The Stuff of Stars (The Seekers Book 2)

by David Litwack

  At last, she turned to the stone statues, and the red light flickered and flashed from their eyes, casting a line on the ground before our feet.

  “Move back,” she shouted.

  After everyone had cleared, she pressed her eyes shut.

  The beam from the stone guards brightened into an unbearable glow, forcing me to cover my eyes with my hand. A pungent odor stung my nostrils, and smoke arose from where the beam had struck the sandy soil.

  When I looked up again, the rays had dimmed.

  On the ground before the stone guards, the soil had fused to glass.

  Chapter 29 – Sides of the Ledger

  That night, I dreamed I was trapped in the teaching cell with Thomas. I knew it was a dream, because the cramped cell barely held space for one. I fit only by floating in the air above him.

  “What are you doing up there?” he said.

  “I heard your cry and came to find out what happened.”

  He squirmed around where he sat, searching in vain for a more comfortable position. “Same old Orah, always trying to protect me, but you’re too late this time. You know how it seemed like a good idea to disrupt the current order and open the keep to everyone? Well, that didn’t work out so well.” His face contorted in pain. “The vicars are back in power, I’m stuck in this teaching cell, and now you’ve messed up the other side of the world.”

  “The story’s not over,” I said.

  “Always the optimist, trusting too much in the goodness of people. Open your eyes for once. People fear what they don’t know.”

  He shifted in his tiny space and moaned.

  “Can I do anything to help you?” I said.

  “Sure, if you can find a way to smuggle in my favorite flute. I’d love to play it one last time before they stone me. But what am I thinking? You can’t help, because you’re nothing but an image on a screen.”

  I glanced down at my hands—they glowed with a pale blue light but lacked depth or substance.

  A grating sound startled me as the cover of the cell slid open, revealing the smug face of a vicar, the same one who’d dragged me off to my teaching years before. He leered down at me. “Are you ready, Orah, whose name means light?”

  “Ready for what?” I cried. “Not the stoning.”

  “Stoning?” He laughed. “Of course not. Thanks to you, we’ve progressed beyond such primitive ways. Now we use the machine you brought us—the one that disintegrates your body and restores its energy to the universe. A lot cleaner, and much less fuss.”

  My skin began to change, thinning so I could see through it, and then breaking apart into points of light spiraling off in every direction. I tried to call Nathaniel, but my voice had thinned as well and spread to the winds like a cry in a storm.

  An instant later, time lost all meaning, and I became pure mind.

  ***

  I awoke with my pillow damp from sweat, and slowed my racing heart to match the rhythm of Nathaniel’s breathing. From our years together, I could tell he wouldn’t easily awake.

  Ten heartbeats later, I arose, padded to the small bureau in our bedchamber, and eased the drawer open so it hardly made a sound. From it, I withdrew my boots and silver tunic, the mentor’s electric torch, and my log and pen. After disengaging myself from the tangled bedclothes, I tossed on the tunic, not pausing to fix the sleeve that hung askew about my shoulder. With Nathaniel’s pack slung over one arm, I crept out the door, easing it closed behind me, and stepped into the curved corridor.

  At a table in the now silent commons, I opened the log to the first blank page, and grasped the pen in hand. Time to take stock and make my decision.

  ***

  In trying times, I prefer to weigh the choices, to not rush recklessly into the void. This has always been my way. With Nathaniel’s help, I’ve found the courage to overcome my fears, but I’ve never taken an action until it was my best and only choice.

  Here is the ledger by which I’ll make this, my most difficult decision.

  On the positive side, Nathaniel and I are together, though he’s become more distant since his time in the dream. Will he ever be the same? We’ve spent our whole lives with each other and shared so many experiences. Now the dream stands between us like the wall with the peephole between our cells. Yes, we’re together, and we still exchange heartfelt words, but they seem muffled and indistinct, tempered by doubts.

  And what to make of this world? Life under the vicars was stifling, but the rules were clear, the routine consistent. Here I sense a continual decay.

