Freda: Volume III in the New Eden series

Freda

Peter J. Dudley

Copyright © 2014 Peter Dudley

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1500988227

ISBN-13: 978-1500988227

DEDICATION

For Ethan and Sam, clarity and light.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is more than a book; it’s the final part in a trilogy which would not exist without the support of my family, friends, and fellow writers. While a host of people supported my four-year effort, a few deserve extra super special mention: My father, who has been a beacon of positivity and creativity throughout my life. My wife, who is so understanding and tolerant. My two boys, who inspire and delight me every day. My friend and editor Aerin Bender-Stone, a guiding voice when I was lost in the maze of my prose. My many readers, and everyone who sent me a comment, wrote a review, submitted a term paper, or just told me what they thought of my stories. To each, thank you.

Cover Credit: Wendy Russ

CHAPTER 1

Until this moment, I secretly hoped that Darius would decide not to destroy the world. The world still exists, for now, but as snow swirls around Dane’s boots before me, with every step I wonder if this is the moment we’ll all be incinerated.

From behind, Patrick whispers, “I’m sure your parents are fine, Freda.”

Until the Bomb goes off, we can still hope.

As the six of us rush through the outskirts of Southshaw, empty houses watch, hushed in a thickness of undisturbed white on a cold, windless morning. Nearly two days hurrying through the Subterran tunnels left us overheated and undernourished, and this freezing midday grayness refreshes me with a different kind of oppression.

We’ve come here to stop Darius. We’ve come to save the people who stayed behind. Dark windows and snow drifts gathered in doorways suggest that there may be no one left to save.

What did Darius do when he returned here in his boats two days ago after we defeated his army in Tawtrukk? Did he let the people flee into the hills? Did he round them up and kill them? Did he march them off to die somewhere else? I pray we’ll live long enough to find out.

“Smoke,” Dane says, pointing through the trees in the direction of the village center. “From Semper’s house, I think.”

“Your house,” Patrick corrects. It’s a nice gesture, acknowledging Dane as leader of what remains of Southshaw.

Dane quickens his pace through the ankle-deep snow. “Not for long if we don’t stop Darius,” he says without looking back.

Nearly two days running through torchlit tunnels, nearly two days of breathless speculation about Darius’ plan. But how can sane people predict the actions of the insane? The only thing we could agree on was that we would stay together. It was Dane who decided we would go first to the chapel. But not to pray.

I smell the smoke before I see it, breathing hard as we jog along this snow-covered road bereft of footprints and wagon tracks. After a minute, the shape of Semper’s house looms through the trees like a solid shadow. This is the second time I’ve emerged from Subterran tunnels to assault my husband’s house from behind. The first time was six months ago, on a summer’s night, to reclaim Southshaw from Baddock and his thugs. The woods were alive with night sounds, then. Today they lie shrouded in the pallor of winter.

“Do you hear that?” Tom, also behind me, has stayed quiet until now.

On the dead air float faint sounds of men working, far off, maybe near the lake. Hammers on metal, a man’s shout. I’ve heard enough fighting in the past month to know these are not the sounds of battle, but they make me shiver, wondering what Darius is building.

The five men around me break into a fast trot as we exit the woods into the clearing around Semper’s house. Dane glances back once as I fall behind, just before he reaches the house and sprints around the corner toward the chapel.

As I follow, memories threaten to overwhelm me. In a moment, I’ll round that corner, and I will see the steps where Dane and I stood before our wedding. The same steps we stood on when Darius exiled us. The same steps we snuck down two months ago when we abandoned Southshaw to help Lupay fight back against Darius and his army. I’m not sure I will be able to bear the sight.

But I go on anyway, slipping in the dry snow packed hard by the feet that went before. The sight shocks me to a sharp halt.

The steps are gone. The chapel doors lie askew on the ground, half covered by frozen, brown slush. Much of the wall has been hacked away, splinters and rubble littering the yard on either side of a wide swath of flattened, dirty snow. A pile of burnt scraps smolders nearby, wet smoke drifting skyward.

Patrick charges through the gaping hole where the door used to be, an axe in one hand and a hunting knife in the other. He growls a low battle yell as the first sounds of a clash shatter the midday silence. Tom halts outside and turns back to me, putting up his hand.

