The Seekers: The Children of Darkness (Dystopian Sci-Fi - Book 1) (26 page)

Midnight had long since passed when Orah limped into the
clearing outside Little Pond. The trek had taken longer than expected. They’d
struggled in the dark to navigate the trail through the woods, and the flight
from Temple City had left them bone-weary.

She stared at the remnants of their childhood sanctuary and
sighed. Her damp clothing gave meager protection from the cold, but the NOT
tree offered little more. The branches that wrapped it would provide scant
shelter—their needles had turned brown and fallen, leaving the walls tattered
and bare.

As she scanned the naked trees surrounding the clearing, so
near to home she could almost smell the smoke from her mother’s fireplace, a
question crept into her mind. “Does anyone know what date it is?”

Nathaniel’s eyelids sagged, nearly cloaking his eyes, and
the rest of him sagged as well. “The leaves are down and the wind is brisk.
That’s all I know.”

“The end of November,” Thomas said.

“Festival already. Time’s passed strangely this year.”

Thomas shuddered. “This time last year, I was heading to my
teaching.”

An unexpected gust kicked up, making the branches on the
shelter flutter in the breeze.

Orah wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed for warmth. “I’d
love to go home to my mother, climb into bed and sleep for a week, and then
gather for the lighting of the bonfire, but if I think that way, I’d be back in
Temple City before the festival tree flares. Thomas would get his own cell, and
Nathaniel and I would never see each other again.”

She shivered, and Nathaniel draped an arm about her
shoulders. She could feel his warmth, but his arm lacked strength.

He spoke in a murmur, with barely enough breath to slur his
words. “Let’s get some rest. We need to be up before dawn if we’re to slip into
the village unseen.”

She nodded, turned and embraced him, clinging fast as if to
allow no space for vicars or deacons or walls to come between them ever again.

After they separated, she noticed Thomas standing apart and
went to him. “Whatever happens, Thomas, thank you for this chance at freedom,
brief though it may be.”

Then they entered the shelter and huddled together for
warmth.

***

Orah awoke first, startled to consciousness by a yearning to
be someplace familiar, safe and secure. The frozen ground had made her hips
ache, and the wind whistling through the branches had troubled her sleep. She
sat up, peered into the darkness and remembered—someplace familiar, but never
again safe and secure.

She went outside so as not to disturb her friends, and
settled on the flat rock. Her gaze wandered up to the treetops as they swayed
in the moonlight and down to the dried leaves as they skittered across the
ground.

She jerked around to the snap of twigs coming from the path
to the clearing, and caught a solitary figure creeping through the trees. No
need for panic. Deacons would come in greater numbers, not alone.

The hunched figure became more distinct, its movements
deliberate and without stealth, but the face stayed shrouded in shadow until it
breached the tree line.

Nathaniel’s father.

“Orah, thank the light, I found you.”

She rose to meet him, and they embraced.

Thomas stirred to their voices and stuck his head out from
the shelter. When he recognized their visitor, he scrambled out to greet him as
well.

Nathaniel’s father glanced about fearfully. “Where’s
Nathaniel?”

She tilted her head toward the tattered frame. “Inside
sleeping. Come, Thomas, let’s leave father and son to talk alone.”

The older man thanked her, bent stiffly and crawled inside.

***

Nathaniel awoke to no sound, but rather to a presence
nearby, a specter kneeling over him praying. One eye opened, then the other. A
vision of his father? He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“What...?”

“I came to warn you, Nathaniel. Deacons roam the village.
They intend to—”

“How did you find us?”

“Did you forget who built this shelter?”

“I didn’t think you remembered.”

“I’m still your father and always will be.”

Nathaniel grabbed him in a strong embrace and held on for a
dozen heartbeats.

After they parted, the two studied each other in the rays of
moonlight filtering through the branches, trying to measure how each had
changed, trying to understand the moment.

His father spoke first. “You’ve become a man, Nathaniel.”

“I’ve been gone less than a year.”

“I don’t mean by time but by experience.”

“The vicars haven’t changed me. Their darkness doesn’t
frighten me anymore.”

“Not in that way, Nathaniel. You bear a seriousness about
you, like one who has faced death and made a choice.”

Nathaniel looked away, embarrassed. As he turned back, a
moonbeam fell across his father’s face, revealing a right cheek discolored and
an eye half-closed.

He reached out to stroke the wound. “What happened?”

His father winced and pulled away. “A misunderstanding with
a deacon.”

“I thought the Temple doesn’t harm its children.”

