The Obsidian Blade (28 page)

“It is constrained,” said his father. The pink band surrounding the disko was pierced by metal hooks at six equidistant points around its perimeter. The hooks were attached to taut wire cables, which were fastened to two heavy steel tent posts.

“This is where you get your miracles,” said Tucker.

“It is an instrument, no more.”

Tucker ducked under one of the cables to view the disko from the other side.

The back side of the disk was a pink fleshy lump with a deflated, wormlike tail hanging from its center.

His father joined him. “A tool of the Gnomon.”

“Gnomon?”

“The Gnomon are a faction of the Klaatu. They seek to undo that which has been done. They built this thing.”

Tucker’s head was spinning. “I thought the Klaatu were like ghosts. How do they build stuff?”

“They employ Boggsians, who built this device at their behest. We have captured it, as you see.”

The tent flap opened, briefly flooding the interior with sunlight. A sharp-featured, goateed man wearing a cream-colored three-piece suit entered the tent and said, “It is a
maggot.
”

The man in the suit walked around the disko and peered closely at Tucker. For a second, Tucker did not recognize him — and then he did. The last time he had looked into those coal-dark eyes, the man had had a scraggly beard and been wearing a long yellow robe.

“We meet again,” said the priest. He reached out with his forefinger to touch the exact spot on Tucker’s chest where a black stone blade had once torn open his heart.

T
UCKER TRIED TO BACK AWAY, BUT HIS FATHER GRASPED
his arm, saying, “It’s all right, Tucker. This is Master Gheen.”

“But he —”

“I know, I know,” his father said. “That was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“He tried to
kill
me!” Tucker said, yanking his arm free from his father’s grasp. “Twice!”

Master Gheen’s mouth drew back into a smile that was all teeth and no warmth. His voice matched his expression. “Forgive me, please. When you appeared upon the Cydonian Pyramid that night, we thought the both of you to be agents of the Gnomon. We would not knowingly harm the only son of our founder.” He inclined his head toward Tucker’s father.

Aghast, Tucker looked from Gheen to his father. “Founder?”

Father September nodded. “It is as I said. We all have our parts to play.”

Tucker whirled on the man in the cream-colored suit. “And what’s
his
part?” He moved toward Gheen, his hands clenched hard as rocks. “To
kill
people?”

Master Gheen held up his hands and backed away, still smiling.

“Tucker,
stop
!” his father said.

Tucker stopped.

Gheen spread his hands. “Whom have I killed?”

“You killed Awn!”

“The old woman? A Klaatu automaton.”

“You tried to kill
me
!”

“And yet here you stand.”

It was all Tucker could do to keep from punching him.

Tucker’s father stepped between them. “Master, perhaps if I were to talk with my son alone?”

“As you wish,” said Gheen, backing toward the exit.

After Gheen had left, Tucker’s father let out a sigh. “He is not a bad man.”

“He stabbed me with a knife.”

“As Abraham attempted to slay Isaac.”

“You’re saying God told him to kill me?”

“As God allowed his own son to die upon the cross.”

“I don’t think God has anything to do with this. Why are you on this guy’s side, anyway?”

“Master Gheen has shown me a dark future, son. When I left Golgotha, I arrived in the forest where the old woman lived — what they call the Terminus. Master Gheen was there, waiting. I traveled with him to the time of the Lah Sept in the city called Romelas. We arrived amid chaos. The city was burning. The temple was under attack by a mob of workers led by a one-eyed madwoman. We were able to fight through the mob and reach the temple, where the Master activated the temple defense mechanisms. Many died that day.

“It was in the temple that I found your mother reborn as the Lamb Emma. It was there, as we huddled, trapped amid the burning city, that Master Gheen taught me the true histories of the Lah Sept.”

“Histories? Like more than one?”

“There are many paths. We choose our destiny.”

“If it’s our ‘destiny,’ we don’t have much choice, do we?”

“The histories describe several futures. Our actions today will determine which of these futures comes to pass. Plague is with us now, but it need not consume us all. There is hope. We have many destinies; we choose among them.”

Tucker remembered something Awn had said:
Choose well, and you may find yourself where you wish to be.

“So what is this destiny?”

His father did not reply.

“It’s not right,” said Tucker. “None of this. Mom shouldn’t be married to that guy, even if she can’t remember us. Even if it’s not really her.”

“The Lamb Emma is young. I am old. She has a new life. As for whether she is truly Emily, I believe her soul remains a constant. It is for her sake, and others like her, that I am here.”

From outside, they could hear faint voices and the clatter of folding chairs being shifted. The tent flap opened. Master Gheen entered again, followed by Brother Koan and Brother Tamm. All three of them were wearing yellow robes.

Tucker’s insides turned to jelly. He felt as if he was back on the pyramid about to get his chest ripped open.

A rumbling sound, like distant thunder, came from outside the tent.

“Why don’t you just go back to your stupid pyramid.” Tucker hoped his fear wasn’t showing in his voice.

“So we shall.” Master Gheen pressed his palms together and performed a shallow, mocking bow. “But first you must perform a small task for us.”

“I’m not doing anything for you,” Tucker said.

The distant thunder became the rumble of an engine. Tamm and Koan moved closer to Tucker, hemming him in. The rumbling suddenly stopped. They could hear angry voices, then a thud followed by a shout of pain. Master Gheen frowned and motioned with his hand. Tamm stepped over to the tent flap and peeked outside.

“Master, there is —” Someone grabbed the front of Tamm’s robe and yanked him out of the tent. This was followed by a series of thumps — Tucker pictured him tumbling down the steps.

