The Darkness Before the Dawn

Chapter Seven

The silence in the great room was thick enough to slice into wedges. Jedra looked at Kayan, and she looked at him, but neither of them wanted to start the accusations they both knew were coming. A gust of wind rattled one of the skylights, and Jedra reached up telekinetically through the roof and rearranged the rocks holding the glass shell in place, the motion dislodging a pinch of grit that pattered on the cushion between him and Kayan.

She seemed to know what he was doing even though he hadn't looked up. "Yes, show off, why don't you," she said.

He shook his head. "I was trying to save the skylight."

"Like you were trying to mindlink with a crystal?"

"Yes! Yes, I was. Here, see for yourself." He nearly levitated one of the crystals from the bedroom, but then he thought better of that and got up to get it himself. Both of them were right where he'd dropped them on the cushion; he picked up one and brought it back out to the great room.

"See?" he said, holding it out to Kayan. "There's something strange about this. I can sense some kind of energy in it, almost as if it's alive. I was trying to mind-link with it when you got mad at me."

She hardly looked at the crystal. "So it's my fault, is that what you're saying?"

"What?" Jedra sat down across from her again.

"You were just minding your own business when I blew up at you. So it's my fault that we fought, and that Kitarak left. That's what you think, isn't it?"

Jedra looked down at the crystal. "Well, I was trying to mind my own business, but I guess I was probably thinking about you, too, so that's why I accidentally mind-linked with you instead."

"Accidentally. Hah. Never mind that you came into the library looking for some mental action, and when I was busy you accused me of slumming, or that-"

"You're the one who called me a warren rat."

"I did not."

"You did, too. You said 'your kind of people' like we were some kind of filth on the bottom of your sandals."

Kayan stared at him, her nostrils flaring with each breath. Without a word, she stood up and went into the bedroom, emerged with her knapsack, and went into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Jedra asked, following her to the kitchen door.

She had gone into the pantry and was stuffing vegetables and dried meat into her pack.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she asked. "I'm leaving."

"What makes you think Kitarak will take you with him?"

She looked up at Jedra as if he'd just spoken a foreign language. "Who said anything about Kitarak? I'm leaving by myself. The two of you can do whatever you want when I'm gone. Rearrange the furniture with your stupid telekinesis-I don't care."

Even without the mindlink, Jedra could tell she meant it. She really intended to strike out on her own.

"Uh, Kayan," he said. "I don't think that's such a good idea. We had a hard enough time crossing the desert together?

She came back out of the pantry, her pack bulging with food. "Oh, so now I'm helpless, too? What do you think I did all this time we were here, ignore everything Kitarak said? I may not be able to move things around the way you can, but I did learn a thing or two. I can take care of myself." She filled her waterskin from the jug they kept on the counter, then pushed past Jedra into the great room and crossed into the bedroom, where she packed her clothes. She didn't have much; besides the tunic she was wearing she had just the elven robe and the shirt and short pants she'd made.

Jedra followed her and stood in the doorway while she tucked them into her knapsack around the food. "You can't make it alone through the desert and you know it," he said. "Who's going to stand watch when you get exhausted? And what will you do if another tokamak finds you?"

"I'll hit it with the same thing I did to you," Kayan said. "The same thing I did to Sahalik. Very useful for driving off unwanted advances."

"What are you afraid of?" he asked her suddenly.

"Huh?" She tied her pack closed.

"Why are you so eager to run off into the desert? Just because we had an argument? Because Kitarak left? Or are you afraid of me?"

She pushed past him into the great room again. "I'm not afraid of you or anybody else," she said. She pulled on her pack and pushed open the door. Wind swirled inside, carrying a cloud of fine sand with it. The evening light outside was dirty red, filtered through all the airborne sand.

"It's going to be dark soon, and there's a storm blowing up," Jedra told her. "You ought to at least be afraid of that."

She looked out into the blowing sand, but if it scared her, she didn't show it. When she looked back at Jedra, her expression was hard as stone. "Good-bye," she said, then she stepped through the door and closed it behind her.

Jedra wanted to go after her, to bring her back and make her listen to him, but he knew she wouldn't let him. He thought about mindspeaking an apology to her, but she probably wouldn't listen to that, either. The only thing he could do for her was watch over her psionically, and get ready to go to her rescue if she needed it.

The storm saved him the trouble. His disembodied mind hovering over her every step of the way, he watched her climb out of the canyon, but she had hardly made it up the switchbacks before the wind hit with gale force. Billowing clouds of sand made it nearly impossible to breathe, much less find the trail. Kayan tried it anyway, probably using her psionic vision to see through the blinding sand, but even so she only made it a quarter mile or so beyond the rim of the canyon before she turned around and headed back.

Jedra let her fight her way to the switchbacks again, then when he was sure she was committed to returning he used his newly learned skill to calm the wind immediately around her while she trudged dispiritedly back to Kitarak's stronghold.

He met her at the door.

"Aren't you going to say 'I told you so'?" she asked when he opened it for her.

"How about 'I'm sorry' instead?" He took her pack from her and brushed off the sand that had blown into the seams.

