The Resuurection Fields Page 2

  Then one day Nyro had been in the middle of a conversation with Luther—admittedly a fairly one-sided conversation since his friend just kept staring into space while Nyro tried repeatedly to get through to him—when, suddenly, Luther jumped to his feet and ran out of the room. No one had seen him since.

  No sooner had Luther vanished than everybody started acting as if he had never existed in the first place. Teachers and classmates, boys he had played football with every Saturday, all looked puzzled whenever Nyro mentioned Luther’s name and shook their heads in confusion. “I don’t recall anyone of that name,” they insisted. The school secretary even assured him that there had never been a Luther Vavohu enrolled at their school.

  Nyro had no idea what it all meant, but he was determined to find out, even if it meant getting in trouble with the authorities again. Luther had been a good friend, and Nyro wasn’t about to give up on him just because somebody in a uniform didn’t want him to know what was going on. He decided to start by talking to Luther’s mother.

  And so he found himself making his way this evening along Luther’s street, arriving just in time to see two military vehicles pulling up outside of his friend’s house. One was a jeep, the other a large truck. Fortunately, Nyro was still on the opposite side of the street. He ducked into a yard and crouched down behind the hedge, watching as a familiar figure stepped out of the first vehicle. It was Brigadier Giddings, the man who had interrogated him and Luther. Followed by two armed soldiers, the Brigadier walked up to the front door of Luther’s house and rang the bell.

  Luther’s mother appeared, and there was a brief conversation between the two of them. Nyro had the impression that an argument of some kind was taking place. Finally she was led away. Nyro watched as she climbed into the back of the truck, which then drove off at high speed.

  Now more soldiers got out of the second vehicle and made their way inside the house. Soon they began to re-emerge, carrying boxes. Some of them clutched items of furniture, all of which they stowed carefully in the back of the truck.

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  Nyro turned around to see a very tall, very thin man standing beside him. He had a great mane of white hair, and there was something distinctly old-fashioned about his clothes, as if he had stepped out of another time. This was probably the owner of the yard in which he was squatting.

  “I was just trying to see what was happening on the other side of the street,” Nyro said, without moving from his hiding place.

  “I gathered that,” the white-haired gentleman observed. “But I couldn’t help wondering why you felt it was necessary to do so from behind my hedge.”

  Nyro considered this question. It was hard to know what to say in reply. Finally he decided he might as well tell the truth.

  “I’m not supposed to have anything to do with the people who live in that house,” he admitted. “If the soldiers see me, I’ll be in big trouble.”

  “How interesting!” the white-haired gentleman said. He studied Nyro more carefully, as if he were a collector of insects examining a particularly fascinating specimen. “Perhaps you’d better come inside and tell me a bit more,” he said at last.

  “Well, I’m not …,” Nyro began.

  But the white-haired gentleman interrupted him. “Of course, I could just attract the attention of our military friends over there.”

  “All right, I’m coming.”

  “Splendid!” The white-haired gentleman clasped his hands together in satisfaction.

  The inside of the house, like the gentleman’s clothes, suggested that it belonged to an earlier period. Through an open door Nyro glimpsed a sitting room full of dark oak furniture. His companion led the way to a book-lined study at the very top of the house. In one corner of the room a large wooden desk, piled high with papers, stood opposite a rather battered-looking leather armchair.

  “Do sit down,” the white-haired gentleman said.

  Nyro perched uneasily on the armchair.

  “We should introduce ourselves,” his host continued, sitting down at the desk. “My name is Osman. And you are?”

  “Nyro.”

  “Very good, Nyro. You know, I have a strong feeling about you. When I saw you crouched down behind my hedge, it was almost as if you were set apart from your surroundings, as if you had been touched by something from another world. Does that make any sense to you?”

  Nyro shook his head. “No. I mean yes. I mean I don’t know. Some very odd things have been happening to me lately.”

  Osman smiled, showing a set of teeth that any horse would have been proud to own. “Wonderful! I do like to hear about odd things. Would you care for some tea while you tell me all about them?”

  “I don’t really like tea, thanks.”

  Osman looked astonished. “Not like tea! Well, all I can say is you miss a great deal. However, I am certainly going to have some. I can’t get through the evening without a good, strong cup of tea.”

  He pressed a button on the wall and Nyro heard a bell ring deep in the bowels of the house.

  “Now then, my young friend, start at the beginning, don’t leave anything out and don’t stop until you get all the way to my hedge.”

  Though he had only agreed to tell his story under threat of being exposed to Brigadier Giddings, Nyro found it quite a relief to get the whole thing off his chest. Osman listened, only interrupting from time to time to clarify some of the details. Halfway through, they were interrupted by the arrival of an ancient butler carrying a tray on which was placed a quite enormous cup and saucer. He set it down on the desk without so much as a glance in Nyro’s direction.

  “So,” Osman continued, after the butler had left, “you were just telling me about how everyone seemed to have forgotten all about your friend Luther.”

  Nyro nodded. “His mother’s been taken away and he doesn’t even seem to be on the school records anymore. There’s practically no proof that he ever existed. Except for this.”

