moved around each other on the gentle currents of air in the room. He saw how each bird was finished with astonishing detail, showing the individual feathers, the tail fan, the precise angle of the wing as it manoeuvred in flight. He marvelled as they glided past each other without ever colliding, as if aware of one other.

And then, perhaps in a trick of light, he thought he saw one of them twitch.

A wing lifted slightly and a long neck turned. Then a crooked wing seemed to straighten as one of the birds turned in a wide arc around another. He blinked in disbelief as he saw another bird beat its wings, change its path in the air and then resume its endless circling. He let his eyes drift from place to place within the multitude, watching as every one of them seemed to take on a life of its own.

At first they beat their wings at random, but soon every bird was flapping in time with the others. And then, without warning, they broke from the circle below Mr Zhi’s hand and moved in one great flock, banking left then right, their wings catching the light in unison, forming a breathtaking display of colour. The gossamer strings seemed to have disappeared altogether. Moments later the birds turned their heads upwards and rose as if carried by an updraught of air. Sylas gazed in astonishment as he watched them soar over the top of Mr Zhi’s hand in a beautiful arc of light and colour, before swooping downwards to the floor. At the very last moment they turned upwards and sped through the air towards him, their wings beating rapidly now, their feathers ruffling and shimmering. As they circled round his head, Sylas laughed out loud, wanting to reach out and touch them. His heart thumped – not from fear, but from a wild, intoxicating excitement.

“So now you see it!” came Mr Zhi’s voice from the dark.

Sylas caught his breath. “I see it!”

Then, abruptly, the flock of birds wheeled sharply above his head and streamed towards Mr Zhi’s gloved hand. As they reached the glove, they turned again, so tightly this time that the leading birds met those at the rear of the flock, forming a circle. As the last joined formation, Sylas could again see the occasional glint of the silvery strings in the darkness, and then he saw that the tiny bars were supporting their weight once more, as though they had never been gone. The birds circled more and more slowly until they were drifting gently on the air currents. Their wings moved no more.

Mr Zhi began lowering them back down into the straw. Sylas wanted to ask him to let them fly some more, but had the feeling that they had done all that was intended.

He cleared his dry throat. “What was that?” he asked.

Mr Zhi simply patted Sylas cheerfully on the shoulder, picked up the candle and started back along the passageway of parcels. Sylas paused for a moment, glancing down at the pile of straw, but then picked up his rucksack and scrambled after him.

“There’s much to see!” he heard Mr Zhi say up ahead. “Please keep up!”

He moved so swiftly that, as Sylas turned one corner, the shopkeeper had already turned the next and the only way to keep pace was by following the dying traces of candlelight that flickered against the walls of parcels ahead.

“But what was it?” asked Sylas breathlessly.

“Ah well, the most wondrous Things show themselves only to those who are supposed to see!” shouted Mr Zhi ahead of him, without turning. “So it was with you and the mobile. When you saw it, at first you saw just a beautiful object, a thing of gossamer strings and silver bars and bright-painted feathers. But then you brought it to life. It stirred without any draught to carry it, the wings moved without any plan or design. You made the birds fly,” said Mr Zhi, turning to Sylas excitedly, “fly like I’ve never seen before!”

Sylas looked puzzled. “But wasn’t that just in my imagination?” he asked. “You told me to use my imagination.”

“No, I saw everything you saw, but that is not to say that your imagination didn’t bring it to life. You made the birds fly as you dreamed they might, and in doing that – in putting your imagination to work – you showed that you are able to use it like few others. You are able to see the world as it is promised to us.”

Sylas laughed. “I’m pretty sure I see the world like everyone else.”

“Certainly you do, but the mobile is a sensitive Thing. It shows what you are capable of seeing, not what you already see.” The shopkeeper cocked his head on one side. “A little confusing, isn’t it? But don’t worry, I have more to show you!”

With that, he turned and set off into the gloom of the shop. Sylas screwed up his face. “The world as it is promised to us?” What could that mean? He knew he had a good imagination – his uncle was for ever telling him that he lived too much in his head – but there was nothing unusual about that. He jogged after the strange shopkeeper, wondering what he was getting himself into.

As he went, he saw that the giant stacks of parcels were packed so tightly that the shop had become a maze of little corridors, which gave the impression of a room much larger than it actually was. Sylas was just starting to become a little worried that he might not be able to find his way out again when he sped round a corner and almost charged headlong into Mr Zhi.

The proprietor caught him by the shoulders. “I think this shall be our next stop, young man,” he said, with a wide smile.

He turned about and stepped on to a small upturned box. He reached up to the topmost shelf and took down a large flat parcel from the top of one of the piles.

“This Thing is at once very different from the mobile, and very similar,” he said, grunting as he lowered himself back down. “Like the mobile, it uses your imagination to show what is possible, not what you already know to be true.”

Sylas watched with excitement as Mr Zhi carefully tore open one end of the parcel, then pulled out a large flat object, and cast the wrapping on the floor.

“The mobile told us that you can see what the world may become,” said the old shopkeeper. “With this Thing – this set of mirrors – we will show something else: that you can see all that you are able to be.”

At first the object looked like a leather-bound book, but as Mr Zhi laid it carefully on the box, Sylas saw that it was not made of leather but of two pieces of wood, joined along one edge by tarnished but ornate brass hinges. The top piece was black and the piece beneath white. As he leaned forward to look more closely, Mr Zhi took gentle hold of the black panel and lifted. The hinges creaked slightly and the black panel swung open.

What was revealed seemed unremarkable. Both panels comprised a simple mirror framed by an ornately carved border. The old man lifted them up and adjusted them carefully in front of Sylas until he was looking at himself in both mirrors, each showing his reflection from a slightly different angle, the white one from the left and the black one from the right. The effect was interesting at first, but no more so than looking at a reflection in a bedroom dresser.

As he glanced between the mirrors, Mr Zhi peered at him, taking in Sylas’s wide brow and small stubby nose; his high arching eyebrows and dark brown eyes that seemed a little sad and old for his age; his thick, dark, wavy hair, cut crudely so that it fell in a tousled mass about his face. The proprietor smiled quietly to himself and shook his head, as if finding something difficult to believe.

“I just see myself,” said Sylas with a shrug.

Mr Zhi chuckled. “I’m afraid this will not be easy. You would not need money in my shop, but my Things still come at a price: the struggle to understand.” He moved the mirrors a little closer to Sylas. “The trick with these mirrors is not to look—”

Suddenly there was a noise at the back of the shop: the clunk of a door closing, the snap of a latch. Mr Zhi frowned and quickly closed the mirrors, pushing them into the nearest pile of Things.

“Please wait here,” he said, then set out quickly towards the back of the shop.

There was something about the way he had hidden the mirrors that alarmed Sylas. It was clear at once that whoever had entered by the back door was not expected. Instinctively he took a few paces after Mr Zhi, but when he saw a large shadow move across the candlelight on the ceiling, he stopped.

Mr Zhi turned. “Stand very still,” he said. “I’ll be straight back.”

A shiver went through Sylas. All of a sudden, Mr Zhi sounded worried. Very worried.

“Here miracles rise from the earth and awe is in the air; here wonder flows over and, like a mountain spring, never runs dry…”

SYLAS STOOD STILL, AS he had been told, and listened.

At first he heard nothing but Mr Zhi’s footsteps, but then came the sound of voices. Low voices, speaking quickly in urgent tones. He could not hear what was being said, but one of the speakers was Mr Zhi. The other voice was deep and masculine, speaking in murmurings that resonated through the shop but were impossible to make out. There was a quick exchange between the two men, and then suddenly the strange voice boomed loud and clear.

“No! It must be now! Today!”

Then, for a long time, the voices were a mumble.

Finally, after Sylas felt like he had been standing there for hours, Mr Zhi came back into the room.

“My apologies!” he said as he strode back towards Sylas. His face bore the same calm, amiable expression as before, but Sylas noticed that he was walking even more quickly. “That was my new assistant – I had quite forgotten that we had arranged to meet, so much was I enjoying your visit!”

“That’s fine,” said Sylas. “Is everything... all right?”

“Oh, quite all right, though I am sorry to say that we will not have as much time as I had hoped.” The shopkeeper blew out his cheeks and fingered his little beard, eyeing the pile of Things where he had deposited the mirrors. “In fact... yes... yes, sadly I think we must leave the mirrors for another time...”

He turned on his heel and marched back towards the rear of the shop. “Come on, young man! The second Thing must wait, but the third Thing is by far the most exciting of all!”

Sylas shook his head in bewilderment and set out after him – this shop was getting stranger and stranger.

When they reached the back of the shop, there was no sign of the assistant, though Sylas noticed that the back door was slightly ajar. Meanwhile the shopkeeper had dropped to his knees behind the counter. All that could be seen of him was the very top of his odd little hat, which bobbed and danced as he scrabbled around on the low shelves.

“This third Thing is marvellous in its own right,” mumbled Mr Zhi as he threw unwanted Things over his shoulder, “but it will also help you to understand...” He grunted as he paused to look at something. “...To understand the others. This is it!”

He murmured with satisfaction and stood up, dusting the creased lapels of his jacket. He gave Sylas an excited wink and then lifted something above the broken surface of the counter.

It was another parcel, but different from all the others. It was an oblong about the size of a novel, covered with some kind of leather, which was folded over neatly on all sides and fastened with twine, tied in a bow at the top. The old man had placed his gloved hand on top of it, as though part of him didn’t want his most special of Things to be seen. He turned it over and ran a finger over the wrinkled leather.

The candles crackled and spat, the dancing flames making the shadows shift. Mr Zhi held the parcel for another moment with both hands, running his thumbs over the leather wrapping. Then he squeezed it fondly as if bidding it farewell and pushed it across the counter.

“Take a look at this.”

Sylas’s eyes ran over the neat folds of worn leather and the carefully tied twine that bound it. As he took hold of it, he felt the same stirrings of excitement that he had experienced when he had first entered the shop. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, the leather soft and yielding against his skin.

With a glance at Mr Zhi, he took hold of one end of the twine and pulled. The knot untied itself instantly and both the twine and the soft leather wrapping fell away as though they were made of silk.

Sylas’s eyes widened. “Wow...” he whispered.

Between his palms lay the most exquisite book he had ever seen. The cover was made of mottled brown leather that had seen better days, its once smooth finish now dented and grazed by its many years of use. But into this drab leather had been laid the most beautiful decorations of gold, silver and dark red stones. Sylas turned it so that it caught the candlelight and saw that they formed a pattern: a row of gems, seven on each edge, placed on the outside of a stitched, golden zigzag that ran along the four sides, the thread sewn so tightly that the stitches could hardly be seen. Within this border a superbly adorned symbol had been laid into the leather: a large snaking S made of gold at the top and silver at the bottom. The back cover was beautiful too, with the same zigzagging border around its four edges, this time in silver.

He looked back at Mr Zhi and saw that the old man was also transfixed by the book. It took a moment for their eyes to meet.

“It’s beautiful,” said Sylas in a whisper. “Is it old?”

“Very old.”

“And what does the S mean?”

“Most people who know about this book call it the Samarok, and it is thought that the S comes from that name. Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Yes – yes, of course.”

Sylas allowed the book to fall open. The pages turned in a flurry of paper until they settled on what must have been the weakest part of the binding, towards the end of the book. The first thing to strike him was the wonderful woody, rich aroma of old books – much more intense than he had smelt before – like dry oak leaves on a forest floor. Then he saw the words, written in black lettering that marched a little irregularly across the page, the lines undulating slightly as they went. It was not a printed book, but one written by hand.

He looked up at Mr Zhi, who was placing some spectacles on his nose.

“Someone wrote this by hand?”

“Not one person, Sylas, many,” replied the shopkeeper, clearly enjoying Sylas’s amazement. He leaned over and peered through his spectacles at the open book. “Have a look.”

Sylas turned the page with great care and saw that the next was written in strange looping tails and graceful lines. The page opposite was written in another crowded, huddling scrawl. He flicked through towards the front of the book and, sure enough, almost every page was written in a new hand, with smudges here and crossings-out there, giving the appearance of some sort of collected journal. But when he reached a point around halfway through, the style changed and it was written in one measured, unremarkable hand in almost perfectly straight lines. There were still errors, and parts of pages were faded and illegible, but it looked far more like a normal book.

“There are two parts to the book,” explained Mr Zhi. “The first part is a copy of an ancient text that has now been lost. These few pages are all that remain of many volumes, which were written to provide answers to some of the questions we have spoken about. The second part is a collection of writings by many people, each of whom followed a path not unlike the one that lies ahead of you.”

Sylas frowned and looked up. “What path?”

Mr Zhi simply smiled. “We’ll come to that. Read me a line or two,” he said.

Sylas shrugged, pressed down two pages and ran his eyes along the first line. The shapes of the letters and even the words seemed familiar, but they made no sense. He started at the beginning again, but for some reason the letters did not form words.

“Strange…” he mumbled.

He turned to a page at the back of the book, which was written in an old-fashioned, slanting hand. Again, he stared at the first line, trying to make sense of it. He shook his head, turned the page and began running his finger over the first sentence of another entry, but after a few moments he stopped and let out a sigh.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “The words look familiar, but they don’t make sense. Is it another language?”

“Not a language,” replied Mr Zhi, smiling once again. “A cipher. A code.”

Sylas’s eyes leapt back to the page. “A code?”

“Yes. Time is short, but let us just try one final thing before you go. Close the book.”

Sylas pressed the ancient covers shut.

“Now, clear your mind, and remove all thoughts of what you have just seen in the book. When I say so, I want you to open the book again, but this time don’t expect to be able to read what you find. In fact, I want you to think of something else entirely – anything, as long as it is not to do with books or writing of any kind.”

Sylas knew that he would find that very easy. He closed his eyes and the image of his mother’s face instantly filled his mind.

“When you have that thought in your head, you may open the book,” said Mr Zhi in a whisper.

Sylas clung to the image of his mother, then quickly opened his eyes and picked up the book. He turned to a page somewhere in the second part and cast his eyes over the strange, carefully drafted script.

It looked as it had before, written in a strange hand in a dark ink, but as his eyes focused on the first word, he saw to his amazement that it was not made up of letters as he had previously thought, but strange symbols. They were not familiar – they were not even similar to those in the alphabet, but were much more complex, forming patterns that rose and fell from each line. Sylas looked up at Mr Zhi in astonishment.

“But... the words didn’t look like this a minute ago.”

“What did they look like?” asked Mr Zhi, clearly enjoying himself.

“I’m not sure…” said Sylas. “Like normal words, I suppose.”

“That’s right, because that is what you thought you would see. The brilliance of this cipher is that it tricks your eye into seeing whatever you expect. You thought you would see words written in English, so that is what you saw. But they were meaningless. In truth you were looking at one of the world’s most ancient codes: a cipher known as Ravel Runes.”

Sylas repeated the words under his breath.

“The problem for anyone trying to read Ravel Runes is that they must first learn to see the symbols as they really are, before they can even begin to work out what they might stand for.”

Sylas looked back at the book and, sure enough, the writing once again looked encouragingly familiar and easy to read. But it made no sense. He blinked hard.

“That’s weird,” he said, shaking his head and laughing. “Just weird!”

“Weird is one way of putting it,” said Mr Zhi with a smile, “and wonderful is another. Ravel Runes are difficult enough to read, but just imagine how hard they are to write. Think of the time it takes.” He leaned over the counter and for a while they both stared in silence at the writing, admiring the hand that wrote it.

“Time!” cried Sylas suddenly. He scrambled for his wrist-watch. “The time! I’ll miss the post! My uncle will kill me!”

