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

  When the music ended, the helper returned. “You’ve been listening to the first movement of the Brandenburg Concerto Number 2 in F major BWV 1047, by Johan Sebastian Bach, played by—”

  “May I listen again?”

  The screen went blank. The musicians reappeared and began to play once more, but this time Thomas focused on how the dance came into being, trying to understand the way the different melodies wove in and out. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the flute that had lain silent for too long, closed his eyes, and swayed with the sound until he felt it in his fingertips.

  Then he joined in the dance.

  Chapter 30 – Enlightenment

  The next morning, Nathaniel strode into a viewing area, desperate to learn more about the voyage across the sea.

  He puffed out his chest and bellowed a command. “Help. I want to hear stories about heroes.”

  No helper appeared, but instead a catalog of titles showed. He leaned closer and scanned the list. One title caught his eye: The Man Who Toppled the Temple of Light. He repeated the phrase aloud, affirming what he’d read. The screen cleared, and a page of text displayed in place of the catalog.

  Shortly, a helper with a rich baritone began reciting the words, which scrolled as he spoke. Before Nathaniel knew it, the story had captivated him. Abandoning his plan to learn more about the land across the ocean, he sat and listened. Hours passed as the speaker told of a courageous man who stood up for his beliefs in the waning days of the prior age. He traveled from town to town, declaring the truth about the past and urging the people to resist the encroaching power of the Temple. Many heeded his words, but none would act. In the end, the deacons drove him back to his village, where he was stoned to death by his neighbors at the urging of the vicars.

  Nathaniel’s hands clenched in sympathy with the persecuted hero, but the story hadn’t finished. After the man’s death, remorse drove the villagers to rebel against the Temple. The reaction spread like a wave, and soon an entire region had walled off the influence of the vicars. They reprinted banished books and resurrected forbidden ideas. Freedom of thought flowed once more. The story ended with the seeds of enlightenment planted and beginning to grow.

  The tale left Nathaniel drained. He mourned the man and blamed the people for not supporting his cause sooner, but he exulted in the outcome. Though the man had perished, he’d made a difference.

  Before he could dwell on it further, the screen cleared and a woman helper appeared, smiling graciously.

  “Thank you for listening to the story of The Man Who Toppled the Temple of Light, author unknown. We hope you’ve enjoyed this book. If you’re interested in similar stories, please ask and I’ll be happy to make recommendations.”

  Nathaniel crumpled his brow. Stories? What had he been listening to? He recalled his original request and knew the helpers could be literal.

  “Is this story true?” he said.

  “No. The Man Who Toppled the Temple of Light is a work of fiction. I can show you a list of nonfiction books if you prefer.”

  “What is fiction?”

  “Fiction is a class of literature that is the creation of the author, an act of imagination.”

  Orah’s voice echoed in his mind: What you see is an illusion.

  He forced his words to be crisp so the helper would understand. “Tell me more about this book.”

  She said the book had been written in the days before the keepmasters fled, and that the Temple censors had banned it. The work was one of the last rescued.

  “What happened to the writer?”

  “We can’t be sure. Most likely, imprisoned or executed.”

  Maybe the story was no illusion after all. The author had invented the tale to show the truth and move others. He believed in his cause and had paid the price.

  The day had flown by with no answers to his original question, but he’d learned a greater lesson—ideas combined with courage can change the world.

  ***

  The next day, Nathaniel tried again. He raced through corridors, searching for information about those who’d crossed the ocean, switching from screen to screen, uncertain which question to ask. Each corridor led to another until he’d wandered as far as ever from the golden doors. Nothing remained but an unmarked anteroom with no screen and a solitary doorway.

  He nearly turned back, sensing a blind alley, but curiosity drove him on. The passageway narrowed, barely wide enough for a single person, and its ceiling tapered downward until he had to duck his head to continue. The hall ended at an ornate archway opening into an elaborate viewing area. Unlike the others, this chamber was crowned with a marble dome, the keep’s sole concession to grandeur.

  Immediately, the air appeared to shimmer, and he struggled to distinguish between floor and walls. Elsewhere in the keep, the walls had been broken only by screens. Here, rows of boxes lined the surface, each a foot wide and a hand high, with their faces protruding. Each boasted an oval medallion at its center, inlaid with a glittering stone. These came in every shade and color—blue sapphires and red rubies, yellow and green opals, honey-colored amber and purple amethyst. The lighting in the room was directed not for the benefit of visitors but to highlight the stones. As Nathaniel drifted about, the refractions generated unsettling rivulets of light.

  He groped along the edge of one of the boxes, his fingertips struggling for purchase, and pulled with no success. He tugged harder until the box groaned, shifting a hair’s breadth. The movement had exposed a gap wide enough for his fingers to grasp. He positioned his hands, bent at the knees and grunted. The drawer slid an inch.

  A pungent odor filled the air, distasteful but vaguely familiar.... Not a viewing area but a crypt. The boxes held human remains.

  He slammed the drawer back into place and collapsed on a bench, resting his head in his hands. Dark visions filled his mind—the funeral for Orah’s father, the tomb of the mother he never knew.

