“There is more to the hills than meets the eye, for they hide in their inner folds a sanctuary that defies discovery, a place of improbable magic, a place called the Valley of Outs.”

FILIMAYA WAS ONCE AGAIN queen of the wave, standing tall and graceful in the rear of her boat while it leapt and pranced beneath her, her hand outstretched as her eyes scanned the river and shoreline ahead for any sign of the enemy. The great wall of water had subsided a little and it now rushed and tumbled at a less terrifying speed, conveying the seven remaining boats to safety.

Still there was no sign of the Ghor on the banks or in the river and Sylas noticed people gradually relaxing a little, no longer straining their eyes to check for dark figures moving stealthily along the riverbanks or for eel-like shapes gliding below the surface of the river. Instead they looked ahead, beyond the outlying buildings of the town, beyond the jetties and mills and cattleposts to the forested hills that now grew before them, offering the barely believable promise of sanctuary.

Sylas writhed from side to side trying to get comfortable in the back of the boat, fidgeting with the bags that he and Simia had propped behind them. In truth it was not the hard boards and the endless bucking of the vessel that made him restless, it was the adrenalin still coursing through his veins and the tension between him and his companions. No one had said a word since all that had happened at the bridge, and while Simia and Ash had caught Sylas’s eye more than once, they had quickly looked away.

Sylas was full of doubts. Had he really made those things happen? Had he really just saved his friends? After all, no one had seen anything on the surface – the Slithen and the Ghor in the water had just seemed to disappear. But then why had Filimaya turned and looked at him like that?

He tried to clear his mind, to think of something else, but instantly it filled with the terrible scenes he had just witnessed. What would become of the Suhl now? What would they suffer because of him? They had helped him, laid down their lives for him and in return he had led the Ghor to them, destroyed their beautiful hideaway, their wonderful gardens, their precious books.

He lowered his head into his hands, staring fixedly at the bottom of the boat.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

Sylas looked up at Ash.

“No more than it’s our fault that we couldn’t help. This is just what it’s like. The Undoing.”

Sylas was silent for some moments, but then he lifted his eyes.

“What is the Undoing?”

Ash looked up at the hills and narrowed his eyes. “Hatred. Loathing. All wrapped up in a name.”

“That’s about right,” grunted Bayleon, lowering an oar to wipe his brow.

“It’s Thoth’s attempt to annihilate us,” continued Ash. “Him and his servants, like Scarpia. To remove us from his world, to destroy us and everything about us: our writings, our homes, our magic, our history – everything.”

Sylas frowned. “Why?”

Ash shrugged. “It’s not as if he’s ever explained himself.”

Bayleon laughed despite himself.

“No one’s sure why,” said Ash more seriously. “Some say that he fears Essenfayle, but it’s time we accepted that the Three Ways are far more powerful than our—”

“Essenfayle isn’t finished yet,” cautioned Bayleon sharply.

“Well, much good it’s done us.” Ash looked over the side of the boat at the passing banks. “Anyway, some say it’s to do with Essenfayle, but most of us think it’s more to do with the Other. In any case, it is as it is. To be honest, most of the Suhl have stopped thinking about why it’s happening. It’s been going on for generations. They’ve come to see it as a fact, like the changing of the seasons. They think it has no end and no meaning, it’s just the way of the world.”

“Is that what you think?”

Ash met his eyes. “No. It means everything.”

Sylas lay back and considered this for a moment. “How do you mean it’s gone on for generations?”

Ash looked at him questioningly.

“Well, you said it was all Thoth’s doing, so how could it have been happening for generations?”

Ash exchanged glances with Bayleon. “Thoth has been around longer than anyone can remember. He was alive before my father, and before my father’s father. He’s as inevitable as the rise of day.” He spat over the side of the boat. “And as the fall of night.”

They soon passed the final scattered dwellings on the outskirts of town and the river swept them out into the open countryside: tilled fields waiting for the first sowing of spring; wild pastures, home to teeming herds of sheep and cattle; hedgerows and coppices hanging over the waters; verdant woods full of ancient trees.

