I crumpled my brow.
He’s a child. Why do I need so badly for him to understand?
“I’m no princess, Zachariah, and Nathaniel is no prince. We’re ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance, trying to do the best we can. There’s no magic to it.”
His eyes drifted down and to the corners, following a wooly caterpillar as it crawled across the log.
I tightened my grip and pulled him closer. “Let me hear you say it.”
He shook his head, still staring at the caterpillar, as if expecting any second for it to enter its cocoon and sprout wings. “No magic. Not really. Not a prince and princess either.” He glanced up, and his smile sent a glow streaming through the orchard. “More like heroes.”
I leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.
He wrinkled his nose, making a crease between his brows. “Still, the earth mother says we need to tell stories, to fill in the things we’ll never understand, like how this caterpillar will someday turn into a butterfly, or why my parents became lost in the dream. So I’ll keep telling my story about the prince and the princess to anyone who will listen, about the magic they used to bring peace, and if I tell it well, those who come after me will remember you forever.”
***
I hovered in the air above a meeting place like the hall of winds, but much larger. High up on the back wall, the circular window still loomed, but four times the size, its fragments of colored glass now pieced together to form a more complex picture. On the right side, a golden sphere shone with rays of yellow spiraling from its center, and on the left, a blue globe floated through the air, our world as viewed from the keepmasters’ ship that sailed to the stars.
In the center stood a host of people clustered together, their eyes raised to the heavens. Though I recognized no faces, I identified them by their dress: machine masters in their silver tunics; people of the earth in their brown and gray rags; my own children of the light in black; deacons with the star upon their chests; and vicars with their not-quite-square hats, but with a more benign expression on their faces.
At the base of the back wall, the banner hung as before. On it, four horsemen rode through the sky, their steeds caught in full gallop with steam bursting from their nostrils and their eyes ablaze: the first with a flaming sword; the second, a caped creature with a skull for a head; the next, a cloaked fiend whose features were hidden by a cowl; and the last a woman with serpents for hair.
Only the words scribbled at the bottom had changed. They now read: Pray for peace.
The same flagstone altar stood in front, but what had been nothing more than a crude table for the earth mother to lean upon was now embellished. A silk cloth covered the stones and bore on it two objects: an enormous sun icon, and a miniature black cube.
In the pews sat people like none I’d ever met. The men wore trousers with cuffs at the ankles and glossy collared shirts with white scarfs tied around their necks. The women were dressed in brightly-colored garments hanging from their shoulders, and hats like Kara’s bonnet, but with more elaborate designs. All waited with backs straight and hands folded, staring at the front.
A tall man in a white robe, who might have descended from the mentor, strode to the back of the altar, bearing an impressive book bound in embossed leather. He plopped the book down with a thud, opened it to a place saved by a purple ribbon, and began reading in a voice not much different from a vicar at the blessing of the light.
“In the dimness of time, when the darkness ruled, there came a prophet and a dreamer of dreams, and showed us the way to the light. Let us praise the true light.”
The assembled repeated the phrase in the same dull tone I recalled from other blessings, from the people of the earth and the machine masters, and from my own children of the light.
As they spoke, this would-be vicar beamed at them, a serene smile on his face. Once they quieted, he shifted to a new page, marked by a green ribbon instead, and glanced up. “Now please open your scripture to chapter fifty-seven.”
The window on the back wall was situated so the afternoon rays streamed through it in slanting columns, warming the faces of the congregants and making rainbow flecks of light dance across the man’s cheeks.
He waited for the bump of books and the rustle of pages to quiet before beginning. “Today’s reading will be one of my favorites, the Truce of Riverbend from the book of Orah.”
***
I startled awake so fast I feared rousing Nathaniel, but he grunted once, rolled over on his side, and fell back asleep.
There’d be no sleep for me. I stared wide-eyed at the darkened ceiling, my hands clenched beneath the covers. As the blood coursed thick and heavy through my veins, and each pulse pounded in my ears, a vision from the keep came to me. In my idle hours, I’d ask the helpers to see images from their age of enlightenment, so I could better understand their world. One of my favorite requests was to ask what it had been like to travel in their flying machines.
The screen would flicker and show me the view through an oval window. I’d stare out from more than ten thousand paces in the air, looking upon the bluest of skies, with only the stray cloud wafting beneath me like a puff of cotton.
I’d ask the helper for a glimpse of the land below, expecting to find terrain like Little Pond as seen from the granite mountains, with its green trees and rolling hills, but in places I saw only brown—no trees, no water, no people.
“Why the desolation?” I said.
“Not all the Earth is livable. After the cataclysm, some locations have become so harsh, even the hardiest plants and lowliest creatures struggle to survive.”
I wondered now: are these my choices—the future ceremony of my dream, or the world a barren wasteland where no one can live?
I padded over to the small desk, lit a candle and opened my log. As I waited with pen in hand, gathering my thoughts, I let the silence envelop me. Yet after a while, my pen hovered unmoving over the page.