To miss the post was unthinkable. His uncle had two major topics of conversation: the importance of timeliness and the supreme importance of his correspondence. He would see a failure to catch the post as a conspiracy to overturn all that was good in the world: a capital offence punishable by interminable lectures on both topics for at least a week.

Sylas snatched up his rucksack and in a blind panic started off down one of the dark corridors of Things. As he left the sphere of candlelight, he found himself peering into the darkness of several passages, none of which looked familiar.

He heard a kindly chuckle behind him.

“Calm yourself, Sylas,” said Mr Zhi, walking up. “I’ll show you out, but first, take this.”

He pushed the Samarok into Sylas’s hands.

Sylas looked at him in surprise. “You mean… to keep?”

“To keep. You have much more use for it than I.”

“But I… I can’t!” cried Sylas as he followed Mr Zhi towards the front of the shop.

“But it’s already yours, Sylas, I’ve given it to you.”

Sylas hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head. “Thank you,” he said, “really, but I don’t know what I’d do with it! I don’t understand the code.”

“You will,” replied Mr Zhi.

As they emerged from the warren of parcels and stepped into the light, the shopkeeper turned and smiled.

“I have a motto, young man, one that has served me very well: ‘Do not fear what you do not understand.’ You have much to learn about the world you live in, but most of all about yourself – about who you are and where you are from. The Samarok will help you on that journey.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that – what journey?” asked Sylas, more confused than ever.

Mr Zhi took hold of the door handle and let the great din of the passing road into the shop.

“The Samarok is yours, and its journey of discovery will be yours too. Only you will know when that journey has begun, and where it is taking you. All I can offer you is this.” He pulled a small white envelope from his pocket and held it out to Sylas.

“What is it?”

“It will help you to decipher the runes,” said Mr Zhi. He held out his gloved hand and grasped Sylas’s in a handshake. “Now, you must go.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing,” said the shopkeeper.

Sylas paused for a moment and looked into Mr Zhi’s kindly eyes. He felt he had made a friend and he wanted to say that he would be back, but somehow he knew that Mr Zhi had shown him the Things that he wanted to show, and that was the end of it.

He walked through the doorway and peered into the street beyond. It looked even colder and gloomier than it had before. The sky was bleak and threatening and the blanket of cloud seemed to brush the top of Gabblety Row. Rain lashed the passing cars, which threw it angrily back into the air to form a silver-grey mist above the road. The noise was a shock after the quiet seclusion of the Shop of Things: the hiss of tyres on the wet road, the growl of ill-tempered engines and the splatter of rain on the pavement. Sylas could hardly bring himself to step outside.

“Go now.” Mr Zhi’s voice was gentle but firm.

Sylas pushed the book inside his jacket and stepped into the street, gasping slightly as the first cold raindrops splattered on his face. He turned to look one more time at the old man in the half-darkness of the doorway. The shopkeeper was leaning against the door frame in a way that only emphasised the untidiness of his dishevelled grey suit.

“Thank you, Mr Zhi,” said Sylas. And then with sudden determination he added, “I’ll try to understand. I will.”

Mr Zhi smiled broadly and gave a low bow. “That is all that I can ask. And that is all your mother would ask.”

With one last wink, he let go of the handle and the old glass door swung closed.

Sylas stood stock-still for some moments, dumbfounded by Mr Zhi’s final words.

Then something made him glance back up at the shop sign.

The new wooden board above the door had been repainted entirely in a dark green. It was as if ‘the Shop of Things’ had never been there.

“Of beasts they spoke, of feral servants chained;

Born to the yoke of man, yet sent forth untamed.”

TOBIAS TATE SAT BACK in his leather chair watching the rain pouring down his grimy office window, reflecting on his day. He found it impossible to imagine a worse one, though, as he was unusually short of imagination, that was not particularly surprising. He had decided to devote the day to visiting his clients in Gabblety Row, which was a task so disagreeable to him that he forced it upon himself but once a year. The problem was that such visits demanded contact with people and, even worse, with people who considered that they knew him.

But what had made this day quite unbearable was that he had been subjected to a long and heated encounter with Herr Veeglum, his oldest client. The problem arose because the undertaker claimed that he had embalmed two more dead bodies than appeared in the accounts. Tate had pointed out that this was quite impossible. Veeglum had replied that one does not imagine embalming one corpse, let alone two, as it is a very vivid affair. The conversation had become increasingly strained until, with some irritation, Tate had suggested that perhaps Veeglum had inhaled too much embalming fluid.

And so the meeting had ended on a very sour note.

This was his dark mood as he sat back in his old office chair, large hands clasped behind his head and eyes fixed intently on the dripping windowpane. At that moment there came a soft knock on one of his two doors: the one that opened into the corridor.

Tate expelled all the air from his lungs in a blast of exasperation. He closed his eyes as though to shut out whatever it was that threatened to intrude, but only a moment passed before he heard the knock again.

Sweat pricked his brow.

“What is it?” he barked.

There was a brief silence. “Uncle, it’s me,” came the reply. “Can I come in?”

Tate’s shoulders and head slumped into a stoop of depression. “That door’s for customers,” he sighed. “Come through the apartment!”

There was a brief pause as Sylas obediently let himself into the apartment via the next door along the corridor and made his way across the kitchen and finally tapped on the other door to the office. It was a rule that made so little sense that he never remembered it.

“Yes! Yes!” snapped his uncle. “Come IN already!”

The door opened and Sylas slid into the room. It was clear at once that something was wrong. He was drenched from head to foot: his hair plastered to his face, his clothes baggy and misshapen. As he stood staring up at the darkening face of his uncle, drops of water fell around his feet.

Tate lunged for some papers that lay just inches from the gathering pool. “You’re raining on my documents! Back! Back!”

He pushed Sylas to the wall in an attempt to contain the damage. Sylas waited with a look of resignation until the floor around him had been cleared and his uncle had removed his bony hand from his chest.

“So? What do you want?” demanded Tate, still caressing one of the stacks of ledgers.

“Well,” began Sylas, slowly bringing his eyes up to meet his uncle’s. He swallowed hard. “It’s just that…” He drew a breath and squeezed his eyes closed. “I’m very sorry, but I missed the post.”

Time stood still.

Tobias Tate stared at Sylas without changing his expression and Sylas winced, waiting for the inevitable explosion. The first sign of the impending storm came when his uncle’s face began to twitch in an alarming manner, pulling his features into entirely new and unbecoming shapes. Then his right eyelid closed and his head began jerking to one side as if gesturing to something outside the window. Sylas knew better than to look. He pressed himself back against the wall and braced himself.

“You…” Tobias Tate swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “You fool! Idiot! Imbecile! Are you some kind of vegetable? Is there… How…”

There was a pause while he gathered himself. He clutched a spike of his hair and pulled at it until Sylas thought it might come clean out, then marched away towards his desk, turned and began pacing up and down, muttering to himself.

“Never have I… never… such incompetence… fool… moron…” and so on, and so on, until Sylas wondered if he might be able to slip away without being noticed. But suddenly his uncle whirled about, marched up to Sylas and thrust his face squarely into his.

“What were you doing instead of posting my mail?” he snarled, raising one eyebrow.

“I – I went into the new shop, the Shop of Things,” ventured Sylas. “And uncle, it was so wonderful, so magical... I saw such amazing Things that I just lost track of the time…”

“Shut up!” roared Tobias Tate. “SHUT UP! You dare to make excuses when you have shown absolute disregard for the trust I placed in you? When you have possibly cost me my good name with valuable clients? When you have quite probably cost me…” he paused to emphasise the scandal of this final crime, “…MONEY!”

“I know, it was stupid and I’m really very sorry, uncle, but…”

“But? BUT? No buts! You must say nothing further to me! You – must – not – speak!” He banged the wall as he spat out each word. “You’re as bad as your mother! A dreamer – a careless, foolish, deluded—”

“Leave her out of this!”

Tobias Tate stood up to his full height and an amused sneer passed across his face. He crossed his arms and scowled down at the boy for some moments before he spoke.

“I always knew you were an insolent, wilful child, for all your ‘yes sirs’ and ‘no sirs’ and ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’. You need to be taken in hand before you turn out like her. Yes, that’s right – firmly in hand!”

Sylas set his jaw. “I WANT to turn out like her!”

“Oh, really? You want to be mad?”

Sylas reeled back against the wall, his eyes burning with tears. He wanted to say something – scream something – but words escaped him.

“Thought not!” shouted his uncle, marching to his chair. “Back to your room. You will not leave that room until seven o’clock, when you will come down, prepare dinner and help me with my files. Now, give me the letters and go.” He fixed Sylas with a glare. “Go!”

Sylas felt a surge of rage. He rummaged in his bag, found the letters and threw them on the floor, then let himself out of the office. He slammed the door of the kitchen beyond, stormed out into the corridor and clattered up the dark staircase to his room.

As the trapdoor fell closed, he dropped his rucksack and turned to the faded photograph of his mother, reaching out and touching the glass. Tears streamed down his face, but he did not sob or wipe them away. They were the silent tears of one who had shed them before, and who knew they did no good.

His uncle’s cruel face surged into his mind and his snarling voice echoed in his ears:

“…as bad as your mother… deluded… mad…”

He flinched at the dark, cruel significance of these words.

It had been five long, lonely years since he had last seen his mother. Or at least since he saw her as he liked to think of her: her tender face, slightly old for her years; her long dark hair drawn back in a ponytail, which he used to play with as she worked in their small front room, her delicate hands tapping on her computer or scribbling formulae in her many laboratory notebooks. He could hardly remember her soft, soothing voice, which had always been the last sound he heard at night and the first he heard in the morning.

That part of his life was now only a distant memory.

Everything had changed the day he had watched them take her away. He had looked on helplessly as she scratched and clawed at them as though battling for her life – and although he would never have believed it, that was exactly what she was doing. He remembered the man with the large thick glasses and the too-cheerful smile.

The one with the needle.

He could still see the stout, sallow-skinned woman whose beady eyes took in the whole room, peering into their life until nothing was private any more. But he remembered no sounds. He knew that his throat was sore afterwards, he assumed from screaming, and he remembered his mother’s face contorting as though she was crying out – but his memories of that day were like an old silent movie: white faces speaking but making no sound, their movements jerky and unnatural, everything depicted in shades of silver and grey. And he struggled to see past that movie into the rich colour of the life he had had before, when it was just the two of them. Somehow that day had made that vivid life seem unreal, like a precious dream that dissolves in the hard, cold light of day.

How hard and cold that final day had been, when finally it came a year later: the day his uncle told him she had died. He had said it so abruptly, in a matter-of-fact bluster of words, though Sylas remembered the tears in his eyes, the way he had drawn him into his bony body, just for a second or two – just in the first brief agony of that truth. He remembered the phrases: so inadequate, so trite and trifling given the horror and pain they conveyed.

“Disease of the mind... deteriorated so quickly... nothing to be done...”

“Nothing to be done,” he murmured. It was the most devastating phrase, because he would have done anything to save his mum. He would have brought the world crashing down for just another day with her.

And yet he was not even allowed to go to her funeral.

“Too young,” he was told. “A brief, formal affair, given the lack of family… given the... circumstances.”

And so Sylas had chosen his own quiet, secluded spot in the churchyard opposite. It was not her actual grave, which he knew to be somewhere far away, but the place he went to remember her, to be with her, to give her some flowers. The window seat in his room that overlooked that graveyard had become his favourite place to sit, because that way he felt that in some small way he was closer to her.

He wiped his face, picked up his rucksack and walked over to the seat. He wanted to think about something else, but even then the window seat was where he needed to be. He pushed himself back into the corner, one shoulder up against the ancient glass, and pulled the Samarok from his bag. He rested it on his knee and for a moment gazed out at the once-great stone arches of the church, now glowing pink in the dying rays of the sun. There was something beautiful in this twilight display, but to Sylas the sight was gaudy and unnatural. He saw nothing of the midsummer sunset unfolding in the wide sky; heard nothing of the great chorus of birds in the churchyard as they celebrated the end of the day. Instead he stared at the ruins, reflecting on their loneliness and slow decay. He gazed at those great broken windows, now emptied of their colourful glass, framing instead a jungle of weeds and ivy that spilled out on to the graves.

He sucked in a breath and looked down at the Samarok. He had to turn his mind to something else.

He stared at the cover, his eyes drawn to the embroidery and inlaid stones glittering in the twilight of the fading day. He ran his finger along the length of the large S that adorned the cover, then opened the book to a random page and looked at the sea of beautifully crafted runes.

His thoughts turned to the piece of paper Mr Zhi had given him and he took the now damp, crumpled envelope from his pocket, examining the rain-blotched scrawl on the front. It read simply “Sylas” in a hand that he recognised: the strange oriental hand that had painted the sign of the Shop of Things. His excitement grew and he tore it open.

Inside was a single slightly yellowed piece of paper that had been folded in half. It was not a letter as he expected, but a single paragraph. The writing was so distinctive and flamboyant that at first Sylas thought it was yet another language or code, but, to his surprise, it was written in English. Although the rain appeared to have blotted some of the letters, it was perfectly readable. He read it aloud to himself.

“They came from the cool of the sand-scented temples: from the long dark of the coiling passages and the oily flicker of many-columned halls. They rose as leaders of men in that ancient land, men of words and vision whose mystery brought hope to the squalor-born.. But while the people lifted their eyes upon the gentle countenance of these blessed men, they saw not the cool and dark of their hearts, nor the oily flicker behind their eyes.”

He gave a low whistle. What did that mean?

He read it over again, taking his time to pronounce and understand each word, but when he reached the end of the passage, he was just as confused. The piece assumed that he would understand who “they” were and what the “ancient land” was, but no matter how much he racked his memory, he could think of nothing. Even if he could guess at the real meaning, he had no idea how it would help him to understand the runes. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair – this wasn’t going to be easy.

He picked up the Samarok and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. Not wanting to be clouded by thoughts of his mother, he pictured Mr Zhi himself, standing behind his crooked old counter in the Shop of Things, winking and stroking his beard to a point.

He turned to the title page, blank except for three lines of runes a third of the way from the top. It was clearly an inscription or dedication of some sort, as it was too long to be the title. Sylas allowed his eyes to pass slowly along the lines, taking in the intricacies of the runes. Each had its own form, its own unique shape and line, which was sometimes complex in its own right, but – even more wonderfully – also related to the runes around it. Within a word, each separate character was interlaced with two others, sharing its space with the curves or inflections of the symbols on either side, so that a rune rarely looked the same twice. The collection of characters formed a tangle of dashes, strokes, arcs and dots that ought, by any logic, to look crowded or haphazard, but instead fitted together with astonishing grace. Sylas’s art teacher had once talked about the great calligraphers of the Far East who could create writing of sublime beauty and meaning, but he had never dreamed of anything as beautiful as this.

But it still didn’t mean anything.

He yawned as he stared at yet another page, now difficult to see in the fading light. He widened his eyes to fight back the tiredness and glanced out of the window. The sun had nearly set behind some clouds, plunging the churchyard into near-darkness, and rain was once again clattering against the windowpane.

He was about to turn back to the Samarok when he thought he saw a movement in the churchyard. He paused, wiped his bleary eyes, then swept his hand across the glass to remove the condensation. The streaks of water distorted the light, stretching the lines of the darkening church. The few passing cars cast beams of yellow and red light on to the ruined walls and the overhanging branches of trees. Sylas looked for some moments, but there was nothing: just rain and trees swaying in the wind.

“Deluded,” he muttered under his breath.

Then he saw another movement.

He leaned forward and wiped the window dry with the sleeve of his sweater, his eyes trained on one particular arched window in the old church.

There, beneath a large overhang of ivy, something was creeping through the undergrowth.

Sylas shrank back into the shadows.

A gargantuan black hound emerged from under the ivy, walking under the archway towards the end of the church.

