The Stuff of Stars (The Seekers Book 2) Read online

  “On screens like in the keep?”

  “Or a similar device. The children are taught daily by the dreamers. The mentor insists on it, but they’re unable to speak with them.”

  Nathaniel scrunched his face as if he’d eaten something sour. “Did we cross the ocean to find more screens? What good are these lessons?”

  “None, unless we can meet with the dreamers themselves.”

  His eyes widened. At once, he was awake and alert. “Yes, of course. After a thousand years of growing beyond the keepmasters, they must be a little less than gods. We need to find a way to speak with them directly. Is that possible?”

  I finished dressing. Now that I was freshly bathed and clothed in the silver tunic, my confidence rose. “Kara’s eyes misted when she talked about them. She’s desperate to have a chance to say a final goodbye, but the mentor’s forbidden the children from going into the mountain fortress until they’re grown—something about their brains not being strong enough.” I came closer, wrapped my arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear. “But you and I are fully grown, aren’t we?”

  He stared past me to the back wall as if trying to see through it to the columned fortress beyond. “So we’re seekers again but with a new goal—to find a way to speak to the dreamers.”

  ***

  By the time we marched into the domed commons, I felt like a seeker once more.

  Nathaniel, with his long hair brushed back and his beard groomed, looked like one of the explorers in the videos from the keep that he loved so much.

  As we glided along with our shiny new clothing flickering in the torchlight, I wondered: would the younger children take us for dreamers or upstart invaders from across the sea?

  Neither, it seemed. We’d slept too late and the common room was nearly empty. Only one of the technos remained—Kara.

  The girl stood when she noticed us enter and made almost a curtsy. “I hope you slept well and have recovered from your travels. The mentor asked me to wait for you and be your guide for the day.”

  I glanced around the domed room. “Where is he?”

  “Some days, when he’s not well, he takes his food in his work chamber. The mentor’s old and is often sad. I help as much as I can. You must be hungry.”

  She led us to the synthesizers and, after taking our orders, produced a passable meal, with only a few fits and starts. Nathaniel and I wolfed down our food while she laid out her plans.

  “With the dreamers gone and much of their knowledge with them, the mentor insists we learn everything we can. In our lessons, we study holos the dreamers left behind, hoping to strengthen our minds so someday we may command the machines as they did. Sometimes, we even exchange ideas with the greenies, when their minds are not too muddled. In these hard times, we forgive their transgressions, because we need each other. They need us for our medicine and fresh water. We need them for their craft and their skill in finding food from the land.

  “Now, thanks to you, we can discover what the ancient world has to offer, but first, you must learn something of our ways. The mentor wants you to attend our lessons, to compare what you know with what the children are taught.”

  “When do the lessons begin?” I said.

  “They’ve already started. I’ve missed more than an hour.” She glanced out the oval windows in the dome as if trying to gauge the time by the daylight. “You slept late, but the mentor said not to wake you.”

  “We’re sorry to have kept you from your lessons.”

  “Not a problem,” she said. “I’m the oldest of the children and have a knack for study. A few hours missed won’t hurt. I’ll still be ahead of the others.”

  She raised her chin and smiled with an arrogance I’d once possessed as the smartest in my class, though those days were long gone. Now I dwelled more on how little I knew.

  After we finished eating, Kara led us past the many side chambers lining the circular wall of the commons. Most, she explained, had been living quarters before the day of ascension. She’d lived in one herself as a child with her parents. Others were work areas, laboratories where the dreamers worked their wonders with the machines. Now, by order of the mentor, they left these untouched, keeping them as they’d been on that fateful day.

  At the front stood classrooms where the children took their lessons. Kara stopped at one and waved her hand across a glass box by the side of the door. A screen above it brightened and a helper appeared, but unlike the friendly helpers in the keep, this man seemed almost angry.

  “Step forward and hold for a security scan.”

  “It’s all right,” Kara whispered to Nathaniel. “The mentor has added you to the access list. Just step to the line.”

  Nathaniel shuffled forward until his toes touched a red line that had appeared on the floor. Immediately, a thumb-wide ray of light emanated from the screen and scanned him up and down and back again, making him wince as it passed before his eyes.

  I held my breath, realizing the dreamers were testing him, judging him to see if he deserved their wisdom. Would he pass? And if he failed, what would be the punishment?

  After a few seconds, the scanning ceased, and to my relief, the helper said, “Approved.”

  I was next. Nathaniel nodded encouragement as I stepped to the line. If he could pass the test, I should be safe. Throughout our childhood, I’d scored better than him in school.

  At last, the helper passed both of us and the door slid open.

  Inside, the room was not so different from the many rooms we’d visited in the keep, with white walls, a low ceiling, and tiles on the floor. The youngest children from the day before sat at desks in a half-circle facing in, organized in three orderly rows sorted by size, the shortest in front and tallest in back. All appeared solemn but eager, beautiful as only the young can be, not unlike the students in a Little Pond classroom. Instead of a teacher standing in front, a screen was embedded into the surface of each desk.

  A thought struck me: why start us with lessons for the youngest?