She looked at him incredulously. "You're sorry? For what?"

"For making you mad. And for making you think I was mad at you."

"Oh, now you weren't even mad at me. Tell me another one." She grabbed her pack from him and took it into the library. There wasn't a door to slam, but the rejection was just as intense as if there had been.

Oh, but she was hard to convince. As Jedra stared after her, his apology ignored, he wondered why he even bothered to try. He went back to their bedroom-now his own, he supposed-and lay back on the cushion. The wind howled overhead, whistling through the rocks that camouflaged the house, and Jedra wondered where Kitarak might be. Had he found shelter somewhere, or was he wandering blindly through the storm?

He closed his eyes and let his mind drift outward again. The blowing sand was only a shadow of motion in the psionic vision, easily ignored, so he concentrated on finding the dark whirlwind that signaled an intelligent mind. He searched all around the canyon, spiraling outward until he'd gone a dozen miles, but Kitarak was nowhere to be seen. Jedra tried straight mindsending, but he got no response that way, either.

Finally he got up and walked across the house to the library. Kayan was curled up on the cushion, not reading or sleeping, but just staring at the murky red light beyond the room's single irregular window. Night was not far away.

"What do you want?" she demanded when she heard him behind her.

"I want your help finding Kitarak. He's out in this storm because of us, and I want to make sure he's all right."

She sat up to look at him. "Oh, you do. And how do you propose doing that? By mind-merging?"

He nodded. "Unless you can find him on your own. I tried it and couldn't."

She blinked a couple of times, then said, "So did I."

He stepped into the library and said, "Then let's put aside our troubles for a few minutes and try it together. He may need help." "Not likely," Kayan said. After a moment she added, "But it's possible." She nodded. "All right, sit down and let's try it. But if you-"

Jedra sat down beside her, his legs folded beneath him and his arms at his sides, and closed his eyes. He heard Kayan shift slightly beside him, then suddenly she was there with him. They still weren't a single mind, but it was better than the last time. Kayan's hostility had lost some of its edge, and his own sense of inadequacy had faded somewhat.

Let's go, she said, and they moved out into the storm. Kitarak had taught them how to control their movement better than before; when they imagined themselves as a bird they didn't have to imagine the limitations as well. They could have more eyes than usual, larger wingspan, longer talons-whatever they needed to see or reach what they wanted. As long as they could imagine something, they could have it, so long as one or the other of them had the power to make it happen.

This time, however, they became a two-headed dragon. Their long, snakelike necks coiled back in surprise, and the scaly wings beat frantically just to keep them airborne. Problem was, they didn't beat in time. The dragon careened left and right through the sky while Jedra and Kayan fought for control.

Let me do it! Jedra said frantically as he tried to keep them from crashing into the rock house. He had no idea whether or not they could accidentally crush themselves, but he didn't want to find out the hard way.

How come you have to control everything? Kayan demanded. Why can't I do something for a change? The dragon's wings flapped a couple of times under her control, propelling them up over the canyon rim.

All right, then, you do it, Jedra said, surrendering the wings to her. He concentrated on scanning the ground for signs of Kitarak, but there was no evidence of his psionic presence.

He must be blocking us, Jedra said. Let's see if we can spot him visually. They flew the same search pattern Jedra had done alone, but finding a sandy yellow tohr-kreen in the rocky desert was nearly impossible even for two mind-merged psionicists. If they could truly merge, maybe, but not the way they were.

This is pointless, he said after they had covered the entire area for miles around. He obviously doesn't want to be found, so we might as well leave him alone. He'll contact us if he needs help.

You're right, Kayan said.

With her words, the dragon's long necks merged together for the lower half of their length. Their heads were still separate, but not as separate as they had been.

Did you do that? Kayan asked.

I think we did that, Jedra replied, and the neck fused another foot or so.

Kayan's scaly, bone-ridged dragon head turned to examine Jedra's. Jedra looked into her slitted yellow eyes, trying to guess what she was thinking, but he saw only his own reflection in their shiny depths.

The neck fused another few inches, drawing their heads even closer together.

What's happening? Kayan asked. She forgot to flap their wings, and the dragon began to fall. Jedra reached out to flap them just as she did, and this time they kept their body airborne together.

Now their heads were only a foot or so apart. And now that they were this close, Jedra felt the lure of true convergence like a physical force drawing him even closer.

I think we're going to merge whether we want to or not, Jedra said. Do you want to break the link first?

Kayan evidently felt the allure, too. Do you? she asked.

Not really, Jedra said, and then it was too late.

They became one. They felt power flowing through them again, felt their squabbles fade into obscurity. Neither of them cared about their previous argument; there was no "neither" to care. They were one being again, one mind.

The dragon swooped, banked, and rose on suddenly coordinated wings. They bellowed their mastery into the sky and heard it echo off the canyon walls, and spit a twenty-foot tongue of flame that lit up the twilight like day.