Sylas looked across at the tiny flotilla of boats clinging to the wave. It seemed even smaller than it had in town. So few, he thought, so very few. The plight of the Suhl seemed so hopeless – their lives so precarious. He thought of Thoth and the Undoing and everything they had lost, and he wondered how they carried on – how none of them seemed cowed or broken by what had happened at the bridge. There was no sign of relief or joy on those sallow faces, but neither was there any evidence of defeat. Instead they talked in soft tones among themselves or sat quietly, thoughtfully, their eyes fixed resolutely on the grey horizon.

Soon the occupants of one boat began to sing, quietly at first but then louder so that the others heard and joined in. Bayleon struck up in a deep baritone and Simia and Ash followed him. Sylas did not recognise it at first, but then came a verse that he knew. It was the song Filimaya had sung at the mill.

 

And so we change as change we must,

When standards rot and sabres rust,

When the sun is set and night is come,

When all is lost, when naught is won.

 

When nations fall, when day is done,

When all is lost, when naught is won,

What nobler charge, what cause so great

As brother’s plight and kindred’s fate?

 

Sylas listened for a while and then joined them in their song, humming the haunting melody. And, as they all sang, that feeble company gathered its strength and became one: united and defiant. To his surprise, Sylas felt his eyes burning and he swallowed down a wave of emotion. How proud he was to be one of their number. One of these desperate, courageous few.

As the wave surged on, the mood in the surviving boats began to change. They knew that sanctuary was growing near and the singing gave way to a new, animated chatter. They spoke excitedly about the impending fork in the river, which would take them deep into the river’s sleepy meanders, through the hills, far into the sprawling labyrinth of tributaries and byways, oxbows and rivulets that would keep them safe from discovery. And, from there, they would soon find their brethren, hidden deep in the forested hills of the Valley of Outs.

This was the topic of conversation in most of the boats, but not all. The travellers in Sylas’s boat grew quiet in their anticipation. They knew that their fork in the river would take them somewhere else entirely, somewhere alien and dark, bleak and dangerous.

Sylas rested with his back against Simia’s, looking out at the other boats gliding down the river, at Filimaya talking and smiling with the others, her hand still outstretched over the wave. He lifted his eyes and saw the great forested hills looming ahead, some covered with the skeletal shapes of winter-barren trees, others bearing a dark green blanket of evergreens. He watched as the ground started to rise around them and the banks became steep and rocky, climbing slowly towards the grey sky. Once again he was in the hills, and they seemed to be welcoming him back. But how much more he knew now, as he came to them again. About this world, about himself, about his mother.

His eyes shifted to his backpack. He reached down and drew the Samarok from it, holding the ancient book for the first time since the Den of Scribes. His fingers traced the hard-cut gems, the leaves of parchment, the soft leather, and he found his mind drifting back to Mr Zhi, to the day that now seemed so long ago when he had been given the mysterious Third Thing. How confused he had been, how lost he had felt.

“You have much to learn about the world you live in, but most of all about… who you are,” Mr Zhi had said, “and where you are from.”

How true that had proved to be.

For some moments he flicked through the pages of the Samarok, scanning the strange runes and countless entries, and his thoughts turned to his encounter with Fathray.

“… your journey to the Magruman and your journey to find your mother are one and the same,” the gentle Scribe had said.

Sylas’s gaze rose from the Samarok to the river and the wave that drove them onwards towards the Barrens. His eyes travelled over the passing rocks, the towering forests that shrouded the hilltops; then still higher, up into the darkening sky, where a great grey blanket had dulled the encroaching sunset to a pallid glow. There, far above the green canopy, he saw the dark shapes of giant birds turning lightly on the breeze, tilting on invisible currents to form graceful, intersecting circles in the void. It was another familiar sight, like the birds he had watched from Gabblety Row, flying high over the distant hills, calling him on.

He was meant to be here. He knew that now. Just as Filimaya had said, this strange place was a mirror to his own world – not an alien world, but one that brought him closer to understanding his own. Already it had taught him about himself and about his past, about his mother and hers. And it held many more answers – he was sure of it. Perhaps, after all, this mysterious journey was his best chance of being with her again.

“I’ll try to understand,” he had told Mr Zhi.

“That is all that I can ask. And that is all your mother would ask,” was the reply.

He looked downriver, towards the deep ravines in the hills and the glowering sky above the Barrens, and for the first time he felt ready for what lay ahead.

“I’m coming for you, Mum,” he murmured. “I’m coming.”