He stared past them as if remembering times gone by. “I’ve waited so long I thought I’d never hear the words.” Then he smiled. “And if you’ll pardon me, the three of you don’t look the part.” He glanced up at the ceiling as if afraid he’d offended them, and proclaimed to no one in particular, “The seekers have come. Blessed be the seekers.”
He closed his eyes as if sleeping, and when he reopened them, they glistened. “Such a miracle that you found me after so many generations. At times I believed my father’s tale a myth. But I haven’t yet fulfilled my mission. Come with me.”
He led them to a supply room in the back of the store and had Nathaniel slide a wooden cabinet aside. Dust underneath showed the piece had not been moved in years. Starting at the base of the wall, he counted with his walking stick sixteen bricks up. From there, he tapped three to the right and stopped at the fourth. He tried to remove the brick but his knobby fingers were too weak to dislodge it.
Nathaniel stepped forward and tugged until the brick came loose.
From the hole, the shopkeeper removed a scroll exactly like the first. He grasped it in both hands and presented it to Orah. “The city, the symbol, the pass phrase and the rhyme. Blessed be the seekers.”
The hair on the back of her neck tingled as she accepted the scroll.
The shopkeeper bent his head, almost a bow. “My life’s purpose as a keeper has been to wait for you and, now that you’ve come, to lead you to the next in the chain. The rest is up to you, but I can give directions. The next leg of your journey will require a trek of several days, and I see you’re already road-weary. Please honor me by accepting my invitation to dinner. Then stay the night and rest. In the morning, I’ll replenish your provisions and start you on your way.”
All three nodded in appreciation. As Orah rubbed the glossy surface of the scroll with the pad of her thumb, the realization struck with much more force than one of Nathaniel’s notions--the keepers were real.
The keep must exist.
***
Since leaving Little Pond the week before, Orah and the others had survived on cornmeal crackers and dried mutton, usually eaten in a rush while squatting on the ground. Now, as she washed off the dust of the road, the second keeper prepared a fine meal. The first inkling came from the smell wafting up the stairs of seared lamb aromatic with forbidden spices--perhaps a hint of mint or thyme—and yams glazed with honey.
When she arrived downstairs, the table had been set with the spinner’s finest crockery, and a mouth-watering dinner awaited. Her mother had never cooked such a meal.
In no time, she’d cleared her plate and asked for more.
Afterwards, the friends sipped apple cinnamon tea and learned about the keeper. He’d been born and raised in this house and had learned spinning as a boy. At his coming of age, his father asked him to swear loyalty to the family business. The spinner’s ancestors had run the Adamsville shop with a fanatic commitment, longer than anyone could remember, but only as his father lay dying did he reveal the reason: the place held a clue in the keeper’s chain.
He’d married here, and his wife had borne him a son who arrived sickly into the world and survived less than two years. They’d yearned for another to fill the void, but had drawn the white stone at their nuptials. They had pleaded with the vicar, but the clergy enforced the rules rigorously: a family of the white stone may bear only one offspring. Had their child been stillborn, they’d have been allowed another. When rules are made for the many, they’re cruel for the few. His wife had passed to the light several years before, and he’d since lived alone.
After dinner, he led them upstairs to a small but comfortable room with a single window in back and eaves in the corners. It had been his bedroom as a child, he explained, and his son’s nursery for the time he had lived.
“My wife left it unchanged for years,” the keeper said, “a kind of memorial for our boy. After her death, I removed all painful reminders of my family and turned it into a guest room.”
The seekers had not slept in beds for a week. With their stomachs filled and the doubts of the day diminished, they could barely stay awake.
Seeing this, the second keeper bid them good night and departed.
Despite her exhaustion, Orah itched to peek at the scroll. She stretched the shiny parchment over a candle flame, and though only Thomas had never seen the change, all three held their breaths until the words appeared.
This time, the city read “Bradford.”
Thomas lit up at mention of his forebear’s former home.
