The Darkness Before the Dawn

Chapter Eleven

The people in the audience screamed and cheered and stomped their feet. King Kalak had given them a wonderful variation on the usual gladiatorial fare. Most couples did one another in with poison or with a dagger in the night; people hardly ever saw lovers-even ones who quarreled as much as Jedra and Kayan-fight to the death in the arena.

"Come on," one of the two men said, taking Jedra's sword from his unresisting hand and tugging on his arm. "There's more waitin' their turn."

Jedra and Kayan allowed themselves to be led back underneath the ziggurat. Normally the gladiators all stayed until the end of the games, but this time the two of them were led straight past the slave pens and on out the other side, where their ever-present psionic guards and a couple of Rokur soldiers escorted them up the hill to the estate. Jedra didn't know why the difference in treatment today, but he wasn't going to complain. The less time he had to spend in the stadium, the better.

The stadium! He could still hear the king's voice echoing across it as he had pronounced their doom. He collapsed on his bunk and buried his face in his hands, while Kayan sat and stared at the stone wall.

The walled compound was nearly deserted. The two psionicists, one of the old men and one of the middle-aged women, watched over the exhausted gladiators, and a few soldiers patrolled the grounds as usual, but nearly everyone else was still at the games. Jedra peeked through his fingers at the psionicists. They weren't paying any attention to him or Kayan, no doubt assuming the captives were too tired to make a break. Which made now the perfect time to try. It didn't look like Kitarak was coming back for them, and there was no way they could wait around until the next game. They would both be killed then for refusing to fight.

He itched to extend his psionic senses, but he knew that anything he and Kayan did would have to be done suddenly in order to keep the element of surprise. They would have to join their minds and make their attack immediately, which meant planning ahead without mindlinking. Which meant whispering. Which meant getting closer to her. Jedra didn't particularly mind that idea, but he didn't expect her to feel the same way.

First things first. He sat up, wincing as his wounded arm protested the movement. No one had healed him this time. Either they didn't feel it was necessary or they didn't want to waste their effort on the doomed. He didn't care. He wouldn't be needing the arm anyway, not for this.

"Kayan?" he said softly. He swung his legs off the side of his bunk, and his ankle chain rattled to the floor.

"Hmm?" She looked over at him, her eyes still glazed over.

"I, urn, I want to apologize for some of the things I said out there today."

She said nothing, just blinked at him.

He went on. "I was trying to get you mad so you would fight. But I guess I overdid it. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

Jedra heard one of the psionicists shift in his chair. They would no doubt love to eavesdrop on this tender conversation, but if he and Kayan were going to plan anything...

"I... can I just hold you?" he asked.

She didn't look very pleased with the idea, but she didn't say no, so he shifted over to her bunk and put his left arm around her, being careful not to smear her clothing with his bloody right arm.

They looked into each other's eyes from the closest vantage since they'd been captured. Kayan blinked, then smiled ever so faintly. "I'd almost forgotten what it felt like when we touch."

"So had I." Jedra lowered his head and kissed the hollow where her neck and shoulders met, tasting the unmistakable essence of her skin beneath the sweat and dust of the arena. He raised up to kiss her on the mouth, but she pulled back.

"Don't."

He stopped with his lips just brushing hers. "Why not?"

"Because it'll only make me love you even more, and I can't bear it."

Jedra said, "You can't bear to love me? Why not?"

She shook her head. "I can't bear to lose you."

"Ah," he said, but he was thinking she had a funny way of showing it, if that's how she'd felt for the last few weeks. Or maybe the sudden realization that they had only a week left had made her examine her own feelings. Who could say?

"You're not going to lose me," he whispered to her.

"How can you say that? We have to fight each other next time." She pressed her face against his chest, and hot tears left streaks as they fell. "Oh, Jedra, what have we done?" "Listen," he whispered. "We're going to escape. Right now."

"Do what?"

Jedra kissed her neck again, nibbling his way up to her ear. Barely mouthing the words, he said, "When we link up, the first thing we do is blast the psionicists before they can react. Then... I don't know. I guess we try to make it over or through the wall somehow, and try to get into the crowd leaving the city after the games. Maybe I can disguise us a little bit by bending the light around us."

"Maybe? Jedra, this doesn't sound very well thought out."

"If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

She shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"Then let's go. Are you ready?"

"No." She lifted her head and kissed him, her lips already hot and soft from crying. The rush of sensation caught Jedra by surprise. He lost himself in the kiss, closing his eyes and letting it carry him away for an eternal moment into a place where only the two of them existed.

"Now I'm ready," Kayan whispered.

