The Seekers: The Children of Darkness (Dystopian Sci-Fi - Book 1) (7 page)

Nathaniel had never heard such blasphemy spoken so bluntly—and
here in Temple City.

The man’s rant sailed on. “The self-righteous vicars and
their henchmen who strut about. Deacons they call them, defenders of the light,
but they’re only rough men, uneducated, who do as they’re told because the
Temple provides them power they could never obtain on their own.”

“But who are you?” Nathaniel said, trying to be more
assertive.

The man cackled. “I’m the guest in the next room. Their
favorite guest because they never let me leave. ‘If there comes a prophet,’” he
boomed, mimicking the vicars, “‘you should stone him, even if he be your own
child.’ But if I’m a prophet, why haven’t they stoned me? Do you know why? They’re
afraid to let me stand before my people, terrified of what I might say.”

“How did this hole between the cells get here?”

“I bored through the stone myself, yes I have, scratching
with a bit of this and that. Through a wall as thick as a grown man’s head.” He
tried to laugh, but only an unhealthy cough emerged.

A madman, surely, but Nathaniel couldn’t let such a claim go
unchallenged. “That’s impossible.”

“Impossible? A persistent man can do anything. It took
twenty years, but I wore down the stone before they wore me down.”

Twenty years
. Nathaniel sucked in a breath but stayed
silent.

“Let me have a look at you,” the man in the next cell said. “I
see so few people.”

Nathaniel peered through the hole but saw nothing.

“No, no, not so close. It’s only a small hole. Go back to
the far wall. Your turn will come.”

Nathaniel did as asked.

“A young one, eh? Fine-looking and tall. Let me give you
advice, young man: don’t stay as long as I have. Tell them whatever they want
and go on your way.” He attempted a long sigh which quickly degraded into a
wheeze. Once he caught his breath, his voice rose. “Lie if you must. Why did
they bring you here anyway?”

Nathaniel opened his mouth to answer but stopped. This wasn’t
Little Pond. The whole city brimmed with intrigue, and he was fast learning
mistrust. “Let me see you first. It’s my turn.”

He heard scuffling steps from the far side and put his eye to
the hole.

In the neighboring cell stood an old man with skin so loose
the outline of his skeleton showed. He panted and his mouth hung open, exposing
a tongue covered with sores.

Nathaniel looked away.

“Not pretty, no.” The man’s voice became clearer by the
moment. “This is what happens to a body given hardly enough food and water to
survive. The Temple doesn’t harm its children, oh no, but they don’t know what
I am, so they keep me here. Would
you
like to know what I am, young man?”
He paused, seemingly more for effect than expecting a reply. “I’m what they
fear most: the truth. So here will I stay forever.”

Despite his revulsion, Nathaniel returned to the hole and
looked again. What did he behold? An image of madness? Or courage beyond
anything he’d ever imagined?

***

The clergy reconvened in a windowless room that was brightly
lit despite the absence of candles. A pale glow flickered off the arch vicar’s
face as he gazed into the glass panel, giving his actions a mystical cast—the
light bestowing wisdom on its high priest.

He tugged at his beard, nodding repeatedly, and spoke
without looking away. “Perfect.”

“What is?” the junior vicar said.

“The boy’s background, his family, his profile... all as I
suspected.” He faced the younger man. “I had him placed in the cell next to the
old prisoner.”

The younger vicar stared back, his lips spreading agreeably,
but his eyes narrowed. “But holiness, the plan failed the last time.”

It had failed, but the concept was sound. The last time, the
arch vicar had spent weeks begging the council for approval, overlooking how
they indulged him like a child. Let the old prisoner die, they had said. The
secret’s nothing but a legend. Finally, to humor him, they conceded. When his
plan ultimately failed, they shrugged it off and said:
No matter. The secret
will die with him. It’s nothing but a legend anyway. A myth.

Alone among his peers, the arch vicar had immersed himself
in the archives, where he’d found snippets of proof. He believed the place
existed.

