by Brian Keaney
He stopped and called out Osman’s name, but the forest swallowed up his voice so that he sounded like a little lost child crying for his mother. He looked around for the way out, but the trees were identical in all directions. Somewhere behind him he thought he heard a mocking laugh. He swiveled round, but there was no one there.
Elsewhere Osman was busy trying to recognize the smell in the forest. It did not smell like a wood at all, in his opinion. It seemed like more of an indoor smell—artificial, sterile, clinical. Of course! It smelled like a hospital.
It seemed to be getting stronger all the time, a cocktail of different odors. On the surface was a clean fragrance, reminding him of medicine, disinfectant and air freshener. But below that was the odor of sickness, the insistent perfume of disease.
Osman knew exactly when and where he had smelled this before. He had been a young man, sitting beside a hospital bed. In the bed was his father, though illness and pain had made him barely recognizable. Once, he had been strong and full of vigor, but death was devouring him bit by bit, reducing him to a husk. Osman had not wanted to witness this, but it had been expected of him, and so he had sat on the chair while the minutes ticked by and the air grew thick with pain.
“That is what will happen to you,” said a voice in his ear.
Osman turned to see who had spoken, but there was no one there. Instead, where there had been trees, there was now a hospital bed and on the bed was a shriveled figure. Himself.
“You will inherit your father’s disease, just as you have inherited everything else of his,” the voice continued.
Osman nodded. He had only to look in a mirror to see that he now looked exactly as his father had at his age. As he had taken on his father’s features, so he would take on his illness.
“No medicine exists that will help you,” the voice told him. “You will beg for the end to come, but it will not increase its pace. Death will creep towards you. It will relish your suffering.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Osman demanded.
“For your own good, of course,” the voice answered silkily.
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t have to be like this.” The voice was reassuring now, friendly and comforting. “There is another way.”
“What is the other way?”
“Make death come to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
* * *
Nyro heard movement and glimpsed a shadowy form among the trees up ahead. “Is that you, Osman?” he called out, trying to sound confident.
A huge creature lumbered out of the trees towards him. Dressed in a long shapeless garment made of what looked like sackcloth, it was shaped like a man but very much bigger. Its arms were far too long for its body, reaching down as far as its knees. In one hand the creature grasped a long knife with a wicked-looking blade. But Nyro scarcely even glanced at any of this, for his gaze was fixed on the creature’s face. Where a man would have eye sockets, this creature’s face was completely smooth. It advanced towards him slowly, swinging its arms at its sides and sniffing the air with a series of snuffling grunts.
Nyro wanted to turn and run but he was rooted to the spot.
“You cannot run from me,” the creature said, in a deep, booming voice. “I will always find you by the smell of your fear.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Nyro replied.
The creature’s laugh seemed to fill the forest. “Everyone is afraid of me,” it told him, “for I am Fear itself.” It held up the knife, the blade of which was as long as Nyro’s arm. “There is nothing that my knife cannot cut. Alive or dead.”
Nyro took a careful step backwards. Immediately the creature thrust the knife forward until its point was barely an inch from his chest.
“I wouldn’t do that,” it told him. “You see, I know what you are thinking before you even think it. Right now, for example, you’re thinking that there will be no way out of this forest, that you are trapped in here forever. Aren’t you?”
Nyro made no reply.
“And you’re right,” the creature went on. “You are trapped here forever. Even if you could find a way out, you can never get back to your own world. This is where your ridiculous little journey finishes.”
The creature’s words felt like a huge weight around Nyro’s neck, but he struggled against his despair. He had to get out of here, whatever the creature said. What was it Luther had warned him about? There was someone who had to be stopped.
“You are thinking of what your friend Luther told you,” the creature declared. “But why listen to him? Look at what he has become—a voice that speaks from the heart of a thorn tree. Rooted in stony ground, buffeted by the wind, trapped for eternity. Pay no heed to Luther’s ridiculous words. He cannot help you and you cannot help him.”
But something deep within Nyro refused to accept this. “No doubt you’re right,” he conceded. “But even so, I might just as well go on trying to find my way out of here as give up.”
A low, rumbling growl came from the creature’s throat. “There is no way out of here,” it insisted.
Strangely enough, the creature’s growl had quite the opposite effect on Nyro from what was intended. He realized that he at least had the power to annoy the creature. “Why are you so anxious to persuade me to give up?” he asked.
“I only wish to save you a great deal of trouble,” the creature replied, in its most reasonable voice.
“No, you don’t,” Nyro thought. “You just want to make me miserable, because you feed off other people’s misery.” The creature was nearly twice as tall as Nyro and brandishing its knife right in front of him, but Nyro was beginning to grasp the key to defeating it. It could not see him; it could only smell his fear. And though it could sense some of his thoughts, Nyro suspected that they were only the negative ones.
He began, quite deliberately, to think about a summer, three years earlier, when his parents had taken him on vacation to a small seaside town. When they had arrived at their destination, instead of driving straight to their lodgings, they had gone first to look at the sea, parking the car and walking over the sand dunes. Nyro would never forget the moment they reached the top of the last dune and the sea spread out before them, with the sinking sun creating a golden avenue that led all the way to the horizon.