If the kiss was a welcome surprise, joining minds again was fantastic. The surge of strength and well-being that flowed through them was better than they had remembered, and the heightened sense of awareness made them feel like immortals. Time seemed to slow to a crawl while their intellects joined once more into a single mind. The psionicist guards, still smiling embarrassedly as they watched their prisoners embrace, had no idea what incredible new power was being born right under their noses.

Jedra and Kayan never gave them time to discover it. As soon as they had merged, they exploded outward and attacked straight at the psionicists' unprotected minds, overrunning their defenses without resistance. They weren't able to suppress the guards' instinctive cries of alarm, neither vocal nor psionic, but they managed to cut them short, using Kayan's medical abilities to drop the guards into a deep sleep.

Before the bodies had even slumped to the floor, they had moved their focus of awareness on out through the wall and into the compound beyond. It didn't look as if anyone had noticed anything unusual, but they couldn't be sure. The psionic shout could have been heard halfway across the city if anyone was attuned to it.

The servants' gate in the alley was the least guarded; it was visible from only three observation towers-one along the wall and two on the rear corners of the mansion. That meant deceiving six guards, maybe seven if one of the ones on foot patrol was nearby. Not the best of odds, but it was the best they would get, and they were committed now. They brought their awareness back inside the gladiators' quarters and tried to rise up from Kayan's bunk. They broke their chains with a thought, but it quickly became apparent that they couldn't remain linked to such a high degree and control their individual bodies at the same time. For fine muscle control, they needed to remain separate.

We'll have to break apart at least until we get through the wall, Jedra said. He let his awareness return to his own body. He stood up, fighting the depression that always hit him when they came out of convergence, and his gaze fell upon the two sleeping psionicists.

"Get their clothes," he said. "We can pretend to be them."

"Good idea." Kayan helped him tug off their earth-brown tunics and short breeches, blushing a bit at stripping them naked, but she didn't hesitate. Nor did she hesitate to strip out of her own halter and loincloth to put on the psionicists' clothing. Jedra didn't either. They lad been more intimate than this only moments ago. In only a minute more they had both transformed themselves from gladiator-slaves into respectable servants wearing the livery of their noble. Both tunics were loose on them-nobles' servants ate well-but they gathered them up and tied them at the waist.

"Walk like you've got every right to be there," Jedra said, stepping to the door. "Ready?"

"I used to be a templar's assistant," Kayan reminded him. She was smiling again. They were getting out of here!

Jedra opened the door and stepped outside. Kayan followed right behind him, and together they strode across the compound, past the cookhouse and the storage sheds and the servants' quarters, toward the back gate. Jedra concentrated on twisting the light around them to blur their faces. He couldn't control it well enough to project an image of the psionicists they were trying to impersonate, but he hoped that anyone who looked their way would merely think the heat was affecting their eyes.

They made it almost to the gate before Jedra's danger sense began to tingle. Someone had taken an interest in them, or was about to. He tried to locate whoever it was, but could find no one in the guard towers, anywhere behind them, or to either side. That left only-

"Run!" Jedra said, and this time Kayan took his advice. They both sprinted down the alley, with Shani right behind them shouting, "Escape! Guards! Slaves loose!"

She was full-blooded elf, and faster than either of them. Jedra heard her footsteps draw closer and heard Kayan shriek as Shani grabbed her. He skidded to a stop and turned around just in time to see Shani draw her dagger from its scabbard at her belt and hold it across Kayan's neck.

"Don't move, either of you," Shani panted.

Link up! Kayan mindsent. Jedra did, and they suddenly became a single mind again. Effortlessly, they snatched the knife away from Shani and broke her hold on Kayan, forcing her back into the wall hard enough to rattle her teeth when she hit. Slowly, clumsily, they moved their bodies together and put their arms around one another, then levitated themselves into the air.

The last time Jedra had tried this he'd only had his own power to draw on. Now with the synergy of Kayan's presence they leaped upward, and when they shoved off against the alley wall they shot away like an arrow from a bow.

But a sudden wind howled up from the end of the alley and blew them backward, swirling dust around them at the same time to blind them and make them cough and gasp for air. They tried to still the wind, but it merely became more turbulent. They searched for the source of it, but in the moment it took to locate the psionicist in the guard tower on the wall, it had blown them up and over that same wall and back into the compound.

No! they shouted. They struggled to rise up again, but the wind forced them to the ground, pinning them there while another less substantial but equally strong force battered at their minds. They recognized the new power from before: multiple minds in convergence, all pressing their combined will against Jedra's and Kayan's own. Where they had come from was no mystery, either; when Jedra and Kayan looked with the right focus, they could see tendrils of psionic energy reaching out from all the guard towers and from many of the buildings inside. Nearly all of Rokur's soldiers must have been psionicists as well. Either that or the ones who were had been posted on guard duty just in case their prisoners made a break today.

