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

  “Who are they?” I whispered to the ragged lady.

  She waved a hand at them. “Oh, that’s Caleb and his men. They’re among my most zealous followers and the hardest workers. Caleb insists someone should guard us while we gather, as if the technos might attack. An unnecessary step, but it does no harm.”

  To the right of the stairs, behind the men, a white cornerstone had been set into the wall, with words chiseled into its polished face. I stepped closer and read them aloud.

  The Hall of Winds

  In remembrance of the Day of Reckoning

  “Why the hall of winds?”

  “To mark the difference between us and the dreamers. They sought to control nature but could never master the winds. Here, we don’t try to take charge of the Earth. We accept our mortality and know our limits.”

  The column of greenies had assembled in a half circle outside the entrance. Apparently, by tradition, the ragged lady was to enter first. She offered Nathaniel and I the honor of accompanying her.

  We passed one at a time through the narrow doorway, its frame arched so low Nathaniel had to duck his head to clear. Inside, an altar built of flagstone stood at the front, much like the altar the visiting vicar used during the seasonal blessing back home. The ragged lady shuffled ahead and took her place behind it, as her people filled the wooden benches on either side. High above her on the back wall, a circular window loomed—the hall’s sole concession to grandeur—with fragments of colored glass pieced together to form rays of blue spiraling out from a golden center. The window was situated so the afternoon rays streamed through in slanting columns, warming the faces of the congregants and making rainbow flecks of light dance across the ragged lady’s cheeks.

  I could almost picture the vicar’s sun icon glowing beside her.

  Two of Caleb’s men marched behind the altar and unfurled a banner depicting a scene more frightening than the mural that graced the vicars’ teaching chamber. That image showed the mythical battle of darkness and light—a storm cloud, signifying the darkness, pitted against a legion of vicars in prayer.

  This greenie banner bore a painting of four horsemen, their steeds caught in full gallop, one white, one black, one red, and one pale. Steam burst from their nostrils, and their eyes blazed, but the riders burned most in my mind, demons all, each inspiring fear in their own way. The first with a flaming sword; the second, a caped creature, with a skull for a head; the next, a cloaked fiend whose features were hidden by a cowl; and the last a woman with serpents for hair. Across the bottom in red letters three words shouted out: Beware the machines.

  The ragged lady caught me staring. “Caleb’s idea—the riders symbolize desolation, destitution, destruction and death.”

  I recalled a game Nathaniel, Thomas and I used to play as children in the NOT tree, where we’d pretend to be besieged by demons from the darkness. We’d take turns being spies, each venturing out of the shelter and then returning with a made-up tale, trying to frighten the others. Thomas always told the scariest stories, tales of dark riders with faces like skulls and flames flaring through their empty sockets. He’d scare me so much I’d have nightmares, until I grew old enough to understand. Demons were nothing but stories made up to put a face on ideas, a trick to frighten people into embracing beliefs.

  The ragged lady waited, hunched over the altar until Caleb and his men took their seats in the last two rows, and the scuffling of footsteps had stilled. Only then did she begin.

  “Today is a special day, as we welcome guests from across the sea. Like us, they are children of the great cataclysm, but unlike our people, their forbearers chose a different path. Not the pursuit of science or the drive to master nature, but a simpler life. And so they bring with them not our meager few years of struggling to live off the land, but many generations of accepting their place in the world.”

  I twisted around to check the expressions of the assembled, not so different from my Little Pond neighbors at the blessing of the light. I flushed when I realized most eyes were on me. If the ragged lady was right, our quest for the keep had been wrong.

  She droned on, like the grand vicar recounting the events of the day: the number of baskets of berries they’d harvested; how many fish they’d caught; the birth of a baby goat; an impending marriage, whose ceremony she would preside over that night. Then she urged her people to embrace Nathanial and I, and the renewed hope we brought when we sailed in on the tide—neglecting to mention that our boat had crashed.

  Finally, she told everyone to grasp their neighbor’s hand, close their eyes and bow their heads.

  “Today,” she said, her voice rising, “our labor has yielded food enough to sustain us. We thank the earth for its bounty.”

  “Thank the earth,” the people repeated.

  “May the day come soon that brings peace to the dreamers.”

  “Peace to the dreamers,” the assembled chanted as one.

  “Earth mother?”

  I opened my eyes and looked back. Caleb had risen from his seat.

  “Each day we wish peace to the dreamers,” he said, “those poor souls left to wander for eternity. When will we act on our beliefs and finally set them free?”

  She sighed as if she’d heard this question before. “It’s not our place to change the fate of the dreamers.”

  “Was it the place of the technos to challenge the heavens, to raise themselves up as gods?”

  “No. No more than it’s for you to judge them.”

  Eyes turned. A murmur filled the hall. Only a few voices sounded on Caleb’s side.

  He blanched and took his seat.

