The Resuurection Fields (7 page)

It was about five minutes before midnight, and they were standing in the alleyway behind Luther’s house. Nyro had eaten nothing since their meeting the evening before, and he was feeling distinctly light-headed. He struggled to concentrate on what Osman was telling him.

“You have to make a circle of undoing,” Osman repeated. “Crossing over into the sumara’s world isn’t going to be easy, you know. Things have to be done in the right order and in a way that the sumara will find acceptable.”

“What happens if we get it wrong?”

Osman shook his head. “We will
not
get it wrong.”

They climbed over the back fence, entered through the back door and made their way upstairs. Flies buzzed angrily around the bowl of blood, and the smell in the room had grown so bad that Nyro found himself gagging.

Calmly Osman opened the leather satchel he had been carrying, took out a mirror and placed it in the middle of the floor. Nyro saw that something was written on the mirror, but he could not make out the unfamiliar words. Next Osman took a paper bag and cut a hole in one corner to allow its contents—some sort of white powder—to trickle out. In this way he began to outline a large circle on the floor around the mirror.

“What is that stuff?” Nyro asked.

“Salt. It’s a safeguard. A sumaire will not willingly cross a line of salt.” Osman finished the circle and put the bag away. “Now take off your coat and give it to me.”

Nyro did as he was told.

Osman put the coat on the ground, took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and, bending down, wrote in large letters on the back of the coat,
.

“Just put your coat back on and hold out your left hand,” Osman told him, standing up once more.

Nyro did as he was ordered, and Osman took a ball of string and tied one end around Nyro’s left index finger. Finally he seemed satisfied with his preparations. “Now listen very carefully,” he said. “For the purposes of this task, you must forget your own name. You will no longer be Nyro. Instead, you will be Oryn. When I tell you to, begin walking around the circle slowly in a clockwise direction. As you walk, repeat your new name. Say to yourself over and over again, ‘My name is Oryn.’ And try to believe it. You must do this ninety-nine times, without stopping. If you lose count, you must begin all over again.

“When you have completed the ninety-ninth circle, start walking backwards around the circle in the opposite direction. Do this once for every year of your life. Continue to tell yourself that your name is Oryn. When this is finished, move to the center of the circle, pick up the mirror and look at the face that you see. Ignore the writing. It will make no sense to you. Instead, concentrate on one thought only: that you are inside the mirror looking out. Continue to stare into the mirror until this thought becomes a reality. When that happens, you will know what to do next. Finally, if you feel you are in danger at any time, tug on the string. I shall have hold of the other end, and I will pull you back out of the circle of undoing and into the world you have left behind. Is that all clear?”

“It … is,” Nyro said hesitantly.

“Excellent.” Osman reached into the leather satchel once more and brought out a small drum. “Now walk!” he ordered.

As Nyro walked round the outside of the circle, Osman walked with him, holding the drum and the end of the string in one hand and beating the drum with the other. To begin with, Nyro felt a little self-conscious and faintly ridiculous. But as the ritual continued, he found his mind emptying of everything except the sound of the drum, the need to place one foot in front of the other, the process of keeping count and the thought that his name was Oryn. It was more tiring than he had expected. On the fifty-fifth circle, he stumbled slightly, but he regained his balance and strengthened his will. He did not want to have to start all over again.

After a while, as he told himself over and over again that his name was Oryn, it seemed that he was doing no more than stating the truth. That
was
his name. Perhaps it had always been his name. Yes, Oryn was his true identity. Whatever else he had called himself by in the past was nothing more than an illusion.

When he had completed the ninety-ninth circle, the drumbeat changed and he knew immediately what this meant: it was time to begin walking backwards sixteen times—one circle for each year of his life. As he did so, he began to understand more fully the purpose of the ritual. He was moving backwards through time to the point between life and…what? He grappled with the concept. To the point between life and the place where life came from, of course. That was his ultimate destination. That was why he was undoing himself—so that he might step through the doorway between this world and the larger one that lay behind it.

The drumbeat stopped. He had completed the sixteenth circle. His name was Oryn. He was no age at all. He had not yet been born.

He stepped across the line of salt, into the center of the circle, where he picked up the mirror and looked into its depths. His own face stared back at him, partially covered by the words that had been written in some obscure language:
.
Briefly he tried to make sense of them, but they were in a tongue he had never encountered before. Instead, he concentrated on his reflection, and as he did so, he recalled someone a long time ago telling him a great secret. What was it? Ah! He was not the one looking into the mirror; he was the one within the mirror, looking out.

No sooner had he thought this than he found it was true. He was no longer looking into the mirror but looking out, and now he saw that the writing on the mirror was not incomprehensible at all. It was a simple message:
TAKE OFF YOUR COAT,
it read. Oryn put down the mirror and did as he had been ordered. As he held up the coat, he saw that another message had been written on its back in chalk:
I WISH TO SPEAK TO LUTHER
.

He was pondering the meaning of this when he became aware of the sound of someone else’s breathing. Looking up, he saw a creature standing in the corner of the room. It looked like a man except for its leathery wings.

“Why have you come here?” the creature demanded. Its voice was like something that had bubbled up from the bowels of the earth, and when it spoke, it showed a mouthful of needle-like teeth.

But Oryn was ready with his answer. “I wish to speak to Luther,” he said.

The flicker of a smile crossed the sumaire’s face. “Very well,” it said. “You shall have your wish.”

It led the way out of the room, and after a moment’s hesitation, Oryn put down the mirror and followed. As he did so, he felt a cold sensation in the index finger of his left hand. Looking down, he saw that a thin green light was unfurling endlessly from his fingertip towards the mirror. He wondered what it meant, but there was no time to waste thinking about this. If he was not careful, he would lose sight of his guide.

The sumaire had already descended to the floor below and was opening the front door. Quickly Oryn followed.

The first thing he noticed was the heat. It hit him like a wave, a dry heat that made his skin prickle. Then he began to take in his surroundings. The house was perched upon a rim of rock that ran in a circle around a vast crater. At scattered intervals along the rim there were other buildings: some no more than mud huts; some like the one he had just left; others much larger and grander, with great stone steps leading up to pillared entranceways, as if they were the palaces of kings or the parliaments of great nations. But this was not a city or a town, or even a village, for there was no sense of community among these dwelling places. Each building stood alone, as if it had been plucked from its rightful position and deposited here in secret, where it remained cut off from its neighbors and ashamed to be seen in such company.

“What is this place?” Oryn asked.

“This is the Nakara,” the sumaire told him.

“And why are these buildings here?”

“They are the Lacunae—places that are neither fully part of your world nor fully part of mine. In each one a portal has been created, and that is how we travel between the worlds. But these are only the outskirts. You must come deeper into the Nakara if you wish to speak with your friend.”

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.