Seekers of the Sky

Seekers of the Sky (Искатели неба, Iskateli neba) is an Alternate History duology (actually, one novel Divided for Publication) with elements of Fantasy by the popular Russian sci-fi and fantasy author Sergey Lukyanenko. Its setting explores the premise "What If Jesus Christ had been killed by Herod's troops during the Massacre of the Innocents?"

After his death, Jesus persuades his Father to give humanity another chance and send a new savior to them, so God leaves the only child not slain by Herod's troops at Mary and Joseph's doorstep to raise as their own. The boy's name is lost to history, and everyone simply knows him as the Redeemer, the Step-Son of God. Instead of Jesus' many miracles (walking on water, turning water into wine, making more fish, etc.), the Redeemer is given just one: the Word, a semi-magical power that allows him to put anything he desires into another dimension known as the Cold and retrieve it at a later time. He uses this power to prove his divinity and ascend to the throne of The Roman Empire. His attempts to end war and suffering in the world are futile, as he realizes that humanity will never change. So he has his disciples tie him to a pole, which he then takes into the Cold, along with all the iron in the world he knows about (that is, any easily accessible iron).

The story is set two thousand years later, making it "contemporary". The Roman Empire never collapsed and now controls most of Europe and has colonies in Africa and the Americas, although it is now called the State. The other powers in the world are the Russian Khanate (Russia never throwing off the Mongol yoke), the Chinese Empire (the most advanced nation in the world), and the Ottoman Empire (by far the weakest). The deficit of iron makes it the monetary standard, while gold is treated as a pretty trinket. Science and technology have stalled at roughly medieval levels, although certain aspects of The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution are present. A number of people (mostly nobility) know the Word, although it is a much weaker version of the Original Word that the Redeemer knew, and use it to keep all their treasures safe from thieves.

The protagonist is a thief/tomb raider named Ilmar the Slick, who is captured and sent to an island Penal Colony to mine iron for the rest of his life. On the prison ship, he meets a young boy, who is revealed to be Prince Marcus, one of the illegitimate children of the Possessor, and soon finds out that the entire State is after the boy for unknown reasons. Ilmar helps Marcus escape, and they get to the mainland with the help (at gunpoint) of a glider pilot named Helen the Night Witch. Then they find out that anyone who has even seen Marcus has been either executed or imprisoned. Realizing they have no choice, they run, hoping either to escape or to turn in Marcus in hope that they will be spared.

The author pays special attention to the current state of the world, as well as how it got there from both historical and religious standpoints. The backstory is slowly revealed through recollections, sermons, and sometimes visions.

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Tropes used in Seekers of the Sky include:

