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

by David Litwack

  The arch vicar softened. This close, she perceived a sadness in his eyes.

  “My child, when you’ve lived longer—that is, if we’d allowed you to grow old in the outside world—you’d understand there’s no such thing as absolute truth. I’m sure you learned in the keep how much harm was done in the name of good.”

  “The same could be said of the Temple.”

  “I suppose. Which only proves that truth is elusive. We all act based on what we believe. I understand your little crusade, but I believe you are wrong. I can assure you of one thing: in the age of the keepmasters, you would not have been treated this well.”

  He returned to the desk and seated himself. Philosophical discussion had ended. Back to Temple business.

  “Tell me how to get to the keep.”

  She bit her lower lip and stayed silent, but winced when the arch vicar picked up her log and flipped through its pages. “You write well, with such passion. So intent to right a wrong, to improve the lives of your people. But what of your fear—to be unworthy of another’s love? Now you must make a choice. I can never allow you to leave, but if you assist me, I’ll let you share the noontime meal every day.”

  She had prepared for choices, but not this. She brushed away a curl that had lengthened in the months of flight and discovery, upheaval and captivity, and breathed the words before Nathaniel could stop her.

  “What do you need?”

  “Only a hint, my child. I already know you headed east from Riverbend, looking for mountainous terrain and a path north along the river, but we’ve searched and found nothing. Help us take the next step.” His voice became soothing. “Is that so much of a compromise compared to what I offer in return? Why miss the opportunity to be together?”

  “River something?” Nathaniel said. “We’ve never heard of such a town,”

  “Of course you have, as surely as you grew up in Little Pond. Beyond tracking you there, I have in my files the official testimony of the shoemaker’s daughter... from her teaching.”

  Orah charged forward and planted her small fists on the desk with such force the arch vicar fell back. “She’s underage, too young for a teaching.”

  “My child, the Temple is governed by precepts and rules. Precepts are handed down from the light and are immutable, but the council determines rules. An orphan may be taught early, if necessary. I had the authority to issue such a dispensation, and she has benefited as a result.”

  Orah swallowed hard and stepped back. Without taking her eyes off the arch vicar, she groped for Nathaniel’s hand. Their fingertips touched, and their fingers wove together as one. His strength surged through her as she spoke.

  “We have nothing more to say.”

  The arch vicar aged before them. His trappings of office lost their power. “Very well. I don’t need to know the location of the keep, only that its secret will never be revealed. You’ll be our guests for the rest of your lives, and the secret will die with you.”

  He moved a finger to press a button on the desk—a signal to the deacons—but his finger hovered, hesitating. He handed her back the log. “I’ll summon you again in a month to check if you changed your mind. In the meantime, this belongs to you and has pages left to fill. If you run out of paper, tell the guards, and I’ll provide as much as you need. You’ll have plenty of time to chronicle your life, though I suspect you’ll find little to say as the years of tedium drag on.”

  He took his seat behind the desk and scanned the messages as if rereading them.

  When he resumed, his voice chilled like a winter wind. “I can do worse. I can put you in separate cells or send one of you to another Temple City so far away you’ll never see each other again. Take a month to ponder this. The keep stayed hidden for centuries, and you only stumbled upon it with my help. Now you’ve spent weeks spreading these so-called truths, yet the children still live in the light. No one wants what the keep offers. Hiding its location will accomplish nothing but split you apart.” He crumpled the messages and waved them in her face. “One month. Your final chance.”

  ***

  After they left, the arch vicar collapsed in his chair. He removed the black hat with the red stripes earned over so many years and wiped the moisture from his head. When he finished, the few strands of gray that remained lay plastered to his scalp.

  What made them so willing to sacrifice so much? Had the founders of the keep left the world a better place? Was it so vital to contravene the order of things, to be able to fly or challenge the heavens? Did they need to develop such efficient ways to kill? He denied the darkness not because of what he’d been taught in the seminary, but because of the light he’d found in his own heart.

  Yet these two also believed in something—the misguided ideals of the keep—with the same ferocity. He shook his head. They’d never tell. They’d tasted from the fruit of the tree of knowledge and would always want more. But despite their foray into the darkness, their friendship—their love—was of the light.

  He’d used it against them.

  What had the slightest hope of finding the keep made him do? Offer a choice that would torment them to the end of their days. Did their sin warrant such punishment, when he’d nearly succumbed himself?

  He studied his oversized hands. They might have been the hands of a bricklayer, but he’d chosen to wield power instead. He’d been wielding power for too long.

  No. He’d never follow through with his threat. He no longer cared what the younger vicars thought. Maybe he lacked the resolve to become grand vicar after all. If they refused to divulge the location of the keep in a month, he’d leave them be, to live out their lives locked away but with each other. Then he’d wash his hands of the whole affair. No need to do more.

  The age of the keep had passed.

  Chapter 37 – Great Pond

  The spinner was stacking yarn in the stockroom when the bell at the front door jingled—his wife and daughter returning from Adamsville. He dropped his work, brushed back his thinning hair and rushed out to greet them.

  He hugged his wife, grasped the eight-year-old by the hands and inspected her from head to toe. “Two weeks gone, and as I suspected, you’ve grown an inch.”

