by Troy Hooker
“He was taken. There’s no way Chivler would just leave for vacation,” Lillia said quickly, ignoring Mr. Sterling’s request.
Mr. Sterling sighed and shook his head. “I may need to report back to the Council if they request, so we will need to make our sightseeing time short.”
“If there are no dark spots out there,” Lillia said under her breath.
“There most certainly are not,” Cooley said defiantly. “The Seers would know immediately.”
Lillia lifted one eyebrow in disbelief.
“Then how do you explain all of the sightings? Or the reports of residual Darkness in the City?” she ventured with the slightest tone of disrespect.
“Rumors. None are true,” Cooley leveled his eyes toward his younger counterpart. “You are mistaken.”
No one dared challenge Cooley, though not out of fear, but impatience. Mr. Sterling had held his peace, but Sam could tell he wasn’t entirely sure where he stood on the issue by the expression on his face. But like the rest of the group, he wisely stayed silent.
He himself wished to hear the argument further, since he had no knowledge of the “Darkness” Lillia was talking about. But getting information on either could prove to be difficult, especially if there were conflicting opinions.
As Mr. Sterling outlined their path to both cities on the map in front of them, Sam followed along on the old document but didn’t recognize any of the land features or names of cities. They didn’t sound like any of the names he had ever heard before. He was truly in a foreign place.
“Okay everyone, let’s pack up and head out,” Mr. Sterling announced once breakfast was cleaned up, looking toward his wife, who nodded as she put away last dish in the tiny kitchen and stooped to pick up a backpack to lay it on the table.
“Samuel, I have packed a few things for you in this backpack that you will be needing.” Mrs. Sterling handed him a canvas pack, which seemed lighter than it looked. “All your essentials are there. Toiletries, pants and shirts, socks and undies—”
Emma overheard her mother and giggled at the word undies, to which Sam promptly blushed.
Mr. Sterling stepped in with a scowl on his face to rescue Sam.
“Oh dear, let’s not embarrass the boy this early—”
But Mrs. Sterling held a hand up at her husband gently.
“And your journal.”
“Journal?” Sam questioned, looking at the blue leather softbound poking out of the top of the pack.
“Oh my dear boy, have you never kept a journal?” she prodded.
“No, ma’am, I haven’t. I suppose I never did because life seemed to change so much that it didn’t make much sense.”
“That’s exactly why you need to start keeping one, Sammy boy,” Lillia interjected with a smirk on her face.
“Well then, Lillia’s right. You must start keeping one.” Mrs. Sterling smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “It is very important. Just write about anything you think of throughout the day that has significance. This one is blue, like your eyes.”
“Thank you Mrs. Sterling.” Sam looked curiously at the leather book, which looked a bit like the one Mr. Chivler gave him, only newer.
“Are we going to hang out here all day, or are we going to get to Lior before everything closes?” Mr. Sterling said with a scowl on his face as he swung open the large cabin door.
As if everyone were on cue, the whole lot stood and headed for the door, laughing and talking excitedly about the journey. Sam stood also and took a deep breath, then swung his new backpack over his shoulder and followed quietly.
Mr. Sterling led them across the bridge over the small river and onto the narrow path through the musky smelling pines. He walked so fast that Sam had trouble keeping up, but eventually found the pace and fell in behind Lillia.
The path seemed to wind endlessly through the trees, and after only a short time, the excited talk began to die down until there was only the sound of the soft wind blowing past them as they walked.
The terrain was much hillier than it was in White Pine, and there were occasions on the trail where the trees opened up and they could see a glimpse of the mountainous terrain in front of them. Slowly, the doubt of whether or not he was still in Michigan began to ebb away, and he gave into the awe of his surroundings.
To pass the time as they walked, Emma slowed to talk to him, and they recalled the previous night’s celebration and laughed at Sam’s dancing. He was enjoying their talk so much that he didn’t even realize that they had been walking uphill for nearly twenty minutes, and that he was struggling to catch his breath and talk at the same time. Every so often Lillia turned and looked at them with an annoyed expression, but Sam had learned to ignore her, as her expressions were not rare.
After a few more minutes of strenuous trudging, the train of travelers stopped suddenly, forcing unwary Sam into the back of Lillia.
“Hey, would you look where you are going?” she sneered.
“Sorry,” Sam smiled and rolled his eyes, at which Emma laughed and winked at him.
“We are at the top!” Emma said suddenly, grabbing Sam’s hand and pushing past the others in line to the front.
She pulled him to where the trees opened up into a wide panoramic vista of the valley below, where her father was already admiring the view. The sight took Sam’s breath away.
“Welcome to Jester’s Pass,” Mr. Sterling said as he stood on a rock outcropping near the edge of the cliff. “It is the highest point of the trail. That over there,” he pointed in the distance to a clump of small buildings wrapping itself around a mountain, “is Warm Springs.”
“The best place ever,” Emma sighed happily.
“Yes, yes, and we will go there soon enough,” he smiled at his daughter.