His father bowed his head and stared at the ground. “I’ve
never seen them so ill-tempered, not even during my teaching. You must have
done something terribly wrong.”

“We’re not the ones who’ve done wrong. It’s the Temple of
Light.”

Nathaniel told him about the first keeper, discovered in the
cells of Temple City, and the search for the keep. He described the wonders
they found, a way to ask questions of the wisest people from a thousand years
ago—from a time the Temple called the darkness—and a means to listen to their
answers. He told of the medicines, the music, an instrument to view a million
suns, ships that traveled to the stars and a thousand other wonders—all lost.

“I can prove their deceit in so many ways.”

“I’d like to believe you,” his father said, “as I believed
you before, until the vicars came and claimed the darkness had seeped into your
bones. They said you were no longer the son I’d raised.”

Nathaniel had never been quick to anger, but now he became
enraged. “They lied to you. They’ve always lied.”

“As did you, Nathaniel. You told me you’d gone on a mission
for the vicars. Only when they came looking did I learn you’d misled me.
Whatever happened, I thought you’d be honest with me.”

“You’d have been in danger if you knew the truth. I lied to
protect you. Forgive me.”

His father considered the response. “I forgive you. It’s not
the first time the Temple has forced someone to do what they knew to be wrong.”

“But do you believe me now?”

His father glanced down as if counting the withered pine
needles on the ground. He’d listened with a loving father’s ears, but would he
accept what he heard?

“If what you say is true, Nathaniel, it would turn our world
upside down.”

“It’s true.”

“That the Temple could do so much harm?”

“It’s true. I swear.

“Even so, their precepts hold our world together. Is it wise
to disrupt the current order?”

Nathaniel’s eyes drooped at the corners. “Father, we
found... dreams. Without the keep, we can be alive, do our work, live in peace
and be... happy, I guess. But what are we without dreams?”

A look of anguish came over his father’s face. “What’s true
no longer matters. It’s too late. They’re waiting for you.”

Nathaniel’s jaw tightened and his fists clenched, but before
he could respond with defiance, his father silenced him with a wave. “I’ve been
gone too long. The vicars and their men are everywhere. I was able to slip away
only because of the darkness.” He looked up, eyes pleading. “They’re pulling
people from their beds, assembling them by the commons and demanding they wear
ceremonial robes. Leave, Nathaniel. Run as far as you can from Little Pond and
never return.”

The wind chose that moment to die down, and the rattling of
the branches ceased.

***

Nathaniel watched until his father merged with the shadows
and disappeared. Orah and Thomas waited nearby, but he could only look past
them to the gap in the trees. All his life, his father had taught him to follow
the strength of his convictions. Now, on the cusp of this most important
decision, he’d urged him to run away.

But to where? The plan to cross the pass over the mountains
had always been fraught with risk. Now, they’d need to do so without
provisions, and the deacons might track them down, catch them on the way, and drag
them back in shame to the village square.

Or they might flee to the east, sneak through the woods,
steal food from remote farmhouses and survive like vagabonds, hoping some
sympathetic soul might take them in and hide them in a woodshed or root cellar.

The muscles of his cheeks twitched and tensed; his jaw
wavered and stiffened. He’d run once before to the granite mountains—a coward’s
journey. He refused to run again.

Orah stepped between him and the path to the woods. “What’s
wrong?”

He shook off the mood, seeing her as if for the first time. “Deacons,
Orah. Deacons and vicars everywhere. They’re organizing our neighbors for a
stoning.”

Thomas stifled a cry. “Then there’s nowhere we can be safe.”

Orah rested a hand on his arm. Her lips parted, but before
she could comfort him, Nathaniel intervened. “You’re right, Thomas. Safety is
an illusion. We can never be safe while the Temple rules.”

Orah stared deep into the woods as if hoping to find
Nathaniel’s father returning. “We can take back trails to the mountains.”

Nathaniel shook his head.

“We can go east, find someplace to hide.” She became more
agitated. “People who’ve read our posts will support us.”

“If our friends and neighbors won’t support us, who will?’

“Then what can we do?”

“Do you remember the story I told you about the man who
toppled the Temple of Light?”

She nodded. “You said it was a work of imagination, not
real.”

“But the idea is real. You and Thomas should flee to the
east, head to Adamsville or Bradford, if you can get that far. Maybe you’ll
find support.”

Orah’s eyes had remained dry since her father’s funeral, but
found their tears in captivity. Now, once again, they began to flow. “Why do
you talk like this? Why do you speak of me and Thomas without you?”

He wandered over to the shelter, grasped one of the poles
and tested it—its base remained planted firmly in the ground. He hoped to sound
resolute when he told her, but no amount of time could ease what he had to say.