  I recalled the blessing of my childhood, how I’d been awed by the voice of the grand vicar resounding from the sun icon. I remembered the sense of calm and wellbeing that came over my people—all the goodness that came with devotion to the light. Then a vision of the future spiraled forward out of the mists of my mind. What if the earth mother and her people were of the light, the true light and not the light of the temple? One day, would some of their descendants become vicars, and would their symbols and rituals harden into law? Would any who opposed them be punished? I recalled my own few hours in the teaching cell and shuddered.

  When the hall of winds had settled again to silence, the ragged lady motioned to the front row.

  “Come now, Zachariah, and honor our guests with a song. The one about the ship on the tide.”

  The silent boy approached the front, as the ragged lady took her seat beside me.

  “But he has no voice,” I whispered.

  “Oh, Zachariah has a voice. He just chooses to use it only in song. Hush now and listen.”

  The silent boy stood before the altar with a wholesome, doe-eyed innocence, not like the arrogance of the helpers in the keep, who had never seen the light of day, or the pale stares of the techno children manipulating the holos in their lessons. More like my friends in Little Pond who had lived most of their lives outdoors.

  The boy raised his eyes to the topmost rafters of the hall of winds, so the blue and gold light streaming through the window flickered off his tangled locks. Then he lifted his absent voice into song.

  The wise ones climbed up to the mount

  A place so very high

  They reach so far beyond themselves

  They tried to touch the sky

  His song soared like that of an angel, bouncing off the stone walls and echoing like a celestial chorus singing in harmony.

  The earth roared its displeasure

  What would become their fate?

  The mountain shrugged and cast them off

  into their dreamer state

  ~~~

  “How long the dream?” their loved ones cried

  When will they wake once more?

  Not until the stars wink out

  And the ocean leaves the shore

  ~~~

  The people left unto themselves

  Made peace with mother earth

  And now live one
day to the next

  Searching for their worth

  ~~~

  Until a sailing ship arrives

  From the ocean’s farthest side

  It comes to us upon the wind

  Bringing hope with the morning tide

  ~~~

  The ship sails in upon the waves

  With those who’ll show the way

  And all the children of mother earth

  At last learn how to pray

  As the boy sang, a breeze blew in through cracks in the walls, and the sweet-smelling air moved gently in my hair. I folded my hands on the bench in front of me and laid my chin on them, gazing up at the colored glass as I once had gazed up at the million suns in the keep’s observatory.

  After the song finished, the greenies filed out, Caleb’s men with a grumble, but most as respectful as when they’d entered.

  I waited by the altar with Nathaniel and the ragged lady. No. No longer would I call her the ragged lady, but the earth mother, a name she’d earned.

  “Earth mother,” I said. “What happened to the boy? Why does he choose to hide such a beautiful voice?”

  “He was only six years old on the day of reckoning. For two days while the technos dug with their hands through the rubble, he was a forgotten child, left alone in his chamber. For two days, until my people took pity and came with their strong backs and tools to help. Only then did the frantic technos take time to comfort the younger children. Zachariah was an oversight, they said, a victim of an epic disaster. When they found him, he had ceased to speak, and he has never spoken since.”

  “How did he come to be with you?”

  “The technos nurtured him for five months, healing his body but not his soul. They fed him meals and brought him to lessons each day, but he refused to learn, sitting silently and staring at the walls. Finally, they sent him to us.”

  “But why?”

  She shrugged. “Why? It’s what they’ve always done, these so-called machine masters. They cast off children who fail in their lessons or are unable to pass the exam. They exile all who don’t measure up, whose minds will never be strong enough to control the machines. They told this beautiful child he was not worthy, and their loss is our gain. He’s lived with us ever since. “

  I pictured a six-year-old Zachariah left alone and frightened in the sterile techno room. “Is he an orphan then?”

  The earth mother gazed up at the rafters as if I’d asked a question too hard to answer. When she looked back, her lips bore a crooked smile.

  “What is an orphan? A child whose parents have died? Then he’s no orphan.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but no words emerged. The final question stuck in my throat.

  Nathaniel gave voice to it instead. “His parents were dreamers?”

  “Dreamers, yes,” the earth mother said, “though he shall never see them again.”

  Chapter 11 – A Dread from the Past

  Nathaniel and I trudged up the narrow path back to the techno city, but now with a slower stride. So much to take in, so little of it understood. I longed to approach one of the screens in the keep and consult a helper.

  “Help,” I’d say. “Tell me who the dreamers are. Explain how it’s possible to be alive but not live. Most of all, find a way for me to speak with them.”

  Perhaps the dreamers could dispel my confusion. What should I believe?

  Was righteousness on the side of those who worshipped the sun or the earth, or those who sought knowledge instead? Should I have heeded the keepmasters and dreamers, who found cures for disease, built wondrous machines, and traveled to the stars? Or should I have trusted the vicars and greenies, who branded such efforts a treacherous slope and chose a simpler life, even at the cost of stunting their growth and robbing every child of their potential for greatness?

  The arch vicar had once told me there was no such thing as absolute truth. Now the earth mother had said much the same. Perhaps, they were right.

