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

  ***

  At Nathaniel’s urging, Orah gave in to Thomas’s nagging and let him watch the parade. They were about to head off into a wilderness filled with towers, caves and snakes that fly, with no notion of how long they’d be gone. So she hefted her pack, prayed for luck, and followed the others down to the inn’s common room and out the front door.

  The sun shone high overhead as throngs lined the main street. Riverbend’s elders had arranged excited children in rows on the opposite side. Each held a stick in one hand, the thickness of a broom handle and half as long.

  Music drifted on the air, and soon Orah spotted a large drum decorated with red and green ribbons. It boomed with a sound deeper than the Little Pond drum, and people clapped to its beat. Other instruments appeared as the parade approached. Sunlight reflected off one fashioned from brass. A player pressed his lips to its end and blew, puffing his cheeks out with each breath to make a braying sound, harsher than Thomas’s flute and much louder. A second player grasped what looked like a saucepan with bells affixed to its edges, and shook it in time with the drum.

  Behind the musicians came men in white masks with skull-like sockets for eyes. Each held a pole with a creature on top, made of pressed rag pulp and painted black. These resembled no animal in the Ponds, and their warts and horns and fangs made Orah shudder. The adults hooted and the children waved their sticks.

  The leader of the troubadours held up a hand. The parade halted and the crowd hushed.

  “Children of light.” He sounded like a vicar. “The creatures of the darkness come to defile your Temple. What say you?”

  A wave of jeering spread across the crowd.

  “Will you destroy the creatures of the darkness?”

  They responded with loud cheers.

  “Bring them forward.”

  The men in masks held up their poles. Adults counted out five children, tied brightly-colored scarfs about their eyes, and positioned them, each one in front of a creature. When given the word, the children swung their sticks until they found their mark. The creatures shattered as they were struck, and sweets tumbled to the ground from their insides. Following a few additional thumps for good measure, the children removed their blindfolds and fell on all fours to gather their reward. Then the next five took their place.

  Orah wavered, unsure whether to take pleasure in this game or shudder at its meaning.

  Thomas leaned close and spoke in his most melodramatic voice, but softly to avoid being overheard. “Then the seekers, agents of the darkness, go forth to undermine the light.”

  Orah elbowed him in the ribs so hard the air puffed out from his lungs.

  Yet he wasn’t far from the truth. Their mission placed them at odds not only with the Temple, but with their whole world.

  ***

  Nathaniel stood behind his friends, taking in the parade. Nothing more than children’s games. He checked past the players to the opposite side, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd. He detected no yelps of fear or sneers of hatred. Like his neighbors in Little Pond, the people of Riverbend used their festival to celebrate.

  As he scanned the crowd, he noticed several men keeping apart, clearly strangers. Although dressed like everyone else, they stood with backs too straight and bearings too formal, and their expressions showed no pleasure at the festivities.

  Deacons—out of uniform, but deacons nevertheless.

  The tallest among them turned, and their eyes met. Nathaniel tensed, but the man’s posture never changed. He stared for no more than a second and glanced away.

  Nathaniel tapped Orah on the shoulder. “We need to leave. Now!”

  He eased them from the crowd until they rounded a corner, and then took off at a sprint.

  ***

  Orah slowed to a stop at the bend in the river. No enemies marched on the road ahead, and she saw no pursuit from behind.

  “Deacons so near?” she said as she caught her breath. “Then why haven’t they followed? Either you’re mistaken or they failed to recognize us.”

  Nathaniel lowered his pack to the ground, and his face turned grim. “I don’t know, but we need to find this path north... in a hurry.”

  Orah surveyed the countryside. The sole feature worth noting stood a hundred paces ahead, well past the turn—a nondescript boulder, twice as tall as Nathaniel and wider than his arm-span, but far from the mysterious cliff that hid the trail to the keep.

  Thomas saw it as well. “That’s the only rock we’ve seen for days other than pebbles. How will we find a rock face in this terrain?”

  They split up to search, but even with her most vivid imagination, Orah found no hint of a trail. On the one side, the riverbank fell so steeply as to deny footing, threatening to cast a wayward traveler into the current. On the other, the prickly scrub grew so thick a child would struggle to slip through. Her every attempt ended with an assortment of cuts and scratches.

  At last, they regrouped where the river turned, resting on the roadside and nursing their wounds.

  Thomas flung a handful of dirt at the trees. “No path there. An eight-day trip through those woods would take a lifetime.”

  “We’ll find it,” Orah said. “We just need more time.”

  “More time? With deacons on our trail?”

  She refused to be goaded and turned away.

  Thomas tempered his tone. “I’m sorry, Orah, I didn’t mean to sound like it’s your fault.”

  Nathaniel rested a hand on her shoulder and glared at Thomas. “You might help by suggesting a solution rather than always pointing out our problems.”

  “You two are the smart ones. Where are your ideas?”

  Orah’s neck ached and her head began to throb. She closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath. “A month of travel and deacons nearby will fray our nerves. Let’s remember why we came. The founders hid the keep to protect it from the vicars. As the true seekers, we’re tasked to find it, no matter how hard. We mustn’t get discouraged or give up.”