He turned and faced her. “I plan to march into the village
square. Little Pond is my home. I won’t run again.”

“You’ll be killed.”

“Better to die than to be hunted down, and I’ll get the
chance to stand before my people. Maybe they’ll listen and believe. If not,
they might regret my death and act later. You and Thomas can slip away while
the vicars and their men are distracted.”

Then he waited as his friends pondered his words. Thomas
stared at him with sorrow, but Orah bristled with that fierce intensity that
made her so beautiful.

“No, Nathaniel,” she said at last. “At the trial in Temple
City, I thought I’d lost you forever, and then I lived for the past weeks with
that damned peephole between us. Each day, I feared they’d take you away. I’m
not leaving you again.”

She held her ground, eyes smoldering, daring him to disagree.
He scoured his mind for a way to dissuade her, anything to keep her safe, but
she believed as strongly as he did, and if their situations were reversed, he’d
never leave her side.

“Very well,” he said. “They’re waiting for us. Let’s not
disappoint them.”

Orah turned to Thomas. “Dear Thomas. We’re sorry to abandon
you at last. Run to the southeast, keeping to the woods. Once the vicars have
vented their rage on us, they might be less intent on tracking you down. You
may be fine. You’ve always had a talent for surviving by your wits.”

Thomas surprised them by flashing his grin. “Are you
kidding? I’m coming with you.”

He held up a hand before Orah could argue. “My mind’s made
up. My feet hurt, and most everything else as well. Like you, I’m tired of running.”
He turned grim. “Besides, the prospect of stoning three of their children will
make our neighbors think, and I can’t wait to watch the vicars’ faces when we
march in together.”

Nathaniel regarded his friend, no longer the boy of their
childhood but a man like himself. He dipped his head, a sign of respect, and
agreed.

Orah drew in a breath and began dusting off her clothing and
combing her fingers through her hair.

“What are you doing?” Thomas said.

She smiled at him. “Getting ready. I want to look my best
for the ceremony.”

Shadows in the night, marching with steadfast stride.

The people of Great Pond were on the move. All had read the
messages copied and passed in haste from person to person. Deacons had come
that evening as they had for the past few months, asking for the young people
from Little Pond, but with an increased urgency. After midnight, a roar had approached
from the east. Harsh lights had raced through the streets. People had been pulled
from their beds and questioned. Houses had been searched.

Then the caravan of clergy left, heading west to Little
Pond.

Now, the spinner and his wife led their neighbors in the
dark, among them farmers, the blacksmith, elders and the young.

All walking west, shadows in the
night.

Orah paraded behind Nathaniel on the narrow path she’d
traveled since childhood. Ahead, the harbinger of first light gave contrast to
the commons, distinguishing its roof from the sky. Familiar shadows reminded
her of festival—the mound of charred logs from the prior night’s bonfire, the
spruce waiting to be set aglow. Fond memories, gatherings with friends, and now
their final approach to the square.

As daybreak loomed, the hint of dawn should have brightened
the landscape, but the shadows deepened more than she remembered. When she drew
closer, they transformed into the hunched forms of men and women. The whole
village had arrayed itself in a half-circle guarding the commons. She felt as
if she walked into a headwind, though the morning breeze had stilled.

Across from the commons, ominous mounds completed the
circle. A noise sounded, like metal snapping into place. Then another and
another. The mounds grew eyes that cast an eerie glow. Fast wagons, as she’d
expected.

In the glare, she recognized the faces of elders and
schoolmates, of friends and neighbors. Each wore a ceremonial robe and clutched
a rock the size of an apple.

She strode to the center of the circle with Nathaniel and
Thomas on either side.

Stragglers from more distant farms came stumbling in, and
last of all, her mother and Nathaniel’s father. They wore no robes, and their
hands were empty.

Wagon doors opened and deacons emerged, followed by
clergy—vicars and monsignors, bishops and arch bishops. The monsignor who had
once ministered to the Ponds came to the front, cradling the sun icon in his
arms. He used the temple voice to announce his superior. “People of Little
Pond—the arch vicar of the Temple of Light.”

The old man emerged from the wagon and stepped toward them.

A hush fell over the square.

The arch vicar raised his arms,
fingers pointing to the glow from the rising sun, and spoke with an impressive
force. “Children of light, your Temple is under attack. Three of your own have
fallen under the sway of the darkness. I have petitioned his holiness, the
grand vicar, to declare them apostates.”

Grumbles from the crowd, calls of not possible.