It was truly massive, the points of its shoulders standing proud of the rest of its dark figure, rolling as it moved lithely through the undergrowth. The head was hidden in the shadows, hanging low beneath the matted mane of its neck. The sloping back gave way to powerful haunches that stood lower than the shoulders, giving it an ugly, predatory profile.

Sylas was transfixed. He wanted to retreat into his room, but something made him stay.

The beast stopped.

For a moment it was entirely motionless, but slowly its shoulders braced and its thick neck rose. Its huge head emerged from the darkness until Sylas could see its crumpled brow and long canine snout that seemed scarred and disfigured. Beneath, its gaping jaws lolled open, revealing a cruel mass of ragged teeth.

Without warning, the beast’s powerful neck swung sharply and it looked directly up at his window.

Its small eyes seemed to catch the twilight and they burned in the shadows. The nose twitched, sniffing the polluted air. Sylas pushed himself as far back on the window seat as he could, hoping that the shadows would hide him, but their eyes seemed to meet. The rest of the world faded and he was filled with a new, creeping terror.

“This is a life-giving journey. It is a bitter-sweet elixir that restores my spirit, strengthens my heart and, most of all, opens my eyes.”

SYLAS GRIPPED THE EDGE of the seat, willing himself to climb down into his room, but his limbs were frozen. The pale yellow eyes of the hound penetrated deep inside him, calmly peeling away the layers until they saw weakness and loneliness, until they glared coldly at a boy’s thoughts of his mother.

“Sylas!”

It was Tobias Tate’s grating voice, coming through the trapdoor.

“Sylas! Come down!”

Sylas glanced at his watch. Five past seven – he was late.

He glanced back out of the window in time to see the beast drop its head and resume its stooped prowl along the ruined remains of the aisle, passing quickly out of sight.

“Come here AT ONCE!”

Sylas peered down into the churchyard until he was sure that the hound was gone, then sighed, heaved himself off his seat and walked over to his trapdoor.

He found his uncle standing in the corridor, hands on his hips, peering at him as if he was an account that would not balance.

“Well?” he squawked, his voice echoing down the passageway. “Where’ve you been?”

“Sorry I’m late,” said Sylas dismissively – he was in no mood for another lecture from his uncle. “I saw something really strange from my window... something in the churchy—”

“Daydreaming, I knew it!” growled his uncle. ”Well, I have no interest in your nonsense. And there’s no time for dinner now – you can daydream about that!”

“Fine!” sighed Sylas, pushing past his uncle into the flat.

Tobias Tate watched him go and frowned, seemingly a little disappointed to have had the wind taken from his sails.

Dinnertime was spent sifting, trawling and rummaging through endless mountains of paper. What made this task especially infuriating was that everything was already in the right place, filed properly into the many piles about the office. But, as an accountant of great care and attention, Tobias Tate had to be convinced of this. Sylas would make helpful observations and suggestions while being chastised, corrected and mocked; a torture that only came to an end when his uncle had dissected and exploded every sensible suggestion put to him, and Sylas had been duly reminded of his dull wits, poor instincts and low birth.

On this particular evening Sylas found this task more frustrating than ever, not only because of his anger about their earlier clash, but also because his thoughts kept turning to the hound in the churchyard and the strange Shop of Things. His mind was filled with images of the dark hound and, more excitingly, the endless warren of parcels and packages, the amazing flight of birds beneath the mobile and the peculiar runes of the Samarok. But he knew it would be some time before he would get back to its pages: the filing would take as long as it would take. Tobias Tate’s old grandfather clock tick-tocked its way through the endless minutes and chimed the passing of interminable hours.

Finally, as the clock struck nine, his uncle sat down in the chair in his favourite corner, ate a quick dinner (which he reserved entirely for himself), put his hands behind his head and fell asleep. He drew breath in long, deep snores of rasping snorts that built to a crescendo of clucks and splutters and then began again at the bottom of the scale.

Sylas could not believe his luck – this was his chance to escape. But he must not be hasty – his uncle’s finely tuned ears might hear him leave. He replaced the pile he was sifting through and edged closer to the desk, then picked up some papers by the window and rustled them loudly. His uncle snorted and spluttered, but his eyes stayed closed and the metronomic drone of his snoring resumed. Sylas smiled quietly and replaced the papers, taking care to leave them exactly as he found them – his uncle had not asked him to check this pile.

As he drew his fingers away, he froze.

He blinked, certain that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

In the header of the topmost letter was a logo: a stark, black-and-white fern leaf coiled into an almost perfect circle, with the words Winterfern Hospital for the Mentally Ill emblazoned below in silver lettering. Sylas had seen that logo before, on the white coats of the doctor and nurse who had taken his mother away. But it was the date on the letter that had made his blood run cold.

Two weeks ago.

His stomach turned. He picked up the letter, seeing as he did so that there was another beneath it dated three months before. A cold sweat formed on his brow. Now he could see the letterhead of another jutting out further down the pile, bearing a date of a year before. He turned his eyes back to the one in his hand – the one from just two weeks ago – and began to read, his heart racing. The room receded – all he could see was the stark black type.

Ms A. Tate: Clinical Report

Dear Mr Tate,

Amelie has shown some continued improvement under the revised regime of sedatives and occupational therapy and is responding particularly well to her new surroundings in the garden room. She has developed a keen interest in botany and spends extended periods reading and walking in the hospital grounds. Nevertheless she continues to experience severe psychotic episodes throughout the night and some hours of the day.

We recommend a continuation of the current course of treatment. As we have indicated previously, while her guardian’s visits are extremely helpful, we feel that family visits would also be beneficial.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Adrian Kopenhauer

Supervising Psychiatrist

Sylas’s hands began to shake. He took up the next letter and the next. Each was another Clinical Report, each dated three months before the last. He turned slowly to the sleeping form of his uncle and stared at him, his chest heaving, tears in his eyes.

Tobias Tate continued to snore, oblivious.

Sylas shook his head in disbelief. How could this be? His mother, still alive? And his uncle knew all along?

He grabbed the pile of papers, whirled about and rushed from the room.

“… we wake to sounds that assail the senses and crowd the mind, like dreaming that will not end.”

SYLAS SAT LISTLESSLY ON his mattress, papers strewn about him, tears pouring down his face. His wonderful room, his sanctuary from the world, was suddenly cool and dark, hollow and soulless, for surely it was part of this great lie, the sham that lay in scattered pieces around him, typed in hard black letters for anyone to see. It too had hidden the truth from him, for had he not lived in it every day of the past four years? Had he not grieved in it? Had he not looked down from its window into the churchyard and thought of his mother? Given her up? Let her go?

His eyes shifted back to the mattress, to the scores of Clinical Reports, Review Meeting Reports, Annual Statements, and then finally to the document in his trembling fingers, the Order of Committal, the document that gave the doctors the right to take his mother away against her will, the document that had started it all.

At the bottom were two signatures. One of these he knew all too well.

It was his uncle’s.

Sylas felt nauseous. He forced himself to look away, but everything he saw around him seemed to be part of the lie: the familiar walls of his room, his meagre furniture, the crooked beams of the old building, even the picture of his mother. Even that. It was no longer what it had been to him – a piece of her, a way to feel close to her. Instead it was just a snapshot, because it was not how she was today, not how she looked in her ‘garden room’, or walking around the hospital grounds, or how she would look at him if he was with her now.

He sat like that for some time, he had no idea how long. Eventually he stirred, his eyes slowly finding focus. They drifted around the room until they fell on something that could be no part of the lie, had no place in the conspiracy. He saw his flock of colourful, bird-like kites hanging on the wall: meaningless but also innocent – things that he himself had created.

When he had first moved to Gabblety Row, he had yearned to be far away, far from his uncle and the news he had brought. From his windows he had watched the distant birds flying above the hills at the edge of town and they had become his dearest dream, his favourite escape. Inspired by their beauty and freedom, he had become a creator of his own birds: an ever-growing squadron of kites, all painted in the brightest colours arranged in odd but beautiful designs.

And they were more than just works of art. When he finished one of his kites, he would clamber out of the window on to the roof, where he could sit with one leg on either side of the ridge and launch his kite into the air. It would soar over the town as he yearned to do, escaping normal life, dazzling the residents of the housing estate over the road and brightening the day of those caught in the endless traffic jams below. He dreamed that one day he might create one so beautiful that it might even tempt its sisters to journey from the hills and across the grey town to fly over Gabblety Row. But so far the only visitor he ever received on that breezy rooftop was Herr Veeglum the undertaker, who would often lean out of his garret window at the other end of the row and raise his sallow face to watch.

Sylas had no real urge to move, to do anything, but the sight of his kites made him think of something. He ran his sleeve over his face, pushed himself up from his mattress and went over to his only piece of furniture – a three-legged dresser with many ill-fitting doors and drawers. He pulled the top drawer off its runners and carried the whole thing back to his mattress, laying it down on top of the papers.

Inside were the most important things in the world.

This is where he kept the gifts his mother had given him when he was young, before she went away. Most of it looked like bric-a-brac: a jumble of worn and threadbare toys, an old glove, birthday cards, half a plastic tiara (“broken, but magical,” she had told him with a girlish smile), faded photographs, the key to their old cottage. And nestled among all these things were his most beloved possessions of all. First, a large pigment-stained wooden box, containing two rows of small glass jars set snugly into a felt base, each with a little cork stopper. Inside every jar was a dazzling paint: red, the colour of molten rock; orange, like tongues of fire; silver, like fish scales in water; green, like the forested hills, and many, many more. Each was labelled in silver ink by his mother’s own measured hand: Orivan Red, Grysgar Orange, Girigander Silver, Mislehay Green; names that meant nothing and yet everything, for their mystery fed his imagination.

It was with these strange colours that Sylas painted all of his kites, and somehow, through these outlandish pigments, he shared his creations with her. His painting was never planned, the design coming to him only as he placed each colour on the canvas; but then, as the wondrous design started to take shape, it would create an elaborate maze of colour: swirls, curves, angles, shapes and symbols. With the paints, he would transform his kites into living things, with glistening eyes, gorgeous crests, plumed feathers and powerful arching beaks: all picked out in a unique display of tiny dots and lines.

For a moment he looked up at the flock of multicoloured kites and felt warmed and consoled. These, at least, remained constant and true: their colours as bright – their designs as beautiful – as ever before.

He laid the box of pigments on top of the papers and took his other prized possession from the old drawer. A large hardback book, on whose cloth cover was a simple, gold-foiled title:

REVELATIONS: A BOOK OF SCIENCE

He turned to the title page and read the inscription written in an elegant hand across the bottom corner:

Learn all that you are, my dear Sylas, learn all that you are able to be, M

He paused. There was something strangely familiar about those words, and not just because he had read them so many times. He thought back to Mr Zhi’s words in the Shop of Things, as he was unpacking the mirrors:

“... you can see all that you are able to be.”

He frowned and ruffled his untidy hair. A coincidence perhaps? But then he remembered the shopkeeper’s parting remark:

“... all your mother would ask.”

He stared blankly at the page. Could it be that all this was connected in some weird way? The arrival of the Shop of Things, his strange meeting with Mr Zhi, and then – straight afterwards – this discovery about his mother?

Surely not – that was impossible. But then nothing really seemed impossible when he was with Mr Zhi...

Sylas shook his head. His mother would laugh at him. She had been a woman of science and facts – that was why she had given him this book. That was what she had meant in her inscription: learn, read, find out about the world.

He settled back on the mattress, tried to clear his mind of all this nonsense and turned through the dog-eared pages. This was unlike any boring science book he had come across at school. Its gloriously jumbled pages were filled to the brim with beautiful drawings and quirky explanations of all manner of animals, plants and things of the cosmos; of medicines, engines, machines, contraptions, theories and inventions. These pages told a story that was at once science and magic, a story that was almost as much an escape for him as his wonderful kites.

He stopped at the first page of the chapter he loved most of all, the one about the wings of birds and the flight of aeroplanes. Soon he was lost in the fascinating, freeing world of the skies: in clouds and thermals; in the endless migrations of birds and the beautiful shapes of their wings; in inventions that reached into the void – kites, hot-air balloons, gliders, planes...

And the more he read, the more the exhaustion of this strangest of days started to wash over him. His eyes became heavy and the print faded and blurred. Slowly the marvellous book of revelations slid from his chest and his eyes closed.

Sylas slept, comforted by the weird lullaby of Gabblety Row: the endless growl of traffic making the windows rattle and the trapdoor leap on its hinges; the ancient walls sighing and grumbling into the cool night air. Even the occasional yellow beams from passing headlights served only to brighten the depths of his dreams, dreams that now filled his mind with a new image. It was an image that warmed him, drew him close, consoled him. It was a delicate, female face, a face that he knew.

Then for a moment everything was silent. The sound of traffic stopped, the windowpanes rested in their frames, the floorboards ceased humming for the first time in decades. Even Sylas held his breath, the vapour from his lips hanging in the air.

As the dust began to settle on the windowsill, it began.

The room shuddered with a sound of such power that the dream was shattered in a moment. It tore through the walls, hammered on the ceiling, crashed through the floor. It shook the kites from their fittings, sent the Samarok skidding across the floorboards and threw the window wide open.

It entered Sylas through his chest and pounded his lungs until his heart missed a beat.

It was not a definable sound, but one so immense and terrifying that it swamped the ears and confused the mind. It was a moaning, aching howl that drowned everything and consumed all.

He threw himself upright in bed and found himself gasping for breath. The very air seemed to have rushed from the room. He pushed the eiderdown back and at once felt a piercing chill. He looked around desperately for the source of the noise, hoping that in some way he might silence it, but he realised that it was everywhere, in everything, and there was nowhere to hide.

“The thoughts that brought me here are forgotten. My dreams are lost to me. My one hope is that I might survive.”

SYLAS HESITATED FOR A moment, unsure what to do, then flung himself back on to the mattress, drawing the pillow over his head. Even that resonated with the deep, low moan and the mattress shook beneath him.

He thought the world was coming to an end: that some great earthquake had struck the town or some gigantic volcano was at this very moment pouring rivers of lava into the streets and pelting the town with a downpour of rock.

“Stop! Please stop!” he shouted into the mattress, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice.

For what seemed like a minute the noise continued relentlessly, tearing at his eardrums. But then it seemed to ease slightly. And then a little more. The wail was definitely fading now – becoming more bearable.

As it eased, Sylas realised that it was not a horrifying sound, the sound of war cannons or buildings crashing down. Rather it was a solitary, immense, dolorous chime. Its voice was metallic and hollow and it rang rather than screamed. The more the noise faded and his ears recovered, the more it came to resemble the single dying note of an enormous bell.

Sylas pushed his bedding away and sat upright again. As he tried to control his fear, he became sure that the noise was coming from outside, from the window. He stood up and edged slowly towards it, dragging his bare toes over the comforting, familiar roughness of the floorboards. The curtains were blowing wildly in the wind, flashing bright in the passing headlights, and he found himself wondering why the cars hadn’t stopped.

As he reached the sill, the sound of the phantom bell once again reached a deafening pitch. He closed his eyes, fearing what he was about to see. Gripping the base of the window frame in his cold hands, he swallowed hard, then drew himself forward.

Everything looked normal. The traffic still sent shafts of light into the sky and thick, acrid pollution into the air. The road bustled with cars: a jostling mass of white, red and blinking orange lights. Rain was falling, and Sylas could see it glistening on the black street below. But the chime of the bell pervaded the night – immense, unstoppable – drowning out any other noise.

He searched for the source, looking past the road and the housing estate on the other side, out to the pinprick lights on the towering chimneys at the edge of the town. He looked through the fog of gases that they spewed into the sky.

Finally his eyes rested on the dark hills in the distance.

