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

by David Litwack

  Thomas frowned. “I did the best I could. Only two places offered hope—the keep and Little Pond. The keep was too far away, and a part of me longed to go home.”

  Orah pressed her palm to his cheek. “You did well, Thomas. The deacons have been searching Riverbend. We’d have run right into them if we got that far.”

  Thomas held his head still, savoring his reward, but not for long. The sun was racing across the sky. “They’ll be after us by now. We need to get going, but where?”

  Nathaniel strode forward, the resolve gathering in his eyes. “We’ll go to the granite mountains and cross the pass I found to the ocean. No one will look for us there.”

  Orah glanced up as she combed mud and dried leaves from her hair. “Winter’s coming. We’ll need provisions and tools to survive, and fresh clothing. Mine are all wet, and I’m chilled to the bone.”

  Thomas watched the minds of his friends churn, planning as they’d done so often before. He was relieved to be free of the responsibility.

  “We’ll go to the NOT tree,” Nathaniel said, “keeping to back trails. From there, we’ll scout out Little Pond and check for deacons, then sneak in to gather supplies. We can rest in the shelter before heading to the mountains, regain our strength before scaling those peaks.”

  Thomas looked at him skeptically. “Then what?”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “I don’t know. Winter by the ocean, make a shelter or find a cave, catch fish to eat and wait till spring.”

  Thomas cocked his head to one side. “And when it’s warmer...?”

  Orah hooked arms with Nathaniel. She smiled and winked. “We’ll build a boat and sail off to the new land.”

  “You’ve both gone daft in those cells. We’d have no chance.”

  “That’s what you said about finding the keep.”

  Dreamers. I had to pick dreamers for friends. But he had no better option. He flashed his grin. “All right then. I never liked kitchen work anyway.”

  What did it matter? He’d made his choice on the steps of the Temple of Truth, on that near-perfect September day that seemed so long ago. Now the cost of that decision had come due. Better to die in the mountains or on the ocean than in the hands of the vicars. Better to die with his friends.

  Chapter 39 – Choices

  Midnight had long since passed when Orah limped into the clearing outside Little Pond. The trek had taken longer than expected. They’d struggled in the dark to navigate the trail through the woods, and the flight from Temple City had left them bone-weary.

  She stared at the remnants of their childhood sanctuary and sighed. Her damp clothing gave meager protection from the cold, but the NOT tree offered little more. The branches that wrapped it would provide scant shelter—their needles had turned brown and fallen, leaving the walls tattered and bare.

  As she scanned the naked trees surrounding the clearing, so near to home she could almost smell the smoke from her mother’s fireplace, a question crept into her mind. “Does anyone know what date it is?”

  Nathaniel’s eyelids sagged, nearly cloaking his eyes, and the rest of him sagged as well. “The leaves are down and the wind is brisk. That’s all I know.”

  “The end of November,” Thomas said.

  “Festival already. Time’s passed strangely this year.”

  Thomas shuddered. “This time last year, I was heading to my teaching.”

  An unexpected gust kicked up, making the branches on the shelter flutter in the breeze.

  Orah wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed for warmth. “I’d love to go home to my mother, climb into bed and sleep for a week, and then gather for the lighting of the bonfire, but if I think that way, I’d be back in Temple City before the festival tree flares. Thomas would get his own cell, and Nathaniel and I would never see each other again.”

  She shivered, and Nathaniel draped an arm about her shoulders. She could feel his warmth, but his arm lacked strength.

  He spoke in a murmur, with barely enough breath to slur his words. “Let’s get some rest. We need to be up before dawn if we’re to slip into the village unseen.”

  She nodded, turned and embraced him, clinging fast as if to allow no space for vicars or deacons or walls to come between them ever again.

  After they separated, she noticed Thomas standing apart and went to him. “Whatever happens, Thomas, thank you for this chance at freedom, brief though it may be.”

  Then they entered the shelter and huddled together for warmth.

  ***

  Orah awoke first, startled to consciousness by a yearning to be someplace familiar, safe and secure. The frozen ground had made her hips ache, and the wind whistling through the branches had troubled her sleep. She sat up, peered into the darkness and remembered—someplace familiar, but never again safe and secure.

  She went outside so as not to disturb her friends, and settled on the flat rock. Her gaze wandered up to the treetops as they swayed in the moonlight and down to the dried leaves as they skittered across the ground.

  She jerked around to the snap of twigs coming from the path to the clearing, and caught a solitary figure creeping through the trees. No need for panic. Deacons would come in greater numbers, not alone.

  The hunched figure became more distinct, its movements deliberate and without stealth, but the face stayed shrouded in shadow until it breached the tree line.

  Nathaniel’s father.

  “Orah, thank the light, I found you.”

  She rose to meet him, and they embraced.

  Thomas stirred to their voices and stuck his head out from the shelter. When he recognized their visitor, he scrambled out to greet him as well.

  Nathaniel’s father glanced about fearfully. “Where’s Nathaniel?”

  She tilted her head toward the tattered frame. “Inside sleeping. Come, Thomas, let’s leave father and son to talk alone.”

  The older man thanked her, bent stiffly and crawled inside.

