The mirror chronicles th.., p.44
The Mirror Chronicles: The Last Night, page 44
Naeo drew her hand close to the parchment and, in that moment, it was bathed in a brighter celestial light, as though the moonbeams had gathered there, at the tips of her fingers.
Ash glanced at her, then quickly dropped his eyes, trying not to show his surprise. “Yes, I was right. It’s hidden in the hills just down … there.” He pointed to the south where a stain of shadows gathered in the deepest folds of the landscape.
“Triste won’t be able to see us down there,” muttered one of the group anxiously.
They all looked back to the river where they could still just make out the faint gleam of the Windrush’s prow. They had assured Triste that they would stay within sight so that he could signal them if he saw anything suspicious.
“Well, that’s a risk we’ll just have to take,” said Ash, rising to a stoop and checking about him in all directions. And, with that, he set off along the slope, still in a stoop.
The rest of the group watched him go.
“Well, he’s right,” said Naeo, getting to her feet. “There’s no point staying here.”
Warily they set out after him. They snaked along the dry, crumbling slope, following in his footsteps, keeping as close to one another as they could in the failing light. As the way became more treacherous, they started to follow a goat trail, which was narrow but hard-packed and more reliable underfoot than the loose sand and shingle.
The path slowly descended, taking them round boulders and steepening banks of sand and grit. Soon they had dropped far from the reach of the moonlight, and Ash once again kindled the strange fire in his palm so that he could consult Fathray’s map. It was recklessly bright, its flickering glare lighting even the far side of the valley, but no one challenged him, sensing that he would not listen.
The further they went, the more the slopes gathered into a close, hugging gully. The darkness was now almost complete so at Simia’s suggestion everyone took the shoulder of the person in front, to avoid a misstep.
They were just negotiating an overhanging outcrop of rock when Ash suddenly halted. Everyone drew up sharply behind him. Sylas, who was at the rear, could just make out the Magruman’s blond locks turning from side to side.
A blinding light suddenly flared, bathing everything in a fierce blue-white glare. Through squinting eyes, Sylas saw Ash’s hand rising above the heads of the group, and with it the bright flame. At first he could see little but the blaze, but then he caught sight of something else flickering in the light. What they had all thought was an overhanging rock was in fact a huge stone lintel, so massive that it was able to support the weight of the hillside above. Beneath it was a gaping blackness: an opening into the very heart of the hill.
Stretching, Ash held his light up even higher. There, etched into the rocky face of the lintel, was a fading inscription made of symbols and hieroglyphs.
When he turned, Sylas saw the white of his teeth.
“This is it!” Ash hissed. “The Academy of Souls!”
“What I wouldn’t give to have a secret window into this world of marvels – some lookout that might mean I never need to leave.”
TRISTE STARED INTO THE inky darkness, his eyes darting about as though picking out the details of a scene. In that great emptiness, he saw glints and flashes of colour, momentary streaks and trails of light. He saw fear and excitement, doubt and wonder, and at one point, to his surprise, he even saw anger – or had it been malice? It was muddled and was already fading, as though hidden behind earth or rock.
“Can you still see them?” asked Amelie.
When Sylas and the others had set off, she had done her best to busy herself in her cabin below, but there were only a certain number of times she could arrange and rearrange her store of medical supplies, and finally her anxieties had got the better of her, and she had climbed up to the crow’s nest to join Triste.
“Only just,” said Triste, pointing into the darkness. “They’re over there. They’re going underground.”
“I’m not sure I really wanted to know that,” said Amelie. She was silent for some moments and then, perhaps to change the subject, she said: “That’s quite a talent you have, Triste. To see as you do.”
The Scryer lit his pipe, taking care to hide the flame between his hands. “It can be a curse,” he said, lifting the stem to his lips and puffing until the pipe issued a long trail of orange smoke. “But I must say, being with Sylas and Naeo, it’s been more wonder than curse.”
Amelie leaned back against the railing. “It has?”
