Archon

by Lana Krumwiede

  But almost as soon as Taemon’s head touched the mattress, he found himself nodding off. He began dreaming almost immediately, but it was somehow clearer and more vivid than a dream.

  In his dream, he was standing amid a crowd that had gathered around the collapsed temple in the city of Deliverance. It was cold, and he buried his chin deeper into his scarf.

  Someone stepped onto one of the temple’s fallen stones to speak. It was Yens.

  Looking even taller and more confident than he had the last time Taemon had seen him, Yens raised his hands to quiet the crowd. Then, still without speaking, he held his right hand over a pile of loose rocks that lay at his feet. Slowly he lifted his hand, and the rocks rearranged themselves into a neat stack.

  The crowd murmured excitedly. “Psi! He’s using psi.”

  “It’s not psi,” Taemon said to the people around him. “It’s a trick. There’s a thin wire threaded through tiny holes in the rocks. Can’t you see?”

  But no one seemed to be listening. They acted like he wasn’t there.

  “As the True Son, I alone have psi,” said Yens, his voice smooth and rich. “My power has been weakened, but it has not disappeared. The same is true for you. The power is still within you, but you’re crippled with fear and unbelief.

  “You have been fooled by my brother. He is a skilled deceiver and a false prophet. Where is he now? Where is he when his people need him most? Is he here, helping us to rebuild? No! Is he at the colony, tending to the wounded? No! He has deserted us in our time of need!”

  “I’m here!” Taemon shouted. “I’m right here!”

  No one so much as looked at him.

  “But I am still here!” Yens went on. “I have not forsaken you. I am the True Son, and I will restore your rightful powers to you and see my brother locked away for his crimes!”

  The crowd roared. And Taemon stood at the center of it all, hidden in plain sight.

  The click of the door woke Taemon. Captain Dehue had come to escort him back to the gymnasium. Taemon stood up and shook his head, clearing the visions that had seemed so real. Being here, pretending to be Yens — it must have stirred up thoughts of what might have been if Yens had survived.

  “Got everything?” the captain asked.

  It was an odd comment, as Taemon had nothing to bring with him. The only thing in this room that belonged to him was his scarf.

  The scarf. A crazy idea bloomed in his brain. Taemon grabbed his scarf from where it hung on the bedpost and draped it around his neck. “Ready.”

  In the gymnasium, the seven would-be archons were sitting in a circle on the floor, waiting for him. As they caught sight of his wacky neckwear, they fought to stifle their reaction.

  The captain glared icily, which chased away their gawking. “Remember, I’m watching,” the captain said to Taemon. She turned and headed for the balcony.

  “We’re going to try something a little different this afternoon,” Taemon said. He took off his scarf and unfurled it for everyone to see. “I’m going to let everyone have a chance to try on this very fashionable scarf.”

  The archons looked at him suspiciously, perhaps wondering if he was making a joke, but at least he had their attention.

  “Let’s start here.” He handed the scarf to one of the students, who tied it around her neck. “Very nice!” he said, though the girl grimaced. “Now, tell me, what do you think of my scarf?”

  “It’s ugly,” she said bluntly.

  Taemon nodded but didn’t say anything. He took the scarf back and moved around the circle, making each student try it on. Most of the archons repeated the first girl’s comment — that the scarf was ugly — but a few changed it to “hideous” or “ridiculous.” Saunch said it was “soft, but still ugly.”

  Taemon had come to the last archon, a girl. He held out the scarf to her, but she refused to wear it.

  “I don’t want that thing around my neck.” She turned her head away.

  The other archons gasped at her obstinacy, and Taemon had the feeling that Captain Dehue expected him to reprimand the girl. But he plowed ahead. “That’s okay. You can wear it around your waist.”

  The girl frowned and folded her hands across her chest. “Not interested.”

  Taemon wasn’t sure what to do. Clearly this archon was testing him — and he had a feeling he was failing. But he was testing her, and the test wouldn’t work if he couldn’t get her to touch the scarf.

