The Darkness Before the Dawn

Chapter Three

They made it almost a mile before Kayan collapsed. In the hot middle of the day with the relentless sun beating down on them, Jedra was surprised she'd made it that far. He wasn't sure how much farther he could go himself, but the chief's final words had kept him walking long after he normally would have stopped.

"If we ever see you again," the chief had said, "we will bury you up to your necks in the sand and let the carrion eaters feast on your roasted brains."

That's gratitude for you, Jedra had nearly said, but he had decided to hold his tongue while he still had one. Some of the elves wanted blood.

Galar had come to their rescue one last time, insisting that the tribe give them food and water enough to keep them alive until they reached civilization. When some of the other elves protested, the chief had compromised on three days' provisions, which he said was enough to get them to an oasis. When Galar left to pack the food he even gave them directions for finding it-at the base of a long, rocky ridge just south of due west-but what they did from there was up to them. They would just have to figure that out when the time came; right now they had more immediate problems.

Jedra bent down beside Kayan, letting his shadow fall across her while he worked her pack off and helped her lean back against it. He removed his own pack and got out the waterskin, gave her a swallow of its precious contents, and put it back without drinking any himself. The oasis might be three days away for an elf, but he had the feeling they would need every drop of water they had and then some before he and Kayan managed to reach it.

To think that he had bathed in a barrel of the stuff only two days ago. The elves had been right: fortunes changed quickly in the desert.

Theirs were going to have to change back awfully fast or the two of them would be dead of heat stroke or dehydration by nightfall. Jedra didn't see much opportunity for shelter in the immediate vicinity, only gently rolling dunes and occasional rock outcrops as far as he could see in any direction, dotted here and there with stubby bushes and gnarled, spiny cacti. He didn't see any of the barrel-shaped plants like the one the elf child had cut open for water yesterday, nor anything else that looked promising. All the vegetation he could see was too thin to have a pulpy core. Too thin to provide shade, either, which was an even more pressing need at the moment.

Kayan moaned and tried to sit up.

"Stay there," Jedra told her. "We wouldn't get twenty paces in this heat before we had to stop again. I can see that far, and there's nothing better over there." He spoke aloud, even though mindspeech would have been easier. He still felt so drained from the battle with the cloud ray that he didn't want to use even that little bit of psionic energy. Either Kayan felt the same way, or she just followed his example. "We have to keep moving," she whispered.

"I suppose that does make sense," she admitted.

Jedra looked around again, trying to think like an elf. What would they do in a similar situation? Spend the hot hours in the shade, for starters, but the Jura-Dai's generosity hadn't extended to a tent.

Or had it? He looked again at the thin, spiny cactus growing only a few yards away. It branched in two about four feet off the ground, and each arm extended out and upward another four or five feet. If he were to stretch his robe across those arms, the thorns would hold it in place and the cloth-even as thin as it was-would provide shade.

There was only one problem with that idea: he'd seen how some of the desert plants protected themselves by swinging their thorny arms at passersby. He wasn't sure if this was one of that kind, but he didn't want to find out the hard way.

Hmm. How could he tell whether or not it was dangerous without getting too close? Throw rocks at it?

It was worth a try. Jedra found a small outcrop not far from the cactus and picked up a flat slab of flagstone a little bigger than his hand. He didn't see the multilegged beetle that had been hiding under it until it clicked angrily at him, startling him into dropping the rock on his toe. The beetle scurried under another slab of flagstone, and Jedra once again picked up the piece it had been under to begin with, making a mental note to check more carefully before he grabbed something like that again. Even the smallest desert creatures had some kind of defense against predators, and most of them were poisonous.

He carried the rock to within easy throwing distance of the cactus, took aim, and tossed it at the trunk. The rock thunked into it and broke off a few spines, but the branches never moved. Hmm. Maybe it wasn't the mobile kind, but Jedra still wasn't convinced. He could try all day to see if the cactus was dangerous, but even if all his tests came up negative, he would never be certain he hadn't missed something obvious. Only if it did prove to be dangerous somehow would he know for sure.

He wished there was some way to check it out psionically. Look for an aura or something. There probably was a way, but if so he didn't know it. He sometimes got premonitions of danger, but that was another of those things that was useful only when something actually happened. He'd found himself spooking at shadows-or in trouble without warning-far too many times to count on his premonitions. Maybe a psionics master would be able to help him refine that talent, but unless the refinements included reaching back in time to warn himself, that wasn't going to help him now.

The heat was getting unbearable. He was going to have to do something, or he and Kayan would cook.

Feeling helpless and stupid, but not knowing what else to try, he stripped off his robe and waved it at the cactus. It still made no motion, even when he got right next to it. Finally he tossed one end of the robe out and let the thorns at the end of one arm catch it, then he tugged downward. The cactus flexed a little, but that was it.

That was as good as he could do. He walked around to the other side, trailing the robe and spreading it out to make the biggest possible shadow. Stretched out like that it was nearly square, and now he noticed that the hems were extra thick to allow the thorns to hold it fast without tearing. He was willing to bet the elves had designed the garments that way for just this purpose.

Ha. He was learning. He just hoped he could learn fast enough to keep himself and Kayan alive.

He helped her move over to the patch of shade, then sat down beside her to wait out the hottest part of the day. But when he leaned back against his knapsack, she said, "We should sleep in alternate shifts."

"Good point," he said, sitting up again. "You go ahead, and I'll take the first watch." He didn't know what he would be able to do if anything approached, since the elves hadn't given them any weapons, but he refrained from mentioning that to Kayan. Let her sleep without worry if she could; she needed the rest..

She curled up on the ground, her robe still protecting her light skin from the bright reflections off the sand, and within minutes her breathing slowed and her muscles relaxed. Jedra yawned, then forced himself to look away and concentrate on something else.

