The Longlight Legacy

The Longlight Legacy is a trilogy of fantasy/science fiction books by Dennis Foon, which consists of The Dirt Eaters, Freewalker, and The Keeper's Shadow.

Primary Plot

The story takes place in the future, after a massive war that devastated the natural environment of (presumably) the Americas. The survivors, concentrated in tiny villages divided into clans, are ruled by the Cities, which control all commerce and trade.

The hero is a youth named Roan. He and his sister Stowe are the only survivors of the destruction of Longlight, a hidden and peaceful village on the side of Barren Mountain. Fleeing from the village during the attack, Stowe is taken from Roan by a masked rider on a horse. Roan returns after the massacre and discovers all people of Longlight had been killed and thrown in the Fire Hole. All that remains of his immediate family are his father's old shoe and his sister's trampled doll. Shaken, Roan returns to his ravaged home and finds the majority of his father's books are unscathed. A snow cricket sings to comfort him as he lies on his upturned bed, and he dreams of a brown rat urgently warning him to leave Longlight.

Secondary plot

Roan wakes when he hears a motorbike, an object of immeasurable value after the wars, coming from the forest into the ruined Longlight.The rider enters his home and flips through his father's books, introducing himself as Saint. Roan runs from him but is caught and brought unconscious to the encampment of the Brothers, a religious group that worships the Friend led by Saint, called, by the other men, Prophet. Roan is introduced as a favourite of Saint's to the other men, who wishes to learn from him how to read. On his first day at the camp, Roan impresses the combat master Brother Wolf with his combat ability without training: as a citizen of Longlight, Roan was encouraged from infanthood never to use violence or physical force. As well, Roan befriends a low-class brother named Feeder and encounters Saint's drunk right hand, Brother Raven, who seems to enjoy following and spying on Roan, known in the camp as a novitiate.Though he at first plans to stay only a little while before going to look for his lost sister Stowe, Roan stays in the camp for months, training with Brother Wolf, learning meditation and focus techniques from Brother Stinger, and slowly accepting the faith of the Friends. During his evening reading sessions with Saint, Roan is made to again and again reread the conquests of Emperor Qin of China. Saint seems obsessed with the idea of conquering the neighbouring clans, often reenacting successful battles with rocks and playing strategy games with Roan, who finds he is as gifted a commander as a fighter. Roan finds his new training and life with the Brothers conflicts with the peaceful ideologies of his family and friends at Longlight and dreams every night of a mountain lion, a brown rat, and a goat woman, who answer his questions and guide him. A recurring dream is one of only the mountain lion, who attacks Roan and kills him, telling him again and again to fight back. After each death, Roan is revived but cannot seem to fight the lion for fear that he would kill it. Roan has passed the tests of initiation and is now about to be anointed by blood. He finds that Feeder becomes suddenly distant and bitter. During one reading session with Saint, Roan's white cricket leads him to Saint's bedchamber, where Roan discovers an ancient Roman book depicting Roman military religion: inside is a picture of a brilliant god emerging from stone, a dog, a scorpion, and a raven lying at his feet. Roan realizes Saint had created the religion of the Friend based upon the Roman religion. Roan is given a bottle of scorpion beer by Saint to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. That night, he dreams of the mountain-lion, who promises Roan's questions will be answered at a cave by the stream of Barren Mountain. The next day, Roan uses the beer to lure away Brother Raven so he could find the cave by following the stream. In the cave he finds a room full of masks, the largest one of all the red mask of the rider who took Stowe from him that day at Longlight. He also finds that the blood to be used in his anointing ceremony, which would mark him officially as a Brother, would not be from an ox but from a human, and that that human would be Brother Feeder. Roan begins to make preparations to run away from the camp, but, before he can finish, Saint brings to him the apparent 'killers' of Longlight: innocent men the Brothers caught from different clans. Handing Roan a crescent sword, Saint tells him to avenge him family. Instead, Roan runs him through and steals the motorbike, riding into the desert.