Either way, the combined effort of all those linked minds once again overpowered Jedra's and Kayan's wild and still largely uncontrolled talent. Lightning and thunder flashed and boomed around them as they struggled to break free, but the guards' grip slowly tightened on them, blocking their powers one at a time until they became trapped in a lightless, soundless, formless prison of thought. Their universe shrank to nothing, then with one final squeeze the psionicists took their very consciousness away.

When Jedra awoke, it was late evening. He was once again chained to the wall in the gladiators' quarters, and the noble himself, Rokur, stood before him. Kayan was not on her bunk beside him, nor anywhere else in the building's single room.

"Where is she?" Jedra asked.

"She is safe," Rokur said. "I'm keeping you in separate quarters until your... ah... final encounter."

"Why?"

The noble laughed. "You don't think I'm going to risk losing you twice, do you? Not now that the king has taken an interest in your welfare. He'd have me in the arena if that happened. No, I prefer watching, so I've made sure you can't escape or hurt yourselves before the game."

Jedra couldn't resist saying, "We would have made it if Shani hadn't been there."

The noble said, "No. If she hadn't distracted the tower guards by returning early from the stadium, you wouldn't have made it even to the gate. We were expecting you to try something."

That seemed likely, given how fast the guards had come down on them. "We'll try again," Jedra said, knowing it was bravado speaking. Then the other thing that Rokur had said penetrated, and he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. There was one sure way to make sure he and Kayan didn't have to fight: If he killed himself first, she wouldn't have to do it.

He certainly wasn't going to kill her, no matter what the king wanted. Kalak could use his defiling sorcery to turn Jedra into a quivering pile of goo first, but he would never harm Kayan. He said so to Rokur, but the noble merely laughed.

"You'll fight, because if you don't, you'll both die," he said. "As it is, at least one of you will live. You'll both fight to lose, but you'll fight." He laughed, and added, "And who knows what will happen when you feel the first bite of the blade? You may find that sweet life is more important to you than your precious love." Then he turned away and left Jedra alone with his psionicist guards.

Sahalik showed up a few hours later, smelling of sweat and cheap wine. He carried a jug with him, which he held precariously in his right hand as he sat down heavily on Kayan's bunk and belched. A fresh scar drew an angry red line across his forehead. "That was a good fight you put up this afternoon," he said.

Jedra snorted. "I feel like I won the battle but lost the war."

"Hah." Sahalik scratched at another scar on his abdomen, swigged from the jug, then offered it to Jedra. "I didn't exactly make out like a champion, either."

"You must've won, if you're here talking to me."

"Barely."

Jedra took the bottle from him and sniffed it cautiously. Rotgut. But it was the only wine he was liable to get, and he could use a little dulling of the senses. He took a mouthful and swallowed slowly, trying not to let the fumes make him cough.

"Tough luck about next week," Sahalik said. "Kalak's a malicious bastard for making you two fight each other." "That he is."

"I'm sorry it worked out this way."

"Me, too."

Jedra handed the jug back, and Sahalik took a long draught. "Nothing ever seems to work out the way we expect, does it?"

"Not very often," Jedra admitted, then he laughed softly.

"What?"

"Well," Jedra said, "I sure never would have expected to be sitting here sharing a jug of wine with you, not considering the way we met."

Sahalik grinned. He was missing another tooth. "Ah, that. I was a malicious bastard, too, there's no denying it. I'd been second in command for so long I was going crazy waiting for that old kank of a chief to die. I led all the raids, but he took all the glory. It ate on me. Made me mean."

"I could tell." Jedra took the jug and drank again. It didn't taste so bad on the second swallow.

Sahalik said, "I was actually kind of glad when I woke up out in the desert and remembered how I'd got there. Gave me a perfect excuse to go after some glory of my own." He shook his shaggy head. "But you know, I finally learned something today. No matter how big you are, no matter how strong and how mean, there's always going to be somebody bigger and stronger and meaner. It's just a matter of time."

"I suppose so."

Sahalik belched again and took the jug back. "So you think the tribe's ready for a new chief?" he asked.

Jedra shrugged. It was hard to concentrate on Sahalik's words, but he made himself try. He said, "The old one's still kicking, but he didn't look good when we last saw him. I don't know if you'd have to wait for him to die-he'd probably give you the honor just for the asking. If the Jura-Dai can do that sort of thing."

"The Jura-Dai can do whatever we want," Sahalik said. He drank, then said, "I think I will go back. I will come gibbering and capering out of the desert like a mad fool, and I will bark like a rasclinn at the moons until everyone laughs at me. And then-" he belched-"my worst fears already realized, I will settle down to become a wise old man whom even the warriors respect."