As he thought about this, he stepped away from the eyeless creature’s knife.
“Where are you?” the creature demanded.
Nyro smiled but said nothing.
“You can’t escape!” the creature warned.
Nyro continued to move noiselessly away.
The creature slashed furiously through the air, but it came nowhere near Nyro.
“I will tear you into little pieces!” the creature roared, and it flung its weapon in what it hoped was Nyro’s direction. But the knife lodged harmlessly in a nearby tree. Carefully Nyro pulled it free. Then he walked calmly away, still holding the knife and thinking of his vacation by the sea, remembering how it had felt to plunge into the water in the morning: freezing cold but absolutely wonderful. Life was worth living, he reminded himself, and he was going to do everything in his power to find his way back to a world where you could run into the sea and laugh out loud with the pure joy of it.
It didn’t take him long to find Osman. His friend was standing, staring into space, with a look of complete despair.
“What are you thinking?” Nyro asked him.
“I was trying to decide how I should kill myself,” Osman told him, glancing at the knife. “It is not easy in a place like this. There are so few options.”
“You can’t kill yourself,” Nyro told him. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Work?”
“We have to stop that bridge from being built.” “But we don’t even know where it is.”
“True,” Nyro agreed. “But I’m going to find it and you’re going to help me.”
“Do you really
think we can do that?”
Nyro smiled, remembering how he had put this same question to Osman when Osman had first suggested finding Luther. It seemed a long time ago now. “Yes, I do,” he said. “Of course, it will be dangerous, and difficult and frightening. But worth doing. And that’s what counts, don’t you think?”
Osman thought about this. Then he, too, smiled. “You’re absolutely right,” he said.
THE GREAT FLOCK
The Púca were gathered in the meetinghouse, discussing the results of the failed raid on Podmyn. Everyone accepted that the mission had been a disaster, but no one could agree what their next move should be. Bea listened to her friends’ suggestions with growing impatience. None of them even knew what they wanted to achieve. Only Seersha and Malachy seemed undaunted.
“We have to hold on to hope,” Seersha said. “Malachy and I believed we had lost each other for good, but now we’re back together again. That was made possible by two things: our longing to be free and the inspiration of others who were determined not to give up.”
This little speech did something to rally people’s spirits. A while later Maeve and Keeva returned from scouting out Duran, a town to the northeast of Podmyn. People greeted them enthusiastically, eager for some positive news. “There’s been another special broadcast,” Maeve announced. “Apparently some sort of revolution has been taking place in Tavor. According to the broadcast, troops led by someone called Brigadier Giddings have surrounded the government buildings there and arrested the leaders. Giddings has declared himself the new ruler and pledged his friendship to Sigmundus the Second.”
“Are the people of Tavor going to let that happen?” Albigen asked.
“There’s fighting on the streets,” Maeve said. “But according to the broadcast, the resistance is weak.”
“They would say that!”
“More people are being urged to sign up for the Faithful,” Keeva told them. “There’s a train leaving from Duran tomorrow.”
That was when Bea made up her mind. “I’m going to be on it,” she announced.
The others turned and looked at her in astonishment.
“What do you mean?” Albigen demanded.
“Just what I say,” Bea replied. “I’m volunteering for the Faithful.”
Everyone immediately began arguing with her, but Bea refused to discuss it further. Instead, she drew Seersha aside. “I want you to promise to look after the dog for me,” she said. “I haven’t even given him a name yet, poor thing. But I’ve got a feeling about him, as if he might have some important part to play in all this.”
Seersha searched her friend’s face. “Of course I will. But I don’t understand who you are these days, Bea,” she said.
Bea gave a wry smile. “I’m not sure I understand that myself,” she replied. “I just know this is what I have to do.”
It had taken Kidu several days to recover from his encounter with Set, days during which he perched listlessly on the steps of the stone pillar, muttering to himself about the unfairness of his life. Often Dante had to prompt him to eat but even these gentle reminders only served to plunge Kidu deeper into depression.
“Oh yes,” he said gloomily. “Giddim look after Kidu. Giddim take good care of Kidu. Don’t worry, Kidu, you will not be trapped, he say. No one interested in you. Then what happen? Kidu get squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until bones almost break. But who cares? Not Giddim. Much more interested in watching female zittenziteen. Please stay, Kidu, he say, even though Evil One say no, don’t watch, fly away. Still Giddim keep watching, and very soon Evil One come back. Then he say you were warned but you not listen. This time I squeeze harder. Break all Kidu’s bones. What then, Giddim? Eh? What then?”
Dante had given up arguing with Kidu. He was too busy trying to understand the meaning of the message Bea had uncovered and trying to think of a way to communicate with her, though the chances of Kidu ever going anywhere near her again were extremely remote. “If only I could enter the Odylic realm,” Dante thought, but he knew that the moment he tried to do so, he would find Orobas waiting.