He took a drag on his pipe and spoke in puffs of smoke. “The bond between them is extraordinary. But you already know that.”
“Not as you know it,” Amelie said, intrigued. “Tell me.”
“You’re aware that we Scryers see the connections between people – see them rather than feel them? That for us those connections show themselves in colour and form?”
Amelie nodded.
He blew a stream of smoke out into the blackness. “Well, when I look at Sylas and Naeo, there’s no colour or form.”
She frowned. “So … what do you see?”
Triste met her eyes and smiled. “A blaze. It’s like looking into the face of the sun.”
Amelie’s frown deepened. She tilted her head. “And this blaze, is it … a good thing?”
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! It’s a constant flow, one to the other: thought … feeling … energy. If one weakens, the other lends their strength; if one questions, the other answers; if one doubts, the other finds hope.”
Amelie’s eyes began to fill with tears. “With all my heart, I wish I could see it,” she said, her voice tight with emotion. She looked out into the night. “Do you think that’s what it might be like for us all, if they find what they’re looking for? If the Glimmer Myth is true?”
The Scryer raised his eyebrows. “We can only hope.”
He seemed about to say more, but suddenly he bowed his head and pressed his eyes shut.
“What is it?” Amelie asked. “Are you all rig—”
Triste raised his hand for silence. He opened his eyes and turned about, peering in all directions.
“What is it?” hissed Amelie, frightened now.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, wide-eyed. “I can’t … quite … see.”
Suddenly he dropped his pipe to the floor and crushed it underfoot.
Amelie was petrified now, and she stared into the blackness, trying to pick out whatever Triste was seeing.
She leaned into his ear. “Are there … many?” she murmured.
“I can’t tell,” he said, shaking his head. “Sometimes it looks like one, sometimes two …” His face was clouded with confusion. “Sometimes thousands. Tens of thousands. It’s as if it—”
He was interrupted by a sound in the heavens. It was barely audible, like a breath of wind over dry grass.
Then it came again, and again.
It was louder each time, until they could hear the unmistakable sound of wings beating the air – giant wings, slow and powerful, thrashing the night air. Whatever it was, it was coming from along the Nile, to the north.
Triste pulled Amelie down into the crow’s nest. “Don’t make a sound!” he whispered urgently.
She pressed herself as far down as she could and gazed, terrified, into the blackness.
“Shouldn’t we signal?” she hissed.
Triste shook his head. “It’s too late. They wouldn’t see. Not now.”
For moments that seemed like hours they listened to the sound drawing nearer and nearer, the great huffs of the wings growing louder and louder. Finally they were so powerful that the crow’s nest trembled, and Amelie found herself leaning ever closer to Triste, pressing herself into his shoulder.
All at once the darkness above the Windrush roared and opened wide, sending forth a blast of wind that filled the ship’s sails and made her tip precariously out into the river. Her moorings strained to breaking point, such that they would have snapped had the gale not died as quickly as it had arisen. Then came another, and another, the unseen wings now beating directly overhead. The crow’s nest swayed like a crazed pendulum, and Triste and Amelie had to cling to the sides to keep from being tossed out.
“I can see him!” gasped Triste, turning to Amelie with wide, frightened eyes. “It’s Thoth!”
Amelie stared at him. “But how can—”
She was cut short by a voice that boomed out of the night and made their bodies tremble. It was the voice of thousands.
“Give them to me!”
And then somehow the night itself seemed to reach out towards them. Massive talons of shadow raked across the rigging, snapping ropes and tearing the gleaming canvas of the sails. A wing the height of the ship mauled one of the masts, snapping it like driftwood. A dark tail lashed the decks, sweeping two of the crew overboard and crushing the ship’s wheel. The shining vessel leaned precariously, her hull striking submerged rocks with a sickening crunch.
In moments, the Windrush was devastated, her sails torn to rags, her ropes and yards snapped, her decks littered with broken timber. The terrified crew fled for their lives, leaping into the dark waters or scrambling down the gangplank.
