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.
“We were told that they were studying the Other!”
“And in a way, they were.”
He shook his head incredulously. “But they created the Bringer-Laws, the celestial maps, the –” a look of realisation formed across his face – “the Passing Bell!”
Filimaya smiled. “And so now you see how significant it was that Sylas was summoned using the bell! Which brings me back to my point. Regardless of who believed the Glimmer Myth before, Sylas and Naeo prove that somehow, for some reason, it is true. They are the living myth. They bring us hope.”
“What hope?” shouted a fat man with red hair. “Forgive me, Filimaya, but what use is all this? How does it help us to know these things when we are here, hiding in the Valley of Outs, surrounded by our enemies? How does it stop the Undoing, or save our friends in the Dirgheon?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” shouted a young woman from high on the cliff face. “Sylas and Naeo have powers beyond our dreams – they managed to escape the Dirgheon and defeat Scarpia. There’s our hope!”
“So they’re here to save us? They’re a weapon?”
“Yes!” cried the woman to a murmur of excitement.
“No!” retorted Filimaya. “They’re nothing of the kind! They’re people, children, not weapons that we may use in our own defence. But they offer us the truth – the truth that we are more than we thought we were.”
“But what does all that mean for us?” appealed the woman, throwing her arms out in exasperation. “We need help, not truths.”
“We need both!” snapped Filimaya. She paused, controlling her rising temper.
Sylas shuffled nervously. This was not going well.
But then a familiar voice spoke up. “I agree with Filimaya. We’re all missing the point.” Ash strode out from beneath the branches of the tree. “We need to remember that before Sylas came, we were desperate. I mean, sure, we had the Meander Mill and some of us were managing to live openly by pretending we weren’t what we are. But what kind of life is that? We had no future. How could we have a future when we had lost all that made us strong – everything that made us who we are?”
“We’ve still lost all those things!” shouted the fat red-headed man.
Just then Sylas noticed something strange. As the debate had become heated, so the light in the hollow had begun to dim. When he looked up, he saw that sure enough the beams of light were weak and faltering, barely reaching the upper branches of the great tree.
Filimaya blinked irritably. “Yes, Glubitch, but that was the old world. That was the world in which Glimmers were a myth. That was the world in which Merisu had broken his promise – in which the Three Ways had defeated the Fourth. Sylas and Naeo have shown us a new world – a world in which anything might happen, where we must question the very fabric of our worlds, and where Thoth’s empire is built on sand.”
“Yes, that’s right!”