Should he try again? This time, he’d have to act on his own.
An unauthorized attempt, discovered too soon, might damage his standing with
the council—support he’d need when the grand vicar passed to the light. Maybe
they were right. Let the secret die with the old prisoner.

Yet still, that ancient place haunted his dreams.

His chest tightened at the thought
of it, and his breathing became short. Why did that daunting remnant of the
darkness pull at him so? In the archives, hints of what lay there had tempted
him, almost more than he could bear. What did he hope to find that would
justify risking a lifetime of service? If found, would he have the faith to
resist its temptations, to destroy it once and for all?

And why, at the thought of its destruction, did he already
mourn its loss?

Now, the light had granted a second chance. The boy from
Little Pond had fallen into his grasp, a boy perfect for the task.

The arch vicar waved his hand and the mystical glow vanished.
“The last time was different. Our man was not true of heart.”

“The old man’s cynical, Holiness, suspicious. He’ll never—”

“I tell you this is different. The old man’s health is
failing, so he’s more likely to trust someone, and the boy is naïve, but
brave—a vessel waiting to be filled.”

“How will you convince such a brash young man, Holiness?”

“I’ll ask him to commit to the Temple, to lead the people of
the Ponds in the light.”

“But, Holiness, how can you be sure he’ll believe us?”

The arch vicar consulted a slip of paper. “According to his
friend... Thomas, our boy Nathaniel fancies himself destined for greatness. We
simply offer an opportunity worthy of him.” He turned and headed to the door,
but stopped and reversed himself. “And if that doesn’t work, he’ll believe us
anyway.”

“Why, Holiness?”

The arch vicar’s pupils darkened to black embers, but a
wicked twinkle showed in them. “Because he cares about the girl.”

***

Nathaniel stood again on the mark at the center of the room
and looked up at the three vicars. Only a few hours had passed.

“Nathaniel of Little Pond,” the speaker proclaimed. “We have
decided to grant your wish and send the girl home.”

Nathaniel raised his chin and beamed at the arches spanning the
peak of the dome. He’d done it—Orah would be set free. In his elation, he
almost missed what the vicar said next. He quieted his thoughts and tried to
concentrate.

“We have one condition. You seem a fine man, eager to learn
of our ways. Rather than a teaching, we believe you might better serve the
light by becoming an envoy of the Temple.”

An envoy of the Temple? He can’t mean....
“I don’t
understand, Holiness.”

“Let me be more specific. We’re offering to train you in the
seminary to become a vicar.”

The arch vicar’s words dragged Nathaniel down, seeming to
cast him into the cell beneath his feet. “But I’m just a boy from a small
village.”

“Not a boy, a man of age who has asked for a teaching. We
offer you more—the chance to serve your people, in addition to helping your
friend. What do you say?”

“Holiness, I....”

“We know this is a difficult decision. Serving the Temple is
a great honor but also a lifelong commitment. Once you’ve chosen this path, you
cannot go back.”

“There must be another way.”

“There is no other way. If you agree, we’ll give you a week
to go home and settle your affairs before returning to Temple City. Otherwise,
the teaching of your friend will resume. You have two days to decide. In the
meantime, you’ll remain our guest.” He leaned forward for emphasis. “Two days.”

The vicars rose to leave, but Nathaniel stopped them with a
shout. “Wait! I’ll consider your offer, but only if my friend can join me while
I decide.”

The younger vicars snapped their heads around in
astonishment, but the arch vicar ignored them. “Very well, Nathaniel of Little
Pond. While her teaching awaits, she may share meals with you. Her presence may
help you choose the right path.”

Nathaniel stammered. What more could he say?

The audience had ended. The arch
vicar dismissed him with a flip of his hand, and the deacons led him back to
his cell.

A scratching at the peephole intruded on Nathaniel’s
thoughts.

“I’m sorry you came back,” the old man said. “I hoped you’d tell
them what they wanted and go home.”

