Recreance (The Aeternum Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “Up here! Hurry, climb to the rooftop!” the voice whispered urgently. Oren spun and looked up. There was someone on the roof! His eyes darted frantically as he tried to figure out what to do. He took one last look at the approaching figures below and decided to take his chances with the stranger above. He grabbed the edge and scrambled, trying to pull himself up. He had one leg up over the edge when the stranger grabbed his belt and pulled him the rest of the way.

  There was something vaguely familiar about the man before him, but he was too terrified to remember what.

  “Climb onto my back. There is no time to argue, just do it!” The man turned around and crouched down.

  Oren hesitated.

  “Listen to me,” the man turned and whispered, “If you do not do exactly as I say, you will be very dead, very quickly.”

  “My parents! They’re inside!” Oren pleaded.

  “There is no time!” He emphasized each word.

  Oren panicked. “I can’t just leave them behind!”

  The stranger grabbed Oren’s arm and spun, pulling it over his shoulder. The tugging sensation grew stronger and the air around him began to ripple. Oren felt heavy, and on the verge of throwing up. The stranger seemed less affected and sprinted across the roof. Oren had to hold on to him or be dragged across it. The stranger leapt from the edge of the roof toward the old oak tree beside Oren’s house. Half way through the air, their forward momentum slowed unnaturally.

  Instead of landing on one of the thick branches, they ended up dangling from it. The force behind had grown so strong that their legs dangled back at an angle toward the house. Oren looked down at the ground twenty feet below as he struggled to maintain his grip on the stranger. A low pulsating hum filled his head. With a grunt, the stranger pulled them up onto the branch and began clawing his way to the other side of the tree while Oren clung desperately to his back. The further they got, the weaker the pulling sensation became.

  “Hold tight,” the stranger warned, then leapt with incredible strength. Oren clenched his eyes shut, and they flew through the air, landing in a tree across the lane.

  “Wait!” Oren’s heart was thundering in his chest. “My parents! We have to go back! Take me back!” his voice cracked from shouting frantically, but was drowned out by the whipping wind. He clawed at the stranger. The humming grew louder, and there was a loud wooden crack from behind.

  The stranger leapt, and they soared through the air for a few very long seconds. They hit the ground and rolled to a stop in a neighbor’s lawn down the street. The stranger quickly recovered, and crept over to Oren, who was trying to stand on unsteady legs. “I am sorry,” the stranger whispered into Oren’s ear. He put a hand on his shoulder. “It was too late for them. There is nothing either of us can do.”

  Oren watched with growing horror as his house, his family, his whole world, shook violently. In less than a second, it collapsed in on itself from all directions into a small rotating white sphere, the size of a child’s ball. It rotated in the air, glowing gently for a few seconds before disappearing completely in a flash of light. The wind died down, and the three figures lowered their arms.

  Oren cried out in agony, but the stranger moved quickly and covered his mouth, stifling the sound. “We have to leave here,” he whispered in his ear. “We won’t be safe until we’re outside the city.”

  Oren didn’t hear. He was consumed with grief. His entire body was wracked with sobs and he writhed in the stranger’s grip.

  “Oren!” the stranger gave him a violent shake, staring hard into his tortured eyes. “If we do not leave here immediately, we will both be dead by sunrise.”

  “I don’t care! They’re gone. I can’t believe they’re gone. This can’t be happening.” He struggled to wrap his mind around the paradox of his parents both existing and not existing at the same time.

  “I am sorry. I cannot bring them back, but I can help you to avoid their fate.”

  “They’re gone…” he whispered, staring blankly.

  The stranger stood Oren up, supporting him with one arm, and walked him back behind the house.

  For Oren, the rest of that night was a series of dreamlike, flashing images.

  A child’s toy discarded in the grass.

  Shuffle

  A broken chain-link fence.

  Shuffle

  A stray cat with its head in a trashcan.

  Shuffle

  A large cement tunnel with a steel grate.

