by Power, P. S.
"Yes and no. The complete answer is that I doubt anyone is really thinking clearly right now, but they weren't wrong. Most of what they told you is true. I know you can't believe it, but it really is. There's only one flaw in what they're thinking right now. I was making the same mistake too." He wasn't in a hurry, so he made a point of looking behind them, making the back section invisible for a while. No one was following them, not that he could lay eyes on, but his sudden turn would have thrown that off, for a while.
"What do you mean?" Tor was still a bit white and seemed in shock as if he were just attacked by his best friends, and they'd meant to kill him or something.
"Well, the attack earlier was real. It's huge. I'm headed to the South to prove it to you, since that last bit was confusing to you. Kolb and Doris figure it as being a second cataclysm. That isn't the kind of word they bring out at parties, in case you haven't noticed?"
"No, it isn't."
They flew as fast as the craft would go and Timon waved at the world in front of them.
"As for the rest, the stuff with Terek, again, I know you don't believe it, but it's true. I need you to trust me now Tor. I know things have been hard between us, because Cordes got you to change me like he did. That's part of this. Can you do that Tor? Will you trust me, over what you believe to be real? I understand that it will be hard, but if you can't do that, then... Well the world is dead, isn't it? I can't stop you, and with your power under his control, Cordes can't be stopped either."
There was silence for a long time, but finally Tor spoke and still sounded like himself, which Tim hadn't counted on at all.
"Let's say, just for a bit, that I agree to do what you want, which I can do, if I try hard enough. I still don't understand what that is. Am I supposed to kill myself or-" There was nothing after that, just breathing.
"No. I need you to really do what Trice said, and to fight the Cordes inside you. Hard and constantly. You're Tor. The freaking Builder. The greatest wizard that has ever lived, and probably ever will. Except Taman, naturally."
Tor grinned, it was charming, but had hints of the Ancient King in it. Tim knew he didn't have a lot of time left then. If his brother wouldn't really try, then it was over. That was all.
"Naturally. The girl will be better than the rest of us put together."
"Agreed, but for now, you're it and no one can match you in the field of the mind. Cordes is old and powerful, and used to getting his own way, but if you fight, and refuse to stop, I think you can do it. Honestly, I doubt that anyone in the world can stop you, if you realize that it's needed to save everyone else." Now he was just stalling, but Tor had to be ready, or it wouldn't work at all, would it?
Tor didn't let that one slide for a minute just looking at him from the other seat, his eyes slightly narrowed. Another Cordes expression? It wasn't normal Tor at least, was it?
"I want you to go away, and beat Cordes. Hold him back and master him. Then I need you to find the Others, the enemies and make them believe that you're on their side. In the mean time, I'll try to figure out a way to remove him from your head."
"No one has ever done that. It's probably not possible really. The best you could do might be suppressing it. Holding the Rhetistics static, or binding them. The trick would be in not taking too much of my thoughts with it. There's some overlap now, between Cordes and me. Already, after just about two years. What would happen with ten? Or more?"
He didn't blink, staring at Timon as the craft flew on. Shaking his head, Tim thought about what he'd said and realized that Tor had already been working on how to remove or control the Rhetistics himself, and come up with more than he had. They were good ideas. It would take a huge amount of skill to make it work, but Timon already thought he knew how to do it. Sort of. At least once he heard that Tor had thought of it first.
"I... came up with a way to kill a Remy, that might work to do that. Bind the Rhetistics. It will need a different mechanism, and frankly, I'm not good enough yet to do it. It's going to be delicate. Give me half a year, and I'll be ready. Can you do that? I know it's a lot to ask. You have to fight. You have to beat Cordes and keep in control and do whatever you have to in order to find the Others and win their trust. And... Tor, you have to do this on faith. Leave your home and go do this, right now. Today. I can't even convince you it's real, only ask you to believe me."
He was repeating himself, as if saying the same thing enough times would do the trick. That could work, if they had those six months, a locked room and enough wine to dull Tor's senses. They didn't have any of that however. What they did have, coming up in front of them, was the broken and soaked remnants of Soam. Timon pointed.
"Right there, where the waves hit? That's where Julie White was supposed to have been hiding. If she was there, then she's probably dead. Everyone that lived in the forest for hundreds of miles inland is dead. Most of the animals are gone too. This was a radiation bomb, which means that anything living here for the next, I don't know, several hundred years at least, will get diseases and die. It isn't just here. Afrak and Austra were hit like this too. This is a war to the death of everything, and it all hinges on you trusting your little brother." Timon smiled, which he hoped looked as scared as he felt. It might be the only thing that Tor would respond to. He always protected people. It was an innate part of him. "So, that's not too much to ask."
They hovered and finally his older brother looked away, his face a mask of concentration. It seemed to take forever, but eventually he spoke, his field so unified and whole that it didn't ripple at all. There was no sense of him even being there, except for the light bouncing off of him. Not even sound escaped.
Until he wanted it to.