  ***

  Nathaniel awoke to no sound, but rather to a presence nearby, a specter kneeling over him praying. One eye opened, then the other. A vision of his father? He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  “What...?”

  “I came to warn you, Nathaniel. Deacons roam the village. They intend to—”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Did you forget who built this shelter?”

  “I didn’t think you remembered.”

  “I’m still your father and always will be.”

  Nathaniel grabbed him in a strong embrace and held on for a dozen heartbeats.

  After they parted, the two studied each other in the rays of moonlight filtering through the branches, trying to measure how each had changed, trying to understand the moment.

  His father spoke first. “You’ve become a man, Nathaniel.”

  “I’ve been gone less than a year.”

  “I don’t mean by time but by experience.”

  “The vicars haven’t changed me. Their darkness doesn’t frighten me anymore.”

  “Not in that way, Nathaniel. You bear a seriousness about you, like one who has faced death and made a choice.”

  Nathaniel looked away, embarrassed. As he turned back, a moonbeam fell across his father’s face, revealing a right cheek discolored and an eye half-closed.

  He reached out to stroke the wound. “What happened?”

  His father winced and pulled away. “A misunderstanding with a deacon.”

  “I thought the Temple doesn’t harm its children.”

  His father bowed his head and stared at the ground. “I’ve never seen them so ill-tempered, not even during my teaching. You must have done something terribly wrong.”

  “We’re not the ones who’ve done wrong. It’s the Temple of Light.”

  Nathaniel told him about the first keeper, discovered in the cells of Temple City, and the search for the keep. He described the wonders they found, a way to ask questions of the wisest people from a thousand years ago—from a time the Temple call
ed the darkness—and a means to listen to their answers. He told of the medicines, the music, an instrument to view a million suns, ships that traveled to the stars and a thousand other wonders—all lost.

  “I can prove their deceit in so many ways.”

  “I’d like to believe you,” his father said, “as I believed you before, until the vicars came and claimed the darkness had seeped into your bones. They said you were no longer the son I’d raised.”

  Nathaniel had never been quick to anger, but now he became enraged. “They lied to you. They’ve always lied.”

  “As did you, Nathaniel. You told me you’d gone on a mission for the vicars. Only when they came looking did I learn you’d misled me. Whatever happened, I thought you’d be honest with me.”

  “You’d have been in danger if you knew the truth. I lied to protect you. Forgive me.”

  His father considered the response. “I forgive you. It’s not the first time the Temple has forced someone to do what they knew to be wrong.”

  “But do you believe me now?”

  His father glanced down as if counting the withered pine needles on the ground. He’d listened with a loving father’s ears, but would he accept what he heard?

  “If what you say is true, Nathaniel, it would turn our world upside down.”

  “It’s true.”

  “That the Temple could do so much harm?”

  “It’s true. I swear.

  “Even so, their precepts hold our world together. Is it wise to disrupt the current order?”

  Nathaniel’s eyes drooped at the corners. “Father, we found... dreams. Without the keep, we can be alive, do our work, live in peace and be... happy, I guess. But what are we without dreams?”

  A look of anguish came over his father’s face. “What’s true no longer matters. It’s too late. They’re waiting for you.”

  Nathaniel’s jaw tightened and his fists clenched, but before he could respond with defiance, his father silenced him with a wave. “I’ve been gone too long. The vicars and their men are everywhere. I was able to slip away only because of the darkness.” He looked up, eyes pleading. “They’re pulling people from their beds, assembling them by the commons and demanding they wear ceremonial robes. Leave, Nathaniel. Run as far as you can from Little Pond and never return.”

  The wind chose that moment to die down, and the rattling of the branches ceased.

  ***

  Nathaniel watched until his father merged with the shadows and disappeared. Orah and Thomas waited nearby, but he could only look past them to the gap in the trees. All his life, his father had taught him to follow the strength of his convictions. Now, on the cusp of this most important decision, he’d urged him to run away.

  But to where? The plan to cross the pass over the mountains had always been fraught with risk. Now, they’d need to do so without provisions, and the deacons might track them down, catch them on the way, and drag them back in shame to the village square.

  Or they might flee to the east, sneak through the woods, steal food from remote farmhouses and survive like vagabonds, hoping some sympathetic soul might take them in and hide them in a woodshed or root cellar.

  The muscles of his cheeks twitched and tensed; his jaw wavered and stiffened. He’d run once before to the granite mountains—a coward’s journey. He refused to run again.

  Orah stepped between him and the path to the woods. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook off the mood, seeing her as if for the first time. “Deacons, Orah. Deacons and vicars everywhere. They’re organizing our neighbors for a stoning.”

  Thomas stifled a cry. “Then there’s nowhere we can be safe.”

  Orah rested a hand on his arm. Her lips parted, but before she could comfort him, Nathaniel intervened. “You’re right, Thomas. Safety is an illusion. We can never be safe while the Temple rules.”

  Orah stared deep into the woods as if hoping to find Nathaniel’s father returning. “We can take back trails to the mountains.”

  Nathaniel shook his head.

  “We can go east, find someplace to hide.” She became more agitated. “People who’ve read our posts will support us.”