High above, the crow’s nest had been toppled. It hung upside down from the mainmast, held in place by no more than a pair of ropes. Somehow Amelie and Triste had managed to cling to the railing and stay inside, pressing themselves back into the basket to keep from being seen. They were buffeted by wind from the wings of the beast, which still hovered above, watching the Windrush for any sign of movement. Occasionally it reached out from the darkness and took another swipe, dashing away timbers and ropes, until, at last, it let out a frustrated, feline growl and, in a final act of vandalism, ripped the Suhl standard from its fixing. Triste and Amelie watched as the two halves fluttered down, the feather torn down the middle.
Suddenly Thoth let out a cry of unfettered rage that made the night air quiver, and Amelie and Triste braced themselves, waiting for the end.
But it did not come. Instead the beat of the wings seemed to shift to one side of the ship, and soon they could be heard heading off into the distance.
“He’s going!” hissed Amelie.
Triste raised a finger to his lips. He listened, his Scrying eyes peering out into the night, and finally he nodded. “He’s gone.”
“Was it Thoth?” asked Amelie, still terrified.
Triste nodded, his eyes scouring the darkness for signs of movement.
“And what was that … creature?”
“Some monstrous creation of his no doubt. Nothing I’ve seen before.”
Suddenly they heard another bestial shriek out in the night, from the direction Thoth had taken.
“He’s going to the academy!” exclaimed Amelie. “We have to warn them!”
Triste fixed his eyes on the silhouettes of the hills. He reached out, took her hand. “It’s already too late.”
“What monstrosity, what thing of ancient legend will next emerge from the crucible of the birthing chambers?”
“Surrender thy mind, thy body and thy soul,” read Ash, gazing up at the engraved stone above the entrance. “Only the devout will find the Way.”
Simia frowned at the faded hieroglyphs. “You can read that?”
“No, I can read this,” said Ash, holding up one of Fathray’s documents. Just visible in the weak light was a drawing of the inscription and its translation scrawled beneath.
“This is how the Academy of Souls got its name,” said Sylas, remembering something he had read in the Samarok. “The priests were supposed to give everything to this place, even their souls.”
They all stared at the inscription, weighing its meaning.
“Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to be them,” said Simia with a shudder. She touched the rock on one side of the entrance. “I can’t believe Merimaat came here. And Merisu. They were right here, with Thoth, all those years ago.”
Ash cleared his throat. “Well, are we going to do this?”
Without waiting for an answer, he stepped across the threshold and disappeared into the darkness. Sylas, Naeo and Simia followed, keeping close to one another for comfort. The others came next, four of them in one group, the last two advancing more slowly, keeping an eye on the path behind.
The passageway was pitch-black and cold, with a breeze blowing up from somewhere far below, where they could see a faint, distant glow – perhaps a doorway at the end of the passage. The loose, gritty floor sloped downwards towards it, and it was so uneven that in places they had to brace themselves against the walls to avoid slipping. They could feel the sharp, deep gashes of the chisels that had hewn their way through the rock thousands of years before.
“They really wanted to hide this place,” said Simia quietly.
Something about the passage made her words echo into the darkness and, more alarmingly, come rushing back even louder than before. Everyone froze, eyeing the opening up ahead, expecting to see a movement at any moment.
Nothing stirred.
Ash looked over his shoulder. “Quiet, Simsi!” he murmured angrily.
Simia whispered an apology, but Ash had already turned away and set off down the passage.
As they all continued the descent, even their steps now seemed far, far too loud. They began to move more slowly, almost tiptoeing along. At one point Naeo slipped and the sound of her scuffing heel resonated up and down the passage. Still nothing appeared in the light.
Soon enough, they began to draw near to the opening, and they saw that it resembled the entrance: a high, squared doorway with a massive lintel above. The glow at its centre was cool and silvery, like the moonlight that they had left behind, and they realised to their surprise that they were heading not into some inner chamber but back out into the open air.