  At his feet, another of the medallions lay on the ground as if waiting for a box of its own. In its center lay a chunk of obsidian, so much like the talisman he’d imagined hanging from the neck of his knight, at once clear and black throughout. It was the only one of its kind in the room.

  As he stared, trying to penetrate to the heart of the stone, a flash from above caught his eye. The screen on the wall had lit up. A helper appeared, but different from the others, older and frailer, more like the prisoner Samuel than a keepmaster. The corners of his mouth glistened, and old age spots dotted his cheeks. Black eyes stared out from sunken sockets, giving him a mournful countenance.

  For several seconds, the man stayed silent, as if he’d forgotten why he came, but then he started to speak. “I have neither time nor strength for formalities, so let me begin recording with three purposes in mind. The first is in my role as a descendant of the founders of the keep. Each of us pledged allegiance to our mission, our goal to impart knowledge, and I will do that. I’ll recount the final days of the keepmasters. Second, I have a favor to request. With the third, I’ll repay that favor as a man who is dying. I’ll bequeath to you what wisdom I’ve gained, the lessons of a lifetime.

  “The founders set guidelines for helpers to be cordial and impersonal but I am a person with a name. I’m called Kiran, which means ray of light. I don’t know if my parents chose that name as a sign of hope or as a cruel jest, for I’ve never seen the light of day.

  “After we completed recording the knowledge of our age, we did not vanish. The euphoria that accompanies all quests faded, but we went on with our lives. We married, had families and continued our research, but always, we feared being discovered. Over time, we developed our own religion, based on a dread of the Temple of Light.

  “By my grandparent’s childhood, leaving the keep had become unthinkable. I am the third generation to never venture outside. The fear gnawed at us and robbed us of reason to live. Fewer couples married. Of those who did, many decided not to conceive children who’d spend their existence imprisone
d here. And so we diminished. At times, it’s been no life at all, but I lived nevertheless and will soon die, the last of the keepmasters.

  “You, whom I never met, the seeker I awaited my whole life, can do me one final honor. You’ll find before you a black stone, a color appropriate for the last of my kind. Behind you, in the corner of the topmost row, lies the box that awaits it. I chose this to mark my memorial. Please, take a moment to set the stone in its place, and to remember me and the rest of us who lived and died in the keep.”

  He broke into a coughing fit, reminiscent of the first keeper in his cell in Temple City. But to his last, Samuel had retained hope for the future. The man before Nathaniel had none.

  “Now let me tell you what I’ve learned. In each of our lives, we have our mission, the life’s work we choose that consumes so much of our energies, but we also have the little things we do with the hours and minutes of our days. As a descendant of the founders, I stayed true to their ideals throughout my life, but as a man who lives day to day, I failed. I recall my childhood aspirations—to play outside in the sun, to be free of fear, to welcome the seekers who would someday surely come—but these things exist in dreams. Each day, I had the ability to touch those around me, to repay my parents for their love, to embrace my wife.

  “So what is the lesson of a lifetime, the truth I bequeath to you?”

  He wiped his mouth with a soiled sleeve and stared out before continuing.

  Nathaniel slid to the edge of his seat. The answer was simpler than he’d ever imagined.

  “We should not be so seduced by our mission that we forget how to live.”

  The screen went blank. Nathaniel glanced at the floor and caught the glimmer of obsidian, the last keepmaster’s despair trapped within it like the darkness. He cradled it in his hand and proceeded to the waiting container. Using his long arms, he reached up and snapped the stone into place. Then he stepped back and stared at it, trying to comprehend how it could glow so brightly and still be black as night.

  ***

  Late August. As the deadline approached, the days weighed heavily upon Orah. She trudged about the keep as if still bearing her pack, and Nathaniel seemed no better. Only Thomas appeared unaffected.

  That evening during dinner, as Thomas whistled a tune, Orah finally snapped. “Would you mind for once if Nathaniel and I had some quiet while we ate?”

  “My whistling never bothered you before.”

  “I’ve never before been so close to being punished by your vicars.”

  Thomas remained unfazed, his childlike grin infuriating. “They’re not my vicars.”

  “Then why do you defend them?”

  “I don’t defend them, though most of what they claimed has turned out to be true.”

  “Well I’ve found proof that their most basic precept is a lie.” She’d blurted out the words without thought. For weeks she’d waited for the right moment, wanting so much to impress Nathaniel, and now her revelation had emerged in a squabble. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

  He stared back, brows arched in a question. “What did you find?”

  She set her food aside and raised her chin. “The sun is not the source of all light, and the stars do not revolve around it. I’ll never pray to the sun again.”

  All she’d discovered in astronomy poured out, how the stars moved in their own paths, how some were worlds like their own, but most were suns themselves—and the keepmasters had found millions of them.

  Thomas gaped at her. “A million suns? Are you sure you didn’t discover a vat of wassail?”

  She turned from Thomas to Nathaniel. “I found a place where you can see for yourself. Come and I’ll show you.”

