Chapter One

 

     Giggling, Landon pushed the other small boy out of the way. "Give me that," he said, snatching the small telescope from Charlie, who keeled over laughing on the floor.

     "Don't look out the window," Charlie gasped between laughs. "Mr. Reynolds saw me. I know it!"

     Landon slowly lifted his head above the attic window's sill, and, sure enough, Mr. Reynolds was glaring up at him from his small patch of neatly kept lawn across the street. Quickly ducking, Landon grabbed at Charlie's sleeve, tugging him away from the window. They scrambled across the floor to the small trap door leading down from the attic, almost falling over each other in their rush to get to the relative safety of Landon's room. Once inside, they collapsed amidst the mess all over the floor, leftovers from the water-filled slingshot with which they had just assaulted Mr. Reynolds.

     "Did you actually hit him?"

     "Worse," Charlie said ominously. "I hit his lawn."

     "Over-watering," mimicked Landon in Mr. Reynolds' distinctly nasal voice, "is the worst sort of treatment for a young plant."

     "Oh man, if my mom ever makes me water his lawn again, I swear I'm gonna run away." Charlie crossed his arms, but Landon just gazed at him doubtfully from across the room. Charlie threatened to run away almost daily, but there wasn't really anywhere to go. Neither of them had ever been out of the village, or even knew what lay over the nearest hill.

     "C'mon," said Landon, "let's go downstairs. We can clean up later." Tall for his twelve years, he tripped several times on the way down to the living room and almost fell flat on his face when he banged his shin on the edge of the living room table. It didn't help matters any that his left eye—its bright golden iris in contrast with his perfectly normal brown right eye—couldn't see very well, leaving him constantly off-balance.

     He threw himself down on the couch and sighed. The summer stretched out before him like the endless ocean on the town's border, but he didn't feel any excitement at the prospect of so much free time. After all, he really had nothing to do. Though Charlie's mother had told him vague stories of a time just before he was born when there was always something to be done, when the town contained thousands of cows, horses, and every other imaginable type of animal, Landon just couldn't picture it. There hadn't been a living creature, aside from humans, in the town for ten years. Not even the smallest earthworm could be found in the soil, nor a bird in the sky.

     "Do you think horses really exist?" asked Landon suddenly, sitting up.

     "Sure they do, and big bears too. My dad told me there were giant bears, like a hundred times the size of a person!"

     "No way, he just said that to scare you."

     "Yeah, and they would eat people all the time," Charlie said, jumping onto the cushion next to Landon and letting out a roar. Landon tackled him, and they both fell on the floor giggling. Then they heard a sharp knock on the door.

     "Mr. Reynolds," they sputtered simultaneously, looking at each other in horror.

     "Answer it," said Landon.

     "No way. It's your house. You answer it." Gulping, Landon crept over to the window, from which he would be able to see the front door.

     "It's him," he whispered, shutting the blinds tightly. "Should we pretend we're not here? Maybe he wants to talk to your mom."

     "He saw us in the attic, so I think he knows we're here."

     "Yeah, you're probably right. I guess it's watering duty for us." Resignedly, Landon made his way to the door, turned the brass lock, and pulled the heavy door open. Sure enough, there stood Mr. Reynolds, with his bushy grey mustache and his perpetually worn gardening gloves. Landon hung his head, waiting for the inevitable gardening lecture detailing how essential a daily nutritional supplement is for a healthy daisy. But Mr. Reynolds didn't say a word. He just stood over Landon, frowning down at him.

     After a while, Landon mumbled, "I'm sorry about your lawn."

     "The lawn will be fine," Mr. Reynolds said in an oddly mechanical voice. "Aren't you boys going to be late for mid-day Institution?" Landon shot Charlie a quick look. Institution was a ceremony held in the Town Hall in which all the boys and girls of the village gathered together. Sometimes they'd run safety drills, while other times they would merely listen to some lecture, usually delivered by a man so old you could barely hear his voice from the front row. But they only had to go once a week during the summer.

     "Uh, school's done for the summer, Mr. Reynolds. Yesterday was the last day."

     "I think you'd better hurry up, Landon. You too," he said, motioning to Charlie, who was suddenly quite interested in something visible only to him on the wooden coffee table. "There's a special Institution in session. Didn't your mother tell you, Charlie?" He directed the question at Charlie. Though Landon had no parents, he answered Mr. Reynolds' question.

