The Resuurection Fields (10 page)

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 down 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.

“Thank you, thank you,” the old man muttered. “Now I will finally be released.” He turned to Osman. “He promised, you know. He said if I could show him all nine hundred and ninety-nine in the bowl, he would let me go. They can’t go back on a promise. Even
they
have to abide by some rules.”

“Of course they do,” Osman said reassuringly. “Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind keeping your side of the bargain and showing us how we might get out of here.”

“Very well,” the old man agreed, “but first swear you will tell no one who showed you.”

“We swear.”

“Because if my tormentor should hear about it …”

“He won’t hear about it.”

“All right, then, follow me. Quickly now!”

He made his way around the base of the cliff, looking over his shoulder all the time and hissing at them to hurry. Finally he stopped at the entrance to a large tunnel. “This is the only way in or out. You must take the right fork. But hurry! He will be here soon.”

They thanked him and entered the tunnel. Surprisingly, it was
not completely dark, for the walls seemed to give off a dim light of their own. Almost as soon as they were inside, the tunnel branched in two directions. They stepped into the right-hand fork. Not a moment too soon! Out of the other fork came a sumaire. Fortunately, it was rushing ahead and did not notice them.

“That must be the old man’s tormentor,” Nyro whispered.

Just then they heard the most enormous sneeze from beyond the mouth of the tunnel and, immediately afterwards, the old man’s despairing cry: “No! No! The seeds!”

Manachee, Maeve and Albigen stared at the letters that had been carved in the stone step:

As he watched them, Dante felt his hopes begin to rise. Perhaps now that Bea had told them how a bird had helped her discover the message, it might be possible to find some way to communicate with them. Dante urged Kidu to move closer to the steps, and Kidu reluctantly hopped a few paces forward.

“There’s the bird that scratched away the moss,” Bea said. “I’m sure it was doing it on purpose.”

Dante tried to persuade Kidu to move closer still, but the bird refused to cooperate. Bea took a couple of steps towards him, and Kidu immediately flew off to a nearby tree. Nothing Dante could say would persuade him to get any closer.

Bea turned back to the others. “I’ve got a feeling about this inscription,” she told them. “Almost as if I was meant to find it. Do you think it was carved by the people who built the beehive huts?” she asked.

Manachee shook his head. “No. The language is far too modern. They lived long ago and spoke a much more ancient version of our tongue. We wouldn’t be able to read their writing so easily.”

“Then who put it there?”

“Anyone could have carved it. These steps have been here for hundreds of years. Thousands, maybe. Who knows how many people have come and gone in that time?”

“But you said people had forgotten their history since Dr. Sigmundus came to power. You said no one came here anymore.”

“Yes, that’s true. But perhaps someone put it there before Dr. Sigmundus was even born. On the other hand …” He hesitated.

“What?”

“We do know one person who came here regularly.”

“Alvar Mendini?” Bea said eagerly.

“That’s right. Like I said before, he used to come here to seek inspiration for his poetry. If I had to make a wild guess, I would say that this is a fragment of the Mendini Canticle.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?” Albigen asked.

“Alvar was no ordinary man,” Manachee replied. “I knew him well, and I promise you, he could see things that had not yet happened. He might have left this message here many years ago, knowing that Bea would one day be standing here to read it.”

“What
is
the Mendini Canticle?” Bea asked.

“The Mendini Canticle was Alvar’s last poem,” Manachee said. “But it was more than just a set of verses. He put all his powers into it, and all that he had learned of the Odylic realm from his wife, Yashar. He only ever really talked about it once to me, but I can still remember the words he used because they seemed so strange at the time. ‘Long after I am dead,’ he told me, ‘my poem will still be taking place in the flight of a bird, in the actions of the Púca and in the mysterious workings of the Odyll. I have woven in events that are yet to happen, for my poem is alive and will let itself be known when it sees fit.’”

“The flight of a bird!” Bea repeated wonderingly.

“I agree it’s a possibility,” Albigen conceded. “But even so, what are we supposed to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Manachee admitted. “But if this really is a fragment of the Mendini Canticle, then its meaning will become apparent when the time is right.”

“And in the meantime,” Albigen said, “we need to find out what’s going on in Podmyn. We’ve had reports that there’s a big event planned there this afternoon. Anyone want to come with me to take a look?”

“I will,” Manachee said.

“So will I,” Bea volunteered. Reluctantly she walked away from the pillar, still puzzling over the meaning of the verse.

Later that day Albigen drove them to Podmyn. Immersed in their own thoughts, they each had different ideas about what the Púca ought to be doing next, and it was becoming clear that they did not always see eye to eye. Without a leader to decide among them, tensions were beginning to simmer beneath the surface.

Albigen was, in many ways, the most obvious choice to lead the Púca following the death of Ezekiel Semiramis. He was strong, brave and quick-witted. But he was best at practical things. What he lacked was Ezekiel’s vision and, more importantly, his powers. Manachee was one of the most senior members of the Púca, but he was a born second-in-command. That left Bea. As a newcomer, she should not even have been a candidate. Yet, since she had told the Púca of Tzavinyah’s appearance, many of them held her in a kind of awe. Bea was not particularly comfortable being in this position, but Tzavinyah’s words had been very clear—only she could overcome their enemy. If that meant taking control of the Púca, then she was prepared to do so.

“Let’s stop the truck here,” Albigen said. “We could leave it in one of those abandoned farm buildings up ahead.”

With the increasing security presence since the funeral, it was wiser not to attract attention by driving a large truck right into the town. So they turned onto the farm track and parked the truck inside an empty barn, making the rest of the journey to Podmyn on foot.

The small town was full of people. However, unlike the day of Dr. Sigmundus’s funeral, when farmworkers had proudly put on their best clothes and chatted freely, this time people were keeping their thoughts to themselves, glancing about nervously and talking in low voices. It was clear that a swirl of rumor had the whole place in its grip.

“I wonder what they’re so worked up about,” Bea said.

“Looks like we’re going to find out shortly,” Albigen replied, nodding towards a wooden platform that had been assembled in the town square. As they watched, a security officer climbed a set of steps at the side of the platform and held up one hand for the crowd to be silent. Almost immediately the buzz of conversation ceased and several hundred anxious faces looked up at him expectantly.

“Men and women of Podmyn and those of you who have come from the outlying districts, may I begin by saying what a pleasure it is to see you all assembled here today,” the officer began.

“This is very odd,” Manachee whispered to Bea. “A security chief doesn’t normally bother with flattery. There must be something very nasty coming up.”

“I am speaking to you today on behalf of our new Leader,” the man continued.

“Long live Sigmundus the Second!” shouted a group of security officers. Immediately the crowd understood what was expected of them. “Long live Sigmundus the Second!” they chorused.

“Many of you good people traveled to Ellison for the funeral of our former Leader,” the officer went on, “and you will have seen
with your own eyes that even while the streets were thronged with grateful citizens, many of whom had stood in line for hours to pay their respects to the founder of our nation, a handful of depraved and ruthless individuals made a despicable attempt to disrupt the ceremony.”

He paused and shook his head as if the thought of such wickedness were almost too much to bear. “You may well ask how it is that crime has raised its ugly head in our society once more. You believed that this terrible sickness had been eradicated once and for all. Well, you were right. It has been. These attempts to undermine everything we have built under the benevolent guidance of Dr. Sigmundus, and everything we are hoping to build under the inspired leadership of his successor, come … from outside.”