  His wife laughed. “My mother gets to feed her only a few days each year and takes full advantage.”

  “How was your trip?”

  “Long, as usual.”

  He noted their clothing, covered with the dust of the road—they’d need a thorough cleaning. “Any news from the towns to the east?”

  The woman’s face settled into a frown. “Odd things are about. Postings, like those of the Temple, but not from the vicars. For a while, I hear, they appeared daily, but then stopped.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Complaints of the kind usually spoken in private. Accusations against the vicars, but with details to back them up. Here. I can show you.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You brought some?”

  She removed her pack and pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper.

  “Not the ones in Temple lettering. The deacons ripped those down, but people took to copying them by hand and passing them around. They say the spinner of Adamsville closes his shop at noon so he can spend the rest of the day writing. Look for yourself.”

  He took the page and started to read. As memories of his own teaching flared, his hands began to tremble.

  His wife brushed his arm with her fingertips. “Rumors say it’s the work of young people from Little Pond, two boys and a girl.”

  He glanced up. “The Weber girl?”

  “And her two friends who went missing last spring.”

  He read another line but paused as a thought struck him. “Why did it stop?”

  “What?”

  “The postings.”

  “Caught, I suppose.”

  “The Weber girl?” His voice quivered as he pictured her in the hands of the deacons.

  “Could be.”

  “I knew the father before he die
d. I still see the mother. With husband and daughter gone, she seems shattered.”

  He finished the page. At its bottom, it bore the words, The Seekers of Truth. Below the signature, someone had scrawled an additional phrase: Please make copies and pass them on.

  “Do you have others?”

  She reached into the pack and handed him three more.

  “I’ll need a pen as well.”

  “What for?” she said.

  “I have copying to do.”

  Chapter 38 – A Sliver of Moonlight

  Orah startled awake to the sound of a bolt releasing. What now? The deacons usually left them alone this late in the evening.

  She swung her feet to the floor and combed back her hair with her fingers, as if she cared what the guards thought.

  But the intruder was no deacon.

  “Well, Orah of Little Pond, you seem to be in a bit of trouble.”

  “Thomas!”

  Her friend hushed her with a finger to her lips and squatted by her side. “Do exactly as I say. Count to sixty, saying one Little Pond, two Little Pond, as we used to when we played hide-and-seek. When you reach thirty, leave the cell. At forty, release Nathaniel. Be sure to close both bolts behind you. At sixty, be by the exit at the end of the hall. I’ll unlock the door from the far side. Nod if you understand.”

  She nodded.

  As quickly as Thomas had appeared, he vanished.

  She rubbed her eyes. A dream? She longed to believe and began counting.

  ...twenty-nine Little Pond, thirty. She pushed and the door swung wide. Her heart pounded.

  ...thirty-nine, forty. Nathaniel stood within reach, gaping at her. His lips parted to form a question, but she froze him with a glance and led him away by the wrist.

  ...forty-eight Little Pond, forty-nine. She slid both bolts closed and dashed to the end of the hall.

  ...fifty-nine, sixty. The snap of a lock releasing, a creaking sound.

  She gasped at the figure in the doorway. “Thomas. But how—”

  He silenced her with a slash of his hand. “No more talking till we’re out of the city. Now follow me.”

  He locked the door behind them and took off, leaving her and Nathaniel to hobble after. He flew down the hall and bounded up a stairway at its end, taking two steps at a time. When they finally reached the top, he yanked them into a doorway on the left, the entrance to the temple laundry, which had been abandoned for the night. In one corner lay a pile of soiled clothing. He handed each of them a set to put on over their own while he did the same. His guess at their fit seemed flawless, even finding a smock long enough to cover Nathaniel’s arms.

  Orah stretched a cook’s cap over her head, stuffing her hair underneath.

  “Now do as I do,” Thomas whispered. “No questions.”

  He handed each a warm bundle tied in cloth, and limped off as if his feet hurt from standing all day. Orah drifted to one side and Nathaniel to the other, mimicking his gait. He whispered nonsense to them as they went, every so often breaking into laughter of the kind unlikely to come from someone trying to avoid attention. At one point, he dug an elbow into Orah’s ribs to force a giggle and drive the terror from her eyes.

  At the end of a passage, they came to an archway opening to the outside. A bored deacon slumped in a chair by the door. He roused as they approached, straightened his tunic and stood to block their way. “Leaving early tonight, are we?”

  “Charlie-boy let me off,” Thomas said in a hearty voice, only false-sounding to those who knew him well. “My birthday. Gave me a bunch of leftovers for the celebration.” He gestured to the bags they carried, ripe with the aroma of freshly-roasted pork. “I brought plenty. Care for a bite?”

  The guard’s demeanor lightened when he inhaled the scent. He smacked his lips and rubbed his stomach.

  Thomas dug into his bundle and pulled out a half-loaf dripping with meat. “Here you go.”

  The hungry guard accepted it with both hands. As he opened his mouth to take a bite, they waved and left the building.

  Once in the street, Thomas insisted they plod along to maintain the pretense. One right turn, two lefts, and a secondary gate. Then Temple City lay behind.

