Orlo: The Chosen – Chapter 1
Orlo shivered and considered putting on the heavy, purple wool coat his uncle had given him. But it was not cold, not really. At least not as cold as it was up in the Conclusus.
Nearly a month had passed since Orlo learned Elder Archivald was his uncle. The idea that the stoic elder was truly his blood relative had taken some getting used to. Initially, he had felt unsettled and had a hard time addressing the man as uncle instead of elder when the two were outside the perimeter of listening ears or minds.
Orlo’s world had been turned upside down since the Tournament of Inventors. He hardly knew whom to trust and openly welcomed his uncle’s overprotectiveness. When they were not meeting in secret with the Shamar—a group of Followers vowing to secretly protect those of the Conclusus who needed protecting from Bednegraine’s laws—Orlo spent his days in the Hall of Inventors with his uncle and his evenings in the small three-story tower with Poppy.
“She’ll brainwash her!” Poppy hammered her fist down on a small table at the back of the postal.
“What do you mean she washes brains?” Davy shouted, flailing his arms, accidentally knocking his red top hat to the ground with the mechanized appendage. “She won’t be getting this brain or that of my Rosemary.”
Orlo stifled a laugh, but the situation was far from funny. Bednegraine’s coercitors were on the prowl, capturing anyone who even furrowed a brow at her name.
“I believe what our healer is trying to convey is that Bednegraine will manipulate the leader’s thoughts. Is that correct?” Archivald asked softly.
“Yes.” Poppy blushed. “Of course . . . mind manipulation. I am so sorry.”
“Your apology is not necessary. However, you are correct. Bednegraine will do everything in her limited power to convert the captured Followers.”
“Like Edwin.” Orlo sighed. The elder nodded.
It had pained Orlo to see his chamber mate’s sudden shift in personality, from curious and eager to angry and demanding. Moments before his capture, Edwin had come to an understanding of The Way. He had discovered the corruptness of the elders and Gardener Bednegraine. But she had taken him and turned him.
There was a time when Orlo wondered if life would be simpler on the other side, her side. Maybe I would be better off if I had gone with Bednegraine. He shook the memory of the thought away. At the time, all hope had seemed lost. Maybe that was why Edwin had sided with her. Maybe Edwin thought he would be better off. But Edwin had wanted to know about The Way. Something had happened to Edwin to turn him against Orlo—a something Orlo had overcome without even knowing it. It had not made sense, until now. She had used her gifting to alter his thoughts. Brainwashed. Mind manipulation. It was the only explanation for Edwin’s change in behavior. Whatever brainwashing Bednegraine had used on Edwin, Orlo was determined to undo it.
“That poor boy. Has no idea that woman is using his gifting for her own good.” A woman Orlo knew as Banyan’s mother, a perceiver, rested her head on her husband’s shoulder.
Like Orlo, each of the Shamar had someone taken from them. The room was silent as the gathering of eleven reflected on those they knew, Followers of The Way, now under the hand of Gardener Bednegraine, her coercitors, and those who followed her—the Loyals.
The eleven—ten of which were seated and an eleventh leaning cloaked in the corner shadow of the Liberum night—a collection of a messenger, a keeper, a healer, a former gardener and his wife, an elder, a perceiver and her husband, an inventor, a man who no longer called himself elder, and Orlo, gathered in equality to set right the wrong sweeping through the Conclusus.
“Are there any other reports from above?” Davy asked.
“Groups of Followers continue to gather in secret,” Archivald began.
“Well that’s some good news!” Davy exclaimed.
“Yes, but one of our towers was raided by coercitors last night.”
“How many were taken?”
“None. The group had thought to dress in Gathering attire, passing their meeting off as a social event. However, this confirms our suspicions . . .” The elder paused. “Bednegraine is, as Poppy put it, hunting them. She is pursing them for capture.”
Hunting. The word suited Bednegraine well. Poppy had once explained what it meant to hunt. To take a life for food . . . or for sport. Orlo had seen what Bednegraine was becoming. A wolf. And according to Poppy, wolves hunted.
