The Seeker (2 page)

I
N THE DAYS
following the holocaust, which came to be known as the Great White, there was death and madness. In part, this was the effect of the lingering radiation rained on the world from the skies. Those fortunate enough to live on remote holdings and farms were spared destruction, though they had seen the skies whiten and had understood that it meant death. These people preserved their untainted land and families ruthlessly, slaughtering the hundreds of refugees who poured from the poisoned cities.

This time of siege was called the Age of Chaos and lasted until no one else came from the cities. Unaware that the cities were now only silent graveyards on endless black plains where nothing lived or grew, the most powerful farmers formed a Council to protect their community from further siege and to mete out justice and aid. Peace came to the Land.

But time proved that the remote community had not completely escaped the effects of the Great White. Mutations in both man and beast were high. Not fully understanding the reason for the mutations, the Council feared for the community and decreed that any man or beast not born completely normal must be burned. To remove any qualms people might have about the killings, these burnings took on a ritual air, and were used to remind the people of their fortune in being spared in the holocaust and the time of Chaos.

The Council appointed a fledgling religious order to perform the burnings. The order, called the Herder Faction, believed that the holocaust was punishment from God, whom they called Lud. Gradually, religious dogma and law fused, and the honest way of the farmer was seen as the only right way. Machines, books, and all the artifacts of the Beforetime were abhorred and destroyed.

Some resisted the rigid lore, but by now the Council had provided itself with a band of militaristic protectors, called soldierguards. Any who dared oppose the order were tried and burned as seditioners or were given the lesser charge of being unsafe and sent to work on the Councilfarms.

After some time, the Herder Faction advised the Council that not all mutancies were immediately apparent at birth. Such afflictions as those that attacked the mind could not be discerned until later.

This created some difficulty, for while the Council saw the opportunity to further manipulate the community, accusing anyone of whom they disapproved of hidden mutancy, it was more difficult to proceed with a ritual burning of someone who had been accepted as normal for most of his or her life. The Council eventually decreed that none but the most horribly afflicted of this new kind of mutant would be burned and the rest would be sent instead to the Councilfarms. A new name was devised for anyone with an affliction not apparent at birth—Misfit.

It was a dark and violent age, though the untainted land flourished and even began cautiously to extend its boundaries as the effects of the Great White began at last to wane. New towns were established, all ruled by the iron hand of the Council from its seat in Sutrium. So great was the death toll under Council rule that hundreds of children were left
orphaned each year. The Council responded by setting up a network of orphan homes to house those unclaimed by blood relatives.

The community regarded the inmates of orphan homes with an abiding suspicion, since most were the children of Misfits or seditioners, and as such were considered dangerous.

PART I
T
HE
L
OWLANDS

1

B
EFORE FIRST LIGHT
, we set out for the Silent Vale.

It was a half day’s journey, and we were led by a tall gangling boy called Elii, who carried a small sword and two hunting knives at his belt. These were the clearest visible reminders that our journey involved danger.

Also traveling with us was a young Herder. He represented the true danger that lay ahead. Around our necks we wore the dull graymetal circlet that denoted our orphan status. This would protect us from robbers and gypsies, for as orphans we owned nothing. Normally the presence of a Herder would be enough to frighten off robbers, who feared the wrath of the powerful order.

But this was a very young Herder, little more than a boy, with golden bum-fluff on his cheeks. His eyes held characteristic Herder zeal, but there was a nervous tic in one of his eyelids. I guessed this was his first duty away from the cloisters; he seemed as nervous of us as of any supernatural dangers he might perceive. It was rumored that Herders had the ability to see the ghosts of the Oldtimers flitting about as they had done in the terrible days when the sky was still white and radiant. This talent was said to be Ludgiven so they could warn of the dangers that lay in following the evil ways of the Beforetimers.

Our expedition to collect whitestick was considered perilous but important. The Council had ruled that only orphan homes could mine the rare substance, perhaps because orphans were the most expendable members of the community. Collection of the whitestick was fraught with danger, for the substance could only be found in areas verging on tainted, where the land had not long ago been untouchable. The whitestick was poisonous to the naked skin and had to be passed through a special process designed to remove its poisons before it was of any use.

Once cleansed, it was marvelously versatile, serving in everything from sleep potions to the potent medicines prepared by the Herders.

I had not been to the Silent Vale before. This was the Kinraide orphan home’s area of collection, and it yielded high-grade whitestick. But the Silent Vale was considered dangerously close to the Blacklands, where the poisons of the Great White still ruled. It was even whispered there were traces of Oldtime dwellings nearby. I was thrilled, and terrified, to think I might see them.

