Sylas snatched up his rucksack and in a blind panic started off down one of the dark corridors of Things. As he left the sphere of candlelight, he found himself peering into the darkness of several passages, none of which looked familiar.
He heard a kindly chuckle behind him.
“Calm yourself, Sylas,” said Mr Zhi, walking up. “I’ll show you out, but first, take this.”
He pushed the Samarok into Sylas’s hands.
Sylas looked at him in surprise. “You mean… to keep?”
“To keep. You have much more use for it than I.”
“But I… I can’t!” cried Sylas as he followed Mr Zhi towards the front of the shop.
“But it’s already yours, Sylas, I’ve given it to you.”
Sylas hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head. “Thank you,” he said, “really, but I don’t know what I’d do with it! I don’t understand the code.”
“You will,” replied Mr Zhi.
As they emerged from the warren of parcels and stepped into the light, the shopkeeper turned and smiled.
“I have a motto, young man, one that has served me very well: ‘Do not fear what you do not understand.’ You have much to learn about the world you live in, but most of all about yourself – about who you are and where you are from. The Samarok will help you on that journey.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that – what journey?” asked Sylas, more confused than ever.
Mr Zhi took hold of the door handle and let the great din of the passing road into the shop.
“The Samarok is yours, and its journey of discovery will be yours too. Only you will know when that journey has begun, and where it is taking you. All I can offer you is this.” He pulled a small white envelope from his pocket and held it out to Sylas.
“What is it?”
“It will help you to decipher the runes,” said Mr Zhi. He held out his gloved hand and grasped Sylas’s in a handshake. “Now, you must go.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Then say nothing,” said the shopkeeper.
Sylas paused for a moment and looked into Mr Zhi’s kindly eyes. He felt he had made a friend and he wanted to say that he would be back, but somehow he knew that Mr Zhi had shown him the Things that he wanted to show, and that was the end of it.
He walked through the doorway and peered into the street beyond. It looked even colder and gloomier than it had before. The sky was bleak and threatening and the blanket of cloud seemed to brush the top of Gabblety Row. Rain lashed the passing cars, which threw it angrily back into the air to form a silver-grey mist above the road. The noise was a shock after the quiet seclusion of the Shop of Things: the hiss of tyres on the wet road, the growl of ill-tempered engines and the splatter of rain on the pavement. Sylas could hardly bring himself to step outside.
“Go now.” Mr Zhi’s voice was gentle but firm.
Sylas pushed the book inside his jacket and stepped into the street, gasping slightly as the first cold raindrops splattered on his face. He turned to look one more time at the old man in the half-darkness of the doorway. The shopkeeper was leaning against the door frame in a way that only emphasised the untidiness of his dishevelled grey suit.
“Thank you, Mr Zhi,” said Sylas. And then with sudden determination he added, “I’ll try to understand. I will.”
Mr Zhi smiled broadly and gave a low bow. “That is all that I can ask. And that is all your mother would ask.”
With one last wink, he let go of the handle and the old glass door swung closed.
Sylas stood stock-still for some moments, dumbfounded by Mr Zhi’s final words.
Then something made him glance back up at the shop sign.
The new wooden board above the door had been repainted entirely in a dark green. It was as if ‘the Shop of Things’ had never been there.
“Of beasts they spoke, of feral servants chained;
Born to the yoke of man, yet sent forth untamed.”
TOBIAS TATE SAT BACK in his leather chair watching the rain pouring down his grimy office window, reflecting on his day. He found it impossible to imagine a worse one, though, as he was unusually short of imagination, that was not particularly surprising. He had decided to devote the day to visiting his clients in Gabblety Row, which was a task so disagreeable to him that he forced it upon himself but once a year. The problem was that such visits demanded contact with people and, even worse, with people who considered that they knew him.
But what had made this day quite unbearable was that he had been subjected to a long and heated encounter with Herr Veeglum, his oldest client. The problem arose because the undertaker claimed that he had embalmed two more dead bodies than appeared in the accounts. Tate had pointed out that this was quite impossible. Veeglum had replied that one does not imagine embalming one corpse, let alone two, as it is a very vivid affair. The conversation had become increasingly strained until, with some irritation, Tate had suggested that perhaps Veeglum had inhaled too much embalming fluid.
And so the meeting had ended on a very sour note.
This was his dark mood as he sat back in his old office chair, large hands clasped behind his head and eyes fixed intently on the dripping windowpane. At that moment there came a soft knock on one of his two doors: the one that opened into the corridor.
Tate expelled all the air from his lungs in a blast of exasperation. He closed his eyes as though to shut out whatever it was that threatened to intrude, but only a moment passed before he heard the knock again.
Sweat pricked his brow.
“What is it?” he barked.
There was a brief silence. “Uncle, it’s me,” came the reply. “Can I come in?”
Tate’s shoulders and head slumped into a stoop of depression. “That door’s for customers,” he sighed. “Come through the apartment!”
There was a brief pause as Sylas obediently let himself into the apartment via the next door along the corridor and made his way across the kitchen and finally tapped on the other door to the office. It was a rule that made so little sense that he never remembered it.
“Yes! Yes!” snapped his uncle. “Come IN already!”
The door opened and Sylas slid into the room. It was clear at once that something was wrong. He was drenched from head to foot: his hair plastered to his face, his clothes baggy and misshapen. As he stood staring up at the darkening face of his uncle, drops of water fell around his feet.
Tate lunged for some papers that lay just inches from the gathering pool. “You’re raining on my documents! Back! Back!”
He pushed Sylas to the wall in an attempt to contain the damage. Sylas waited with a look of resignation until the floor around him had been cleared and his uncle had removed his bony hand from his chest.
“So? What do you want?” demanded Tate, still caressing one of the stacks of ledgers.
“Well,” began Sylas, slowly bringing his eyes up to meet his uncle’s. He swallowed hard. “It’s just that…”