He had intended the words kindly, but Nathaniel waved him
off. After a time, the old man put the slate back into place and hobbled away.

Nathaniel slumped on the cot and buried his fist in his
cheek. He’d dashed from Little Pond to this cursed place, hoping to help Orah, but
what had he accomplished? An impossible choice lay before him: commit to the
Temple, or send her back to the teaching. Either would haunt him for the rest
of his days.

He’d had no food since arriving at Temple City, and though eating
was least on his mind, his stomach growled. Thankfully, at that moment, a young
deacon unlocked the door and brought in a tray, a simple meal—brown bread, apples
and goat cheese—but much to Nathaniel’s relief, enough for two. Moments later, a
guard ushered Orah into the room.

Dust coated her from head to toe, but her spirit seemed
intact. “Nathaniel of Little Pond, and here I expected to share lunch with the grand
vicar.”

He gestured at the tray. “I arranged a little snack for us.”

Each took measure of the other.

How must I look in her eyes?
Less battered he presumed, but far from the confident hero—just a boy from a
remote village who’d reached beyond his means. Seeing her made his choice all
the more burdensome. He couldn’t help but imagine her in the same state as
Thomas at festival. No words seemed appropriate, and every attempt to speak caught
in his throat.

Orah’s eyes widened, and she reached out for him, but her
hand hovered in mid-air without touching him. “Why are you here? Did they take
us both for a teaching?”

She’d see through any evasion, but he tried anyway. “I came
to rescue you. I offered to replace you, but they turned me down. The light
knows what will happen next.”

Orah sat on the cot with the tray between them and let her
gaze wander from the cell door to the food and finally back to him. She drew in
a breath and let it out slowly. “I should be angry with you for risking
yourself like some fool hero.” Her features eased into a smile, and she brushed
his cheek with her fingertips. “But thank you.”

His head still down, he rolled his eyes up to glance at her,
and grimaced. “Believe me, I’m no hero.”

Shame kept him from saying more, but a flash of pain in her
eyes told him she’d heard enough and knew he was hiding something. Whether out
of pity or hunger, she refrained from pressing for now.

She grabbed a loaf and broke it in half. “We should eat. Who
knows when we’ll get the next chance?”

He accepted the bread from her, grateful for the reprieve.
They ate in silence, showing little appetite but managing to clear the tray.

Once finished, she fixed him with a piercing stare. “What
aren’t you telling me? If they turned you down, why was I released?”

Before he could answer, the familiar scraping of the
peephole cover sounded from across the room.

Orah startled. “What was that?”

“My new friend, the prisoner in the next cell. He’s been there
so long he misses companionship.”

Then, another, more ominous noise came from the walkway
outside, the thump of deacons’ boots on the stone floor.

“Quickly, Nathaniel, before they come. What are you hiding?”

He dreaded the moment but had to tell. The choice seemed
dragged from his lips—her teaching or his commitment to the Temple. She
listened open-mouthed, but for once had nothing to say.

“I made my offer,” he said, “and they made theirs. They
granted me two days to decide, and in the meantime, they suspended your teaching
and let us share meals. I thought seeing you would help me decide, but now my
misery’s complete. I’m no hero, but I won’t let you go to the same fate that
befell Thomas and my father and yours. How could I live with that?”

She stood, rising to her toes so she appeared taller. “You
will not do this for me. I forbid it. I’m not frail and will survive the teaching
better than any of them.” Her face reddened to match her hair, and her breath
came in short bursts. “As far as living with your choice, if you become one of
them, you won’t live long enough to be ordained. I’ll kill you first, the Temple
and their darkness be damned.”

He pressed two fingers to her lips, but he never could calm
her when her blood was up.

She twisted away and lowered her voice to a hiss. “The darkness—a
tale they made up to control us. Why don’t they leave us alone?”

“Hush, Orah. Think of where you are. Don’t make things worse
for the both of us.”

The grate of metal on metal quieted them as the bolt slid
open. Two stout deacons motioned Orah to follow.