“Darius’ men,” he says simply. “Stay back.”

He doesn’t have to stop me; I’d be no help in a fight and have no interest in watching. Instead, I look to the trees and the village lying silent beyond the chapel. Could more be waiting to ambush us?

Grunting and yelling tumble from inside, the clash of metal on metal. One cry of pain. Was that Dane? No, I don’t think so.

But I can’t stand back here; those men in there must be made aware that I’ve come. I’m First Wife, even if they don’t acknowledge it, and my presence changes this from a simple brawl to a challenge of loyalty and faith. They see Dane only as an enemy, but they’d never expect my appearance.

After one deep breath of the cold morning air, I push past Tom and clamber up the rough ramp that’s been thrown together over the remains of the steps. At the top, I straighten to my full height, though I look more like a vagabond than First Wife in my faded brown Tawtrukk trousers and rough shirt, with my hair tied back under a knit cap.

The scene confuses me. I’ve entered this chapel through these doors countless times, but nothing looks the same except the high windows letting in the gray winter’s light. The wooden pews, wrenched from the floor, lie jumbled at the far edge of the room. The two thick pillars just inside, carved as Adam and Eve welcoming us to worship, are gone; the balcony they supported is also gone. Only the scars of frantic destruction decorate the walls. Under my feet, the ancient woodwork has been ripped out to reveal the harsh metal drains of the Decon ceremony.

The fighting is already over. In the room’s barren center, three of Darius’ men kneel before Dane, their faces wild with unkempt beards and their hair matted and unclean. They shiver in thin clothes as the breeze blows freely through the chapel. I would feel pity but for the destruction they’ve wrought, and for the unrepentant hatred in their sneers.

I never expected this sight. Darius really is insane. I thought he had merely mangled the scripture in his mind, twisting it until it drove him to kill his own brother and justify his war against our neighbors, but his madness goes deeper, driving him to this wanton desecration. In the end, our most holy place is no better than a woodshed to him.

One of the three kneeling men holds his arm and coughs blood onto the scarred, gouged-up floor. He wavers but does not fall. He looks up at me, and I try to pity him. I try to feel some compassion in my heart for him. But there is no uncertainty in his eyes. No regret. Only hatred. He rasps out heavy, foggy breaths that cloud the air between us.

“Where is the Bomb?” Dane’s voice is colder and sharper than the frozen sunlight dropping through the high windows.

None of the kneeling men speaks.

Dane raises his axe in threat but it has no effect on them.

Patrick shakes his head. “Don’t bother, Semper. They expect to die soon anyway. Don’t you?” He kicks at one of the men, who grunts but otherwise does not respond.

The Bomb. A void fills the dais where it used to stand, towering over the congregation and the podium where Semper would read from Truths on Sunday mornings. Its absence feels like waking up one morning to find the mountains have disappeared overnight.

“Where is it!” Dane barks the command at the kneeling men.

From behind me, Tom calls, “Dane, I think I know what they’ve done.” Tom steps up beside me. “They’ve taken it down to the lake.”

Questions fill Dane’s face, but one quick glance at the wide, muddy swath of packed snow outside tells me Tom is right. The groove points away from the chapel in the direction of the lake like the trail of a giant snake. They’ve dragged the Bomb to the lake.

Dane puts voice to his questions. “Why would he do that?”

Tom says, “I’m not sure. Darius is insane. That’s about all that’s clear to me.”

But it makes sense after all. I answer all their questions. “He’s going to put it on a boat. Mad as he is, he still thinks his actions are righteous. And that means he’ll get the Bomb as close to Tawtrukk as he can before... what is the word?”

“Detonating,” Tom answers.

“Yes, before detonating it.”

Finally one of the kneeling men speaks. “You’re too late. Ya can’t stop him. But if you hurry, you might witness the final moments yourself, meet God alongside Darius.”

“Darius won’t be meeting God,” Dane says through clenched teeth.

The kneeling man smiles a hateful, smug sneer. He nods once and then shuts his mouth and remains silent.

I step slowly into the room to stand beside Dane. “Please,” I say to the kneeling man who spoke, “we may be too late to stop Darius, but I would like to spend my final moments in the company of my parents. Surely you’ll grant me that mercy.”