Why do the words that flowed in the past refuse to come to me now? Why does this stark white paper frighten me so?
I remembered my dream and realized what I feared. What if this log became like the book of light, words to be recited mindlessly by generations hence, or worse, to be accepted without thought?
As I stared at the blank page in the candlelight, my choice became as clear as the morning star in a crisp fall sky.
Now is my true test of courage, more than facing the stoning or entering the dream alone. Now is my time of trial.
Rather than write a new entry, I ripped out pages, a dozen or more, and set the log aside.
I’d pen a fresh script, different from before, a greater challenge for Kara and the dreamers, a grand story like the videos of heroes I’d watched on screens in the keep.
Now the words flowed. As I wrote faster and faster, filling page after page, my spirit soared.
My people wanted myths. I’d give them more than they could imagine, so many and so powerful, the myths would transform into truth.
After I finished, I crawled back into bed, my mind at ease. Only one worry remained.
As my eyes drifted closed, I whispered aloud, “Will Nathaniel agree?”
***
After Nathaniel awoke, I gave him a few minutes to splash water on his face and groom his hair and beard. Then I sat him down as I paced the room and laid out my latest plan.
He released a pent-up sigh and shook his head. “Haven’t we done enough? Why for once can’t you leave the world to fend for itself?”
I shrugged, and struggled to curl my lips upward into a smile. “Like the earth mother said, it’s in our nature to strive, to try to make a more perfect world.”
He closed his eyes and covered them with his fingertips and spoke to me from the darkness within. “Strive, yes, but she also said striving should have limits.”
“But we’re the seekers of truth. How can we accept driving away our friends and destroying these founts of knowledge that should bec
ome the foundation of our future?”
He opened his eyes and stared at me, a frightening stare, more the look of a stranger than a friend. “I was always the one with notions, while you stayed grounded. You were the one who kept me from flying off into dangerous adventures like we were playing our NOT tree games. Now we’ve switched places, it seems. I’m older and more tired, with scars within and without.” He rubbed the place in his side where the battle wound still showed a mark. “I’m less willing to take chances.”
I stepped closer and rested a hand on his cheek. “We’ve faced so many hardships and risked so much. Why stop partway when our goal is within reach?”
A stab of something like despair seemed to strike him, and his voice rose. “When is it enough? When is it someone else’s turn? If the people don’t want what we’re offering, we can’t force it on them. Their lives will be better because of what we’ve done, with more freedom than before. They’re supposed to be creatures who strive. Time for them to prove their worth.”
I fell back a step and glared at him. “Yes, we’re creatures who strive, some with a passion that can destroy others, but we’re also creatures who think. How can we leave them believing a lie?”
He stood and grasped me by the arms, his eyes pleading. “The last keepmaster said we should have more to life than our mission, that we should live hour to hour and day to day, and care for the ones we love. Time to heed that advice. You and I have sacrificed a lot to make a better world, a world worth bringing a child into. I’m ready to go back to Little Pond and make a life of our own.”
I breathed two breaths in and two breaths out, giving me time to respond. As children, we’d sought answers to every question we’d ever had. Now it seemed only the questions remained, and these had multiplied, more confusing than ever. Perhaps Nathaniel was right. We should abandon our search for truth, and enjoy our days together, however long they may last.
Yet we’d come too far to give up now. How could I make him understand?
“You once said if we found any chance to save what’s been lost, we have to take it. For the past four years, we’ve been swimming in future dreams, never seeing the reality of today. The result: a world worse than we imagined. Now we have this last chance to fulfill those dreams. How can we do anything less than grasp it with both hands?”
He pulled me closer until our foreheads touched. “You’re right. You followed me when all hope seemed lost, and I’ve followed you as well, but this time, I see no chance. Show me a glimmer of hope—just a glimmer—and I’ll follow you one more time.”
Chapter 31 – Decision
A week passed. The old prior had made three trips to the usurper’s camp bearing our responses. Each time, he returned with more of the usurper’s corrections, though their depth and nature dwindled in importance until little remained but nits.
Yet our enemy kept insisting on changes, and the negotiations dragged on.
After we’d received the latest feedback, and Caleb and the grumbling elders had left the meeting room, the prior lingered. He waited with head bowed and eyes focused on his shoe tops, as if struggling with a choice: suppress the words smoldering within, or grant them speech.
I closed the door to the chamber, hoping the absence of others would put him at ease. When he remained uncertain, I urged him on. “Good prior, you’ve been a help to us more than once now, and have earned the right to speak your mind. No vicars or deacons lurk here.”
He declined to face us, this once proud man who’d been broken by those he formerly served. Speaking to authority pained him, and he labored to muster the courage to give his words sound. “There’s... something you should know. For thirty-five years, I’ve worked with the brothers of the gray friars, and with vicars and deacons too. I call many of them friends. Most are good people with noble intentions, but all were taught to think one way and obey without question. The years in the keep have changed many, and the days of destruction even more.”
Nathaniel took a step toward him and rocked on the balls of his feet. “What are you trying to tell us?”