     "No,” he said, “Charlie slept over last night."

     "Well, I think you'd better head over to Town Hall." And with that, Mr. Reynolds turned abruptly and marched off towards his lawn.

     "Is it just me," said Charlie, jumping to his feet, "or was that plain weird?"

     "Yeah, and what's with Institution? We've never had an unscheduled one before."

     “Who knows,” shrugged Charlie. “It's probably nothing.”

     “I guess we'd better head over," said Landon, walking out the door and motioning for Charlie to follow. The two boys hurried past Mr. Reynolds, who stood watching stiffly from his lawn, as though rooted among his precious flowers. As Landon made his way towards the gravel path that cut through the town's center, he noticed that the town seemed unusually quiet. Boy, we must be really late, he thought nervously and quickened his pace—punishment for tardiness was usually severe. Because he had no parents, the punishment could come from anyone and could range from bad to horrible, so made a point to hasten his pace.

     Past Mr. Reynolds house, Town Hall loomed. The building's heavy white brick stood out sharply from the twenty old wooden houses surrounding Town Hall in a great semi-circle. The only other brick building—the schoolhouse—sat opposite Town Hall near the ocean and seemed less intimidating, probably because Landon spent most of his time there.

     “Who's that?” asked Charlie, pointing towards the forest beyond Town Hall. Landon, who had been pre-occupied with not tripping over the uneven gravel, looked up. He was just able to make out a figure near the forest dressed in a shimmering, golden uniform.

     “I don't recognize him,” whispered Landon, in awe. With only forty-eight adults and twenty children in the town, Landon could tell instantly the identity of any person he encountered. Landon was fairly certain this figure in the distance wasn't any child or adult he knew.

     “Is it a...Visitor?” asked Charlie. “I mean, my dad told me that when there used to be animals here, we'd get Visitors too. He told me they dressed in weird clothing and would visit every few years...”

     “I don't—”

     Landon was interrupted by a sudden piercing scream, which cut off as soon as it had begun. The noise ringing in his ears was not the playful yell of a child but the agonized scream of an adult in great pain. He had heard a scream like this once before, when Jeremy, the town's carpenter, had lost his arm in a milling accident.

     He and Charlie stopped moving, unsure whether they should hurry to help or hide. Thinking wildly, Landon heard a man's voice say, “Hide.” The sound had come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, for it felt to Landon as though someone were whispering directly into his ear. The single word triggered an intense feeling of panic, and he instinctively pulled Charlie, half stumbling, behind the decaying garden fence of the nearest house. He glanced frantically at Charlie, who looked just as stunned as he felt but who didn't seem to have heard the same voice.

     “What are you doing,” gasped Charlie, rubbing at his arm where Landon had pulled him.

     “I think we should hide,” explained Landon. Charlie nodded fearfully at Landon's odd behavior. Being the sole parentless child in town made Landon somewhat of a mystery, and most kids kept away from him. Even his best friend Charlie was a little afraid of him.

     The two boys crouched behind the fence for some minutes, breathing heavily with adrenaline, when they heard the familiar groan of Town Hall's great oak door. Landon peered through a hole in the fence, where the wood had rotted clean through. He counted eighteen children marching out of the door and down the five white brick steps, two-by-two, turning towards the forest and calmly walking in file. That made up the entire child population of the town, realized Landon, minus himself and Charlie. Looking to his right, he saw that Charlie had stood up.

     “Charlie, don't move,” whispered Landon urgently, tugging at Charlie's hand, but Charlie was already clambering over the fence. Landon stood to catch him.

     “Don't,” came the same whisper in his head, and, against his will, Landon knelt back down. He tried to stand up, but no matter what he did, he could not make his limbs follow brain's commands. By the time he regained enough control over himself to move his head back to the hole in the fence, Charlie had already joined the line of children in their march to the woods. Another figure exited the Hall, wearing the same glittering gold uniform as the one by the forest. This time, Landon could make out some of the golden outfit's details: a large, puffed collar covered the chin of the wearer, and the rest of the outfit was made of some sort of form-fitting golden armor with a pattern Landon couldn't quite see. High boots rounded out this bizarre outfit.