How could we ever give this up? they thought as they arrowed through the sky with smooth strokes of their wings. The dragon was the most feared beast in all of Athas, yet here they were wearing the body and feeling the ripple of powerful muscles all along its length. They didn't care that it was an illusion; it felt real, and it felt wonderful.

They flew until well after dark, when maintaining their flight and their enhanced vision began to tire them. They spiraled down out of the sky toward Kitarak's stone house, but even when they drew near, they hesitated to break die link.

Then let's not do it, they thought. We can stay linked indefinitely if toe don't exert any major psionic powers.

That meant losing the dragon body. They let it dissipate and drifted back into the house. The link became more tenuous and threatened to dissolve into two points of view again, but Jedra regained enough control over his body to reach out and take Kayan's hand, and the link intensified again.

It was dark within the library. Together they lit a candle by agitating the wick into flame, and this time instead of resenting it, the Kayan part of their combined intellect exulted in the ability. By the candle's light they picked up a book and read, giving Jedra the same thrill.

The book was the same medical volume that Kayan had been reading earlier, but now the squiggles made sense- sort of. They read: It is believed that ancient physicians knew the sites in the brain responsible for speech, hearing, voluntary motion, involuntary motion, and other everyday activities. Even sites for abilities such as calculation and puzzle-solving were rumored to be known, and one researcher claims to have discovered the seat of personality. Whether this is true has never been determined, as all records were lost in the cataclysm.

It is boring! Jedra said, momentarily weakening the link.

No, it's not! Kayan replied, then she laughed. Well, all right, so maybe it is.

Hey, Jedra thought, let's try those cry stab now. With both of us trying, we could probably figure out how to tap into their energy. Maybe it will let us stay linked longer.

Well... all right.

The link intensified again, and together they floated one of the crystals out of the bedroom into the library, where they placed it on the floor in front of them. It reflected candlelight from its faceted sides, but their psionic vision saw a brighter glow from within.

They focused their attention on it, trying to make contact with whatever energy it contained. They could sense something there, but it didn't feel like anything they had encountered before. This was a little like a mind, but not enough like one to reach with a mindlink. It felt something like Kitarak when he put up a mental barrier- alien and hard to touch-so they tried one of the techniques he had taught them for penetrating such defenses. It was the same power Kayan had thought Jedra was using on her the first time he'd tried it, the deliberate thrusting of one's mind upon another.

The crystal barrier couldn't hold against Jedra and Kayan's synergistic power. There was a moment of resistance, then a sensation of vertigo as they burst through...

... into a bright, sunlit, grassy meadow surrounded by trees. They blinked their eyes against the glare, and Jedra sneezed. When he opened his eyes again, squinting, he saw Kayan standing beside him, one hand held like a visor over her eyes to protect them from the sun. The other still held on to Jedra's hand. They had fallen out of mindlink.

But he felt none of the letdown they normally felt. In fact, he felt the same consuming energy coursing through him, as if they were still linked even though they now stood side by side, separate viewpoints in separate bodies.

What in the world? How did we get here? he asked her. Where's here? she replied.

He looked for anything familiar. The sun was the wrong color: bright yellow, almost white, and though it was far brighter than Athas's coppery red cinder, it provided more light than heat. The air actually felt cool against his skin. The grass at their feet-ankle-high and soft as feathers-almost glowed with an intense green color that Jedra had never seen before. The leaves on the trees were equally green, and their bark was eye-jarringly white with black streaks in it. And overhead, the sky had creases in it, as if it were made of angled panes of smooth glass.

We're inside the crystal, Jedra said wonderingly. It's not just a power source, it's a place.

A beautiful one, too, said Kayan. Bright, though. She turned half around, looking at the trees surrounding them. Let's go stand in the shade.

Good idea. They walked side by side, their feet swishing through the grass with each step. Jedra had never seen so much greenery in all his life. He had heard that the king's gardens were something like this, but here there was no wall to keep the rabble out. There was no rabble, either. Only green growing things as far as he could see.

What's a place like this doing inside a crystal? he asked when they reached the cool shade beneath the trees.

I don't know. It's your crystal. Kayan laughed, a bright, clear sound in the clean, fresh air. "I didn't make it," Jedra said aloud. "I just found it in the ancient city."

"That would be strange."

She laughed again. "This is already strange." Jedra looked deeper into the forest. It wasn't dense; the trees stood just close enough to provide not-quite-continuous shade for someone walking beneath them. A few hundred yards beyond, he saw a glimmer of motion between the trunks, something even whiter than their bark.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing.

It wavered, like a piece of cloth flapping in the wind. Kayan said, "I don't know. Want to go see?"

"Of course."

They walked through the trees, stopping again and again to marvel at new wonders: birds chirping merrily in the branches, fat, furry animals waddling through the grass, even dewdrops caught at the base of wide leaves where they curled around their stems. Something seemed odd about them all. It took Jedra a moment to come up with what it was, but he finally figured it out.

"They have no defenses," he said. "None of the plants have thorns, and as slow as they move you could just reach out and grab one of those furry things for dinner."

"That's true." Kayan shrugged. "We may have to try it in a little while. I didn't eat after I got back from my little outing in the sandstorm."

