The air above the cube shimmered, and my former enemy appeared—the deposed temple leader who had made his peace with the people, the one we’d recently rescued from prison so he might die a free man. His image from my memory floated over our heads, hovering beside a stone altar bearing the sun icon.
He raised his arms as if mimicking Nathaniel, bony fingers pointing to the sky, and spoke with the booming temple voice, now amplified by Kara’s magic. “Children of the light, I stand before you by the grace of those glorious souls symbolized by this black cube, those whose spirits live on and can never be destroyed. The dreamers have sent me here to impart this message. Both light and darkness dwell in our hearts, but if you will it, the light can conquer the darkness. Today, you are being tested. The temptation of the darkness has corrupted the usurper, and you have fought him bravely. Through the courage of your leaders, he has yielded, cowed by your strength, and offered the freedom you sought.
“Now the choice looms: accept the concessions you’ve won, or fight for more.” His voice rose as it had that morning when calling for our stoning. “To fight for more is madness. Therein lies the path to the darkness.”
The image turned to the altar, grasped the sun icon in both hands and raised it high over his head. “Choose the path to the true light instead. Choose the way of peace.”
The sun icon began to glow, much as I imagined as a little girl during the seasonal blessings, and grew in size until it towered over us all—a nice effect Kara had proposed—and murmurs of awe filled the square. The arch vicar repeated his plea once more, his final words echoing through the village and dissipating in the breeze.
Then the scene flickered and winked out like the lights guarding the machine masters’ city.
On cue, the musicians resumed their play, but different now, a lilting tune of hope with chords rising and falling in waves. Thomas had outdone himself, lifting the spirits of the assembled with a sound that might have been played as the dreamers trod up the mountain in their white gowns on the day of ascension.
After a climax of complex trills and harmonies, the musicians set down their instruments—all but Thomas, who continued to play his flute, though more muted now.
At this signal, Zachariah came to the fore, and lifted his angelic voice into the song Nathaniel and I had composed.
The seekers sought to find the keep
Where the past did lie
They hoped to reach beyond themselves
They tried to touch the sky
~~~
And then they sailed across the sea
A place so very far
They met the people of the earth
And dreamers from the stars
~~~
They brought back many miracles
To make a better world
But found the scourge of evil
And the darkness flag unfurled
~~~
Too much freedom, vicars cried,
From the Temple never stray
Too much change corrupts the soul
The light’s the only way
~~~
The seekers led the people
To strive for what is right
They vanquished vicars and their men
Despite a bitter fight
~~~
Now praise our martyrs, those who died
To bring a freer life
Take the peace as offered
And accept an end to strife
~~~
Praise the martyrs, heroes all
Reject the warlike drum
And for the children of the light
Better times will come
After the boy had finished his song, and the strains of his voice had silenced in the night, I turned to gauge the reaction.
All eyes remained fixed on the cube, where the dreamers still thought and planned. Like me, none of them could fathom the mystery of their existence. Yet now the troops would listen and obey, their intent revealed by the firelight from the torches flickering off their moist cheeks.
Chapter 29 – Remorse
After the ceremony, Nathaniel and I milled about with a crowd that refused to leave. One after another, they came forward and brushed their fingertips to the cube, mumbling phrases like “bless you, dreamers” or “hail to the guardians of the true light.”
Jacob cornered me and whispered in my ear. “A wise decision. No more war carts.”
Lizbeth approached and kissed me on both cheeks. “A difficult choice. I’ll miss the keep, but peace will prevail.”
Devorah came by, a tear in her eye. She plucked a daisy from the display in front of the black cube and handed it to me. “The earth mother would be proud,”
The old prior limped up and made a respectful bow. “I’ll mourn the loss of the keep... so many wonders yet to be found... and my passions push me to continue the fight, to take revenge on my enemy, but I yield to the wisdom of the dreamers.”
As we tried to escape the throng, Caleb drew us aside. A squad of his most loyal men, those who’d followed him from the far side of the sea, blocked the others from coming near, creating a pocket in the crowd.
He lowered his voice so no one else could hear. “A good show, a fantasy for fools. Now, with your permission, I’ll send a messenger to the usurper, saying we’ve agreed to his terms.”
Neither Nathaniel nor I responded, the words sticking in our throats. We both nodded instead.
Caleb started to go, but turned back, a cruel smirk on his lips. “As your people would say, to the darkness with the truth. We’ll agree to peace, and stop the bloodshed—the only thing that matters. As for me, I’ve had my fill of your vicars and deacons, and your children of the light as well. I look forward to returning home to the people of the earth. Since my Rachel died, I prefer a simpler way.”
As he stomped off, I checked with Nathaniel, seeking his approval for what we’d done, but the moon now filtered through a hazy sky and I struggled to read his mood.
He stared off to the side before speaking, so part of his face lay in shadow and his smile seemed cut in half. “Caleb is right. Our quest for truth has ended. Time for us to go home.”
