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

  The feeling of relief passed quickly once she assessed the entrance to the cave. It had straight walls that rose as tall as a Little Pond cottage before curving into a perfect arch—clearly made by men—but inside, no light entered. No matter how much she squinted, she could pierce the darkness no more than a few paces.

  They’d need torches. She prompted the others to gather dry brush, and then bound them to green branches with twine. After a longing gaze at the bright expanse of the river valley, she lit a torch and plunged inside.

  Walking became difficult. The rocky surface within the cave crunched underfoot, interrupted by solid planks raised high enough to trip her. After a while, she realized the roadbed was made of timbers buried in gravel at regular intervals. To speed her pace, she needed to skip from plank to plank, a normal gait for Nathaniel, but one that required her to stretch unnaturally. Even so, she soon mastered the rhythm and was loping along.

  After a time, she was struck by the sense of sameness. The walls, the ceiling and the distance between timbers remained the same, no matter how far she went. The rhyme had been specific about the length of the journey so far, but made only a vague reference to the cave. She’d assumed its passage would be brief. What if she had misunderstood? They had water for two days, food for one, and the cave offered nothing but dust and gravel. When their kindling ran out, they’d be cast into darkness as deep as a teaching cell. If she believed the primary precept of the Temple, that the sun was the giver of life, this place could become their tomb.

  She needn’t have worried.

  Since they entered the cave, their torches had cast flickering shadows on the walls and the ceiling above. Now, suddenly, firelight scattered in all directions. She stood not in a cave but a large chamber. Torchlight reflected off metal signs overhead, most rusted, but some with numbers still distinct enough to read. On either side, she detected vague shapes, shadows in the darkness.

  Nathaniel suggested they fan out, but she refused, reminding him of the giant snake. She turned to her left, only to bump into a chest-high wall. The right was the same. She advanced twenty paces and tried again. No change. The walls were not walls at all, but the sides of a trench between platforms.

  Nathaniel picked one side and hoisted Thomas up. After he’d explored a bit and declared the footing solid, the others joined him.

  Once on top, Orah paused to listen. She heard no sound but the echo of their rushed breathing.

  She moved on, maintaining a straight line until blocked by a wall. The flickering light from her torch revealed bits of tile covering its surface, most intact but for a few fragments that had broken away.

  “Thomas, come closer,” she said. “There’s writing here. Hold my torch up with yours so I can see better.”

  As she rubbed off the grime with the flat of her hand, a blackening appeared against a white background. “It’s the start of a word.”

  Thomas brought the torches closer, and the biggest letter P she’d ever seen came into focus.

  She took the skin from her pack and began dribbling water over the next letter.

  Thomas grabbed her hand. “What are you doing? We have little enough as is.”

  She jerked away and kept pouring. “It’s a message from the keepmasters.”

  Her skin ran empty just as the words became clear. Please mind the gap between the platform and the train.

  “What does that mean?” Thomas said.

  “I don’t know, but it might be important like the rhyme.”

  “Or it may be ordinary, a simple everyday message.”

  Orah’s eyes narrowed. “The keepmasters did nothing ordinary.”

  “I hope you’re right, but I doubt it. Unless they were gods, they were ordinary most of the time, like the rest of us.”

  She had no time for bickering—the torches were burning low—so she swept her flame across the chamber and was rewarded with a flicker in response. “Over here.”

  The others rushed to her side and stood with torches in a row. The firelight reflected off a huge shape ahead. She shuffled forward, hand outstretched, until she touched the object’s metallic skin. Its rounded sides stood as tall as a man, and extended some distance in either direction.

  “I think we found our giant snake,” she said.

  Thomas edged closer but stopped an arm’s length away. “Is it alive?”

  “No. It’s a creation of the keepmasters.”

  Nathaniel ran his fingertips along the dusty side, then rapped on its surface with his knuckles. “For what purpose?”

  “Remember the road across the valley?” Orah said. “This looks like a wagon that carried lots of passengers.”

  “Then why would the keepmasters call it a snake?”

  “Maybe they feared we’d forget its name, so they used a timeless shape instead.”

  Thomas finally mustered enough courage to brush the metal with his fingertips. “How can you be certain this is the snake of the rhyme?”

  “Two doors to the mouth of the snake / Inside, you must enter and fly. Think, Thomas. The rock face wasn’t a cliff, but a boulder in the shape of a man’s head. Why couldn’t the snake be a long round wagon? And even though ‘fly’ means to soar like a bird, we use the word in other ways. What did the elders say after you won a race at festival?”

  Thomas grinned. “‘That boy can fly.’ All right, maybe the snake’s a wagon. So let’s find its mouth.”

  They wandered along trying to find its entrance. Doors on the side would never be considered a mouth, and all had rusted shut.

  She worried the kindling would run out and they’d be left in the dark. “We don’t have much time. Where would a mouth be?”

  “In the front, of course,” Nathaniel said, “but which direction is that?”

  “Not where we’ve come, I hope, or these wagons will really have to fly when they find no bridge across the valley. Let’s check the far end.”