  “Okay,” Taemon said, trying to sound calm but authoritative. “You don’t have to wear it. But I need you to hold it and tell me what you think of it.”

  “I can tell you that without touching it —”

  “That’s not a request.”

  He held out the scarf, and after a brief hesitation, she finally took it from him.

  “Well?”

  She barely glanced at it. “Ugly,” she said.

  “Anything else?”

  “Hideous. Ridiculous. Like everyone said.” She thrust the scarf back at him, but Taemon didn’t take it.

  “Here,” she said. “I don’t want your aunt’s ugly old scarf.”

  Taemon took the scarf back and hid a smile. His crazy idea had been right. These archons had other forms of psi.

  Taemon glanced up at the captain. What was she making of all this?

  He cleared his throat. “Today I’m going to show you how to exercise dominion to make your voice sound loud, which is called amplifying.” He used a squinch of psi to project the last few words. The technique was complicated but actually required very little psionic energy. It was much too advanced for anyone in this class, so he had little hope of actually teaching them the technique — but that wasn’t really the point.

  “I’m also going to show you how to keep others from hearing you when you don’t want them to. It’s called shielding — and is incredibly useful in warfare,” he added, for Captain Dehue’s benefit.

  “When I amplify like this,” he said, demonstrating, “everyone in this whole gymnasium can hear me. How are you doing up there, Captain Dehue?”

  The children turned their heads to look up at the captain, who nodded curtly.

  Taemon switched to shielding: “Can you hear what I’m saying now, Captain?”

  Again the children looked up at Captain Dehue, but this time she stared at them blankly.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you smell like monkey feet?” Taemon asked her, still shielding.

  The young archons gasped in horror — all except for Saunch, who burst out laughing and then clapped his hands over his mouth. Still, Captain Dehue remained stone-faced.

  “Amplifying and shielding can be very useful skills,” Taemon said, his voice returning to normal. He rubbed his left arm absently, the familiar prickling numbness intensifying.

  Then, shielding his voice again, he said, “But can you see why shielding is especially useful?”

  The archons nodded raptly. He knew he couldn’t continue to shield his voice from Captain Dehue for much longer without arousing her suspicion. It was now or never.

  “Earlier, when I passed around my ugly, putrid scarf, I was conducting an experiment. I wanted to see if any of you could pick up information from an object — information like who made the scarf,” he said, looking at the girl who’d told him the scarf had come from his aunt. The girl’s eyes widened. “General Sarin knows that you possess dominion, but what he doesn’t know is that you have a special kind of dominion — maybe even more than one special kind.”

  Taemon switched back to amplifying. “Amplifying is something that parents and teachers love to use. It makes them sound important! But it can also be a weapon on the battlefield. If you amplify loudly enough”— he made his voice ear-splittingly loud —“you can stun your enemy!”

  The archons all had their hands over their ears. Even Captain Dehue looked pained, he was pleased to note.

  “But you can also use amplification to communicate orders across distances — very handy, indeed!” He switch
ed back to shielding: “What did you see when you touched the scarf?” he asked the girl.

  The girl glanced up at Captain Dehue. Taemon gave the young archon a quick smile. “It’s okay. I’m shielding your voice, too.”

  “I . . . I saw her. Your aunt,” the girl whispered. “I saw her knitting that scarf, and I just knew it was your aunt.”

  Taemon nodded, then spoke in his normal voice. “Now that I’ve demonstrated both abilities, I’d like each of you to try. Let’s begin with shielding. It’s the easier of the two,” he said, again for Captain Dehue’s benefit.

  He arranged the archons into a single row facing Captain Dehue. Taemon stood in front of the archons, his back to the captain. She could no longer see his mouth as he spoke.

  “You first,” Taemon said in his normal voice. “Try saying something just to me.”

  The archon looked confused. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  Taemon frowned. “Hmm. We might need to start with the basics. First, try thinking a thought that you want to shield. Say it over and over again in your mind till you’ve got it memorized.”