The arch vicar waved them to silence. “You say they’re
blameless? You may be right. The Book of Light tells us, ‘Beware the stray
thought. Like water dripping on rock, it can erode the strongest mind and open
a path for the darkness.’ Now we understand the wisdom of the holy book. No one
is immune. Sadly, these children have been infected by the darkness, and we
must eradicate the disease before it spreads.”

Orah marveled at his mastery—forgiving and damning them in
the same breath. She glanced at her neighbors. Their eyes had glazed over as
when the sun icon speaks.

The arch vicar’s voice echoed in the chill air. “Would you
allow the darkness to return?”

Mutters of no, no.

“Unlike the darkness these young people worship, the Temple has
renounced violence. We stand defenseless and need your help.”

A few nods, but otherwise silence. Fingers tensed around
rocks.

“It is written, ‘If there comes among you a prophet, or a
dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, saying, Let us return to
the darkness, you shall not hearken to the words.’”

The nods ceased, but the children of light remained
enthralled.

“‘If your brother, or your son or daughter, or your wife, or
your friend, who may be as your own soul, entice you saying, Let us abandon the
light and serve the darkness, you shall not consent to him, but you shall surely
kill him. Your hand shall be first upon him, and afterwards the hand of all the
people.’”

His voice resounded like Thomas’s music in the keep, rising
and falling and moving the souls of its listeners. He shook his fist at
invisible forces.

“‘And you shall stone him with stones, that he die, because
he has sought to thrust you away from the light.’”

He stepped aside, leaving a clear path between the villagers
and the friends.

Time slowed for Orah, and her vision broadened. Thomas
waited, frozen in place on her left, and to her right, Nathaniel stood tall,
his head tilting ever-so-slightly in her direction. They might have enjoyed a
lifetime together had they not been dreamers of dreams.

In a moment, the voice from the sun icon would speak, the
judgment would be handed down, and rocks would fly.

She waited for her heart to pound,
expecting her breath to quicken, but instead, she stayed calm as a spring day. Before
the arch vicar could continue, her feet seemingly moved on their own as she
separated from her friends and stepped toward the crowd.

“Look at us.” Her words rang out, no longer the voice of a
scared girl pretending to be brave. “We’re your children. We swam in these
waters with you and celebrated festival together here in this square. We’re not
infected with a disease or tainted by the darkness, but we’ve stumbled upon a
truth, maybe through foolishness or luck, but a truth nevertheless. Things are
not as the vicars claim. These wagons aren’t magic. They were invented long ago
by men and women who thought for themselves and dreamed dreams, people whose
accomplishments and very existence the Temple hid from us and labeled as the
darkness.”

Confusion spread through the crowd. A few edged forward,
rocks in hand, but most held back, shuffling their feet and eyeing their
neighbors.

Deacons crept toward her, but the arch vicar dismissed them
with a wave. “Leave her be. Let the people see how much the darkness has seized
her soul.”

She refused to back down. “In the privacy of your homes you
complain about the teachings, but say they’re necessary to keep the darkness
away. Their real purpose is to make us afraid to think for ourselves. For light’s
sake, think for yourselves now. He’s asking you to kill your own children, not
for a crime but for daring to question the Temple.”

She confronted the arch vicar, whose face had reddened in
the rays of the half-risen sun, but the old clergyman was a believer, had
fought what he knew as the darkness his whole life.

He met her glare and cut her off, his voice resounding through
the square. “Look how she’s revealed herself, this demon of darkness, twisting
the truth to corrupt your minds. Is this what you want for yourselves and your
children? She and her friends must be stopped or the darkness will spread.”

Nervous feet shuffled forward, and more arms were raised.

The arch vicar’s lips curled upward
even as his brows sagged to meet them. He accepted the sun icon from the
monsignor with both hands and lifted it above his head.

An evangelical fervor illuminated his face. “Oh Holiness,
father of these children of light, the people await your judgment.”

All movement ceased. Those assembled held their breaths, leaving
no sound save the song of newly awakened birds, chirping to greet the dawn.

The sun icon crackled to life with the voice of the grand
vicar, the human embodiment of the light in this world. “Oh, Sun, giver of
life, we stand in judgment this day so the light may be returned to the village
of Little....”

The grand vicar’s words trailed off and a new voice spoke,
not as strong or as well-trained, but to those who knew him well, the speaker
was clear—Nathaniel.

“We are the seekers of truth, responsible for the postings.
Now we speak to you directly through the sun icon. You may ask how we gained
access to temple magic, but what you hear is neither magic nor of the Temple,
but rather the genius of men and women from long ago, from a time the Temple
calls the darkness. Here’s the truth....”