Orah took this to be a good omen and moved on to the symbol, a poorly drawn square, with one end longer than the other. She glanced at Nathaniel for guidance. He only shrugged.
But Thomas gasped, and the blood drained from his face. “I know what it is. I see it every night in my dreams—a vicar’s hat.”
“It can’t be.” She gaped at the not-quite-square, and then squinted, trying to force the picture to change. When the perception lingered, she buried her concern to steady her friend. “We’ll go to Bradford and find a better explanation.”
Thomas released his breath. “I hope so.”
“At least the pass phrase is clear.” She read the words below the symbol, wanting to move on before the letters vanished. “‘We travel toward the dawn to seek the light of truth,’ followed by, ‘May the light of truth keep you safe and show you the way.’”
The rhyme, however, taunted her, as mysterious as before.
Twixt water and dark walls of pine
A cave made by men who must die
The Temple of Truth you shall see
Golden doors that are closed for all time
“What does that mean?” Thomas said. “How do we get in if they’re closed for all time?”
“It’s worse than the other.” Nathaniel scowled. “What’s a cave between water and dark walls?”
Orah hid her disappointment, needing to keep their spirits up. “Remember what the first keeper said. The rhyme makes sense only if complete. We’re the seekers. Look at how many obstacles we’ve already overcome. When the time is right, we’ll know what to do.”
Yet she knew at this moment the title of seeker meant little. Before they reached their goal, each would be called upon to do more than they’d dreamed possible, and only then would they earn the name.
The words faded and the day rested heavily upon her. Their journey stretched beyond the horizon, with no end in sight.
***
After the others had gone to bed, Orah rummaged through her pack and withdrew her log. At long last, she found a moment to chronicle the events since that day the vicar had dragged her off to Temple City. She wrote for an hour and then paused, the pen poised over the paper.
The story lacked something—a meaning, a hope, a fear.
Here she sat on this bed in the home of a stranger, a seven-day trek from Little Pond. She’d abandoned her mother and all she’d ever known, beat through the brush, slept in the woods and fled from the deacons... but to what purpose?
She began to write.
The meaning: To right a wrong. The Temple and its teachings exist for a single purpose—to keep the people from questioning the vicars. What are they hiding?
The hope: To lift the constraints on my people. As the first keeper told Nathaniel, to give them a life of possibilities rather than a life of limits.
The fear....
She raised the pen. What did she fear most? To rot away in the prisons of Temple City? To die a death by stoning? To lose Nathaniel?
The last gave her pause, and she shook her head. What good were any of these if she lost herself? She recalled her father’s deathbed words, and with sudden clarity, denying them became her greatest fear.
The fear: To let the vicars or anyone else set my mind. To aspire to be less than I might be. To be unworthy of another’s love.
Satisfied with the entry, she restored the pen and paper to their waterproof container and stuffed it away in h
er pack.
***
Orah stirred first. A sliver of sunlight found a gap in the curtain and landed on her right eye. She opened it, closed it, and then startled awake—the light of midmorning, not dawn.
She staggered to her feet to rouse the others, but paused when she caught an odd tapping on the stairs—the click of a walking stick on stone, but approaching too fast.
The old spinner burst into the room, his face ashen. In his right hand he waved a crumpled piece of paper.
“Deacons. Searching from house to house. They’ll be here in minutes.”
Thomas jumped up and began filling his pack, while Nathaniel rubbed sleep from his eyes.
“They can’t be looking for us,” Orah said. The keeper handed her the paper, and she read it aloud. “Urgent bulletin. Three friends of the darkness believed to have arrived in Adamsville overnight: a tall, dark-haired man; a shorter one; and a slender girl with auburn hair. If sighted, report.”
Thomas snarled at Orah as he rolled a blanket and jammed it into his pack. “I thought you said word couldn’t travel that fast.”
She glared back at him, but he kept his head down, continuing to fill his rucksack.