The prior looked up at last, and his eyes widened as if seeing us for the first time. “The usurper is losing support. Many believe he’s brought unnecessary disaster upon the Temple, doing more damage than the seekers ever did.”
“And what do you expect us to do with this information?”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Did you ever see a boulder on the side of a hill, so massive it appeared to have rested there for ages, and there you believed it would stay until the end of time?”
Nathaniel glanced at me, and we both nodded.
“Yet one day a rainstorm loosens a pebble beneath it, and it begins to wobble and then roll. Before long, the boulder tumbles headlong down the slope, changing the entire landscape with it.”
I joined Nathaniel and grasped him by the arm. Like me, his muscles had tensed. “Do you mean...?”
The old prior’s eyes burned. “Now is the time. Dislodge the pebble, and you may yet achieve your goal.”
***
First comes the possible, and then the decision to act.
I summoned Kara to the meeting room and locked the door behind her.
“What now?” she said. “Do you need dreamer advice on drafting the truce?”
Nathaniel rechecked the lock and lowered his voice. “How fast can your conjured images move and change?”
Kara’s brows rose. “How fast? Faster than the mind can comprehend. The images are nothing but numbers computed by the most powerful thinking machine ever made, beamed by projectors as points of light.”
I stepped toward her, trying to temper my excitement. “How many can you project at once?”
“So long as they’re based on memories stored in the archive, as many as you can imagine.”
“What about size?” Nathaniel said. “You made the sun icon grow and glow. Can you do the same with people?”
Kara brushed away a shock of hair from her eyes as she shifted back and forth between us. “You still don’t understand. The numbers don’t distinguish between icons or people or dragons. Size is a matter of degree.”
“The dragon,” I said. “How did you make it roar?”
She laughed. “That turned out to be easier than I thought. To simulate its roar, I borrowed the rush of a waterfall and amplified it.”
“Can you make other sounds?” Nathaniel said.
“Anything from the archive. Sounds are numbers too.”
I squeezed Nathaniel’s hand and whispered a prayer to the light, but the miracles I sought were based on science. If we failed, such insights might take a thousand years to relearn—if we ever rediscovered them at all.
I took a deep breath and described my plan.
When I finished, Kara nodded. “More complex a problem than before. More interesting too. I’ll need extra time, but if you give me a few days, I can do it.”
“So what we ask is possible, but will the dreamers cooperate this one last time?”
Kara’s lips curled into a grin. “The mentor always claimed they had a sense of whimsy. As much as bits of electronic impulses can love, the dreamers will love this plan.”
***
After Kara left, Nathaniel shuffled to the window and stared at the people bustling on the street below. His mind churned, much like it had when we stood in the keep’s observatory, watching the ship on the screen launch to the stars.
Like that day, I struggled to read his mood, not because he’d become opaque but because his thoughts were in turmoil.
I slipped beneath his gaze and rested a hand on his cheek so he’d face me. “We have our glimmer, and now Kara says the science supports the plan. Will you do it?”
His lips spread thin and pale, but a hint of a twinkle showed in his eyes. “What if they stone us for lying to them?”
I shrugged. “We faced stoning before.”
The vein in his temple pulsed, and his jaw twitched and set.
Then, the ro
om brightened as if the shadow of a cloud had passed from the sun.
The muscles in his face relaxed, and he let out a laugh. “Somewhere between the keep and the dreamers, you’ve gone mad, and I’ve gone mad with you. Go ahead and hatch this plot of yours. Maybe they’ll stone us, but maybe we’ll change the world at last. And if your plan should fail, we’ll fly off to the light with our heads held high, vanishing together like two shooting stars in the night.”
Chapter 32 – The Seekers of Truth
We answered the next stack of papers from the usurper with no changes, but rather with a terse response:
No more word games. We accept the text as is on one condition: we choose the time and place for the signing.
The ceremony would occur after dusk in one week. The location would be the broad no-man’s land behind the rock face, an area spacious enough to hold a large host, including both armies. We insisted the historic truce be witnessed by all and encouraged our enemy to bring as many clergy, friars, and deacons as possible.
Since our craftsmen possessed the skills to do the event justice, we and we alone would set up the site—to avoid conflict, the vicars and their men would be banned from coming in advance. In exchange, we’d allow temple officials to arrive an hour early to review the setup and oversee access, stationing guards as they wished to check all attendees who entered. No weapons would be allowed.
Had we properly gauged the vicars’ mood?
Every detail of the truce smacked of a single purpose: the Temple had controlled our people for a thousand years, and no doubt hoped for a thousand more. As long as they retained their titles and the tithe from the people, and their decorated sashes and capes and the crown of gold, they would believe they’d won. More than likely they considered it a matter of time before they reasserted control over the people.
With their leaders so focused on the long term, we hoped they’d concede some small authority to us for one night—control of the site—a seemingly worthwhile tradeoff.
But one night was all we needed.
The Light of Reason (The Seekers Book 3) Page 20