  Shuffle

  By the time he collapsed into a deep, unconscious sleep, the first rays of sunlight were peeking out over the horizon.

  3

  Oblivion

  Oren’s mom and dad stood over him looking down, their warm faces emanating love, protection, and light. His mother sang a slow, haunting melody, and he drifted away on the minor notes, into the darkness...

  Oren slowly opened his eyes. Shafts of light filtered through rows of small, dried white logs a few feet above him. The logs were slanted, leaning up against a rock wall on his right. Something outside was making a rhythmic, sandy rubbing sound. It was getting louder. Never in his life had he felt so utterly and completely alone. He floated in emptiness.

  Oren gently prodded at his memory like a man testing for injuries. He recoiled. The events of the previous night were etched like fire into his mind. He went back to the numbness, and stared at the dry logs of the makeshift shelter. The sandpaper noise stopped, and there was a deep thump of something heavy hitting the ground.

  Someone walked up to the open side of the lean-to and stood near his head. Oren remained still, staring at the logs. After a few seconds, a leather-wrapped canteen hit the ground beside him.

  “Drink.”

  Oren rolled over onto his side. He didn’t want to move, think, or do anything other than float in emptiness. The man’s crunching footsteps grew quieter as he moved away. Oren drifted into a dreamless sleep. When he opened his eyes again night had fallen. The canteen sat upright on the ground beside him with the lid off. It was empty. Must have drunk it in my sleep, he thought.

  His body ached, but he couldn’t stand up in the makeshift shelter, so he decided to move outside. He crawled on hands and knees off the blanket and onto the dusty hardpan. His back popped as he stood and stretched up toward the night sky. He looked up. The view was indescribable. He had never in all his life seen so many stars, stretching out to infinity. Curved across the sky beneath them was a thin band of white, stretching from one horizon to the other. The Calleis Ring had never been so vivid from within the artificial atmosphere of New Arcadia. Oren was reminded of a story his Noni once told him about the legend of the sister-moons.

  Long ago, before any humans walked this world, two moons adorned our sky. They were sisters named Calleis and Megaera, and both were in love with the sun. They vied for his attention, yearning for the touch of his golden rays. Calleis’ beauty was legendary. She absorbed the sun’s light and reflected it brilliantly across the galaxy for all to see. Megaera was dull by comparison, but held great power over the tides.

  One day, Calleis moved as close to the sun as she possibly could, hoping to gain his favor. She shone with such heavenly radiance, that her sister was filled with a jealous rage. Megaera snuck up behind her and brought a large stone down onto Calleis, shattering her into a million pieces. Calleis’ body drifted around the world, encircling it with a necklace of white. To Megaera’s dismay, Calleis would now forever rest beneath sun’s rays.

  Megaera was furious, and vowed to block out the sun whenever she was able, casting her sister, and our world into a brief darkness every seven years.

  Oren blinked as the reverie faded. Darkness hid much of the landscape, but he could make out large mountains on the horizon.

  His awe was replaced by despair as a wave of grief crashed into him like a raging squall. His stomach clenched, and the physical pain of his loss brought him to his knees. He retched, but there was nothing left in his stomach to bring up. Tears streamed
down his cheeks, and he leaned over sobbing with his forehead resting on the cold hard ground. He continued like that for what felt like eternity.

  Oren awoke again in the lean-to. Another canteen of water, and some kind of dried meat were beside him. Sunlight once again filtered through the logs above and the opening by his head. He reached over and uncorked the canteen with trembling hands. He wanted so badly to just let go; to drift off into oblivion where he could feel nothing. The temptation was so great that he put the canteen back down, and stared blankly at the rock wall.

  “I could use a hand,” said a man’s voice from nearby. “We’re low on water and I need to gather some more supplies.”

  Oren looked down at the canteen.

  “It’ll help,” the voice said. “Doing things. Keeping busy.”