As he was pondering all this, the Púca began streaming out of the meetinghouse. Most of them made their way back to their stone huts, but Bea and Albigen continued walking towards the pillar. It soon became clear that they were arguing fiercely.
“The whole idea is madness!” Albigen was saying. “You will be walking into the heart of evil without any idea of what you will do when you get there. What do you think will happen?”
“I don’t know,” Bea admitted.
“Then I’ll tell you what will happen,” Albigen went on. “They will catch you and then they will do terrible things to you. I know what they are like.”
“So do I. But I have to try,” Bea replied.
Albigen seized her by the shoulders and looked her right in the eyes. “Please, you must listen to me, Bea,” he said. “There are things that are worse than death, much worse! And it’s not just your own safety you need to think about. You’ll tell them everything and then we’ll all be finished.”
Dante listened with growing alarm. What was Bea planning to do?
“I’m sorry, Albigen,” Bea said. She reached up and gently took his hands from her shoulders. “I know it sounds crazy, and you’re right, I’m putting everyone at risk. But remember what Ezekiel always told us: everything that can possibly happen always does. It’s just that we only choose to believe in some of those possibilities. Well, I’m choosing to believe that this is what I was meant to do and that it will work out for the best, and I need you to have faith in me.”
Albigen shook his head. “Ezekiel had faith,” he pointed out. “Now he lies under a pile of stones. I don’t want that to happen to you, Bea.”
“Ezekiel played his part and I’m going to play mine,” Bea said, and with that she turned and walked rapidly away.
Dante was about to ask Kidu to follow when he realized that something very unusual was happening to the bird. Kidu was no longer listless and apathetic. Instead, his whole body was alert, and he seemed to be listening. Deliberately Dante lowered the barrier he had built between his own mind and Kidu’s. He allowed himself to share the bird’s thoughts fully.
It was as though a musical note was sounding in the bird’s mind, a note that was full of a wild longing. The note was only faint as yet, but it was growing stronger all the time—and the more Kidu listened to it, the more excited he became.
“What is it, Kidu?” Dante demanded.
“Satsumballa,” Kidu answered.
“What does that mean?”
But Kidu did not even bother to reply. Forgetting his injuries, he spread his wings and took to the air.
“Wait, Kidu!” Dante protested. “I need to stay by Enil’s tree.”
“Satsumballa!” Kidu insisted.
The bird’s mind was filled with that strange musical sound, which was changing now, moving up and down the scale, weaving a kind of ecstatic melody so that even Dante understood how thrilling it was. But what did it mean?
Soon he saw a number of black specks in the distance—birds flying in the same direction as Kidu. Others appeared, coming from a different part of the sky, then more still. Before very long Kidu was surrounded by birds, each one occupying its own space, yet all coordinating their flight by some mysterious process, so that when the wing tips of one bird tilted slightly, the wing tips of all tilted in exactly the same way.
As each new bird joined the group, the eerie music that filled Kidu’s mind swelled and grew more complex until it was like listening to some vast orchestra. There was meaning to the music, but not the kind of meaning that could be put into words. It told them how to fly and where to fly, as though the birds had all surrendered their individual minds to make one great mind that was directing the behavior of them all. “So this is what it is like to be part of a flock!” Dante thought. But then he corrected himself: not part of a flock, for there was no room for individuality. There was just the flock.
Dante could not communicate with Kidu any longer, for Kidu had shut down his distinct personality to make room for the collective identity.
Now the music began to change, and Dante saw that other flocks made up of other species were coming from other parts of the sky: tiny songbirds and great strong birds of prey among them. Each species contributed its own music. But all merged together into the one. Past enmities and disputes were forgotten, generations of conflict and competition put aside as predator and prey fell into line, one behind the other.
Now Dante understood what Kidu had said before taking to the air so suddenly: satsumballa—the Great Flock. This was a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, once in many lifetimes. To the birds that filled the air all around him, the satsumballa would have been only a legend, told to them as they huddled sleepily in the nest. And now they were joining together to bring it about because an impulse had come from somewhere deep within their minds. They did not know how or where this call had originated, only that it had to be answered. So they had taken to the air without question, their excitement and certainty growing stronger with each wing beat. They did not yet know their destination, but they would recognize it when they arrived.
To human beings watching from below, it must have seemed as though an enormous black cloud made up of a million tiny particles was passing overhead. Did they realize that something as significant in human terms as a revolution or a war was taking place? No. They probably imagined it had something to do with the weather and just shook their heads and went back to their work.
By late evening the flocking was complete, and the eyes of every bird turned downwards, towards a mountain in the center of the country. Even with his lack of education, Dante had heard of this great eminence, the highest spot in all Gehenna, Mount Sulyaman.
The flock began its descent, using currents of wind to glide gracefully down in a series of spirals, instinctively coordinating their movements so that no two birds sought out the same spot and finally settling on the great shoulders of the giant rock like a covering of snow. Once more the music changed, becoming urgent and expectant as if an audience were preparing itself for a speech by some great orator.