Nara
Page 56
It is the end of the Second Dark Ages…
Vigils
The Nightwatch
–time of learning to trust the darkness–
7 March, 2252
Brother Colin Clark’s handlight slipped from his chilled fingers. It bounced once, twice, a third time, clattering loudly off the rocks in the quiet of the night, then went out.
He lunged for it and clipped his shin hard against a boulder.
“Blasted St. Nicholas.” Tumbling forward, he crashed onto the ground.
His hands wrapped about his shin were filled with a sticky warmth. The only thing that wasn’t freezing on this stupid planet. Why of all people had he been the one sent back to Earth? Many of the other brothers had been eager for the adventure.
“Let them,” he’d wanted to shout when Brother David chose him as the Order’s emissary.
“Let them be the ones sent to lie in the dark.” But no, it was quiet, unassuming Brother Col who had to lie on the rough rock of this remote island with the pain rocketing up his nerve endings. Blinking his eyes did nothing to reveal even the vaguest of shapes in the overcast, moonless night.
“So don’t lie in the dark.” Brother David’s cracked old voice was as clear as if he were right beside him rather than a memory that he’d left a dozen light-years behind on New Kells circling a friendly orange star.
“Okay, turn on the light switch.” He gasped when he realized he was talking back to the old man. He ducked the scowl more fierce than a slap could be. A year in transit aboard ship and he still feared the old monk.
Besides, as far as he could tell, there weren’t any light switches on Iona, or on the planet for that matter. Every observation he could make from orbit revealed no use of any broadcast media. No powered vehicles even.
“Find the handlight.” Brother David was always full of orders, but he did have a point even if he was just a memory.
Colin rose to his good knee and addressed the darkness.
“I would greatly appreciate it if any crawlies or other nasties this planet has, would please move aside this night.” His voice fell flat and was ripped away by the wind into the vast darkness.
He reached out with hands that retained little feeling and began to probe the cold, wet grasses and rough, rocky crevices. He poked about in a slowly widening circle.
His arm plunged elbow deep into a freezing puddle before he realized what was happening. He jerked back and caught his elbow on another blasted rock, rose to his knees only to put weight on his abused shin, and collapsed once more to the ground.
“Bloody hell!” He was in too much pain to bother being shocked by his own language. Flopping sideways in the grass he wrapped his good leg over his throbbing shin and a hand about the twinges shooting up his arm. He’d never found that particular bone to be the least bit funny. Though all the other brothers certainly delighted in how often he rapped it.
He needed shelter. Now. He needed to be back on the deorbiter, which was hidden in an old barn a kilometer away over rough ground. He needed a building, but he was completely lost in the darkness even before he’d dropped the stupid handlight. He’d take a stone wall right about now and be happy. Well …happier.
A drop of rain splashed on the bridge of his nose and spattered into both of his eyes.
“Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost!”
# # #
Meghan Taylor had been staring out the window when the light appeared. Appeared where no light should be. None could be. Nor was it the flickering light of flame, but bright and white and steady as no light should be.
For a minute, perhaps two, it wandered about the ruins of the abbey on Iona. Then, as she’d reached for the binoculars, it spun about and disappeared.
A minute passed.
Five.
Fifteen.
No light returned. No light on Iona.
Please, no light on Iona.
Had she been asleep?
No, it was sleeplessness that had brought her to the window in the night.
And her feet were far too cold against the chill stone floor of the Watcher’s hut for it to be a dream.
She inspected the alarm panel. Fascinated even after a year by the glow of the steady lights that held no heat. There were no alarms from the abbey doors. None for the chapel. None for the bishop’s house or even the abandoned village. Every light glowed a soft green. Steady, like the light on Iona she truly hoped she had not seen.
Her hand hovered over the red button. The one that would call the Guardians. That would bring to Iona the only authorized users of technology.
But what could she tell them?
“I’m, ah, fairly sure ‘twas a light I saw.”