  Oren sat there, still staring. He heard a sigh, followed by the scrape of footsteps moving away. He felt like a man clinging to the wreckage of a broken ship amidst hundred foot waves of grief. It was all he could do to keep from drowning. He looked at his hands, turning them over. After a few minutes, he slowly reached for the canteen, picked it up and took three large swallows. He wasn’t hungry, but the way his hands shook told him he should probably eat. He picked up a piece of the dried meat and ripped off a chunk with his teeth. It was gamey and heavily salted. He had to chew each bite for a long time before he could swallow. He took another swig from the canteen and made his way out of the lean-to and into the desert sun.

  The oppressive heat was the first thing he noticed. He squinted, waiting for his watery eyes to adjust to the blinding light. He took a deep breath and smelled traces of day old wood smoke. The hot air was dry and arid. As his eyes adjusted, he turned in a circle, observing his surroundings for the first time.

  Cracked, brownish-red hardpan stretched out for miles in every direction. There was nothing growing here, save the occasional twisted, dried up tree and scraggy bush. The barren landscape was punctuated with red, flat-topped buttes, climbing unevenly toward the sky in staggered, broken columns. To the north, a massive gorge split the rocky terrain. Far to the west, out toward the horizon, massive snow-capped mountains loomed. Their distance was impossible to gauge.

  Oren found himself in a small, bare bones encampment. It was situated against the concave side of a large outcropping of rock. He inspected the outcropping’s unusual surface. It was made of thousands of flat layers, stacked unevenly on top of each other. He turned and spotted the source of the smoky smell. A ring of stones surrounded a few charred pieces of wood. There was another shelter like his, leaned against the rock several feet away.

  Where am I? It was so utterly different from anywhere he’d ever been. Where was his home? He looked up to the top of the outcropping. It was about forty feet high, and would give a good vantage point. Oren walked over to the rocky surface and began to climb, using the protruding edges as handholds. Half way up, he stopped to rest and a warm breeze buffeted his back. He continued the rest of the way and pulled himself over the ledge. He lay there panting, his sweaty face resting on the flat surface of the rock. After a few moments he stood and looked out. His breath caught.

  The land to the east sloped sharply down, and eventually flattened out into a vast plain. Upon the plain, sprawled out before him in all its massive glory was New Arcadia. It was so enormous that he could barely discern the curve of the high wall marking its outer edge. Seeing it for the first time from the outside, Oren thought it looked more like a massive island than a colony. The walls themselves were made of thick, riveted steel, curving slightly inward as they climbed. Within them, patterned fields flush with crops covered small rolling hills. They were peppered with the occasional farmhouse and grove of trees. The green, fertile land was a stark contrast to the dry, barren desert outside. Further in, the fields gave way to suburban sprawl.

  This was where most Arcadians lived. Neighborhood precincts of houses, apartment buildings, and shops made a massive circle surrounding the city core. Forests, streams, and parks divided the precincts into smaller chunks. Beyond the suburbs, Oren saw two tall spires, stabbing mercilessly at the sky. The Pillars of Ascension, he thought with wonder. Surrounding them, but nowhere near as high, were towering stone structures.

  Beyond its sheer scale, perhaps the most breathtaking attribute of the city was an unassuming strip of shadow running around the bottom. The entirety of New Arcadia was built on a massive network of ferromagnetic polarity dischargers. The colony levitated fifteen feet above the ground. Buried deep underground, massive reverse polarity lodestones generated an opposite charge. Oren had learned about the ferro-discs in school, but like most other Arcadians he took it for granted.

  The ground heaved, and Oren was thrown down onto the flat surface of the outcropping. A persistent thunderous roar filled his ears, and the rock below him shook violently. He was thrown near the edge, the whole time grasping frantically for a handhold. Another violent heave and the rock moved out from under him, leaving forty feet of open air below. Oren cried out, reaching desperately for the ledge. His right hand found purchase on the raised lip of the outcropping and he swung down, smashing in to the rock. His lip was bloodied and his body was bruised, but he still held on. Two aftershocks threatened to shake him loose, but he managed to stay pressed against the rock face.