  The technos wait for their precious machines to fail, relying first on the aging mentor and now placing their hope in his heir, a not-quite-sixteen-year-old girl. They have no more ability to move forward than my own people did before we discovered the keep.

  The greenies rejoice when I teach them how to spin flax and weave the resulting thread into cloth—skills I learned as a child—but by shunning advanced learning, they limit their potential. What happens when the earth mother passes to the light like the mentor? Will Caleb and his followers, after waging a war with the technos, declare all machines of the darkness and ban their use, except for a few they cleverly save for themselves? Will their descendants become a new wave of vicars? Will the dreamers’ fortress be forgotten in the sands of time, a new keep to be revived by restless seekers a thousand years hence? Will those seekers arrive in time to save the knowledge of the past or will all be lost?

  What of the hope for Nathaniel and me to return to Little Pond? Neither techno nor greenie possesses the knowledge to construct a boat. That possibility lies only with the dreamers.

  I rest my forehead on my hands, stare off into the who-knows-where, and release the breath I’ve been holding with a whoosh like the wind. Every question comes back to the dreamers.

  Had I saved Nathaniel from madness, or worse, from an eternal sleep from whence he’d never awake? Or did I panic as the mentor implied, freeing Nathaniel before he could communicate with those magnificent minds?

  The mentor was mistaken about the need for two—one to dream and the other to hold the fate of the first in their hands. Such a plan might have been wise before the day of reckoning, when the machine masters trusted their own genius, but now anyone at the controls would fear for the one they love and do as I did. Had the roles been reversed, Nathaniel would have done the same.

  I know how to work the timers on my own, one for the delay to enter the cocoon and the other for the time in the dream. If I succeed, I may restore the power of the technos, build a new boat to sail home with mending machines and other miracles for my people, and prove to the greenies the dreamers still live, perchance stopping this war. Most of all, by sharing his experience, I may reclaim the man I love.

  What else can I do? Kara is the new mentor, the only one who can master the machines. She needs to lead her people in this time of crisis. With the enemy at her gate, she won’t risk entering the dream.

  I have only one choice: use the automatic controls and enter the dream alone. With no one to hear my trials and prematurely end my time, I’ll meet the dreamers to the benefit of all, or join them in their eternal slumber.

  The ledger is complete, my decision made.

  I pray this won’t be my final entry.

  ***

  I set down the pen and closed the log. The cabinets by the wall caught my eye, the store where the technos kept skins of sweet water and real food, bartered from the greenies. After a moment, I reached into those cabinets and filled my pack with provisions.

  Still hesitant to leave, I stared up at the oval windows to the mountain fortress, now cloaked in darkness.

  An image floated into my mind.

  ***

  I imagined being trapped with Nathaniel and Thomas in the flying snake, what the keepmasters called a train. We whirled through the dark tunnel at unimaginable speed, the lights from inside casting blurred shadows off the walls as we passed.

  The mentor rolled up and down the aisle, asking e
ach of us where we were headed.

  Thomas cried, “To Little Pond, where I belong.”

  Nathaniel shouted, “To the future.”

  I said, “To the keep.”

  The mentor stopped his chair beside me. “This train doesn’t go to the keep.”

  “Then where does it go?” I said.

  “To the dreamers.”

  “Will the train wait for me when I’m done, and bring both me and the dreamers back through the tunnel to my home?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “This train only goes one way. Once you arrive at the dreamers, you’ll be on your own.”

  ***

  I shook off the mood. I’d made such choices before: to betray the keepmasters or reveal the truth; to yield the location of the keep or lose Nathaniel forever; to face the stoning or run away.

  Always Nathaniel had been at my side, but this time, I’d go into the void alone.

  One final task remained. I tore a sheet of clean paper from my logbook, smoothed it on the tabletop, and raised the pen once more. Then I began writing in a large looping hand, so well-practiced from school, my script much nicer than the scrawl of the earth mother.