"Sounds like a good plan," Jedra said. "I'd love to go with you, but you see how it is." He rattled his leg chain.

"I would help you escape if I could," Sahalik said, heedless of the guards listening to him, "but the entire city would come after us. Your upcoming battle is the biggest thing to happen here since Kalak started the ziggurat. Everyone is betting on it."

"Really." Jedra took the jug and drained the last of the wine. He didn't know what to say to that.

Sahalik said, "So far the betting gives you just about even odds."

"I hate to disappoint everybody, but there won't be any fight."

Sahalik shook his head. "Don't be so sure. If you don't fight, you'll both be tortured to death. The crowd must be entertained, after all."

"Gods forbid that the crowd be disappointed," Jedra said wryly.

Sahalik didn't smile. "As hard as Kalak has been pushing this city to build his ziggurat, he needs to provide an outlet for people's frustrations. If he doesn't, there's going to be a revolt. So you can be sure he'll make a spectacle of you one way or the other."

"You're not thinking this through," Sahalik said. He took the jug from Jedra, saw that it was empty, and set it on the floor beside the bunk. "If you do fight, you can at least assure that one of you will die a relatively painless death. Under the circumstances, it would be the best gift you could give Kayan."

Jedra shuddered. "I couldn't."

"Then you had best hope she can give it to you." Sahalik stood up. "During our next practice sessions I will show you both how to kill someone painlessly, and how to make superficial wounds that will make the battle look much worse than it is. But I'm afraid that's all I can do." He picked up his jug and walked to the door, but he paused with his hand on the latch. "Besides spreading the tale, of course. I will make the tribe's bard compose a more complimentary song than his last one about you, and I will send him to every city in the land to sing about your tragic love."

"Thanks." Jedra leaned back against the wall, blushing.

Sahalik shrugged. "The Jura-Dai honor our heroes."

Heroes, Jedra thought. Hah. He never wanted to be a hero.

Over the next few days, he got a small taste of what it felt like, though. All the soldiers and servants whispered among themselves and watched him whenever he took the practice field, no doubt trying to gauge his performance so they could decide who to bet on, and between practices he got the best meals he'd ever eaten. He assumed Kayan was getting the same treatment, but the noble was true to his word; they even practiced separately. Sahalik and Shani offered to pass messages back and forth, but neither one could think of anything to say except "I love you."

When Jedra asked Sahalik if he'd talked to Kayan about prearranging the fight, Sahalik laughed and said, "I suspect that any fighting you do will be over who has to strike the other. She refuses to raise arms against you, just as you have refused to against her." All the same, Sahalik taught Jedra-and presumably Kayan-how to perform a merciful execution. Fortunately, if anything could be considered fortunate in their situation, they would both be fighting with the simplest of gladiators' weapons: a sword and a shield, so at least they wouldn't have to bludgeon one another to death. Jedra tried to learn the various deadly cuts and thrusts into vital organs, thinking to use the best method on himself at the first opportunity, but Sahalik assured him that opportunity would never arise. He practiced with a soft wooden sword, and if he did succeed in killing himself either before or during the actual battle then Kayan would be punished for it.

"You have no options," Sahalik told him one morning after he'd caught Jedra testing his blunted blade against his own chest. "One of you must die by the other's hand or the survivor will be tortured to death, and the sooner you accept that the better off you both will be."

"I can't accept it," said Jedra. "There has to be a way out of this mess. I just haven't found it yet."

"There doesn't have to be a way out," Sahalik insisted. "You've lived long enough to know that."

Jedra ignored him. "How about my own psionic power?" he asked. "Will I be able to use that during the fight?"

Sahalik shrugged. "Who can say? The judges won't let you simply stop your heart, or hers either. It wouldn't be bloody enough. But if you try something spectacular, they might let you do it."

Something spectacular. Jedra wondered if mind-merging and knocking the ziggurat over onto the stadium and the palace would be enough, but he couldn't see how that would help him and Kayan get away. There were simply too many other psionicists who could also mind-merge and keep them from doing it. If the last few weeks in Tyr had taught Jedra anything, it was that he and Kayan weren't invincible. They had a talent, sure, and when they used it they could do some incredible things, but they weren't indestructible. They were just average people with a not-so-average ability who were nonetheless about to be chewed up and spit out by the system just like everyone else.

That kind of attitude wasn't going to get him anywhere, he knew, but neither was wishful thinking and self-delusion. Unless he could come up with an escape plan, he and Kayan would face one another in the arena the day after tomorrow and then nothing anybody could do would be able to save them.

Unless of course the king suddenly had a change of heart, but since Kalak didn't have a heart to begin with, the odds of that happening were less than slim. No, they had to escape beforehand or not at all. Trouble was, Jedra could think of no way to do that.