The desert was quiet, but not silent. When he listened hard, he could hear the faint clicks of rocks expanding in the heat, the cluttering of tiny bugs, and the occasional rustle of a not-so-tiny bug or lizard scurrying from one piece of shade to another. Breezes flapped the loose ends of his robe, and every few minutes a fly would circle around until he chased it off.

The smells were more subtle, masked as they were beneath the ever-present aroma of sun-baked sand and his own sweat, but when he concentrated Jedra could pick out the faint spiciness of the cactus providing their shade, and even the dry, strawlike scent wafting off the few patches of wispy grass that grew on the dunes.

He let her sleep through the hottest part of the day, waking her only when the sun had moved far enough that she was no longer in the shade. They moved over a few feet and traded places; he slept while she kept watch. She woke him when the sun was still an hour from the horizon. "We should probably get moving," she said. "This is about when the elves started their evening march."

Jedra sat up and rubbed his eyes. He still felt tired, but even a couple hours of sleep had helped tremendously. He could probably put another five or six miles behind him before he tired again. He took a swig from his water-skin and passed it to Kayan, and they shared the first of the honeycakes Galar had packed for them. He'd given them a dozen; they could each eat two a day.

When they'd eaten the last crumbs and washed them down with a sip of water, Jedra said "Let me take down my robe and we can go," but that proved more difficult than he'd expected. The cactus thorns had tiny barbs pointing toward their bases, and the breeze had flapped the fabric enough that it was stuck to hundreds of them. Jedra and Kayan both tried to work his robe free, but the thorns wouldn't let go without a great deal of wiggling and spreading of the weave. Most of them were out of reach anyway, so Jedra finally wound up simply tugging the robe down. It came free with a loud rip, leaving dozens of tatters of cloth behind in the cactus.

Jedra held up the robe to inspect the damage and was annoyed to find that the worst tears were in the back, where they would let tomorrow's sun through to his already-tender skin.

"So much for that wonderful idea," he said. He picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulders, noticing how its rough fabric chafed his back.

Kayan put on her pack as well. "We needed the shade," she said. "You did what you had to do. Tomorrow we'll figure out something different."

"I hope so." He turned toward the sinking sun and began to walk.

He set a pace much slower than the elves had, but one that he hoped would ultimately be just as productive. If he and Kayan could keep from exhausting themselves, they would make better time than if they had to stop and rest all the time.

His strategy paid off for the first couple of hours. Luck was with them, too; when the sun sank below the horizon in front of them, Guthay, one of Athas's two moons, rose behind them and continued to provide light. After the day's brilliance, its golden glow was a welcome change. It was a little more difficult to see where they were going under its softer illumination, but there didn't seem to be much to worry about. The plant life was thinning out the farther west they went, and they saw little else but an occasional pile of bones where some poor animal had evidently starved and scavengers had picked the carcass clean.

They walked side by side and kept their eyes on the sky almost as much as the ground, trying to navigate by the stars. That turned out to be a bad idea; Jedra had become mesmerized by the brilliant stars when he suddenly felt a sting in the arch of his left foot.

"Ow!" he yelled and jumped backward, but he nearly fell over when his foot refused to lift.

"What the-?" He tugged on his foot, but each tug sent a lance of pain up his leg.

"What is it?" Kayan asked.

"Something's got me!" he shouted, pulling harder.

It felt as if something were trying to pull his bones out through the sole of his foot. It wasn't pulling on his sandal; whatever it was had penetrated the leather sole and stuck deep in his foot. He managed to lift it a few inches off the ground, but it simply wouldn't come any farther, and now he could see a thin cord or a root or something leading into the sand.

In full-scale panic now, he yanked backward with all his might and finally pulled free of whatever had snared him. It looked like a cactus spine with a thumbnail-sized hunk of his leather sandal and some of his skin still attached. He staggered backward, his left foot on fire- and stepped on another spine with his right foot.

"Ye-ow!" he screeched, and he wrenched free of it with one mighty jerk.

"Jedra!" Kayan took a step toward him.

"Don't move!" He bent down and brushed the hem of his robe cautiously over the sand, and sure enough, it hung up on another thorn sticking up between them. He swung the cloth around in as wide an arc as it would reach and encountered three more of the strange spines a foot or so apart.

"It grows underground," Kayan said, her voice full of wonder. Jedra could hardly stand on his feet. Pain and anger made him snap at her, "Of course it grows underground. Everything is hostile in this damned desert, even the land itself, and the sooner we realize that the longer we'll live."

"We should have suspected it," he said, twisting around without moving his feet. "I wonder how far back it goes? As far apart as the thorns are, we could have been walking right through them for the last ten paces or so."

"True," she said. She bent down and swept the hem of her robe over her tracks. When she didn't encounter a thorn, she took a step back the way they had come and swept the robe out again, and this time it snagged on a spine just an inch or two from a footprint. She gingerly stepped over it and moved on.

Wincing at the pain in his feet, Jedra did the same until they stopped encountering thorns. The patch of them was only six or eight feet across, it turned out, but there was nothing visible to indicate that it was there, save for the thin needles that were the same color as the sand.

Jedra immediately sat down and slipped off his sandals. Both feet had big red patches surrounding the puncture wounds, which bled steadily even when he squeezed. Under the moonlight his blood made dark rivulets across his skin, and where it dripped on the sand it made black circles.

"Here, let me see that," Kayan said. She bent close and took his right foot, turning it so the moonlight shone on the sole. "Does it still hurt, or is it just bleeding?" she asked, pressing on either side of the puncture.

"Ow!" he yowled. "Yes, it still hurts."

"Shush. Something might hear you." She held the foot in both hands and concentrated on it, and presently the pain began to ease, but the bleeding continued unabated. "That's strange," Kayan said. "There's something interfering with your blood's ability to clot. The cactus must have injected it with something. I wonder why it would do that?"