  When finished, I folded the paper in half and addressed it, then removed my boots and tiptoed on bare feet back to our bedchamber. There, I rested the note on my pillow, with the words facing out, written bold and large, so they’d be easy to read:

  My dearest Nathaniel....

  Chapter 30 – To the Mountain

  At the rear of the commons, I hesitated before the stone guards, worrying they’d deny me access with the mentor gone. My nostrils still stung from the stench of the sand turned to glass. I took a long breath, inched forward, and toed the line. To my relief, a kinder ray scanned me as before, and the guards let me pass.

  I raced through the dimly lit tunnel, not slowing to study the ancient wall carvings, knowing the trek up the mountain in the darkness would take much of the night. I needed to complete my task before Nathaniel and the others arose.

  At the opening on the far end, I was met by a pelting rain. The full moon I’d counted on was hidden behind a layer of low clouds. As I groped in my pack for the electric torch, a flash of lightning lit up the sky, highlighting the domed peak ahead. It loomed above me, taunting as if to say that I, like the dreamers before me, would be humbled by its majesty.

  No sooner did I set out than the rain fell harder. A wicked wind kicked up, blowing in my face as if to defeat my purpose. I leaned into it and slowed to a crawl, as the heavy rain cut off my vision and the path became a bog. Thankfully, the silver tunic of the machine masters kept me dry. Drops of water beaded on its surface and rolled off, splattering to the ground.

  I pressed on. I’d been born cautious but was blessed with a stubborn will. Once I made a decision, nothing deterred me from my goal. I pressed on with no regard for rest. I’d have opportunity enough for rest if I succeeded. If I failed, rest would no longer matter.

  By the time I reached the glade by the darkened lake, the weather had shifted in my favor. The storm had blown off to the east, leaving a sky spread with stars like diamonds on velvet. I paused a moment to quench my thirst with sweet water, and to nourish my spirit with a peek at the heavens. I relished the silky feeling of moonlight on my skin.

  Then I set off again, quickening my pace and striding with a singular purpose. No time to wonder at the frozen river of lava or the fields of heather in bloom. No chance to ponder the statue of the grieving earth mother and mentor. Not a moment to marvel at the moonlight reflecting off the black doors.

  I skidded to a stop at the line on the ground before the stone guards, and waited as they scanned me, seemingly more deliberate than before. At the gates to the keep, I’d been too young to be awed and too ignorant to be scared. Now I knew how great the risk.

  At last, a grinding noise as the doors swung wide.

  I ran past the snakelike garden of glass and the statues of giants supporting the sky, and dashed up the spiral stairs, taking them two at a time.

  In the chamber of the dreamers, I found the golden image of the sun, planted both feet upon it, and raised my arms. No pretense needed. I’d been taught by the vicars since childhood to strike this pose in time of dire need—arms raised, palms outwards, and eyes lifted to the heavens.

  The control platform appeared.

  I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Twin timers displayed before me, each with triple zeroes glowing. Beneath one, an image of a cocoon; beneath the other, a silver cloud. I waved my hand over the numbers with the cloud, as I’d done for Nathaniel.

  The numbers flashed and changed—three hundred seconds.

  Now, how many to allow before the cocoon closed, locking me into the dream? Three hundred? Too long. I might lose my nerve. Fifty? Too short. I might lack the time to get properly set.

  I wiggled my fingers over the panel: a hundred seconds to the dream.

  I bit down on my lower lip and forced my hand to pull the start lever, which responded by blinking with an ominous green glow. The first set of numbers flickered and began to count down.

  Across the chamber, an open cocoon beckoned. I stepped up to it and scrambled inside. To my right, the red numbers flashed, a mirror of those on the control panel.

  Eighty-two, eighty-one....

  Next to the numbers, a switch jutted out, not a holo like the others, but solid. I fingered its cold metal—the mentor had called it an abort switch.

  ...Sixty-three, sixty-two....

