by Brian Keaney
Somebody coughed and she turned to see a pale youth of about her own age. Dark hair hung low over his forehead, and he was dressed in the uniform of a junior doctor on Tarnagar.
Startled, she scrambled to her feet. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He treated her to a rather unpleasant smile. “I’ve come to see you, of course. But I see you’re looking at my uniform,” he added. “I’m going to be promoted soon.”
Bea stared back at him. His words echoed those her father had used at the funeral of Dr. Sigmundus. Had her father reported their meeting to the authorities? But why would they have sent a junior doctor to confront her?
The young man clasped his hands together and held them out in front of him. “Let’s play a game,” he said. “See if you can guess what I’ve got in my hand.”
Bea could still only stare at him in confusion.
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to play,” the young man said mockingly. “Oh well. I’ll have to show you, then.” He opened his hands, and Bea saw that a capsule of Ichor rested in the middle of his palm. “Recognize it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on,” he continued. “You’re not going to try and tell me this isn’t the capsule you flushed down the toilet in the Museum of the Leader?”
This was too much. Bea felt her grip on reality beginning to slip completely. “Who are you?” she demanded.
The youth frowned. “Let me see. Regret, recrimination, discontent, disappointment, disillusion. Are any of those names?”
“Of course not!” Bea replied.
“Then you can call me Set instead. It’s much simpler.” “Look, what do you want?” Bea said. “I’ve come for our wedding,” he told her.
With that, Bea suddenly found herself standing in a Dagabo surrounded by a crowd of people, all wearing their best clothes. Among them were her mother and father and her classmates from Tarnagar. She was wearing a white wedding dress and facing the Official Receiver. Beside her was Set, smiling broadly and holding a ring between his finger and thumb.
Frantically she turned and tried to flee, but arms reached out to grab her, and a moment later she found herself being carried above their heads, screaming and struggling, along a series of corridors. Bea knew where she was now—in the asylum on Tarnagar. A moment later the crowd carried her into the Shock Room, the very chamber where she had witnessed Dante being tortured. Now she was pushed onto the chair and strapped in place. Electrodes were placed on her head—and then, with a searing jolt, she felt the most terrible pain rack her body.
When the pain stopped, Set was standing in front of her with one eyebrow raised quizzically. “If you want me to turn it off,” he told her, “you must promise to be mine. It’s as simple as that.”
Bea shook her head. This time she thought the pain had killed her. But when she opened her eyes, there was Set once more.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said brightly. “I’ll make it easy for you. You can promise to marry me only if the sky is filled with feathers and the moon sleeps in a basket. What do you say?”
“All right,” Bea agreed desperately.
“That’s a good girl,” Set said. Then, quite suddenly, he vanished. And Bea found that she was lying on the ground beside the pillar.
So it had been a nightmare after all? And yet it had seemed so real! Feeling extremely weak, Bea propped herself up on her elbow. She then spotted a little bird perched on the steps of the pillar. It was so close that she could have reached out her hand and touched it. Yet it did not fly away. It didn’t even seem to be afraid of her, just sat there quite calmly, looking at her with bright eyes.
The bird was white, like the one that had flown at Dante when he had tried to strangle her on the cliff top near Eden Valley. But it couldn’t be the same bird, could it? All birds of a particular species looked more or less the same. But there was something odd about this one, the way it just sat there and stared at her as if it wanted to speak to her. Something stirred in her memory, some fragment of a dream, but she could not bring it to the surface.
“What do you want?” Bea asked.
The bird made no reply.
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Bea told herself. The nightmare had unnerved her. She really ought to go back and join the rest of the Púca. Help with preparing the food. That would bring her back to her senses. But the feeling that she ought to remember something held her there.
* * *
It had taken most of the afternoon to fly here, but as soon as Dante had caught sight of the stone pillar on the mountaintop, he had been certain that this was where his mother had meant him to come. No sooner had he spotted the pillar, however, than he saw Bea lying on the ground with a man standing beside her. The man had his back to Dante, but there was something distinctly familiar about him—something that made Dante extremely uneasy. Then, quite suddenly, he disappeared.
Moments later Kidu landed on the steps of the pillar. Bea did not move at first, and Dante was frightened that she might be dead. But then she opened her eyes and noticed Kidu.
“What do you want?”
If only Dante could find some way to let her know that he was there, in the body of the bird. But Kidu was already growing impatient.
“Well, Giddim, you see Enil’s tree. Now you satisfied?” the bird demanded.
On Enil’s Tower there is a message for Bea.
But looking out through Kidu’s eyes, Dante couldn’t see anything written on the pillar.
Kidu began tearing at the moss that grew on the stone step, seeking out the tiny insects that sheltered among its roots. He seemed to have found a particularly tasty variety, for he pecked away industriously, occasionally mumbling to himself.
“No, no, no, little muzur. Not run away from Kidu! Too slow! Too slow! Kidu eat you all up. Mmm! Very nice, very nice.”