The arch vicar’s hands began to shake. Before another word
could be transmitted, he cast the sun icon to the frozen ground, leaving a
vacuum of sound, total silence in the village square.

But not for long.

Orah’s mind became a spiral of swirling lights, bright
thoughts, a glowing purpose—and at the hub of the spinning wheel, the power of an
idea.

She recalled the speech she and Nathaniel had composed, and
whispered to him. “Our words, your voice.”

Nathaniel began reciting the next words so seamlessly they
might have come from the shards on the ground. “Here’s the truth about the
darkness. We’ve stumbled across a place called the keep, where the best
thinkers of that age spent their lives recording knowledge, committed to saving
the past for this day. There we found wonders beyond imagination, ways to make
our lives better without depending on the clergy. There we discovered our
potential. The Temple would like to hide the keep from us, to prevent us from
learning and growing. They claim we must fear the keep, but the darkness was
not a time to be feared, but a time from which to learn....”

The arch vicar stood as if rooted to the ground, his jaw
grinding. Finally, he signaled, and the deacons rushed forward.

Nathaniel raised his voice even as he struggled to evade their
grasp, daring them to stop him. “The vicars offer us fear, a fear of thinking
for ourselves. They’ve stolen a sacred right—the right of every person—” He
twisted toward Orah. “—to have the potential for greatness. They offer us a
world of limits. We can be much more. The future is in your hands.”

He shook off the deacons and squared his shoulders to the
crowd. Orah and Thomas joined him, and the three locked arms.

The arch vicar sneered at them and turned to the villagers. “You
see the power of the darkness, which has gone beyond what I had imagined. Too
late. Our leader has handed down his judgment. He has declared them apostates,
and they must be removed from our world. Let them be struck down now.”

As he spoke the final word, he slammed his fist into his
hand. More arms were poised, more fingers tightened on stones, but before
anyone could act, Nathaniel’s father burst from the crowd.

“My son’s voice. It’s all true.”

Deacons blocked his way, but he shoved them off with thick
forearms and moved next to Nathaniel.

“I stand with my son.”

The arch vicar grimaced, but motioned the deacons to step
aside. “Now we know where the seeds of darkness were sown.”

Then Orah’s mother strode forward and came to her side. “And
I stand with my daughter.”

The three became five as the village watched. No more arms
were raised, but none were lowered. The red morning sun had cleared the
treetops.

Suddenly a buzz swept through the crowd. Fingers without
stones pointed at a tramping noise, the din of marching feet.

Orah turned along with friends and parents, clergymen and
deacons. Men and women began to arrive, first in ones and twos, then tens and
twenties. When finally gathered, they numbered more than four hundred.

A middle-aged man with thinning hair came to the fore, the
spinner Orah knew so well. His wife stood beside him, arm in arm. He needed a moment
to catch his breath, but when he finally spoke, his voice sent tremors through
the air.

“The people of Great Pond stand with the seekers of truth.”

Nathaniel’s father stared at them, assimilating the
situation, then set his jaw and turned to the clergymen—facing them for the
first time as an equal. “Take your wagons and leave the Ponds. If you return,
it will be on our terms.”

Flustered deacons formed a wedge around the vicars, a battle
formation. Now at last, hands with stones found a target. Voices shouted. Arms
were raised.

Outnumbered, the deacons backed down and retreated. Left
with no choice, the arch vicar signaled the others to the wagons, but unafraid
for himself, he lingered, a true believer.

“This is a sad day for the light.” He pointed a bony finger
at Orah. “You know not what forces you have unleashed. When the darkness
descends upon our world, let it be remembered it started here in Little Pond.”

The monsignor held open a door, and the arch vicar swept
inside. The wagons sprung to life with a roar. People covered their ears as wheels
spun, kicking up dust that rose twenty feet or more. When the dust settled, the
vicars and their men had gone.

Arms relaxed, and rocks thudded to the ground. As quiet
settled over the village, Orah found her neighbors gaping, waiting for someone
to fill the void. Now her heart pounded and her breath quickened. No words came
to mind.

Then she recalled the shoemaker’s daughter and remembered
her proud face reciting the pass phrase. She faced Nathaniel and grasped him by
the hands.

“We have traveled far, but our journey has just begun. The
true light drives us on.”

He picked up on it instantly, her friend since birth. “May we
find the end we seek and may the truth we discover hasten a new beginning.”

She glanced back at the villagers, raised her chin and
proclaimed: “Thus ends the age of darkness. Let the age of enlightenment begin.”