The Resuurection Fields

by Brian Keaney

  Nyro decided to try again. “We were looking for the Resurrection Fields,” he said. “Do you know where we can find them?”

  “We had our enemies, of course,” the duchess went on, still oblivious to his inquiry. “No one who finds himself in a position of authority can avoid making enemies. There were plots and rebellions all the time. And so we had to take the necessary measures, painful though they may have been. It was for the greater good. You must see that?”

  She looked eagerly at them both.

  “Of course, madam,” Osman said.

  “Absolutely,” Nyro agreed. “The Resurrection—” he began.

  But she was not to be deterred. “None of them was innocent,” she announced angrily, “whatever you may have heard to the contrary.”

  “I can assure you, madam, we have heard nothing whatsoever on this subject,” Osman told her.

  She frowned sternly in his direction. “Propaganda spreads like cancer,” she replied. Then she seemed to relent a little. “However, I am happy to learn that you have been unaffected.” She dipped the ladle into the cooking pot once more, then paused again. “There is such a thing as a necessary evil,” she declared. “You understand, don’t you?”

  They both nodded. By now Nyro had given up the idea of asking her about the Resurrection Fields, at least until they had eaten their meal. The smell of the soup was driving him crazy.

  “That is exactly what the camps were,” the duchess declared.

  “The camps?” Osman asked.

  “Yes, the camps. A necessary evil. People had to be kept somewhere while they were waiting to be processed. We spent as much as we could afford under the circumstances. Conditions were a little difficult sometimes, but these were conspirators, assassins, terrorists. I know what you will say,” she added sharply. “You will bring up the children.”

  “I had no intention—” Osman began, but she cut him off.

  “Those children were as bad as the adults,” she told him. “Worse, in many cases. We could not afford to show mercy merely on account of their age. It was a matter of survival. Theirs or ours.”

  The woman looked for a moment as if she might strike Osman with the ladle instead of serve him soup, but then she seemed to pull herself together. “I am forgetting the rules of hospitality,” she said. “My poor husband would not have approved. You know, he used to say that whatever went on outside the walls of the palace, we should always treat our guests with courtesy.”

  Despite this declaration, she made no further move to serve the soup. At last, deciding that she had forgotten it altogether, Nyro got to his feet and made his way over towards the cooking pot, intent on completing the job himself.

  The duchess looked appalled at this sudden act of decisiveness. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “Sit down immediately!”

  But it was already too late. Nyro had gone near enough to glimpse the contents of the cooking pot, and what he saw made him stop in his tracks and nearly gag. A man’s head was floating on the surface of the pot, its two eyes staring glassily upwards.

  “Osman!” Nyro said. “We have to go!”

  Osman frowned at him. “Not before we have some soup,” he said.

  “Now, Osman!” Nyro said.

  Osman sprang to his feet.

  The woman glanced from one of them to the other. “So you are part of the conspiracy, too,” she angrily declared. “I should have known!” Bending down, she pulled an iron poker from the fire. The end was glowing red-hot. “I know how to deal with conspirators!” she said. “I’ve had plenty of experience.”

  Osman began backing away as she moved towards him, holding the poker in front of her. Nyro picked up one of the soup bowls.

  “Have some soup!” he shouted.

  She turned, and he threw the contents in her face. “Run!” he shouted to Osman.

  The two of them raced into the forest, leaving the woman screaming as she clutched at her scalded skin.

  STONES

  Kidu did not want to stay near the beehive huts just so that Dante could keep an eye on Bea.

  “Nothing here!” he pointed out, disgustedly. “No tree but Enil’s tree!” A landscape without vegetation was an atrocity in Kidu’s eyes. “Nothing to eat! Nothing to drink!”

  “There are muzur,” Dante pointed out.

  “Too few!” Kidu said angrily. “Besides, pikarakacheep everywhere. Eat muzur first.”

  “Pikarakacheep?”

  “Ugly creatures! Covered in green scales. Crawl out from under stones. Long tongue dart out. Muzur gone. Nothing for Kidu.”

  “I just need to stay here for a little while longer,” Dante pleaded. “It’s important.”

  “Everything Giddim want always important.”

  “Please, Kidu, just a little longer.”

  Kidu sighed. Before sharing Kidu’s body, Dante had not known that a bird could sigh, but he had soon learned that it was one of Kidu’s favorite ways of expressing himself. Nevertheless, the bird did not attempt to leave, contenting himself instead with flying furiously at any lizard that dared stick its head out of a crack in the stonework.

  Dante continued to turn over in his mind the message carved on the stone step. It made no sense to him, but it had to be important. Why else would his mother have wanted him to ensure that Bea discovered it?

  When every other hope has fled,

  When he is lost who once was found,

  Climb the stairs and greet the dawn,

  Make the world’s most ancient sound.

  The message obviously had something to do with the pillar. Someone—presumably Bea—was meant to climb the steps at dawn. But what then? He went over in his mind what he had learned of the bird’s beliefs about the pillar. According to Kidu, the pillar had been built by Enil, a good and powerful human who had governed all creatures on the earth. He had built it for Iggigi, who was the mate of Anki, the god responsible for creating the universe.