  He reached into his inside pocket and took out a photograph of himself and Luther. It had been taken a few days before they had set off on their hiking trip. He handed it to Osman, who started visibly as he glanced at it.

  “I’ve met this young man,” he announced.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I say. I have already made the acquaintance of your friend.”

  “How?”

  “He came to a lecture I gave a couple of months ago.”

  Nyro shook his head. “I think you must be mistaken. Luther wouldn’t do something like that. He was always cutting classes at school.”

  “I have a very good memory for faces,” Osman insisted. “Besides, your friend came up to me afterwards. He said he had a number of questions he wanted to ask me.”

  “What was this lecture about, then?” Nyro asked.

  “Poetry,” Osman told him.

  “Listen, I can guarantee you that Luther would not have gone to a talk about poetry,” Nyro said with a certain amount of scorn.

  Osman gave him a long, hard look, and the smile faded from Nyro’s face. There was something about the old man’s eyes that forced you to respect him, a kind of power that seemed to radiate from deep inside him. “It seems that you are not quite as intelligent as your friend,” he said.

  Nyro opened his mouth to reply, but Osman cut him off. “Have you ever heard of the Mendini Canticle?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s a lost work written by the Gehennan poet Alvar Kazimir Mendini. Mendini was a rather special individual. Some people claim that his poem predicts the end of the world. Unfortunately, he was assassinated by agents of the Gehennan government before he could publish it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mendini was a member of the Púca, a group of people who were seeking to overthrow the leadership of Dr. Sigmundus.”

  “Was that what your lecture was about?”

  “Yes. Your friend told me he was interested in everything t
o do with Gehenna, and especially with Mendini.”

  “Amazing,” Nyro remarked.

  “You said you went hiking in the border area before he disappeared. Whose idea was that?” Osman asked.

  “Luther’s.”

  Osman raised one eyebrow in a gesture that seemed to say, “You see? Not so amazing, really.”

  “All right, but that still doesn’t explain where he’s gone and why everyone seems to be forgetting about him.”

  Osman nodded. “True. This reminds me of something I read about once.” He got up and went over to the window. “Our military friends seem to have gone away, for the time being at least. What do you say we go and take a look inside your friend’s house?”

  “How will we get in if his mother’s not there?”

  “We will simply break in, of course,” Osman said. He rubbed his hands together and smiled gleefully. “Let me see now.” He opened a cupboard and began ransacking its contents. “No need for subtlety, I shouldn’t think.” He took out a small hammer from the cupboard and put it in his pocket. “Now then, what about the guard dog, eh?”

  Nyro frowned. “I don’t think there’s a dog,” he said.

  Osman merely smiled and handed him an oblong mirror in a carved wooden frame. It was about the size of a large book. “You can look after this for me,” he said. “But keep it wrapped up until I tell you. That’s very important.” He passed Nyro a black velvet cloth. “Don’t leave any of the glass showing, please. We wouldn’t want to annoy anyone until the time is right.”

  Nyro wrapped the mirror in the black velvet cloth. He was beginning to wonder whether the old man was not right in the head.

  Osman’s face positively beamed with expectation. “Splendid!” he said. “Now then, let’s get on with the job.”

  Luther’s house backed onto an unlit alley. It was a simple matter to get up onto a trash can and climb over the back wall without being seen. Osman showed surprising agility for a man of his years.

  Once they were over the wall, Osman took the hammer out of his pocket and smashed a pane of glass. It made a lot of noise, and Nyro expected the neighbors to pop their heads out of their windows at any moment, though Osman seemed entirely unperturbed. He reached through the open window and opened the back door.

  “We’d better go through the house systematically,” Osman said. “We’ll start downstairs and work our way up.” He peered around the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers.

  “What are we looking for?” Nyro asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I find it,” Osman replied.

  Nyro and Osman made their way through the dining room and the living room. The soldiers had done a comprehensive job. Practically everything that could be easily moved had been taken from the house. There were broken ornaments, pictures had been removed from the walls and thrown onto the floor, and the sofa had been slit open. What were they looking for?

  Upstairs Luther’s bedroom had been stripped almost completely bare. Even the mattress had been taken off the bed. The doors of his wardrobe hung open a little forlornly. Osman stood in the middle of the room, his nose twitching slightly, like a dog’s when it catches a new scent.

  “I’ve got a feeling about this room,” he said.

  “Like the one you had about me?” Nyro asked.

  Osman shook his head. “That was a good feeling,” he replied. “I wonder if—” But he broke off. Someone was opening the front door. “In here, quick!” he whispered urgently.

  They both stepped into the wardrobe and Osman closed the doors behind them. A moment later Nyro heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He held his breath and peered through the crack between the doors as Brigadier Giddings came into the room, carrying something in both hands. He set it down carefully in the middle of the floor, then turned and went back downstairs. They heard the front door close once more. Nyro breathed a sigh of relief.

  Nyro and Osman emerged from the wardrobe and crossed the room to examine the object that the Brigadier had placed on the floor. It was a bowl filled with a dark red liquid.

  Osman picked the bowl up and sniffed its contents. He shook his head. “This is very bad news indeed,” he said.

