Seeklight

by Kevin Wayne Jeter

  “I want to see the bishop,” said Daenek. “That’s why I’ve come.”

  “We have no bishop now.” The priest’s voice did not change. “We have not elected another. We have not decided that we shall.”

  “What—what happened to the old one?” Daenek had felt his heart speed up at the priest’s words.

  “He grew old,” said the priest. “As all things do. He sits with the other bishops a little distance from here.”

  “The other bishops?” In the increasing gloom, it was hard for Daenek to see anything of the other’s face except for the glowing scan-cells.

  “They were all created at the same time. When this land was first divided into parishes. They have seen several generations of men rise and fall back into the dust. Now they wait to follow them. We have brought them here merely as a convenience to ourselves. We do not wish to lose the valuable parts.”

  “There was one,” said Daenek slowly. “Who was at the court in the Capitol when—when the last thane was alive. And then he came to the parish of the stone-cutters. Could I find that one?”

  The cowled head slowly moved from side to side. “There was no such one. But speak to any—of those that are still able to speak—and you’ll find the one you desire. They were created with a group mind, like the fingers of a hand, so that all know what any one of them ever saw or heard.”

  Daenek hugged himself against the chilling thrust of wind.

  “Where are they? Could you take me to them?”

  “Better that you come to the chapel and pray, then pursue your life elsewhere.” The priest’s face was completely hidden by shadow.

  “Take me to them.”

  A boulder-strewn hillside was lit by the arc of the first moon appearing over the horizon. The priest silently indicated the vague shapes with a motion of its hand, then turned and headed back to the monastery. Daenek, the cold wind penetrating his shirt and jacket, stepped down to the waiting figures.

  They were all facing the same way, across the unlit valley to where the sun would rise in the morning. The nearest one sat on the ground with its back against a rock. Its robe hung in dangling tatters from its frame. A few meters away, another bishop knelt, immobile. As far as Daenek could make out, others lay or sat without moving, like rock formations themselves.

  Daenek touched the shoulder of the nearest one. The frayed cloth of its robe split with the slightest pressure. The old bishop made no response, and Daenek crouched down in front of it to look into its face. Blank, impassive—the dull scan-cells seemed to brighten and focus on him, though. Daenek’s voice moved stiffly from his throat: “I—”

  The bishop’s circular voice-grid crackled, and then a stream of whining, buzzing static sounded, like a knife ripping the cold air itself. The scan-cells grew brighter and one metal hand lifted towards Daenek’s head in a blessing or threat.

  He scrambled to his feet and backed away from the machine.

  It did not follow him but fell silent, the raised hand falling and striking the rock it sat on.

  The cold seemed to be spreading from Daenek’s gut now. He looked around the hillside. The yellow points of light that were the bishops’ eyes were like some dying galaxy surrounding him.

  “Who are you?” said a voice behind him.

  He spun around and looked down at the upturned face of the kneeling bishop.

  “You know. You’ve seen me before,” said Daenek, bending down.

  “Ah,” breathed the faded voice. Some of the other bishops repeated the sound, a windlike echo. “Yes. The thane.”

  “No. I’m only his son.”

  The machine did not appear to have heard him. “Who,” it intoned slowly, “would have forseen this end? It pains me, where I should feel no pain.”

  “. . . pain,” whispered the other voices in the dark.

  “I need some answers,” pleaded Daenek. He searched the old bishop’s unmoving face. “You were there. You know what happened.”

  “Happened?” Its head tilted slightly with a small noise.

  “To my father. To the thane. Who killed him? And why?”

  “Time killed him.”

  “It kills everything,” muttered another bishop far away to the right.

  “. . . everything,” sighed the decaying chorus.

  “No,” said Daenek, his voice becoming tinged with desperation. He pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. “I mean . . . what am I supposed to do?”

  “Do nothing! Rot!” cried the bishop. Its hands flew up, the thin metal fingers fanning out into claws.

