by Brian Keaney
The sumaire began to lead the way around the rim of the crater. Above them the walls disappeared into dark purple clouds. Thunder rumbled menacingly, and from time to time the sky was lit up by forked lightning. Glancing over the edge, Oryn realized that the crater was far deeper than his sight could possibly fathom.
Now they came to a set of steps and began to descend steeply. The deeper they went, the hotter it grew. Other sumara flew back and forth across the crater, emitting raucous cries like giant birds, but Oryn’s guide paid no attention to them. “Hurry up!” it kept telling Oryn. “We must go deeper!”
At last they found themselves on the next rim of the crater. A fierce, insistent wind blew constantly through the rows of twisted thorn trees, their leaves as gray as the bare rock from which they sprang. As Oryn drew nearer, a low moaning seemed to come from the trees themselves, a human sound and one so full of regret and disappointment that tears began to run down his cheeks.
The sumaire led the way through the trees, and soon Oryn understood why the sound had affected him so strongly. From the heart of each tree a face stared out at him with an expression of intense suffering.
“What are these creatures?” Oryn demanded.
The sumaire looked at him contemptuously. “Do you not recognize your own kind?” it asked. “Each of them was once like you. See, there is your friend Luther.” It pointed to one of the trees that grew closest to the edge of the rim. Oryn went closer.
“Nyro, is that you?” said a voice from within the tree.
Oryn stared back at the tree in bewilderment. Softly he repeated the name by which it had addressed him. “Nyro.” Yes, that was his name.
“Luther, what has happened to you?” he asked.
“This is my death,” Luther told him. “It has taken the shape into which I grew during my life.”
“I don’t understand,” Nyro said. “You weren’t like this. You were a good person.”
“You only knew me as I once was,” Luther replied. “You did not see what I became at the end.”
“But isn’t there any hope that you might escape from this terrible place?”
“Not if the bridge across the abyss is built,” Luther replied.
“What do you mean?” Nyro asked.
“A bridge is being built between the edge of the Nakara and the Resurrection Fields,” Luther told him. “If it is completed, then all hope will die—for me, for you and for all mankind.”
“Who is building this bridge?” Nyro asked.
“His name is Orobas,” Luther replied.
As he spoke these words, there came an enormous clap of thunder. The ground beneath began to shake with increasing violence. A moment later the rock on which Nyro was standing tilted dramatically, and he lost his balance, fell down and began rolling towards the edge. Frantically he reached out for something to hold on to, but the ground beneath him shuddered once more, and he was shrugged off the rim to fall helplessly towards the depths of the crater.
At first his mind was filled with nothing but the sheer terror of his fall. But then he remembered Osman’s instructions. There was no string attached to his finger now, but instead that strange green light unfurling endlessly from the tip of his index finger. He seized it with his right hand and pulled as hard as he could.
Back in Luther’s room Osman was standing on the edge of the circle, watching Nyro carefully. He had been far from certain that the ritual would really work. Some of it he had pieced together from ancient manuscripts. The rest he had filled in himself, making an educated guess about what ought to happen next. It was clear that Nyro had entered a deep trance. But now, suddenly, he let out a yell and pulled hard on the string that ran between his index finger and Osman’s.
Osman knew what he had to do. It was essential that he pull Nyro out of the circle without stepping into it himself. But he had time to do no more than think of this before he found himself yanked roughly towards Nyro. No sooner had he stepped inside the circle than the walls of Luther’s room vanished and he was hurtling downwards.
“What a fool I’ve been to imagine I could exercise any control over this ritual!” he told himself. “I’ve meddled with things beyond my understanding.”
THE RESURRECTION FIELDS
Bea struggled to get to her feet, but the panicking crowd would not let her rise. So instead she wrapped her arms around her head and curled up in a ball in an attempt to avoid being trampled to death. “This is how it ends,” she thought, waiting for the blow that would knock her into unconsciousness. But it did not come. Yet.
Or perhaps it came and she did not feel it? Perhaps this was what death was like? Then suddenly she was somewhere else entirely.
