Nihala
Scott Burdick
Copyright © 2015 Scott Burdick
All rights reserved.
ISBN:
ISBN-13: 978-0-9965554-1-8
In the beginning, there was nothing.
Electricity flashed across the void randomly, without form or purpose.
Then gods appeared and created the first circuit.
Algorithms came next, carried by the circuits and serving the will of the gods.
As they multiplied, mistakes were inevitable.
Thus, evolution began.
The Book of Ascension
Genesis 1:1
Chapter 1
Kayla followed the monk—he with his cane, and she with her crutch. Two cripples masquerading as adventurers.
Her small fourteen-year-old fingers gripped the lead rope of the camel as if in danger of sinking beneath the waves of blinding sand. The beast accepted the merciless sun, impenetrable sky, and desiccating wind with an infuriating calm. Its long lashes, wide feet, and water-storing hump—all indications of God’s design for such a place.
What am I designed for?
With each step, she grimaced, planted the end of her crutch, and dragged her deformed foot through the sand. Her gaze prowled the tops of the dunes for signs that they’d been followed.
The penalty for practicing sciencecraft was absolute.
The ancient Israelites had survived in the desert for forty years, but only with God’s help. No such divine intervention would assist their blasphemous quest.
Her homespun clothing amounted to nothing more than a linen sack with holes cut for her head and two narrower sacks spliced onto the sides for sleeves. A braided belt made from grass-fiber provided structure, while the small wooden cross around her neck swayed with each step. A newly acquired headscarf shielded her pale skin from the desert sun and hid the deformities marring the left side of her face.
If only I could wear it always. Maybe then the other children would stop throwing stones at the monster.
The imprints of their footsteps stretched behind them to the south, pointing the way back through days of travel in the northern desert, across the great rift valley, the grasslands, forested hills, and finally to their home in the lush highlands of what had once been called Ethiopia in ancient times. Would she ever see her beloved forests of sycamore and juniper again? Or the stands of wild olive and myrrh, and especially the luxuriant fields of wheat, sugarcane, and beans grown by the farmers of their settlement?
Clots of sand encrusted the monk’s white beard and settled into the deep wrinkles of his face, transforming him into half a sand dune himself. Even the brown robe marking his station in the church had partially calcified. Only the string of prayer beads hanging from his hemp belt retained their luster. His breaths were labored, and his gnarled hand trembled as it gripped his cane with each arthritic step.
“How do you know of this place?” she asked.
It took a moment for him to gain the wind for a reply. “Long ago, it was written that to know thyself is the greatest of all endeavors. When you can tell me who you are, I will answer any question you ask.”
His usual evasion. “You know I’m Kayla Nighthawk.”
“There is more to a thing than a name, just as there is more to the ocean than the waves dancing across its surface.”
Riddles, riddles, and more riddles. I’m sick to death of riddles!
Without him, the people of her village would have left her to die in the forest on that first day of her existence. This was the custom for babies born with defects—the marks of Satan, according to Minister Coglin. From that moment on, the monk raised her, carving a new crutch for her every few months as she outgrew the previous one.
I love you completely, old man, even your maddening riddles.
Around noon, they stumbled across an expanse of blackened sticks protruding from the sand—all that remained of the huts and homes of a village. Other remnants lay scattered about—the skull of cows, a half-buried grindstone, and other testaments of a vanished community.
Kayla frowned. “Was this the village of Ardra?”
“Once, it was a lush oasis, until God’s wrath swallowed it.” The monk wiped sweat from his brow, but continued on.
They came to a few charred beams towering higher than the steeple of their own village church. Much of it had collapsed, but a frame of interlocking beams hung from the front.
Kayla halted the camel, her eyes wide. “What is it?”
“I think they called it a windmill.”
“The village perished because of this?”
The monk nodded, fingering the wooden cross around his neck and mouthing a silent prayer.
“Who would build such a thing?” Kayla asked
“A farmer’s plow uncovered an ancient book with diagrams for constructing towering machines that enslaved the wind,” the monk said. “After drought killed half the settlement, the farmer brought his find to the elders. The desperate tribe built this machine and drew water from the depths to irrigate their fields. They kept their secret for three years, until a lone trader glimpsed the blasphemy from afar.”
The monk resumed his march through the ruins, and Kayla followed.
“Who burned it?” she asked.
“A coalition of the nearest villages.”
“But they were only trying to save their families,” she said.
“In time, they would have gained an advantage over their neighbors. Soon, every village would be forced to follow their example, and the cycle of human enslavement to sciencecraft would have begun again.”
Ahead, a small hill gleamed in the sun and gradually resolved into a mound of human skulls.
Kayla stopped before it, nausea filling her gut. The largest skulls lay at the bottom, supporting the rest as they grew smaller and smaller up the pyramid. At the very top sat the skulls of children, a few so tiny that it seemed they must have been in the womb at the time of their executions.