“No. I dinna know what happened to it.”
“It was late and I was na sleeping well.” Too many thoughts of the fast-approaching end of her exile. Too anxious to head home in just five days.
“No. The wee light did na come back, but I dinna think I imagined it.”
She moved her hand away from the red button and stared out at the darkness. She knew the view even on nights like this when there was none to be seen. A short grassy slope dropped from the front of her hut down to the rough waters of the Sound of Iona. Less than a kilometer away, across the dark water, Iona. The height of Dun I, the hundred meter-high mountain of the island, towering above the north end. Grassy meadows sprawling from shore to slope dotted with ancient stone buildings. All misted by the soft pattering of the light spring rain.
And the abbey. The abandoned home of the thrice-curst Order of Iona.
For a year, well, three hundred and sixty days of it so far, she had watched the abbey until it loomed large even in her nightmares. And now, with just five days to go, there was a light where none should be.
But with nothing to focus on, her eyes shifted to her own, dim reflection in the window. She contemplated the disjointed collection of shapes lit by the ever-burning green lights of the panel.
Her face, thin and white, made gaunt and ill in the dim glow. Black hair lost in darkness. Not reflected at all.
Crossed arms over an invisibly dark nightshirt appeared connected to nothing.
Two dim trunks of legs appeared far below as if severed yet still standing.
Scattered pieces, all shivering in the chill that was as much inside her as against the bottoms of her feet.
Was she truly coming apart? Losing her mind as Mad Erin had half a decade before? A girl gone mad with the Watching of the most evil place on Earth. In the end speaking only to the gulls who cried forever above the rocky shores of Eilean nam Ban. The Isle of Women.
The curst isle.
Her prison.
She closed her eyes.
Five days. Just five more days.
The madness circled about her on silent wings, swooping ever nearer.
Please let there have been a light.
AUTHOR BIO
M. L. Buchman has over 50 novels and 30 short stories in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and twice Booklist “Top 10 of the Year,” placing two titles on their “Top 101 Romances of the Last 10 Years” list. He has been nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of the Year” by RT Book Reviews and was a 2016 RWA RITA finalist. In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.
In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.
He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.
com.
Copyright 2013 Matthew Lieber Buchman
Published by Buchman Bookworks
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the author.
Discover more by this author at: www.mlbuchman.com
Cover images:
Dangerous Asian Girl, © Igor Kovalchuk | Dreamstime.com
Iaito Sword, Umeyama.yukinori, 2011-03-31
Red Moon _b_, 2006-10-02
Starry Sky, Mbz1, 2007-10-22
Other works by this author:
SF/F Titles
Nara
Monk’s Maze
The Me and Elsie Chronicles
Deities Anonymous
Cookbook from Hell: Reheated
Saviors 101
Dead Chef Thrillers
Swap Out!
One Chef!
Two Chef!
Angelo’s Hearth
Where Dreams Are Born
Where Dreams Reside
Maria’s Christmas Table
Where Dreams Unfold
Where Dreams Are Written
Eagle Cove
Return to Eagle Cove
Recipe for Eagle Cove
Longing for Eagle Cove
Keepsake for Eagle Cove
The Night Stalkers
Main Flight
The Night Is Mine
I Own the Dawn
Wait Until Dark
Take Over at Midnight
Light Up the Night
Bring On the Dusk
By Break of Day
White House Holiday
Daniel’s Christmas
Frank’s Independence Day
Peter’s Christmas
Zachary’s Christmas
Roy’s Independence Day
and the Navy
Christmas at Steel Beach
Christmas at Peleliu Cove
5E
Target of the Heart
Target Lock on Love
Firehawks
Main Flight
Pure Heat
Full Blaze
Hot Point
Flash of Fire
Smokejumpers
Wildfire at Dawn
Wildfire at Larch Creek
Wildfire on the Skagit
Delta Force
Target Engaged
Heart Strike