***
The throng of admirers persisted, clustering around and showering us with praise. After a while, their words lost meaning and slipped past me like the evening breeze. How I longed to escape, to be somewhere else, away and alone.
A sharp toot startled me back to the present.
Thomas bustled through the crowd and wedged his way toward us, blocking out the surrounding host. He held up one hand and waved his flute in the other. “The seekers are exhausted from communing with the dreamers, like using the mending machine. They need to rest.”
Those who’d hoped to get one last peek at us, to touch us or beg us to bless their children, grumbled a bit but gave way, and Thomas led Nathaniel and me from the training field.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said as he hustled us away. “A different kind of ceremony to commemorate this day.”
We followed him to the outskirts of the village and to a narrow trail through the woods, until we reached a small clearing, a place I’d never been. What I found there made me blink twice and wipe the mist from my eyes.
Suddenly, I was back in Little Pond and a child again—better than dreamer magic. Before me stood a replica of the NOT tree, not quite as tall and likely not constructed to last, but a wood frame nevertheless, cloaked with balsam boughs.
As I inhaled their fragrance, I turned to Thomas, my eyes as wide as they were when he appeared from nowhere to free us from the vicars’ prison. “But how...?”
“I enlisted Jacob and his craftsmen. It took them only a few hours, and they were happy to get away from making the tools of war.” He glanced away, down to his boot tops, but I could tell in the moonlight he was blushing. “I thought you’d need something to lift your spirits.”
I rushed to embrace him. “Oh, Thomas, you know us so well.”
When
we separated, he pointed to the entrance of the shelter. “Wait. There’s more.” He motioned for us to enter.
Once we were seated cross-legged on the ground inside, he took out three candles from his tunic pocket and lit them. Their glow drove away the shadows, revealing two backpacks and a keg. From the first, he took out a silk cloth, which he spread on the ground between us, and three plates and mugs. From the second, he withdrew a loaf of freshly baked bread, still warm, a half-dozen apples, and four kinds of cheese.
I sniffed at the keg, steaming in the cool night air. “It can’t be.”
Thomas’s lips widened into his customary grin, which had warmed my heart so often since childhood. “Yes, wassail. The drink’s unknown here in Riverbend, but they had all the ingredients. I needed to experiment a bit, but you’ll see it tastes like ours back home. I may have started a new tradition for them.”
In the candlelight, he poured each of us a cup and raised his. “To peace.”
I took a sip and smiled, but my smile quickly faded to a frown.
He glared at me. “Now what’s wrong?”
“We used to toast to truth, to making a better world.”
“Isn’t peace a better world than war?”
“Yes... no... I don’t know anymore. We started out seeking truth and now we’ve settled for peace and order. How is that so different from those well-meaning vicars who founded the Temple of Light?”
We all fell silent, each focusing on the nearest candle and getting lost in its flickering flame.
Nathaniel fidgeted where he sat and shifted closer to me. He pressed my cheek with his fingertips until I faced him.
“A paradox,” he said.
“What’s that?
“A strange word I learned in the keep. It means an idea that seems self-contradictory or absurd but expresses a possible truth. Hasn’t our whole quest been a paradox? We sought a better world but started a war. We searched for the light only to slip down the slope to the darkness.”
I looked back at my candle. “And we ended our quest for truth with a lie.”
Thomas grabbed our mugs, and refilled them with wassail. “Here you two go again, worrying too much. It’s all too complicated for me. What more can I do to make you smile?”
I stared up to the peak of our reborn NOT tree and followed a thread of smoke snaking out the opening to the sky—like our youthful aspirations floating away. I recalled another evening on a mountain path overlooking a lake, the three of us sitting around a fire, brimming with belief that we would make a better world.
I turned to Thomas. “You composed a beautiful tune for the ceremony, one that moved the troops and helped bring peace. You and your musicians were sublime, but now, do you remember a different melody, the one you played that night overlooking the lake on our way to the keep?”
He withdrew the flute and waved it in the air. “I... think so. There wasn’t much to it, just a few notes repeated, from a time when I knew far less about music.”
“That’s what we need now, a tune from a simpler past, before teachings and prisons, before the keep and the keepmasters, before machine masters and the people of the earth, before the usurper and wars. Will you play it for us?”
He dipped his head in a small bow. “As you wish.”
Thomas took a sip of wassail and raised the flute to his lips, then closed his eyes while his fingers danced over the holes as if searching for the notes. After a moment, he began to play, faltering at first, but with each passing note more confident, until he poured his soul into the instrument and transported me to a more hopeful time.
The song filled our newly built NOT tree, and for those few moments, I pretended that innocence had returned.
Chapter 30 – Discord
The first response came two days later in the form of the caped envoy of the usurper sweeping into our village, accompanied by an honor guard of burly deacons. He bore a stack of more than fifty pages covered with what I once called temple lettering before I learned about printing in the keep. He proclaimed that we should review the terms and send back our comments as fast as possible, so we could complete our negotiation and sign the truce within two weeks.