• Alternate History: The world in the duology diverges from ours when Jesus is killed as baby to be replaced by another Messiah.
• The Antichrist: While the Church do not officially recognize the existence of a figure known as the Tempter, one of the gospels claims he will come before the Second Coming of the Redeemer claiming to bring good but secretly bringing evil.
• Bilingual Backfire: Ilmar and another character are taken on a tour of the town by a Magyar (Hungarian) teenager named Peter and try to talk amongst themselves in Gallic (French). Halfway through the conversation, Peter offers (in Gallic) to leave them alone, if they'd rather he not hear what they are saying.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: A possibility with Marcus.
• The Church: This world has two Churches based in Rome instead of one. They are slightly different denominations but are both ruled by the Step-Son of God (the Pope). The Church of the Redeemer is more about punishing the wicked, while the Church of the Sister (one of the Redeemer's disciples) is about redemption for those who have strayed.
• Devil but No God: Inverted. The official Church doctrine denies the existence of a counterpart figure whose power approaches that of God. To claim otherwise is heresy of the highest sort.
• Ethical Slut: Helen, as well as most glider pilots, although she is the only female pilot. Her first crash resulted in a foursome with three other pilots, all of whom were just glad to be alive. When she crashes while transporting Ilmar and Marcus at gunpoint, she "recovers" by having sex with the immobilized Ilmar before leaving. She stops, though, after she starts sleeping with Ilmar.
• Grave Robbing: Ilmar's specialty is raiding ruins for possible treasure or artifacts. Being a devout follower of the Sister, though, he sometimes donates religious artifacts to the Church.
• Healing Hands: Bishop Gerard Lightbringer can cure cancer by what he believes is the power of prayer. In fact, what he is doing is removing the malignant cells and putting them into the Cold. However, this is no less miraculous, as putting anything of the living into the Cold is impossible for anyone other than the Redeemer.
• Hell: Unlike the Christian version of Hell as a fiery place of eternal torment, the version of Hell in the Redeemer's church is a frozen wasteland where time has no meaning. In fact, there is a strong possibility that Hell is the Cold.
• Like Brother and Sister: The official view of the Redeemer and the Sister's relationship.
• Medieval Stasis: Much of the technology is unchanged from Medieval times, as the deficit of iron has prevented significant scientific progress. Electricity is a fairly recent discovery, although it has already been adapted to start glider engines (they previously used chemical-based starters). Guns (even automatic ones) are present but are very rare. Only officers and nobles are allowed to carry firearms. Wood-and-skin gliders, powered by weak engines and short-range rocket boosters, are the only means of air travel. Each glider can only carry two or three people. They are generally used to ferry messages, scout enemy lines or bomb fortifications. All pilots have to memorize wind charts in order to avoid crashing.
• The Messiah: The Redeemer and, possibly, Marcus.
• Moral Event Horizon: In-Universe example: The Redeemer's decision to become the Roman emperor led to all but one of his original twelve disciples (who are strongly suggested to have been the familiar Twelve Apostles, because the only one ironically remembered as loyal was Judas Iscariot) abandoning him. They were almost immediately replaced by eleven Roman legionnaires who witnessed the first ever use of the Redeemer's Word; interestingly, the twelfth witness (named Marcus) refused to join the rest, saying that he doesn't see God, only the next Emperor. Also, the Sister (probably Mary Magdalene), who is said to have been able to truly forgive anything, never forgave Redeemer for this, leading to the very first schism of The Church.
• Motif: Just as the title suggests, the sky motif (not Heaven, although in the original Russian the words for them are the same) is very prominent in the novels, probably symbolizing the inscrutable Powers That Be. It is probably no coincidence that every single time the characters take to the skies on a glider, they always come crashing down.
• Mundane Utility: The Word is a divine power granted by God to His Step-Son the Redeemer in order to spread the faith. What do the people choose to do with it? Keep all their stuff hidden from everyone else (i.e. the ultimate form of materialism). This is about as far as people can get here from God's plan, which is likely what Lukyanenko intended to show. At least once, this was used in battle. A Russian general (possibly, Kutuzov) used his Word to put all his cannons into the Cold and then marched across mountains before putting them all into the field for a surprise attack on Napoleon.^[1]
• Omniglot: Peter is fluent in eight languages, including his native Magyar (Hungarian), Roman (Latin, the language of the State), Gallic (French), Russian, Judaic (Hebrew), Ottoman (Turkish), Germanic, and Iberian (Spanish). He is also teaching himself Chinese. Why he's not working as a translator is anybody's guess.
• Pan-Up-To-The-Sky Ending: Part two ends up with Ilmar looking into the sky above.
• Penal Colony: The Isles of Sorrow.
• Praetorian Guard: Several praetorian legions are mentioned in the books. They are elite troops, consisting entirely of nobility and armed with the best weaponry, including guns. At the end of the book, two such legions are about to come to blows: the Grey Vests, the best of the praetorian legions of the State, and the Semetskiy guard regiment, an elite unit from the Russian Khanate.
• Practical Currency: Iron is used as the currency standard due to its rarity but has plenty of obvious uses.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: We have a religious tomb raider, a flying ace, a police captain, a retired obstetrician, a noblewoman-turned-nun, a runaway monk, a retired pilot-slash-reluctant writer, a robber-turned-bishop, a polyglot, a spymaster, and a poor fisherman all following a 14 year old bastard prince. What a crew.
• Redemption Equals Fate Worse Than Death: The Redeemer chose to confine himself to Hell because of the realization that the moment he stepped onto the Roman throne, he failed the mission he was given by God. Thus, the Step-Son of God couldn't become the Son of God, who refused the temptation of worldly power and died horribly, only to truly redeem humanity. Ironically, the popular view of him was exactly the opposite.
  • By the end of the duology, Marcus seems to have committed the same mistake (assuming he is really the Second Coming of the Redeemer rather than the Tempter) and Ilmar is the only one who realizes it. Marcus appears to realize it, too, after Ilmar's "betrayal", but he is already too far gone to turn back.
• Religion Is Magic: The Word allows anyone who knows it to put any personal object into another dimension known as the Cold and retrieve it at any point. It is seen as a divine power, not magical.
• Richard Nixon the Used Car Salesman: Several of the characters encountered by Ilmar appear to be alternate versions of known people in our world.
  • Arnold, a huge Austrian man, is a trigger-happy officer of the Guard, determined to hunt down a teenage boy.
  • Count Antoine of Lyon is a retired glider pilot who writes poetry in his spare time and has plenty of old stories he can share, including one where his glider crashes in the desert.
  • Bishop Gerard Lightbringer, according to Word of God, is supposed to be a duplicate of the French actor Gerard Depardieu, although nothing in the books appears to point to that.
• The Roman Empire: The Redeemer becomes The Emperor after using the Word to convince the people of his divinity. The State is descended from the Roman Empire.
• Schizo-Tech: Bronze swords, spears, and bows coexist with revolvers and machineguns. Horse-drawn carriages and sailing ships coexist with wooden bomber aircraft with rocket boosters. All explained by the deficit of iron.

1. ↑ Incidentally, another Russian general dragged his cannons over the Alps in Real Life without any Functional Magic at all.