The Seekers: The Children of Darkness (Dystopian Sci-Fi - Book 1)

by David Litwack

  Orah wanted to indict as well, to recite her own litany of lies and the harm the Temple had done, but this trial had only one outcome. Better to say nothing.

  She glanced at Nathaniel, whose back had stiffened as he prepared to speak. She concentrated, trying to pass the thought through to his mind. Be careful, Nathaniel. He’s shrewd, dangerous. Don’t let him anger you.

  But Nathaniel had changed, no longer the reckless boy of her youth. His passions stayed under control. “What we say doesn’t matter. Your trial is all for show. Just... get on with it.”

  The arch vicar had wielded power for more than twice her life, but now reshuffled the papers for no reason.

  Finally, he looked up and glowered. “Tell me where you’ve been.”

  “We left a trail of messages,” Nathaniel said. “I’m sure you’ve tracked them all. Most towns we’ve now forgotten or never learned their names.”

  Good, Nathaniel. Say nothing he doesn’t already know.

  “Tell me anyway,” the arch vicar said, “starting from Little Pond.”

  ***

  Orah quieted her mind. The tenor of the questioning troubled her—too easy. The old man asked, she parried, but a trap was coming.

  She tried to disrupt the flow of the interrogation. “What did you do with our friend?”

  “Thomas will be cared for based on his needs. Each child of light is treated according to Temple precepts.”

  Temple precepts. The Temple doesn’t hurt its children. It harms the whole world.

  The arch vicar leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his full weight upon them. “The Temple will treat him better than his friends did. He tells us you treated him badly.”

  Treated him badly? Thomas fought to be with us. Why would he say such a thing? Unless.... She glanced at Nathaniel. He bit down on his lip and stayed silent, but the comment required an answer.

  Careful now. He’s about to spring the trap.

  “He’s our friend. We’d never treat him badly, but after what you did to him in your teaching, we couldn’t trust him.”

  The arch vicar tightened the net. “You never left him? He went everywhere with you?”

  Think it through. Don’t rush. “Yes, of course. We couldn’t leave him alone. He’d have run off.”

  “Then he’d know the way.”

  Think, Orah. He’s questioned Thomas separately.

  The arch vicar settled back, his thick hands folded, a block of granite weighing down the desktop. He wouldn’t be the next to speak.

  “No. We made sure he’d never betray us again.”

  “How was that, Orah of Little Pond whose name means light?”

  She felt like a child fighting the darkness with a stick. Her heart beat faster, but she took a cleansing breath and steadied herself. “At every major turn, at each crossroad, we used my scarf to blindfold him.”

  The arch vicar snapped a look at Nathaniel, and Orah followed his gaze. Her best friend nodded in agreement.

  ***

  Nathaniel did his best to stay focused, but the questioning dragged on for hours. Orah had handled it masterfully. Their story stayed consistent with no mention of the keep.

  At last, the arch vicar eased the folder closed. “Orah Weber and Nathaniel Rush, I take no pleasure in the judgment I must now hand down. You followed your beliefs, misguided though they may be, and will gain nothing from teachings, but you present a danger to the light. I rule you shall stay here as our guests for the rest of your lives.”

  The rest of your lives. Nathaniel had one last hope but the request stuck in his throat.

  Orah turned toward him, her whole body turning, and uttered his request aloud. “Will we be together?”

  “No. You’ll be kept apart. I’d make it easier for you, but....” The arch vicar’s thick brows drooped at the corners. “...you’ve done too much damage to the light. The answer is no.”

  ***

  Orah’s spirit sagged. Bad enough to never see her mother or Little Pond again, but to live without Nathaniel....

  The arch vicar rang the bell with the sun-shaped handle, and eight deacons entered, forming a box around the two.

  Nathaniel forced his way through and approached the desk. “Will you let us share meals?”

  The arch vicar shook his head and stood to leave.