"I'll do it. I'll listen to you and fight, even if I don't believe you can be right. I'll try to do what you said. Tell Ali that I'm sorry." He sounded so soft and flat that Tim nearly couldn't tell he was talking. It all just sort of ran together. "Oh, and don't sleep with her. That would be creepy."
Tim shrugged.
"Fine, as long as you keep fighting, I'll agree to that. Until this is over. Oh, in case it comes up, later. If we start to lose, and everyone is going to die, the Ancients all die too. We have thirty devices set up that they can't beat. It's actually only seven, but don't tell them I said that. Let it be a surprise." Then, for some reason Tor just sat.
After a bit, Timon got it, he didn't have a flying-rig on, having been at work in a bakery. No fast craft either. Sighing Timon made a hole in the wall to his left, which let a warm wind in. His shield kicked on, which was probably to protect him against the radiation. He would have warned Tor, but the truth was, they were both immune to the stuff anyway, for the most part.
"Six months Tor. Stall them, throw them off guard, threaten them if you have to. Whatever it takes to buy that time. Then come find me. I'll go to Lairdgren for that. Do you understand?"
"I do." It was simple and bland, but he seemed to mean it. At least Tim hoped that was the case. It felt right, and he didn't think that Cordes could hold himself like that. It was nearly perfect, and felt totally like Tor.
Good.
"Don't ruin this vehicle, I want it back." Then without any expression at all, Timon rolled out the hole, heading toward the blue water beneath him.
Not that he kept falling. After a few seconds he turned his shield on and used mental commands to fly away, headed North for a bit, toward the Capital. He realized that his wife might not like the fact that he'd kicked her into a window. Except of course that neither he or Tor were holding her shield off for it. Meaning she had been. That was quick thinking and had lent a lot of credibility to the moment, hadn't it? It was brilliant, really. Faster than he would have managed in the same moment.
Timon smiled, realizing that he'd been feeling pretty clever for having done it in the first place. Still, he didn't doubt she'd make him pay for it all. He had work to do though, so maybe she'd cut him a little slack? There would probably be cutting at any rate, if only with words.
It took the same amount of time to get back as to go, so he called in as he flew working out that it would be about twice as long really, since he wasn't moving half as fast through the air as he did in space. That meant stopping too, he knew, if he wanted to hear anything. Being careful so he wouldn't drop anything, he called Trice first, which had her breathing hard at him, since she seemed to have been crying.
"Yes?" Her tone was so wary it was hard to listen to.
"Hey honey, I'm alive."
"Is Tor?"
"Yes, but... I'll explain on the ground. He has my Fast Craft, so this will take a while. Can Ali put us up there for a bit?"
That wasn't a known thing, since, as far as they all knew, Tim had killed Tor and was simply lying about it. Ali might have a problem with that, if it were the case. It didn't matter though. He could rent something if he had to, or stay at the Space Training Center, which made at least as much sense. He was going to be working in space anyway, he decided. It was safer by far.
The flying wasn't going to do itself, so he got off the communications device after reassuring his wife that things weren't all lost and hurried home, so that he could arrange things in person. It wasn't a smooth trip, since he got bored and had to stop to use the restroom twice, and another time to talk to someone that was making his right shirt pocket flash blue. It wasn't great timing at all. It could have been almost anyone in the world, at least that had a device for it, or knew someone who did, but it turned out to be Cordes.
"So, Timon Baker, you seem to have lost your prize. I thought I'd tell you that your little Tor, or should I say my little Tor, is here already, all safe and sound. Do you know what that means?"
Yes. It meant that Tor had known where to find the others already, somewhere in his head. That meant he could access Cordes's memories, which probably meant that...
That Tim was full of wishful thinking, naturally. It could also be that Cordes had been waiting for him to leave to make Tor his slave. Timon knew it might be naive of him, but he really didn't think it was the case. What Tor had been doing, being only himself... It had been very powerful. So much so that it pretty much had to be working.
"That your base is within two hundred miles of the Northwest coast of Soam? Probably closer? My guess would be just past the northern edge of where the water hit earlier, to try and throw us off the trail. No one would think to look that close to the risk, would they? Am I close?"
The line clicked off.
"Oops, called that one a little well then? Me and my big mouth, I should have taken a hit squad in."
There was nothing for it, except to swing that direction and try to see if he could find any movement. This would be a great time to have the gear that was on the Ranford. If they were able to get back to space, they might be able to deploy things. It was almost all set up, so all they had to do was dump the tiles, each made of focus stone and about the size of his hand, all in white, into space. Then use the main control to watch what was going on. He had ten of those units and five hundred satellites, so that several people could use the system at once.
It meant stopping to connect with the ship, after he flew to about where he thought the people would be snug in their base, but nothing stirred. Well, him, but it seemed like a wild fox chase, even after he called the instructions in and was informed that it would be at least a day or two before they could get anything into place. It would be faster if he did it himself, he was informed by a rather surly sounding Captain Peterson.
As if he'd made it hard? Everyone was exhausted though, which he understood. It wasn't a thing he had time for personally, but the knowledge was right there, in his own body.