Nathaniel started packing as well and urged her to do the same.
“We have time,” the spinner said. “The deacons are clumsy fools, so quick to harsh treatment they’ve foretold their coming. I have bags ready for each of you, with food for ten days. I’ll fetch them while you finish. Fold your bedding and clean up. Leave no sign you stayed here. I’ll return in an instant. Please hurry.”
They finished with the linens just as he returned with the bags. The three accepted the food, secured their packs, and rushed toward the stairs, but a knocking at the door froze them in place.
The shopkeeper placed a finger to his lips, came close, and whispered, “I’ve planned for this. It wasn’t hard to guess how the Temple would feel about the seekers.” He turned and pointed. “That window leads to a small alley out of view from the front of the house. The building has no back door, so they won’t suspect anyone trying to leave that way.”
Orah glanced out. “I can see why. It’s too steep a drop.”
The keeper’s response restored her confidence. “Bricks are wonderful things. They hide secrets, and when removed provide hand and footholds.”
He slid the window open.
Thomas leaned out and turned back with a grin. “He’s made holes every couple of feet like a ladder. Climbing down will be easy.”
The pounding on the door grew louder.
Orah pointed to Thomas. “Go.”
Thomas put his nimbleness to use, vaulting over the windowsill and scrambling down.
Once he gave them an all-clear, she gestured to Nathaniel. “You’re next. I’ll toss you the three packs. They’d be too heavy for me, and you can catch me if I fall.
Before he could argue, she cast him a look of such urgency he obeyed. After he’d climbed down, she dropped the packs to him.
As she turned to make her goodbyes, the second keeper drew her close. “Travel east for six days, past the roads that lead south to the Temple Cities. Then turn north at the next opportunity. Two days more and you’ll arrive at Bradford.”
She repeated the words, hoping to remember, and scrambled over the sill.
He called after her, “Go quickly. The keep won’t wait forever. May the true light speed you on.”
Once over the side, she found the holes an easy fit for her feet, but in her haste, she lost her grip near the bottom and would have landed awkwardly if not for Nathaniel.
They dashed around the corner, out of sight of the window, and she again took charge. “He said to go east. Let’s get as far from here as possible.”
Nathaniel stopped her. “The bulletin claimed we were three. If we go separately, we’ll be harder to identify.”
“I won’t split up,” she said.
“It’ll be safer. That’s all that matters. I’ll go north, you go east and Thomas south. We’ll meet on the road, ten minutes east of the town. Whoever arrives first should hide in the woods and signal when the others appear.”
She began to argue, but stopped when she heard the keeper’s voice unnaturally loud, berating the deacons for manhandling an old man. She gave in and took off in her designated direction with a prayer they’d meet as planned.
***
Orah slowed her jog and began scanning the woods. The terror of being caught had diminished, but all would be wasted if one of them was caught.
Then two sharp whistles, a birdcall to anyone else. She turned to catch Thomas emerging from the trees.
Her remaining fear became a single word. “Nathaniel?”
Thomas made a sweeping gesture with his arm, and Nathaniel’s tall form emerged through the branches. Bits of leaf clung to his hair and beard as he beamed at her. “We did it.”
“Yes,” she said, “but let’s never separate again.”
He nodded soberly and brushed her cheek with his fingertips.
To feel his touch, to know he was safe.... How painful the minutes apart had been. Was this her punishment for following his dream? But for now, their escape stirred her blood and drove off any emotion save exhilaration.
Their journey would grow harder with another eight days to Bradford, assuming they found their way, but something more gnawed at her, something... subtly wrong. Yes, Nathaniel had broken his vow to the arch vicar, but why should three villagers from the edge of the world merit such attention?
She stared at the road ahead. Eight more days to Bradford. Eight more days of looking over her shoulder and checking for deacons. Eight more days of pondering her fate.
Chapter 17 – Bradford
After more than two weeks, Orah had wearied of the seekers’ journey. Their goal remained a long way off, assuming the keep existed and could be found. For each moment of elation or instant of peril, she slogged through hours of tedium.