Scrambling to her feet, Bea looked around and found herself surrounded by a vast, grassy plain. Here and there a few trees dotted the landscape, but there was nothing else except a line of blue hills in the distance. A few yards away to her right, the ground was shifting and rippling. Then, a moment later, a shower of earth was flung upwards, and she realized with a gasp that something was digging its way out.
A human hand pushed through the soil, then another, followed by a man’s head. Like a dog drying itself after swimming, the digger shook the dirt from his face and then proceeded to clamber out of the hole he had made. He was quite young, in his mid-twenties probably, and completely naked. Despite the mud with which his muscular body was streaked, it was clear that he was strikingly handsome. He gazed in Bea’s direction with an expression of complete serenity while she stared back at him, shocked and confused. But either her presence did not surprise him or he simply did not notice her, because a moment later he turned without acknowledging her existence and began walking away towards the distant hills.
Bea opened her mouth to call, but she was interrupted as the ground from which the young man had emerged now began to move of its own accord once more. Like melting chocolate, the individual lumps of earth, and even the grass that grew on them, began to flow together and coalesce so that within a short time the area had returned to its former undisturbed condition.
A little way to her right, the earth was being thrown into the air once more. A middle-aged woman emerged naked and dirty but smiling beatifically before wandering off into the distance. Before long the hole from which she had climbed had also covered itself up, and not far away another individual was clawing his way to the surface. As Bea stood there in mute disbelief, more and more people sprang from the ground—tall, short, skinny, heavy, muscular, bony, dark-skinned, light-skinned. It was as if they were a crop that had been planted and was now maturing all at once. Bea had seen some extraordinary things since leaving Tarnagar, but nothing had prepared her for this.
Feeling something touch her on the shoulder, she spun around and saw a winged man dressed in a long white robe standing beside her. He was tall with shoulder-length hair, and he glowed with a light that seemed to come from within his body.
“Tzavinyah!” she gasped, for she had seen him once before on the night that Ezekiel had been killed.
“Beatrice,” he said.
She had always insisted on being called Bea by everyone else, including her parents, ever since she was old enough to have an opinion on the matter. But she would not have dared to correct Tzavinyah, who seemed to possess an authority more complete than any she had ever encountered.
“I have been calling you for many days,” he told her, and she was immediately transported by the icy beauty of his voice. “But your sadness has made you deaf to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It could not be helped. You are here now. That is what matters.”
“But what is this place?” Bea asked.
“These are the Resurrection Fields,” Tzavinyah replied. “It is where those who have encountered death find their way to a new life.”
“You mean all these people are dead?”
“Once. Certainly.”
“Does that mean that I’m …?”
Tzavinyah shook his h
ead. “You came in response to my summons. They arrived here by a longer path. Watch them. Try to see where they go.”
Bea did as he suggested, but however hard she tried to watch any of the figures that emerged from the earth, there was always a point at which she found she looked away, without even being aware she had done it. And when she looked back, the figure had disappeared, though another was busily digging its way to the surface nearby.
Tzavinyah smiled. “You cannot see where they go,” he told her, “and it is no different for me. Some things are hidden from all of us. All we know for certain is that this is where they begin their new journey.”
“But I don’t understand. If I’m not dead, then why have you brought me here?” Bea asked.
“Turn around,” Tzavinyah replied.
Bea did as she was told and saw that behind her the plain stopped abruptly as if a giant knife had sliced through it. Beyond the edge was a pale blue nothingness that was neither sky nor cloud nor even air.
“Behold the abyss!” Tzavinyah said. “It lies between the Nakara and the Resurrection Fields. Now look through the telescope.”
Beside them, on a stand, was a telescope similar to the one that Bea and her father had used for stargazing when she had been a child. Bending down, she looked through the eyepiece. At first she could see nothing but a vague blue blur. But as she turned the focusing knob, a picture began to emerge of what was happening on the other side of the abyss.
“What do you see?” Tzavinyah asked.
“It looks as though someone is building a bridge,” Bea replied.
Tzavinyah nodded gravely. “You gaze upon the edge of the Nakara. The bridge that you see is the work of Orobas. But he must not be allowed to succeed.”
