Their guide moved swiftly despite the thick mist, his long ranging steps more than a match for the quick-footedness of his followers. He never looked back, seeming to know exactly where they were: slowing when they fell behind and striding out when they drew near. He paused a few times to relight his pipe, which seemed prone to going out, but always he stayed well ahead.
Simia pulled at Sylas’s sleeve. “Get him to slow down! I’m exhausted!!”
“Cat got your tongue?” whispered Sylas, adjusting the rucksack on his shoulder. “Why don’t you ask?”
Simia eyed the young man leading them. She seemed unusually reluctant to speak up. “I think he knows that we’re tired –” she narrowed her eyes – “I’m just not sure he cares.”
They both watched their guide as he mounted a boulder and dropped down on the other side amid a cloud of orange pipe smoke. He was not powerfully built, but had a sprightly, lithe figure and his long limbs swept with ease through the undergrowth. He had a perfectly bald head, which glistened a little from his exertions, lending new life to the ring of eyes tattooed into his scalp. They stared back unblinkingly, as though seeing their every move and thought. Sylas remembered the very same kind of tattoos on Bowe’s head, but he was interested to see that there were fewer and that two of them, on one side of his head, were wrinkled and warped. It was as though someone had tried to burn them from his head.
“Stop fretting, we’re nearly there,” shouted the young Scryer, in a rich, accented voice. He did not slow or look around, but puffed out a cloud of orange smoke, which formed bright wisps in his wake.
“Told you!” hissed Simia.
They clambered up a small promontory that jutted into the lake, then skirted a towering cliff face. They became aware of a low rumble, which grew ever more noticeable, and when they looked out at the lake they saw that, although the morning fog was starting to clear, the surface was now clouded by great rolls and swirls of a new, finer mist.
“The waterfall!” exclaimed Simia, looking relieved. “We’re at the end of the valley.”
The young Scryer walked up to a great curtain of weeds and grasses hanging from the cliff face and turned to them. His gloomy features broke into a smile.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked, tapping out his pipe and tucking it behind his ear.
Sylas and Simia looked at each other.
“Ready for … what?” asked Sylas apprehensively.
Their guide pulled back the weeds and waved them into the darkness beyond. “For the Garden of Havens.”
They peered warily into the cave and, to their surprise, saw a passageway sloping downwards to a bright opening, shrouded in more greenery. The walls of the tunnel had been worn smooth by the powerful currents of the river and, like so much in the Valley of Outs, seemed almost to have been crafted to suit its human residents, with a regular ceiling the height of a man and a gently inclined floor to allow an easy descent.
This time their guide let them go first. With growing excitement Sylas made his way down the slope, running his hands over the damp rock to keep his balance, treading carefully on the sloping floor. His hand drifted over empty space on one side and he felt a chilly breeze drifting from an opening. He turned towards it, assuming this was the path, only to find himself grasped by the shoulders and pulled back.
“Not that way!” growled the Scryer.
“Why?” asked Simia, peering into the tunnel. “What’s down there?”
“Just the old mines,” he said, pushing them both onwards towards the light. “They’re forbidden now.”
“Why?” asked Sylas, groping his way down the tunnel.
The Scryer sighed. “Because they’re dangerous,” he said. “Because of the Black.”
Sylas was about to ask what “the Black” was, but as they reached the end of the tunnel the thunder of the waterfall surged, resonating in the rock and his chest. The air too had changed, becoming fresher and sweeter, carrying the fragrance of river silt. He drew up to the veil of weeds, which swung limply in a breeze from the bright world beyond. He paused for a moment, then pushed it aside.
The tunnel opened out into a cavernous bowl of rock, with the sky above and a sandy floor below. Its slick, curved sides rose ever more steeply until at the very top they slightly overhung, trailing grasses and vines into the vast space below. On one side could be seen the passing river as it flowed out into the lake, and beyond the ceaseless tumult of the waterfall.