At least the April weather had been kind. Mild nights seldom required a blanket, and cool days allowed for a brisk pace—that is until they headed north, away from the second Temple City. When the sweltering heat arrived, she imagined the vicars had sent temple magic to break their will. She trudged along, each footstep landing with a thud upon the earth.
Thomas complained that his feet hurt and that as the smallest, his pack weighed heavily on him.
Their pace slowed, and two days after turning northward, she’d glimpsed no sign of Bradford.
Nathaniel did his best to raise their spirits. “Think how much we’ve accomplished. We dodged the deacons and secured a second piece of a puzzle for the ages. Are we sure to find the keep? Not yet, but the possibility should stir our passions.”
She knew he was right, but still....
Unable to act or plan, she fretted constantly. How many keepers remained? What if, after all these generations, the chain had been broken? Even if the chain remained intact, how would she solve such a baffling rhyme?
She viewed solving the rhyme as key to their morale. That night, after dinner, she pressed Nathaniel to bring out the scrolls, and she memorized every word.
The next day, as they hiked in the heat, she chanted as she went:
To the North, behind the rock face
To the East, towering o’er the lake
To the North, through forest of stone
To the East, the entrance shall be
~~~
Twixt water and dark walls of pine
A cave made by men who must die
The Temple of Truth you shall see
Golden doors that are closed for all time
Occasionally, she’d gain insight into a phrase and bring it up with the others. As they debated its meaning, their pace would quicken.
“We go north,” she’d announce. “Then, when we come upon a rock cliff, we turn east.”
Thomas wrinkled his nose. “How can there be a forest of stone?”
“Maybe they mean petrified trees.”
“If the keep is the Temple of Truth, why would they build it in a cave?”
“To hide it, of course.”
Thomas persisted. “Where?”
“Behind the golden doors.”
“Which are locked forever.”
Round and round they went. By midafternoon, black clouds billowed and surged in the west, rising angrily as if at odds with the heavens. They were a wonder to behold from a distance, but as the storm drew nearer it seemed to target the seekers. The closer the clouds came, the faster they moved, until they blotted all blue from the sky. An immense wind came up, too warm for April—a wet, hot wind that turned the newly sprouted leaves inside out and ripped the weaker ones away, stirring the litter far down the dirt path and raising whirls of dust. Soon, thunder boomed and lightning flashed, followed by heavy droplets of rain driven sideways by the wind, as if some power had heard them mocking the rhyme.
The three fled for cover into the trees.
The squall raced past as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the air cool and fresh. April had returned, and as the storm moved on to the east, a rainbow arced across the sky. Her friends gazed at it in wonder, trying to see to its end, but—practical as always—Orah emerged onto the now muddy road and checked the way forward.
What she saw made her smile, a weary hope fulfilled. “Look there.”
Nathaniel rushed to her side. “What is it?”
“A signpost. We’ve come to Bradford.”
***
After their narrow escape in Adamsville, Orah refused to enter Bradford without scouting the town first. But which of them should go? Thomas didn’t offer, and she didn’t ask.
Nathaniel volunteered, but she insisted his height would make him too conspicuous, and people would more likely trust a young woman alone. He finally gave in.
She wrapped a headscarf round her hair to conceal the color, and left her pack behind. After smoothing her clothing and shaking off the dust of the road, she sauntered off to Bradford like an everyday visitor.
Bradford, like Adamsville, had homes at the outskirts and a merchant district within, but this city featured a square in its middle bordering a well-kept park. At the park’s center stood a cheery gazebo built from latticework and roofed with copper, surrounded by a small flower garden. Snowdrops hung in bloom, joined by buds of crocus barely visible above the newly thawed soil. The square seemed a place more for recreation than ritual.
The Seekers: The Children of Darkness (Dystopian Sci-Fi - Book 1) Page 11