     Charlie broke off from the line of children and walked directly to the golden figure, stopping at its feet. After a few moments of what looked to Landon like a furtive conversation, the glittering person reached behind Charlie's head to touch his neck, then began walking in the direction of Landon's hiding place. The voice in his head spoke again.

     “Move,” it hissed. The voice had a rasping grate but at the same time carried a powerful authority, and Landon felt helpless to obey.

     Turning around, Landon half ran, half crawled over the dry, dusty ground to the nearest hiding place he could find, which happened to be Mr. Reynolds' neatly kept yard. He made his way carefully to the back of the house, where he would again be hidden from the view of anyone standing near Town Hall. He heard a sound to his right, and, spinning around, found himself face-to-face with Mr. Reynolds.

     “You've got to get out of here, Mr. Reynolds,” Landon blurted. “There's some bad men here, and they hurt someone in Town Hall, and—”

     “Landon, you should really go to Town Hall for Institution. You'll be late.” Mr. Reynolds' bushy mustache was perfectly still, and his lips barely moved as he talked. Only his hands twitched slightly beneath his gardening gloves.

     “I said you've got to get out of here,” Landon gasped in a panic.

     “You don't want to be late,” repeated Mr. Reynolds, showing no sign that he had heard Landon. “Get away,” said the gruff voice in Landon's head. It was all too confusing for him.

     “Uh, I've got to get out of here,” mumbled Landon, but as soon as he turned to leave, Mr. Reynolds' gloved hand whipped out with alarming speed and grasped Landon by the arm. Landon pulled away as hard as he could, but Mr. Reynolds' grip only tightened.

     “I HAVE THE CHILD,” yelled Mr. Reynolds, turning for a moment towards Town Hall. While Mr. Reynolds was still turned, Landon managed to pull his arm straight up and out of the gloved grip. He heard a sickening crunch as his shoulder popped out of its socket, and he yelped with pain. Before he could take even a step, Mr. Reynolds swung one of his arms into Landon's chest, and Landon immediately crumpled, feeling as though he had been hit by a solid ton of metal.

     He looked up in utter horror as Mr. Reynolds pulled off one of his gloves to reveal, where the flesh of his hand should be, brass-colored metal composed of countless tiny gears, rods and joints. Landon saw that the flesh of his arm stopped suddenly at the wrist and merged seamlessly with the metal. The hand flexed, tiny gears spinning, as Mr. Reynolds reached again to grasp Landon's arm. Landon pushed himself quickly back, accidentally crushing one of Mr. Reynolds' daisies. At the quiet snap of the daisy's delicate stem, Mr. Reynolds shook his head slightly, mustache quivering, and he seemed to see Landon for the first time.

     “Run,” Mr. Reynolds said urgently. “Landon, get away from here.” Landon didn't need telling twice. He pulled himself to his feet and began to run across the dusty ground to his own house.

     “Climb to the attic,” whispered the voice in his head. Landon saw no sign of anyone as he entered the house, which was unusual. One of the town's adults would usually stop by at this hour to make sure Landon was on schedule. Glancing out the window from which he had seen Mr. Reynolds standing at his door less than an hour ago, he saw the man—for it was a man—in the golden uniform round the corner of the house next to his. The man calmly walked up to Mr. Reynolds, reached behind his neck just like he had done to Charlie, and adjusted something Landon couldn't see. Mr. Reynolds fell straight back, like a tree severed at the roots.

     The golden man turned towards the window behind which Landon stood, and Landon backed away from the window so quickly he fell over, hitting his already painful shoulder. Muffling his sobs, he ran up the stairs to the second floor, pulled down the ladder leading up to the attic, and climbed up using one arm. He hauled himself, panting, over the edge of the floor and found himself staring at a pair of feet. Glancing up, he saw that the feet belonged to a very old man.

     “Don't be alarmed,” rasped the man. Landon, who was about to retreat back down the ladder, stopped suddenly at the sound of the old man's voice, for it was the same voice that had been whispering instructions in his head.

     “It was you in my head, wasn't it,” stated Landon slowly, standing up and leaning heavily against the wall. He was dizzy with pain from his shoulder, and he must have banged his leg as well, as blood was seeping from a gash on his knee.

     “Perhaps.” The old man stared at him intently with steel-grey eyes that seemed to emit a light of their own in the dim attic.