Jedra laughed. "If I'd known what we would find in here, I would have packed a lunch."

They walked on, but the next tree they came to was different. Its leaves were smaller than the others, almost an afterthought, and round, light-tan balls hung from the branches. The aroma of baking bread permeated the air.

"Look at this!" Kayan said incredulously, reaching up and pulling loose one of the balls.

"What is it?"

"It's a roll." Kayan handed it to Jedra. It was an oval oblong, lightly browned on top, with a faint indentation in the center where the stem had been. It was warm, as if it had just come out of an oven. And the aroma... Jedra's mouth watered, and his stomach growled.

"This is impossible," he said.

"Yes, it is," said Kayan. "But then so is this whole place." She reached up and plucked another roll from the tree. When she tore it open and exposed the fluffy white interior, the baked-bread smell grew even stronger. She narrowed her brows for a moment, concentrating on it, then she took a cautious nibble, smiled, and took a bigger bite. "Mmm. Great."

"Are you sure it's safe?" Jedra asked.

"I couldn't detect any poisons," she said.

That wasn't one of his skills, but Jedra tried anyway. If they were still linked somehow, then he would be able to. Come to think of it, this would be a good test. He concentrated, trying to see any poisons as black stains in the bread, but the roll remained its natural brown and white. That didn't necessarily mean anything, though. As Kitarak had said when he showed them this skill, "Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."

So Jedra looked again for something he knew was there, like yeast, and this time the roll turned gray.

"Hey, it works!" he said. "I can scan for poison."

"Really? Then maybe I can..." Her roll rose up off her hand and floated before her. "Yes! I can levitate things!" She snatched the roll out of the air and took another bite.

Jedra bit into his own and closed his eyes to savor the wonderful flavor. It was slightly sweet and nearly melted in his mouth. He hadn't tasted anything this good in all his life. He wolfed down the first roll and picked two more. Kayan did the same, and they continued their walk through the trees, munching the miracle bread.

A rushing sound had been growing steadily stronger as they walked deeper into the forest. When they grew closer to the moving white thing-it looked more like a long banner waving back and forth in the breeze now that they could see more of its length-he realized that the sound came from the same source. Something was moving across the ground. Something long and sinuous. Bits of it splashed upward, glittering in the sunlight. "No," Jedra said, stepping closer. "Impossible." But it was no more impossible than bread growing on trees. There before him, as real as anything else in this bizarre world inside the crystal, flowed a stream of open water.

It was about as wide as he was tall, and it poured down from right to left over a bed of rocks. It pooled up in a few places before spilling over, and when Jedra walked up to the edge of one of the pools he saw flashes of silver in the water.

"Fish!" Kayan exclaimed. "I've heard about them. They still exist in the hinterlands, I've been told."

Jedra reached down and stuck his hand in the water. It was cold, almost as cold as the frozen meat in Kitarak's cold-box. "Wow!" he said, jerking his hand back. It was just the shock that had startled him, though; the water actually felt kind of nice against his skin. He cupped his hand and dipped it in again, then brought it up to his lips to drink.

It was the coldest, freshest, cleanest water he had ever tasted. Jedra scooped up a double handful and drank it all.

Kayan bent down to try it, but she stopped when she saw her reflection in the water. "What the-?" She reached out to touch the image, then withdrew her hand when it broke into ripples.

"What's the matter?" Jedra asked.

"That's not what I look like," Kayan said. "Well, it is, but my nose is bigger than that, and my hair isn't that long, and-"

"You look great."

"I know I look great. I mean, if that's really what I look like." Kayan nodded to the water, which had returned to its mirror smoothness. "But I never looked like that before."

"Sure you did," Jedra said. "You've always been pretty." But now that she mentioned it, her nose was smaller, and her hair was longer than before. And her eyes were an even brighter green than before, too. He hadn't noticed it until now because he had always thought of her as beautiful.

Her tunic had changed, too. The cloth was finer, and it fit her body better. The neckline plunged lower than before, showing much more of her sensuous curves than she usually exposed by daylight, and it was shorter as well, allowing her slender legs more freedom to distract Jedra's gaze.

Curious, he looked down at his own clothing. He had put on a tunic similar to Kayan's this morning, but now his was tighter, too, tied at the waist with a silky cord. It was made of soft brown leather and had no sleeves, exposing his tanned and muscular arms all the way to the shoulders, which were broader than he remembered.

He looked into the water. The face that stared back at him looked a little like his, but Jedra felt the same disorientation Kayan must have, for it seemed much more handsome than he'd ever thought it before. His cheekbones were higher, more elfin than he'd remembered them, his mouth was wider with fuller lips, and his jaw was more rounded than before. And his sandy blond hair, normally unkempt, now looked merely tousled in a dashing sort of way.

"Wow," he said. "I'm different, too."

She looked at him for a moment. "Now that I think about it you are a little more handsome than usual today. But you're always handsome," she hastily added.

"Even when you're mad at me?"

"Oh, especially then," she said, blushing. She looked at her own reflection again. "This is wild. How could we suddenly become more beautiful?"