  A deacon grabbed Orah by the arms, but she twisted away. “One meal, Holiness. One meal a week.”

  The arch vicar looked at Orah, and then Nathaniel. Finally he settled his gaze on the floor between them. “No. This session is ended.”

  The deacons had secured her now and were dragging her toward the exit. As the shadow of separation hovered over her, she became lightheaded, overcome by despair. Was this how Thomas had felt at the end of his teaching? As she neared the doorway, she stretched out an arm to touch Nathaniel one last time.

  “Wait.” The arch vicar addressed the lead deacon. “Place the boy in the same cell as his last stay.”

  Orah held her breath.

  “And the girl, lock her in the next cell, the one recently vacated by our late guest Samuel.”

  A gift. The peephole as dispensation. Blessed be the light.

  Chapter 36 – Temptation

  Nathaniel slowed his heartbeat to allow himself to sleep. The weeks since leaving the wilderness had sapped his strength like a long illness. He and Orah both needed time to heal, to prove they were still alive. At first they talked incessantly, mulling over their fate until nothing was left to say. Their world had become simple—no goals, no plans, no future. Now they spoke whenever a thought occurred.

  Orah had insisted on shifting their beds to the shared wall so they could sense each other even as they slept. He listened for her breathing, wondering if she was awake, but before he could gauge the rhythm, she spoke.

  “Nathaniel?”

  “Yes, Orah.”

  “I’ve been thinking about my father lately. I can picture his hands at the loom, delicate hands with slender fingers, not like a man’s.”

  “Like yours.” Nathaniel imagined she smiled.

  “Like mine. I only need to glance down to recall them.”

  Nathaniel stared at dust patterns on the wall.

  “Nathaniel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m struggling to remember his face. I see him sometimes, telling me stories at bedtime, but I can’t recall him at will. I wish I had a viewing area with a topic called memories. ‘Help,’ I’d say. ‘Show me pictures of my father,’ and he’d appear on the screen.”

  “Those pictures have lasted a thousand years.”

  “My father’s been gone just ten, yet I’m worried I’ll forget him entirely.”

  Nathaniel traced the cracks in the ceiling with his eyes. “In here, I may forget my father as well.”

  He tried to envision his father. Six months had passed since he’d last seen home. He shook his head to jog his memory, to summon his father’s face, but only Orah’s appeared.

  “Move back,” he said, “away from the peephole.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to look at you.”

  He heard her shuffling away from the wall. “I’m ready.”

  He peered into the hole and caught her grooming herself, licking her hands to rub dust from her face, dragging fingers through tangled hair. She wore the same expression as when he kissed her at festival—eyes sparkling in the candlelight, a blush to her cheeks. What would he do if the vicars took her away?

  He banished the thought from his mind. “Orah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you do it again?”

  “I think so.” She laughed. It sounded like waterfalls. “Ask me in twenty years.”

  “What if I didn’t race off to save you from the teaching? You’d be wiser in the light but would recover in time, as the elders say, and we’d both still be at home.”

  “Are you close to the hole, Nathaniel?”

  ”Uh-huh.”

  She slapped the flat of he
r hand against the wall hard enough for dust to fly. “Don’t go having regrets. I loved that you came for me, and would never give up what we learned. Think of it, Nathaniel—a million suns.”

  Nathaniel pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. “I’m glad I went too.”

  No response from the next cell. No movement outside. Nothing but a candle flaring occasionally with a soft buzz. He checked on her once more. She was leaning on the edge of the table, staring at nothing.

  He knew the thought would anger her but felt compelled to say it. “I should never have let you come with me that morning at the NOT tree. Then I’d be alone in this cell, and you’d be safe in Little Pond.”

  He peered through the hole. She was already striding toward him. For a moment, he felt grateful for the wall in between.

  “Don’t you ever think like that! How awful to have you missing, and I not knowing where you were. Better to be near, connected by this cursed peephole. Besides, how would you have found your way without me? You’d still be searching for mountains in Adamsville.”