  Oren heard faint yelling. It sounded like a tiny and alarmed voice, yelling from far away. The ground seemed to have calmed down for the moment, so he decided to chance climbing back up onto the top of the rock to collect himself.

  “Tifl …out…! … down …!”

  A small distant figure was racing toward the campsite, waving both arms over his head. What’s gotten him so excited?

  The tiny man grew bigger as he came closer. Oren recognized him as the stranger who had brought him here. The man continued at a full sprint, shouting and waving his arms.

  Huh, Oren thought, placing his hands on his hips. He peered at the approaching man. He wasn’t just waving his arms, he was pointing at something. Something above…

  Oren looked up just in time to see a giant mass of black wings and feathers streaking toward him. He had less than a second to react. Adrenaline flooded his body like liquid fire, and his instincts took over. He dove to the right, but wasn’t fast enough. Something sharp raked down his thigh. He screamed in pain as it tore through his trousers and the flesh beneath. Oren landed hard on the rock. The diving creature smashed solidly onto the surface where he’d stood a second ago, and slid over the far edge. Oren held his leg, rocking back and forth. He clenched his teeth, grimacing from the pain.

  The top of the outcropping provided zero cover, and the sound of large wings buffeting the air compelled Oren to get moving. He slid his feet over the edge and started to descend as fast as possible, given his injury. Something heavy landed with a thump on the surface above.

  By the time he was half way down the forty-foot outcropping, his fingers ached and his leg was wet with blood. He looked up to the ledge and saw a pair of small orange eyes, pinning him to the rock face. A large onyx beak, curving down at the tip, protruded from between them. It resembled polished stone, and looked big enough to split bone. The rest of its head was covered in black and turquoise iridescent feathers. Its beak parted and a terrifying, guttural shriek broke the air. Oren had no free hands to cover his ears, and ducked his head down trying to block out the sound.

  Once it stopped, he resumed his frantic descent, looking down to find his footing. When he looked up again, the creature had moved over the ledge, and was crawling down toward him. Its talons easily gripped the rock face, and its long tail flicked to maintain balance. Oren half climbed, half slid down the rock. A noise, much closer now, drew his attention. When Oren glanced up this time, he was looking directly into small orange eyes just a few feet from his face. They held a calculating intelligence, and Oren was convinced that they were the last thing he’d ever see. The creature’s razor-sharp beak snapped at him and he ducked, narrowly avoiding it.

>   It made a low, throaty sound. The pitch rose at the end as if in question. Up above, its tail stopped flicking and fanned out near the tip, displaying a pattern of red and black feathers. The pattern floated slowly in hypnotic figure eights over its head. Oren focused his attention back onto the beak, but it was too late. The creature was already snapping toward his right hand. He jerked it away, releasing his hold on the rock, just as the glossy black beak snapped shut, shearing off the smallest finger. Oren screamed in agony, oblivious to the blur streaking across the rock face above him. There was a loud crash and fluttering of feathers, and the creature was gone. Oren’s grip failed. His arms flailed wildly and he fell the remaining distance to the ground. Everything went dark.

  4

  Beneath the Veil

  Rain drops streaked down the window in fat channels. Oren sat, looking out at the endless gray clouds blanketing the sky. It had been raining for days, as if the weather were a reflection of the sombre mood in his home. His mother had barely said three words in the past week, and his father was in a constant state of busyness, cleaning, fixing, and re-cleaning things around the house. Meals were accompanied by the sounds of silverware clinking on dishes, and not much else.

  It had been three weeks since his newborn baby brother slipped away from them in the night, and a dark cloud of grief blanketed his family. His emotions were a jumbled mess of hurt and confusion. He was only nine years old, and before now he’d never experienced death first-hand.

  More than anything, he missed his parents—how they were before. His father stared off into space more often than not, and his mother spent most days in bed. The sound of nearby sweeping drew his attention. He watched his father drag a broom across the clean floor.