The motorcycle runs out of fuel in a desert. There Roan meets Lumpy, a young man whose body is horribly scarred due to ticks that burrow into the skin. Orphaned from his family and feared by others, he lives the life of an outcast. Hoping to find a fabled hospital that could ease his pains, Lumpy travels with Roan through the desert. Roan learns when he tries to tell Lumpy of his family and his home that people outside think of Longlight as only a myth. While travelling with his friend, Roan dreams frequently of the rat, the lion, and the goat-woman. Roan also dreams of his sister Stowe, who calls to him but seems always shrouded in danger.

When the two arrive at the hospital, Roan and Lumpy are attacked by the Brothers. Roan is overwhelmed and ensnared in a net when Lumpy appears, stripped naked and fully revealing all of his scars. The Brothers flee, thinking there is an infection of fleas and not wanting to be bitten themselves, and Roan and Lumpy, realizing Saint survived the wound and is looking for them, explore the subterranean tunnels of the hospital. They find corpses and mummified human remains but find they cannot find the way out of the tunnels. They find themselves led back to the room of the mummified corpses when they try to follow the markings they made before and, in a fit of panic, faint unconscious banging on the walls of the tunnels.

Roan and Lumpy are rescued by the people of Oasis, an underground civilization and brother to the village of Longlight. The two groups split during the Parting when, after the bombing of the last rebel city, Roan's great-grandfather, also called Roan, took the rebels who did not wish to stay in Oasis to Longlight as the first-ones. Unlike the people of Longlight, the people of Oasis do use violence to protect themselves and, because of the underground light, are incredibly long-lived and incapable of bearing children. Lumpy meets there a girl called Lelbit who bears the same scars as he. Lelbit unfortunately cannot speak because her tongue was marred by the bugs, but is an excellent shooter and shepherdess. While Lumpy spends time with her, Roan spends time gardening and learning of the old world from the books in the Oasis library. When he has healed, Roan has a vision of the goat-woman calling to him and telling him to keep moving.

Roan and Lumpy head out of the Oasis as storytellers, who tell stories to encourage people to challenge the authority of the Cities. On their way, they fall down the cliff of a mountain face, causing Roan to be poisoned by a Nethervine thorn. Lumpy takes Roan across a toxic lake to the nearest village Fairview so he can be healed and Roan meets the goat-woman, a healer named Alandra. She is a "Dirt Eater", "Dirt" being a substance that allows one to wander the Dreamfield, an alternate universe connected to the world. Alandra shows Roan how to get to the Dreamfield. She also tells him that his sister Stowe is under the manipulation of the Turned Ones, servants of the city who wished to capture both Roan and Stowe, who they recognized as the two most powerful Dirt Eaters of the world. Had they gotten them both, the City would have been unstoppable.

Resolution

Alandra shows to Roan the children of Fairview, who believe the trucks that will come to take them to City labrotories are actually ice cream trucks that will take them to their true parents. In reality, only a small percentage of the children are sent to parents while the rest are dissected in labrotories and their organs recycled for the more important citizens of the City. Roan, Lumpy, and Lelbit work to prepare the supplies and transportation needed to save the children, but are hindered by a meeting with the Brothers, who protect Fairview as part of their territory. Brother Raven recognizes Roan and orders him imprisoned until Saint can come to reclaim him. In his cell, Roan remembers the day when he was pierced by the thorn of the Nethervine. He had taken his spirit from his body, for the sake of the children, he did so again. Floating as an invisible spirit, Roan watches as Alandra, Lelbit, and Lumpy make the last preparations for their escape. He returns to his body in time to speak with Saint, who tries to convince him to join with the Brothers against the city. Saint seems to know what Alandra and Roan were plotting: he avoids the sleeping drugs Alandra puts into his food and chases after the children as they escape on rafts over the toxic lake. Roan leads the children to the place he saw in his dream: a lush, healthy forest where he thinks the children will be safe. He is guided by the rat, the goat-woman, and the lion, and chased by Saint and the Brothers. On the side of a cliff face, protecting the children's rear, Lelbit falls to Saint's axe and Saint falls to Lelbit's arrow. His last words were 'Help Kira', a request that Roan aid Saint's beloved, who has also lost children to the City. The three friends mourn for Lelbit and build her a grave. The story ends with Alandra and Roan dipping their feet into the clean water of the forest, watching the children play in a stream.