Thomas lingered alone over his breakfast. Devorah’s salves, gleaned from the earth mother, had soothed his blistered lips, and the color had returned to his cheeks.
“Where is everyone?” I said.
He glanced up from a heaping plate of cheese and ham, and managed a full grin. “You overslept. Nathaniel asked me to wake you, but I wanted to finish eating first—it’s been so long since I relished a meal. The others are waiting for you.”
The fog cleared from my mind, and I remembered the meeting I’d scheduled to discuss our next step, a duty I dreaded. Much as I wished to defer the decision, I hurried to wash and dress.
As I prepared to leave, Zachariah dashed in. He glared at Thomas, annoyed to find someone else with me.
“This is Thomas,” I said, “an old and dear friend. He’s the one who made the flute I gave you. Now why did you burst in here in such a rush?”
“A rumor’s in the air. Everyone says you and Nathaniel will lead a big meeting today to decide to go to war. I want to go with you.”
“Absolutely not. Only the leaders may attend, and no decision has been made.”
“You’ve been away a week and spent no time with me since you returned. Please let me come.”
“How about you stay here with Thomas, instead? I won’t be far, only a few rooms away. In the meantime, maybe he’ll teach you how to improve your marching tune.”
I winked at Thomas.
He winked back and turned to Zachariah. “Let’s listen to this tune I’ve heard so much about.”
The boy put the flute to his lips and played his song, the twelve notes repeated again and again.
Thomas waited for him to finish and then ruffled his hair. “Not bad, better than I could do at your age, but I can help you add some spirit so we can inspire the troops even more.” He pulled out his flute and tooted a note of his own. “Come sit by me and we’ll see what we can do.”
As Zachariah settled next to him, and the two began to play, I slipped away, leaving them to their music.
I entered the meeting room—the one with the long table on which the three wide-eyed seekers had first charted their course to Riverbend—to find everyone seated, hands folded before them, waiting: Nathaniel and the vicar of Bradford, Caleb and those he’d handpicked to lead the troop. At the head of the table sat the prior, back straight and hair no longer disheveled, looking more like the wise elder I once knew.
I took my seat at the opposite end, with Nathaniel by my side, and glanced around, gathering my thoughts.
Caleb rose before I could speak and leaned on the tabletop with one hand, while wielding a rolled-up map in the other. “The mending machine has worked its miracle, and with the blessing of the good earth, our new ally has regained his strength.” He pointed the map at the prior. “Please, sir, tell the council your story as you told it to me.”
The prior fidgeted in his chair, shifting sideways and glancing over his shoulder as if hoping someone new would enter the room and recount the events he shuddered to recall.
When no one appeared, he grasped the table’s edge with both hands and, still wobbly from his mending, used it to boost himself to standing. After a long breath in and out, he began. “Thanks to Orah and Nathaniel, we gray friars went to the keep following the great change. I’d spent my life studying in temple archives, but never before had access to such astonishing knowledge. The inquisitive brothers, charged with maintaining the keep, eagerly explored whatever they chose. Yes, the vicars supervised us, but over the years they’d grown lazy. Most had stopped learning after they left the seminary, and were content to spout dogma from then on.
“Everything changed when the usurper stormed in with his army of deacons. Now vicars gazed over our shoulders and directed what we studied, interested less in knowledge than in ways to restore their power.
“Once they realized what the keep had to offer, capabilities far beyond temple magic, they insisted the gray friars relearn the dark skills from the past. Their demands grew more terrifying by the day. Their goal: to break the truce agreed with his holiness, the grand vicar, and take back the power ceded to the people—to seize it by force, if necessary.”
After the prior finished, Caleb slapped the map on the table and urged everyone to gather around, but deferred when he caught me glaring. “With your permission, of course.”
I bit down on my lower lip and nodded.
He unrolled the map I’d first seen four years before. “His eminence told me the vicars have withdrawn the bulk of their men beyond Riverbend with the goal of defending the keep, building a fortified encampment here.”
He placed a thick finger where the river turned north, on the field behind the rock face where we’d first found the way to the keep. In the years since, our people had cleared and widened the passage, making the trek easier, but apparently the usurper had done much more.
Caleb slid his finger up the road, over the mountains to the ruined city, and then back again. “All along this way, they used forced labor and rudimentary machines, assembled from keepmaster knowledge, to build a better road, one wide enough to move large numbers of men and supplies. Why? The answer should be obvious. Now they grow stronger by the day.”
Nathaniel stood beside him and gazed down at the map, replaying in his mind the path we’d traveled before. Then, he traced the way back from Riverbend, and stopped where our troops now camped at Bradford. “We grow stronger too.”
Caleb stared where Nathaniel pointed and shook his head. “Yes, more people join our cause all the time, but we can ill afford to wait. I’ll need two weeks to provision and arm our force, and properly train them, and then two more to reach Riverbend. We should move against these vicars as soon as possible.”
I joined Nathaniel and waved a trembling hand at Caleb. “Do you realize the consequences of what you ask? We shouldn’t take such a decision lightly.”