"Spite," Jedra said.

Kayan laughed. "It's a plant."

"So?"

She shook her head and bent back to her work. She had to work at it for a couple of minutes, but eventually the bleeding stopped and the pain lessened until it was more like a bee sting than a gaping wound. Jedra watched, fascinated, as the hole the thorn had ripped on its way out closed up, healing at hundreds of times the normal rate.

"That's good," he said at last. "Stop! You'll wear yourself out again."

"I hope not," she said. "I still have your other foot to do." She let his right one go and scooted around to do his left.

Jedra watched her stop the bleeding again, but this time he felt a wave of uneasiness pass over him. He looked away, but the sensation continued to grow. It wasn't nausea; this was more like alarm. Something was wrong. He couldn't imagine what it could be, though. The pain was going away just like in the other foot.

Even so, he couldn't shake the sensation of impending disaster. Maybe it didn't have anything to do with his foot. It felt a little like the feeling he sometimes got when someone was watching him, but out here in the desert? There wasn't anything for miles around.

Or was there? Jedra scanned the sandy horizon beyond Kayan, then twisted around to check behind him.

"Hold still," Kayan said.

There. Just around the edge of a wind-hollowed dune about thirty feet away, Jedra sensed a presence. "Something's out there," he said.

Kayan looked up. "What? Where?"

"Over-" But Jedra didn't need to point. The moment its cover was blown, a b'rohg leaped out from behind the dune and charged toward them, screaming a ululating war cry that sent shivers up their backs.

Jedra had seen b'rohgs before in the arena. They were four-armed humanoid giants, mutations or throwbacks to an earlier age. Not particularly bright, but vicious fighters. This one was about twice as tall as Jedra, heavily muscled, and fast. It carried a crude stone-tipped spear in its upper right hand, poised for throwing.

"Run!" Kayan screamed. She leaped up, pulling Jedra to his feet, and took off directly away from the b'rohg. Jedra followed her as soon as he got his balance, but he realized instantly that they would never outrun the creature. At least he wouldn't. Kayan hadn't had time to finish; his left foot still flared in agony with each step. They didn't have time to mindlink and fight the b'rohg psionically, either. And without weapons, they were as good as dead.

The b'rohg was even faster than he expected. Jedra had to put on a burst of speed to keep the creature aimed in the right direction, and even so it looked like he might not make it. He turned harder to the left, running directly across the b'rohg's path. If this didn't work, the b'rohg wouldn't even have to use its spear; it could just grab Jedra in its massive arms when they collided.

The distance between them closed to twenty feet, then ten. Jedra was about to turn and face the b'rohg in a last desperate stand when the creature shrieked in pain and whirled around as if something had grabbed it by the leg.

Something had. Jedra had led it right over the sand cactus.

The b'rohg tottered on one foot, flailing its arms for balance. Jedra knew it was strong enough to pull free once it regained its footing, and maybe even strong enough to keep chasing him. He couldn't lose his momentary advantage, so he did the one thing he could think of: He concentrated his psionic power and imagined pushing the creature over.

It hadn't done much good when he'd fought Sahalik, but now maybe it would be enough. Jedra shoved with all his might, and the b'rohg flailed its arms even more, then finally it shrieked in terror and fell over into the patch of cactus needles.

At least four more penetrated its skin, holding it fast to the ground, and as the giant humanoid screamed and thrashed around it impaled itself again and again until it could barely move.

Then the cactus began sucking it dry.

Kayan came back to stand beside Jedra, and they watched in horrified fascination as the b'rohg's burnt-orange skin turned pale and its flesh slowly shrank around its bones.

"It's carnivorous," Kayan whispered incredulously. "That's why your blood wouldn't clot. The cactus drinks blood, so it secretes something to keep it fluid."

The b'rohg shuddered once more, then lay still. The spear fell from its grasp and thumped to the sand.

Jedra shuddered, too. He was just as responsible for the creature's horrible death as the cactus was. The fact that it had attacked him didn't make him feel much better about it. He had used his psionic power to kill another intelligent being. Not a very intelligent one, to be sure, but smart enough to use a spear. The b'rohgs Jedra had seen in Urik had been able to understand a few spoken commands.

Why had it attacked them? he wondered. Probably for their water, given that the b'rohg didn't have a waterskin of its own. It didn't have much of anything, just a scaly reptile skin of some sort wrapped around its waist, and the spear.

Hmm. The spear.

"We should try to get that," Jedra said. Trying to ignore the desiccated corpse, he crab-walked toward the weapon, sweeping the sand in front of him with his robe as he went to detect any more thorns. When he reached the spear he grasped it by the haft just below the stone point and dragged it back out, careful to step in his same tracks.

The spear was nearly ten feet long, and three inches thick. The haft wasn't solid wood; it was a hollow tube honeycombed with holes. Jedra suspected it was the heartwood of one of the long, skinny kinds of cacti he'd seen farther back where vegetation had been more plentiful. Whatever it was, it was lightweight and strong. The heaviest part of it was the stone point that had been flaked to a sharp edge and bound to the haft with rawhide thongs. The whole thing had a weight and a balance to it that felt right. Though Jedra had no idea how to throw a spear, it felt good in his hand.

"Maybe we should put some distance between us and this place," Kayan said. "Something else might come to investigate the noise."

"Good idea," Jedra said. He wanted to leave anyway. He made a wide detour around the sand cactus and its captive, limping a bit on his not-quite-healed left foot, and led the way toward the west. He winced with each footstep, not just because of the pain, or because of the small but noticeable hole in each sandal, but because he expected to encounter another invisible patch of thorns at any moment.

