Archon (23 page)

Taemon had no idea how to approach Yens, but in the end it didn’t matter. Two burly men grabbed him and manhandled him away from the crowd. Unlike in his dream, clearly Taemon had been all too visible in the crowd.

Lervie tried to follow, but the men wouldn’t allow it. Taemon didn’t struggle. He wanted Lervie and the others to see that he was going willingly. He was here to talk peace. The last thing he needed was for Lervie and his men to attack Elder Naseph and Yens.

Yens’s guards took Taemon to an inn not far from the temple ruins. Each guard had a grip on one of Taemon’s arms. He wondered how they felt about using their hands to rough people up. They seemed to take to it surprisingly well.

As they led him to a room at the back of the inn, Taemon caught a glimpse of some of the rooms that Elder Naseph and his priests had set up as their quarters. Fine furniture, innocents acting as servants, plenty of food. The priests had managed to maintain their high standards. Yens, too, no doubt. Some things never change.

The guards led Taemon to a small, empty room at the back. No fine living here. They locked the door, and Taemon wondered how long they’d keep him here, but it was only moments before Yens came bursting into the room, Elder Naseph close behind him.

“What made you show your face today?” Yens asked, his face twisted with paranoia. “You thought you could come back and challenge me again before everyone? Is that it? Well, guess what, little brother? I still have psi! You’re no threat to me.”

Taemon wasn’t sure where to begin. Yens seemed dangerously unhinged, and if he found out that Taemon really did still have psi . . .

“I thought you were dead,” Taemon said at last.

“You
wished
I was dead.”

“Never,” said Taemon, and he meant it. There had been many times when it had seemed it would be better for everyone if Yens was no longer alive to cause problems, but Taemon had never truly wanted him dead — and that had almost cost Taemon his life.

“I’m not here to challenge you, Yens,” Taemon began slowly. “I’m here to ask for your help.”

Yens laughed maniacally at that.

“I’ve been to the Republik,” Taemon pressed on. “There are some things you need to know.”

“He’s lying,” Elder Naseph said quickly. “How could he have crossed Mount Deliverance?”

“I know about the tunnel,” Taemon said, holding Elder Naseph’s gaze. “I met General Sarin.”

“You had no authority to do that!” Yens said. “Before the Fall, Elder Naseph and I were working on the terms of an alliance. I hope you didn’t do anything to undo all our work.”

“There will be no alliance,” Taemon said. “Not anymore. Sarin knows that Deliverance is powerless. We have every reason to assume he’ll attack.”

Elder Naseph’s face went pale.

“You told him?” Yens gasped.

Taemon shook his head. “His son, Gevri, told him. We thought Gevri was on our side, but then . . . It’s a long story. But it’s one you need to hear.”

Elder Naseph shook his head slowly. “What have you done?”

“Did you know about the archons?” Taemon asked Yens.

Elder Naseph started to interrupt, but Taemon cut him off. Taemon stood directly in front of Yens, forcing his brother to meet his gaze. “Yens, did Naseph tell you about the archons?”

Yens’s eyes darted from Elder Naseph to Taemon and back again. “He . . . I . . . I only knew I was supposed to help operate a psi weapon. That was to be my role as the True Son.”

Taemon nodded. He had suspected as much — hoped for it, too. Once again, Yens was merely a pawn in Elder Naseph’s dangerous game.

“What’s . . . what’s an archon?” Yens asked, his voice tinged with fear.

Taemon looked to Elder Naseph to explain, but the old priest kept his mouth resolutely shut.

“They’re trained psi wielders. Apparently this ally of Naseph’s, General Sarin, has found a way to teach children how to use psi. Only he calls it dominion, and it’s different from the psi we know. They tap into their strongest emotions to use dominion: fear, anger, hatred. This makes them less precise than a normal psi wielder but infinitely more dangerous.”

“He’s lying,” Elder Naseph said. “None of this is true. There is no psi in the Republik. Such a thing is not possible!”