  He nodded though she couldn’t see. He was beginning to understand. “Remember what you said about having no illusions and needing to make choices. We’ve made lots of choices, but we believed in them all. Does that mean we should have no regrets?”

  “I think so, like the old prisoner who lived in this cell. He made choices based on what he believed. Did he have regrets at the end?”

  “No, but to the end, he had hope. Maybe when we’re old we’ll find a way to tell our story like he did.” The corners of his mouth struggled upward, and he forced a glance to the unseen heavens. “Or our friend in Bradford might mount an expedition to rescue us.” He shook his head. “There goes Nathaniel having illusions again.”

  “I don’t know, but one thing’s no illusion: being together.”

  He imagined what she’d do next if not for the wall. He leaned closer as if to savor the warmth of her touch.

  “Orah?”

  “Yes.”

  “If none of this had happened, or if by some miracle they let us go home to resume our lives, what would you wish for most?”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to dwell on impossible dreams?”

  He considered a moment. “Dreams may be all we have left.”

  “Then here is my list. I wish to win a race at festival as an adult, to have you win one too, so I can place a wreath on your head and embarrass you in front of the whole village, to weave enough cloth one year to let my mother get some rest, to go with you to explore the mountain pass and discover the ocean....”

  Her voice trailed off, and he assumed his turn had come.

  “My list is short. If none of this had happened—no teachings, no vicars, no seekers, no keep—I’d be content to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  When she failed to answer, he peeked through the hole in the wall.

  She sat sideways on the chair, one arm draped over the back. The dim light of a candle flickered off her moist cheeks.

  ***

  Three weeks had passed since the arch vicar had assigned Thomas to the kitchen. As another tedious day neared its end, he hobbled down the hall to the storeroom to fetch a sack of flour. He walked with an uneven gait, favoring his left side, and his head tilted left as well. His eyes flitted everywhere, aimless and unfocused.

  Which allowed him to study his surroundings without detection—a perfect ruse. Only his friends would have seen through it.

  Orah would be proud. He’d become a student of the dining routine, observing every detail, gathering information.

  The kitchen provided meals for several hundred people and bustled with activity. Work began before sunrise when the baker arrived to fire up the ovens. Preparations for dinner started immediately after lunch, and setup for the next morning’s breakfast followed the evening meal. Everyone raced about trying to finish as soon as possible and save a few minutes for their families. This made the hour after dinner the most frenzied time of day, ideal for avoiding notice.

  He’d won the trust of Charles, the head cook, a round, hairless man with a thick neck and three chins, who liked to order people about using the familiar form of their name followed by the word boy—Willie-boy or Johnnie-boy. In turn, the others referred to the cook as Charlie-boy, but only behind his back.

  Thomas played the simpleton so well the cook took to calling him poor-boy.

  “Poor-boy, fetch me a sack of beets. Poor-boy, a crate of salted pork.”

  Thomas bowed, yes-Holinessed and shuffled off. He got away with asking foolish questions because everyone thought him feeble-minded, but he always managed to slip in one question for which he needed to know the answer.

  “Holiness, why is the pork salted? Why are the beets stored in sacks and not crates? Why are the walnuts in cans? How does the food get to the vicars?”

  He learned they served the clergymen first, and then the deacons. Next came the kitchen staff. Leftovers went to the guards below and, last of all, to the prisoners.

  “How does the food get below?”

  They sent the food from the kitchen using a moveable frame, hoisted up or down with a system of pulleys. The largest of these lay behind the brick ovens in a place left vacant except during mealtimes. It delivered food upward to Temple officials and down to prison guards. A second smaller one was set into the back wall of the storeroom. No one would tell him where that one went.

  Everyone knew the arch vicar had sent him, and they watched him closely. When not working, they locked him away in a small room—but people relaxed around the simpleminded. Increasingly, gaps in his oversight showed.