Sam was stunned. He was definitely not in Michigan anymore. Snow-capped mountains laced the horizon beyond the valley, and thick pines blanketed the valley far below them. The jagged peaks surrounded the valley in every direction but one, which led to a vast forest, then to open plains. Far beyond the plains was the faint blue outline of an ocean.
“This is Lior,” Mr. Sterling made a sweeping motion with his hand. “It means—the Land of Light. And that,” he pointed toward the ocean, “is the way to Lior City.”
The places, the names, the landscape—it was all new, but grasping it was another story. Where were they? Was it another planet? Another part of Earth that was hidden from society?
“Lior is a land created for us, the People of Light, The Descendants of Light,” Mr. Sterling said, as though anticipating Sam’s question.
All at once it him Sam. He knew who they were.
“You mean the angels. You’re Descendants of them.”
Mr. Sterling nodded.
“But why here?”
“When the earth was created, it fell into Darkness for a period of time. We, the People of Light, needed another place to go. Our gifts and abilities did not match with the mortality of humanity. So Lior was created for us. It is an in-between land of sorts, until the Creator returns and reunites us.”
“So we are in another dimension,” Sam frowned.
“You could say that,” Mr. Sterling nodded. “But think of it more as two places that exist side by side, and each has a purpose.”
Sam stared at the majestic valley below him, enjoying the cool mountain breeze that brushed past him. It was beautiful, but Mr. Sterling’s words were not resonating with him. Beautiful or not, he was still in an alien world.
It was frustrating to know that he had lived so ignorantly his whole life … as so many others on Earth still did.
“So we are just blind to what is really out there? Every day, people walk around without a clue that there is another world—and one glimpse could change their perspective in so many things, like whether or not there is a God?”
Mr. Sterling thought for a moment and smiled, his eyes glowing with empathy.
“Faith in what cannot be seen is essential to having the freedom to choose whether or not to believe in something,” he said finally.
It was then that Sam squinted and noticed what looked like large green kites floating strangely around the valley. They were huge—nearly the size of small airplanes, and blended into the trees that crawled up the mountainsides. Their long slender tails seemed to slither through the air like a snake through the water.
“Those are Northropi,” Gus pointed toward the closest as he squinted and attempted to adjust his glasses. “Largest flying reptiles in existence. Herbivores, and harmless … well, unless they land on you,” he chuckled.
“A dinosaur?” Sam was exasperated as he watched the green monster slip through the sky. “You can’t be serious.”
Just then, a Northropi drifted gracefully just below the outlook where they stood, making everyone in the group crowd the ledge to watch it.
With the head of an oversized brachiosaur, the Northropi moved like a thin blimp, its green shiny skin like it had just taken a dip in the lake. The wingspan was even wider than his grandfather’s cabin, and with the creature’s size, Sam wondered how it flew at all.
He remembered hearing about the larger of the Pterosaur’s remains being found in Mexico, but here was a living, breathing example. How could there be living dinosaurs here?
“They like to hug the mountains because there is more of a breeze,” Gus added.
Sam was dizzy from the sight. It was all too much—traveling to another world … dinosaurs.
“It seems impossible.”
“Yes. It makes you question the laws of physics. It did me,” Gus said. “From what I can tell, their wings are balanced so incredibly perfectly that they are able to create their own updraft under their wings.”
“No, I mean, dinosaurs—they are extinct. Something killed them off.”
Gus nodded.
“On Earth, yes. But here, they are still alive and well.”
Sam was frustrated. They weren’t getting it. People had been living with the idea that dinosaurs had been dead for millions of years—those that believed in evolution, anyway. One step through the Light gate would destroy all that science and history had been built upon.
“Then why allow Earth to live in the dark?”
Mr. Sterling laughed.
“Truly!” he said, taking out a few pieces of jerky and handing them to Sam and Gus. “I remember when I came to Lior for the first time. There were so many perceptions about what I knew that changed so suddenly. I stayed in bed for nearly a whole day not eating. And even then, it was only after meeting Cindy that I began really to believe what I saw. But I tell you, Samuel, people on Earth are not in the dark. They are only misguided. Even if we were to bring them here, they would swear the dinosaurs weren’t there. There is nothing we can do with a closed mind.”
“That is why we don’t invite anyone here that is much older than you are,” Miss Karpatch had snuck up on them. “Adults have a hard time adjusting.”
“And because we were born in Creation, we weren’t allowed to come to Lior until we were thirteen,” Emma offered, the slightest disappointment in her voice.
Mr. Sterling swept a hand out toward the valley.
“The Northropi are only one part of that perception you must change. This is the last valley they inhabit. The Darkness drove them from the others long ago.”
The Darkness? Why did they keep talking about it like it had a mind of its own? “Is that what I saw last night? The Darkness?”
Mr. Sterling gazed off into the valley below. The breeze from the mountains seemed to be warming as the sun was now high in the sky. For a moment, Sam felt the slightest bit of fear as the uncomfortable pause grew to a long silence. Although he knew Mr. Sterling would eventually answer him, he couldn’t help but notice the reluctance to give him complete information.