     “But how—”

     “There's no time for an explanation. You must listen to me carefully. One of the Perianth soldiers is outside the house at this very moment, and he will be coming for you as soon as he receives his orders.”

     “Perianth?” Landon had never heard the word before.

     “Yes, they are the soldiers of the Leaf, but you will learn more about them soon enough,” said the man, and a familiar image from Landon's dreams of a golden tree burst uninvited into his head. “We have only moments until he enters the house, so I will tell you this: you must do what the soldier asks of you. You must appear as though you are completely under his control. Your life, and the life of your friends depend on it. Do you understand?” Landon could sense a great strength emanating from this old man. His arms were thin, but sinewy, his face wrinkled yet sharply angular, and his stature was completely straight. Most of all, those steel eyes portrayed fierce intelligence.

     “I can't,” sobbed Landon, lowering his eyes and sinking to the floor. Any other boy would have cried out for his mother, but Landon had grown up alone and was used to fending for himself, despite the care he received from the other village adults. Nevertheless, Landon was still just a boy.

     “Landon, look at me,” commanded the old man. Landon looked up through tear-stained eyes. “Your golden eye marked you from birth. The Perianth Empire knows you are special, but what they know is only part of the truth. Your destiny is not with them, but your path crosses theirs, and there is nothing I can do to prevent this.” He touched Landon with one leathery hand, and Landon immediately felt a coolness spreading over his body, like being dipped in water after hours in the sun. When the feeling passed, his head was clear.

     “I know your strength, Landon, better than you do yourself. You must meet the soldier at the entrance to the house. He will ask you to join him. You must say these words exactly: 'I am welcomed to the house of the Leaf.' Do you understand?”

     “Yes,” he gulped.

     “He will place a small, golden leaf behind your neck—”

     “What leaf?” interrupted Landon.

     “The leaf is the instrument of the empire,” said the man, “not an end in itself. Much like a violin needs a hand with sure intent, the leaf requires a conductor. Remember: without the conductor the leaf is little more than a violin without a player.” Landon nodded, though he didn't understand a word.

     “Now listen,” the man continued, “when the soldier places the leaf on your neck, you will feel pain, but you must hold perfectly still. You will then walk with him to the edge of the forest. Mimic the behavior of the other boys, and you will be fine. Don't attempt to speak to your friends; the leaf has already stolen their memories and covers their minds. Above all, do not leave the soldiers' sight. Do anything unexpected or show that your mind is still intact, and you will long for death.” The old man reached out towards Landon's hurt shoulder. Landon gasped in anticipation of the pain at the man's touch, but found instead that his shoulder had moved back into line with its socket, and the sharp throbbing from a moment before had suddenly faded to a dull ache.

     “What is your name?” Landon asked in awe as he rubbed his shoulder. The old man considered him for a moment before speaking.

     “I am the Alchemist,” he said. With these last words, he turned, and with the agility of a much younger man, dashed to the window and jumped out. Landon rushed to the window, but he saw no sign of the Alchemist. He slowly backed away toward the attic's exit, whimpering slightly in pain from his knee, and made his way down the ladder and to the house's entrance, where the Perianth soldier waited.

     Landon noticed, now that he stood so close to the soldier, that his uniform consisted entirely of small golden leaves interlocking in a spiraling pattern. The soldier reached one hand to his uniform and plucked a leaf from his left breast. With the leaf balanced delicately on his thumb, he placed his hand behind Landon's head and touched his neck just below the base of his skull. Landon shuddered slightly at the sharp pain as he felt the leaf bury itself in his flesh, but he fought himself to be still.

     “You are ready to go,” stated the soldier bluntly, lowering his hand back to his waist.

     “I am ready to go,” repeated Landon.

     “Join us.”

     “I am welcomed to the house of the Leaf,” Landon recited, just as the Alchemist had instructed. The soldier nodded, his uniform shimmering as he turned and marched off. Landon followed behind, out the door of his house, past Town Hall, eventually joining the rest of the children near the forest. He took his place at the end of the line beside Charlie, who showed no sign of recognition. With one Perianth soldier leading the line and one stationed directly behind Landon, the children marched into the forest, leaving behind their homes and, save for one, their minds.

 

 

Copyright 2010© Alexander Jacobs