She glared over her shoulder as she crossed the threshold. “Think
hard, Nathaniel. I pray you come to your senses before our next meal.”

The deacons led her off, one at each arm. The door slammed shut
behind them, followed by a deafening silence.

***

The silence didn’t last long.

The old prisoner barely gave him time to collapse on the
cot. “A strong woman, yes?”

Nathaniel kept still, staring at the opposite wall, but for now
companionship seemed preferable to quiet. “Yes, a strong woman.”

“The teaching won’t destroy that one. No.”

Nathaniel turned and spoke to the hole, his voice rising. “I
won’t let them take her.”

He imagined the old man chewing over his words before saying
them aloud. “But to become a vicar? You know what they are.”

“I don’t know anything, and neither do you.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“How could you know? You’ve been locked away in that cell
for twenty years.”

“What better way to know what they are?” The old man let the
thought sink in, backing off and then returning to the peephole. His voice
became less scattered. “She was right, you know. They lie about the darkness.
The darkness was not as they teach.”

Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. He sat up straight and listened
for more. When no more came, he slid to the edge of his cot and whispered, “How
can you be so sure?”

Snippets of muttering filtered from the other cell. The man seemed
to be having an argument with himself. “It’s time to tell, Samuel. He may be the
keepers’ last hope.”

Nathaniel crept closer and peered through the opening.

The old man stood more erect with
the look of someone who’d made a decision.

Nathaniel placed his mouth to the hole. “Who is Samuel?”

“I am Samuel,” the old man said. “Yes, there’s still a person
here after all these years, a man with a name. And she called you Nathaniel?”

“Yes, I’m Nathaniel.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Nathaniel checked back through the hole to catch Samuel
bending at the waist with hands straight to his sides, a formal bow that seemed
to cause him some pain—the bow of a once proud man.

“How can I be sure about the darkness?” Samuel said, his
voice gaining strength with each word. “Because the vicars failed to erase the
past. Everywhere you look, bits of it remain. Haven’t you seen its vestiges in
your village, things the Temple hasn’t ordained?”

Nathaniel thought of wassail and festival, of Orah’s name
from a forbidden language. He nodded, then realizing the man couldn’t see, said,
“Yes.”

“What they call the darkness is nothing more than our past, but
they show us only the worst.”

Nathaniel had to ask. “Were you sent for a teaching?”

Samuel let out a laugh. “A teaching’s a trifle compared to
what I’ve been through. I’m aware of what they show in teachings—and yes, all
the evil they claim is true. I also know what they hide, the good they’ve
erased. Like a foolish parent trying to save us from our own wickedness, they’ve
given us a world of limits and not a world of possibilities. Do you understand
what I’m saying?”

Nathaniel began to feel lightheaded, and tiny black dots
fluttered before his eyes like gnats. “Nothing is as it seems. I have a lot to
think about.”

“Yes, and so do I.”

The old prisoner moved away and settled on the wicker chair
next to the table. His shoulders heaved, and his breath came in short bursts as
he stared at his hands.

Nathaniel staggered toward his cot, but stopped and went back
to the peephole. “One last thing, Samuel. What’s a keeper?”

Samuel glanced up. “A story for another time, my boy. For
another time.”

***

Time passed swiftly. At breakfast the next day, Orah begged
Nathaniel to reject the vicar’s offer, but he refused to send her back to the
teaching. Her parting stung more each time the deacons led her away.

Samuel eavesdropped through the peephole during their morning
meal but said nothing. After the cell door closed following the second lunch, he
spoke at last. “I told you my story was for another time, Nathaniel. Well, now’s
that time.”

“What did you say?”

“Come close so I can whisper. I’ll tell you about the keepers.”

The term had piqued Nathaniel’s curiosity since their
earlier conversation, but what could he believe from his fellow prisoner? What
fantasies had the poor man concocted over twenty years?

He shuffled toward the wall as if approaching a precipice in
the dark. “I’m here.”

