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.”
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“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.