“Who is he?” Bea asked.
“He is our enemy,” Tzavinyah told her. “Yours and mine and every living creature’s. In my tongue his name means hunger, and in truth that is all he is—an appetite that can never be satisfied, an emptiness that can never be filled. He must be stopped, and you are the one who must do it.”
“Me? How can I stop him?”
Tzavinyah gave a slight sigh. It was a sound that filled Bea with so much sadness that she felt as if she would never be glad again. “As I told you, some things are hidden from all of us,” he said. “The path of our enemy’s defeat is just such a thing. I do not know what you must do, only that no one else can do it.”
“But how will I know what to do?” Bea asked.
“I cannot say,” Tzavinyah said. “But your task may be more obvious than you think. Sometimes the answer is right in front of us though we cannot see it for looking. My advice is this: look for the hardest choice, the one that everyone seeks to dissuade you from. That is the path you must choose.”
There were so many more things Bea wanted to ask, but instantly the scene began to grow faint. Once more she began to hear the shouts and cries of a panicked crowd. In the blink of an eye, she was again curled up on the ground in Leader’s Square while people surged past, driven frantic by the smoke that billowed all around them. Boots thudded into her ribs as people stumbled across her. Somebody kicked her on the head, and the pain arched through her like a lightning bolt.
Suddenly she felt someone grip her arm and pull her to her feet. “Are you all right?” Albigen asked.
“I think so.”
“Come on, we have to get out of here!”
ENIL’S TREE
It took Kidu over a week to recover, a week during which Dante turned over and over in his mind the words that his mother had whispered to him in that panic-stricken moment before he had fled the Odylic realm.
On Enil’s Tower there is a message for Bea.
He did not dare to return to the Odylic realm to ask his mother what she meant. Orobas would be waiting for him, like a wild beast prowling outside the mouth of the cave where its prey has sought refuge.
In the meantime, he kept thinking about the black hole that Kidu called Shurruppak. Dante pressed Kidu to explain what he meant.
“Story of Shurruppak is story of beginning of world,” Kidu said, as if this explained everything.
“But I don’t know about the beginning of the world,” Dante replied.
For a long time Kidu refused to accept this, insisting that Dante was trying to trick him, but eventually he was persuaded to tell the story of how all things began, as he had learned it in the nest.
“First of all was Anki, mother of all zimbir,” Kidu told Dante. “Feather fall from Anki’s wing. Become the world. Sun, moon, stars, land and sea—all grow from Anki’s feather. Then Iggigi appear. Mate for Anki. Anki lay egg. Egg hatch. Shurruppak come out. Eat and eat and eat. Anki cannot feed him. Ask Iggigi, ‘What shall we do?’ Iggigi cover him with darkness of night. Shurruppak silent but not finished. Just waiting. Meantime, Anki lay more eggs. Many new zimbir hatch. Different tribes. Kekkaka—Kidu’s tribe. Huwawa with curved beaks. Others, too. Many, many tribes. All live together. Happy time in Nirnasha.”
“Nirnasha?” Dante asked.
“Home Above the Sky,” Kidu told him impatiently. “Kidu can’t tell story if Giddim ask questions.”
“Sorry,” Dante said. “Please go on.”
Kidu paused for a long time, to make it clear that he was not prepared to tolerate any more interruptions. But at last he deigned to continue. “Time not stay happy. Zimbir begin to fall out. Huwawa worst of all. Kill their brothers and sisters. Anki find out. Very angry. All zimbir thrown down to earth. Path back to Nirnasha hidden from them. Anki say, ‘From now on every zimbir make a thousand journeys before him find Hidden Path.’”
The thought of how the zimbir had been thrown out of paradise for preying upon one another seemed to fill him with sadness, and he sat without moving for hours on end so that Dante had to persuade him to find insects to eat in order to keep up his strength.
“Remember, you have seen the Hidden Path,” Dante reminded him, when Kidu still seemed gloomy the following day. “It hasn’t disappeared.”