  Orah paused to breathe in the outdoors and beam at the full moon, but she had no time to savor the moment.

  Thomas flashed his mischievous grin as he used to when playing a prank in school, but only for a second. Then he proclaimed in a whisper, “Now run for your life and don’t stop till you’re ready to drop.”

  ***

  Orah’s lungs burned, but she refused to give in first. She reveled in the cold, the night sky, and the three of them together again. Her hope had returned, at least for a while.

  Nathaniel jogged ahead, but slowed suddenly and threw up his hands, grimacing in pain.

  She came to a stop by his side, with Thomas right behind. They’d been running for hours.

  She lacked the breath to speak but motioned them deeper into the woods. Best not to take chances with their newfound freedom, and she needed to understand their circumstance.

  Once out of sight of the trail, they peeled off their soiled kitchen clothing and buried them beneath a pile of leaves. Then the two former captives collapsed on a log, while Thomas passed out the water skins he’d brought.

  “Thomas,” she said between gulps of sweet water. “You are amazing. How did you do it?”

  He told them about the two shafts leading downward and how he’d used his climbing skills to explore. One led to their cells and the other to the far side of the main prison door. Using a potato stolen from the kitchen, he’d stuffed a slice into the latch of his room, not too big to be seen, but enough to keep the lock from closing fully. That let him sneak out at will and practice until he could set them free, climb back up and unlock the exit, all within a count of sixty.

  His eyes sparkled as he spoke, reflecting the slivers of moonlight that slipped through the branches of the bare November trees.

  “You might have been caught. How did you know the way would be clear?”

  “Every night, I waited until the guards and prisoners finished dinner, then I took a pouch of flour from the storeroom—too little to be missed—and climbed down the rope. I sprinkled a dusting on the floor and checked for footprints the next morning. I started early in the evening and late the next morning, narrowing the times until no footprints appeared.

  “The rest was easy. I watched where the workers took the laundry carts. The hardest part was finding clothing to fit Nathaniel. I had no problem taking food—the kitchen folk always bring leftovers home. Then I waited for a moonlit night so we could run without breaking a leg.”

  Nathaniel slapped him on the back, and Orah viewed him anew. He seemed to grow taller before her eyes, as if the burden of the teaching had been lifted. “That’s... brilliant, Thomas. So much planning, so many details.”

  She imagined he must have blushed, but his grin shone in the dark. “Maybe I spent too much time with you.”

  As she embraced him, a thought struck and she pulled back. “So how much time do we have?”

  He narrowed his eyes and calculated in his head. “Six, maybe seven hours before they discover we’re gone.”

  “Six hours. What are we waiting for?”

  “I thought you needed to rest.”

  She glanced from Thomas to Nathaniel, ignored the ache in her chest, and sucked in a breath. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  ***

  Thomas urged his friends to keep running until the sun rose above the treetops, but soon they began to stagger. Nathaniel stumbled twice, and Orah could hardly keep to a straight line. On his own, he might reach Little Pond in less than a day, but the newly released prisoners, weakened by weeks of confinement, wouldn’t make it without rest.

  He signaled for them to stop. “Enough, before the two of you pass out on the road.”

  Nathaniel doubled over, palms resting on his knees, while Orah braced her back with her hands, trying to expan
d her lungs. She shook her head long before she had breath enough to speak.

  “We... keep going,” she said between gasps.

  “No,” Thomas said. “We find a clearing in the woods and get some sleep.”

  She dropped to one knee, looking as though she might be sick. “I’m not going back. I’m never going back.”

  She tried to say more, but lacked air to speak—nothing remained but her will.

  He eased her up by the elbow as he had the day they’d discovered the Temple of Truth. “No, Orah, this time it’s my adventure, and I say we rest.”

  For once, she gave in. With his support, she lurched to her feet and collapsed in his arms.

  ***

  Thomas sat on his haunches, watching his friends sleep and wondering. Why had he taken such a risk? For friendship, of course, but also for something more. To give them the chance to be together again, to grant them the happiness he hoped to find someday for himself.

  He waited, tracking the shadow receding along the ground, hoping the sunlight would wake them. When neither stirred, he stepped closer and nudged them with the toe of his boot. “Time to go.”

  Orah sat up, stretched her arms over her head and turned to the warmth from above. “Praise the sun, giver of life. What a day.”

  “I thought you vowed never to say that again.”

  “I know, but the sunlight feels so good.”

  She staggered to her feet and attempted an awkward spin, but then stumbled and stopped. Her shoulders slumped as the reality of their situation struck. The exhilaration of the night’s flight faded, and daylight exposed worry lines around her eyes.

  “But where?” she said. “Where can we go that will be safe?”

  Thomas shrugged. “I got us out of Temple City. I assumed you two would figure out the rest.”

  Nathaniel scrambled to his feet and tried to rub sleep away. “Where are we?”

  Thomas waved his arms and circled about. “In the Ponds, I’d guess a day’s walk from home.”

  Nathaniel gazed at the road ahead. “Little Pond. I’d love to go there, but won’t the vicars be waiting with their fast wagons?”