“Orlo must not return to the Conclusus!” Banyan’s mother implored as if pleading for the life of her own son. “He will stay with us. Orlo, if that beast woman gets her hands on you . . . I just can’t imagine it!”
“I’m okay, really,” Orlo assured.
“He is right,” Archivald added. “Oddly enough, he remains quite popular with the Decorum. After all, he keeps them warm.”
“Thank God for that.” Poppy laughed.
“If it weren’t for young Orlo, the lot of you would have to move down here just to keep warm.” Davy crossed his arms boldly across his red coat.
For one year, under the apprenticeship of Archivald, Orlo worked extra hours building a contraption he only knew as the unique invention. The challenge: The unique invention could not run on steam and must produce heat. At the time it seemed incredibly bizarre to build such an apparatus. But now he understood—one invention to counter the abuse of another. She had taken Orlo’s snow and created, as Poppy called it, Winter. They were learning a lot from Poppy these days.
“She had no right to take his snow in the first place!” Davy shouted.
“What is done is done.” Archivald cast a glance to Orlo.
Davy leaned forward. “How did you know, young Orlo?”
“I didn’t,” he answered. “It was Uncle Archivald.”
“I knew at the tournament she would confiscate his invention,” his uncle began, “as I knew the moment she positioned herself as Gardener. It is what she does. She claims that which is meant for the good of the Conclusus as her own, manipulating the mind of whoever will listen to meet whatever selfish purpose she has devised in that twisted mind of hers.”
Archivald passed a glance to the cloaked man in the corner. Although the elder had once referred to the man as a friend, an awkward unspoken tension hung between them.
Again the room was silent.
From the corner of the tiny postal the cloaked man, Orlo’s father, cleared his throat and spoke up. “Do we know what plan she has formulated? What is her reasoning for freezing the steam?”
The Shamar did not speak openly of the relationship between Orlo and his father. Archivald said it was for Orlo’s own good. Orlo assumed it had something to do with his mother—a wolf, a destroyer of good.
Archivald turned to Orlo’s father. “We have Followers of every gifting working to infiltrate her network. Control is our best assumption.”
“But she’s already the Gardener,” his father stated. “How much more control can she want? She brought on this division between us all. This was her doing!”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Disagreeing with me as always, Uncle?”
Orlo listened to the back and forth conversation between his uncle and his father, taking in every detail, trying to put it all together like pieces of a broken machine. There was something between them, something unsaid.
“I disagree where disagreement is appropriate. It was as much our doing. We, all of us, generations before and now, forgot The Way. Right or wrong, we divided the Conclusus.”
Orlo reached in his pocket for something to fidget with. Their argumentative tone made him uncomfortable.
“We were already divided,” Orlo’s father argued, staring at Archivald.
There was that something again. Something in the look that Orlo did not understand. Possibly a secret behind the word divided.
“This is a discussion for another day.” Archivald turned his gaze away from Orlo’s father and to the others. “Tomorrow the Conclusus will gather in their usual fashion. Bednegraine’s words are cryptic, but our best means for deciphering her next move. Orlo may have halted her attempt to control us with her freeze, but we are all in agreement that this quest of hers is not over yet. If we can stay one step ahead, we may prevent the capture of more Followers. Are we agreed?”
“Agreed,” the Shamar said in unison.
“Orlo and I will attend the Gathering.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Banyan’s mother mumbled.
Orlo stood. “My uncle and I can walk freely among the Decorum. Both Followers and Loyals trust me. If I suddenly go missing, they’ll know.”
“Near started a riot down here when young Orlo was in the World.” Davy chuckled. “He’s right. She takes him for even a day and they’ll know. They’ll fear they’d freeze to death.”
Freeze to death? Orlo gulped, wondering if such a thing could actually happen to a person.
His mind spun. He moved the tiny gears and wires in his hand, twisting and turning. Is that what Bednegraine wanted, to freeze them to death? Archivald said she wanted control. But there had to be more. Something they were missing. His father was right. She was already the Gardener, holding the highest assignment in the Conclusus. Even the Followers recognized that. What more was there? What else could she want? Unless it was to turn them all into Loyals like Edwin. But she couldn’t make them all loyal, could she?