We passed through a side gate in the walls of the Kinraide complex. The way from that door was a track leading steeply downward. Seldom traveled, it seemed a world apart from the neat, ordered gardens and paths within the orphanage. Bush creepers trailed unchecked from side to side, choking the path in places.

Elii chopped occasionally at the vines to clear the way. He was an odd boy. People tended to shun him because of his profession and because of his close connections with the orphan home, though he was no orphan. His father had worked in the same capacity and his grandfather before that, until they had died of the rotting sickness that came from
prolonged exposure to the whitestick. He lived on the grounds at Kinraide but did not associate with us.

One of the girls in our party approached him. “Why not travel along the crevasse instead of going up this steep edge?” she panted.

For some way, we had been climbing a steep spur along one side of the rise. Northward the dale ran up into a glen of shadows.

“The path runs this way,” Elii snapped, his eyes swiveling around to the rest of us, cold and contemptuous. “I don’t want to hear any more whining questions from you lot. I’m the Lud of this expedition, and I say there’ll be no more talk.”

The Herder flushed at the nearly blasphemous mention of Lud’s name, but the restraint in his face showed he had been warned already about the rude but necessary youth. Few would choose to do his job, whatever the prize in the end. Elii turned on his heel and led us at a smart pace to the crest of the hill. From the top, we could see a long way—the home behind us and beyond that the town center, and in front of us, far to the west, lay a belt of mountains, purpled with the distance. The boundary of untainted lands. Beyond those mountains, nothing lived. Hastily I averted my eyes, for no one understood all the dangers of the Blacklands. Even looking at them might do some harm.

The dawn came and went as we walked, a wan gray light seeping into the world. The path led us toward a pool of water in a small valley. It was utterly still and mirrored the dull overcast sky, its southern end dark in the shadow of the hills.

“I hope we are not going to swim that because it is in the way,” said the same girl who had spoken before. I stared at her defiant face, still stained with the red dye used by Herders
to mark the children of seditioners. Elii said nothing, but the Herder gave her a look that would have terrified me. A nervous young Herder is still a Herder.

We came to the pool at the shadowed end only to find the path cleaved to the very edge of the water.

“Touch this water not!” the Herder said suddenly in a loud voice that made us all jump.

Elii looked over his shoulder with a sneering expression. A little farther on, a cobbled border, crumbled in places and overrun with sprouting weeds, ran alongside the track. It was uncommon enough for me to wonder if this was from the Beforetime. If so, I was not much impressed, but the Herder made a warding-off sign at the border.

“Avert your eyes,” he cried, his voice squeaking at the end. I wondered if he saw something. Perhaps there were faint impressions of Oldtimers fleeing along this very road, the Great White mushrooming behind them, filling the sky with deadly white light.

An eastward bend in the path led us around the edge of a natural stone wall, and there we suddenly came upon a thing that was unmistakably a product of the Oldtime. A single unbroken gray stone grew straight up into the sky like the trunk of a tree, marked at intervals with bizarre symbols, an obelisk of the ancient past.

“This is where the other Herders spoke their prayers to Lud,” said Elii. “They saw no danger before this.”

The young Herder flushed but kept his dignity. He made us kneel as he asked Lud for protection. The prayer lasted a very long time. Elii sighed loudly and impatiently. Making a final sign of rejection at the unnatural gray pedestal, the young priest rose and self-consciously brushed his habit.

The same girl spoke again. “Is that from the Beforetime,
then?” she asked. This time I did not look at her. She was dangerously careless and seemed not to think about what she was saying. And this Herder was nervous enough to report all of us because of the one stupid girl.

“It is a sign of the evil past,” said the Herder at last, trembling with outrage. Finally, the girl seemed to sense she had gone too far and fell silent.

One of the others in our party, a girl named Rosamunde whom I knew only slightly, moved near and whispered in my ear, “That girl will be off to the Councilcourt if she keeps that up.”

I nodded slightly but hoped she would not prolong her whispering.

To my concern, she leaned close again. “Perhaps she doesn’t care if they send her to the farms. I heard her whole family was burned for sedition, and she only escaped because of her age,” she added.

I shrugged, and to my relief, Rosamunde stepped back into line.

When we stopped for midmeal, Rosamunde sought me out again, sitting beside me and unwrapping her bread and curd cheese. I hoped there was nothing about her that would reflect on me. I had heard nothing of any detriment about her, but one never knew.

“That girl,” Rosamunde said softly. “It must be unbearable to know that her whole family is dead except for her.”

Unwillingly, I looked to where the other girl sat alone, not eating, her body stiff with some inner tension. “I heard her father was mixed up with Henry Druid.”