"The same way we found bread growing on trees and water running free right across the ground." Jedra held out his arms to encompass the whole forest, and he laughed. "This is evidently some ancient paradise. People must have come here to play in a perfect world."

Kayan bent down to take a drink from the pool. "Perfect is right," she said. "This place is incredible."

"And now we have it all to ourselves." Jedra held out his hand. "Come on, let's see what else the ancients did for fun."

The stream led down out of the forested mountains, new tributaries adding to its volume until it became a rushing torrent. Jedra and Kayan followed along its grassy banks, scaring up butterflies and birds as they swished through the tall stalks. The noise of rushing water made talk difficult, and the crystal clarity of mind-speaking was too jarring a contrast against the rich depth of sound around them, so they merely walked hand in hand and enjoyed the play of light and shadow amid more greenery than they had ever seen before in their lives.

Then, as they rounded a sharp bend in the river, they heard an even louder roar ahead of them. The water seemed to disappear into the ground just a little way in front of them, but when they drew closer they realized that it fell over a cliff. Cautiously, they stepped up to the edge and looked over. The river fell free for over a hundred feet, spray blowing away from it as it fell, then it thundered into a wide circular pool surrounded by rocks and trees.

Jedra looked out over the treetops and nearly fell off the cliff, for about halfway to the horizon stood a city, its buildings shining bright white in the sunlight, and beyond the city was more water than he had ever believed existed. It stretched from the sandy slopes beyond the city all the way to the horizon, and from left to right as far as they could see before cliffs and forest blocked their view.

I think it's the ocean. Kayan teetered forward, and Jedra pulled her back a few steps from the cliff edge. The view out there was too hypnotic.

What's the ocean?

It's where all the water goes when there's more than people can use it. The Sea of Silt used to be an ocean before the cataclysm, or so I've been told.

The Sea of Silt was a deep basin full of dust many miles to the east of most of the inhabited land of Athas. Jedra tried to imagine it full of water instead, and decided that it might indeed have looked something like this.

They watched waves slide toward the beach, grow taller as they approached, then curl over and splash into white foam and coast to a stop on the flat sand.

The roar of the waterfall at their feet kept them from hearing the waves. Jedra heard something, though. Puzzled, he turned his head, just in time to see a huge furry black beast advancing on them. It stood on four legs and had thick, shaggy hair that seemed to ripple as it moved. Its head was long and wide on a short neck, and multiforked horns stuck up from either side. It shook its head and bellowed again.

"Look out!" Jedra shouted.

"What?" Kayan couldn't hear him.

A monster! Jedra mindsent.

Kayan whirled around, just as the beast lowered its head and ran straight for them.

Jedra tried to halt its charge through sheer force of will, shoving it back psionically the way he might move any other object, but whatever effect he had on it was nothing compared to what it did to him. Before the creature's pointed antlers even came close, he felt his feet slip backward on the slick grass. His heart slammed in his chest, pumping pure terror when the grass ended and he skidded out over the sheer drop. Time seemed to stop. He hung poised in the air for an instant, long enough to look straight into Kayan's eyes and see the horror there before he plummeted toward the ground.

He was going to miss the pool. He looked down, saw the sharp rocks at the water's edge rushing up at him, and knew he was dead. He couldn't watch, but he couldn't close his eyes either, so he looked back up at Kayan just in time to see her leap outward in a graceful dive, arms outstretched, her body silhouetted against the sky.

"No!" he screamed. Not her, too. If he could survive his own fall he could catch her, but not while he had nothing to push against.

Or did he? In desperation he imagined shoving against the ground with all his might, trying to slow his fall or at least push himself sideways into the pool, and at the same time he pushed upward on Kayan.

Impact never came. Jedra risked a look down and saw the jagged rocks, wet with spray and coated with moss, just a few feet below him. He looked up and saw Kayan hovering fifty feet above, caught in mid-dive with her arms still outstretched.

Then, without his willing it, she swooped away. Hah, I can fly! she mindsent as she arched her back and looped around in the air. Jedra was so startled he nearly forgot to hold himself up, but the cold touch of a mossy rock on his leg made him flinch away and leap upward again.

This was a trick Kitarak hadn't taught them. Jedra wasn't quite sure how he was doing it, but somehow just the thought of rising was all he needed to make it happen. He imagined looping around the way Kayan had just done, and with stomach-twisting speed he whirled around in midair.

Kayan flew down toward him, arced around just out of his reach, and said, Bet you can't catch me! Without waiting to see what he would do, she took off in a wide circle, just inside the trees surrounding the waterfall.

Jedra reached forward with his arms and imagined himself following her, and suddenly he leaped forward, the wind rushing past him, blowing his hair back and flapping his tunic around his thighs. Slower! he thought, veering to miss a tree. He curved around, flying a tighter circle than Kayan in order to cut her off, but when she saw what he was doing she sped up and ducked around behind the rushing wall of water.

Jedra flew in behind her, suddenly shivering in the cold spray, but she was gone.