Despite his fears, they made another mile without mishap, and when they had put a couple of large dunes between them and the hapless b'rohg, they stopped to rest again. Kayan finished healing Jedra's left foot, then they shared another of their honeycakes and washed it down with a drink of water. They had ten cakes left out of the twelve Galar had given them, but they were going through water fast; Jedra figured they only had enough for another day and a half at this rate. They needed refreshment now, though, to help recoup the strength they had lost to the sand cactus.

"Oh, I don't know," Kayan said with a grin. "As long as you walk in front, I don't mind healing you."

"Right." He knew she was joking, but something about her attitude still irked him. Then he remembered some advice an old veteran of the streets had once given him, and he laughed. "You were pretty quick to take the lead when the b'rohg attacked," he told Kayan.

"Yeah, well, the ground cactus seemed the lesser danger at the moment."

"Someone I knew once told me, 'When you go hunting wild inix, you should always take a companion with you. That way you never have to outrun an enraged inix; you only have to outrun your companion.' "

Now it was her turn to miss the joke. "Jedra, I wasn't trying to leave you to the b'rohg! I was running for my life, and I thought you were right behind me."

"I was kidding," he told her.

"Oh."

She still didn't laugh, so Jedra dropped it. He toyed with the spear some more, thinking that he could wave it in front of him to detect sand cactus, save that their progress would be excruciatingly slow if they had to sweep every inch of trail ahead of them. He wondered how the elves did it. He hadn't marched at the head of the column, so he'd never seen what the scouts did for protection. Spotting a pile of bones that hadn't been disturbed would be a fair indication that you were in cactus territory, but that wouldn't protect you from a young plant that hadn't fed yet. Maybe heavier sandals would provide more protection, or there might be a way to spot the needles if you knew what to look for.

He didn't have either the sandals or the knowledge. What he had was a spear, a knapsack, and his robe.

Hmm. His robe was already ripped to shreds; he'd hardly miss another chunk off the bottom of it. If he tied that to the spear...

"What are you doing?" Kayan asked when he ripped off a foot-wide, two-foot-long strip of his robe.

"Watch," he told her. He tugged it through the holes at the butt end of the spear, leaving two loose ends that flopped down on either side, then he tied two of the corners together so the bottom hem ran in a continuous line from side to side. Standing up, he put the spear over his shoulder so the heavy stone point would counterbalance the rest of it, and he took a couple of steps with the rag just scraping the ground in front of him. "There," he said. "A crude but functional sand cactus detector." "Wow," Kayan said. "That just might work." "Of course it'll work," Jedra said, his pride wounded by the thought that she might not think so. He jounced the pole on his shoulder a time or two and said, "Are you rested enough? I want to try it."

Grinning at his boyish enthusiasm, she stood up and put on her pack again. "All right. Lead on."

It took him a few minutes to get the hang of it. At first the end of the spear would dip down and dig into the ground every few steps, or it would lift up too high and the cloth wouldn't drag the surface, but he soon settled into a smoother stride that kept the spear butt aimed down at the right angle. He couldn't take his eyes off the ground for long, though, so Kayan had to navigate from behind, calling out, "A little to the right," or "Watch out for that rock."

Eagerness to test his new invention kept him going for another mile or so, but then fatigue began to set in again and he wondered if he were being silly. Maybe these sand cacti were exceptionally rare, and he was doing the equivalent of keeping a constant watch out for dragons.

Then the cloth snagged on something, and the spear haft jerked backward in his hand. Jedra stopped with his foot still upraised, his pulse suddenly pounding. He slowly backed up a pace.

"Find one?" Kayan asked.

"I think so." Jedra tugged the cloth free and waved the end of the spear around in a circle, and sure enough, it snagged again a foot or so away. Very carefully, he worked his way around in a half circle, sweeping out a clear path around the perimeter of the needle patch. This one was about eight or ten feet across, and once again there was nothing to indicate it was there except for the needles.

"Good work," Kayan said.

"Thanks," he said, pleased with himself.

"We are making progress of a sort," said Kayan. "Now if we can just find that oasis the chief told us about, we might actually survive this little outing."

They stopped for the night another mile or so farther west. It was getting truly cold now, and they were both so tired they could barely walk. The elves had not given them sleeping mats, so they simply picked a patch of sand that didn't have anything growing on it-that was getting easier and easier the farther west they went-and settled down under the bright moon and stars to sleep.

After fifteen minutes or so, however, Kayan mindsent, This is ridiculous. Are we ever going to act like bondmates, or are we going to spend the whole night shivering a foot away from each other?

Jedra gulped, suddenly warm again. I-I didn't want to-I mean, I do want to, but I was afraid you might-Afraid I might what, bite? Jedra, I'm cold. You're cold. Snuggle up behind me and put your arm around me.

He moved closer to her, but then couldn't decide where to put his hands. Even wrapped in her robe, she was warm and soft everywhere he touched her. He finally settled for letting her use his left arm for a pillow and holding his right hand against her stomach. She laughed gently and said. There, that's not so bad, is it?

That's-that's wonderful, he said. Warmer, too. He tried to slow his breathing again and fall asleep, but he was too conscious of Kayan in his arms.

After a couple more minutes, Kayan said, You're tight as a bowstring. Relax.

I'd like to, he said, but I've never done this before.

Just what is it you think we're doing?

Sleeping, Jedra said quickly. I've never slept with a woman in my arms before.

She turned her head back so she could look at him out of her right eye. You're kidding. Never?

Embarrassed, and a little put out at her incredulous tone, Jedra said, I remember sharing a cot with my mother when I was very young, but she died when I was six.

Oh, said Kayan. She looked away again. A moment later she said, Then I guess it goes without saying that you 've never...

No.

Oh, she said again. Well, it's a little cold for that tonight, and it's already been a busy day. Much as I'd like to show you what you've been missing, I think we'd be better off getting our sleep tonight.

That's what I thought we were trying to do, Jedra said.