  He switched to shielding. “Don’t bother with all that. It’s for her benefit,” he said, rolling his eyes toward the balcony, where Captain Dehue stood watch. “I’m going to try to tell you as much as I can about these other forms of dominion, but she’ll start to get suspicious if we’re all quiet for too long, so listen carefully.”

  The archons held on to his every word, and Taemon had no doubt they’d remember every last thing he’d say.

  “Two things happened when you held that scarf,” he said, looking again at the girl. “The first one is called psychometry, which means finding out about the history of an object just by touching it. The second is retrocognition. It means you can see things that happened in the past.”

  “I exercised dominion to do that?” the girl said. Then she shot a startled look at Captain Dehue.

  “It’s okay,” Taemon reminded her. “She can’t hear you. But yes, you absolutely did use dominion. Two types of dominion. You may not have telekinesis — the ability to move objects with your mind, which is the most typical form of dominion — but what you do have is just as powerful. More so, even, because no one else —”

  A painful ringing in Taemon’s ears cut him off. He cried out and grabbed his head.

  “Enough,” Captain Dehue called from her lofty position. “This exercise is clearly a failure. Try something else.”

  “Okay,” Taemon agreed, and the ringing stopped. “We’ll move on to something else.” He switched on shielding one last time: “And we’ll find a way to finish this conversation later.”

  That evening, the general paid a visit to Taemon’s room, as promised. General Sarin paced the length of the stone room with his hands clasped behind his back while Taemon sat on the bed, trying to look calm despite his quaking insides.

  “I’m disappointed in you,” the general began. “I expected more from Naseph’s ‘True Son.’ ”

  Taemon opened his mouth to explain, but the general cut him off. “Captain Dehue saw no progress today. None. Do you care to comment?”

  “I was observing,” Taemon said. “It will take time.”

  “Perhaps you can explain your methods. Stacking boxes? Passing around a silly scarf? Telling them to ‘be one with an object’? How is that teaching them about dominion?”

  Taemon shrugged. “I taught them about voice amplifying and shielding.”

  “You showed them amplification and shielding.” General Sarin’s words were clipped and precise. “You did not teach them how to do either. Those techniques are too complex for them, and I suspect you know it.”

  The general leaned in close, his face mere inches from Taemon’s. “If I find that you are up to something behind my back, Yens, you will wish you never crossed that mountain.”

  Taemon swallowed.

  “You have two more days to show me some progress,” the general said, stepping back.

  “I won’t let you down,” Taemon said. “Sir.”

  An idea struck Taemon. Tentatively, he asked, “Would it be possible to talk to the trainer before me? The one from Deliverance?”

  The general scowled. “He failed. He has nothing to offer.”

  “Yes, but maybe I can find out what he tried that didn’t work, and then I can do things differently. I only have two more days to get it right. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  General Sarin paced a bit more, then turned to face Taemon.

  “So . . . can I talk to him?” Taemon held his breath.

  “No.” The general turned and left, the click of the door’s lock adding finality to his answer.

  The next morning, when Taemon’s breakfast tray came, he asked the kitchen boy if he could have some rice.

  “Rice? For breakfast?” the boy said.

  Taemon shook his head. “No, just a cupful of dry rice to use in my class. That’s what my da used to teach me with. I had to learn how to move the rice around without touching it.”

  The boy frowned. “I’ll have to ask the captain.”

  When Captain Dehue took Taemon to the gymnasium, the rice was waiting for him. He dumped the rice in a pile on the floor and instructed the students to sit in a circle around it. Once again, Taemon positioned himself with his back facing the captain.

  “Today we are going to move rice,” Taemon said. “This is how my da taught me. Watch me, now. Look at the rice. Connect with the rice. Tell the rice where to go. Like this.”

  Taemon used psi to move the little brown grains closest to him. When he finished, he’d spelled out a message: IGNORE WHAT I SAY. WATCH THE RICE.