Sylas’s eyes took in the wonders of the bay before him. The walls were riddled with thousands of tiny rivulets and streams, waterfalls and springs which in places gushed playfully down to the river but in others splashed out over the rocky planes, forming a thin film over the stone. Between this endless motion was a garden of rich flowers and glorious ferns, livid lichens and lustrous bushes. This was a haven for Nature’s most delicate and beautiful gifts.
But her finest creation of all was at the centre: a tree of gigantic proportions, whose ancient, crooked limbs had bowed almost to the ground under the weight of its giant leaves which even now, in winter, showed all the vitality of youth. There was only one sign of its age: dark veins running through its bark, which in places looked almost black, like the first tendrils of disease.
As the sun emerged from behind a cloud Sylas’s eyes were drawn upwards to the myriad beams of sunlight which passed across the hollow a hundred times, rebounding from the smooth, wet surfaces. The light touched the upper reaches of the grand old tree so that it seemed to wear a halo of gold.
“I’ve heard about this tree,” whispered Simia at his side, her eyes wide with wonder. “The Arbor Vital, they call it. The Living Tree. It just keeps going – no one knows how old it is.”
“And yet it may not live much longer …” murmured the Scryer.
“Why?”
“The Black,” he said, pointing to the trunk. “You can already see it.”
“The stuff in the mines?”
He nodded.
“What is it?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” he said, scowling in distaste. “Think of it as corruption and disease, because whatever it is, it is evil.”
Suddenly there was a sharp hiss above their heads. They looked up and to their surprise, saw a woman sitting on a narrow ledge of the cliff face. Her finger was pressed to her lips.
“Quiet!” mouthed the woman. “Please!”
The Scryer gave a brief bow of apology.
It was only then that Sylas and Simia became aware of the great gathering of people hidden in the folds of the gardens. Hundreds of silent figures were seated on mossy banks and ledges, perched on rocks and promontories in every part of the hollow, all of them looking down towards a figure standing near a boat at the water’s edge. She held her hands aloft, commanding their attention, speaking in a soft but resonant voice that Sylas recognised straight away.
“So, my sisters and brothers, after all these years we have reached the fulfilment of Merisu’s prophecy,” said Filimaya, her voice echoing from the walls so that she could be heard easily. “It is a prophecy that most considered so far-fetched that it passed into the realm of myth. But this is the time that the Glimmer Myth foretold, the time when the separation of our worlds is finally seen for what it is – a rift in our very souls!”
The Garden of Havens rumbled with low mutters and loud complaints. Sylas noticed the perplexity on people’s faces; their worried frowns and troubled glances.
One elderly man sitting near the front rose to his feet. “But, Filimaya, do you really believe that the myth is true? That we each have an identical twin? One of these Glimmers? That one day we might even be made one?” He laughed scornfully. “Surely this is the wildest of fancies! That’s why it’s called a myth!”
There was a rumble of agreement from the crowd.
Filimaya nodded. “I understand your doubts, really I do. But let me say this clearly so that there can be no mistake.” She lifted her eyes to the gathering. “Yes, I do believe the myth. Among others, I have believed it to be true for many years.”
“Which ‘others’ do you mean, exactly?” demanded the old man.
“Well, you now know that Espasian believed, as did Paiscion, and Grayvel and …” She hesitated for a moment, seeming to consider whether or not to continue. “And Merimaat. Merimaat was quite certain that the myth was true.”
Suddenly everyone cried out in astonishment. They turned to their neighbours in disbelief.
“Merimaat believed in all this?” asked the old man, looking more sceptical than ever. “Surely if she did, she would have shared it with us?”
“And so she did, Kaspertak,” said Filimaya. “With some, at least. The Otherly Guild and the Salsimaine Retreat were set up to study the Glimmer Myth.”
The aged man’s mouth fell open. “But … they were going for decades – centuries!”
Filimaya nodded.