  Of course. Much like the keepmasters, they’d assume these primitives from across the sea would know little and need to start with the simplest lessons.

  I surveyed the room and recognized Timmy, the little boy I’d comforted the night before. He smiled up at me, and I smiled back.

  So young; just a baby when his parents went off to the mountain, too innocent to understand.

  Who were they, his dreamers? Had his mother come to his crib when thunder frightened him at night? Did she sing songs of comfort as I had, then tuck his blanket more tightly about him and tell him to have no fear because she’d stay nearby?

  On that fateful day, had his father picked him up in his arms, brushed away his tears and smothered him with kisses? Had he lifted him high upon his shoulders and said, “Look, Timmy boy, the great mountain. Wait here while we go off to become gods. We’ll be back in no time.”

  Now Timmy beckoned to us, strangers from across the sea, to take the two desks beside him.

  Nathaniel chose the larger of the two, but even so the desk was too low for his knees. He twisted sideways in the chair, and sat as upright as possible. He’d been out of school for several years and had never been as comfortable a student as me, but he appeared confident now as we towered above the children, adults among babes.

  No sooner had I settled in my chair than my screen came alive. A helper began to speak and holos like the menu in the dining area whirled and spun above the desktop. I glanced at the students around me, hoping to discover what was expected.

  The nearby children were infants when their parents had gone off. Now they appeared no more than seven years old.

  I grimaced as I stared at the dancing numbers and letters, taunting me to make sense of them. I recognized some, what the helpers had called equations, mathematical formulas I’d encountered only recently after years of study in the keep.

  Nathaniel turned to me and shrugged, hoping I’d fare better than him.

  I reached
out to touch the holos but my hand wavered in midair. My fellow students played with the symbols like toys, their tiny fingers flying as they rearranged the glowing numbers and symbols. I sat back with hands folded and mouth agape. These were the youngest children, yet here I struggled in their classroom, trying to comprehend a lesson for babes.

  Chapter 7 – The Welcome Feast

  That evening, the mentor invited us to a welcome feast. Once we’d freshened up from the long day, Kara came to our door, cradling a bundle in her arms.

  “Ceremonial dress last worn by the dreamers,” she said. “The mentor insisted, a great honor. I’ll be waiting outside to take you to his chamber when you’re ready.”

  We changed out of our silver tunics and into silken robes all in white. I stood before the mirror and preened, but Nathaniel fidgeted uncomfortably, making me laugh. In his formal attire, with his tall bearing and freshly groomed beard, he looked like an ancient god who’d stumbled into a ritual from the wrong religion.

  Kara marched us to the mentor’s chamber, but when we arrived, the room was empty. His quarters mirrored our own but for a stout wooden cane resting against the wall, and a night table covered with medicine bottles. Prominent at its front, someone had placed a glass of water with a fresh spray of heather in it, the only attempt to enhance the space. The water, apparently from a fouled spring, had evaporated down a finger’s width, leaving a nasty brown ring. The only other glaring difference lay at the back wall—an extra door with a screen above it like the one at the entrance to the classroom.

  Kara asked us to wait, and then stepped to the screen. The same angry helper we’d confronted that morning appeared. After a quick scan, the door slid open, and she passed through.

  A moment later, she emerged with the mentor rolling beside her. He acknowledged us with a wave, but remained focused on the door and the commons beyond, as if practicing his welcome speech in his mind.

  Kara had added one accessory for the ceremony, a striking white bonnet with flowers embroidered on the front. Pointed flaps rose up from its sides like little wings, and it seemed too big for her head

  “Such a pretty hat,” I said. “Was that also made by the greenies?”

  She raised both hands and wiggled the hat until it fit tight. “Yes, the mentor asked them to decorate it, offering more than the usual amount of food and sweet water. Then he added... his own touch. He gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday.”

  I stretched out a hand. “May I see it?”

  She drew back a step and shook her head. “This hat is special. No one may touch it but me. Now, wait here until I return for you. The mentor wants your entrance to fit the occasion.”

  She accompanied him outside, leaving us alone.

  Curious as always, I eyed the door from where the mentor had emerged. Nathanial cast a warning glance, knowing me too well, but I approached the entrance anyway.

  The screen lit up. “Step up and hold for a security scan.”

  I stepped forward as requested and toed the red line, just as I’d done that morning. The blinding light flashed, scanning me from head to foot, but this time, the result was different.

  “Access denied.” The helper seemed more upset than before.

  Afraid to risk some unknown punishment, I backed away just as Kara returned.

  She froze in the doorway, the blood draining from her face. “What were you doing?”

  “You tell us so little. I hoped to find out what’s behind that door.”

  She jumped in front to block me. “That door goes to the work area, where the mentor speaks to the dreamers. I’m the only other person allowed in, and only when he teaches me my... more advanced lessons. Now, please, I know you’re guests, but try to obey our rules. The mentor is standing by his table to honor you, despite the pain in his legs, and everyone’s waiting. Come with me.”

  After exchanging puzzled glances with Nathaniel, I grasped his arm and paraded three paces behind Kara, trying to mimic her solemn stride, like a king and queen from the keepmasters’ tales, following our page into court. As soon as we appeared in the commons, all eyes fell upon us.