  Thomas drew small circles in the soft earth. “I’m not saying to give up, but so much time has passed. The scrolls may never age, but the rest of the world does. Trees grow. Soil gets washed away and weeds fill in. The road from the rhyme may long ago have vanished.”

  Orah wandered off, unable to bear another word. She ambled along to the east, searching the woods for inspiration. A sniff of the air brought only the scent of the pines, and the gentle breeze carried only the rush of the river and the caw of a distant crow. After a hundred paces, she threw her hands into the air and gave up. Any path would have to be nearer the river.

  As she turned back, something about the large boulder struck her. She squinted and let out a cry. “The rock.”

  Nathaniel and Thomas leapt to their feet and ran toward her. She held out a trembling finger as they came near.

  “What about the rock?” Thomas said.

  “Not from that side. From over here.”

  They crept closer, eyeing the rock but not turning until they’d reached her.

  “Now let your minds roam free.”

  Nathaniel’s fists unclenched when he saw no danger there, but Thomas recognized it first. “It looks like the head of a man.”

  From where she stood, the rock had taken on the appearance of an old man in profile, with an overarching brow and a great beard, staring out with wisdom for the ages.

  Orah renewed her faith in the founders of the keep and prayed to never doubt them again. From now on, she’d avoid relying on the obvious. They’d found no trace of a cliff or a stony ledge, but here before them stood the rock face of the rhyme.

  Chapter 22 – Water and Dark Walls

  The terrain behind the boulder bristled with thick brush, but Orah could picture its past. On either side, a line of ancient trees rose higher than the scrub in the center, setting the boundary for what once must have been a major road. This terrain, directly behind the rock face, convinced her they’d found the way north, though its passage remained challengi
ng.

  She fought through bushes as high as her waist, many with thorns that grabbed her pack and snagged her clothes. After a few dozen yards, she twisted her ankle, staggered, and nearly fell.

  Nathaniel caught her. “What happened?”

  “Not sure. Something hard on the ground, hidden in the brush.”

  A few steps later, Thomas stumbled as well. Nathaniel groped through the undergrowth and picked up a chunk of strange rock. Its flat black surface contrasted with an underside pitted with gravel, seemingly stuck together with glue.

  He held the rock up for Orah. “What do you make of this?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. Are there others?”

  Nathaniel kicked around and found a half-dozen more. The fragments seemed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

  As he passed them around, he wondered aloud. “They seem man-made, but for what purpose?”

  Orah let her fingertips glide along the smooth surface. “Possibly a layer to harden the road.”

  “Why would anybody bother?” Thomas said. “That’s a lot of work to avoid muddy boots.”

  Orah scanned ahead, trying to imagine a thousand-year-old roadway covered with black rock. “At least they provide some good. Along with the high tree line, these rocks will guide our way. Let’s just watch our step.”

  After half an hour, road and river converged. Walking eased where seasonal flooding had thinned the vegetation and washed away any sign of black rock. Ahead Orah spotted where the trail left the river and started to climb.

  What if the river becomes inaccessible?

  They each carried two water skins—enough for three days if the weather stayed mild. The rhyme claimed they’d reach the falls in eight days. If they had no access to water before then, they’d face a dry march.

  They stopped to refill their skins at the last clearing before the trail rose. Orah welcomed the respite. She’d battled both the terrain and her own doubts since leaving Riverbend, but now they’d left the deacons behind, and the best tracker would struggle to follow. Their path seemed more certain, and she tried to relax.

  What a beautiful spot. The sun dappled the river with sparkles, and a rushing sound filled the air.

  “The current’s much stronger than the Ponds,” Thomas said. “If I tried to swim here, I’d be swept away.”

  Orah gazed north as if trying to see to the river’s source. “The water comes from snow melting in the highlands, and is strongest in spring.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “Maybe as far as Little Pond, or all the way to Nathaniel’s mythical ocean.”

  She rested on the bank and admired the river battling to reach its goal. The torrent struggled around rocks that jutted out everywhere, and frothed about the roots of trees that inexplicably grew in the stream.

  Thomas hacked off a twig with his pocketknife and tossed it into the water. As the current carried it away, it inspired another idea. He cut a second branch and made a dramatic slash in its bark. “A mark for our first day. Seven more and we’ll be at the falls, and soon thereafter, the keep.” He smiled and tucked the improvised calendar into his pack.

  But Thomas’s good feeling eluded Orah. She stared at the water and brooded.

  Nathaniel tapped her with the toe of his boot. “What now?”

  “Something’s not right. Things fit together too well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why haven’t we been caught?”

  “Because you’re both so clever,” Thomas said, “and the deacons are fools.”

  Orah shook her head. “Or they’re smarter than we think. When they passed us on the road outside Little Pond, they made more noise than usual for people on the hunt. In Adamsville, the old keeper heard them blocks away, and they stood at the door and shouted when they could have easily shoved past. The notice sent to the vicar of Bradford said if he saw us, he should notify the Temple but not detain us. Now, at Riverbend, the deacons spotted us but let us go.”

  “You think all that’s deliberate?” Nathaniel said. “Why?”