  We reached the knoll where the trees opened up, and I had a clear view of the techno city. The wall of lights blazed as if the mentor had left a beacon to guide our way home.

  Unwilling to face the technos so soon, I swept clean a flat rock at the edge of the knoll and sank down upon it. My legs were still wobbly from our time at sea, and the trek uphill had drained me more than expected.

  Nathaniel collapsed beside me on the makeshift bench and took from his pack a goatskin flask and pouch of berries, gifts from the greenies to sustain us on the trail.

  Once we’d quenched our thirst and ate our fill, Nathaniel draped one arm around me and stretched out the other, pointing above the tree line. “There, high up on the mountain, awaits what our new friend, Annabel, calls the cathedral of the dreamers.”

  I followed his gesture and squinted, trying to peer past the rock façade to the dreamers inside. Through the mist kicked up by the falls, I beheld a gate fronted by stone columns with forbidding black doors behind. Would we ever be allowed in, and if so, what would we find?

  “Such a long journey,” I said.

  “Which? This trek back from the greenie village, or the path we’ll travel one day, through the city and beyond to the dreamers?”

  “Neither. I meant the journey we’ve been on since first leaving Little Pond. I mean searching for the keepers and finding the keep, then starting the revolution against the vicars. I mean living with the peephole in the cells of Temple City and worrying if each day would be our last together. I mean winning the support of the people, only to lose most of it when they discovered what the keep had to offer. I mean our voyage across the ocean, our boat floundering in the storm and crashing on the rocks. After four years, where has our striving left us? Stranded and bewildered on a distant shore. The more we discover, the less I understand.”

  He pulled me closer. “But always, we’ve had each other.”

  I rested my head on his chest and snuggled in, listening to his heartbeat, calm as always despite the turmoil swirling around us.

  After a minute, he glanced up at the graying sky. “Alive or dead, the dreamers lay safe in their fortress, but we’re exposed on this ridge. Soon, the sun will set behind the mountain and twilight will fall.”

  A cooling breeze swept in from the ocean as if to confirm his words. I hugged myself and rubbed my bare arms to ward off the chill, then returned the flask to him, brushed the dirt off my silver clothing, and stood. “We best get going before the trail turns dark.”

  A half hour later, we reached the outskirts of the techno city. I paused to catch my breath, only to be startled by a rustling in the trees on either side.

  Kara jumped out, accompanied by a dozen of the older boys, each brandishing a sharpened stick.

  “What now, Kara?” I said. “Do you mean to do us harm?”

  Kara flushed and looked away. “Not harm, but you need to come with me to speak to the mentor.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “What if we’re too weary and wish otherwise.”

  Kara lowered her eyes. “Please, you’ve been kind to me, and I have no desire to harm one who can sing as you did to poor Timmy, but you’ve been with the ragged lady. She and her people have caused injury to us in the sad days following ascension, something we can never forgive. You must come with us now.”

  Several of the boys circled behind us and lowered the tips of their sticks. All were slightly built, lacking the thickened muscles of someone like Nathaniel who’d grown up on a farm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his jaw tighten and his fists clench.

  He glared at the boys, who shuffled their feet and fell back a step.

  I placed a restraining hand on Nathaniel and extended an arm to Kara, palm outward. “We’ll go with you to the mentor. Perhaps he’ll shed light on what we’ve learned. Lead on. We trust ourselves in your care.”

  ***

  Kara paused at the door to the mentor’s quarters. A glass plate was attached to the wall above her shoulder, identical t
o the one outside our bed chamber, though this one blinked red. She ordered the boys to wait in the hall, explaining that only she and the newcomers were allowed in. Then she pressed her palm to the plate. The blinking stopped, and the door clicked open.

  I squinted inside, trying to pierce the darkness, expecting to find the mentor in bed. As the lights detected our presence and brightened, I found him slumped in his wheeled chair. The wide-brimmed hat still rested on his head, tipped low to cover his eyes. Apparently, he’d drifted off while waiting for us.

  Kara rubbed his arm to wake him. “Mentor, we found them. They’re here.”

  The mentor stirred, stretching his long arms high in a yawn, and then straightened his hat in a grandfatherly gesture, but as the light filled the room, the shadows crossing his face refused to leave.

  His features hardened. “Where have you been?”

  I tensed as I did when the arch vicar interrogated me, trying to learn the location of the keep, but this time I was proud to answer. “You already know. We’ve been to visit the earth mother.”

  “My friend, Annabel. What lies did she tell you?”

  Nathaniel stepped forward and towered over the old man. “That’s the same question she asked us. She said you lied as well.”

  The mentor laughed, but it was not a kindly laugh. “Ah. Did she also preach to you about the evils of machines? Did she explain how they intended to survive without them? And did she share her fanciful notion of what happened to the dreamers?”

  I nodded, then shook my head. “She spoke of the day when the dreamers left, a time she called the day of reckoning, but like everyone here, she told us only enough to confuse. We don’t know what to believe. Perhaps you can enlighten us.”

  “Only if you’re minds are open to enlightenment.”