Up here, he heard in his mind, and he looked up to see her spiraling lazily upward around the falling river. He followed her and this time she waited for him, hovering at the top of the waterfall just beyond the drop-off, with over a hundred feet of air between them and the turbulent pool below.

He was almost afraid to touch her for fear the strange spell would break and they would once again plummet to their deaths, but when she reached for him he glided into her arms and they kissed.

Your hair is sparkling with mist, he told her.

So is-look! She pointed over his shoulder, and he turned his head to see the antlered beast that had chased them off the cliff, now munching placidly on the grass beside the river.

It's an herbivore? he asked incredulously. I got chased off a cliff by an herbivore?

What are you griping about? I jumped.

Jedra laughed. I thought you jumped off because I did.

Kayan looked at him with her head tilted to the side and a smile on her lips. There are a lot of things I'd do for you, but I don't think jumping off a cliff is one of them.

Oh. Well, how about showing me what you would do? He kissed her again, and she giggled.

Here? Now?

Anywhere, Jedra told her, kissing her again and again. Anywhere, anytime.

The bright yellow sun had moved across a quarter of the sky by the time they finally grew tired of flying. They had left the waterfall far behind and were now gliding gently down the long slope from the mountains toward the ocean. The forest had given way to open grassland, still peppered here and there with individual trees and clusters of wildflowers. There seemed to be no order to it; if anyone had planted any of this the gardener's hand had been concealed admirably.

From a hundred feet in the air the world seemed nearly silent. The ocean made a soft rushing sound, but it was so constant it was easy to forget the noise was even there. As they drew closer, though, it grew louder, and with it came a smell unlike any they had ever experienced before. It was a mix of wet sand, rotting vegetation, and exotic animals both living and dead.

A wave toppled over with a roar just as they landed. A gray-and-white sea bird cried out as it flew overhead, and a flock of smaller, long-legged birds ran back and forth right at the edge of the water. Jedra and Kayan stood in the sand and watched the constant motion for long minutes before either of them spoke.

"What are those birds doing?" Jedra finally asked.

"I think they're finding food," Kayan said. "See how they pick at the sand right at the edge of the water?"

Jedra's stomach growled. "I wish we could find some food," he said. "It's been a long time since we had those rolls."

"Yeah, I could use something more to eat. Something substantial." Kayan turned once around, scanning the beach. "Too bad there aren't any trees around," she said. "If there were, I bet we could coax one into giving us something else."

"Maybe we should fly back to the forest," Jedra suggested.

"Maybe. There must be something to eat here, though. The ancients wouldn't have flown back and forth every time they got hungry, would they?"

Jedra thought about that for a minute. "No, you're right, they would probably have food brought to them."

Kayan said, "That would be great, but I think we're the only people here." She laughed. "That's the perennial complaint of the rich-you can never find a slave when you need one."

Jedra laughed with her, but he stopped abruptly when a wave broke with a louder than usual rush and a hard-shelled, eight-legged creature crawled forward out of the foam. It was only a couple feet across, and most of that was legs, but it also had two enormous claws in front which it held raised while it advanced toward Jedra and Kayan.

"What is it?" Kayan asked, backing away.

"It looks like some kind of bug. A big bug." Jedra got ready to run, or even fly away if it looked like the creature would attack, but it merely crawled forward at a steady gait. It stopped about five feet from him, lowered its body to the sand and stretched its legs out, then it lowered its claws as well and stopped moving entirely.

Jedra heard a soft sizzling sound over the constant hiss of the waves, and a few seconds later he smelled a wonderful, buttery aroma of cooking food.

Kayan smelled it too. "Eeewww, disgusting!" she said. "It's cooking itself!"

"It is, isn't it?" Jedra stepped closer, fascinated. The sea bug's dark brown shell was turning red as it cooked. The creature was like nothing he'd ever seen before, but the aroma of its heated flesh made his mouth water. He was suddenly ravenous. "I wonder how you're supposed to eat one of these?" Kayan looked at him as if he'd just gone crazy. "You can't be serious."

"But-" Kayan stuttered for words. "But it was alive just a second ago! And it killed itself!"

"Yes, isn't that amazing? I wonder how the ancients managed to breed a creature that could do that? It would have to have some kind of psionic heating power, but the moment it died, the power would stop, so there would have to be some way to keep it going afterward, and-"

"Jedra, it isn't amazing, it's disgusting."

"It is?"

"It just committed suicide!"

He tried to see what she was getting at. "Well, yes, I guess it did. But it didn't look like it suffered any."

"That's not the point! The point is, it killed itself for us. I can't eat something that killed itself just so I could eat it."

Jedra held his hand out over the sea bug's corpse. It was now bright red, and too hot to touch, but it had stopped sizzling. "You'd rather kill it yourself?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Hmm. What makes that any better? When you do it, you're eating something that didn't want to die. At least this way we know the meal was its own idea."

"It's just-just-arrgh!" Kayan growled, turning away.