  Daenek leaped back at the sudden violent shout. He tripped and fell heavily onto his side. Dizzy, he stood up and ran a few meters, directionless on the dark hillside, until another hand flew up and transfixed him with its pointing finger.

  “Rot,” said a bishop lying outstretched on the ground before him. “Like the rest of mankind. For this we were created? For this we piloted the seed-ships through the stars? For this we fathered your fathers?” The scan-cells blazed, apertures into a white fire.

  Daenek spun away from the accusing voice. The same face leaned forward from its perch on an outcropping of rock. “So that man could slide back into the pit, giving away everything that we were made to preserve in him?” A chorus of murmurs mixed with harsh electronic crackling moved through the air, then became silent.

  The moon had lifted a little higher, just under the edge of the clouds, and as Daenek turned slowly around, he could see the pale light sliding over the metal limbs and faces of the dying bishops. On all sides, they stretched as far as he could see.

  “We have given up hope.” A single voice spoke near Daenek, but he could not locate it. “We whose purpose was to create hope. It is no wonder that some of us, with the rot of time within, have gone mad and now seek the blood of you whom we were to serve.”

  It’s no use, thought Daenek. He wiped the cold perspiration from his face. They’re too old to help me. But still— He crouched down before one of the priests and pulled the chain from out of his shirt. The white metal glimmered in the light from the scan-cells. “Do you know what this is?” he asked softly.

  The bishop was silent for a long time. “Thane,” it said finally, “of all men, I am most sorry for you.”

  “I’m not the thane,” said Daenek wearily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m trying to find out. Tell me what this is. It’s a key, isn’t it? What does it unlock?”

  The expressionless face moved upwards to his. “Your birthright.”

  Daenek stood up, a growing exhaustion weighing on his spine.

  He looked up the hillside and saw the monastery walls silhouetted against the bank of storm clouds. Around him, the bishops’ faces were all turned away from him, back to where the sun would rise. “What do you do out here?” he murmured. “While you wait to die?”

  “We meditate,” said the one to which he had shown the chain.

  It did not look up at him. “Upon man. Upon the god who all around us is dying.”

  “. . . dying.” An echo, followed by a sharp buzz of static.

  He turned, feeling the cold wind against his skin. In the darkness, he climbed the hill and then circled the monastery, guiding himself by keeping one hand on the rough wall. He came at last to the equine, where he had left it tied to the gate’s hinge.

  As he loosened the knot, he heard the nervous whinnying of another equine somewhere behind him.

  He froze at the sound, then spun around. A hand gloved in coarse leather caught him at the throat and pinned him against the wall.

  Chapter VII

  “So smart,” jeered the militia captain from across the fire, his face redlit by the flames. The rest of the subthane’s men were a little ways off in the darkness, roaring with laughter and passing around flasks of the village’s brown liquor. “Smart enough to have your old lady blow the top of someone’s head off—but you couldn’t keep from leaving a track a blind baby could follow.” He took a swig from his ow
n bottle, then returned it to between his boots.

  Daenek said nothing. He flexed his cramped shoulders and felt his wrists chafe against the wiry cord that bound them behind his back.

  “Well, you’ve lost your choices now.” The captain’s face lengthened into a wolfish leer. “We’ll take you back in the morning, and the old geezer’ll get to use his little toy after all.” He laid a finger against his temple. “Zap. Just like that. Then we’ll watch your brains run out like pudding.”

  Lightning flickered above them. Daenek looked up at the rumbling sky and felt a drop of rain splash on his neck.

  “Afraid of a little wet, boy? We got something here to keep us warm. Want some?” The captain extended his bottle over the top of the flames. “No?”

  He dropped it, then watched in alcoholic befuddlement as the spilled liquid hissed into steam over the burning wood.