The next day, the last before their fight, came and went with no new revelations. That evening Jedra sent a message to Kayan through Sahalik, asking what plans, if any, she had made, but her reply was simply, "What's the point?" After Sahalik delivered that short line to Jedra, he sat on Kayan's former bunk and said, "I wish I knew what to tell you. You've got a chance here to go down in history as the most tragic couple Athas has ever known, but neither of you wants to even consider that aspect of this. You're both pining for the impossible instead."

Sahalik laughed. "The way you two argue? Even if you walked out of here free tonight, that would never happen. It was your arguing that got you into this situation in the first place."

"Don't remind me," Jedra said glumly.

"Sorry."

They sat in silence for a minute or so before Jedra said, "When we were crossing the desert not long after we met Kitarak, we were attacked by something he called a tokamak. An id fiend. It can make you think your worst fear is coming true."

"I have battled such a beast," Sahalik said.

"Let me guess," said Jedra. "You suddenly found yourself standing there with no pants on, and everybody was laughing at you."

"Close," the elf said, smiling wryly. "Very close."

Jedra didn't smile. "My worst fear was that I would hurt Kayan. Every time I would attack the beast, suddenly it would be her instead."

"Ah. And now here you are."

"Yeah."

"Well," Sahalik said, "don't ever let anybody tell you that dreams can't come true. Looks like you have proof that they can."

"Ha ha."

The big elf smiled weakly and stood up. "If you think of anything else I can do for you, let me know."

"Just get us out of here," Jedra said.

"I would if I could," Sahalik said. "Believe me, I've thought of every angle, but there just isn't any way."

"There has to be," Jedra told him. "I'm just not thinking of it."

Sahalik looked over at the ever-present psionicists, who watched them with bored amusement. "Well," he said, "if you do think of it, don't think too loudly. They're not as sympathetic as I am."

No, they aren't, Jedra thought, once again marveling at the twists of fate that had turned Sahalik into an ally, and Kayan into an adversary.

Jedra lay awake all night, trying to scheme a way out of their plight, but when morning came he was no wiser. A serving boy brought his breakfast, but he couldn't eat any of it. He just stood at the barred window and watched the sky grow lighter and felt the air grow hotter until the guards came to take him to the games.

Sahalik came with them, and helped Jedra dress in his leather armor. He was armored for battle as well, but he shrugged it off when Jedra asked him about it.

"It's my last fight," he said. "I was already scheduled for it when I gave Rokur notice that I was leaving, and I had to stick out the week to train you two anyway, so I decided to pick up one last week's pay while I was at it. Maybe it'll help bring the Jura-Dai back to better times."

"You be careful," Jedra told him. "There aren't any sure bets out there in the arena."

Sahalik grinned and slapped him on the back. "Yes, Mother."

Shani was not with him; she was evidently taking care of Kayan. Jedra let Sahalik and the guards, both psionic and otherwise, lead him through the streets of Tyr to the stadium. On the way he tried to reach out with his psionic senses to see if he could spot any weakness in their psychic restraints, but their shields blocked him from even that simple use of his power. He felt their stifling presence like a blanket wrapped tightly around him.

The other gladiators cheered when he walked with his escort into the holding area beneath the ziggurat. He wasn't led to the slave pens this time, but to a separate individual cage on the main floor, from which he could watch the games. Kayan was still nowhere to be seen, but the gladiators' waiting area was immense, and the massive columns holding up the rest of the ziggurat blocked much of it from view. She could have been only a few feet away, blocked by psionic means from contact, and he would never know.

Since theirs was the showcase fight of the day, they were scheduled late in the games. From his cage, Jedra watched gladiator after gladiator march out into the arena, and only half of them march back. The fighting often lasted until both combatants were covered with blood and could barely stand, but quite a few fights lasted less than a minute. Deadly weapons didn't make for long battles unless the combatants were almost perfectly matched, and even though the officials tried to match them as closely as possible, as soon as one gladiator got the upper hand over another, he pressed his advantage without mercy.

Sahalik shook him out of his reverie. "You're next," he said while a guard unlocked the cage. Five more guards and three psionicists stood ready. Sahalik carried Jedra's short sword and shield, which he handed over, but the instant Jedra's hand gripped the hilt he felt the grip of the psionicists close in around his hand as well. They weren't going to let him use the blade on himself.

Some of the other gladiators shouted crude encouragement, saying things like, "Go show her who's boss!" and, "Don't take any sass from her this time!" Jedra ignored them, searching for Kayan. Where was she?