Dante did his best to ignore Kidu’s enthusiasm. Sharing the bird’s brain for so many days, he had soon learned to shut himself off from the physical sensations that accompanied Kidu’s mealtimes—the tiny but frantic struggle as the insect was seized in the bird’s beak and swallowed whole, the delight Kidu took in catching his prey.
Suddenly Dante noticed that where the bird had pulled away the moss, letters had been carved into the stone.
“Pull up more moss!” Dante urged.
“Kidu not hungry now! Plenty muzur already!”
“You must pull up more moss!”
“Not must! Kidu please Kidu!” It was clear that Kidu was highly offended and in no mood to compromise. “Giddim always saying must do this, must do that,” he went on. “Never say please, Kidu. Never say nice Kidu.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Giddim always sorry.”
“Please, Kidu, pull up more of the moss. It’s important if you really want to defeat Shurruppak.”
“How pull up moss defeat Shurruppak? Giddim not make sense!”
“You have to trust me.”
“Trust Giddim! Why?”
“Didn’t I save you from the huwawa?”
“Save yourself as well.”
“Yes, that’s true. But I promise you that pulling up the moss will help defeat Shurruppak. Not right away, maybe, but soon.”
Kidu hesitated. Dante could feel him considering whether to agree or not.
“I am very grateful to you for everything you’ve done so far,” Dante told him. “Telling me the story of the beginning of all things, bringing me here.”
“Showing you Shurruppak,” Kidu reminded him.
“Yes, of course, showing me Shurruppak.”
“Fighting zittenziteen.”
Dante had to think about this for a moment. Of course, Kidu meant the time that he had flown at Dante’s own body when Orobas had been using it to try to kill Bea. Dante was tempted to point out that this had not been something Kidu had done willingly. Dante had just forced him into it. But he wisely decided to keep this observation to himself.
“Yes, fighting the zittenziteen as well. You’ve been very, very good, Kidu. I realize that I’m always asking for favors, but I really am trying to defeat Shurruppak and leave your body, so if you would just be kind enough to tear away some more of the moss, I’d be so grateful.”
Kidu hesitated. “Very well,” he said at last. He bent down, ripped up another section of moss and immediately began pecking at the frantic insects that were exposed to the light of day.
At last Bea seemed to notice that something odd was going on. She stood up and moved closer. Immediately Kidu spread his wings and flew a little way off. Nothing that Dante could say would persuade him to get too close to a zittenziteen. But Bea herself was pulling at the moss by now and frowning as she tried to make sense of what was written underneath. Dante could not see what the letters said, but he could tell from Bea’s reaction that they were making a deep impression on her. A moment later she turned and ran back towards the beehive huts, calling out excitedly to the others.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE
Relief flooded through Nyro as he felt an answering pull on the ribbon of green light that unfurled endlessly from his finger. His fall through the air came to an abrupt halt.
“I knew Osman would get me out of here!” he said to himself. “I knew he wouldn’t let me fall!”
But just as suddenly the resistance at the other end of the line vanished completely, and he plunged downwards once again. The farther he fell, the darker it became until now he could see nothing at all. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the pain he would experience upon impact. Curiously enough, he felt no anger with Osman for getting him into this, only a deep sadness that he was going to die so young without tasting fully what life had to offer.
Suddenly he made contact with the ground. At least that was what it felt like to begin with. Except that he kept falling, though now much more slowly. He opened his eyes to see what was happening, but everything was black. Then with a jolt he hit the bottom. He tried to cry out but immediately felt himself choking as his mouth filled with …with what? Mud? He must have fallen into a great pit of slimy muck. He closed his mouth again and frantically began flailing about as he tried to force his way upwards. More than once he felt like giving up, but instinct drove him on.
Suddenly he broke through to the surface, coughing and spluttering. As he did so, another shape plunged into the swamp and disappeared beneath its surface, causing great waves of muck to toss Nyro’s body about like a cork on the ocean.
His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness now, and he could make out a tiny glimmer of light moving about to one side. He decided to head towards it. The trick, he realized after some time, was to make slow, careful movements with his arms and legs. In this way, he began to move steadily across the swamp.
He was still swimming when, with a great belch, the swamp propelled another figure onto the surface. It was too dark for Nyro to see who it was, but a moment later Osman’s voice called out for help.
“This way!” Nyro shouted. “Try not to splash.”
By now he had reached a part of the swamp that was shallow enough to stand up in, and it was much easier to make his way onto the shore, though the slime continued to pull at his legs with sucking noises, almost as if it were a living thing.
When he finally reached dry land, he lay down, utterly exhausted. He didn’t care what happened now. At least he was out of that swamp. After a while he heard Osman getting closer, and eventually he stumbled over towards Nyro and collapsed on the ground behind him.
“What sort of place is this?” Osman asked when he could finally muster breath enough to speak. He peered about them in the gloom.
“You’re supposed to be the expert,” Nyro pointed out. “It was following your instructions that brought us here, remember?”