Kayan giggled softly. So we were. She turned her head back toward him again, farther than the first time, and before Jedra quite realized what was happening she had kissed him.

Her lips were soft and warm against his, warmer even than her skin beneath his hands. The kiss was over almost before he could respond, but the memory of it lingered even after she turned back around and settled her head down on his arm again.

Good night, she sent.

Yes, it is, he replied automatically.

The moon was halfway across the sky when Jedra woke. He belatedly realized that one of them should have stayed up to keep watch, but with that thought came the equally strong realization that neither of them could have managed it if they'd wanted to. He had fallen asleep with Kayan in his arms; if he could do that, then nothing could have kept him awake.

He supposed he should at least scout around now. If he was careful, he wouldn't even have to disturb Kayan to do it. He focused his awareness inward, reaching for the center of his psionic power, the one that allowed him to tell if someone was watching him. When he suddenly felt a heightened sense of awareness, a tingling at the back of his neck, he knew he had it, so he imagined himself rising upward, looking down upon himself and Kayan. They were swirls of light against the starlit sand, softly glowing like the green luminescence of the nocturnal moths that sometimes flitted about the eaves of buildings in the city at night. Jedra rose up until he could see a couple of miles in every direction, but no other lights broke the darkness. If anything was out there, it wasn't interested in them.

But as long as he was looking...

Careful to remember the way back this time, he moved farther west, searching for the oasis. There would almost certainly be something alive there, something he could sense, and that way he could learn how much farther they had to walk.

It should have worked. Jedra went for miles, until his power began to stretch thin and the psionic vision grew dim, but he found no oasis, nor even the long, rocky ridge that the elf chief had said it was near. Only more desert. He searched north and south a few miles in either direction, but still encountered nothing.

Maybe he was doing it wrong. He hadn't found Sahalik by searching psionically, either. Jedra brought his point of view back to the two swirls of light on the sand and let it sink back into his body. When he opened his eyes he saw the stars overhead, their constellations advanced well into morning, and when he shifted his arms he felt Kayan stir slightly within his embrace. He hated to wake her, but they should get up and walk again before it got too hot. The trouble was, where should they go?

Kayan couldn't find the oasis either, but that wasn't so surprising, since sensing things at a distance wasn't one of her strong points.

"I think we should link up again and try it together," Jedra said after she had tried it on her own. They were sitting on the sand with their knapsacks open before them, sharing another honeycake for breakfast. "We need to know where we're headed, or we'll get lost out here."

"If we can't find the oasis, we're already lost," Kayan pointed out. "But you're right. It just seems like every time we rest up, the first thing we do is tire ourselves out again."

"We can make it fast," Jedra said. "Together, we should be able to find it in no time."

"We hope." Kayan shrugged, then held out her hand. "All right, let's try it."

They had not needed to touch in order to join their minds before, but Jedra took her hand in his anyway. "Ready?" he asked.

"Let's do it."

They merged. Once again all their worldly cares dropped away in the birth of a single being. Their simple kiss a few hours ago seemed insignificant compared to the communion they now shared. All the same, now that they were one, each realized what that kiss had meant to the other at the time, and that realization-plus the physical contact they made now-enhanced their bond well beyond their previous experience. Where before they had vibrated with power, now they sang.

To the oasis! they cried, arrowing westward in the form of a huge roc, an eaglelike bird of prey with a wingspan of nearly a hundred feet. This was the most detailed and realistic of their psionic visions yet; the desert below them undulated with regular waves of dunes, like ripples in a water cask, and the stars overhead were crisp points of light. The few animals inhabiting the sandy wastes glowed softly with auras of green or blue light, but their shapes were readily discernible even from Jedra and Kayan's great height. There were a few wild kanks, possibly escapees from elf tribes, an insect colony of some sort in a cluster of five-foot domes, and a few other animals that they didn't recognize. They remembered the locations of every creature they saw so they could steer clear of them just in case they proved hostile.

The oasis, however, wasn't obvious. After a few minutes of flying-many miles under the roc's immense wings-they realized it simply wasn't there.

They hadn't drifted that far off course during their hikes the previous day. There could be only one explanation, and they voiced it instantly: The elf chief lied. He had waited until Galar was out of earshot to give them directions to the oasis, and then he had sent them off to their deaths.

The roc screeched in anger. We should go back and teach him a lesson, they decided, and the great bird whirled around to fly east, but they immediately thought, No, we can't waste our strength on simple revenge. We need to find a safe haven, and soon.

They swept over the desert in great circles, searching for an oasis, an outpost, a caravan-any sign of water or intelligent life that might be carrying water-but the elf chief had sent them directly into the most barren wastes in the region. They knew what lay to the east; they had just walked it, but the terrain to the north and south looked just the same. Only to the west did it change, but that change was hardly for the better. There they found only stony barrens and rocky badlands.

Beyond that, however...

The city of Tyr rested in a circular basin at the base of the Ringing Mountains. As dangerous as it was there, with King Kalak enslaving everyone who even looked at him wrong and forcing them to build an enormous pyramid in the center of the city, it was still better than dying in the desert. Trouble was, traveling on foot it was over a week's walk away. They could never reach it on the provisions they carried with them.

Jedra and Kayan circled the enormous walled city, crying out in frustration with their psionic roc's powerful call. They could be there now if they knew how to transport their bodies along with their minds. But they didn't know. They hardly knew what they were doing as it was.

For the want of a mentor, we shall perish within sight of salvation, they thought.

The city glowed with the light of thousands of minds at work, one of which could undoubtedly teach them what they needed to know. But how could they find that one mind among so many? Some were brighter than others, but Jedra had learned the hard way that the signature of a powerful mind didn't necessarily mean a friendly psionicist waited behind it. In Tyr, with its immense slave pens and massive military buildup to keep the peace, most of the psionicists would be slavemasters or warriors.