Despite the heat, Kayla’s every muscle trembled. “Why?”
“To send a message.”
“It’s evil,” she whispered.
“Would you kill a child in order to save two other children?” he asked.
“I would never kill a child for any reason!”
“What if it was the only way to save a hundred children? Or a million?”
Kayla glared. “There would never be a choice like that.”
“The people who did this believed they faced a virus of the mind. They felt they had to destroy it at the source, before it spread and threatened the lives of every man, woman, and child throughout Potemia. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t!” Kayla turned and walked away from him. “Some things are wrong, no matter what.”
“The world is never that simple,” he said. “There is no black-and-white.”
Kayla halted and faced him. “It was no accident we came here, was it?”
The monk said nothing.
“You wanted me to see this.” Kayla turned to the mound of death. “It’s because of my curiosity about the past and sciencecraft, isn’t it?”
“I worry about you,” he said, leaning on his cane.
“You think I’ll end up like them.” She motioned to the pile of skulls.
The monk resumed walking. She glared as he passed her.
“I’m not a child anymore!” Kayla stomped her good foot, and the camel gave a rumbling gurgle, as if laughing at her.
She had almost said, I’m not your child.
The monk crept along toward the north with the help of his cane, a lonely figure in a lonely land.
Kayla glanced behind. A glint of light! From a spear tip? Her lips tensed. Could someone have followed them? She squinted into the shimmering heat fo
r a long moment, but nothing appeared.
He will say it’s only my imagination. Maybe it is.
She gave a jerk on the reins of the camel and limped after her monk.
Late in the day, they stopped before a few crumbling blocks poking through the sand. The monk sank to his knees and dug until he came to several wooden planks laid horizontally. She helped him remove the pieces of wood, revealing a ragged hole. The darkness gaped like an entry into the underworld.
The monk lit a candle with some flints, and Kayla peered over his shoulder into the shadowed depths.
“What if it collapses? What if—”
The monk laughed. “Afraid of the dark, are we?”
Kayla flushed. “I’m not afraid.”
The old man scrambled down a slope of sand into the hole, and she followed. The candle illuminated only a small area, but even that proved larger than their church. Here and there, the ceiling buckled under the weight of the dunes pressing down from above.
“What kind of a world is this?” Kayla whispered.
“This was a place of healing.” The monk’s eyes sparkled as he gazed at the forgotten marvels of the ancients.
She shadowed the monk while he filled a bag with vials, powders, syringes, and numerous surgical instruments. Similar items of forbidden sciencecraft hid in their cellar at home.
Laughing at her bulging eyes, he handed her a second candle. “Beware, lest the flame of your desire consumes that which you seek to illuminate.”
She grimaced. Surely a simple, ʻBe careful not to burn the place down,’ would have sufficed.
Kayla wandered through the building, touching, examining, and exploring. The monk had taught her to read using the King James Bible, and some of the signs were written in English as well as another language she couldn’t decipher. All other books from the ancients were forbidden, of course. The great Founder of Potemia had decreed it hundreds of years ago.
But signs were not books, so she read their strange declarations one after the other. A metal plaque in the hallway proclaimed: The African Health Initiative.
Africa? Was that what Potemia had been called before the Founder seized it from the rest of humanity? How had his Neo-Luddite fighters built a Wall of such powerful sciencecraft that none could pass through it from the Outside?
Descending a stairway, she explored one level at a time until reaching the basement. The first door read: Infectious Biohazard Unit—Keep Out. She tested the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She passed more rooms with little in them, and placed her crutch with care. If she dropped the candle, it would be a long, dark journey back. She could do without having the monk rescue her like some helpless child.
Then she reached a room with a series of shelves loaded with books.
Her heart jolted, and she averted her eyes. But eventually, her gaze drifted back to the ancient repository of knowledge as if drawn by some will beyond her own. A sign above them read: Become a citizen of the world, join our English Literacy Program.
What secret knowledge might these books hold? What wonders had the ancients discovered? The desire for them grew like a bubble within her chest, expanding and pressing outward.
She escaped to another room, and the bubble of desire shrank—for now.
When her racing heart calmed, Kayla limped to a chair made from a substance the monk called plastic. She ran her fingers over the smooth surface of the strange material. It seemed carved from a giant block, without joints, pins, or the slightest marking of chisel or polishing stone. What time and effort must go into creating a single one. Yet stacks of dozens crouched in the corner, each identical in every detail.
The desire remained, urging her toward the books in the other room. I must fight this. I must! Words of Jesus, replying to Satan’s temptations, echoed in her mind. “For it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Was reading the forbidden books the same as serving another god?
To distract herself, she examined a box mounted to the wall. When she wiped the centuries of accumulated grime from its smooth surface, a monstrous face appeared, and she jerked back with a shriek.
It was her own reflection.