  Daenek’s gaze fell to the low flames. He could vaguely hear the rest of the subthane’s men cheering a drunken fight between two of their number. The equines, staked down several yards away, whined at each flash of lightning. Daenek coughed, feeling a band of pressure tighten across his chest. He had no idea of how far they had ridden from the monastery before his captors had decided to rest on this bare hillside for the night. They had not even given him a blanket to wrap around himself, and the cold seeped through his clothes and flesh, gripping his bones. The beginning of a fever made his vision waver and seem unreal.

  His shirt was soon plastered to his back as the rain increased.

  The fire sputtered, then collapsed into smoke and dark ashes.

  Daenek pulled his tightly bound feet closer to himself, trying to draw himself into a ball, to shelter against the storm what little warmth remained in his body.

  Minutes or hours passed, driven into his numb senses by the rain, and then he felt himself jerked upright by a hand painfully gripping his shoulder. His knees buckled as his bootsoles slipped in the mud.

  “Punk,” snarled the captain’s voice. The face was invisible in the darkness but the breath was thick and fetid with sour alcohol. “Rotten little thane’s son—if it weren’t for your cute tricks, we’d still be dry and warm right now!”

  The blow barely registered on Daenek’s senses—he was aware of the rough leather sliding across his skin and his head whipping to one side. There was a taste of warm salt on his lips.

  A tremendous burst of lightning and Daenek saw, frozen in its blue-white glare, the captain’s fist in the arc of another swing.

  Behind the captain was another figure, reaching for him with massive arms, glistening with the rain. But that can’t be, thought Daenek, his mind whirling in confusion. We must be kilometers away from the quarry—

  Then the mute, hulking figure, that Daenek had grown up watching and being watched by, gripped the captain’s neck and tore him away from Daenek as the lightning faded. As Daenek fell to his knees in the mud, he could hear the captain’s shout choked off with a single sharp noise.

  A second passed, and Daenek felt himself being lifted by one arm. Another flash of lightning revealed the mute watcher holding him, then reaching for the cords at his wrist. Grunting, the mute strained, then snapped the strands in two. Suddenly, Daenek felt something hard strike him in the side of the head.

  With his feet still bound, he fell sideways onto the flooded ground. The rest of the subthane’s men bowled over the mute, sprawling him and themselves into the muck.

  The slippery rope seemed to take hours to loosen, but the mute and the subthane’s men were still grappling in the mud when Daenek was at last able to stand up. He hesitated, trying to see what was happening with the roiling mass of bodies, when another lightning flash burst through the shafts of rain.

  One of the subthane’s men saw him and pulled away from the fight with the mute. From on his knees, the man dived for Daenek’s legs. Daenek staggered backwards and drove his fist into the side of the man’s head. The blow broke his grip, flinging him to one side, but not before Daenek felt a burning sensation course up his thigh, and saw a knife spin through the mud with its blade darkened.

  Daenek turned and stumbled away, feeling the pain in his leg flare with every step. Then rain lashed against his face and chest until he gasped. He ran on, his feet skidding on the muddy slope.

  Suddenly, he heard an animal-like cry, from a massive throat that had held no voice for years, filtering through the storm-filled distance. The shout died, broken off at the pitch of its rage. The ground sucked at his feet as Daenek ran.

  “Thane’s son,” whispered the storm’s voice.

  So this was where it would end. How far had he managed to drag himself before the rest of the subthane’s men had tracked him down? Kilometers perhaps, it didn’t matter. The whole universe had become mud and rain and tearing wind. The night was made even darker by fevered exhaustion and loss of blood.

  Daenek pressed his face into the mud, away from the sneering voices.

  “Thane’s son.” It was every voice now, that he had ever heard.

  The villagers, the Lady Marche, Stepke, the priests. All the languages, with the inflections of fear and hatred drowning out the few strains of pride and hope. Some dull animal part of Daenek, almost the only part still conscious, longed for silence, for rest. Let death come, breathed the small seed made of darkness.

  The rain beat on the hillside. Lightning and the shouts of his pursuers, very close. Noises from above him.

  Chapter VIII

  Sunlight. A yellow disc of it lay warm and liquid on Daenek’s face. He shifted his head away from the light and opened his eyes. The light came from a small round window set in a rivet-studded metal that was painted a dull grey.