Their agitation weakened the contact. The roc began to diminish, and though their controlling minds remained linked, they separated into two distinct points of view.

The Kayan part of their mind said, It's not going to happen. We 're wasting our strength; we've been linked too bug as it is. At this rate we'll exhaust ourselves before we can even take our first steps toward anywhere.

What difference mill that make if we have nowhere to go? Jedra asked.

We can't give up. Kayan said. We still have a day's supplies. Two if we're careful. Tyr is the closest sign of life; we'll head there and hope to find some form of help along the way. There isn't any-

Save it. Before Jedra could protest further, Kayan broke the link.

If coming down from their convergence was hard before, being dropped out of it unexpectedly was like feeling his own death. Jedra lurched drunkenly and had to put out his arms to keep from falling over.

"Yuh..." he tried to speak, but words wouldn't form. You might have warned me! he mindsent instead.

It was the wrong thing to say, and saying it mentally was the wrong medium. They were both suffering from the post-link depression, and filtered through his frustration and hers, his mental words carried far more freight than spoken words ever could.

If you weren't so indecisive, I wouldn't have had to break away so abruptly, she snapped back at him.

Her meaning came across instantly, along with her contempt. He looked up to see her glaring at him. Indecisive? he sent back. I don't call walking seven days to Tyr on two days' rations a decision. I call that stupidity.

Oh, so what would you rather do? Wait here? Go back to the elves and say we're sorry, will they take us back in?

That's a better idea than just walking on into the desert. If you hadn't got us in trouble there in the first place, we-

Me? You're the one who got us in trouble. You and your stupid cloud ray.

Jedra climbed shakily to his feet. I was looking for Sahalik, which I would never have had to do if you hadn't chased him out of camp.

Kayan stood up, too, and though she only came up to the middle of his chest, she looked ready to take him on with bare hands at any moment. Oh, yeah? And what was I supposed to do, let him have his filthy way with me just so we could stay with your precious elves? Was I supposed to buy their hospitality with my body?

Jedra clenched and unclenched his fists. You could have let him down easy, he said. You didn't have to humiliate him in front of the whole tribe.

I did, too. Kayan turned away and picked up her pack. Of course if you had been more decisive when he first showed up, maybe I wouldn't have, but when he realized you were a pushover, he-

Oh, so that's my fault now, too! Jedra grabbed his own pack off the sand and tied it closed, then swung it onto his back. He picked up the spear with its rag tied to the end and slung that over his shoulder, wincing at the sore spot where it had rested during the last march. Well let me tell you something, miss high-and-mighty ex-templar, I didn't get us into this mess. You did. You and your-

Cloud ray, she said. Cloud ray, cloud ray, cloud ray. That's why we got kicked out of the tribe. I had us living in the chief's tent until you pulled that stunt. Arrgghh! Jedra growled, an inarticulate bellow of rage. She'd twisted things around in a circle again.

He stomped off with the rag end of the spear bent low in front of him, sweeping for sand cactus.

Where are you going? Kayan demanded.

Jedra stopped. He'd struck out to the north, he realized. Toward Urik, the only place he'd ever called home. But Urik was nearly twice as far away as anyplace else they could go, the entire distance through open desert. He looked toward the east, where the sky was just beginning to show the first glow of approaching dawn. Only hostile elves and the tablelands lay in that direction. The south was no better. Reluctantly, he turned westward and began walking. I guess I'm going to Tyr, he said.

One good thing about anger, Jedra thought an hour or so later-it completely overrode the exhaustion he'd expected to feel after their convergence. He and Kayan had already walked farther this morning than they'd gone in either of their previous marches, and the sun hadn't even cleared the horizon yet. The last stars were fading before them, though, and it wouldn't be long before the temperature began to rise. Who would have thought there could be so much change in so barren a landscape? Hot enough to cook meat on a rock during the day, and cold enough to freeze it at night; full of vegetation and lizards and other small animals just a day to the east, but practically empty here. A person couldn't count on anything in the desert.

He increased his pace, eager to get out of the desert.

Hey, Kayan mindsent. You're already going too fast. Your legs are longer than mine.

I thought you wanted to get to Tyr, he replied without turning his head, but he slowed down.

The sun had been up for a couple of hours before they spoke again. Your shoulders are going to get sunburned,

Kayan sent.

I know, Jedra responded. His pack covered some of the rips the cactus had made in his robe, but not all of them. Shouldn't you turn your robe around or something? They were walking on much rockier ground now, the sand underfoot littered with pebbles and stones. Occasional reddish-yellow boulders dotted the landscape as well. Jedra paused beside one such boulder, letting his danger sense tell him if anything was hiding behind it, and when he was sure it was safe he relaxed a bit and said, I suppose I should.

He took off his pack and dropped it to the ground, handed Kayan the spear, then pulled his arms through his sleeves and twisted the robe around. When he stuck his arms out again the cloth felt tight across his neck, but most of the holes the cactus had ripped in it were in front. He put his pack on and took back the spear, then started walking again.

Jedra, Kayan sent.

What?

Couldn't we at least rest for a minute?

Rest. That sounded good. Trouble was, in his depression, would he ever start out again?

He would have to find out sometime. All right, he said, turning around and walking back to the boulder where Kayan still waited.

They sat down in the shade and each took a drink from Kayan's waterskin. Her honeycakes beckoned from within her pack, but neither she nor Jedra took one. They would eat during the hottest part of the day, when they stopped for shelter from the sun.

After a minute or so of awkward silence, Kayan said aloud, "Jedra, I'm sorry I said all those things. I was just frustrated and tired. I don't really think that about you." "You can't lie in a mindlink," Jedra said.

You can too, Kayan sent. She laughed, and when Jedra looked puzzled she said, "Think about it."