This surprises the kneeling man, and I watch him chew his lip as he thinks through my request.

“Please,” I repeat. “Tell me where I can find my parents.”

His moment of doubt tells me my parents are still alive. If they were dead, he’d have gleefully told me without hesitation. They must be imprisoned, then. And that means there is still hope.

He confirms my hope a second later. “Won’t do you no good. But they’s with the others in the big barn down by old Jingham’s place.”

“How many?” Dane asks before I can stop him.

“Hunnert or so. Her parents and all the others what didn’t want to, or couldn’t, go see the end of all creation.” He sounds reverent as he says these final words. The end of all creation. He’s wrong about that, but telling him won’t change anything. He wouldn’t believe me, so strong is his faith in Darius’ misinterpretation of Truth and Prophecies.

“Won’t be long, now,” he mumbles, closing his eyes.

Dane looks at me, worry hardening his face. We both want to ask
how long
, but we’re both afraid the answer will be
not long enough
.

One of the men that came with us, an older, black-haired man named Brian from the hills of eastern Southshaw, asks Dane, “What do we do with them?”

The captive who spoke before pipes up again. “No need to do anything,” he says. “We won’t foller ya. You’ll go and let everyone out’n that barn, and you’ll go and try to stop Darius from lighting the world on fire. But it won’t do no good. God’s got a plan. Darius is his instrument. You cain’t stop ‘em.”

“Just the same,” Dane says with a grunt as he grabs the man’s arm and lifts him until he stands, “I’d prefer if you live out your last minutes in the stables.” He pushes the man at the gaping doorway, and I step aside as he stumbles into the frozen afternoon. Dane follows close behind. “Wait here,” he says to me as he passes. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Patrick grabs one of the others, and Brian hauls out the third. The fourth lies on the chapel floor, gasping uneven breaths as he holds his bloody arm tight against his chest. I’m about to ask Tom to bring the injured man away, but with sudden revulsion I realize he’s already rasping his final breaths. The arm he holds against his chest is no longer attached, and blood seeps black into the shadows behind him.

When the others have gone, Tom says, “I’ll watch for trouble outside,” and exits.

I understand why he doesn’t want to stay in here. He prefers fresh air, having spent his whole life underground. But the chapel holds me. Even with the pews discarded in the corners, even with the dais demolished and the sacred books gone, even with the entryway ripped from existence, this is still where my mother cleansed me in my very first Decon, where Judith taught me the lessons of Truth, where Dane committed himself to me. No amount of desecration will change those things.

“Please.” Barely audible, the rasp of the injured man rises from the floor. “Please,” he repeats.

His face is ashen like the cloudy sky, and he lies on his back with his chest rising in tiny fits with each gasp. He can’t hurt me, with death already tightening its grip on him. I approach and stand directly over him, but I can’t hear any sound from his moving lips. I kneel beside him and lean close.

“Have they gone?”

His words are like the barest breeze on distant trees, his breath rotten like spoiled meat.

“Yes. It’s only you and I here, now.” I whisper back to him. My gentle voice seems to ease his discomfort.

“Can you forgive me?” The words are only a wheeze now, but they are clear.

“I... forgive you?” I do not know what he means.

“First Wife,” he breathes, his face now snow-white, “I beg for absolution.”

His eyes flutter closed and then open again, and for a moment their milkiness clears and he stares at me with sincere urgency.

Absolution. He asks me to grant him God’s forgiveness. If only I could.

“It is not the office of First Wife to grant absolution,” I reply. “I am sorry, but your fate now lies with God. May He grant mercy on your soul.”

A terror fills his eyes as he struggles for another breath, then one more. I clasp his good hand in mine, but it’s too late. The light of life fades from his eyes, and his body slumps, ending its weak convulsions.

I try to pity him. I try to find forgiveness in my heart for the things I imagine he’s done, for his part in Darius’ madness.

“Freda, come on.” Dane’s voice calls to me from outside. “We have to hurry.”

I release the man’s dead hand, slick with his own blood, and rise. Maybe in those last moments he understood all that he had done. Perhaps he finally saw truth and could not find it in his own heart to forgive himself. If only Dane had been here. Dane could have administered absolution.