  He made sure to move some of the grains that the captain could see, too, to avoid arousing suspicion.

  Conspiratorial grins broke out on his students’ faces, their eyes glued to the rice.

  “Did you all see what I did just now?” Taemon said.

  The students nodded.

  “We are going to stare at this rice for the next few moments. You are to meditate as you do so. This will teach you to make a mental connection to the rice.”

  Using psi, he spelled out another message for the children: IF YOU CAN TALK TO PEOPLE IN THEIR MINDS, IT’S CALLED TELEPATHY. CAN ANY OF YOU DO THIS?

  I can.

  Taemon turned and smiled at Saunch, whose voice had come to his mind.

  Saunch could hardly keep still. Does that mean I have telepathy? Am I really exercising dominion?

  YES.

  Neeza can do it, too. We talk sometimes.

  Taemon looked around the circle and saw another child looking at him shyly.

  Hello, came another little voice in his head.

  Taemon spelled out another rice message. DOES THE CAPTAIN KNOW?

  Both voices in his head were emphatic. No!

  We’d get in a lot of trouble, Saunch added.

  UNDERSTOOD, he spelled out. Then he made his expression stern. “Enough meditating,” he barked, loudly enough for the captain to hear. “Now use dominion to move the rice!”

  The rice experiment proved incredibly successful. Granted, Taemon hadn’t managed to get any of his archons to move even one grain of rice, but he’d determined that Saunch and Neeza had telepathy; Berliott, Cindahad, and Pik had remote viewing; and Wendomer had clairvoyance. Combined with yesterday’s revelation about Mirtala, the girl who’d touched the scarf and displayed psychometry and retrocognition, he now knew without a doubt that these archons were a force to be reckoned with.

  The only thing he hadn’t found was precognition.

  He knew what he was expected to do with this information: share it with the general and help him to see how useful these special archons could be to his campaign. But Taemon wasn’t Yens, and the last thing he wanted to do was help the general use these seven children as weapons. No, he’d keep quiet for now, pretending to be frustrated and confused by their inability to learn even the simplest psi techniques.

  But t
hat, too, was a dangerous game. He knew what would happen to him if he failed to teach them how to use dominion — but what would happen to them?

  Taemon spent most of his lunch break pacing his small room. Tomorrow was his last day. He’d pretend to try to get the archons to use telekinesis for one more day, then they’d take him to the dungeon, where he would be reunited with Da and break them out of the outpost. But what about the archons? What would happen to them after he left? They would never be able to do what Captain Dehue and General Sarin expected of them. What would they do with the seven “freakling” archons? They were so young.

  And he was so stupid! Even after he’d told himself not to care about these children, he’d done it anyway. He knew all their names, and each one had a distinct personality. He hated to think what would happen to them when Captain Dehue and the general determined that they were failures. But he had no choice. He had to find his da. He had to.

  In the afternoon session, they played a basic version of psiball, a game that every child in Deliverance had mastered by the time they were this age. Taemon laid a hoop on the floor in the middle of the room. The object was for each player to use psi to roll his or her ball into the hoop. Players could use psi to knock their opponents’ balls out of the hoop, too. He knew by now that telekinesis was out of the question for these kids, but they had to do something — and they might as well have a little fun while doing it. Skies knew these children had seen little enough fun in their lives.

  Every once in a while, Taemon would stop and say sternly, “Now try it with dominion.” And they’d all dutifully act like they were trying for a few minutes. But of course nothing happened, so Taemon would give them permission go back to the powerless way.

  “Nice roll, Cindahad!” Taemon said. “Let’s see if Wendomer can beat that.”

  This reminds me of the other Nathanite. Saunch’s voice came to his mind. He played games with us once.

  The other Nathanite! Why hadn’t it ever occurred to him to ask the archons about the other trainer — about his da? Perhaps if I shield my voice, I can ask them about Da, he thought, moving around the hoop till his back was to the captain.