There. Emerging from behind the pillars nearly fifty feet away, flanked by her own guards. Jedra's heart leaped at the sight of her, but she looked so small and helpless he wondered if she'd been starving herself. She wore armor as concealing as his own, no brass brassiere for her. She looked beautiful to him just the same. Kayan! he mindsent, not caring if he was punished.

Jedra, she replied. I love-But the psionicists didn't let her finish. The shield around Jedra drew tight, isolating him completely from Kayan or anyone else.

When the cleanup crew was done removing the body from the previous fight and covering up the slippery spots with fresh sand, the crier stepped to the center of the arena and shouted, "And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, a command performance for our illustrious, most magnificent King Kalak. I present the crabby couple, the prickly pair, the-" Whatever else he called Jedra and Kayan was lost in the roar of the crowd.

Sahalik gave Jedra a slap on the back and shouted to be heard over the noise, "Remember what I taught you: a few superficial wounds to satisfy the crowd, then a clean stroke straight to the heart." Then he shoved Jedra out into the arena.

Shani pushed Kayan out at the same time. Instead of walking out into the center the way they were supposed to, they both turned toward each other and met just outside the entrance. They hugged fiercely, their swords and shields and armor getting in the way and tears streaming down both their faces. They kissed, momentarily slipping into convergence, but the psionicists came down instantly on that, forcing them apart both mentally and physically. The spectators, seeing only that they had kissed and then seemingly leaped back from one another, cheered at this first indication of hostility.

"She bit 'im!" Jedra heard someone shout.

Guards with pikes advanced on them from beneath the ziggurat, forcing them farther into the arena. As Jedra and Kayan backed away from them, the crier waved the crowd to silence and shouted, "Harken the words of your king!"

Kalak stood in his balcony at the opposite end of the arena, once again in his golden robe. He was a tiny figure at that distance, but his magically-enhanced voice echoed all around the stadium. "Today's battle has captured the hearts of the entire city," he said. "Like no other contest in the history of Tyr, this ritual combat has sparked the imaginations of every couple here. What husband has not dreamed of killing his wife for some slight, either real or imagined? What wife has not dreamed the same? Many of you have acted out your fantasies, but always furtively, behind closed doors. Today we will see the ultimate domestic quarrel played to its logical conclusion for all to see!"

Cheers from the crowd echoed off the ziggurat and the balconies and the stadium walls, but Kalak held out his hands for silence. "The betting has been fierce. Everyone has a favorite. But some of the less realistic among you would prefer to see a happier ending. I have been flooded with requests for mercy, from the lowliest romantic in the warrens to the highest ranking templars. Even their trainer, the popular elf-warrior Sahalik of the Jura-Dai, has asked for clemency."

A few ragged cheers sprang out at the mention of his name, but far more people booed the elf's obvious sentimentality. Jedra turned back to look at Sahalik, who stood just inside the entrance with a bemused expression on his face. Thank you, Jedra mindsent, amazed that the elf would risk the king's wrath for them; then, not knowing if his message made it through or not, he raised his sword in salute. Sahalik shrugged embarrassedly.

"Their pleas did not fall on deaf ears," Kalak said. "Because so many have asked it, and because I am a merciful king, I decree..." He paused dramatically, and Jedra held his breath while he waited for the words that would end this farce. "I decree that the winner of this battle shall go free!" Jedra exhaled noisily. He felt as if he'd been stabbed in the heart. The crowd went wild, stomping and cheering, but it was all show. Nobody really believed there was any mercy involved. No one who had ever loved someone, anyway. The last thing either Jedra or Kayan wanted was to win their freedom with the other's life. Kalak's gift of freedom would mean nothing but the undisturbed opportunity to dwell on the horrible way it had been achieved. And of course it disrupted any plans they might have made for throwing the fight, which was no doubt Kalak's main intent.

"Kayan!" Jedra whispered to her. "He could fry us with a thought."

"What difference would it make?" she asked.

But the king only laughed and said, "You amuse me. Good. Amuse me some more. Let the battle begin!" He raised his arms out to either side, then clapped his hands together in front of him. A peal of thunder shook the arena. The crier echoed the king's command in a much tinier voice: "Begin!"

Jedra looked at Kayan. She looked at him. They stood well inside each other's guard; either could have stabbed the other to death without hindrance. Instead they leaned together for a final kiss. At first the thousands of people in the audience laughed at their bravado, but they soon grew restless and began to chant, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Kayan took a step back. "Now what?" she asked. Her voice wavered, and her pulse beat visibly in her neck.

Jedra swallowed. His own heart was beating so hard that the crystal he wore around his neck bounced against his chest with each beat. "We put on a show, I guess," he said.

"And then what?"