Elder Naseph was an accomplished liar, Taemon would give him that. He almost believed that the high priest knew nothing about the general’s plans.

Almost.

“What was the psi weapon Yens was supposed to operate?” Taemon asked Naseph, pinning him with his gaze. “What was to be the role of the True Son in your alliance with the general?”

“Tanks,” Naseph said smoothly. “We were constructing psi-powered tanks for the general to use in his war with the Nau. Yens was going to be the one to power them.”

Taemon recalled the rows and rows of powerful vehicles he’d seen upon first entering the military outpost. Had those been the psi-powered tanks Naseph spoke of?

But why would the general agree to accept the help of Yens if Sarin already had plenty of archons to power the tanks — and any other psi-controlled weapon Naseph could think of?

Something didn’t add up.

“They kidnapped Uncle Fierre,” Taemon told Yens.

“What?”

Taemon nodded. “When you didn’t show up, they sent men through the tunnel into Deliverance and kidnapped our uncle. I still don’t know if it was a targeted kidnapping or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time — but perhaps you know, Naseph?”

“I don’t know anything about a kidnapping. I’ve been stationed in this inn since the Fall, working with the True Son to help restore his psi. We have been incredibly successful. He is nearly —”

“Enough!” Taemon shouted, his body going rigid with rage. “Enough lies! I know about the deal you struck with the general, Naseph. Yens was to train his army of archons to be their deadliest.” His mouth twisted with disgust. “I don’t know what you were getting out of the deal — protection, maybe, when the war spread beyond the borders of the Republik? — but you and I both know that the general’s archons are a formidable force. One that we can’t simply ignore.”

Finally, the full weight of the situation seemed to be dawning on the high priest. He shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps when they see what Yens can do —” he began feebly.

“Yens has no more psi than you do.”

“That’s not true!” Yens protested. “I —”

“Tricks. Sleights of hand,” Taemon interrupted dismissively. “Did you really think such things could fool
me,
Yens?” Taemon had mastered such tricks when he’d first lost his psi — and Yens well knew it.

“So what is it that you want, exactly?” Naseph asked carefully.

“I want to create an alliance of our own — among your followers here in the city, the people in the colony, and Free Will’s men.”

“Free Will’s men?” Yens asked. “Those miscreants? Why would we possibly want to ally with them?”

“Those . . . miscreants, as you put it, are being led by our father.”

Yens looked shocked. Elder Naseph, however, barely reacted.

“You knew?” Yens asked Naseph. “And you never said anything? We’ve got a reward out for Free Will’s head!”

“I wanted to spare you that pain,” Elder Naseph said. “Those people are escaped asylum inmates. They pose a danger to themselves and to others — Free Will especially.”

“But that’s my
da
!” Yens said.

“It’s okay,” Taemon said. “Da’s safe for now. I’ve just come from him. But if we’re going to have any hope of fending off the archons, we’ll need to work together. All of us.”

“Even if we do join forces, how can we possibly hold back the general’s army?” Naseph asked. “We’re like ripe berries for the picking.”

Taemon braced himself for what he had to say next.

“I . . . I still have psi.”

They’d asked him to prove it, and Taemon had done just enough to put their doubts to rest while minimizing the physical strain on himself.

Yens narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t that exactly like you? To take everyone’s powers away except your own. You’ve always had a complex about being a weak freak. You just had to tear everyone else down to make yourself feel strong.”

“I never wanted this!” Taemon protested, though he knew it was futile. “I wanted to usher in a new era where we would all work together and live as the Heart of the Earth intended.”

“You presume to know what the Heart of the Earth intends, boy?” Elder Naseph asked, pulling himself up and looking every bit like the fearsome high priest he was. “The Heart of the Earth chose Nathan and his people to have psi! She wanted us to embrace our gifts, not toss them aside like rubbish! How
dare
you stand before me and tell me —”

“Now is not the time to debate religion, Naseph,” Taemon snapped. If only his da could see him now, standing up to the high priest! “We cannot undo what has already been done. But what we can do is try to minimize the future damage.”