As everyone gathered just inside the doorway, Ash crouched and edged forward. When he reached the threshold, he peered out, took some moments to check in all directions and then waved them on.
Sylas, Naeo and Simia crept up behind. Before them was a canyon with almost vertical sides and rockfalls at either end, creating an entirely enclosed space cut off from the outside world. Everyone gazed at the rocky surfaces towering above. Even in the dim moonlight, they could see that there was something very peculiar about them. In places, they looked like normal rock, but in others they seemed to have been charred to a pitch-blackness, or they gleamed as though they were forged of some kind of metal. Strangest of all, there were areas where the rock seemed to have melted, flowing down before solidifying like a frozen waterfall.
Here and there among these disfigured rocks, symbols had been etched into the surface: circles, pentangles, hieroglyphs and others that were so complex that they made little sense to the eye. But at one end of the canyon there was an even more bizarre sight: a pyramidal pile of perfectly spherical rocks, like gigantic cannonballs, smooth and faultless. There were others too, strewn across the canyon floor, but these were chipped and cracked, and many had been shattered by some unimaginable force.
“I’ve been reading about this place,” said Ash. “They called it ‘the Crucible’. This is where they first experimented with the Four Ways!” He looked at them with wide, gleaming eyes. “This is where they were born! All of them! Kimiyya, Druindil, Urgolvane, Essenfayle!”
“Only the devout will find the Way,” murmured Naeo. “Except they didn’t just find one Way, they found four.”
Ash turned his eyes about the walls of the canyon. “Just look at how they melted the rock! Twelve Priests of Souls, all acting as one. Their power was devastating. There was nothing they couldn’t do!”
“Yes, and look where it got them,” said Naeo. “Look where it got us! I don’t think—”
Ash put a finger to his lips and gestured upwards. “Listen!” he whispered. “There’s something out there.”
A pulse of fear ran up Sylas’s spine. He held his breath and listened, and after a moment he heard a strange, rhythmical huff, huff, huff, coming from somewhere out in the night. It was getting louder, as though whatever was making the noise was drawing ever nearer to the Crucible. Sylas was just about to say that it sounded like gigantic wings when he was stopped short by a terrifying, half-human cry that echoed from the sides of the canyon. A moment later there was a distant crash, like the sound of shattering timbers.
Sylas felt Simia’s hand slip into his. “I think it’s coming from the Windrush!” she hissed.
Ash looked down at the parchment, then his eyes darted quickly about the Crucible, peering into the shadows and crevices. They came to rest on a single spot on the far side. “The entrance is just there!” he exclaimed, pointing. “Straight across! Come with me now!”
With that, he rose to his feet and strode out into the starlight, heading directly towards the opposite side of the canyon. The others hesitated for a moment, looking nervously at the great span of the Crucible floor, then they followed.
They felt horribly exposed. The dark cliffs towered above them, offering a thousand hidden places from which they might be seen. But now they had no choice but to keep on and reach the other side.
Sylas’s mind was racing. Had that been a human scream? He was almost certain he had heard words, but he could not make them out. And what was that other sound? Was it the Windrush? Surely Simia was right – it had to be. His thoughts flew to his mother and he felt a rising panic. His breath left him and his step faltered.
Then he felt a hand on his back.
It was Naeo.
She had seen him, sensed his panic, and now she was pushing him on – hard – so that he could not resist.
The sounds of splitting timber and the huff, huff, huff of mighty wings were clearer now, filling the open sky above. Someone in the darkness panicked and broke into a run, and suddenly they were all running headlong and blind. Already they were halfway across, weaving between the broken spheres of rock, piles of rubble and strange patches of shadow scattered across the sandy floor. These streaks of blackness looked a little like the burn marks on the canyon walls – the residue of some past inferno – but as he ran past them Sylas thought he saw one of them glisten in the moonlight.