Once he departed, Nathaniel and I retreated to our bedchamber to read through the document, slogging through the dense details one page at a time.
After the fifth page, Nathaniel’s shoulders slumped and he blew out a stream of air. “What nonsense. It seems to be what we agreed to, but I can’t be sure. What if they’ve hidden traps in all this clutter?”
When I handed him the sixth page, he tossed it on the bed.
I picked up the page and gathered the rest together. “We need help. Neither of us is skilled in deceit and betrayal.”
I summoned Caleb.
He flipped though the stack of papers. “Here’s what I’d advise. Put the old prior in charge. He’s a learned man accustomed to their ways, and he has reason to distrust them. Let him pick one elder from each of the ten largest villages, a way to build support among the people for the truce, and more eyes will make for fewer mistakes. Ask them to take notes. When they’ve finished, you can review the results and compose a response.”
Nathaniel agreed at once, relieved to be free of the burden. When I hesitated to hand over the papers, he snatched them from me and followed Caleb out the door.
I sat on the bed, hands folded in my lap, and stared at the floor.
What leaders we are. First we lie, and then we become so flustered by details that we sluff off our responsibility to others.
I shook off the mood and went for a stroll in the nearby countryside to clear my head.
Much like Little Pond, the hills surrounding Riverbend were dotted with apple orchards. This time of the year, most of the fruit had been picked, but I went there anyway, hoping to discover a late season prize.
As I glanced up, searching the branches for glimmers of red, the patter of footsteps sounded from behind me, running steps but light-footed, more like a dancer than an attacker.
I spun around, and beamed as Zachariah approached. Seeing the boy always lightened my spirits. “Good morning. Have you come to pick apples with me?”
He scrunched up his nose. “What are apples?”
“I forgot. You don’t have any on your side of the world. Apples are fruit that grows in these trees.” I gestured to a few, still green and not ready for picking.
Zachariah marveled at them. “They’re big and shiny. Can we eat them like berries?”
“Yes, of course, but it’s a bit past the season and most of the ripe ones have been picked. You need to find a red one still on the tree.”
He scanned around and pointed high up. “I found one. May I eat it?”
“Yes, if you could reach it.”
I wished Nathaniel were here to boost him up, as he used to boost Thomas when we were so much younger, before everything changed.
“I’d hoist you on my shoulders, but I’m not tall enough, and you’ve grown too big for me.”
A gleam came into his eye as he surveyed the gnarly tree, starting with the lower branches and tracking higher up, much the way Thomas had studied the stone tower on the way to the keep.
“I can climb it,” he said.
An image came into my mind of Zachariah flying off the carousel and breaking his arm. “No, you won’t. I’d hate to have to mend you again.”
He grinned at me, now ten years old and mischievous like Thomas had been at the same age. Before I could stop him, he scrambled up, pausing only to select the next branch, which hardly bent under his weight.
Near the top, he plucked the apple and tossed it down to me. “Now don’t eat it till I come down. I get the first bite.”
I polished the fruit on the sleeve of my tunic until it sparkled in the sunlight. Then the two of us settled on a nearby log and alternated bites, each crisp and juicy—like the apples of my youth.
When we finished, Zachariah wiped the juice from his chin and turned to me. “Why are you so
sad? Thomas made music for you, and I sang the pretty words you wrote. Now we’ll have peace, and people will stop hurting each other.”
I shook my head. “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”
He stood and made a small circle around the orchard as if searching for another apple. When he returned, he hovered over me with hands on hips. “Is it because you used holos to fool them?”
My mouth dropped open, and I gaped at him. “You know?”
“Uh-huh. I lived in the city until I was six. I remember holos from the food synthesizers and from my lessons before they sent me down the mountain. I can’t imagine how they work, but I still recognize them.”
I motioned for him to sit by me and wrapped an arm around him. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
He snuggled closer, but kept his eyes focused on the ground. “I stayed silent for three years after my parents left, until you told me my mother’s words. I’m an expert on staying silent.” He looked up at me with eyes too big for his head. “You know I’d do anything you ask, but why did you need holos to make peace?”
I sighed. “Sometimes, you need to invent a story to convince others to do the right thing. Our people had begun to spin myths about the dreamers, claiming they had the power of gods. The only way they’d give up on total victory was if the dreamers told them to.” I paused to make sure I had his attention. “You do know the dreamers aren’t gods. They’re nothing more than the thoughts of people like your parents stored in a machine. While they’re smart enough to strike down our enemies, they’re wise as well and prefer peace. Since they can’t speak to the living without our help, we made up a story to show their intentions.”
I rested a hand on each of his shoulders and stared into his eyes. “Do you understand?”
He nodded. “You’re what the earth mother calls a prophet, someone who makes up stories to reveal the truth, like the one where she called you and Nathaniel a prince and princess with magical powers.”
The Light of Reason (The Seekers Book 3) Page 19