  Nathaniel stood at once, but Thomas slumped back in his chair. “You don’t need to show me. I believe you. But who cares if you found a thousand suns or a million? Our situation remains the same.”

  “You’re being lazy, Thomas. Come with us.”

  When he refused to join them, insisting he had better things to do, Orah gave up, content to share her discovery with Nathaniel alone.

  She led him along the familiar route and into the elevator, where she took satisfaction as he clutched the handrail when it began to rise. Once in the observatory, she ordered the helper to expose the dome to the sky.

  She’d picked a perfect night, and Nathaniel reacted appropriately, spinning around and gawking at the view. When he’d seen his fill, she directed him to take a seat at the telescope and asked the helper to point the instrument at the cluster of stars.

  “Now put your eye to the glass and behold.”

  He stared for a long time. Through the lens the cloud would become a brilliant whirl of lights, more than he could count in a lifetime, but when he finally looked up, the doubt in his face confounded her.

  “Aren’t you impressed, Nathaniel of Little Pond?”

  He slipped out of the seat and drifted toward her, shaking his head. “I am impressed, but such wonders make me sad. So much damage has been done to our world. So much lost. We both know what our choice should be.”

  She turned away and bit her lip—not the conversation she’d hoped for.

  He stroked her cheek with his fingertips, forcing her to face him. His doubt had changed to anguish. “But I no longer know if I’m willing to take the chance. What if the cost is too high?”

  She’d always been able to read him, but her instincts failed her now, not because he’d become opaque—he was as transparent as ever—but because his thoughts seemed in conflict. “Are you saying you agree with Thomas that we should betray the keepmasters?”

  “I’m not sure what I believe, but I understand better what’s at stake.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The two of us. I’d trade all we’ve learned to go back to Little Pond and spend my life with you.”

  She rose on tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. He drew her closer until her head rested on his chest. If only the helpers could freeze time and leave us in this moment.

  As she counted the too-quick beating of his heart, she struggled to find an answer. They could not stay in the keep; they must not betray the keepmasters. Then she remembered the other miracle she’d found.

  She pulled away. “There’s something more. They told me they’d traveled to the stars.”

  Nathaniel raised his chin and surveyed the heavens. “You believe them?”

  She followed his gaze as if hoping to see a starship streak across the sky. “I... think so. I could try to explain, but it’s too complicated.”

  “Did you ask them to show you?”

  So simple, she’d never thought of it. She shook her head.

  “Go ahead.”

  She turned to the screen. “Can you show us star travel?”

  The screen cleared, and a roar filled the chamber. A long cylinder displayed, slowly lifting off the ground, a ball of orange flame and clouds of smoke trailing behind. Soon, a broad vista showed as if seen from a mountaintop.

  As the land fell away, the answer she’d been seeking became a question, which Nathaniel gave voice to. “If they could go to the stars, isn’t anything possible?”

  She kept staring at the screen. Challenging the vicars might ruin them all, and Thomas would never go along. She needed more time to solve this riddle, a puzzle more complex than the rhyme.

  “Summer’s not over. We don’t need to decide now.”

  But in that instant, she realized the harsh truth. Only by overthrowing the Temple of Light could she and Nathaniel have a life together. If the possibility existed on heaven or earth, she’d find a way.

  Gradually, the roar diminished. The screen filled with the surface of their world, so far away now she recognized only the largest objects—lakes, oceans and mountains.

  Then they beheld it all, framed in black, a great blue shining globe.

  Chapter 31 – A Plan for Revolution

  Dear log,

  The time has come to go silent. This day, I e
mbark on the most harrowing venture of my life, one that might change the world or spell my doom. I’ve learned enough to believe this cause is just, but as always I worry.

  Though I’m loath to admit it, I find myself thinking like Thomas. How I wish the realm of vicars and teachings would vanish from my mind. How I long to return to Little Pond, to join with Nathaniel and build a cottage of our own.

  Which is the greater illusion—a life of contentment and peace, or the dream of a better world?

  No matter. I have made my choice. The truth will drive me on.

  Who knows where this journey will take me, what revelations I’ll find or what trials I’ll endure, but none of it will find place in this log, lest it falls into the wrong hands. This chronicle of my thoughts will travel with me, but I’ll write no more, not until the journey’s end, wherever it may lead.

  I only pray this entry won’t be my last.

  ***

  Orah’s mind was alive with plans. Was opposition to the Temple possible?

  First challenge: if the vicars tracked their every move, the rebellion would surely fail. As her initial task, she needed to learn more about temple trees.

  A well-meaning helper urged her to study the underlying disciplines, his purpose to provide an in-depth education, to produce an expert. She had a simpler goal: to disrupt temple communications.

  She tried asking in a variety of ways. “How do temple trees work?” resulted in a lecture on something called microwaves. “What’s their purpose?” produced nothing more than what she already knew. She found herself interrupting the helper with an increasingly abrupt “stop.”

  At last, she hit on the right question. “How can I make temple trees stop sending words through the air?”

  The helper froze, apparently unprepared to explain how to make something fail. Seconds passed while the brains of the keep searched for an answer.