by Pete Hautman
“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.
“Ronnie. Thank God it’s you,” Kosh said.
Ronnie smiled and raised his hand. Tucker saw the baton too late to warn Kosh. The baton crackled, and Kosh collapsed.
Tucker swung the arma toward Ronnie, but Gheen grabbed his arm, wrestling for the weapon. Tucker tore the arma free and clubbed Gheen on the side of the head. The priest staggered back. Lahlia was grappling with Ronnie, trying to wrest the baton from his grip. Tucker pointed the arma at them. Lahlia saw him and jumped back.
“Stop!” Tucker shouted.
Ronnie ignored him and thrust the baton at Lahlia. Tucker pressed the stud on the arma. Ronnie’s knee exploded — he dropped the baton and toppled with a ghastly shriek. The bottom half of his left leg remained standing upright.
Tucker, horrified, stared at the leg as it wavered, then tipped onto its side. The charred-hot-dog smell of incinerated flesh filled the tent. Tucker’s stomach clenched.
“No more, Tucker!” His father’s voice echoed in the tent. Tucker felt as if he was about to vomit. His grip on the arma loosened.
“Tucker!” Lahlia shouted.
Before Tucker could react, the arma was ripped from his hands.
“Do not move.” Gheen backed off a few steps, keeping the arma pointed in Lahlia and Tucker’s direction. Ronnie Becker moaned and fell silent.
“Send Brother Ron through the Gate,” Gheen said to Tucker’s father.
Father September dragged the unconscious Ronnie over to the pulsing maggot. The stump of Ronnie’s leg left a thick trail of blood. Half lifting him, he tipped Ronnie into the maggot’s disko.
“Let’s not forget the leg,” said Gheen. He picked up the severed leg by the ankle and tossed it into the maggot. The leg disappeared in an orange flash.
“The Yar, too,” said Gheen, looking at Lahlia.
“No!” Tucker said.
Gheen pointed the arma at Kosh, who was lying senseless on the floor. “It is not necessary that he live.”
Tucker met Lahlia’s eyes. She nodded. Her eyes shifted quickly to Kosh, then to Gheen.
“I will do as you say,” she said. Tucker glanced at Kosh and noticed that his eyes were open and alert. Lahlia made a slight motion with one hand, telling Tucker to wait. Gheen still had the arma trained on Kosh, but his eyes were locked on Lahlia. Kosh winked at Tucker as Lahlia moved slowly toward the maggot.
“Quickly,” said Gheen.
“It was good to see you, Tucker Feye,” Lahlia said, looking Tucker right in the eye. “Do not hesitate.”
“Go now,” said Gheen.
“I will see you later as well, priest,” Lahlia said. “As it is written.” She smiled humorlessly. “In my history, priest, I send you to hell.”
Gheen snarled and swung the arma toward Lahlia as she dove into the disko. The instant the priest moved the weapon away from Kosh, Tucker was in motion, driving his shoulder into Gheen’s si
de. A jet of flame seared the floor and ripped open the side of the tent. The weapon flew from Gheen’s hands. Kosh leaped to his feet and snatched the arma from midair as Tucker slammed the priest into one of the steel tent posts anchoring the maggot.
Kosh triggered the arma, aiming high to avoid hitting Tucker. The tent post just above their heads turned cherry red and exploded in a mist of molten metal. Gheen screamed as the superheated droplets rained down on them. They jumped back from the post, their garments sending up tendrils of smoke. The canvas sagged. The maggot, with one side of its bindings gone slack, began to pulse and twitch.
Gheen made a dash for the doorway, frantically brushing hot metal fragments from his robe. Tucker launched himself and tackled him from behind. The priest fell headlong and hit the floor with his face. Kosh grabbed the baton Ronnie had dropped, jabbed it against Gheen’s neck. The priest convulsed, then lay still.
Kosh looked at Tucker. “You okay?”
Tucker nodded and climbed to his feet. His coveralls were spotted with burn marks from the hot metal. “You sure recovered quick,” he said, gesturing at the baton in Kosh’s hand.
Kosh touched the handle end of the baton to his heavy leather jacket. “My leathers must’ve blocked most of its juice.”
Tucker’s father, still standing beside the damaged maggot, said, “Curtis . . . what have you done?”
The maggot hissed and sputtered.
“What have I done?” Kosh looked from his brother to Gheen, then at Tucker. “Adrian, what happened to you?”
“I have seen the future.”
“Yeah? Then how come you didn’t know this was going to happen?” Kosh shook his head in disgust. He strode to the front of the tent to look outside. “We better get going,” he said to Tucker.
“No. We have to wait for Lahlia.”
“We don’t know she’s coming back, kid. She could be anywhere from Abilene to Timbuktu.” He was still looking out the tent flap. “There’s another SUV coming, and those two guys I put down are waking up again. We got to go.”
“I can’t,” Tucker said.
“Why not?”
Tucker was staring at the maggot. “Lahlia. She came here for me. And I want to meet these Gnomon, or Boggsians, or whatever. Maybe there’s something they can do. Or undo.”
“You got no idea what happens, you jump into that thing. Look at it.”
The maggot’s disko was slightly out of round, and the pink flesh surrounding it was pulsing.
“I can’t not go after her,” Tucker said.
Kosh shook his head slowly. “You got heart, kid.”
“My name is Tucker.”
“Tucker. You still got heart.”
For a moment, Tucker thought his uncle might try to stop him, but instead Kosh said, “I’m going with you.”
“No,” Tucker said. “You have to stay. My mom is here.”
“Emily? Here? Where?”