A girl with yellow hair and a shiny black vest stepped into the tent. Her dark eyes flicked efficiently from Gheen to the yellow-robed acolytes to Tucker’s father to the maggot and finally to Tucker.

“Tucker Feye. You live,” Lahlia said with a small, tight smile.

L
AHLIA LOOKED OLDER THAN HE REMEMBERED — SHE
had matured as much as he had, maybe even more. She was taller and more solid-looking, her features had hardened slightly, and she had a thin white scar running down her left cheek. Even more striking, she radiated competence, as if she knew exactly what she wanted and what she had to do to get it.

Koan moved toward Lahlia and tried to grab her. She ducked under his arm and delivered a vicious kick to the side of his knee with her thick-soled black boot. Tucker heard something snap; Koan fell with a gasp.

“Master
Gheen,
” Lahlia said, making his name sound like something unclean.

Gheen took a step back. “Do I know you?”

Lahlia gave the priest a withering look. She touched a forefinger to the corner of her left eye, then slowly traced the thin scar down her cheek to where it ended at her jaw.

“Did you think you were rid of me,
priest
?” The contempt in her voice was unmistakable.

Master Gheen’s eyes widened, and his mouth fell open.

Lahlia shifted her eyes to Tucker’s father. “Reverend Feye, you have aged.”

Tucker’s father simply stared at her, too startled or confused to reply.

Tucker said, “How did you get here? How did —?”

Lahlia cut him off. “We must go. If you wish to live.”

“He
lives
to fulfill his destiny,” said Gheen. “As it is written.”

“In your precious
Book of September
?” Lahlia said with a curl of her lip. “You
priests
care only to perpetuate your own twisted history.”

“And what do you know? You are a
Yar.
”

“And you are a
priest,
priest.” She turned to Tucker. “In
his
history, you die. You are murdered by your own father and fed to the Timesweep.” She pointed at the maggot.

“Do not listen to this lying
Yar,
” said Gheen.

Tucker looked from Gheen to his father, aghast. “You were going to kill me?”

“As it is written,” his father echoed Master Gheen’s words, refusing to meet Tucker’s eyes.

“To be
resurrected,
” said Gheen. “To become a prophet. To bring peace and —”

A rapid series of thuds and gasps came from just outside the tent. The flap jerked aside, and Kosh entered. “Those guys just don’t know how to stay down when they been punched,” he said, quickly scanning the tent and doing a double take when his eyes landed on Tucker.

“Kid!” he said, his eyes softening. He stepped toward Tucker as if to give him a hug. Koan moaned piteously from the floor, staring with dismay at his knee, which was bending in the wrong direction. Kosh and Tucker both looked at him. Gheen, seeing his chance, reached for something within his robes.

Tucker had seen that move before, in the meadow outside Awn’s cabin. He was in motion even before the silver cylinder cleared the priest’s robe. The weapon snapped out to its full length, pointing directly at Kosh. Tucker knocked the priest’s arm up. A jet of energy spouted from the weapon, blasting a ragged slash in the roof of the tent. Gheen cried out in rage, swinging the extended cylinder like a club. Tucker ducked under it, grabbed the weapon on the backswing, and yanked it from Gheen’s grasp. He backed away, trying to figure out how to activate it.

Gheen, his face contorted with fury, threw himself at Tucker. Kosh stepped in and hammered his fist into the side of Gheen’s neck. The priest clutched his throat and dropped to his knees, gasping.

Kosh looked at Tucker and grinned. “Should’ve known I wasn’t rid of you, kid.”

Lahlia, looking up at the smoking hole in the canvas, said, “The others will have noticed that. Time to go.”

Tucker’s father was standing beside the maggot, looking ancient and powerless. Gheen groaned and started to get up, saw the weapon in Tucker’s hands, and froze. Tucker located a small stud near the base of the cylinder. He rested his thumb on it.

Lahlia said, “That is a Lah Sept
arma.
Be careful where you point it.”

“How about if I keep it pointed at him?” Tucker said, aiming the weapon at Gheen.

“That would be good,” said Lahlia.

“Please,” Gheen said in a hoarse voice, displaying empty hands as he slowly stood up. “I mean you no harm.”

“Shoot him if he moves,” Lahlia said in a flat voice. She stepped over to the tent flap and looked outside.

Kosh said, “Maybe we should just shoot him anyway.”

“Curtis, you have no idea what you are dealing with,” said Tucker’s father.

“Do I know you, old man?”

“You don’t recognize your own brother?”

Kosh’s jaw fell slowly open. “Adrian?”

Father September nodded. “There are forces at work that you cannot understand, my brother.”

“I’ll say. Look at you. How’d you get all . . .
ancient
?”

“Curtis, I —”

Lahlia interrupted him. “More men are coming this way. We must leave
now.
”

Tucker hesitated, looking at Master Gheen and his father, questions swirling through his head. What had happened to his father, that he would consider killing his only son? Gheen claimed Tucker would be resurrected as a prophet. What did that mean? And how —?

“If you stay, you’ll be killed,” Lahlia said.

And how had Lahlia gotten older and so . . . so
bossy
?

“We wish only what is best for all,” Gheen said to Tucker. “Ask your father.” He took a step toward Tucker.

Tucker pressed the stud and blasted a hole in the wooden platform in front of Gheen’s feet. The priest stopped. An instant later, the flap was yanked aside and Ronnie Becker, wearing a yellow T-shirt, strode into the tent.