“Although there are still remnants of Darkness here in Lior, we haven’t had any incidents with Dark Forces in almost fifty years, thank the Creator.”
Lillia, who had rejoined the group from her perch of solitude, showed obvious signs of irritation with Mr. Sterling’s response.
“What about Boggle’s report from his Darkness anomaly detector?”
Upon her words, Cooley seemed to appear out of nowhere, looking anxious to hear the next response. Mr. Sterling looked around, and seeing he had an audience, stood to address the eavesdropping group.
“As the Director, I can assure you the Protector’s Office takes every report seriously, but no residual traces of Darkness were found upon investigation. We assumed it was a problem with the device,” he said carefully, which didn’t sit well with Lillia, who rolled her eyes at his words.
Mr. Sterling continued.
“We are safer than we ever have been in Lior. The Seers have assured us of that.” He glanced appreciatively at Cooley. “Now, I believe the time has come that we must get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover today. Shall we?”
***********************
Lillia caught up to Sam when they were nearing the bottom of Jester’s Pass. It had taken nearly two hours to reach the bottom, partially because of the dangerous path that wound down the mountain, and partially because of Gus’s fear of heights. Every so often they would stop to give him a breather, and to talk him out of retreating to a wider portion of the path where he would back himself up against the cliff and refuse to move. They still had a considerable amount of walking to do, but already Sam’s feet were groaning at him.
“A long time ago the Darkness had no power anywhere in Lior. It stayed in hiding, cowering from the Light,” Lillia said beneath her breath as the others attempted to coax Gus around a large rock that half-blocked the perilous path. “But nowadays, whatever the Council believes or doesn’t, it is out there, and I think it is stronger than it used to be. If it is spreading, we are in deep trouble.”
“How does it spread?” Sam probed, thinking of a cool mist moving silently along the surface of a lake.
Lillia was silent for a moment. Then she turned to look at one of the last glimpses of the Northropi before the group descended below the tree line of the pass toward the valley floor.
“Choices—the choices of men, and of those that live here. It thrives on evil acts. The more bad people choose to do, the more the Darkness grows. It gives power to the Dark Forces. The Dark Watchers and their Lords, and the Metim that follow them.”
Sam said nothing, but something told him that what she said made some sense. If they truly believed that the Darkness wasn’t growing, then they hadn’t been outside of White Pine recently. The world was a dangerous, angry place.
“But you don’t know for sure?”
Lillia hugged the wall on a particularly thin spot on the path, then waited for Sam to follow. Emma had joined the group trying to convince Gus to move, but with little luck. No doubt it was going to take significantly longer to get him to cross the spot Lillia and Sam just did.
“Boggle told me. He believes that information is being held back about the Darkness in Lior. He thinks it’s growing, and either the Council is purposefully denying it, or is too ignorant to see it,” she whispered furiously. “Boggle said those devices he made were almost foolproof. But the Council never wants to hear what Boggle says.”
Before he could ask who Boggle was, however, Gus had somehow mustered up the courage to open his eyes and face his fear, and the group was on the move again. At the halfway mark, Miss Karpatch made sure to point out that the temperature had risen nearly ten degrees since first descending into the valley, which immediately started a string of useless facts and information from an already talkative Gus, who loved to talk loudly when he was not afraid.
It was nearly lunchtime when the group reached the bottom of the pass.
Mr. Sterling called for a break near a small stream that seemed to flow straight from the rock next to the path where some brush and small trees easily concealed it.
As they ate, they all took turns drinking from the small spring and filling their canteens. The water was cold and refreshing, and Sam drank long and deep from the bubbling spring. Mrs. Sterling handed him a sandwich—roast beef. Not his favorite, but filling nonetheless after a long hike. According to Mr. Sterling, they still had much of their journey ahead of them, and sunset would be upon them in only six hours.
“Eat quickly, group,” Mr. Sterling said with urgency, but still smiling, “if we are to make it to the City by nightfall, of course.”
“Here, try this.” Miss Karpatch handed him a napkin wrapped up in a ball as the rest of the group finished up their lunch and repacked their backpacks.
He opened the napkin and without hesitating, took a bite of the green spongy ball, which tasted very much like a cupcake straight from the oven. Chocolate, but there was another flavor—something he couldn’t explain, almost like chocolate, and perhaps coconut but not as strong. It was deliciously moist, one of the best cakes he had tasted.
“It’s made from an ancient root, the Colacree.”
“It’s good,” Sam said, still feeling a bit strange that only last week his history teacher was rubbing her temples and calling him lazy, but now he was eating root cake with her in a strange land.
“Sam,” she started as she unwrapped another cake ball. “I am sorry for the way people treated you in White Pine. I tried to make you feel as welcome as I could.”
He felt a little warmth in his cheeks when she mentioned how people treated him. He did feel like he was an outcast at times. That was, whenever he wasn’t face down on the hallway floor with Bush bloodying his face. But outcast? He could understand that. He always prided himself on his ability to handle such labels.
“It’s okay, Miss Karpatch. Really,” he answered, but more out of the desire to end the conversation than to console her.