  I should have set a shorter time. I closed my eyes, and tried to clear my mind as I’d been taught, but they popped open, seemingly on their own.

  ...Twenty-one, twenty....

  At ten, I squeezed my eyes shut and counted: eight, seven, six....

  A dull whir, and the cover sealed me in with a thud.

  “I love you, Nathaniel,” I said aloud, praying these words would not be my last.

  At first, no change—a malfunction, perhaps, a machine needing service like in the keep.

  Then a twittering like birds stirring at dawn. The twittering deepened into a loud clicking, reminding me of a sound from years before.

  ***

  One morning when I was little, I awoke to the strangest of sounds. I ran outside frightened, and found my grandfather standing by the sundial in our garden, staring at the woods and grinning.

  “Do you hear them, Orah?” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Soon, they’ll be flying everywhere, incredible little creatures the size of your thumb, with orange eyes and gossamer wings too small for their bodies. They’ll bump into you if you don’t watch out.”

  “Are they creatures from the darkness?” I said, my voice quivering.

  “Oh no, they’re a wonder of nature. They live for only a few days, long enough to mate and lay eggs. Then they vanish. The wonder is that they won’t return for another seventeen years.”

  “That sounds so sad,” I said.

  “Not sad, and surely not the vicar’s view of the darkness. Just the way things are.”

  “If they live so short and die so soon, why are you smiling?”

  His grin widened. “Because I’ve heard this sound only three times before, the first when I was not much older than you, and I never thought I’d live long enough to hear it a fourth time.”

  Together, we stood there and listened to the near-deafening chorus of clicks, implausibly made by insects the size of my thumb.

  Finally, I turned to him. “Why do they make such a noise?”

  “It’s a way to call others to their side,” he said, “to tell their kind they’re yearning for them. That’s not noise you’re hearing, Orah. It’s a love song.”

  ***

  Now, as I lay in the cramped cocoon, feeling like an insect myself, the piercing sound seemed anything but a love song. I tried to cover my ears, but my hands refused to move. In fact, I could no longer feel my hands at all. I sent a signal to my thumb to brush its pad to the tip of
my index finger, and tried to wiggle my toes.

  Nothing.

  One thought screamed over the frantic clicking: Find the abort switch and end this madness!

  But I had no eyes to find the switch. Darkness clung to me like a new skin. I sensed no glimmer save for the fading memory of what I’d once believed to be light.

  I sought to slow my breathing but found no breath, as if I were over my head in some dense substance and afraid to breathe. But over my head in what? Not water but something deeper—time, old time and new time, all the time that had passed since the first thought, and the whole world, everyone who had ever lived, was holding their breath with me, the people, the animals, the trees and plants, all waiting, as if the universe depended on my mind for its existence.

  Of course, these thoughts, these bits of lightning flashing in my brain, had been downloaded into a machine. I’d entered the dream.

  The notion of being separate from my body terrified me, as if I might lose the essence of who I was. I focused on things of substance—earth, rocks, rivers of lava, or statues of stone—but no matter how weighty, every thought floated away. I imagined fleeing to a cave and digging a hole to hold my being together, to keep it from dispersing like the smoke in the earth mother’s lodge. I feared if I stopped digging, I’d give up and die.

  Worst of all, I began not to care; death no longer frightened me.

  With that thought, a peace settled over me. So what if I’d lost my physical being? I’d gained something better: thought in its purest form. At once I recalled everything I’d ever experienced, anything I’d seen, touched or smelled.

  I pictured my grandfather’s face, etched with lines of age, as he explained to me the workings of the sundial and urged me to keep my first log, recording the movement of the sun.

  I saw my father’s face, with no lines at all because he died so young. I recalled his voice from his death bed, saying to me, “Now, little Orah, don’t cry. You have a wonderful life ahead of you. Study hard in school and don’t let the vicars set your mind. Think your own thoughts, big thoughts based on grand ideas, and find someone to love.”