It took seven hours to fly all the way back to Lairdgren and that put him in late, but the others were still in Ali and Tor's front room, sipping at alcoholic beverages and coffee, waiting for him.
"Hey, all." He sounded like he was going to fall down, but Sherri helped him to the sofa and sat between him and the arm, meaning Trice could move in on the other side.
Without explaining, he nodded at Ali.
"Tor's infiltrating the bad guys. He thinks we're mainly all crazy, or at least did before he saw the damage in Soam, but he's fighting Cordes, and seems to be winning for now." That would probably go away as soon as he slept, but Tor knew that, and could go a long time without, if he had to. "He also said he was sorry, but if you have to be mad at him for this, you might as well take it out on me. It was my idea. I was pressed for time though, and I don't do my best work on the fly."
Then, who did?
The girls and Kolb all looked at him like he was crazy, but he smiled anyway.
"I need to get some rest. Things are about to get busy, I think."
Chapter eleven
The next day was probably the worst he'd ever had in his entire twelve plus years. That wasn't even just him being dramatic, he decided, as the reports came in from around the world. Even having been tortured wasn't as awful, and at the time he'd thought he'd found the bottom of what that word meant. Austra had been reshaped by the events of the day before and heroic efforts or not, millions of people had died. It hit all at once, but got worse, as the estimates from everywhere else came in.
You couldn't see anything from the town near the Lairdgren school at all. The day was cloudy and warm, but when it should have been clear and warm, but other than that, it just seemed normal. People knew what had happened, and were afraid. Timon was just sick.
It was a dense hard feeling in his middle, one that made him dread blue light suddenly, because every time the damned communications device went off, he got worse news. The only bright point was that Orange and one of her crews had found Julie White, who hadn't been in Soam at all, having actually gone well North in her hiding. All the way to County Baker, in fact.
She'd gotten in touch with Alice in order to arrange for a trip back to her own lands, when the news hit, early in the morning.
That was it though, the rest was just death, either the ones that had happened, or what would be coming. The Ancients were the very worst too. Green was in the Capital, but had connected with them early, trying to work out if Timon had any kind of plan. Since otherwise people were going to starve the next year. The tentative figure placed that at about half the world going hungry, if he couldn't fix it. He'd nearly frozen, having even part of that dumped on him. In a way it wasn't fair, since he wasn't old enough to have to carry that kind of weight.
Except that reality didn't count your age, did it?
Instead of answering, he fell into a trance and tried to escape that way, working on ways to save his brother. It didn't take long at all.
That part actually shocked him, because when he thought about it, he knew how to encapsulate the needed proteins already, doing that would shut the Rhetistics down cold. The hard part was that the action had to be made permanent, which meant that he had to influence time itself, on a very tiny level, to make it last for the rest of Tor's life. He could do it, he knew. It was similar, in a very sideways fashion, to how Tor had made the communications devices, of all things. The hard part was going to be what he feared the whole time. The amount of work it would take, and the fine level of control he'd need.
It was painful, but as he opened his eyes, sitting in Ali's front room still, with others around him talking to different places, he knew he wasn't good enough. Tor probably wasn't, if he were going to be honest. That meant he had six months to become better, so at least there was that. It wasn't enough time, but it was all he had, and while he might have to learn to manipulate time on the small scale, that wouldn't buy him anything in the real world that way.
So he forced himself deeper, controlling each part of every thought, and then called Green back, clearly interrupting some kind of meeting. From the sound of it, that would be in the full council, and people were a lot less than happy. He could get that. They also didn't stop shouting at one another in the background while his grandfather spoke. For the first time since he'd kno
wn that man, he sounded stressed. Pained even. That and old.
"Hello?" The one word carried with it things that Timon knew no one should ever have to bear. They all did now anyway. Things were just too close to the edge of the cliff for them not to worry.
"Timon here. You asked for a plan. I have one."
His own words surprised him, since his mouth was moving, but he didn't know what he was going to say next at all. It was like he was watching it unfold, being too far back from things to control them. It wasn't true however. That was just that little part of his mind that wasn't under his discipline as of yet, trying to make sense of things.
It was the bigger part that was speaking however.
Green grunted, which was a thing that was so odd he wanted to freeze, but Tim felt the words come out anyway.
"I'll handle the food portion of things. I have a plan in place for it. I need a month. In the mean time everyone needs to share with each other. I'll make sure no one starves, so tell people not to worry. No hoarding. Tell King Richard to share the shields and weapons with the new forces. I'll have more of those coming too. I'll work from the Ranford, so that they can't kill me too easily. I want you and Brown to work with all the other Ancients that aren't trying to kill us all. Also, get with Gerent. He has a solution if the rest of us fail. Can you do anything about the radiation?" It was a big problem in certain areas, he thought.
Count Lairdgren sighed.
"No. We can isolate the contaminated areas, but they'll be useless for a long time. I figure that the plan must be for the others to hide and just out wait the problems. I've tried to explain that to everyone, but they insist on focusing on war, instead of survival. You can handle food? How?"