True Son (21 page)

The commander narrowed his eyes. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing, sir,” Taemon said. “I am just impressed by your people’s ingenuity. I thought the Republikite army were the only ones who had managed to block psionic abilities.”

The commander held his gaze for a moment longer, and Taemon wondered if he’d tipped his hand. But soon Commander Puster turned back to General Sarin to reiterate the details of his plan.

Taemon felt confident that whatever cloaking device was protecting these flying machines — these copters — it was protecting them only from telekinesis. If he could get General Sarin to unblock his psi, he could use clairvoyance to get past the cloaking devices and destroy the machines. He was sure of it.

One of the archons had gotten ahold of a pair of binoculars, and Gevri used them to watch his father. He nearly threw up when he saw U. Felmark Puster step out of the helicopter. The monster. What were they talking about? What in the world was going on?

Jix paced in a tight circle again.

Gevri was beside himself. He wished he knew some way to use dominion to eavesdrop, but telepathy didn’t work that way.
What are you saying?

“There’s something really strange about those copters,” Wendomer said.

Gevri turned the binoculars to the helicopters but didn’t see anything amiss. “What do you mean?”

“My eyes tell me what they look like, but when I use clairvoyance, I see something different.”

“Something’s off for me, too,” said Berliott. “I think that’s why I didn’t notice them until they were so close.”

“That, and we weren’t really searching the skies,” Pik said.

“Something’s weird, all right,” Gevri said. “If I try to use dominion to pull a piece off a copter, it doesn’t work. I can’t disassemble their guns, either. Must be some kind of blocking device.”

Saunch shook his head. “It doesn’t feel like a blocking device.”

“What else could it be?” Gevri asked, still peering at the copter through the binoculars.

“Somehow they’re making the copters look different from what they are,” Wendomer said.

“Gods,” Gevri whispered. “It’s not a blocking device — it’s a cloaking device.” He lowered the binoculars and scrambled for a scrap of paper and pencil in his equipment bag. When he found them, he gave them to Wendomer. “You have clairvoyance, and I have telekinesis. I need you to draw what you see. If I can visualize it well enough, I can use telekinesis to disable the helicopters.”

Wendomer looked confused. “You want me to draw?”

“Yes, and hurry!”

The young archon snapped into action and started to sketch. Gevri watched over her shoulder. The drawing was much too vague. “No, no! It has to be precise.”

“I’m not much good at drawing, sir,” Wendomer said. She tried to erase something, but the smudge made it worse.

“Okay,” Gevri said. “Just do your best.”

Wendomer nodded and turned back to her drawing, scowling with concentration.

Gevri jiggled his knee impatiently. Wendomer’s drawing wasn’t going to help. Gevri would never be able to picture the machine clearly enough to use dominion. His ability was strong enough, but that visual connection was absolutely vital. A smudgy sketch just wasn’t going to cut it.

Gevri grabbed the binoculars and peered at Taemon, the general, and Puster. They were still talking. For the thousandth time, Gevri wished he had clairvoyance along with his telekinesis, as Taemon did. There would be almost nothing he couldn’t do. He could take those helicopters apart in a heartbeat.

An idea hit him like a brick in the head. “Saunch, who has the remote for the psi blocking device?”

Saunch shrugged. “I saw the general slip it into his pocket this morning, sir.”

“All right, if we can’t get to the remote, we’ll go after the device itself.”

Jix finally stopped pacing and sat down facing the Nathanites.

Gevri turned the binoculars toward the Nathanites. Everyone in the crowd looked confused, all eyes on Taemon as he spoke to the Nau commander. Gevri continued to scan the crowd.
Now, where is that scarlet silk tunic? Yes. Right there
.

He could do this next part himself, but Jix would do it so much better. He leaned down until his chin nearly rested on top of the jaguar’s head. “See that boy over there, Jix?” Gevri whispered. “The one in red?”

Jix made her soft chuffing noise.

“I want you to send him a telepathic message. Put the fear of the gods in him. Make him turn and run toward the ocean. Not
into
the ocean, mind you, but make him run as far from Taemon as he can get. We need to get the blocking device out of range.”

Gevri stood up again and trained his binoculars on Yens. The shocked look on Yens’s face was the funniest thing he’d seen in months. Yens looked around, then ran wildly toward the shore, scarlet silk flapping.

“What did you do?” Saunch asked.

“We just gave Taemon his psi back,” Gevri said. “Now let’s see what he does with it.”

Jix made a sound that Gevri could have sworn sounded like a chuckle.

Taemon had decided that Commander Puster liked hearing himself talk. He was yammering about analysis and data and research when it was clear that he had made up his mind. He was going to kill everyone with any kind of psychic power. Taemon suspected the general knew it, too. This would not end well.

As Taemon was coming to that conclusion, the pain in his head began to let up. In a few more seconds, it was gone completely. The psi blocker was gone! He looked to the general, wondering how he’d known that this was what was needed. But if the general had just acted to save Taemon and his people, his face gave nothing away.

No matter. The time for jolly-jawing was over.

With clairvoyance, Taemon could see what the commander’s flying machine really looked like, not just the image that the cloaking device somehow projected. Without moving a muscle, Taemon began ripping the Nau machine apart, starting with the guns.