Jedra looked at the creature with his poison sense, but saw nothing dangerous. "Come on," he said, "we're hungry, and it's food. Let's argue about the moral implications later." He took one of the segmented legs in his fingers, bent it backward until its hard outer shell broke, and pulled it apart. White, stringy meat stuck out the ragged end. Jedra wondered if it would be tough, but he'd eaten much worse in his life, so he blew on it to cool it a bit and took a bite.

The meat was soft and tender, buttery, and nearly melted in his mouth. "Oh, yeah," he said around a mouthful. "Mmm." When Kayan still didn't move to try any, he couldn't resist adding, "This is even better than halfling."

"You've never eaten halfling." She looked over her shoulder at him. "Have you?"

"Not knowingly, but a lot of what you buy in the market could come from anywhere." Jedra cracked the leg open along its length to expose another big bite of steaming flesh. "Here," he said, holding out the leg to her. "It really is good."

Kayan eyed the leg as if it might eat her. "I'm not hungry," she said.

Jedra shrugged. "Suit yourself. More for me." He bit into the soft meat and ate heartily.

Kayan left him to his meal and walked down to the water. She slipped off her sandals and walked closer, letting a wave wash over her feet.

"Yeow!" She jumped back as if she'd been stung.

Jedra dropped the bug leg and ran toward her. "What happened?"

"It's cold."

"Oh." He walked on down toward where she stood and bent over to run his hands through the receding water. It was cold enough to raise bumps along his arm. He cupped his hands and took a drink of it, but spit it back out. "Ugh, it's salty, too."

"What?"

"Taste it. It's salty." Jedra got a sudden idea and went back to the cooked water bug, broke off another leg, and brought it back to the edge of the ocean. He twisted open the leg and waited for the water to come back, then he bent down and dipped the creamy white meat in it. Now when he took a bite, it was perfectly seasoned.

"You're doing that just to get me, aren't you?" Kayan demanded.

"No," said Jedra. "I'm really hungry. You should try some of this, too."

"I can't."

She seemed sincere. Jedra lowered his arm. "Well, then, let's find you something else."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Maybe we can find another bread tree." Kayan was about to say something, but a deep rumbling noise drowned her out. "Was that thunder?" she asked when it faded.

Jedra looked out over the ocean, where a dark gray cloud had boiled up seemingly out of nowhere. "Well, if that cloud is any indication, it is," he said. Thunderstorms were rare on Athas, but not impossible; Jedra had been in two of them over the course of his life, and he remembered both vividly. Kayan looked up at the cloud in surprise. "Where did that come from?" she asked. "It wasn't there a minute ago."

She nodded.

"And somehow, this place picks up our thoughts and makes them real. So now the world is mad at me."

Lightning forked down out of the cloud into the ocean, and a half minute later thunder rumbled again. The storm was approaching fast. Even so, Kayan said, "Come now, you can't think an entire thunderstorm is directed at you."

"I don't think I'll stick around to find out." Jedra scanned the flat beach for shelter, but there wasn't any. "Come on," he said, and he jumped into the air.

Kayan apparently decided not to make a target of herself just to prove a point. She joined him, and they flew together back toward the forest. The storm was advancing faster, though, blotting out the unnaturally bright sun, and when the flashes and the booms came only a few seconds apart it became apparent that it was going to catch them. "We aren't going to make it," Kayan said.

"You've got a better idea?" Jedra asked.

"Yeah." She pointed to their left, up the coastline "The city."

Its tall spires had beckoned them all day, but there had been too many other wonders to investigate first. Now that the need for shelter had become foremost, however, this suddenly seemed like a good time to check it out. Jedra and Kayan banked around and raced up the coast, the thunderstorm flashing and booming along behind them.

"It's definitely following us!" Jedra announced when he risked a look back.

Wind buffeted them as they flew headlong toward the towering buildings, and just as they reached the outskirts of the city the rain hit. Big, fat globules of cold water struck their faces and bare arms like gravel in a gale, drenching them almost instantly and nearly blinding them in the process. Under there! Jedra mindsent, grabbing Kayan's arm and diving toward a three-story rectangular building that had a deep colonnade around all four sides. They swooped in under its cover and landed behind one of the columns, then ran for the open doorway near the middle of the long side.

Lightning etched shadows of the entire row of columns into the inner wall, and thunder shook the ground in the same instant. Jedra and Kayan piled through the doorway just as another lightning bolt hit close enough to light up the inside of the building, revealing a double row of columns with statues interspersed between them.

This is the same building we were in with Kitarak in the ruined city, Jedra thought, picking himself up off the marble floor.

Another lightning flash confirmed it. The same columns flanked the wide center aisle, and the same statues, once smashed to rubble, now stood whole. Jedra reached out to one of them and touched its nose. Was this the one he had tossed casually into the pile of debris? Evidently the crystal world was modeled after the real city during its height. Lightning flashed again and again and thunder shook the building, but they were safe inside its massive stone walls. They waited out the storm just inside the door, wincing at the lightning and thunder and watching the rain spatter into puddles on the stone streets.

This is too much to believe, Jedra said after the worst of the storm had passed. Rivers and oceans and thunderstorms all in one day.

Has it been just a day? Kayan asked. It seem longer. She leaned her head against his chest. I'm tired.