  The tables had been embellished in a way, covered with what seemed to be sheets from the sleeping quarters, with a sprinkling of flowers in a jar on top.

  In the center of the commons, a fire pit burned. Sad-faced women and bowed old men—presumably those too frail to have gone into the dream—gathered around it, turning metal racks filled to capacity with the children’s daily catch of fish. Smoke swirled around the glowing embers as the fish oil dripped down, most rising through a grated opening at the peak of the dome, but some stayed inside, leaving a haze throughout the chamber.

  The mouthwatering smell of sizzling fish pervaded the room, reminding me of my mother’s cooking. Despite the number of days recorded in my log, Little Pond seemed a lifetime away. My eyes misted, and I wondered if I’d ever see home again.

  The few adults not busy with the fish went from table to table, filling cups with the sweet water. When all were full, the mentor raised his goblet above his head, and the assembled did the same.

  “To our new guests,” he said. “May their arrival portend a better future.”

  “A better future,” the others repeated, though their chorus lacked conviction.

  As the mentor lowered the goblet and took a sip, a quiet expectation filled the room.

  He raised his drink a second time, higher than before, and his voice rang out, each word spoken clearly and echoing off the rafters. “To the return of the dreamers.”

  “To the dreamers,” the others said, sounding like the people of Little Pond repeating the vicar’s words during the blessing of light—by rote and without passion. The mentor drained his cup, his bulging Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, and at this signal, everyone emptied their cups as well. Their version of a blessing was followed by the clatter of cups on metal.

  How often had they performed this ritual since the dreamers left? Did any of them still believe the dreamers would return?

  With the ceremony ended, the mentor grasped the edge of the table and grimaced as he lowered himself into his chair. Once settled, he invited us to join him, Nathaniel to his left and me on his right.

  The few adults served the fish, first to their guests and then to the children.

  I devoured my meal, the first real, hot food I’d had in weeks. While I ate, the mentor repeated his hope that our arrival would be beneficial and proceeded to pepper us with questions, which Nathaniel and I took turns answering between bites.

  What was our boat like? How did we learn to navigate across the sea? How long was our voyage? In what way had our homeland changed since the separation? What had we expected to find?

  After our plates were cleared, the adults brought out brightly-colored bowls, orange and yellow and green, made of the same kiln-hardened clay the people of Little Pond crafted back home. To my delight, each bowl contained freshly picked blueberries with warm goat milk poured on top. But the colors of the bowls were too cheerful, the pictures of animals painted on them too whimsical for the somber technos.

  I cast a questioning glance at Kara.

  “Food and dishes from the IBs,” she said. When the mentor glared at her, she looked away embarrassed. “I mean the greenies. They’ve learned to raise goats for milk and to harvest these berries from the wild.”

  “We call them greenies,” the mentor said, “because they believe in the land. They call us technos, because we believe in machines and in our ability to someday relearn the science behind them.”

  “Is that what’s driven a wedge between you?” Nathaniel said.

  “No, we’re more reasonable than that. The greenies started their movement decades ago, and we’ve always accepted our differences.” He held up his painted bowl. “And we value many of their crafts.”

  “So what caused the rift?” I said.

  The mentor’s long features hardened. “Their conduct following the day of ascension, behavio
r we’ll never forgive. And some still lurk among them who wish to do us harm. For now, we need each other, so we co-exist uncomfortably and barter what successes we have.”

  As I chewed a few berries, his words fueled the bonfire of questions burning in my mind. Time for my turn. “Kara tells us you speak to the dreamers, but no one else can.”

  The mentor slowed his chewing and swallowed. His lips pressed into a thin and pale line. “Kara is a good child, but a child nevertheless. There’s a great deal she does not understand.”

  “But do you speak to the dreamers?”

  “In a way, yes.” His words came out one at a time as if he were picking them with care. “But the dreamers do not speak as you and I are speaking now. They’ve moved to a higher plane.”

  I ground my teeth and held back my response. I was the mentor’s guest, and my mother had raised me to believe in manners.

  Before I could give voice to my thoughts, Nathaniel blurted them out. “When may we speak to the dreamers?”

  “Speak to the dreamers?” The blue eyes crinkled at the corners, the lines around them deepening as his voice rose. “Only the mentor speaks to the dreamers.”

  I leaned in, my hand pressing on the arm of the mentor’s chair. “Our boat is gone. The people of our world have a desperate need for the dreamers’ wisdom. You must let us speak to them.”

  The mentor pushed his lower lip upward so it covered the upper, and his head bobbed from side to side as if on a spring. With no gesture on his part, the chair came alive and jerked away, leaving my hand hanging in midair.

  His blue eyes blazed. “You may never speak to the dreamers.”

  “Never?” Nathaniel and I said together. “Why?”

  His brow knitted into a thundercloud. “Do you think the mentor doesn’t know how you performed in the lessons today? Someday, if the children work hard enough, they may be worthy to speak to the dreamers. As for you from your primitive world, you are as simple-minded as greenies. Your brains will never be strong enough to open the gateway to the dreamers. Never.”