“Impossible,” he said to himself, “that’s miles away.”

There seemed no way that a sound could pass so far across the hubbub of a town, with its clamorous factories and riotous roads, but Sylas was certain. He squinted towards the dark horizon and listened to the chime slowly fading away, transfixed by its mysterious power.

Finally the noise of the road became audible and brought with it some sense of normality. His earlier thought came back to him – why had nothing stopped? Why was everything carrying on as normal? His eyes turned to the cars that flew past, the drivers apparently unaware of anything extraordinary; to the occasional person rushing along the street, huddling under an umbrella; to a tramp in dark, ragged clothes standing in a puddle. No one seemed to have heard the sound.

It was as if the bell was ringing only for him.

Suddenly the room shook and the curtains flew into the room. His ears felt as though they were being pierced with needles and a blast of rain hammered into his face. He wanted to scream, but the air had rushed from his lungs.

It was happening again.

Sylas threw his hands over his ears, but that had little effect – it was as though his very bones were vibrating with the sound of the bell. He shut his eyes and tried to focus his mind, but the aftershock hummed in his skull and shattered his thoughts.

He slid down below the window and wrapped his arms round his head, rocking backwards and forwards. He wondered if he was going to die, or worse, if this was the end of all things.

But slowly, too slowly, the noise began to subside. He had no idea how long it took, but finally the timbers beneath his feet ceased their shuddering and the wall at his back became still.

Frightened as he was, Sylas pushed himself up and leaned out of the window to see if anything had changed. He looked along the length of the street, across to the houses and over them to the town, but again the world seemed unaware of the strange chime.

And yet he had the inexplicable sense that something was out of place, as if he was looking at the world through a distorted windowpane.

Then he saw it. His eyes were fixed on the sphere of orange light around one of the electric streetlamps. He could see thousands of tiny raindrops falling from the dark night sky, but there was something wrong. The rain was not falling straight down, but at a steep angle to the ground, as though being carried on a high wind.

There was no wind.

His eyes shifted from one streetlamp to the next all the way up the street and, sure enough, the rain was the same everywhere: it was being drawn towards the source of the sound. As he watched and the sound gradually waned, the rain returned to a normal, vertical path. As the noise died, its hold over the tiny drops weakened and fell to nothing.

Then the chime struck again.

He recoiled and covered his ears, but forced himself to stand at the window and watch. As the shock hit his room, the rain was driven back, away from the hills, sending another cold, painful blast into his face. He tried with all his might to keep his eyes open and after the impact of the chime he saw the rainfall gradually swing about, once again sweeping towards the source of the sound. The long note of the bell was drawing it in.

Drawing it towards what?

His thoughts came to him in fragments, but somehow he managed to piece them together: something magical was happening. His mind went to the dark corridors of the Shop of Things, the beautiful birds flying without strings, the strange shifting runes of the Samarok. He turned and peered across the room at the Samarok glistening on the trapdoor. Suddenly Mr Zhi’s words came rushing back to him.

“The Samarok is yours, and its journey of discovery will be yours too. Only you will know when that journey has begun, and where it is taking you.”

Surely he couldn’t have meant this? But then Sylas thought about the street outside – everyone else just carrying on as though they could not hear the bell...

“Only you will know...” he murmured.

Could it be that somehow the bell was calling to him, drawing him in, like the rain? But even as he started to believe that it might just be true, his thoughts returned to his mother – surely he should be looking for her, not following some bell? That was the only journey that mattered now.

But Mr Zhi had made it sound as though this ‘journey’ had everything to do with her.

“I’ll try to understand,” Sylas had said.

“... that is all your mother would ask.”

He looked around the room, at the papers strewn across the floorboards, at the kites scattered and broken. The empty shell of his sanctuary seemed even more lifeless than before, now riddled with questions and deceits. There was nothing here to keep him, nothing that made sense to him any more. All that lay ahead of him now was his search for his mother and the journey to understand the Samarok. Somehow these journeys were one and the same. And the bell was the beginning of it all.

He picked up the Samarok and put Mr Zhi’s message between its pages, then snatched the rucksack from the shelf and slid the book inside it, followed by a bottle of water from his sink. He pulled on a sweater and his trainers and hesitated, looking back at the papers on the floor.

He ran over and rummaged through the documents, picking out the Order of Committal. He checked for the name and address of the Winterfern Hospital, then slipped it into his bag. Seconds later he was clambering down the dark staircase towards the corridor.

The chime had almost faded away. He could hear the rain lashing the outside of the building and the flutter of a moth against one of the wall lamps. The corridor seemed darker and more ominous than usual – a few of the bulbs had burned out at the other end, leaving it in blackness. But Sylas felt a surge of excitement as he took his first steps towards a destination he could only guess at.

As he picked his way along the corridor, he looked warily at his uncle’s apartment door and then at the next one, the one leading directly into the office. He willed them to stay closed, and to his relief he was soon past them.

He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the bell sounded again. The din was almost unbearable, seeming to reverberate between the walls and ricochet along the length of the passageway. He held his ears, expecting his uncle and the other residents to burst out of their apartments in a blind panic, but the doors remained closed. He continued, reminding himself to step carefully over the loose floorboards – if no one else could hear the bell, they would surely be able to hear a clumsy step. He looked carefully from board to board, planning his way ahead. Finally, when he was nearing the staircase, he began to relax.

He looked ahead into the passageway, into the darkness, and felt the blood drain from his face.

A surge of adrenalin charged through his body. There, suspended in the darkness at the end of the corridor, were two pale yellow eyes. As Sylas watched, they blinked slowly, coldly, and moved towards him.

The monstrous jaws of the wolfish hound emerged into the lamplight. For a moment the two faced each other. The beast stood with its head and shoulders in the flickering light, its long body disappearing into the blackness. Its head moved slowly up and down as it drew long, rasping breaths. The sound of the bell was fading once more and Sylas could hear the air hiss between its teeth and a growl as it exhaled. It blinked lazily and its tongue curled upwards to the fangs that protruded below its wrinkled snout. Its eyes were fixed on his in a way that left no doubt of its intent.

Sylas was motionless: breathing deeply, trying to steady his nerves, his eyes avoiding the beast’s drooling jaws and lolling tongue. He glanced towards the first step of the staircase. It was about halfway between him and the beast. There was no way he would make it, and if he did, the hound would pounce on him from behind. When he looked back, it too was looking at the staircase and he had the unnerving feeling that it was willing him to try. He swallowed hard and drew in another long breath.

As a chime crashed through Gabblety Row, Sylas whirled about and threw himself forward, charging back down the corridor. He could hear nothing but the bell, but he could sense that the beast was already in motion. He pictured its sinewy muscles tightening as it launched itself out of the darkness. He thundered down the corridor, his fists pumping the air. He passed the door to the office and then hurled his full weight against the main door to the apartment, turning the brass handle. To his relief the door opened and he staggered inside the kitchen, turning in time to see the dog’s massive head careering towards him, its eyes wide and its teeth bared in a hungry snarl.

He leaned his body against the door and slammed it shut. The latch fell into place and he threw a bolt across.

The beast hit with incredible force, bending the wooden panels and cracking the plaster around the frame. Somehow the door held. As Sylas stepped back, it struck again and he saw a crack of light appear between two timbers. A splinter of wood flew off and nicked his cheek. It would give way all too soon.

He turned and ran through the doorway into the adjoining office, pulling it closed behind him just as he heard the beast smashing its way into the kitchen. Breathlessly he skirted the desk, praying that his uncle had left the door between the office and the corridor unlocked. He reached for the cold brass handle and turned it. The door held firm. He hurled himself against the wooden panels, but still it held fast. He heard a crash and turned to see the kitchen door bulge and splinter and the hound’s ghoulish head forcing its way through, its jaws biting at the shards of timber. In desperation he wrenched at the handle, rattling and twisting it from side to side. Suddenly he felt something smooth and cold brush against his fingers. He bent down and saw the old brass key still sitting in the keyhole. With a surge of relief he turned it and shouldered the door open, almost falling into the dim light of the corridor. He ran as fast as he could towards the main stairwell, hearing snarls, growls and crashes behind him.

In seconds he was there.

As he turned on to the first step, he looked behind. The massive figure of the hound smashed through the door in an explosion of plaster and splinters, hitting the opposite wall and falling to the floor. It lowered its head and glowered through reddened eyes, then threw its glistening snout high into the air and let out a blood-curdling howl that almost drowned out the chime of the bell.

Sylas launched himself off the top stair, taking them three at a time, forcing himself to keep his eyes ahead. He heard the clatter of the dog’s claws on the floor above as it gave chase. He reached the second floor and saw a crowd of residents gathered round the stairwell, peering up at him with frightened faces.

“Run!” he cried. “Get inside!”

Most scattered as he passed, but the more curious remained and as he continued his descent he heard their shrieks and shouts behind him. He thundered on to the sound of plaster shattering and wood snapping close behind. Finally he leapt off the bottom step and flung himself through the outside door.

He skidded to a halt on the pavement, gasping for breath, then turned to close the door.

It was already shut.

A tall, dark figure stood to one side, stooped over the lock. He heard the bolt click into place and then the figure slowly rose and turned. He found himself looking into the sallow face of Herr Veeglum.

“In a hurry, are vee?” asked the undertaker, leaning forward to peer into Sylas’s face. His voice was as grey as his features: monotone and dry.

Sylas had never actually heard Herr Veeglum speak before. He was about to attempt a reply when the dog struck the door. The thick oak panels shuddered, but didn’t move.

“Built for ze job,” said Herr Veeglum, glancing over his shoulder as though he needed reassurance of that fact. “But it vill not hold for long.”

Sylas stared at him, utterly confused. “But how did you...?”

Herr Veeglum raised a gloved hand and put a finger to his lips.

“Zer is more here zan meets ze eye, young man. But zer is no time to explain. You must go.”

He spoke firmly, but his manner was altogether warmer and his eyes livelier than Sylas would have expected. He so much wanted to know why Veeglum was there, but the undertaker was already leading him round the corner of the row.

As they came to the front of Buntague’s Bakery, the old man stopped and pointed across the street.

“Run as fast as you can,” he said. Then he put his mouth to Sylas’s ear and hissed: “Ze bell is calling you, Sylas!”

With that, he gave the boy a firm shove between the shoulder blades and Sylas found himself in the road. He heard the wail of a car horn and he turned his head to see three cars bearing down on him. He threw himself forward, darting left and then right to avoid them as they slammed on their brakes, sending up plumes of spray from their tyres. His heart was in his mouth, but somehow he danced between them and got safely to the other side.

As he stepped on to the pavement, he chanced a look back across the road. Herr Veeglum was still standing there, his hands at his sides, his face peculiarly calm, bearing an expression not dissimilar to Mr Zhi’s at the moment he had said goodbye. The undertaker raised one hand in a brief wave, then motioned furiously for him to go.

Sylas glanced quickly in the direction of the Shop of Things. Somehow he knew that Mr Zhi would be able to explain everything, but he could see no light through the window and there was no sign of the old shopkeeper. He summoned all his courage and turned his back on Gabblety Row.

Veeglum watched as Sylas sped off down the pavement towards the supermarket and then disappeared down a dark alley at its side. He shook his head wistfully, turned and walked round the corner of the row. When he reached the door, he stood some distance away and watched it shudder and vibrate as the beast charged at it from behind. The timbers held, yet around the frame tiny clouds of dust were curling into the night air and small pieces of mortar were falling to the floor. Then the great wooden beam above the frame shifted and an entire brick fell out of the wall.

He unfastened the buttons of his greatcoat and pulled it from his shoulders, revealing an immaculate black suit, a crisp white shirt and a pressed black tie. He laid the coat neatly on the pavement, folding the arms tidily over the top.

At that moment another smaller figure appeared from the lane behind Gabblety Row. This man also wore a suit, but of an ill-kempt, crumpled sort, and his appearance was all the more curious on account of his odd little pot-like hat and one ornately decorated glove.

Veeglum didn’t acknowledge him as he approached, but pulled on a plain green glove of his own.

Then they turned to face the door.

Sylas ran down the alleyway into the housing estate, the noise from the road quickly giving way to the near silence of the sleeping town. He emerged into a cul-de-sac and swung right, following his normal route to the shops. For once he was glad of the many errands he had run for his uncle, for he knew these roads well. He took a twisting, turning path down little-known lanes, across private gardens, allotments and tiny streets: he would be almost impossible to follow. He headed for the Hailing Bridge, which crossed the river in the centre of town. It lay directly in his path to the bell.

The bell struck again and he saw the rain around him change direction sharply, then slowly swing around as the sad, long note drew it towards the hills. He glanced in disbelief at the darkened windows of the estate, the curtains firmly closed and the occupants oblivious to the drama that was unfolding around them. Every unexpected splatter of rain in a puddle, every random crunch of a stone underfoot made his heart race even faster, but he fixed his eyes ahead and ran for his life.

He negotiated a warren of darkened pathways and finally he saw the bridge ahead. It was a simple structure of steel girders fixed at crude right angles to one another, most of which were emblazoned with graffiti colours. The centre of the bridge was unlit, but the two lamps at either end shone brightly above the oily black river.

Sylas’s heart sank.

There, barely visible in the very middle of the bridge, was a man leaning on one of the railings, looking in the opposite direction.

What was he doing there at this time of night?

Sylas stopped – this felt wrong. He thought of turning and running back through the estate to the other bridge, but retracing his steps would be dangerous. He considered waiting to see if the man moved away, but by then the dog might be upon him.

There was no option: he must cross the Hailing Bridge, and do it now.

He gathered his courage and slowly climbed the steps to the span of the bridge.

As he reached the top, the man became more visible. He wore a loose, torn black coat and seemed unusually tall and muscular.

Sylas was uneasy, but he kept on walking. The chime of the bell was waning now and he could hear the sound of rushing water beneath him, the black surface sending up distorted reflections of the distant streetlamps on the other side of town. As he passed out of the light, he walked close to one of the railings and tilted his head to see the man’s face, but it was covered by a large hood.

He controlled his nerves and strode on. Soon he was walking past the stranger. One, two steps beyond. He braced himself to run.

“Hello, Sylas.”

He froze, heart racing.

“A curious place to meet – don’t you think?” It was a deep, accented voice.

Sylas eyed the far end of the bridge – he would have no chance of reaching it if the man gave chase.

“I— I don’t know you... do I?”

“The middle of a river, I mean,” said the man. “It’s neither here nor there.”

Sylas turned and saw that he hadn’t moved, but was still staring out over the river.

The stranger sucked in a deep breath. “What did the Greeks say about rivers? A border between worlds, was it? Or was it something about fate… I can’t remember. Your world, not mine.”

Sylas started to back away. “I don’t… I don’t know,” he stammered, “but I have to…”

“And where do you think you’re off to?” said the stranger sharply, stirring for the first time and standing to his full, towering height. He peered down from the shadows of his hood. “I’m afraid you won’t get very far without my help.”

“But who are you?” asked Sylas, still poised to run.

The man seemed to consider this for a moment.

“Call me Espen,” he said. He lifted his hands to his hood and pulled it back.

Sylas took a step back. The stranger’s youthful features were terribly disfigured. His burnished mahogany skin was riven by a cruel tear that ran from just below his hairline, over the bridge of his nose and cheek to his neck, where it disappeared under the folds of his coat. The wound was still red and inflamed and he winced slightly as he attempted a smile.

“Take this as the mark of a friend,” he said, waving his hand towards his face. “I’ve already met the abomination that chases you.”

Sylas was suddenly struck by the stranger’s voice. He had heard it before. It was the voice from the back of the Shop of Things.

Mr Zhi’s assistant!

His panic began to subside. “Are you... do you know Mr Zhi?”