You're just hungry, he said. You didn't eat any of the sea creature. Let's find you something to eat, and I'll bet you'll feel better.

Maybe, she said. Why don't we just go back home for dinner?

The rain was letting up now. Jedra led her back outside to the covered colonnade, saying, "Oh, we can't leave yet. There's so much to see! Have you noticed that this is the same city as the one where we met Kitarak?"

"No, I hadn't." Kayan looked out at the buildings up and down the street, some of them seven or eight stories high.

Jedra said, "It looks different because none of them have fallen down yet, but that one down there"-he pointed to one of the tall ones-"is the one we pushed over. And that means the courtyard with the fountain should be over there." He shifted his arm to the right.

"What difference does that make?"

"There should be trees there," he said. "And if we start wishing for it now, at least one of them should have food on it."

"Now that you've said not, I bet it won't."

They walked out into the last of the rain, enjoying the sharp stings of cold drops on their skin. They walked down the street half a block, crossed over and went through the gap between two tall buildings, and sure enough, there was the open courtyard with the fountain. And surrounding the fountain was a ring of trees, each one bearing a different kind of fruit.

"There you go," Jedra said proudly. "Whatever you like, the crystal world provides."

"How about warmth?" Kayan said. "I like rain, but it's kind of cold."

A moment later the clouds began to break up, and the unnaturally bright sun shone through again.

"Good enough?" Jedra asked.

"It'll do," Kayan said, but she was smiling again.

They strolled from tree to tree, sampling the exotic fruits. When they had eaten their fill, Kayan lay back in the soft green grass and said, "Nap time."

Jedra felt a little tired, too. "That's a good idea," he said, lying down beside her. He cast about psionically for danger but didn't detect anything, so he folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes and listened to the gurgling fountain and the peep of birds in the trees until he fell asleep.

The sun was going down when he woke; it was the cold that had awakened him. Jedra sat up groggily and rubbed his eyes, then gently shook Kayan's shoulder.

"Time to get up," he said.

Kayan didn't stir.

"Come on," he said, shaking harder. "There's still plenty of city to explore." He didn't really feel like it-he mostly wanted to just go back to sleep-but he supposed they would perk up if they ate again.

Kayan still didn't move.

"Kayan?" Suddenly afraid, Jedra looked to see if she was breathing, and he relaxed a little when he saw her chest rise and fall. Her breaths were very shallow, though, and far apart,

Kayan, he mindsent. No response. He tried linking with her, but they had already been linked before they came into this world, and nothing more happened.

She couldn't have been poisoned; she had checked the food carefully before she ate any of it. So what was the problem?

Jedra wasn't doing so well, either. He felt faint, and his vision swirled as if someone had stirred the world with a spoon. A couple of deep breaths helped, but not for long; the moment he tried to stand, his eyes went dark and he fell back down.

Kayan! he mindsent again. "Kayan!" He knelt beside her and shook her shoulder, pinched her arm, even rugged her into a semi-upright position, but the effort nearly tumbled him into unconsciousness again.

They both fell back to the grass. Jedra tried to sit up again, but he couldn't manage even that. He tried to break their mental link with the crystal, but there was none to break. Once they had burst through into this world, they had stayed without effort. It would probably take a similar effort to leave, but they were too exhausted now to do it.

The world swirled around him. Fighting disorientation, he tried again to mindlink with Kayan, attempting to cut through the mysterious lethargy with a burst of psionic power, but he couldn't feel her presence. He felt something out there, some flicker of response far away in the vast crystal world, but he couldn't maintain it for more than a second.

The effort drained him even further, but that in itself provided an idea. If trying to mindlink tired him, then breaking the existing link with Kayan might give him more energy.

He concentrated on the mind-shielding technique that Kitarak had taught him, the one for stopping unwanted psionic contact. Closing his eyes so the swirling world wouldn't distract him, he carefully built up a barrier. He felt the contact with Kayan growing weaker, stretching out until the link finally broke and with a final wave of vertigo he tumbled back to reality in Kitarak's library.

It was dark. The candles had all burned out and it was still night, or it was night once again. Jedra tried to see with psionic vision, but there wasn't enough light to amplify. He tried to levitate a candle from one of the other rooms, but he didn't have the energy for it. He had to crawl into the great room for a candle, light it with the last of his power, and bring it back to the library.

Kayan lay on the cushion, sprawled on her side as if she had tumbled there without any attempt to break her fall. Her face and arms and legs looked thin and angular, the skin draped in folds over her bones. She looked like one of the starving street beggars who were so far gone that nobody bothered to feed them anymore.

"It wasn't real," he whispered. "None of it was real. Not even the food." And in the real world, he and Kayan had been mindlinked for at least a day, burning energy at dozens of times their normal rate. It had had the same effect on them as going without food for weeks.

"Kayan," he said, shaking her. Kayan.

She didn't move, except to draw in another slow, shallow breath. He tried to mindlink with her again, but he couldn't reach her. Her mind wasn't there-it was still in the crystal. And now that he had broken their link she was completely out of reach.