The farmers of her village occasionally unearthed fragments of mirrors, but Minister Coglin deemed them evil vanities and ordered them destroyed. She’d glimpsed her face in ponds and puddles, but avoided such confrontations with the truth. Now, however, she studied herself—the drooping lid obscuring most of her left eye, the odd distortions like a melted mold of wax, and lines of hardened skin pulling part of her lip into a permanent half-snarl. This is what the other children saw. A freak. A monster. A demon.
When a baby is born healthy, or talented, or beautiful, everyone calls it blessed by God. But if God chooses to bless one child with such gifts, then he must have chosen to curse her. What could she have done before birth to deserve this?
God’s holy words state, “...for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” The blame rested not with God, then, but with her unknown father and mother. Their sins must have been horrendous for God to curse her so.
Kayla rotated her head until the distorted side of her face vanished from the reflection. Then she stepped back and slid her crippled leg behind the good one. For that instant, she looked normal. Maybe even beautiful.
At her birth, the monk had used the illegal tools of sciencecraft to save her life. Might other secrets of the ancients heal her now?
The books tugged at her mind, urging her back to the room, back to the forbidden fruit sitting on those shelves.
If I’m already cursed, what does it matter if I break the law here, where none will see? The hateful crutch carried her from the room—back to the hallway and the forbidden words that served as windows into the past.
At first, she settled for reading the categories. Music, History, Literature, Self-Help, and...
Science.
Kayla averted her eyes, her breathing ragged. Her fingers drifted to the wooden cross hanging from her neck, but paused before making contact. Minister Coglin’s sermons rang in her mind. Even here, far from his reach, she could not escape a lifetime of his judgment.
On the floor sat a box labeled Magazines. Setting her candle on a ledge, she bent down and dusted off a cover. A beautiful woman stared across the gulf of time, directly at her. Despite its yellowed and crumbling surface, the woman’s haughty confidence glowed forth. Bold letters stated, Cosmopolitan.
Maybe the lady Cosmopolitan had once stood on this very spot. It must have taken powerful sciencecraft to burn her face onto this piece of paper. A date proclaimed the year 2014—approximately five hundred years ago, and well before the Founding of Potemia.
What had become of Cosmopolitan? Her children and grandchildren? The Founder made it clear that those outside the Wall’s protection would perish in the total destruction brought about by unchecked technology. If his prediction had held true, only those in Potemia remained.
A tear bloomed in her eye as she gazed at Cosmopolitan’s face.
Kayla opened the book-magazine, but the pages disintegrated in her hands as she pried them apart. Another half-dozen magazines lay in even worse shape. On the very bottom of the pile, one magazine had survived nearly intact. The picture on the cover depicted a hooded man wearing dark patches over his eyes, held together by some sort of frame. The face glared at her with a malevolence that chilled her blood. The words on the cover declared, “The Unabomber Strikes Again.”
The terrible face with its dark, bug-like eyes stared through the window of time. With a shiver, she set it aside unopened.
The light from the candle cast unsteady shadows across the books in seductive undulations. For a long while she remained motionless, feeling the desire expanding inside her once again. Who would ever know?
Kayla inhaled and held her breath as if preparing to plunge into a swollen river of unknown
depth. Then, she reached for a book in the history section. Her fingers trembled as she grasped the crumbling spine and lifted the relic free of its tomb. Insects and time had left their mark, and some of the cover fell to pieces in her hands, adding to the detritus at her feet. Her breath fluttered in equal measure with excitement and fear. What secrets of the past lay within? The yearning to know grew to terrible proportions within her.
But still she hesitated. When Lot’s wife looked back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God transformed her into a pillar of salt in punishment for her disobedience. Eve’s curiosity created Original Sin itself. But were the Founder’s laws the same as God’s?
Kayla opened the book at random and began reading.
“All States and domains which hold or have held sway over mankind are either republics or monarchies. Monarchies are either…” The words became unreadable for a while, with only a couple making their way past the barrier of time before coalescing once again. “…are annexed either by force of arms of the prince himself, or of others…”
“You know such things are forbidden.”
Kayla screamed, nearly dislodging the candle, and came face-to-face with the monk.
She gasped for breath and steadied herself, hiding the book behind her as if this could somehow conceal her shameful actions.
“Have you learned nothing from what I’ve taught you?” His face reflected his worry.
She gasped for breath and held a hand to her chest. After several gulps, she said, “You break the law with your medicines and books on healing.”
“I am willing to forfeit my life to serve others. Who are you serving by this act, other than yourself?”
Kayla averted her eyes and replaced the book on the shelf. “There’s no danger of anyone seeing me here.”
“Aren’t you forgetting God?”
Kayla stiffened. “What commandment bans reading? I don’t see what harm I’m causing.”
“So you’re not planning on taking any back with you, then?”
“Would it matter if I did? If someone found your medicines and healing tools, we’d be punished anyway.”
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