  “I’d guess they want to follow, to scare us a bit but not stop us.”

  “We’ve worked so hard to avoid being tracked,” Thomas said. “All those days in the thicket, those nights in the woods, and the deacons appeared mostly within sight of towns. How could they follow from so far back?”

  “I’m not sure, Thomas, but... Nathaniel only broke his promise to become a vicar, a sin too small to set the entire Temple after us.” She flicked a stone into the stream. “I’m afraid they know about the keep.”

  A cloud of gloom settled over them.

  Orah studied the river as if seeking an answer in its flow. “A way to follow without being seen. Something I’d never have believed possible before Bradford.”

  The waters streamed past like the days of her life, some as smooth as springtime before Thomas’s teaching, and others raging like the morning they fled Temple City. She recalled her fury when Nathaniel appeared with the gleaming pack on his back.

  The pack. She jumped up and turned to Nathaniel. “Can I look in your pack?”

  “If you like, but what do you expect to find?”

  “It’s our only possession that was in the hands of the deacons.”

  Nathaniel fetched his pack and emptied its contents on the ground. Both Orah and Thomas took turns poking around inside, checking each compartment to no avail.

  “Nothing,” Thomas said. “Your imagination’s gone wild. Deacons make us all nervous. I’ll help repack.” He picked up a bundle of dried meat.

  Orah grabbed the pack before he could store it. “There must be something.”

  She grasped the leather lining and yanked it bottom up. As her fingers caressed the seams, she cried out. “Thomas, give me your pocketknife.”

  Nathaniel stared at the spot where her fingers lingered. “I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s because you relied on me to make coats for you. Look here.”

  She dragged the pack into the sunlight. A patch of fresh leather clearly showed, distinct from its more worn surroundings and held in place by fine, nearly invisible stitching.

  Thomas handed her his knife. She picked off the threads without marking the leather, peeled away the lining and pulled out a stone cast in the shape of a star.

  She held it up to the light. “A deacon’s star. Now we know how they followed.”

  “But there are no temple trees in the wilderness,” Thomas said, doing his best to cling to the fleeting sense of safety.

  “No, but we passed one near the bend in the river, close to where we entered the wilderness.” She turned to Nathaniel. “What should we do?”

  “Bury the cursed thing,” Thomas said, “so no one will find it.”

  “We can’t. The signal would keep on and lead them to this spot. We mustn’t let them discover the trail.”

  Thomas took two flat rocks. He laid one on the ground and held the other poised above. “Put it here. I’ll crush it to end the signal.”

  “A worse plan. They’ve already tracked us nearby. Destroying the star would tell them we found it and speed up the chase.”

  “Then how will we escape?”

  Orah considered a moment before handing him back his knife. “My dear Thomas, can you and your pocketknife whittle me a very small boat?”

  Thomas understood at once and soon had assembled a dozen interlocked twigs into a raft small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Orah bound them together with twine and placed the device in its center, then wove additional netting to stretch across the top.

  “There, the device will float downstream, even if flipped in the current. Since the river runs along the road, we’ll give our deacons something to follow.”

  “Brilliant,” Thomas said with a nervous laugh. “Now we’ve lost them for good.”

  Nathaniel stepped forward and took the boat, which looked tiny in his big hands. “I’m afraid not. Sending the star down river gives us onl
y a reprieve. Eventually, the raft will get caught on the rocks or be grounded. Our little trick might confuse them for a while, but once it stops, they’ll figure out the ruse and return to Riverbend with a vengeance.”

  Thomas’s gaze flitted about as if the deacons were already near. “Then can we never be safe?”

  Orah wrapped an arm around him. “We’ll be safe in the keep, Thomas. The keepmasters were the wisest ever and will know how to protect us.”

  With a flip of his wrist, Nathaniel tossed the boat into the stream.

  Orah watched as the current whisked their latest threat away—another danger avoided, another obstacle overcome.

  She stared until the little package vanished round the bend, then glanced up and noted the sun racing across the sky. “We’d best start moving. The farther we get from here, the better.”

  Nathaniel refilled his pack and headed toward the trail, but a sudden need to bless such an important moment made her call him back.

  “We can spare ten seconds.” She urged them to gather round, glanced up to the sky and raised her arms. “Praise the sun, giver of life. Grant us success in our search. Guide us together safely to the keep.”

  Thomas gaped at her. “Isn’t the keep the opposite of the light?”

  “No, Thomas, the keep is the opposite of the Temple. That makes all the difference.”

  They donned their packs and moved out.

  From the first step the trail rose, and the land to their left dropped off. Soon they had climbed to a ledge above the water, wide enough for all three to walk abreast. To their right, the hillside banked steeply, covered by tamarack pines soaring to the sky. Their naked trunks rose fifty feet or more before branches emerged, providing a thick canopy. Where the odd gap appeared between them, hardy spruce filled in, adding a blue tinge.

  Orah gazed to the north. With the river rushing on one side and the forest rising on the other, she recognized at last the vision of the rhyme. For a full eight days they must race on this well-marked path, ‘twixt water and dark walls of pine.

  Chapter 23 – The Falls