The stranger smiled briefly. “Yes.”

Sylas felt a wave of relief. He glanced in the direction of the estate. “So you know what that thing is? The thing that’s chasing me?”

“Answers breed questions, Sylas,” said Espen, “and we’re already out of time. I don’t wish to meet that thing twice in one day. We must go.”

“Where?”

The man was looking back towards Gabblety Row. “You know where,” he replied in a vacant voice, still looking away. “To the bell.”

“Can you hear—”

Suddenly a mournful howl rose from somewhere on the housing estate, in precisely the direction Espen had been looking. The soulless baying hung in the air, echoing from walls, trees and rooftops. The lights of the estate began to flare into life.

“It’s already close,” said Espen. “How fast can you run?”

“Pretty fast,” said Sylas. He knew he was quick – it was the one compliment his uncle ever paid him. “Follow me.”

He turned and sprinted to the end of the bridge, leaping down the steps in threes, disappearing in a trice.

A smile passed over Espen’s face as he set out in pursuit.

As they ran across the town square, the walls and windows about them echoed their steps and Sylas glanced nervously in all directions. But as quickly as they had entered the square they left it behind, charging into another darkened lane. They ran along overgrown alleys and behind shops, down lanes, over walls and into parks. They charged through a skate park, under a railway bridge and across a builders’ yard, never once pausing for breath. The bell chimed several more times as they ran, battering Sylas’s ears, urging them on, challenging them to run faster.

Finally they found themselves in a small street bordered on both sides by the low, huddling houses of factory workers. Sweating and panting, they came to the end, where a great chimney stack loomed above them.

Espen slowed to a walk and called ahead: “Stop! Let’s rest for a moment.”

Sylas slapped his feet down on the tarmac and leaned his weight on his knees while he caught his breath.

“See!” he panted with a grin. “Pretty fast!”

Espen raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” said Sylas, “but thank you.”

“Maybe someday you’ll return the favour,” said Espen with a brief smile, but then the levity left his face. “Your shoulders bear us all, Sylas.” The stranger spoke under his breath, almost as though he didn’t want to be heard.

Sylas frowned quizzically and there was an awkward silence.

Espen shook his head as if annoyed with himself. “Give me the book,” he said, holding out his hand.

Sylas instinctively took a step backwards, surprised to hear the stranger speak of it.

“The Samarok?”

Espen nodded and turned his palm up expectantly.

“What do you want it for?”

“Give it to me, Sylas,” demanded the man impatiently. “I’ll give it back, but I must show you something.”

Sylas eyed him carefully. He didn’t want to show the Samarok to anybody, let alone to someone he had just met. But then again Mr Zhi had obviously trusted him. He fought with himself for a moment longer, then set his rucksack on the ground and took out the beautiful book. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, feeling the touch of the sharp stones and cold metal against his skin, then handed it over.

Espen took it and looked thoughtfully at it for a moment, then glanced about him as if looking for something. He walked swiftly to the edge of the pavement, lifted the Samarok high into the air and, summoning all his strength, brought it crashing down against the kerb.

“As we leave the light, we enter darkness; as we pass from warmth, the cold creeps about us; as we depart from one, we enter the Other.”

SYLAS CRIED OUT AS the book collided awkwardly with the concrete. There was a sharp crack and a piece broke away from it, spun in the air and clattered across the hard surface, ringing metallically as it came to rest on the wet pavement.

“What are you doing?” yelled Sylas, rushing after the two pieces.

Espen said nothing, but watched quietly as Sylas picked up the book and tucked it under his arm, then went in search of the other piece. He found it lying in the gutter, a torrent of rainwater washing over it. It was the beautiful S symbol from the cover, now bent utterly out of shape.

Sylas wheeled round in a rage.

“Look what you’ve done!” he bellowed, holding up the twisted piece of metal. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears and felt his cheeks burning red.

The stranger was unmoved. He looked down at Sylas and held out his hand.

“Give it to me,” he said calmly.

“You must be joking,” said Sylas and made to put it in his pocket.

“Give it to me now!” boomed Espen, his deep, gritty voice echoing up the street.

Sylas took a step back. Part of him wanted to take the book and run, to take his chances on his own. But he still saw no reason why Espen should wish him harm. He looked at the piece of metal in his hands. It was useless anyway – what more could he do? The stranger waited expectantly with his hand outstretched. Finally, with an attempt at a look of defiance, Sylas reached out and handed him the broken symbol.

Espen took it with one hand, and with the other he seized Sylas’s wrist. Sylas shouted in protest and tried to pull free, but the grip was vice-like. He saw that the stranger was manipulating the piece of metal in his free hand. It pivoted round the point at the centre of the S, where the gold of the top curve met the silver of the bottom. He realised that there was a hinge in the join, allowing the two parts to swivel around one another.

The symbol wasn’t broken: it had just rotated out of shape.

Espen twisted his hand a little further and it once again formed a perfect S.

Sylas ceased his struggle. “Why does it—”

“So that it can do this,” said Espen.

The symbol rotated at its centre until it formed a broken circle, with the silver and gold forming its two halves. Then, before Sylas could pull away, the stranger slid it over the boy’s narrow wrist and adjusted it slightly so that it formed a complete ring. There was a barely audible click.

Sylas snatched back his arm and looked closely at his wrist, which now bore a perfect bracelet. There were no faults or cracks – the gold met the silver in an invisible join.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

Espen shrugged and smiled.

Sylas turned his eyes back to the bracelet and ran his fingers over the metal, marvelling at its smoothness. He gripped the new join and tried to prise it apart, but the metal held firm. He tried the pivot, but that too was solid. Finally he attempted to pull the band off his wrist, but as he slid it towards his hand, it seemed to tighten and fit snugly against his skin.

“It won’t come off,” he said, looking up.

“I should hope not,” said Espen, still smiling. “You don’t want to lose it, Sylas. It’s there to protect you.”

Sylas looked from the stranger’s earnest face to the bracelet, which had now closed tighter than ever.

“Protect me from what? From the animal?”

“In a way, it protects you from yourself.”

Sylas looked up in surprise, but the stranger had already turned and set off in the direction of the vast chimney stack.

“Come!” shouted Espen.

Sylas took the book from under his arm, glancing at the cover, now marked by a highly decorated S-shaped groove where the symbol had been. He crammed the book into his rucksack and ran on.

The bell chimed again. Once more he was hit in the chest by a shockwave of sound and he saw the rain dance in the air. But there was something unexpected about this toll of the bell. Even though they were nearer its source, it seemed quieter than before, less forceful. It still had great power, but Sylas was sure that it had weakened: he did not have to hold his hands to his ears as he had when he first heard it; it was not impossible to think as it was before. It dawned on him that none of the chimes had been as powerful as the one that had woken him in his room. The bell was dying away.

“I think it’s stopping!”

The stranger turned and nodded, as if this was to be expected. Then his dark eyes looked back down the street and widened.

Sylas felt the skin prickle on his back and neck. Without slowing his run, he turned his head.

He saw it straight away, emerging from some shadows into the lamplight. The beast was at full sprint, bounding high into the air with each stride, its jaws hanging open to reveal its white teeth glistening cruelly in the yellow light. As it caught sight of its quarry, it raised its head a little and howled into the night air. It was muffled by the sound of the bell, but its misty breath rose from its jaws and its tongue rasped visibly against its teeth.

Sylas turned and collided with Espen’s broad chest. A powerful arm curled about his waist and hoisted him into the air, over the chicken-wire fence that bordered the factory complex. Just as he seemed to be clear, he caught his knee on the metal bar that formed the top of the gate and he cried out in pain.

Espen didn’t pause. “Brace yourself!” he growled.

Sylas gasped a lungful of air and flailed around him, hoping to grab hold of something, but he felt himself pitched into nothingness. A moment later he landed and fell backwards. He was winded and in shock from the pain in his knee, but he forced himself up on his elbows. Espen took a step back on the other side of the gate and with a quick glance behind him he launched himself into the air, vaulting over the top of the gate. His leather boots crashed into the gravel next to Sylas.

He crouched down to look at Sylas’s knee, which was already bleeding through his jeans.

“Can you run?”

“I think so.”

Espen hoisted him on to his feet and pushed him ahead. At first he limped, but soon he was running, his fear overcoming the pain. He peered over his shoulder and his eyes widened as he saw the huge figure of the black hound behind Espen, charging towards the gate. It bounded into the air, its jaws gaping in anticipation of its prey, its powerful limbs propelling it to an astonishing height. It was sure to clear the top of the gate.

But then two things happened at once. Espen slowed his run and turned slightly, raising one hand into the air with its palm facing downwards; and the dog’s path through the air seemed to falter, as though it was meeting with some kind of resistance.

The effect was only momentary and Sylas thought his eyes were playing tricks, but an instant later the dog crashed headlong into the wire mesh of the gate, its teeth and jowls tangling with the criss-cross of chicken wire, sending a spray of rainwater and drool into the compound. The massive weight of its body followed, crushing its head against one of the metal bars. It whimpered, then collapsed to the ground in a heap.

“Did you do that?” gasped Sylas in disbelief.

Espen turned to him and winked. “I’ve given it something to think about. Go on – to the bell!”

Sylas felt a new thrill of excitement. The Shop of Things, the bell, the hound, all of these had seemed magical, but in a confusing, mystical way. This was real magic.

The factory had three huge chimney stacks that belched black, grey and white gases into the air, each crowded about with concrete laboratories, warehouses and offices. Vast steel pipes wound across the compound, crossing one another many times before finally arriving at the base of the chimneys. Sylas ran swiftly among these perilous structures, ducking under them, leaping over them, never straying from the direction of the bell. As they ran, spotlights began flicking on all around them, sending powerful beams of white light across their path. Security lights, triggered by their passing.

They mounted a gangway and were plunged back into darkness. Sylas looked to the front and could just see that the gangway came to an abrupt end at some low railings not far ahead. Just beyond them he could see a high wire fence under a dark overhang of trees.

The forest. He looked upwards at the night sky and he could see the silhouette of the hills looming over them.

He turned back to the gangway, which disappeared into the dark courtyard behind. Then he saw a faint movement beyond, like one shadow moving over another; a definite, pounding, repetitive motion that became clearer and clearer as he watched. Then it tripped one of the security lights and the white beam lit up one side of the hound’s giant frame, catching its ragged jaws and wild eyes. Another beam was triggered, then another and another, each giving a snapshot of the beast in an attitude of pursuit: crouching, lurching and bounding towards them, maddened by the chase. It skidded every few steps and collided with pipes and metalwork, but shrugged them off, undeterred.

Sylas vaulted over the handrail at the end of the gangway and landed as best he could on his bad knee, staggering and sliding over the wet tarmac until he caught hold of the fence. As he turned, Espen sailed over the metal bar and landed firmly on both feet, then turned to look back. The beast was almost halfway along the gangway, devouring the small distance between them with its huge bounding strides.

Espen braced himself ready to fight and then raised both arms in front of him in a wide V-shape. He held them there for a moment with his palms facing downwards and then he slowly dropped them in front of him, gradually bringing his palms together. Suddenly the great plumes of smoke from the chimney stacks above twisted in the air, turning away from the night sky, plummeting towards the ground.

Sylas stepped backwards until his back was against the fence. The three clouds of smoke collided, spiralling round each other to form a seething column of black, grey and white. A second later the deluge of billowing gases engulfed the gangway and the beast, splaying outwards and then collapsing back on themselves in one vast, suffocating, swirling cloud. Sylas held his breath, waiting for the hound to come charging through it, but all he could see was the great wall of churning smoke. Moments passed, and still there was no sign. Finally he threw his fist in the air in celebration and looked over to Espen, a wide grin on his face.

But the stranger was grim-faced.

“We’re out of time!” he shouted, running up to Sylas. “It’s too strong. You must go on alone.”

Sylas’s heart fell. “Surely...”

“The bell is calling you, Sylas, not me. I’m here to keep you alive. I must stay here and fight.”

Sylas opened his mouth to object, but Espen strode up and without hesitation hoisted him into the air, guiding him over the fence.

Sylas braced for a shock of pain, but he landed in leaves and long grass. He picked himself up and looked through the chicken wire at Espen, who met his gaze.

“Thank you,” he said.

Espen nodded and gave him a brief smile. “Onwards, Sylas,” he said. “There lie the answers, about who you are... about your mother.”

Sylas drew a sharp breath. “What...?”

Just then his eyes were drawn to a dark shadow in the grey wall of gases.

Suddenly the beast erupted from the cloud and sprinted along the final yards of the gangway, not bounding as before, but still moving at a pace, swaying slightly as though it was struggling to control its limbs. Then, as it drew fresh air into its lungs, it surged forward, descending on its quarry.

Espen swung around, his arms in the air again, this time with his palms turned inwards. He brought them together in a sharp clap and at that instant the railings on each side of the gangway buckled, twisting and crumpling under a devastating magnetic force. The beast staggered as it was struck on the flank by a folding rail, then it slumped, momentarily pinned down by one of the supporting bars. As it raised its head to howl, the bell tolled again, its primal, resonant note drowning out the cries of the black beast. The chime forced the cloud of gases backwards and then drew them in until they engulfed Espen’s motionless figure.

Sylas forced himself to turn and set out into the darkness, running ahead of the gases, crashing through the undergrowth beneath the canopy of the trees.

He squeezed between trunks and climbed over fallen trees, slipped into hollows and clawed his way up banks. The darkness pressed in on him and his imagination started to play its usual games, conjuring pale yellow eyes blinking somewhere far off in the undergrowth and dark shadows shifting in his path. He thought he felt the scrape of claws as he brushed against tree trunks – then the bite of razor teeth at his heels.

“Just keep running,” he told himself. “Keep running!”

He thought about Espen and the beast fighting behind him. He tried to picture his new friend crushing the dog under piles of twisted steel and rubble, then turning and running after him to join him at the bell. But soon his mind became crowded with images of a bloody fight, of Espen and the beast locked together, tumbling across the compound, the beast’s vicious jaws closing about his neck, and then it was the beast that he saw leaping over the fence in one mighty bound and setting off into the forest, its snout lowered to find his scent, gaining on him, hunting him down.

He shook his head.

“Run!” he grunted through gritted teeth.

He pushed on through the thick undergrowth, thundering through fallen leaves, twigs and saplings, feeling the path ahead with grazed hands. He had been climbing for several minutes now and he told himself that he must be near the top of the hill. Sure enough, the ground soon started to level out and his way became a little easier. He did not slow down, but glanced about wildly, gasping, looking for some sign that he was near the bell.

And then he saw it.

It was not an object, nor was it a movement: it was an absence of something. There, directly ahead, the meagre moonlight pooled where there were no trees. It could have been a clearing, but when Sylas turned his head, he saw that it was not only the area in front of him: all of the forest as far as he could see simply stopped a few paces ahead.

He slowed to a walk and put his hands on his hips, drawing long, deep breaths.

Where the trees ended the ground was littered with broken foliage, branches, boughs. He could see the paleness of splinters and crushed pulp and the raggedness of broken limbs. He inhaled the sweet, wholesome scent of fresh wood. As he drew level with the very edge of the forest, he saw that these limbs were not just branches but entire trunks – whole trees that had been felled by some unimaginable force. But the path of this destruction was very narrow, for not far ahead he could now see another wall of trees where the forest began again.

Suddenly he realised what he was looking at. He turned his head and looked to his left to see a long, perfectly straight pathway of obliterated forest. He had no idea how far it went because it disappeared into the darkness. He looked to his right and the scene was exactly the same: a narrow path of broken wood disappearing into blackness. But where was the bell? Sylas stepped into the graveyard of timber and stared out into the blackness. He looked at the horizon in both directions and could see nothing, but then he lifted his eyes above the canopy of the trees.