He dipped his head, an acknowledgement of my authority. “Of course. Deliberate all you want. The decision is for the council, but know this: if we wait for them to come to us, they may have grown more powerful in ways we cannot foresee.” He turned to the prior. “Your eminence, please tell them the usurper’s plans.”
The prior lowered his chin to his chest and stared at the map, the sadness of the world shadowing his features. “He insisted the brothers extract from the helpers what the keepmasters were loath to reveal—how to recreate weapons from the time of the darkness.”
Murmurs of shock rumbled from the council.
I motioned for silence and glanced at the vicar of Bradford. “You’ve studied in their seminary and been an official of the Temple. Is it possible for them to stray so far from the precepts?”
He waited, gathering his thoughts. A last, he let out a sigh. “Possible? Yes. So many vicars learn nothing but to obey, to do as they’re told without thought, and the usurper has already broken the most sacred precept, as evidenced by his treatment of this prior and his holiness, the late grand vicar. He’s capable of anything.”
Beneath the table, I reached for Nathaniel’s hand and intertwined my fingers with his. He squeezed back, but I was unable to read his mood. We were treading on ground not trod on for a thousand years.
I turned again to the vicar of Bradford. “What do you think we should do?”
He tented his fingers, closed his eyes, and a moment later opened them. They showed a new determination, as if the time in the dark had helped him forge a decision.
His brows sloped downward, and his lips curled into a frown. “Forget I’m a vicar or keeper. I have no more answers than you, but here’s what I believe. If the usurper obtains weapons from the darkness, he’ll punish us all, and destroy these wonders brought from the distant shore, wonders that seem worth fighting for.”
I glanced around, dwelling on each set of eyes—all but Nathaniel’s. “Before we commit our people to such a perilous plan, let us vote.” I took a deep breath. “Who... is for war?”
One by one the hands sh
ot up.
I noted them all, turning to my right at the last—Nathaniel’s hand was raised as well.
Caleb glared at me. “You haven’t voted yet.”
“No need,” I said. “The council has spoken, and may the light protect us all.”
When the meeting ended, I needed fresh air and some time alone, so I walked out from the rectory to the village green. As the sun climbed past noon in the western sky, I spotted Thomas and Zachariah on the steps of the gazebo, playing their new tune. A number of troops had gathered around to listen.
Now I understood what Thomas meant. On our way to the keep years before, only months after his teaching, he’d performed a song of sadness and hope as we camped high above the lake, between water and dark walls of pine. Now, after weeks in the usurper’s prison, his tune had taken on a sharper tone, a note of anger.
I studied the faces of the surrounding troops.
Their eyes burned, and their feet marched in rhythm to the beat, as they tightened their grip on their weapons.
Unable to bear more, I glanced away, up to the steeple of the rectory.
A mourning dove nestled at the peak of the sun icon, and sang a more peaceful song, her coo echoing across the town. Hoo-ah, hoo, hoo. After a minute, her mate answered back and joined her. The two stopped their cooing and surveyed the green below, with the flute players and the would-be warriors clustered around them. Then the birds took flight to the west, as if to flee the warlike tune.
Chapter 14 –The Darkness Descends
Whenever events threaten to overwhelm me, I seek out the comfort of my best friend since childhood, but when I returned to the meeting room, Nathaniel was gone. I searched in our bedchamber. Not there. I checked among the troops milling about on the village green. Not there either.
Finally, I interrupted Thomas and his music. “Have you seen Nathaniel?”
He nodded. “He came out of the rectory in a rush, clutching his stave and taking long strides with those big feet of his.” He gestured with his flute. “I think he headed that way, to where the troops train.”
A ten-minute walk to the west lay a large field, used to plant wheat. When I first arrived at the head of a column of more than a thousand, I asked the Bradford elders for a place where our troops could train. They’d recently tilled the land, preparing to seed the next day, but agreed to leave it fallow this year for the good of the cause.
Now, a dozen instructors drilled their squads, with shouts and grunts and the clash of weapons filling the air. With so many, Caleb had set up a rotation, assuring every volunteer two hours a day to practice, a complex problem with troops at varying levels of experience and skill, and with limited space.
Though troubled by where these efforts might lead, I thanked the light for Caleb on my side. None of us had chosen this battle, but if we had to fight, better to be prepared.
I searched around, but had no luck finding Nathaniel, until I caught a friendly face, a neighbor from Little Pond.
“Have you seen Nathaniel?” I said.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, and with little breath to answer, pointed with the blade of his axe to a storage shed at the edge of the clearing, a place that now served as the armorer’s workshop.
I found Nathaniel sitting on a rock beneath the shade of a drooping elm, working on his stave. The once blunt end had been tapered down, and he grated away with a rasp, honing the tip to a deadly point.
When he noticed me, the corners of his eyes drooped to match the tree. “Time to sharpen my stave.”
“I thought we agreed to leave it for defense only.”
He turned back to the stave and continued his sharpening. “The days for defense have passed, of no more consequence than memories of our childhood. Maybe you should get a weapon as well.”