“Our forebears lived in time of wonder, filled with magic
and strife. When the Temple came to power, the vicars preferred order to
wonder. The darkness, they screamed from their pulpits, a time of chaos and
death. They determined to erase the glories of the past so we’d forget them
forever, but the wizards of that age resisted. To save their treasures for the
future, they concealed them from the vicars in a place called the keep.”

Nathaniel pressed his ear to the wall and listened, as he
had as a child when his father told tales at bedtime.

The old man continued. “The time would come, the wizards
believed, when a generation would arise that embraced their wonders once more,
but the vicars ruled with a ruthless hand, intent on eradicating the past. The
keep would need to stay hidden until the coming of the new age, so they created
a puzzle, a rhyme that led to the keep, and divided the verses into pieces for
safekeeping, one piece to one person, with directions to find the next in the
chain. Those chosen to preserve the clues they called keepers.”

Nathaniel’s heart pounded. “How many keepers are there?”

“Each keeper knows of the next and no more—all except the
last one. If one link is broken, the secret will be lost forever, the reason why
every keeper takes an oath to pass on his clue before he dies.”

Nathaniel’s dilemma flitted from his mind, replaced by the
vision of an armored knight with a plumed helmet and a flashing sword. To the
darkness with teachings and the coming of age. The idea of the keep had
awakened something in him he thought he’d lost forever.

“But who’ll solve the puzzle?” he said.

“A vanguard of this new generation would arise first, driven
to seek the truth at all costs, even at the risk of their lives. These few would
take the lead. The founders of the keep called them seekers, and their task
would be to solve the puzzle and rediscover the keep.”

“What’s in the keep?”

“The chain started so long ago, even the keepers aren’t
sure. The keep may not even exist.”

“Ancient magic?”

“More. Something the Temple fears. Something that might change
the world.”

Nathaniel’s hands shook.
I’d be a seeker if I could
.

The other cell went quiet.

Nathaniel checked through the
peephole to find the man slumped on the cot, his chest hardly moving. He should
leave him be, but....

“Samuel?”

“What now?”

“Are you a keeper?”

“It’s just a story, Nathaniel, and now I need to rest.”

***

The final dinner before Nathaniel’s decision came and went. As
the door slammed shut and the bolt snapped into place, Nathaniel wondered if he’d
ever see Orah again. Horrific images flashed before his eyes: Orah in the
darkness cell; himself with the not-quite-square-hat of a vicar reciting the
blessing; or worse—snatching the child of some neighbor for a teaching.

First thing in the morning, the deacons would escort him to
the round chamber, and he’d gaze up into the unyielding faces of the clergy. They’d
demand his decision.

The word decision stuck in his mind, so he almost missed its
echo from the peephole.

“I’ve made my decision,” the old man said. “We each face a
difficult choice, and so we must help each other.”

“Help each other? I have no way to help you, and what can
you do for me?”

“I can offer a third way, and you can keep the chain alive.”

Nathaniel gasped. “You
are
a keeper.”

“I am the first keeper. For twenty long years, I’ve kept faith,
but if I die without passing on the secret, the chain will be broken.”

Nathaniel tried to count three breaths before speaking, as
Orah would urge him to do, but the words burst out as if on their own. “What do
you want me to do?”

“I’ll pass my clue on to you. You tell the vicars you’ll
join them. They’ll give you time to go home and settle your affairs before
returning. Then... don’t return.”

“I’m to become a keeper?”

The old man’s chortle resounded strangely off the stone
walls, but he caught himself and spoke more distinctly than ever. “You
misunderstand, my boy. The time for rediscovery has come. You will become a seeker.”

The cell walls seemed to contract. “But Temple City’s the
farthest I’ve ever roamed from home. What do I know of the greater world?”

“Don’t doubt yourself, Nathaniel. You had the courage to
come alone to Temple City and offer yourself to save a friend. Such passion will
serve you well as you seek the keep. Accept my offer. You may be the drop of
water that wears down the rock of the Temple.”