He tried to work out the logic of it, and finally he admitted, "All right, maybe you can. But you still said it. You wanted it to be true." "I didn't either. I wanted to hurt you." He looked at her as if she'd just said she planned to stab him in the back. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Of course it is," she said. She shook her head to flip her hair back out of her eyes. "Look, we were mad at each other. When you're mad, you say things to hurt each other. You don't necessarily mean them."

"Oh," Jedra said. He looked at her again, really looked at her for the first time that day. She certainly seemed sincere, with her green eyes open wide and her round face full of concern. Jedra felt himself relax a little. "I supposed that's another thing I don't know much about," he said.

"What, fighting?"

"Yeah." He looked away again, out over the desert. "The whole world seems to thrive on it, but I've never understood why. What good does it do? People hurt each other all the time, usually for the stupidest reasons. They kill each other because of an insult, or sometimes just for something to do. Some people are always looking for fights."

"Like Sahalik," Kayan said.

"Yeah, like Sahalik." Jedra looked back at her. "I don't know. Maybe you didn't have anything to do with that. I'm a half-elf; he probably would have found an excuse to challenge me even if you'd been nicer to him." "Maybe." Kayan shrugged. "I guess I could have tried anyway."

"You're a pacifist," said Kayan, true wonder in her voice. "That's incredible."

"Why?"

"Because of where you come from. Most people who grow up on the streets just take it as given that they have to fight for survival. For someone like you to figure out that there might be a better way, well, that's pretty unusual."

Jedra wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not, but he decided to take it as one. "Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome," she said. She blushed, then leaned closer to him. "I'm sorry I got you mad. Kiss and make up?"

He wasn't sure if he had gotten completely over his anger yet, but he suddenly realized he was going to have to practice what he'd just preached. He supposed it could have been worse, though.

"All right," he said, and he leaned forward for the second kiss of his life.

Their rest stop lasted a little longer than they'd originally intended, but when they started out again they walked side by side. The ground was too rocky for sand cactus, and besides, it was easier to hold hands that way.

They walked at a steady pace all through the morning, their improved spirits helping even more than anger to keep them going. The harder ground underfoot helped as well. It was difficult to judge how far they'd gone, since they hadn't paid that much attention to the passing miles, so when they stopped for lunch Jedra said, "Why don't we link up and check our progress?"

"You just want to mind-merge again," Kayan said playfully.

"And you don't?"

"Of course I do, but I don't know if it's a good idea. Look what happened last time."

"Hmm."

They had stopped by the biggest boulder they could find, but it wasn't rounded enough to provide much shade with the sun straight overhead. Jedra considered the situation for a moment, then he propped the spear against the rock, took off his robe, and rucked the corners into the holes in the spear haft. Then he stretched the cloth out toward the ground and weighted the bottom corners down with rocks, making a lean-to tent big enough for both of them to fit under.

"All right," Kayan said when he'd finished. "Let's link up and see how far we've come, but that's it. No lingering this time."

"Deal."

They climbed under the makeshift tent, joined hands, and linked. At once their argument that morning seemed petty and foolish. Compared to the sense of well-being they felt now, their little differences of opinion were insignificant. Who cared who got them into trouble? They were invincible now. Once again they rose on powerful roc wings over the desert, and they immediately wheeled around to the west and flew for Tyr.

It was still a long way off. Even at the pace they'd maintained that morning it would take five days to reach it, but they wouldn't be able to keep up that pace after they ran out of food and water. They had maybe three days of good marching left, maximum, and the last one would be without food or water.

There's got to be a better solution than just heading west until we drop, Jedra's part of their mind suggested.

We've been over this before, Kayan's practical side replied. We knew it was a long way when we decided to go for it. We've done better than we thought we'd do; let's be glad of it and keep going.

Let's at least look for the oasis on our way back, Jedra thought. We might find it yet, or something else that'll help.

All right. They turned away from the city and flew eastward again, focusing their psionic senses on anything unusual. Water, food, intelligent minds, even animals that might provide a life-sustaining meal. At first they found nothing, but when they had come about two-thirds of the way back to where their bodies waited they spotted something far to the north. A scintillating beacon of some sort, like sunlight reflected off a rippling surface.

Open water? It couldn't be, not out here. But it might be something else useful, so they veered northward and with a few powerful wingbeats flew toward it.

A city slid up from behind the horizon, its buildings taller and straighter-sided than anything either of them had ever seen. Even the modest ones were larger than the pyramid under construction at Tyr, and there were dozens even bigger. What they had seen was sunlight reflecting off the flat sides of the buildings.

What could it be? Jedra asked, and Kayan answered, An ancient ruin? I've heard the desert is littered with them.

This doesn't look very ruined.

Maybe we're seeing it as it used to be.

They circled around, looking at the buildings from all sides. At their bases grew trees and green grass so thick the dirt couldn't be seen between the blades. In the middle of one open courtyard a fountain sprayed three jets of water high into the air.

And seated on a bench beside the fountain, a six-limbed, mantislike thri-kreen leaned its head back and watched them with its black, multifaceted eyes.

We've found it! Jedra said. This has to be the oasis.

It doesn't have to be anything, Kayan said.

Sure it does. And whatever it is, it's better than nothing. We should come here instead.

No, we should stick with our original course. If we start chasing mirages, we'll never make it anywhere.

This isn't a mirage.

They felt the same rending of their union that they had felt last time they had begun to argue, the same diminishing of their synergy. Kayan said, Let's unlink and talk about it.

Jedra sensed that she was going to break the link anyway, so he readied himself for the shock and said, All right.

It wasn't quite so bad as before. Their roc body and the city below flickered and vanished like a burst soap bubble, and Jedra once again found himself sitting on the hard rock with Kayan by his side. Their makeshift tent flapped softly overhead in a faint breeze.