"I don't know!" He turned away, unable to face her, unable to say the words that had to be said, unable even to think anymore about what they must do. He looked up at the stands full of people, all of them expecting a bloody battle, and finally something snapped. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he tilted back his head and howled a long, ululating cry of rage and frustration. He howled until his lungs were empty and his throat was raw.

The crowd ate it up, thinking he was being punished psionically for not fighting. And with that encouragement, they began throwing rotted fruit and meat. Jedra easily dodged the offal, but he couldn't dodge the unseen fists that seemed to pummel him, nor the hands that gripped his sword arm and swung it toward Kayan. The guards were letting the crowd's psionic powers through to them.

A babble of voices filled Jedra's mind. He was about to shield them out when a familiar voice overpowered the rest. The message was the same-merely the single word, "Fight," but it came unmistakably from Kitarak.

Jedra whirled around toward the source of the voice, but it had been too brief to locate. Somewhere on the east side of the stadium; that was all he could tell for sure.

Kitarak is here! he mindsent to Kayan. The psionicists would know he had spoken to her, but they couldn't eavesdrop on their conversation. They could only block it, and if they did that then they would have to block the crowd, too.

I heard him, Kayan replied. He wants us to fight, too. She still sounded dispirited, as if her last hope had died.

No, Jedra said. He must want us to buy him time to get us free!

Some of Kayan's former enthusiasm returned to her psionic voice. You think so? she asked.

It's got to be.

Kayan fended off a melon with her shield, but it splattered seeds and juice all over her feet. Let's do it, then, before they start throwing rocks, she said, and she raised her sword in the en garde position.

Fighting the psionic members of the audience who would rather have him simply hack away at her, Jedra brought up his own sword and they crossed blades. The crowd cheered. Then Kayan darted forward, corkscrewing around Jedra's sword to stab him right in the thick leather over his chest. If he hadn't been wearing armor, she would have skewered his heart with her first blow.

"Hey!" he shouted, leaping back in surprise.

"You didn't think I was paying attention during practice, did you?" she asked, grinning wickedly. Without waiting for an answer, she attacked again, this time with a slash at his midsection which he parried easily enough, but she flicked her blade around to the other side with lightning speed and hit the armor over his left flank.

Jedra belatedly struck back at her, slashing down toward her heavily armored chest, but she raised her shield and blocked him easily.

"You'll have to do better than that," she said. Then, in a mocking voice, she said, "Come on, fight! Do you expect me to do everything?"

This was a sophisticated audience, though. They knew a mock battle when they saw one, and they began to boo. More fruit flew. The psionic battering Jedra and Kayan had felt earlier had died down when they began to fight, but now it picked up again as the frustrated crowd tried to force the fight in a bloodier direction.

"We're losing them," Jedra said, panting now from the exertion. "Kitarak had better hurry up."

"Let's make it flashier," Kayan said, and to show what she meant she attacked him psionically with a burst of light and thunder. Jedra rocked back, his ears ringing, and barely parried her accompanying sword attack.

"Hah!" he shouted, recovering after a couple of steps back. "You think that's flashy-watch this." He concentrated on the air around her, whipping it into a wind that blew her hair out straight behind her and nearly wrenched her shield from her grip. Then, not sensing any restrictions on his power yet, he froze the air until frost swirled beside her, dumping the heat into a tiny spot of ground a few feet to her right, which after a few seconds exploded in a shower of hot sand which the wind blew away from both of them.

The crowd cheered, but Kayan said mockingly, "Big deal. How about this?" The air shimmered around her, and suddenly there were two of her, then four, then eight, all lunging toward Jedra at once. Only one of them was real, but he didn't know which one, not until he felt a blade bite deep into the armor over his right biceps.

"Ow!" he shouted, twisting away. She'd cut right through the leather. A rivulet of blood ran out from under his armor.

"Jedra!" Kayan shouted. The phantom copies of her vanished, and she reached toward him, instinctively wanting to comfort and heal him.

No! he mindsent, at the same time slashing at her as if he feared her approach. Don't ruin the effect!

The effect? You're hurt!

We're supposed to be trying to kill each other, Jedra pointed out. He feinted left, then swung right, reaching past Kayan's guard and nicking her right forearm.

"That hurts!" she yelled.

I'm sorry, but I had to do it. Jedra mindsent. Numb the pain, but let it bleed a while.

The crowd cheered at the sight of blood, but Jedra didn't know how much longer they could keep up the deception with superficial wounds. He directed a thought toward Kitarak in the eastern stands: Hurry up, or we'll have to hurt each other worse than this.

Kitarak's voice spoke in his mind again. You must do just that. You must kill Kayan.

"What?" Jedra shouted aloud.

Kayan must have heard his message as well. She completely dropped her guard, not to let Jedra carry out their mentor's command, but out of shock.