“She was at the house. She’s married to one of them. I think they got her brainwashed or something. You have to make her remember.”
“Remember what?” Kosh said.
“Us,” Tucker said.
Kosh nodded slowly. “I can do that.” With the arma in one hand and the baton in the other, he looked ready to take on an army.
“Son”— Father September, his voice pleading and desperate, held out his hands —“do not turn your back on your destiny!”
“Destiny?” Tucker looked at the strange old man standing before him. A man who had once been his father. A man who wanted to kill him. A distressing stew of emotions rose up within him — disgust, pity, anger, and above all, sorrow for all he had lost — but beneath it all was a sense of what he had to do. “My destiny is what I make of it.”
Tucker turned his back to his father and leaped into the maggot’s maw.
MASTER GHEEN AWAKENED TO THE SPUTTER AND BUZZ of the maggot-borne Gate. His head was pounding. His teeth hurt. A wave of nausea rolled up his abdomen. Gheen turned his head to the side and vomited. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked up. Father September was standing over him.
“What happened?” he croaked.
“They are gone, Master.”
“The boy?”
Father September gestured toward the maggot. Brother Tamm was repairing the armature that confined it, reattaching the slackened cables.
“He followed the Yar into the Gate. He has not returned.”
“Then it is as we feared. He is truly a danger to us all.” Gheen closed his eyes, took a fortifying breath, and attempted to stand. Tamm moved to help him, but Gheen waved him back. It was important to appear strong, even in circumstances such as these. Slowly, he got to his feet on his own.
“What of your brother?” he asked.
“He goes to seek out the Lamb Emma,” Father September said.
Tamm’s face darkened. He ran out of the tent.
“Do not spare him,” Gheen called after him. “He is nothing.”
Gheen moved to the front of the tent and looked out past the curtain. The numberless multitude was waiting, seated on the sea of folding chairs, staring expectantly up at the platform. He fought off another wave of nausea, wondering how long he had been unconscious.
“The Lambs grow restless,” he said. “History must be made real.”
“How?” said Father September. “My son is gone.”
“We must choose another.” From within his robes, he produced a folded cloth. He opened it to reveal a black, wedge-shaped stone dagger.
Father September took the knife in his hand and tested the edge with his thumb. The blade, sharper than any razor, sliced easily through his skin. A glistening bead of blood welled from his thumb, broke, and trickled down his wrist. “An obsidian blade,” he said. “A dark stone for a dark deed.”
“One must pass through night to reach the dawn. Are you able?”
Father September nodded. “As it is written.”
Tom Krause was sitting with several other Pure Boys near the steps leading up to the stage. The crowd was restless — they had been gathered for nearly an hour, but nothing was happening. He leaned over the back of his chair and looked at the row of Pure Girls sitting behind them.
“What do you think is going on?” he asked Kathy Aamodt.
Kathy shook her head. She looked as impatient as Tom felt, but even with that tight frown, she was the most beautiful girl Tom had ever seen. In fact, she was the whole reason he had joined up with the Lambs.
He said, “You want a soda or something? I’m thirsty.” A concession trailer had been set up near the entrance to the park. He figured he could get there and back in a few minutes, and who knew how long it would be before the show — or whatever — started.
“We’re not supposed to talk,” Kathy said.
The problem with Kathy was that she was too devout. She actually believed in all the miracles. Not that the miracles weren’t impressive, but Tom secretly agreed with his father — anybody could make predictions and get lucky once in a while. He wondered what sort of tricks they would be witnessing today. Several people in wheelchairs were lining up in front of the platform. Maybe Father September would coax a few of them to walk again.
“You want to maybe go out to Hardy Lake after? We got a great rope swing.”
She shushed him. Frustrated, Tom turned and found himself facing an acolyte wearing a yellow robe. The man pointed his forefinger at Tom.
“Me?” said Tom, trying to look innocent.
“Come,” said the man, crooking his finger. “You are chosen.”
I received a lot of help with this book from some very generous readers, including, in approximate order of geotemporal proximity, Mary Logue, Tobias Ball, Joe Hautman, Tucker Foley, Kathy Erickson, Ellen Hart, Deborah Woodworth, Bill Smith, Karin Gilbertson, Jennifer Flannery, Jen Yoon, and Jonathan Coran (whose surname I fear I have misspelled). Thank you all.
PETE HAUTMAN is the author of many books for young adults and adults, including the Nation
al Book Award–winning Godless and the time-travel adventure Mr. Was. About The Obsidian Blade, he says, “I’ve been thinking about this trilogy my whole life. When I was a teen, this was what I wanted to read — sci-fi, adventure, the past, the future, and a mind-bending mystery all in one. I hope it’s as fun to read as it was to write.” Pete Hautman splits his time between Wisconsin and Minnesota.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Pete Hautman
Cover photographs: copyright © 2012 by Odin Standal (orb); copyright © 2012 by Matthew Fleming (landscape); copyright © 2012 by Peter Dazeley (smoke)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Hautman, Pete, date.
The obsidian blade / Pete Hautman. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After thirteen-year-old Tucker Feye’s parents disappear, he suspects that the strange disks of shimmering air that he keeps seeing are somehow involved, and when he steps inside of one he is whisked on a time-twisting journey trailed by a shadowy sect of priests and haunted by ghostlike figures.
ISBN 978-0-7636-5403-0 (hardcover)
[1. Space and time — Fiction. 2. Religion — Fiction. 3. Missing persons — Fiction. 4. Uncles — Fiction. 5. Supernatural — Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.H2887Ob 2012
[Fic] — dc23 2011018617
ISBN 978-0-7636-5972-1 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
untitled