  “If our friends and neighbors won’t support us, who will?’

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Do you remember the story I told you about the man who toppled the Temple of Light?”

  She nodded. “You said it was a work of imagination, not real.”

  “But the idea is real. You and Thomas should flee to the east, head to Adamsville or Bradford, if you can get that far. Maybe you’ll find support.”

  Orah’s eyes had remained dry since her father’s funeral, but found their tears in captivity. Now, once again, they began to flow. “Why do you talk like this? Why do you speak of me and Thomas without you?”

  He wandered over to the shelter, grasped one of the poles and tested it—its base remained planted firmly in the ground. He hoped to sound resolute when he told her, but no amount of time could ease what he had to say.

  He turned and faced her. “I plan to march into the village square. Little Pond is my home. I won’t run again.”

  “You’ll be killed.”

  “Better to die than to be hunted down, and I’ll get the chance to stand before my people. Maybe they’ll listen and believe. If not, they might regret my death and act later. You and Thomas can slip away while the vicars and their men are distracted.”

  Then he waited as his friends pondered his words. Thomas stared at him with sorrow, but Orah bristled with that fierce intensity that made her so beautiful.

  “No, Nathaniel,” she said at last. “At the trial in Temple City, I thought I’d lost you forever, and then I lived for the past weeks with that damned peephole between us. Each day, I feared they’d take you away. I’m not leaving you again.”

  She held her ground, eyes smoldering, daring him to disagree. He scoured his mind for a way to dissuade her, anything to keep her safe, but she believed as strongly as he did, and if their situations were reversed, he’d never leave her side.

  “Very well,” he said. “They’re waiting for us. Let’s not disappoint them.”

  Orah turned to Thomas. “Dear Thomas. We’re sorry to abandon you at last. Run to the southeast, keeping to the woods. Once the vicars have vented their rage on us, they might be less intent on tracking you down. You may be fine. You’ve always had a talent for surviving by your wits.”

  Thomas surprised them by flashing his grin. “Are you kidding? I’m coming with you.”

  He held up a hand before Orah could argue. “My mind’s made up. My feet hurt, and most everything else as well. Like you, I’m tired of running.” He turned grim. “Besides, the prospect of stoning three of their children will make our neighbors think, and I can’t wait to watch the vicars’ faces when we march in together.”

  Nathaniel regarded his friend, no longer the boy of their childhood but a man like himself. He dipped his head, a sign of respect, and agreed.

  Orah drew in a breath and began dusting off her clothing and combing her fingers through her hair.

  “What are you doing?” Thomas said.

  She smiled at him. “Getting ready. I want to look my best for the ceremony.”

  Chapter 40 – The Edge of the Storm

  Shadows in the night, marching with steadfast stride.

  The people of Great Pond were on the move. All had read the messages copied and passed in haste from person to person. Deacons had come that evening as they had for the past few months, asking for the young people from Little Pond, but with an increased urgency. After midnight, a roar had approached from the east. Harsh lights had raced through the streets. People had been pulled from their beds and questioned. Houses had been searched.

  Then the caravan of clergy left, heading west to Little Pond.

  Now, the spinner and his wife led their neighbors in the dark, among them farmers, the blacksmith, elders and the young.

  All walking west, shadows
in the night.

  Chapter 41 – The Beginning

  Orah paraded behind Nathaniel on the narrow path she’d traveled since childhood. Ahead, the harbinger of first light gave contrast to the commons, distinguishing its roof from the sky. Familiar shadows reminded her of festival—the mound of charred logs from the prior night’s bonfire, the spruce waiting to be set aglow. Fond memories, gatherings with friends, and now their final approach to the square.

  As daybreak loomed, the hint of dawn should have brightened the landscape, but the shadows deepened more than she remembered. When she drew closer, they transformed into the hunched forms of men and women. The whole village had arrayed itself in a half-circle guarding the commons. She felt as if she walked into a headwind, though the morning breeze had stilled.

  Across from the commons, ominous mounds completed the circle. A noise sounded, like metal snapping into place. Then another and another. The mounds grew eyes that cast an eerie glow. Fast wagons, as she’d expected.

  In the glare, she recognized the faces of elders and schoolmates, of friends and neighbors. Each wore a ceremonial robe and clutched a rock the size of an apple.

  She strode to the center of the circle with Nathaniel and Thomas on either side.

  Stragglers from more distant farms came stumbling in, and last of all, her mother and Nathaniel’s father. They wore no robes, and their hands were empty.

  Wagon doors opened and deacons emerged, followed by clergy—vicars and monsignors, bishops and arch bishops. The monsignor who had once ministered to the Ponds came to the front, cradling the sun icon in his arms. He used the temple voice to announce his superior. “People of Little Pond—the arch vicar of the Temple of Light.”

  The old man emerged from the wagon and stepped toward them.

  A hush fell over the square.

  The arch vicar raised his arms, fingers pointing to the glow from the rising sun, and spoke with an impressive force. “Children of light, your Temple is under attack. Three of your own have fallen under the sway of the darkness. I have petitioned his holiness, the grand vicar, to declare them apostates.”