  Obviously Kidu’s beliefs could not be taken at face value. The universe had not begun as a feather that had fallen from the wing of a giant bird. Nevertheless, there might be something in the bird’s story that was important, some tiny grain of truth buried beneath the mythology built up by generations of creatures.

  As Dante was thinking about this, he spied Bea coming out of her stone hut accompanied by a dog. Then a figure materialized out of thin air just behind her. Was it the same one Dante had glimpsed when he first arrived at the pillar? It was hard to tell from this distance. The dog began barking aggressively, but Bea pulled him away impatiently as if she did not realize someone was there.

  Dante urged Kidu to fly closer, and the bird reluctantly agreed, landing beside the path a few yards ahead of Bea. Now that Dante could see the face of Bea’s pursuer, his spirits sank. They had met before. When Dante had been taken prisoner in Tavor, he had entered the Odylic realm only to find someone waiting for him. At first he had believed he was meeting his long-lost brother—a mistake that had nearly cost him his life, for this was Set, who had once been a messenger of the Odyll but now dwelt in the depths of the Nakara, feeding upon the hopes and dreams of others.

  While Dante was recalling this, Set drew level with Kidu. Then, moving as swiftly as one of the lizards that darted back and forth between the stones, he bent down and seized the bird in his right hand.

  “Well, Dante Cazabon,” he said with an evil grin, “fancy meeting you here. Everyone’s looking for you, you know. Tzavinyah would love to know where you are. But of course he only knows what he’s told. Right now he wouldn’t know you if you perched on his finger and sang for him. But I have peered into places where he does not dare look. I have no trouble recognizing you—even in this ridiculous disguise.”

  He squeezed Kidu’s body to emphasize his point, and Dante felt the bird’s terror mounting so strongly that he feared Kidu’s tiny heart might burst.

  “Your little friend Bea interests me,” Set continued. “She’s so full of goodness,” he sai
d with a curl of his lip. “Dear Tzavinyah positively dotes on her. I believe he has some very important role lined up for her, now that you’re not on the scene anymore. Well, it won’t do him any good, because I’ve decided to take her in hand. I see her as a fabulous challenge. And I don’t want you interfering. So I should fly away if I were you, otherwise I might have to mention the fact that you’re hiding in this fragile bundle of feathers to our friend the bridge builder.”

  He paused, then smiled unpleasantly once more. “Oh, you don’t know about the bridge yet, do you? I honestly don’t understand why everyone makes such a fuss about you, Dante Cazabon. You’re always two steps behind the game, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “You’ll find out about the bridge in due course, like everyone else. In the meantime, stay out of my way.”

  With that, he gave Kidu a crushing squeeze before tossing him into the air and walking away.

  Kidu’s wings fluttered feebly, but despite his best efforts he could not manage to stay aloft. He landed with a bone-jarring thump on the ground.

  Dante felt the bird’s pain as Kidu lay on the ground, breathing in shallow gasps, his heart racing, his body aching. But worse than the physical pain was the fear. Kidu had not understood everything Set had said, but the overall meaning was clear enough. Set had played with him like a cat plays with its prey before killing it, and though Kidu was still alive, he was not sure he wouldn’t rather be dead and gone from a world that had such creatures in it.

  Bea returned from her walk feeling just as discontented as when she began it. For days now she had felt a growing sense of frustration. She tried to inspire herself by thinking about what Tzavinyah had told her. But the memory of his hopeful words was fading from her mind, and she was finding it hard to believe he had really appeared to her. The hanging of the woman in Podmyn haunted her: the way the crowd—herself among them—had just stood there and watched. And yet what could she have done? To have tried to prevent it would only have got her arrested. It would not have saved the woman’s life.

  She tried to rid her mind of the picture of the woman’s face just before the chair was kicked away from underneath her. But it would not disappear. And this had been carried out on the orders of her former friend! She shook her head in disbelief. She still cherished, deep within her, the belief that it wasn’t really him. But, if not, then what had happened to the real Dante?

  Outside the meetinghouse, Albigen, Maeve, Manachee and Seersha were waiting for her. The Púca had been monitoring events in Podmyn since the day of the hanging, and Albigen had come up with a plan to increase their diminishing supply of food. Today all those who had enlisted in the ranks of the Faithful would be leaving to begin their duties. A special train had been arranged to take them, and their supplies, from Podmyn’s tiny railway station to their new headquarters up north. A farewell ceremony had been planned in the town. While the festivities were taking place, the Púca would divert some of the supplies from the train to one of their trucks. Seersha had volunteered to drive the truck; Manachee, Maeve and Bea had agreed to do the loading.

  “Is everybody ready?” Albigen asked when they were all assembled.

  They nodded.

  “Remember, don’t hurry when you’re carrying the crates. Just look as if you’re doing your job. And Seersha, make sure you keep the engine running.”

  They soon joined a string of ancient trucks and cars, battered tractors and horse-drawn carts on the road to Podmyn. People were traveling there from all the outlying areas with the intention of either boarding the special train or waving off members of their family who were joining the Faithful.