  After dinner, cooks, scullions and others of Charlie-boy’s underlings hustled through the steaming air, rattling pans in soapy water, dragging crates of smoked meat and peeling potatoes for the next morning’s meal. In the dimly lit alcove before the ovens, a washerwoman swished about on the stone floor with a mop.

  The others considered the storeroom his domain, the one place he was allowed to enter unsupervised. With so many sacks and kegs, no one bothered to track how long he stayed inside.

  He wound through the stacks of supplies and located the opening in the back wall, about half the height of a man but wider. On closer inspection, he spotted the entrance to a shaft downward. The frame lay in place, shelves empty, its work done for the day, but he dared not disrupt it for long. He fingered the thick rope—rough hemp and tightly woven. Good for a firm grip.

  He inhaled through his nose and blew out a long stream of air. Well, Thomas, you always thought your friends were braver than you. Time to be brave as well.

  He raised the shelf and slipped underneath. Once in the shaft, he clutched the rope between the insteps of his boots, pulled the shelf back into place, and lowered himself down.

  The corridor at the bottom had barely enough light to see. The stale air coated his tongue with dust, and the walls were etched with decay. Heavy wooden doors lined the far side, each locked with a metal bolt.

  His heart sank.

  He spent his days in a bright room surrounded by people, while his friends stayed caged in these cells.

  He took two steps to the nearest door, but stopped. A peek through a slat, a slip of a bolt and they’d be free, but what then? Too many unanswered questions remained, too many obstacles to freedom. Even Orah would struggle to stitch together such a plan.

  He stared at the door and shook his head. No way to help them. If caught, he’d suffer a worse punishment than theirs, a useless sacrifice. He’d discovered a trifle so far, not a plan. He’d need many more trifles to make Orah proud.

  He held his breath and listened. Were those the voices of his friends? Too muffled to be sure.

  Afraid to stay any longer, he vaulted back into the shaft and shimmied up the rope.

  ***

  A month had passed since Orah last saw Nathaniel with no wall in between. Now, as four deacons blocked her view and kept them apart, she peered past them to get a
clearer look. He seemed thinner and more pale.

  She suspected she looked no better.

  The deacons led them through a maze of dimly lit corridors until she lost all sense of direction. Finally, they arrived at an arched doorway forming the end of a hall.

  She suppressed a gasp. On the wall beside it sat a box with sixteen buttons in the shape of stars. The lead deacon knocked. After a moment, the door opened and the lone figure of the arch vicar filled its frame. He waved the deacons off and bid Orah and Nathaniel enter.

  The arch vicar ushered them into a painfully familiar room. A soft glow rose around them, with no visible source. The furnishings differed from anything she’d seen in Temple City, with metal tables and straight-backed chairs. Every few paces, the plain white walls were broken by the rectangular windows she’d come to know as screens.

  She did her best to disguise her reaction. “What place is this? Temple magic?”

  “Well played, Orah,” the arch vicar said, “but you fool no one. I know you’ve been to the keep.”

  She gritted her teeth as if pressing harder would prevent her from replying.

  The old man responded with a look of his own, a glare of condemnation he’d used so often it had grown into his flesh and bones. “No need to answer, but tell me this: what made you so enamored of the keep? What about these people who valued progress over human souls impressed you so? What did you discover there that inspired you to throw your lives away?”

  Orah glanced at Nathaniel; he licked his cracked lips and nodded. Stay with what he knows.

  “You read our messages,” she said. “They say what we found.”

  The arch vicar shuffled behind a desk. Arranged in a row upon its surface lay the four bulletins, and beside them, her log.

  “Yes, of course, the truth about everything. I forgot. You are the seekers of truth.”

  He came back around and stood before her, so near her cheeks burned with the heat of his breath.

  She rocked on her toes and raised her chin, refusing to be intimidated. “We sought the truth and wrote about what we found.”