At the first sound of wrenching metal, the commander turned. “No!”

The soldier who stood guard near the commander swung his gun this way and that. “Who do I shoot?”

“Shoot them all!” yelled the commander, but the general was too quick. Already he had wrestled the gun away from the soldier and began shooting Nau soldiers, starting with Commander Puster, who fell to the ground.

Taemon used psi to deflect the bullets headed his way and disassemble all the guns, then turned his attention back to the flying machines. As fast as he was working to pull things apart with telekinesis, it wasn’t fast enough. The machines that were still intact were lifting off one by one, swinging into position to kill the crowds in the most efficient way.

“Take cover!” Taemon yelled at the thousands of terrified faces. “Everyone get down!” Almost in unison they crouched down and covered their heads.

General Sarin grabbed Taemon’s arm. “Do something!” he commanded. “You’re the only one who can save us!”

Taemon locked the general in his gaze. This was the man who had led the army that had been poised to eliminate the people of Deliverance just minutes ago. Why should Taemon help this Republikite?

Because this is how the True Son unites a nation
. The voice of the Heart of the Earth echoed in his mind.

Taemon clasped the general’s shoulder. The two stood eye to eye. “After today,” Taemon said, “our people will be united again. We will either live together or we will die together.”

“Yes,” the general said.

“There is a price that must be paid,” Taemon said. “You must relinquish all claims to dominion. Our two nations cannot be one with the imbalance caused by dominion.”

The general nodded. “Be it so.”

Bowing his head, Taemon reached out to the Heart of the Earth.

I’m ready to do what needs to be done. If I have to give my life, I will do it. Please, help me to protect these people. Don’t abandon us now
.

The solution came to him in a clear image. He knew exactly what to do and how to do it. He swept away his fear and got to work.

He gathered a tremendous amount of psi, more than he had ever used before. It flowed through him like a flood rushing through a canyon. It grew and grew until he felt he was floating outside his body. His knees buckled and his body swayed, but he felt the general bracing him up.

First he used the psi he had gathered to fling each one of the flying machines far into the ocean. He knew without having to use clairvoyance that they were equipped with life rafts. The soldiers would be unharmed.

But that was only the beginning. What he planned to do next would require every psionic ability he had.

“Tell your soldiers to gather at the beach,” Taemon said to the general. “I need them out of the woods. And no guns. Have them leave their guns behind.”

“Why?” General Sarin asked. “You’ve gotten rid of the Nau.”

“There is a price that must be paid. Just tell everyone to gather at the beach.” Taemon looked him in the eye, and the general dared not argue. He let go of Taemon’s arm and made the call on his radio.

When the people of Deliverance saw the soldiers running toward them, they started to panic. Taemon amplified his voice and spoke to them.

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “Today is the day that the people of Nathan return to their lands in peace.”

That seemed to calm things down. Taemon knelt and closed his fists around the dirt and pebbles at his feet.

Once again, he summoned forth all the psi he could and drew it into himself. It swelled and swirled inside him, waiting for his direction. Still he gathered more power, and more, until he was no longer himself. He was the soil and the grass, the trees and the mountains themselves. He called on psychometry, connecting with the rocks he held in his hands. He saw the history of this land, what it had looked like before Nathan had summoned rock and earth from far below the surface and called it forth to create the mountains. With clairvoyance, he surveyed the land in all its detail. He perceived every sand dune, every cliff, every meadow, every river and boulder and tree. He held it all in one grand vision. He used remote viewing to stretch this awareness all the way from the beach where he stood to the peak of Mount Deliverance and all its sister mountains. All the way from the sea on the north to the sea on the south. The entire peninsula that was the land of Deliverance. All of this he held in his mind.

You will reshape yourself
, he told the land,
as I direct you
.

A crack formed at the base of Mount Deliverance. It lengthened and widened, the earth rumbling beneath it. As the chasm grew wider, the mountain began to crumble. Rocks and boulders fell and filled it. Taemon used all the energy in the cyclone of psi that raged inside him and directed it into the earth.
Open, open. Wider, wider
.

The great chasm lengthened along the mountain range. Taemon made sure to direct it away from where the people had gathered on the beach.

Open, open
, Taemon urged.
Wider, wider
.

The earth groaned and rumbled. The noise was incredible as the gap in the earth’s surface grew wider still.

Now Taemon directed his psi toward the great mountains.
Lower. Sink into the earth from which you once sprang. Lower, lower
. Taemon showed the land what he needed it to do.
Lower. Smoother. Flatter
.

The psi poured in him and from him and never seemed to deplete itself. Taemon had to use every bit of strength to harness it. He had to direct it, show it what to do, and keep a clear vision in his head. It obeyed without fail.

When the vision in his eyes matched the vision in his head, Taemon knew his work was finished. The price that had to be paid was the mountains. The Heart of the Earth had given the mountains to Nathan’s people long ago, as protection against their enemies. In return, Nathan’s people had agreed to use psi for good. When Nathan’s people became greedy and started finding ways to get around the boundaries and rules of psi, their agreement with the Heart of the Earth was broken. And since that promise was broken, the earth had taken the mountains unto herself once again. The mountains of Deliverance were gone. In their place was smooth, fertile land. It was up to both peoples to unite themselves and live in peace once again.