  No longer afraid of some monster, she agreed to split up so they could more quickly check each wagon. Once alone, she felt the small hairs on the nape of her neck tingle as her world shrank to the pool of light from her torch. Luckily, the shouts of her friends soon echoed across the chamber.

  “Nothing on this one.”

  “None here either.”

  Then Nathaniel called out, his words resounding above all. “I found something, different from the others. Its front is more... like the head of a snake.”

  Orah and Thomas ran as fast as they dared in the dim light, until they joined him at the far end. All three gawked at their find. This wagon was different, newer and undamaged by time, and the luster of its translucent skin amplified the light like the surface of the scrolls. Most importantly, a hatch lay at its tapered head.

  Had they found the carriage that would bring them to the keep?

  Thomas broke the spell. “We don’t know how to get in, and if we did, we wouldn’t know how to make it go.”

  “Believe,” Orah said. “Believe in the keepmasters.”

  She brushed her fingertips against the surface, and it responded with a hum. She jumped back, but the wagon did not fly. Instead, it stirred slowly as if waking from a long sleep. The interior began to glow and in a few seconds became bright as day. The humming grew louder, and the hatch lifted, rising gracefully until it exposed a doorway wide enough for four people to enter abreast.

  Thomas fell back a step and eyed the hatch, then peered inside without coming any closer. “It’s magic.”

  “Yes,” Orah said, “but not temple magic. We’re witnessing the genius of the prior age. When something’s the work of the keepmasters, anything’s possible, and now, they’re inviting us in.” She dropped her torch and entered. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  Thomas hesitated, but seemed unwilling to let Orah be braver. He squared his shoulders and stepped inside.

  Nathaniel snuffed out his torch and followed.

  The interior held rows of padded chairs of the kind that would have been appro
priate around a Little Pond fireplace, but there the similarity ended. Had they come with two hundred seekers, all would have fit.

  They sat in the nearest seats, facing the front. After days of travel and hours of wandering in darkness, they took the chance to savor the light and rest. For several minutes nothing else stirred. Then, just as smoothly as the hatch had opened, it swung shut. The hum grew louder, approaching a roar.

  Thomas leaned in and whispered. “What happens next?”

  “I’m not sure,” Orah said, “but if I were you, I’d hold on.”

  As if on cue, the great wagon of the keepmasters began to fly.

  ***

  The wagon did not fly, but it moved faster than anything Orah had believed possible, driving forward with a roar that echoed through the cave. The light cast from within showed the walls of the tunnel passing in a flash.

  She tried to measure their progress but gave up. They might cross the world in hours in the heart of this beast.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started to fly, the wagon began to slow. The echo spread into a larger chamber, perhaps bigger than the first, and they eased to a stop.

  Moments later the hatch lifted and they stumbled out. When the doors closed behind them and the lights faded, Orah stared into darkness once more.

  She wavered and nearly fell, her mind flying past shadows while her feet stayed rooted to the ground, but even after adjusting to the loss of speed, she remained unsettled. Where are we, and what should we do next?

  Then, as her sight adjusted to the darkness, she noticed a brightening at the front of the chamber.

  At the far end, a sliver of light filtered down from above. The platform ended at the base of a metal staircase, and though the oddly grooved steps had warped and corroded, they appeared passable.

  She set foot on the first tread, glanced up, and a smile spread across her face.

  The topmost stair glowed with the reflected light of the sun.

  Chapter 25 – The Golden Doors

  Orah emerged onto the ruins of a street broad enough to hold all the streets of Temple City, but the black rock that covered its surface had buckled, and tangles of weeds sprouted through the fissures.

  What once must have been a bustling park ran along its center, lined with trees planted at intervals. A few still survived, but most had succumbed to age and fallen, their rotting stumps visible only as moss-covered mounds. Scattered among them, bits of fences bordered the remnants of gardens, now ragged and overgrown, with the occasional wildflower all that remained of their former splendor.

  Ahead, buildings stretched as far as she could see. These rose to staggering heights, some topped with needle-like towers that stabbed at the sky, but most had crumbled as if the heavens had struck back, leaving their bases littered with stones. Vacant windows stared out like hollow eyes, silent and sad, not monuments but memorials.

  Thomas tipped his head back and gaped. “Did the darkness do this?” His voice sounded hollow, like the empty shells of the ruined city.

  “If we’re to believe the keepers,” Orah said, “the keepmasters built this and the Temple destroyed it.”

  Nathaniel fidgeted with the straps of his pack and stared off into the distance, apparently too impatient for contemplation. “We must be close. I only hope we don’t find the keep in the same state. Where does the rhyme lead next?”

  Orah shook herself from her reverie. “This has to be the forest of stone. The rhyme says to head north to the Temple of Truth.”

  They stood at the intersection of great roads. With so many tall buildings, she had trouble getting direction from the sun, but guessed north would be down the broadest of boulevards—fitting for the approach to the keep. “This way. The Temple of Truth shouldn’t be far. Even with keepmasters’ magic, this many buildings can’t go on for long.”