There, some distance away and suspended high above the forest, was an immense bell.

It was tilted away from him and was entirely motionless, at one end of a giant swing. But there was nothing to carry its weight: no rope, no cord, no chain. It seemed to float in the night air. It was hard to guess its dimensions because there was nothing around it to compare it to, but to Sylas it looked about the size of a house. It was a pale colour, perhaps brass or gold, and it seemed to reflect light that was not there, as though it had been polished to such perfection that it was stealing all the light in the sky. There was some kind of design around its rim and he squinted and craned forward and felt a new stirring of excitement. He could just make out symbols, and soon he could discern the shapes clearly, carved with perfect precision into the metal.

Ravel Runes.

He felt a slight movement of air, a gentle motion that wasn’t even a breeze, blowing from the direction of the bell. It seemed to bring him to his senses, for as he blinked and looked again, he realised that it was moving – moving towards him. It was becoming larger and larger with every passing second, and the slight shifting of air was now a breeze, a mounting wind moving down the channel between the trees, ahead of the swinging bell. He gasped and stepped backwards, glancing towards the trees.

His gaze fell on two large pale eyes.

They peered out at him from the blackness of the forest, just paces away. There was a rustle of leaves and a shifting of shadows and then the cruel snout of the beast emerged into the clearing. It had wide gashes across its face and Sylas could just make out that it was carrying one of its paws off the ground as though injured. Nevertheless its huge frame looked more powerful and terrifying than ever. Its greasy fur flew up around it as the breeze became a wind that whistled between the broken limbs of the trees.

Sylas felt a chill in his bones, but, to his surprise, there was no panic. He turned his eyes from the hound to the bell, which was now crashing through the forest, gathering pace as it went, sending twigs, leaves and branches flying through the air in all directions. And suddenly, as the wind became deafening and swept the air from his lungs, he felt entirely calm.

He was only dimly aware of the hound crouching back on its haunches, preparing to pounce; he did not see the forest buckling under the raging power of the bell; he saw only the bell itself – its radiance, its perfect glistening surface; its vast mysterious message depicted in runes about its rim. As it glided towards him and the wind became a hurricane, its beauty filled his vision and stirred a new emotion in him, an emotion that was so unexpected, so out of place that at first he did not recognise it.

Joy. A pure, overwhelming, wonderful joy that filled his heart, grew like a sob in his chest and made him want to cry out.

And, as the wind ripped at his clothes, as the beast launched into the air, he reached out to touch the approaching bell.

Then he heard Mr Zhi’s voice in his head.

“You have nothing to fear.”

“It seems that Nature welcomes their very touch, bending to their will not because it must, but because their will is its own.”

Her palm was warm on the back of his hand, and he could feel her fingers pressed between his. He looked down and saw their hands clasped together: her delicate white skin a sharp contrast to his own grubby wrist. He had always loved her hands. They were so fine and gentle that he sometimes felt he should not touch them. When they were at work, moving in confident sweeps across the paper as she drafted graphs, equations, diagrams, they had all the elegance of her creations, all the beauty of her brilliant mind.

He pulled his eyes away and looked ahead at the sunlight that danced brightly on rippling water and in that moment he was aware of a warmth that he had forgotten. He tried to look beyond the beautiful radiance, but the light dazzled him. He tried to shift his feet, but they seemed distant and numb. All he could see was the light, and all he could feel was her hand on his. He wanted more than this – he wanted to speak with her – so he turned to look into her face.

Sylas woke with a start. The warmth that had felt so real just moments before disappeared and in its place he felt the dull ache of a chill in his limbs. His arms were splayed wide and he pulled them across his chest to try to warm himself, but they only pressed his damp clothes to his skin, making him gasp. All that was left of sleep disappeared and his mind began to clear.

His first thoughts were of the beautiful bell, tearing through the forest towards him, sending branches flying in its path. Then he recalled falling backwards, unbalanced by the great wind that had risen before it. But he could not remember landing, or the bell reaching him, or anything since, except his dream. Something else filled his thoughts: a growing unease that gradually formed a picture in his mind – a picture of the beast. He could see it clearly: its glaring eyes, its jaws gaping wide, its filthy claws outstretched as it launched itself towards him.

He forced his eyes open and saw a blackness so complete that he would have thought them still closed were it not for the dim light at the very edges of his vision. Ignoring the stiffness in his neck, he turned his head and saw that, sure enough, there was a line of blue-grey light through which he could just make out the angular shapes of broken branches and twigs, some silhouetted, some dimly lit. He turned his head the other way and there too was the strange strip of light. As he craned to see more, his rucksack pressed into his back and he shifted to ease the discomfort, but a sharp pain ran across his shoulders, making him groan.

The groan echoed back.

His heart quickened and he held his breath. “Hello?” he said in a husky voice.

The word echoed back to him, then again, and again. The voice was his own, but the sound was cold, metallic and hollow. His mind flew back to the chase, the factory, the woods, the clearing – and the bell. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he glanced around at the wide circle of light and for the first time he understood.

He was under the bell.

He seemed to be lying at the very centre of the bell’s massive black shadow. The light at its edge, which he had at first thought to be a thin strip, was in fact a gap of at least his own height between the bell and the ground. The darkness made him uneasy and, glancing about for signs of movement, he heaved himself to his feet among the broken branches, wincing as his weight fell on his sore knee.

He began to make his way towards the light, choosing the easiest path through the undergrowth. The sound of snapping twigs and crunching leaves echoed eerily around him, setting his nerves on edge. His eyes scoured the darkness for any sign of the beast, lingering on ragged silhouettes that looked all too much like angular shoulders or crouching haunches. But nothing stirred beneath the bell.

Sylas drew near the light and he paused, squinting into the gloom. Ahead of him he saw the pathway of mangled trees stretching off into the distance, bordered on both sides by the forest. It was as he remembered from the previous night, but there was one difference: it bore a strange, wintry cloak that was quite wrong on a July morning. Many of the trees had lost their leaves and were dusted with a white frost; a cold mist hung low over the ground and his breath formed clouds in the air, which drifted upwards to join the featureless grey sky. Everything was still and silent – there was no wind, no chime of the bell, not even the call of birds in the trees.

Sylas peered left and right, then stepped out from under the bell and into the light. A new edge to the chill made his teeth chatter, and he gathered the collar of his jacket round his neck as he picked his way through twigs and branches. He stopped next to the stump of a great old oak, which now sent spears of broken wood into the sky where its canopy had once been. He turned and leaned back against it, slowly raising his eyes.

There, just paces away and rising to a point high above the treetops, was the perfectly smooth polished surface of the bell.

It was an unusual shape for a bell, resembling a gigantic golden teardrop. It had a dark circular opening at its base, bordered by a fluted lip bearing the runes that he had seen the previous evening. Above, its great curving sides bowed outwards in gleaming arcs and soared to an astonishing height before tapering inwards at the top. Here the bell narrowed and narrowed until, at the highest reaches, it came to a bright ring of gleaming metal. Sylas found himself peering above to see what supported the great weight of the bell, but there was nothing. It was as if it was suspended in the air itself.

He looked back down at the band of vast Ravel Runes etched deeply into the shiny surface. He stared at them long and hard, moving his eyes from one to the next, hoping that in some way they might work together to form a message: something to explain what was happening. As he gazed at them, he had the strange sense that they were familiar, that he may even have seen this sequence before.

A pheasant suddenly crashed through a bush to his right, launched into the air and flew across the clearing, clucking with each beat of its wings. He glanced in the direction of the bush, which swayed from side to side.

He saw a movement behind it, in the shadows of the wood.

A human figure emerged from the darkness, stepping nimbly over some broken branches.

Sylas held his breath. At first he thought it was Espen and his heart rose, but he saw quickly that it was not a man’s frame, nor even a boy’s: it was far smaller and its lines were much more slender.

It was a girl. But her slight figure and her disobedient mass of red hair were the only signs that she was not a boy, for her movements were robust and masculine, her skin ruddy and tanned and she wore a coat that was almost comically oversized, made of a brown, crudely woven material. She took three steps into the clearing, throwing her shoulders back and her head high as if to defy her smallness, then she stopped and stared at Sylas, looking him up and down.

Her narrow face bore a bold expression, but the way she carried her elfin body betrayed her caution: her knees were bent as though poised to run and she held her grimy hands slightly out from her sides, ready to defend herself.

Her eyes fell on the bracelet around his wrist and suddenly her eyes met his. Sylas saw for the first time that beneath the streaks of mud on her cheeks she had a pleasant, even pretty face, with lively, smiling hazel eyes.

“Who are you?” She had a husky voice and a rich accent.

He was almost surprised at the question. He had become accustomed to everyone seeming to know more than him, and he had assumed that the girl would be no exception.

“I’m Sylas,” he replied, “Sylas Tate.”

She said nothing, as though she expected him to say more.

“And you?” he asked.

“I’m Simia,” she said. There was a brief silence, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and played nervously with a stray lock of her fiery hair.

“Are you… a Bringer?”

“A what?”

She cleared her throat and repeated herself more loudly: “A Bringer.”

He was baffled. “No,” he said, “I’m not.”

The girl frowned and nodded towards his wrist. “So what’s that?”

He looked down at the silver and gold bracelet. “If I’m honest, I don’t know what it is,” he shrugged. “It was given to me.”

“Given to you?” said the girl, in a tone of disbelief. She narrowed her eyes as though to detect a lie. “But you are from the Other, aren’t you?” she probed.

“The other what?”

Simia exhaled loudly, sending out a cloud of mist, and looked around her. “The Other. You’re from the Other, aren’t you?”

Sylas shook his head despairingly. “I’m from Gabblety Row. In town,” he said, deciding that any kind of answer would be less irritating than another question.

“Gabbity-what? There’s no Gabbity-whatever in town,” she replied suspiciously. She eyed him for a few moments, staring into his friendly, open face. “Listen. We haven’t got time for games. Just tell me this: did you come from the bell?” She pointed to the vast golden teardrop that loomed above them. “Did that bring you here?”

Sylas gave her a cool look that told her straight away that he was not playing games. He was not aware of having been brought anywhere, but her questions made him start to wonder. He looked around. He was in a forest as he was last night, but it was strangely cold and the trees were bare, as though it was winter. Then he remembered how Espen had talked about escaping to the bell, as if it would take him somewhere safe. Finally he looked at this oddly dressed girl with her strange accent and nonsensical questions. Perhaps this really was somewhere... else.

“I guess so,” he said, without conviction.

“You… guess so,” said Simia, putting her hands on her hips. She gave Sylas a long, steady look, then began to laugh. It was a light, cheery giggle and Sylas found himself smiling with her.

“Well, I guess that’ll have to do,” she said. Her face straightened. “If you are from the Other, and you did come through by the Passing Bell, you really need to get out of here.”

“Suits me,” said Sylas. Then he added, almost to himself: “I’ve got to start looking for—”

“Forget looking for anything!” said Simia incredulously. “You need to—”

“I need to find my mother,” said Sylas firmly. “That’s why I’m here. Well, at least that’s—”

“Whatever... right now all you need to worry about is what they’ll do when they know you’re here.”

“They?” repeated Sylas.

Simia let out a sigh of exasperation. “You really don’t know anything…”

She stopped mid-sentence. Sylas was staring past her towards the bell. She turned and saw in an instant what he was looking at: the bell was moving. They both instinctively took a step backwards as its huge mass tilted slightly and then began to sink very slowly towards the ground.

“What’s happening?” asked Sylas in a whisper.

“It’s leaving.”

The rim had reached the highest of the broken branches and Sylas expected to hear them splintering and cracking under its weight, but there was no sound. It continued to sink towards the earth, its great form moving through the tangle of wood as if the branches were made of air. The mist in the clearing rolled away sluggishly towards the trees. The bell reached the point at which it should have struck the frost-hardened ground, yet it continued to sink out of view, into the earth itself. The only sign that it had made contact was a very low, almost inaudible chime. Soon its base had entirely disappeared and the runes had reached the level of the broken limbs. Sylas watched the beautiful symbols gradually sinking from view.

Before long, half of the massive metal structure was embedded in the ground and he could clearly see the ring as it slowly descended from its place above the treetops. The deep chime was fading now, and it became less and less audible with every passing second. As the top of the bell drew level with his eyes, he glanced over at Simia. She too was watching, leaning back against a stump with one hand shoved deep into her pocket and the other twirling a lock of her hair. When he looked back, the bell had almost completely disappeared. Finally the last glimpse of bright metal slipped out of sight, the last strains of the chime died away and the clearing was once again shrouded in absolute silence.

Sylas looked hard at the place where it had disappeared, but there was no sign of the bell: branches still lay strewn across the ground and even the mist was now drifting slowly back into the clearing. It was as though it had simply melted away.

“Well,” said Simia with a tone of finality, “looks like you’re here to stay.” She tucked her unruly hair behind her ears. “Now follow me.”

She gathered the great folds of her coat about her, tied them tightly round her middle with a rope belt and darted off through the undergrowth.

“Follow you where?” Sylas shouted after her.

She stopped on the fringe of the forest and looked over her shoulder. “Somewhere safe.”

“But I don’t even know who you are!”

“I’m one of the Suhl,” she said. “And I’m all you’ve got.”

She dashed into the undergrowth.

Sylas looked back at the place where the bell had disappeared and saw only a dank wasteland of broken trees disappearing into grey mist. Without the golden light from the bell, the surrounding forest looked darker and more threatening than ever. Not even a ray of sunlight penetrated the blanket of cloud above. He had no idea why he was here, what was happening or what to do about his mother, but there was no going back now. He turned and ran after Simia.

Despite her size, she moved at great speed and Sylas found it difficult to keep up with her, especially with his bloody knee. He could see her bright hair bobbing up and down and side to side ahead of him as she avoided trees, leapt over gullies and vaulted rotting logs. She moved as though she lived in the wilds: certain of her way through the labyrinth of trees. They were running downhill so he assumed that they were heading towards town, though he was no longer sure that it would be there. He willed himself on, forcing his injured leg through the undergrowth and over the many obstacles that lay in his path. But he was falling behind.

“Wait!” he shouted irritably.

She slowed her pace and glanced back. Her shoulders slumped in her huge coat and she started to jog back up the hill towards him.

“We have to keep moving!” she said impatiently.

“I know, it’s just my knee,” said Sylas. “You’ll have to slow down – or go on without me,” he added reluctantly.

Simia looked down at his bloodied trouser leg. “What a mess,” she said, sucking her teeth. “Why didn’t you say?”

“You didn’t really give me a chance.”

She arched a ginger eyebrow. “If we slow down, we’ll almost certainly run into them, and that would be bad,” she said, with heavy emphasis. “I can’t believe we’ve even got this far. You’ll just have to keep up as best you can…”

Her voice trailed off as something seemed to occur to her. She turned and looked back down the hill. “Unless…” She glanced at Sylas. “I’m going to try something, but it may not work.” She looked unsure of herself. “Just… well, just... stand back.”

He took a step back.

“No,” she said, flapping both hands. “Further back.”

He eyed her warily and limped several paces backwards.

She turned her back to him, facing directly down the hill. She took a deep breath, pulled up the heavy sleeves of her coat and stretched her arms in front of her. Sylas looked at her tiny figure dwarfed by the vast tangled arches of the forest, wondering what new miracle he was about to witness.

Precious moments passed, but nothing happened. The forest fell silent.

Simia shook her hands and lifted herself up on her toes, as though a couple more inches of height might increase her chances, but still there was nothing. Her arms dropped to her sides and she shook her head. She adjusted her stance and her shoulders seemed to heave as she took in a lungful of air, then she raised her arms again.

“Come on, Simsi,” she muttered under her breath. “Concentrate!”