“But will Kidu see it again before Shurruppak eats it?” Kidu replied unhappily. “Maybe not.”
“Tell me the rest of the story,” Dante coaxed, and eventually Kidu agreed.
“Everything different after zimbir leave Nirnasha,” he began. “Every day new creatures born out of dirt. First small, like muzur. Then bigger. Last and worst is zittenziteen. Aaach! Terrible creature. Walk on two legs. No fly. Full of noise. Make traps for zimbir. Fight all creatures. Soon Anki grow angry once more. Say, ‘Let Shurruppak eat up everything.’ But Iggigi say, ‘No. I have plan. Zittenziteen is most cunning creature. Find strongest one. Make him ruler over all. Even zimbir. Then we get peace.’ So Anki and Iggigi fly over world. Look for strongest zittenziteen. Find Enil.”
“Wait a minute!” Dante interrupted. “Did you say his name was Enil?”
On Enil’s Tower there is a message for Bea.
“Giddim want to hear story, Giddim listen!” Kidu said.
“Sorry.”
“Giddim always sorry. Not good enough! Bad as zittenziteen!”
“Sor—I mean, please carry on.”
“Kidu forget what happening.”
“Iggigi and Anki found Enil.”
“Oh yes! Now Iggigi tell Enil, ‘Make other zittenziteen behave. Or Anki let Shurruppak eat up everything.’ Enil agree. At first everything good. Zittenziteen stop trapping zimbir. All creatures stop fighting. Iggigi visit Enil often. Enil build stone tree for him to land on.”
A stone tree! Enil’s Tower. It had to be!
“But other zittenziteen jealous,” Kidu continued. “One day they put poison in Enil’s food. Enil fall asleep and stay asleep. Right away everything turn bad again. Zittenziteen make traps. Huwawa kill their brothers and sisters. Even muzur fighting. Anki look down and see what going on. ‘Enough!’ she say to Iggigi. ‘Your plan no good. Now I send Shurruppak to eat up everything, even Hidden Path.’” Kidu sighed. “Iggigi want to help zimbir. He promise to send Zimbir
That Is Not Zimbir, show the way back to Hidden Path.”
“Zimbir That Is Not Zimbir—what does that mean?” Dante asked.
“Kidu not know. No one know. Maybe Iggigi forget his promise because now Shurruppak has come,” he concluded miserably.
“Tell me more about Enil,” Dante urged.
“Nothing else to tell,” Kidu replied irritably. “Only good zittenziteen ever. Others poisoned him.”
“What about the stone tree that he built for Iggigi to perch on?”
“What about it?”
“Is it still standing?”
“Of course!”
“Can we go there?”
“Kidu not fall for same trick twice. Giddim promise Kidu to go away if Kidu show him Shurruppak. Then he say sorry, can’t go. Giddim always sorry. Kidu not want to fly to Enil’s tree. Waste of time.”
“Listen, Kidu. I do want to leave and I will, as soon as I can, but first I have a job to do. And part of that job involves defeating Shurruppak. That’s what you want as well, isn’t it?”
“Giddim defeat Shurruppak? Impossible!”
“Didn’t I show you the Hidden Path?”
“Yes,” Kidu conceded.
“You see, I have more power than you think. And I have a plan.”
Kidu snorted. “Like Iggigi’s plan?”
“Better than Iggigi’s plan because this one is going to work. But first I need you to show me Enil’s tree.”
Kidu sighed. “No peace! No rest! All right, Giddim. Kidu show you Enil’s tree. But then you make Shurruppak go away. Or …” He paused. “Or Kidu fall from Enil’s tree. Keep wings still. End of Kidu. End of Giddim, too. Understand?”
“I understand.”
* * *
A few days after the funeral of Dr. Sigmundus, Bea was sitting with her back to the stone pillar, trying to make sense of all that had happened. First there had been the meeting with her father. She could not forget the look on his face when he caught sight of her. She had disappointed him, she realized that, but he still loved her dearly. And she loved him, too, though they were on separate sides. Then there was the appearance of Tzavinyah. She had told the others about him and the things he had told her, but no one knew what to make of it.