  Albigen and Maeve had visited the town the night before to make their preparations. They had discovered a disused entrance at the side of the railway station. It was padlocked, but Albigen had brought along a pair of bolt cutters. This was where they parked the truck that morning, hidden from the crowds behind an abandoned railway carriage.

  At the front of the railway station a band was playing patriotic music. They were a motley collection of musicians: mostly old men, with a couple of young boys playing the trumpet and bass drum and a lone girl on the clarinet. People were in a festive mood, grinning broadly at their neighbors. Those who had volunteered for the Faithful were being congratulated and having their hands shaken as they hung out of the train windows, waving cheerily to friends and relations.

  Dozens of wooden crates had been delivered to the railway station, and volunteers were busily loading them onto the train. Manachee, Maeve, Bea and Albigen joined the line of loaders. First Manachee and Maeve picked up a crate and walked off with it. Then it was the turn of Bea and Albigen. Bea bent down and gripped her end. The crate was surprisingly heavy, and she staggered as she took the weight.

  “They won’t be short of a bite to eat!” quipped a red-faced man standing in line behind her.

  Bea gave him a polite smile. The last thing she wanted to do was to get involved in a conversation with someone.

  When they reached the platform, they should have turned right and made their way to the rear of the train, where the goods carriages were situated. Instead, they turned left. There were so many people milling about on the platform that no one paid them any attention as they shuffled towards the side entrance.

  Ahead of them, Manachee and Maeve had already disappeared through the gate into the yard where the truck was parked. Just as it looked as if the whole operation was going to pass off smoothly, Bea heard a shout behind her. She turned and saw the red-faced man standing near the entrance, trying to attract her attention.

  “Keep going!” Albigen urged. “Don’t take any notice of him.”

  But the red-faced man was shouting now and other people were starting to pay attention.

  “Tavorian spies!” someone else shouted. Immediately, the cry was taken up by others. A moment later a pair of security officers was racing down the platform towards them.

  “Leave the crate!” Albigen said.

  Bea dropped her end and they set off running for the side gate. But a glimpse over her shoulder revealed that one of the security guards was right behind them. She followed Albigen through the gate and tore across the yard to where Maeve and Manachee were leaning out of the rear doors of the truck, urging them on.

  Albigen leapt into the truck and turned to shout encouragement to Bea, but at that moment she felt the security guard grabbing her arm. She struggled to shake him off but he had hold of her now, and his colleague was already making his way through the gate into the yard.

  Albigen jumped down from the truck, picked up a length of wood that was lying on the ground nearby and raced towards Bea. The security guard saw him coming and let go of Bea, reaching for the baton he wore at his side. But Albigen was too quick for him. He brought the length of wood down so hard on the man’s arm that Bea was convinced she heard the bone break. Then, as his opponent bent over in pain, Albigen hurled the length of wood in the direction of the second security guard. He dodged it easily but it was enough to slow him down.

  “Come on!” Albigen shouted. The two of them scrambled into the truck, and Seersha immediately raced off while her passengers struggled to avoid being flung out of the still-open doors.

  Nobody said very much on the way home. Plenty of people had had the opportunity to get a good look at their van, as well as at them, and the townsfolk would be on their guard from now on. All chance of visiting Podmyn again had been lost.

  “We’re losing our touch,” Albigen said sadly.

  When they got back to the beehive huts, the rest of the Púca were waiting eagerly, and hearing the attempts of their friends to look on the bright side only made the disappointment greater.

  “At least you didn’t come back empty-handed,” said Keeva, Maeve’s mother.

  “It might have been better if we had,” Bea replied.

  But Keeva was not the kind of person to be easily discouraged. “Let’s get the crate open and see what we’ve got,” she said.

  It
wasn’t easy to open the crate. The lid had been firmly nailed down, but Manachee eventually pried it up with the help of a crowbar. He pushed aside a layer of straw and then gasped.

  “What is it?” Bea asked.

  “See for yourselves.”

  Bea and Albigen bent over the crate and examined its contents. It was filled with stones. There was nothing else. No wonder it had been so heavy!

  Albigen swore and kicked the side of the crate. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “What the hell are they playing at?”

  “Maybe somebody made a mistake?” Keeva suggested.

  Suddenly Bea understood. “This was no mistake,” she said. “They’re not planning to feed these volunteers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they won’t last long enough,” she said. “They’re volunteering for an early death. And my father is going to be in charge of the process.”

  THE FOREST OF SECRET FEARS

  The forest into which Nyro had run after glimpsing the severed head seemed to belong to the deepest memory of the world. The trees were ancient and huge, their thick black trunks covered with moss and lichen. The ground was carpeted with layer upon layer of rotting leaves, and the air was heavy with the perfume of decay.

  It was not a welcoming place, yet it was strangely familiar, and as Nyro blundered through the trees he found himself thinking, “I’ve been here before. But when?”

  Of course! He had visited this wood in his sleep, for this was the place where nightmares were born, where they grew secretly in the darkness—deformed, waiting for their chance to enter the minds of men, women and, best of all, children.

  He should never have come here, but in his shock, Nyro had just plunged headlong in among the trees, forgetting about everything else. Even Osman!