“So what do you propose?” Naseph asked, his jaw tight.

Taemon explained his plan for fighting off the archons. All the while, the muscles in Yens’s jaw were working, his face reddening.

“This is exactly what I was afraid of!” Yens exploded when Taemon was done. “You’ve set everything up so you can be the big hero. Skies, Taemon, how many people have to suffer so you can feel important?”

Taemon sighed with exasperation. “I’m the only one who has psi. What else do you suggest?”

Yens’s expression turned calculating. “I’ll go along with your plan on one condition: whatever psi you wield during the battle, you make it look like I’m the one with psi. When this is all over and done with, I want there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that
I
am the True Son.”

“Why does the True Son matter now?” Taemon asked. “If this doesn’t work, we could all be dead!”

“But if it
does
work,” Yens said, “the people will want someone to thank. And I want that someone to be me.”

“Fine,” Taemon said. “I’ll make it look like you’re the one with the power.”

Why not let Yens take the credit? It wasn’t like Taemon himself wanted the attention. And while Yens might be held up as a hero after the battle was over — assuming they were successful, of course — he still wouldn’t have psi. He’d be the True Son in name only.

What harm could there be in that?

Over the next few days, Taemon and Yens worked together surprisingly well. The promise of future glory clearly was a strong motivator for Yens; he listened to Taemon’s ideas and followed Taemon’s instructions, even when Elder Naseph grumbled and resisted.

For the standoff, Taemon chose the place in the hills where the archon army was most likely to emerge.

“This is where the True Son will take his stand to defend his people,” Yens said reverently, likely already picturing his supposed acts of heroism.

Amma clearly had done her job as a delegate. Hannova sent a sizable group of men and women from the colony, along with the powerless logging equipment. Amma came with them and began giving the colonists assignments to work alongside the city dwellers.

Yens and Elder Naseph recruited an impressively large group of city dwellers. They worked together to dig a huge pit, which was quite an ordeal because the city dwellers had never shoveled without psi before. Amma paired each colonist with a city dweller so that the colonists could demonstrate how to force the shovel into the soil and then use the handle as a lever to loosen the dirt. Taemon was amazed at how long it took to move that much dirt without psi. But they got it done.

Another group worked on stacking boulders on the slopes of the hills. Again, the colonists had to divide up and show the city dwellers how to use simple machines like inclined planes and levers to position the boulders just so.

Yens worked with some of Free Will’s men to build a tower where the True Son would stand. Taemon had sent Lervie to tell Da not to show his face just yet; he didn’t trust Naseph not to take advantage of this opportunity to get rid of Da in a supposed “accident.” Instead, Taemon suggested that Da go to the colony and stay with Mam. Perhaps hearing his voice would be enough to wake her.

The tower was a risky tactic, because if the archons could see Yens, they could use psi to attack him. On the other hand, Taemon’s plan relied on the archons assuming that Yens was using psi, and that meant Yens had to be out in the open.

Fortunately, using psi over long distances was difficult even under the best circumstances. The archons, fueling their dominion with anger and hatred, would be even less likely to do much damage from afar. Taemon would just have to repel the archons before they got too close.

“Are you sure about this?” Amma asked him as they inspected the battlefield late one afternoon. The ditches had all been dug, the tower had been erected, and the old quadriders had been buried. All that was left now was for the enemy to show up.

Taemon shrugged. “It’s the best we could do under the circumstances.”

Amma was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was teary. “You’re putting yourself in a great deal of danger. You’ve heard what the healers said about using so much psi —”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “I can’t just sit back and watch my people get slaughtered. It’s my fault they’re all powerless. I have to do whatever I can to protect them. Even if . . . even if it means giving up my life.”