Circles of Stone. Ian Johnstone

got you!” Ash panted. “I’ve got you!”

      

      “The Suhl are a people of two parts: of dark and light, of loss and hope. They suffer the Undoing, but they are the last to be undone.”

      THEY SAT SHIVERING AT the water’s edge, neither of them saying a word. Simia was hunched forward, her elbows resting on her knees and her wet hair a curtain around her face, hiding her features from view. Sylas simply stared out at the endless bubbling churn that had so nearly taken his life. He felt at once impossibly weary and intensely alive, as though these were the first few moments of a new life: precious and fragile. Even the throbbing pain in his temple was somehow welcome – it meant he was still here. He felt a trickle of blood rolling down his cheek and did not wipe it away. He savoured its warmth, its tickling touch.

      He looked upstream and saw the splintered remains of his canoe laid over a boulder, and a little nearer, the wreckage of Simia’s, which barely looked like a boat at all. The only recognisable part was the tip of the bow, hanging from a low-lying branch like lifeless fruit.

      He looked over at Simia and saw how she had folded into herself, alone and shivering and full of shame. He knew he should be angry with her but he wasn’t. He was just glad she was there; broken and bruised, but there.

      “You have to get warm!” said Triste, emerging suddenly from the bushes. He dumped a load of firewood by their feet and immediately set about making a fire. “Get your heavy clothes off – quickly! Lay them over the rocks by the fire.”

      By some miracle, the Scryer’s flint and tinder were dry and within moments he had started the fire. When Sylas and Simia had laid their clothes out on the rocks, they joined him, warming themselves by the flames. Still no one spoke.

      When their fingers had warmed a little, they busied themselves checking through their belongings. Sylas found his bag drenched but intact and with a sinking heart he opened the drawstring and reached for the Samarok. The cover felt strangely dry and as he leafed through its pages, he found them surprisingly untouched by the waters.

      Finally they all sat back in silence, basking in the radiance of the flames as they grew into a blaze. Simia stared blankly into the flickering light.

      “I’m so sorry,” she said, finally. Her voice was just a whisper. She lifted her face and looked at Sylas with tears in her eyes. “So … so sorry.”

      Sylas reached across and took her hand. It was as cold as stone. He knew that she had tried to come back for him, that she had only fallen in because she was trying to reach him – Triste had mumbled that much – but he had no idea how long she had been in the water. By the feel of her, it had been far, far too long.

      “It’s OK, Simsi,” he said. “We got out of it, didn’t we?”

      “Barely,” grunted Triste.

      Simia turned to the Scryer. “I’m really sorry,” she repeated. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

      “You’d have drowned!” growled Triste, fixing her with his piercing blue eyes. “And the hopes of the Suhl would have drowned with you!”