  Daenek’s brow creased as he looked about in puzzlement. He was lying in a narrow bed with sheets slightly fuzzy with years of wear, and a thin, drab brown blanket over them. There were other beds on either side of him, empty and spaced in neat rows.

  The room was unlit except for the small circle of light.

  Sunlight, thought Daenek, concentrating furiously. But it was raining, and the subthane’s men—

  He sat up in the bed, the motion dizzying him for a second.

  His muscles felt stiff but, as he pressed the palm of his hand to his face, he knew the fever was gone. A dull twinge of pain had replaced the throbbing fury of the wound in his thigh. “Hey,” he called into the dimly-lit space. “Is there anybody here?” His voice cracked, stiff with disuse.

  Muffled noises from the far end of the room, then a door opened. Daenek watched as a man in a dingy white coat shuffled down the aisle towards him. When he reached the side of Daenek’s bed, he bent down and peered into Daenek’s face. The man’s own broad face spread into a grin, as he straightened up and sipped from a steaming cup he had carried with him. He turned away from the bed with a vague gesture of his hand. He spoke a few rapid words and hurried down the aisle to the door.

  Daenek said nothing, his brain sparked into furious activity.

  He had recognized the man’s language. Mertzer, he thought. I’m on board one of the caravans. Suddenly, he was aware of a deep subsonic vibration in the room, as from gigantic machines—the caravan’s engines. One hand flew to his forehead and kneaded the skin. Somehow an enormous gap had formed in his memory, from the storm to this warm, safe bed. He pulled himself up and rested his back against the wall at the head of the bed, and waited.

  Several minutes later the door opened again. The same man as before entered in company with a taller, sour-faced older man.

  As they approached the bed, Daenek noticed that the taller man’s white coat was clean, and that its wide pockets were stuffed with chrome-plated instruments. The man didn’t use any of the odd-shaped devices, though, but merely felt Daenek’s forehead with the back of his hand. With no change of expression on his deep-seamed face, he pulled down the bedcovers and examined the transparent dressing wrapped around Daenek’s thigh. The wound was a dark, but bloodless, red line running from Daenek’s
groin to just above his knee. The man poked at the thin, porous membrane and grunted, apparently satisfied.

  “Do you speak stone-cutters’ tongue?” said Daenek. The tall man glanced at him blankly, and the other grinned sheepishly.

  “How about English?” he asked, switching to it. “The language they speak in the Capitol?”

  No response. The tall man turned away from the bed and whispered to the other mertzer. When his companion had hurried away, the tall man sauntered lazily to the round window and gazed out of it, bored. Paying no further attention to Daenek, he took one of the shiny instruments from his coat pocket and began cleaning his fingernails with it.

  A longer time passed before the door opened again. The first mertzer re-entered leading still another figure. This one was grey-haired and stoop-shouldered with age.

  The old man lowered himself slowly onto the bed next to Daenek’s. He leaned forward. “How—” he spoke awkwardly in the stone-cutters’ language,—“how feel you?”

  “All right, I guess,” Daenek smoothed the blanket with his hand. “Hungry, though.”

  In the mertzer tongue, the old man relayed the information to the tall man, who shrugged without enthusiasm and headed for the door.

  The old guy must be one of the translators, thought Daenek. That handle the negotiations in all of the villages.

  “Uhh—” The old man scratched his fringe of hair as he looked at Daenek.

  “Is English easier for you?” asked Daenek in that language.

  “You know, the Capitol tongue?”

  The old man’s expression brightened. “Really?” he said, shifting into the same vocabulary. “That’s wonderful. Very nice. I haven’t talked like this for—it seems like years.” He paused, studying Daenek. “We just assumed that you only knew stone-cutter—you babbled in it for some time while you were unconscious.”

  “How long—how long was I out?”

  “Let me think. This would make it, ah, three days after they found you.”