Once more Sylas looked out into the dense forest, waiting for something to happen. At first he saw nothing, but then something peculiar made him squint. Slowly he became sure that the forest ahead of them was shifting and changing. He blinked his eyes, but the shapes of the trees continued to alter and warp. It was as though he was looking through a lens that was distorting the light, blending the lines of one tree with another, stretching them and morphing them until he was unsure which was which. The ground too was shifting. Leaves blurred with moss and roots until the forest floor was a mass of melding browns and greens. All of this motion was focused directly ahead, between Simia’s outstretched arms: to the left and right, the forest looked as it had before.

Sylas started to feel a little dizzy as he watched, but he found it impossible to look away, so beautiful was this display of colours, so strange the spectacle. And the longer he looked, the more there seemed to be order in the chaos: the vertical lines of the trees seemed to be drifting left and right, leaving an open pathway in the centre. There, where the trees had stood, the battle between the colours of the forest floor was being won by the brightest of all the greens. Soon the movement slowed and, as it did so, Sylas began to understand what he was looking at: it was a pathway, bordered on both sides by the trees that had stood in their way, its floor carpeted with soft, verdant moss.

But Simia had not finished. She moved one of her arms out towards the passing stream and moments later the silvery flow of the water started to veer from its path downhill and turn towards the long line of moss. Before long it had reached her feet, where it turned again and started flowing over the bright green surface. Sylas watched in amazement as the stream gathered pace on this smooth, slippery channel and became a shallow film of water, cascading between the trees.

Simia’s hands fell to her sides and she gasped for breath.

“It’s called a Groundrush,” she panted. “It’s for...”

There was a noise somewhere further up the hill and a bird nearby launched itself into the air. They looked sharply in its direction, their eyes scanning the skeletal trees and the shadows between. A wood pigeon sped upwards towards the grey sky, slapping its wings together as it darted through the branches.

Sylas glanced nervously at Simia. Her bold grin was gone and for the first time there was fear in her eyes.

They heard footsteps pounding through the forest somewhere far behind. The sound was heavy and resonant – whatever was making them was huge.

In the next moment the silence of the forest was shattered by a blood-chilling howl.

Even as the terrifying sound met their ears, Simia was in motion, grabbing Sylas by the collar and dragging him to the edge of the streaming water.

“It’s them! The Ghor!” she hissed in his ear. “Do exactly what I do!”

Then, without warning, she leapt into the air, throwing her legs out in front of her. She travelled some distance with her giant coat flapping about her before landing with a great splash in the icy water. As the water rushed about her, she lay back and wrapped her arms round her chest. She began to slide forward, carried with ease over the slippery, spongy surface. She quickly picked up pace and in no time she was careering down the hillside away from him, swiftly passing out of sight as she fell away into a dip in the forest floor. Seconds later she was thrown into the air some distance beyond and he heard her cry out to him as she landed back on the slide somewhere entirely out of view.

Just then a great chorus of howls echoed through the forest behind him and he heard the footsteps – closer now – crashing through the forest. They were on his trail. He pulled the rucksack from his shoulders, clutched it to his chest and leapt into the air.

He splashed into the freezing stream and gasped as the cold made its way quickly through his clothes. There was a gentle jolt as he went over a rise, then suddenly his heart was in his mouth as he accelerated downwards. Tree trunks flew past him faster and faster and, when he looked upwards, he could see a flurry of bare branches silhouetted against the grey sky. On both sides a blur of rocks and roots whisked past his face and he felt a growing excitement. He tucked in his elbows and allowed the surge of the stream to take him. He went over a bump and was thrown up in the air – suddenly weightless, hanging some distance off the ground – and in that moment everything went strangely quiet: the sound of rushing water faded; the wind stopped roaring in his ears. As he turned through the air, he was able to look back up the slide, and his blood ran cold.

Where he had been standing only moments before were two gargantuan black hounds, sniffing the air and prowling through the undergrowth. He saw in them the features of the beast that had pursued him the previous night: the cruel jaws bearing rapier-sharp teeth; the immense, powerful shoulders; and the long, sloping back.

But there was one difference. They seemed almost twice the size.

Before he saw any more, the ground hurtled up at him and his pursuers disappeared from view. He hit the slide face first and water splashed into his mouth and nose, but he was quickly flipped on to his back as the mossy path banked left and then right.

Trees, leaves, bushes, rocks whisked past him in a stream of colour. He looked down between his feet and saw the bright green slide below him, turning this way and that, sometimes rising, the force pressing him down into the ground, other times falling away so that he was thrown into the air. The sound of wind and water became deafening and the Groundrush swerved ever more quickly from side to side, throwing him against its mossy banks.

Then, as quickly as this strange journey began, it was over. Sylas looked ahead of him and saw that the green of the moss came to an abrupt end. He just had time to brace himself before shooting off the slide into a pool of water that sent up a wall of spray around him. Gasping for air, he slid on to an expanse of brown leaves that flew up in a blizzard around his tumbling limbs, tearing at his hands and face. There were several painful jolts as he bounced off mounds and roots, but finally he came to a halt, face down against a row of bushes.

He lay panting and spitting out soil. Everything was quiet except for the flutter of leaves gradually settling on top of him.

The thought of the dark figures running through the woods made him push himself up. He saw Simia standing a few paces off, drenched from head to foot, but already on her feet, staring back up the Groundrush. As he watched, she steadied herself, held up her head and lifted her arms into the air. He looked back up the slide, which he could see writhing and turning through the forest, sometimes clearly visible as a long green line, sometimes falling out of view into a dip or twisting out of sight behind a clump of trees. As his eyes followed its curves, rises and falls, he realised that he was once again looking at a confusion of colours and lines. No longer was the slide a distinguishable shape, but a drifting slurry of colours like paints in a mixing pot. Soon the outlines of the trees were shifting again and he could no longer see any sign of the path that the slide had taken. Seconds later the trees were once again standing in their rightful places on the hillside.

It was as though the Groundrush had never been there.

“What rule is there, what law

But gnashing teeth and grasping claw?”

SIMIA FLEW ACROSS THE forest floor, moving even faster now that the ground was flattening out. Sylas winced each time his knee twisted beneath him, but somehow he kept up with her, turning this way and that to avoid trees, logs and bushes. He listened for sounds of their pursuers, but heard only the wind in his ears and the leaves and twigs under his feet.

“They’ll know now that we’re heading for town,” panted Simia, “but we’ll be safer once we’re there – more places to hide. It’s not far.”

He looked up, expecting to see the familiar factory looming above the treetops. There was no sign of it, but the further they ran, the more he became aware of the scent of smoke in the air, and it soon became visible, hanging in long grey clouds among the branches of the trees. As it thickened, its odour became more distinct – not the acrid, artificial smell of the factory, but the soft, rounded scents of woodsmoke.

Simia vaulted over a fallen tree and pushed her way through the thick dark green leaves of some bushes, soon disappearing from view. Sylas clambered over the log and then forced his way into the dense mass of leaves that slapped at his face and pulled at his clothes. He squeezed his eyes shut and struggled on until his hands met the back of Simia’s coat.

He opened his eyes and took an involuntary gasp of the thick smoky air.

Ahead of him, at the bottom of a bank of rubbish, lay a town – but it was not the town that he knew. The great towering chimney stacks of the factory were nowhere to be seen. Neither were the houses, the rooftops, the roads. The streets were not straight and regular as he remembered them, but narrow, meandering and paved with dirt, forming a muddy labyrinth that twisted and turned into the distance. They were bordered on both sides by a great disorder of low wooden dwellings unlike any that he had seen before: a muddle of pyramidal rooftops, arranged at befuddling angles to one another, stretching off into the distance until they finally disappeared into the smoke. Some were higher than others, seeming to tower over everything around them, but almost all of them were exactly the same shape: square at the bottom, pointed at the top.

The only exceptions were far away in the centre of town: great rectangular structures that dwarfed the pitched roofs around their base; and an immense, curiously shaped tower with sides that bowed inwards and rose towards what looked like a pair of platforms at its top, arranged one above the other.

The narrow streets bustled with people, some scurrying quickly from building to building, others bearing heavy loads and making their way slowly to or from the centre. Many of these travellers drew simple carts behind them, some helped by donkeys or ponies, some using their own tired limbs to haul their wagons over ruts in the road and between the throng of pedestrians. Even from this distance Sylas could see that their clothes were oddly drab and cheerless – like those that Simia was wearing – and that most wore hoods or hats of a variety of shapes. The scene seemed altogether foreign and of another age. Yet there it all was – right there – where his home should have been.

“What is this place...?” he murmured.

Simia turned to him briefly, seemed about to say something and then changed her mind.

“I’m taking you to some people who’ll explain,” she said. Before he could reply, she set off down the slope, picking her way through the rubbish and towards the nearest lane.

“Who?” Sylas called after her. “Will they know anything about my mother?”

But she was gone, already halfway down the refuse-ridden slope.

He shook his head in frustration, but set out after her. His progress was slowed by piles of splintered timber, broken bottles and jars, empty crates and rotting sacks whose contents he did not like to guess at, but soon he drew level to Simia, who waited for him next to a muddy ditch that bordered the lane. She pointed at it.

“Get your clothes as dirty as you can,” she said in a low voice. “And that weird bag thing – roll it in the mud.”

Sylas looked down and saw that his dark jeans and colourful rucksack looked decidedly odd compared to the drab clothing of the other people in the lane. He slid the bag off his shoulders and splashed into the centre of the ditch, sinking up to his shins. He staggered sideways and pressed the bag into the sludge, then he squelched his way to the other side.

He looked at himself with satisfaction: both his clothes and his bag were now covered in mud and he blended into the sea of brown and black.

“Hoy!” came an urgent cry from his left.

Sylas turned to see a mule-drawn cart bearing down on him. Simia yanked him out of its path as the three animals stampeded past, sending up a spray of muddy water. Then came the huge wagon, piled high with a mountain of boxes, chests and crates that leaned over precariously as the driver steered clear of the two children. It skidded on the mud, but soon steadied and the imposing, dark-skinned driver took the opportunity to shake his fist angrily at them, shouting something in a language Sylas had never heard before.

He looked about him and saw an endless stream of wagons swerving this way and that to avoid one another and the many people on foot. The pedestrians walked along the edge of the road by the ditch, watching the carts and carriages warily and stepping aside to avoid being crushed. By contrast to the forest the noise was deafening: the hollering of voices, the stomping of hooves, the splashing of wheels through the mud. There were no cars, no engines, no horns, but it seemed just as noisy and confusing as any road he had ever seen.

When he looked back at Simia, she was eyeing the edge of the forest.

“Come on,” she said nervously, “let’s get out of sight.”

She pointed across the lane to a narrow passageway. They set off at once, weaving between wagons and carts to the other side, then running into the shadow of the alley.

“Stop a minute,” panted Sylas. “I don’t understand any of this. Just tell me what’s going on!”

She put her hands on her hips and turned to face him. “Didn’t you get any – I don’t know – training, or whatever you people normally get before you come here?”

“You’re not listening to me!” he snapped in frustration. “There is no ‘us people’ – it’s only me. I’m not a ‘Bringer’ or whatever it is that you think I am. No one’s trained me or given me special powers. I just live with my uncle somewhere,” he waved across town, “somewhere over there – at least, that’s where it was... God knows where it is now. I’m here because the bell brought me here, and because something about all this might explain what’s happened to my mother. That’s all I know about any...”

“OK, OK!” said Simia, raising her hands in mock surrender. She eyed him for a moment and then glanced anxiously towards the forest. “Listen, I’ll tell you two things. First, just over there, on the other side of town, there are some people called the Suhl. Good people. People who know a lot about where you’re from and the bell and plenty more besides. Perhaps even about your mother. I want to take you to them so they can help you.” She pointed into the forest. “And behind you, in those trees, is a nightmare. It’s called the Ghor. They’re definitely not good people, they’re monsters. They won’t help you, they’ll tear you limb from limb. And they’re not all the way on the other side of town, they’re just out of sight and running this way.” She threw her hands out imploringly. “Now can we please leave?”

She started to turn around, but Sylas caught her shoulder.

“What are they? The Ghor?”

Her shoulders slumped. “They were created to do one thing above all else,” she said curtly. “Hunt. Hunt people. They were born for it – literally made for it. Give them a trail, or even a scent, and they’re pretty much unstoppable. They’ll search out the smallest track, smell the faintest trace and then run you down. They are faster than anything and they’ll almost never lose your trail.”

“And those are the dog things that I saw?”

“Not quite,” she said impatiently. “They 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 activity. They seemed to be working under the direction of three teachers, one on each stage, whose authority was clear to see not only in the children’s obedience, but also in the size and style of their headdresses, which were extravagantly designed and ludicrously large.

But what made the picture utterly bewildering was what these classes were doing.

On the nearest of the three stages, for instance, the children stood with their arms at their sides while their teacher faced them and, in a rapid motion, pointed at various places beneath their feet. As she extended her finger, a trapdoor fell into the void beneath the stage exactly where she had pointed. Even before the teacher’s finger had reached its full extent, the children standing on the trapdoor shifted position, stepping one pace left or right, forward or back, almost as though they had known where the teacher was going to point next. As though they had read her mind. Such was the speed and fluency of the teacher’s movements and the students’ responses that the class appeared to be performing an elaborate, silent dance, weaving effortlessly between one another as the trapdoors fell away, leaving them with less and less safe ground upon which to stand.

Despite the apparent danger, they remained entirely calm, never looking at one another, never colliding, never glancing down at their feet, but instead gliding around the stage, stepping closer and closer to one another until all of them had moved on to the last remaining island of solid flooring. Even when they were pressed in tightly against each other in this tiny space, they remained entirely focused, arms at their sides, eyes fixed on those of their teacher. Only when the teacher clapped her hands did they emerge from their apparent trance and, along with the watching crowd, erupt in a round of applause, congratulating one another on their apparent success.

“You’re gawping,” hissed Simia in Sylas’s ear.

Sylas blinked. “Well, of course I’m gawping! What are they doing?”

“Learning Druindil,” said Simia, as if it was abundantly clear what they were doing. She pointed at each of the three stages in turn. “Druindil, Urgolvane, Kimiyya – one for each of the Three Ways. They’re from the local schools – this is where they come to show off what they’ve learned.” She pulled sharply on his sleeve. “Now come on.”

She led him out across the square, past the second stage. Sylas followed but continued to gawp, for the scene on the next stage was no less strange. Here all of the students were seated at their desks, listening to their teacher as he strutted up and down at one end of the platform beneath a banner that read ‘The Memorial Academy of Urgolvane’. While at first the class appeared to be entirely normal (excepting of course their strange gowns and the comical headdress of their teacher), Sylas soon found himself staring at the chairs and desks, convinced that something was not quite right. Then he realised what had caught his eye: parts of the furniture were missing. Some of the chairs and tables were missing a leg, some two, and others were suspended in the air by a single leg in one corner. He squinted, thinking that perhaps his eyes were playing tricks, but they were not – the legs and supports had been deliberately sawn off.

Yet the chairs and tables remained upright.

The entire class was being supported by some invisible force.

Some of the classroom furniture wavered a little, but none showed any signs of falling as Sylas knew they should. Indeed some of the children were so confident that they rocked backwards and forwards as though swinging on their chairs, supported by absolutely nothing.

Sylas’s eyes followed those of the children to the teacher at the front of the class and again he blinked in disbelief. He had thought that the old man was walking to and fro on some kind of raised platform for he looked down upon his class from some height, but he saw now that there was no such platform. The teacher was suspended several feet in the air by the same unseen force. His clogged feet seemed to touch down upon something firm so that he was able to walk as normal, but as far as Sylas could tell, there was absolutely nothing there. At that very moment the teacher stopped in his tracks, turned to his class and bellowed a command in a language that meant nothing to Sylas. The students who were rocking on their chairs ceased at once and the entire class bowed their heads in concentration.