To cover for her, Jedra made a flash of light, then in a burst of inspiration he bent the light to create an illusion just as she had, but instead of making copies of himself he made dozens of giant bugs. They advanced on her, waving pincers and tentacles and chittering with made-up sound that Jedra stole from the squeak of his own armor as he moved.

Run from them, he mindsent. That'll give us time.

Kayan obeyed, backing away in horror. She didn't have to fake it; Kitarak's words had shocked her to the core.

Jedra had gotten a better fix on the tohr-kreen. He glanced up to the center of the eastern stand and saw him there, his oversized insectile body literally dwarfing the person beside him: a dead ringer for Lothar, the dwarf Jedra and Kayan had fought two weeks earlier. Jedra mindsent to Kitarak, What do you mean, kill her? I can't do that!

You must, if she is to escape, Kitarak replied. There must be a death, but she cannot kill you because Kalak would never let her go afterward, despite his promise. You must kill her, and she must enter the crystal world you wear around your n-

His voice cut off in midsentence. The psionicists had evidently decided that there was too much communication going on between Jedra and Kayan and the audience. Jedra looked down at the good-luck charm he wore on a thong around his neck. Of course, the crystal! Kayan could live forever inside it.

Kitarak is crazy! she mindsent. She slashed at Jedra again as soon as she came within range, no doubt hoping to still the torrent of garbage being thrown from above. Jedra blocked her sword with his own, amplifying the clang for the crowd.

No, he sent. You could live in there, and-

And go crazy, like Yoncalla? Or get stabbed by children in a bizarre city? That's not my idea of survival. She swung at him for emphasis with every phrase, and they battered away at each other again-this time less predictably- until the audience quieted. Of course being less predictable also made it more dangerous; Jedra got another cut-this one on his left arm, and he split a big wedge out of Kayan's shield.

The sword wound was nothing compared to the emotional letdown he felt, for of course Kayan was right. Life inside a crystal would be a poor substitute for the real thing; if that was all the help Kitarak could offer them, then he was hardly any help at all.

The audience didn't stay quiet for long. They had come to see a battle to the death, not a couple of inept sword fighters giving each other practice-field wounds. This battle had already gone on longer than most, and it was proving to be a big disappointment.

Thousands of people, all of them with the same wish, were evidently too strong for the psionicists to control completely. Jedra felt his arms and legs jerk again as people fought to control him, and he had to be extra careful not to harm Kayan with a crowd-induced twitch at the wrong moment. But if the crowd could get through to him, he might be able to get through to the crowd....

He glanced up toward Kitarak, but before he could mindspeak to him, the dwarf beside him waved, and a different voice in his mind said, Hello, traveler. We meet again! Only this time, I am the explorer in your world.

The last time Jedra had heard that voice, he'd been escaping in a whirlwind through a crystal sky. Yoncalla, he thought as he faked an attack toward Kayan's head. Kayan, Yoncalla's here!

I know, she said distractedly, making a halfhearted block with her notched shield. The immortal must have been mindspeaking to her, too. Sure enough, a moment later she said, Hah, he's still crazy, too. He wants-wait a minute! That's Lothar's body. He's alive again in Lothar's body! She swung excitedly at Jedra as she mindspoke, catching him by surprise and landing a solid blow to his left side. He felt the blade bite through his armor and into the soft flesh beneath.

"Yeow!" he shouted, leaping back. Watch out!

Sorry, she sent, but she didn't sound sorry at all. She sounded jubilant as she said, But Kitarak is right; you'll have to... do worse to me. But it doesn't have to be permanent.

What do you mean? Jedra demanded, parrying another blow. Dead is dead!

Tell that to Yoncalla. She attacked again with a straight-in lunge that he parried easily, forcing her sword arm out to her side and leaving her wide open for a fatal stab to the heart. He backed away instead, and the crowd booed.

Damn it, Kayan said, I did that on purpose. Next time take advantage of it.

What?

She frowned. Kill me, you fool, or we'll never get out of here alive!

Then she broke contact. Her presence vanished like a blown-out candle flame, as if she had already died. Her body stood slack, her arms twitching with the crowd's attempts to control her, but Kayan was no longer home. The crystal around Jedra's neck, however, suddenly radiated her presence. She had made the transfer, trusting in Kitarak's ability to somehow revive her body and put her mind back into it as he had apparently done with Lothar's body and Yoncalla. Jedra didn't have nearly as much faith in their mentor as she did, but she had forced his hand, because without her there to continue the fight he had only one option.

This had better work, he mindsent to Kitarak. Then, weeping with fear and frustration, he knocked Kayan's sword aside and plunged his own blade straight through her armor and into her heart.