  “Why? What is it?” Nyro asked.

  Osman put the bowl back down in the middle of the floor. “It’s blood,” he said. “And it’s extremely fresh.”

  KIDU

  “Giddim!”

  It took Dante several days to realize that it wasn’t just a noise. The bird was actually talking.

  “Giddim! Aaach, aaach, aaach giddim!”

  At least that was what it sounded like. But it had to mean something. Dante could tell, because he shared the bird’s mind. There was intention behind its cries. A desire to communicate.

  Most of the time he tried to ignore the bird’s thoughts—if you could actually call them thoughts. A lot of them were simply grumbles about itching under its feathers or the difficulty of finding enough bugs to eat. He tried to shut himself off in the way that you shut yourself off from the conversations going on all around you when you stand in the middle of a crowd. He had enough on his own mind to keep him busy—if only he had got to the Púca’s campsite more quickly; if only he hadn’t underestimated Orobas; if only he hadn’t allowed himself to be overtaken by rage; if only he hadn’t turned his back. If only, if only, if only …

  “Giddim! Aaach, aaach, aaach giddim!”

  He was becoming increasingly certain that the bird’s comments weren’t just general expressions of feeling, like making a claim to the territory around it, complaining about the cold or the lack of food. It was addressing itself directly to him.

  “Giddim!”

  Trapped inside the bird’s body, with no solution on the horizon, Dante found that the repetitive cry was starting to get him down.

  “Giddim!”

  “All right!” Dante said wearily. “All right! I’ve heard you. ‘Giddim.’ But what’s it supposed to mean?”

  “You.”

  Had he just imagined that, or had the bird really replied? No! Of course not. He was letting himself get carried away. It was understandable. He longed so much to talk to someone, to discuss his predicament, that his mind had begun playing tricks on him.

  “You are Giddim!”

  There it was again! He really could understand what the bird was saying. After all, they shared the same brain. Perhaps if he just tried to feel the meaning behind the sounds instead of expecting the bird to speak in his own language …

  “Why do you call me Giddim?” he demanded.

  “It is what you are—a thing that has no body of its own! Leave me!” the bird demanded. “You have no right to live inside me!”

  So a giddim was a creature that took possession of another being’s body. A parasite, like Orobas.

  That was how it began. Over the next few days he learned more about the bird. His name was Kidu. And he hated Dante for forcing him to do things in which he had no interest whatsoever. Like attacking Dante’s former body when Orobas had tried to use it to kill Bea. But most of all Kidu hated Dante for being inside him. Dante tried explaining that he had no wish to share Kidu’s body, but the bird wouldn’t listen. He was too busy being mad at him—and worrying.

  Surprisingly, Kidu wasn’t just worried about Dante. There was something even bigger. Something that he called Shurruppak, and whatever this Shurruppak was, it was getting worse all the time.

  “Shurruppak growing. Soon Shurruppak cover all. Swallow all. Everything become Shurruppak. Kidu gone. All zimbir gone. Nothing. End.”

  Kidu repeated this little formula to himself over and over again while he perched on a branch, occasionally pecking at the tiny insects that lived beneath the bark of the tree. Dante racked his brains to decide what it could mean.

  Two other birds landed on a branch above Kidu. Once they would have been indistinguishable to Dante, but now that he saw them through Kidu’s eyes, he had no difficulty recognizing them as distinct individuals. Kidu said something
to the larger of the two, but it made no reply. Then the two birds flew rapidly away.

  Kidu flapped his wings in what Dante now recognized as a gesture of anger. “Shurruppak bring Giddim. Filthy Giddim. Zimbir dislike Kidu now. No talk anymore.”

  “Was that Zimbir you spoke to just now?” Dante asked.

  Kidu directed a wave of contempt at him. “Stupid Giddim. All zimbir. All.”

  Suddenly Dante understood. “Zimbir” was not the name of the bird that had just flown away. All birds were zimbir, and they all disliked Kidu because of the giddim that possessed him.

  “I’m sorry,” Dante said.

  “Kidu don’t need sorry. Go back to Shurruppak!”

  “What is Shurruppak?”

  An explosion of rage filled Kidu’s mind. “You know Shurruppak!” he told him. “You belong Shurruppak!”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you show it to me?”

  “No!”

  “You want me to leave, don’t you?”

  As soon as he said this, Kidu’s attitude changed. Dante could feel the bird concentrating every fiber of his being on him. “I show you Shurruppak, you leave?” Kidu demanded eagerly.

  “I will try,” Dante promised. “I cannot guarantee, but if it is possible, then I will leave.”

  Kidu hesitated. “No tricks?” he said.

  “No tricks.”

  “I show you Shurruppak!” Kidu spread his wings and took to the sky.

  Before Kidu had only made short flights from one tree to another. But now, as he flew high in the sky, there was a grace and a joyfulness about the flight that was exhilarating. Kidu’s wings rose and fell steadily, as if he were rowing through the air, negotiating wind currents with delicate movements of his wing tips and tail feathers. It was clear to Dante that flying was more than just a means for Kidu to get from one place to another. It was a part of the bird’s identity, a way of demonstrating his place in the world.