  They passed buildings beyond counting, each with an entrance more impressive than any she’d ever seen. Some had walls of black granite, while others displayed faded murals and the fractured remains of statues, their broken limbs littering the floor.

  So much lost. How could a place so grand have fallen into such decay?

  In the distance, the boulevard ended at a structure far different from the rest, dwarfed by the surrounding buildings in height, but ceding nothing in grandeur. Its façade gleamed with white marble, and a broad staircase rose up to a portico fronted by massive columns, each too wide for Nathaniel’s arms to embrace.

  Anticipation quickened Orah’s pace as they approached. She jogged along with the others, reciting the third verse between gulps of air.

  To the North, through forest of stone

  The Temple of Truth you shall see

  Once great, it now stands alone

  Climb its stairway, fourteen and three

  Running as fast as she dared on the uneven surface, she finally arrived at the first of the steps.

  Thomas stared up reverently. “Is this the Temple of Truth?”

  Orah counted fourteen stairs of granite, each as pure as the sundial in her garden. These climbed to a landing, from which three more continued to the top.

  They’d arrived.

  Nathaniel made a bow to Orah. “You go first. You’ve earned the honor.”

  She started up the stairs, climbing slowly out of respect for the new-found Temple, placing one foot in front of the other and holding her shoulders square. She paused at the landing and gazed back over the ruined city. When she glanced down, her eyes widened, and she beckoned for her friends to join her.

  A golden plaque inlaid on granite adorned the landing, but its words, so caked with dust, were hard to read.

  “Thomas, give me your water skin.”

  She reached out, but he pulled back. “I’m not wasting any more.”

  With an exasperated sigh, she dropped to her knees and began wiping away the grime. Thomas tried to raise her up, but she twisted away. “Leave me alone. I believe... even if you don’t.”

  “It may not be important.”

  “Hush, Thomas. This is the Temple of Truth.”

  She returned to the plaque, rubbing with the sleeve of her tunic. Where the dust was too thick, she added spit to the task. At last, the first part became clear.

  The greatest truth must be....

  She scrubbed harder, but the next several words were gone, the metal melded with the stone. Her shoulders strained as she pressed on, intent on restoring the rest. When she’d finished, she could make out the final phrase.

  ...that in every child is the potential for greatness.

  She slumped over exhausted, while her friends waited, giving her time.

  Finally, Nathaniel eased her up. “There’s more to discover.”

  At the top of the stairs and behind the columns, a corridor extended in either direction. Several stories high, its arched ceiling must have once been decorated with artwork, but now only splotches of color remained.

  Nathaniel glanced to his left and right. “Which way?”

  “’To the East, the entrance shall be.’ We’ve been heading North. East is to the right.”

  She felt more than ready to find the keep and discover its hidden treasures, but the enormity of the situation slowed her pace. Each footstep echoed behind her as she strode down the corridor. At its end, the ceiling opened into a dome painted with white stars on a blue background.

  In the back wall of the chamber stood two massive golden doors with no visible hinge, fitted so tightly together that the seam between them barely showed. She gaped as if trying to see through them, but only her reflection stared back, a bedraggled twin trapped in the keep and begging to be released. The gleaming surface betrayed no lock, no keyhole, no handle, and the doors seemed bolted shut with such conviction they might have been closed for all time.

  They’d come to the last lines of the rhyme, the final phase of their journey. Orah approached the doors, eager to touch them, knowing the keep lay behind. She rapped with her knuckles—they hardly made a sound.
r />   “Do you know how to open them?” Nathaniel said.

  “I hope so. We have only two lines left.”

  Sixteen stars shall set the doors free

  When touched by the lines of the rhyme

  Thomas gaped at her and then up at the dome. “There are the stars, but how do we get to them? Even I can’t climb that high.”

  Orah laughed. “I don’t think those are the stars, Thomas. The ones we’re looking for are much closer.”

  She gestured to the shadows at the left of the doorway. A box made of a substance similar to the coating of the scrolls sat embedded in the wall. On its surface were four rows of four buttons, marked from one to sixteen, each in the shape of a star.

  “I knew the last lines referred to a puzzle, a sequence of numbers that would unlock the doors. It took me a while to figure it out. The one thing I didn’t know was where to find the stars, and now, here they are.”

  “Well,” Thomas said. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Nothing at all. With your help, I’m ready.” She asked him to kneel on the floor. “When I studied the verses, I noticed many included numbers, but none higher than sixteen. The numbers to unlock the doors are in the rhyme. I’ll recite the verses, and each time I say a number, write it in the dust. Take care not to miss any.”

  She began chanting.

  To the North, behind the rock face

  Twixt water and dark walls of pine

  For a full eight days you shall race

  Thomas listened spellbound, unable to take his eyes off her, and she needed to prod him. “I said eight, Thomas. Write it down.”

  He stirred from his stupor and focused on the floor. “Now I understand.”

  One more past four falls in a line

  He wrote one and four unprompted, then two for the doors. As she neared the end of the rhyme, he raised his head. “Is it fourteen and three? Not seventeen?”

  “Yes. That was one of the clues. I wondered why they didn’t say seventeen and realized that would have exceeded the number of stars.”