Suddenly one of the students, along with her chair and her desk, rose into the air, reaching the same height as her tutor before starting to drift slowly round the stage. Soon all of the students were doing the same, sailing up into the air with their weird furniture, then drifting between and around one another until the entire class was in motion, forming a great swirl of students’ chairs, desks and gowns. The surrounding crowd burst into wild applause and a group of very proud parents began shouting the names of their loved ones as they drifted somewhere overhead.

Sylas was about to leave Simia’s side to take a closer look when the sound of a commotion behind him made him turn. He saw a flurry of activity back across the square, near where they had entered. Then a new, awful sound pierced the air.

Screams. Screams of unbridled terror.

Suddenly everything was in motion. Simia took hold of the back of his sweater and heaved him with all her might in the opposite direction. At the same moment the crowds around them also broke into a run, scrambling desperately towards the exits on the other side of the square. The students suspended somewhere high above suddenly lost their concentration and fell out of the air, crashing down on to the stage amid a hail of splintering wood and shouts of pain and fear. Above this thunder of noise came a new sound, a sound that had become all too familiar: a haunting, canine howl. It rose from somewhere behind them, but then echoed from the walls of the surrounding buildings, resounding from every surface, filling the air.

“They’re on to our scent!” yelled Simia at his side as they reached a full sprint.

Sylas caught a glimpse of the terror in her eyes and felt a new surge of panic. They were moving as fast as they could between the mass of bodies and flailing limbs, turning this way and that to avoid capsized stalls and the clattering carts of fleeing traders. But they both knew that in these crowds they were moving too slowly. Far too slowly.

Their eyes darted everywhere, looking for a way to escape, but all they could see was a mass of bodies, frightened eyes, broken stalls, careering wagons.

Suddenly Sylas lunged to one side, grabbing Simia’s coat and pulling her along with him.

“What are you doing?” she protested, trying to pull away.

He headed directly for one of the rattling carts, which swayed under a heavy load of sacks filled with fruit. He pointed frantically.

“Get in!” he hissed in Simia’s ear.

He knew that in the cart the Ghor might not be able to follow their scent, especially if they surrounded themselves with the strong-smelling fruit. It seemed hopeless, but at least it was a chance. Simia seemed to understand. She quickened her pace, caught up with the cart, and then vaulted over the low wooden side and dropped to her knees between two sacks of apples. Sylas heard some yelling behind him, but dared not look round: he launched himself forward off his good leg, caught hold of the rear of the cart and hauled himself into position next to Simia.

He was struck by the harsh, acidic scent of rotting apples and he saw that they were squatting in a mulch of crushed fruit that had fallen from the sacks. He pressed himself down as far as he could and they busied themselves pulling the sacks into a small circle around them – the perfect hiding place. Sylas looked up, wondering if the hunchbacked driver might have seen them, but he was too busy lashing his mules, trying to make his own escape.

“Ghorhund!” hissed Simia suddenly, staring back across the square.

Sylas’s blood ran cold. There, in a clearing where the commotion had begun just moments before, were two gargantuan black beasts, sniffing the air and prowling through the wreckage of a stall. He saw in them the features of the black hound that had pursued him the previous night: the cruel jaws bearing razor-sharp teeth; the immense, powerful shoulders; and the long, sloping back.

To his relief they seemed to have lost the trail of scent, for as he watched, one of them let out a howl of frustration, its breath clouding the air, and then launched itself at an abandoned cart. It crashed into the cargo of boxes and crates, sending the entire load flying, some high into the air, some off the opposite side of the wagon and on to the plaza. Most of the boxes were smashed into pieces, and lengths of timber and splinters of wood flew in all directions. The beast erupted from the cart amid a cascade of debris, leaving it rocking precariously from side to side on broken axles. But before it could settle, the second Ghorhund struck from behind, propelling the rear of the wagon high into the air until it slewed to one side, tipping its remaining contents on to the paving. There was a sharp crack as the yoke twisted and snapped. The ponies broke free of their harnesses and ran screaming, the whites of their eyes flaring as they galloped through the fleeing crowds.

The Ghorhund tore at the sides of the cart with their huge jaws, pulling away great mouthfuls of timber and metal, then hurling it away with a sharp flick of their powerful necks.

“That could have been us,” murmured Sylas.

Their cart was accelerating towards the edge of the square and they could hear the driver shouting at people to get out of the way and cracking his whip at the mules, trying desperately to make them run faster. The sight of the fleeing ponies had now set them at a full gallop so that the cart was swaying dangerously on the slippery surface. The two children clung on to the sacks, desperate to stay hidden.

“Look!” hissed Simia, her face betraying a new fear.

Sylas followed her frightened eyes and saw three huge figures entering the square, then jogging towards the Ghorhund. They bounded lightly in a way that seemed unnatural in men so large, taking huge strides with ease. He recoiled in horror as he saw why: their powerful legs bent backwards at the knee like the rear legs of an animal, giving them an aberrant, predatory stance. In truth they seemed as much beast as man, with dark, matted fur rising from clawed feet up sinewy legs and appearing again above their black tunics in patches across their shoulders and down their arms to long, hooked fingers. Bristles gathered around the back of their necks to form a thick mane that covered most of their massive heads, which hung low between their shoulders as they ran. Their faces were difficult to see, but even at this distance Sylas could make out areas of pale human skin covering parts of an elongated jaw that rose to what looked almost like a snout.

Almost, but not quite, for there was not one thing about these creatures that was neither man nor beast, but rather a mixture of the two: they moved with the agility and power of an animal, but with the precision and intent of a man; they had the stature and gait of their human cousins, but their manner was of threatening, rapacious hunters.

“The Ghor,” murmured Simia, her voice full of dread.

They drew near the Ghorhund, slowed and then, with a single purpose, fanned out across the square, one loping along each edge, the third jogging into the centre, stooping low at times to examine the paving. Suddenly, just a short distance past the Ghorhund, it stopped and lowered its head to the ground. It paused there for a moment as though sniffing the stone, then raised itself up and looked directly towards the fruit cart.

Sylas could feel its keen eyes searching among the sacks.

Then, in one swift movement, the hunter threw its head back in the air and to his horror it let out a bloodcurdling, canine howl. Moments later it started forward and began sprinting at an astonishing speed towards them. The others changed direction and fell in behind, soon moving as one, striding perfectly in time, their massive claws beating out a single terrifying rhythm. Just moments later they were overtaken by the two Ghorhund, which flew across the square, baying lustily as they rejoined the hunt.

At that moment the fruit cart skidded round a corner into a busy road lined with shops and stalls. The smell of smoke became more powerful and Sylas could hear the chatter and bustle of crowds, but he was hardly aware of his surroundings. Instead his eyes were fixed on the corner that they had just turned, watching for the first sign of their pursuers. Simia pushed herself up on her hands to peer cautiously over the top of the sacks.

“We’ve got to get out of the cart,” she said. “Wait for me to move, then do as I do.”

Sylas nodded and eased himself a little off his haunches to make sure that he was ready. They passed a hanging sign bearing the words The Mutable Inn written in large ornate lettering.

“Now!” exclaimed Simia, and she stood up and launched herself into the air, falling quickly out of sight. He hauled himself to his feet and saw her land some distance away, staggering slightly and bracing herself against the wall of the inn. He heard the cry of the driver from behind and saw a number of faces turn in the street, but dared not look: he braced himself against the side of the cart and threw himself into the air. He cleared the muddy road and landed next to Simia on the stone terrace of the inn, grimacing from the pain in his knee.

Simia drew close to him. “Follow me inside,” she said under her breath. “And, for the sake of Isia, cover up your trinket!”

He glanced at the bracelet shining brightly on his wrist and, with a glance up and down the busy street, he covered it with the muddy sleeve of his jacket. He saw Simia disappear through the large wooden door of the Mutable Inn, and he quickly followed her.

As he pulled it closed behind him, he heard a noise in the street. He was tempted to ignore it, but could not resist peering out through the small glass panel mounted in the door. Once again people were running, screaming and shouting as they glanced anxiously back down the road. Soon their cries were drowned out by the vicious howls of the Ghorhund: and then they came, their massive paws pounding into the dirt with such thunderous force that the door rattled on its hinges. People threw themselves to the ground, against walls and through doorways, as the two black beasts streaked past the inn, crashing through abandoned stalls and boxes, knocking those who moved too slowly to the ground and tearing the road into a shower of mud and grit that splattered the window. They sped on, driven wild by the hunt, oblivious to the pale face peering out at them from the inn.

Sylas watched as the poor people in the road stared fearfully after the Ghorhund, then slowly turned and looked the other way – their faces filling with a new terror. Those who had been thrown to the ground roused themselves and scrambled to the side of the road, heads lowered as if fearing a blow. He heard the Ghorhund reach the fruit cart in which they had escaped, announced by the crash of splintering wood followed by a chilling howl of triumph and the screams of the unfortunate driver.

Then, as a woman whimpered outside the inn door, three silent shadows moved in front of the window.

“… such is their power to change the very fabric of the world.”

THE DARK, ALMOST-HUMAN shapes were stooped forward, their heads sweeping low as they bounded lightly along the street, making so little sound that, were it not for the gentle fall of their feet in the mud, he would have thought them ghosts or apparitions. Sylas knew instinctively that even as they ran they could hear the slightest noise, and he found himself holding his breath as he watched. Their movement was wolfish and hungry, but they moved with remarkable control, striding in perfect unison and in precise formation. They took no notice of each other, their disfigured heads swinging from side to side as they took in the pale, fearful townsfolk at the sides of the street.

For the first time Sylas saw their faces and he felt his stomach turn. Their pendulous, hooded brow and monstrous jaw and cheekbones were almost canine, yet amid the patchwork of pale human skin and dark matted fur were quick, intelligent human eyes, seeing everything with a deliberateness and menace that was far from animal-like. They were both the handler and the hound: measuring the situation, scrutinising every detail of the street and all the while hunting as a pack. He felt the same creeping terror that he had seen in Simia. His chest tightened, the blood drained from his face and he took an involuntary step away from the door.

None of them seemed to see him at the window, or hear his short breaths, or sense his fear. As quickly as they had come, they were gone.

Sylas exhaled, his breath clouding the glass.

“What are you doing? Come on!”

He turned and saw Simia standing in the inner doorway. She beckoned to him urgently, then disappeared into the room beyond.

He gathered his nerves and followed her, leaving behind a distant sound of splintering wood, shouts and wails issuing from a neighbouring street.

The strong scent of smoke filled his nostrils as soon as he walked into the dimly lit interior of the inn. It was not the smoke that he had smelt on the street, or the smoke of cigarettes or pipes, but one with a weirdly sweet and fresh aroma. So strange was the scent that it took him a few moments to identify it as that of common, freshly cut green grass, spiced with burning tobacco. He looked about the gloomy room to try to find its source and saw scores of men huddled low over tables, most smoking long pipes, others gulping from metal tankards. Some raised their heads as he entered and stared at him steadily for a moment, but they soon lost interest and returned to their conversations. The low drone of voices was broken only by an occasional cough and peals of laughter from a table at the end of the room.

He looked for Simia and soon saw her balancing on the first rung of a stool at the bar, talking excitedly to a tall barman, who looked with interest over her shoulder towards Sylas. He had an odd appearance, with massive, clumsy-looking limbs and a long, doleful face that was made even longer by an overly long nose, a narrow mouth and a redoubtable chin that hung far below. But his most striking feature was the great shiny dome of his head, which at first seemed to bear some sort of hat or skullcap but, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be emblazoned with a vast array of tattoos: shapes, symbols and markings that encircled his crown to astonishing effect.

The barman leaned his large frame forward and rested his elbows on the bar, his piercing green eyes taking everything in. Sylas could feel them interrogating him, exploring his every feature until he had the distinct impression that they could even see what he was thinking. The strange man seemed to be looking into him, layer by layer, peeling them away like the pages of a book. Sylas shifted uncomfortably and, not knowing what else to do, smiled. The man held his gaze without responding, then turned back to Simia, said something and walked quickly to a door at the rear of the inn. As he opened it, he glanced back at Sylas and gave him a brief nod that looked almost like a bow, then disappeared into the darkness beyond.

Relieved to be freed from the man’s penetrating gaze, Sylas turned to see Simia beckoning him to join her at the bar. To his surprise, she looked almost as cheerful and relaxed as she had before the chase: her cheeks had regained their ruddy colour and her eyes some of their lively sparkle. As he drew close, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

“We’re safe, for now at least. Thanks to the cart we’ve broken the trail,” she said with reassuring confidence, but without acknowledging that it had been Sylas’s idea. She nodded towards the door at the rear. “Bowe is a friend. He’s gone to check that the way is clear.”

“Strange... it was like he could see right through me,” said Sylas.

She laughed. “Oh, don’t mind that – he just has a way of seeing things. It’s what he does.”

“What he... does.”

“Yep,” she said matter-of-factly, pushing herself up on to the barstool to peer out of the window to the street. “Now we should have some time for a real drink, if you fancy?”

He looked at her, bewildered by her calm – only moments ago they had been fleeing for their lives. But he could not deny his thirst.

“Sure,” he said, heaving himself on to a neighbouring stool.

Simia reached over to an abandoned tankard on the bar and peered into it with interest, then held it out to him. Sylas looked at the dark green contents doubtfully, sloshing them around and sniffing at them, then raised the tankard to his lips. Carefully at first, then with increasing abandon, he drank down the contents. The flavour was decidedly odd but delicious: a mixture of lemons, rhubarb and woodsmoke. The combination was surprisingly sweet and refreshing. He finished it in large satisfying gulps, then set down the tankard with a loud belch. He was dimly aware of Simia watching him with keen interest and a suppressed smile.

“’Scuse me,” he said. “That’s great – what is it?”

He clamped his hand over his mouth.

With each word, clouds of pungent, sweet green smoke billowed between his lips. Simia shrieked with laughter and banged the counter with glee. He stared at her with a mixture of alarm and embarrassment, then parted two of his fingers and spoke quietly, trying in vain not to exhale as he did so.

“What is this stuff?” he mumbled, breathing out a succession of smoke signals depicted in glorious greens and yellows.

Simia was still heaving with laughter. “Oh, it’s… sorry... your face!” She let out another shriek of delight, then worked hard to gather herself. “It’s called Lemon Plume,” she said, drawing a long breath. “It’s a favourite with this lot – the Muddlemorphs.”

“Muddlemorphs?” repeated Sylas with interest, seeing to his relief that the smoke was growing thinner and less noticeable.

“Pretty much everyone here is a Muddlemorph,” she said. “They can change things – play around with stuff – change it from one thing into another. It’s a weird kind of Kimiyya – the Third Way. They come here to work on the farms: making the soil better, cleaning the water, that kind of thing. Problem is, they love their tricks so much that they spend all their time showing them off to each other in taverns like this.”

She jumped off her stool and pointed to the wooden seat. “Here, touch this.”

Sylas hesitated, wondering if he was to be the butt of another joke, but reluctantly reached forward and touched the seat. He pulled his hand away sharply, and looked up at Simia who was beaming with delight.

“Weird, isn’t it?” she said with a giggle.

He touched the seat again. To his amazement the wood bowed under his touch as though it was a cushion. He pressed his finger deep into it, and the grainy surface yielded; then he released it and it sprang back.

“Yes,” he said, his broad face breaking into a smile. “Very weird.”

He jumped off his own stool and found that it was the same. He walked over to a bench nearby and pressed on the wooden seat to find that the entire panel gave under the pressure of just one finger. “Magic...” he said quietly.

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