I settled next to him on the narrow rock, but he slid away, creating a tiny gap that felt like a chasm. For a time, neither of us spoke, as he worked on his stave and the wood dust flew.
Then he set it down and faced me. “After your coming-of-age, you told me the meaning of becoming an adult—that from then on, we’d have to make choices without illusions. Four years ago, we had a choice—to live within the limits set by the vicars, or to start a revolution. We chose revolution, and now we reap what we sowed. We either lead these people to victory, or many of them will die, and those who survive will be enslaved.”
“Is there no another choice? With this troop that Caleb’s trained, can’t we negotiate from strength as we did that morning in Little Pond? Shouldn’t we at least try a path to peace?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “They once accused me of being a dreamer of dreams, but now you’re the deluded one. Our enemies do evil, far worse than teachings. They hurt people. They kill to stay in power. It’s an illusion to believe they’ll yield without a fight.”
He picked up his stave, blew the wood dust off its point, and tested it with his fingertip, drawing a tiny drop of blood.
Then, without another word, he strode off to the training field, leaving me sitting open-mouthed on the rock, staring up through the boughs of the elm.
***
The next few days trudged by like prisoners on their way to stoning. The troops trained, Nathaniel and I planned, but beyond that, we said little. The future stifled our words like an impending storm.
Each afternoon, as the sun sank low on the horizon, my personal demons descended on me. My mood darkened as if the problems of our land infested the air. I ignored the tactics, the logistics of moving so many so far, or the shape of our battle formations, or the details of how to reclaim the keep.... leaving such things to Caleb.
Instead, I became obsessed with why. Why can’t these problems be resolved? Why can’t those who resist change see the benefits change might bring? Why do we drift toward battle, knowing that many will die?
On the seventh day, I stayed outside until well after sunset, wandering about Bradford and chatting empty chatter with troops I hardly knew, not even going back to the rectory for dinner. My limbs grew heavy. I trudged along with the same weariness I bore when I first awoke in the machines masters’ cocoon in the fortress of the dreamers. Seconds passed like minutes and minutes like hours, until night fell and I could close my eyes and pretend to sleep.
For the first time in my life, I was afraid to be alone with Nathaniel, terrified of what either of us might say. When I returned to our bedchamber, he lay on our bed, hands folded behind his neck, glaring at the ceiling. I found no words, and neither did he, so I blew out the candle and rested by his side.
Exhausted from the strain, I nodded off, but not for long. I awoke a short time later and dragged myself from bed, afraid my restlessness would wake him. I stumbled to the window and peeled back the edge of the curtain to check for hints of first light. When only gloom stared back, I slipped from our bedchamber, but not to the black cube—no help to be found there. Instead, I grabbed a candle from a sconce by the door and headed to the empty conference room.
Sitting at the long table, where once we’d plotted our approach to the keep and now laid out plans for battle, I set down these thoughts in my log:
Less than five years have passed since I left the comfort of Little Pond, but I’ve aged, it seems, five lifetimes. The world closes in on me even when I’m outdoors, compressing the air and making it difficult to breathe. Where has my stubborn will flown, my striving toward the light?
Always before, in the darkest of hours, I found a way forward. No matter how slight the possibility or how great the risk, I believed righteousness and good would prevail. Yet now, I stand at a crossroads. To yield to events is to abandon all we’ve strived for these past years, to accept stagnation, to never be more than we are. But to fight...?
I fear a return to the horrors the vicars once preached in their teachings. In my dreams, I see the mural of the riders that stood at the back of the hall of winds: desolation, despair, destruction, and death. I can almost hear their hoof beats.
I long to sle
ep, but I’ll sleep no more this night, for at last I understand where our quest for truth has led. Now come the ghostly horsemen galloping our way, the much prophesied return of the darkness.
Now comes the time for war.
PART TWO –Conflagration
“For I am a wild and a lonely child
And the son of an angry man
And now with the high wars raging
I would offer you my hand
For we are the children of darkness
And the prey of a foul command”
~ Richard Farina
Chapter 15 – The Way of the World
More people poured into Bradford as rumors spread of vengeful vicars and increasingly aggressive deacons. Most sought refuge from the oppression, but many came to join our cause.
Caleb and his leaders spent three days traveling to nearby towns, going from house to house, and nailing our call to action on the posts once reserved for temple bulletins. After five days, he declared the recruitment complete, with insufficient time left to train any stragglers. He stressed the importance of discipline, of everyone knowing their role, and being prepared to follow orders in the chaos of battle.
Messengers went out to surrounding farms, imploring the farmers to donate food or carts for our journey, and any tools that might be forged into a weapon. Jacob now managed a team of craftsmen-turned-armorers, who sharpened the edges of hoes with whetstones and fixed knives to the ends of walking sticks. Their efforts reminded me of the age of the darkness, when inventions intended for good were corrupted to do harm.
When not training, Nathaniel followed Caleb around, a way of learning leadership, he said. One morning, he rushed off without his usual farewell kiss, giving no hint of where he was headed. He returned two hours later with a carved handle protruding from the belt of his tunic.
The Light of Reason (The Seekers Book 3) Page 10