“Yes, well, the ancient scholars had plenty of ideas about how to reach the sumara’s realm, but none of them told you what you might expect to find on the other side,” Osman admitted.
“How come you didn’t mention that before?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“How very considerate.”
“All right,” Osman conceded, “I admit, this whole adventure may have been a little reckless, but things could have turned out a great deal worse. We are both still alive, after all.”
“But we stink, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Indeed we do,” Osman agreed. “However, there’s nothing to be gained by dwelling upon it.” He got to his feet. “I think we should go and investigate that little light over there.”
The light turned out to be an old-fashioned lantern with a candle inside. The most filthy and ragged-looking specimen of humanity that Nyro had ever come across held it aloft. Scarcely more than a skeleton, he was clad in a loose robe that came down to his bare feet. This unflattering garment must once have been white but was now a uniform gray and hung in tatters around the hem. The crown of his head was bald, but there was hair at the back and sides that had grown long and hung in greasy locks about his shoulders. He had an immense gray beard, and his eyebrows seemed to have decided to compensate for the lack of hair on the top of his head by sprouting wildly in all directions. As Osman and Nyro approached, he was kneeling down, peering keenly at the ground by the light of his lantern and muttering to himself. “That’s seventy-six, I think. Yes, I’m sure it’s seventy-six, or was it seventy-five? Yes, that’s it, seventy-five. Ah! There’s another one.”
With that, he picked up something and placed it in a bowl on the ground beside him.
“Now then, that’s seventy-six. Or is it seventy-seven?” he continued. “Better count them all again.” He put down the lantern and picked up the bowl.
“Excuse me, sir?” Osman began.
But the old man was so startled he dropped the bowl. “No! No! No!” he moaned. “Now I’ve gone and spilled them all!”
“I sincerely apologize for alarming you,” Osman told him. “I merely wanted to inquire whether you could tell my friend and me the best way out of this place.”
But the old man took no notice of Osman’s question. Instead, he tore at his hair and continued to moan pitifully. “Now I have to start all over again!” he complained.
“What exactly are you doing?” Nyro asked.
“Picking up the seeds!” the old man said impatiently. With that, he turned away from them and began scrabbling about on the ground.
Osman considered this for a moment. “Perhaps if we were to help you with your task, you might show us the way out in return,” he suggested.
The old man looked up and nodded his head eagerly. “Yes, yes!” he said. “You help me. I help you. But hurry! There’s no time to waste.”
Nyro and Osman looked at each other and shrugged. Then they got down on their hands and knees and studied the little patch of ground illuminated by the feeble light of the lantern.
“How many seeds are there?” Nyro asked.
“Nine hundred and ninety-nine,” the old man replied.
“You’ll never find that many!” Nyro exclaimed.
The old man stopped searching for a moment and turned two terrified, bloodshot eyes on Nyro. “I have to find them all,” he said, “before he comes back.”
“Before who comes back?”
The old man put his face right up close to Nyro’s, so close that Nyro could smell his rotten breath.
“My tormentor,” the old man whispered. Then he frowned and looked from Osman to Nyro and back again. He jerked his thumb in Osman’s direction. “Is he your tormentor?” he asked.
Nyro was tempted to make a joke but suspected that the old man would not appreciate it. So he simply said, “I haven’t got one.”
The old man seized Nyro’s arm with one bony hand, gripping it so tightly that Nyro winced. “Everyone has a tormentor,” the old man said. “You just haven’t met him yet.” With these words he released Nyro’s arm and went back to scrabbling about on the ground. Nyro and Osman got do
wn beside him and began searching for seeds.
It was tedious work and Nyro’s knees soon began to ache. “How do you know there are nine hundred and ninety-nine?” he asked.
A tear ran down the old man’s cheek at this question. “It is the number of my shame,” he replied.
“What do you mean?”
“When I was alive—I mean truly alive, not like this—I was a man of great importance. I know you may find that hard to believe, but people quaked when they were brought before me, for I was the Chief Justice of Shinar, and I held their lives in the palm of my hand. If I ordered their release, they were released; if I ordered their death, they were put to death. There was no argument and no appeal. My judgment was final.
“I enjoyed that power. I liked to savor the look on the faces of the accused while they waited for my verdict. One day, because I was feeling particularly irritable that morning, I condemned a man to death even though I knew him to be innocent. I did it because he did not show me enough respect. I felt no remorse afterwards. In fact, I was rather pleased with myself. It would serve as an example to the others, I decided. That was the first time an innocent person died because of me, but it was not the last. In the years that followed, nine hundred and ninety-eight more joined him. It would have been a thousand, but I woke up one morning to find that instead of lying in my bed between silk sheets, I was here, and standing before me was my tormentor.”
As he mentioned his tormentor, the old man began to shake. Nyro gently took the bowl from him and set it down on the ground. Then, silently, the three of them returned to searching the ground.
It was hard to say how much time passed as they crawled around in the darkness on their hands and knees, but at last there was only one more seed left to find.
“Here it is!” Nyro said. He picked up the seed and placed it carefully in the bowl with the others.