Neither of them spoke for a minute while they tried to corral their stressed emotions. The letdown was just as intense as always, but they were getting familiar with it, and they simply waited for it to pass.

Jedra spoke first. "I still think we should go for the city. It's only another day and a half away."

"It may not be a city," Kayan said. "And if it is, I bet it's nothing but rubble now, no matter what we saw." "And the thri-kreen?"

"Who knows? Maybe it was the ghost of the king." Jedra leaned back against the rock. They had pitched their lean-to tent on the west side of it, which hadn't received sun yet today and was still a few degrees cooler than the surrounding air. "Maybe it wasn't," he said. "Maybe it was an actual, living thri-kreen. Maybe it lives out there, and the city was its mental image of home."

Kayan picked up a fist-sized rock and turned it over in her hand. "You want to go into a thri-kreen's home? They eat elves, did you know that?"

"I'm not an elf," Jedra told her. "I'm a half-elf."

"So it'll only eat half of you."

"We can defend ourselves if necessary," Jedra said, "but I'll bet we won't have to. Thri-kreen and elves get along fine in the city. I'll bet it'll sell us food and water if we offer to buy it. I've still got Dornal's money bag. And maybe the thri-kreen will know a better way across the desert than the way we're going."

" 'Maybe' is a pretty unsure thing to hang your hopes on," Kayan said to the rock.

"So is thinking we can walk all the way to Tyr on two half-empty waterskins and ten honeycakes."

Kayan took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but didn't speak.

"This is serious," Jedra said. "We could die out here. We will die if we make the wrong decision."

"I know that." Kayan flung the rock she'd been holding out into the desert, where it clacked against another rock and bounced to the side. "That's why I don't want to waste our last resources wandering off after a psionic chimera."

Since they weren't speaking mind-to-mind Jedra didn't get a definition of "chimera," but he had an idea of what she meant anyway.

"Let's sleep on it," he said. "When we're ready to travel we can see if it's still there. If it's not, I'm willing to try for Tyr, but if it is I think we should go for the city."

"I don't know," Kayan said. "But you're right about one thing: We should sleep." She lay back against her pack and closed her eyes.

***** Jedra kept watch again, then traded with Kayan for a few hours' rest of his own. When he woke in the late afternoon they shared another honeycake and each had another mouthful of water. Then they joined minds again and looked for the mysterious city.

"That settles it," Jedra said. "We're going."

Kayan narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I still don't like it. What's that city doing there, anyway? I've never heard of it before. And what's a thri-kreen doing roasting an erdlu in the middle of it? Where'd the erdlu come from? For that matter, where'd the thri-kreen come from? And where's everybody else? Something's not right here."

Jedra dismantled their tent and put on his robe again. "I don't care," he said. "It's better than trying for Tyr." He slung his pack over his shoulders and picked up the spear. "You coming?"

She blinked in surprise. "Jedra, what's gotten into you?"

He shrugged. "I guess I'm just trying to be decisive."

"What? You're rushing off into the unknown because I called you indecisive yesterday?"

"No." He tried to explain, but it was hard to put words around his reasons. "This just feels right. I know this is where we should go."

"It feels right. Oh, great." All the same, she apparently realized he was done arguing about it. She stood up and slowly drew on her pack. "If you're wrong..." She let the rest of the sentence hang.

Jedra finished it for her. "If I'm wrong, we're dead. But I'm not wrong; I can feel it. This is the right thing to do."

"I certainly hope so. All right, then, let's go."

The next day and a half passed much like the first, save that the terrain grew steadily rockier the farther they went. Once they had committed themselves to reaching the mystery city to the northeast there was no more argument about it, but Kayan obviously still doubted and resented the decision. There were no more goodnight Kisses; indeed, the rocks held the sun's heat well into the flight so they split the watch again and didn't even sleep together.

Jedra's danger sense never even twinged the whole time, either while they were walking or while they rested. This rocky wasteland was truly empty.

On the evening of the next day-their third since leaving the elves-they crested a shallow rise to find their goal laid out before them. It was indeed a city, and a vast one, too, but unfortunately Kayan's guess had been right: It was now a complete ruin. Stone buildings had collapsed into piles of rubble, and time had flattened the piles until the city was little more than a regular array of rocky hills. A few of the hardier structures- mostly toward the center of town-had fared better, some standing a few stories high, but most of the outlying buildings were mere fragments of their former selves.

Kayan refrained from saying "I told you so." Jedra was glad of that; ridicule on top of the intense letdown he felt would have probably driven him over the edge. Their waterskins held only a swallow of water for each of them; if they didn't find more soon, they would die.

"What about the thri-kreen?" Kayan asked. "Maybe he's real, at least."

Jedra cast about with his watcher sense, and sure enough he felt a faint tingling of a presence toward the center of the city. "Something's alive in there," he said.

"Can't you tell if it's the thri-kreen?"

He shook his head. "Just something alive."

"It could just as easily be something dangerous as something we want to meet," Kayan pointed out.

"It doesn't feel dangerous," Jedra said, concentrating. He felt a sense of urgency more than anything. "In fact, it feels like it's in trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know. I don't sense any threat to us, though."

Kayan looked at the piles of rubble they would have to navigate to reach whatever Jedra sensed, then with a sigh she said, "That's probably the only thing here in this slag heap; we might as well go see what it is."

It took them another hour of scrambling over boulders just to reach the city's center. They stayed to the middle of what had once been streets, finding that the debris wasn't as thick there, but the closer they got to the large buildings the deeper the rubble became simply because there had been more of it stacked up to begin with.

It was hardly a street at all, now. The top half of what must have been a ten-story rectangular tower had fallen into it, scattering its massive stone blocks the way the wind scatters sand. Jedra picked his way among them, some of them nearly as tall as he was, searching for the source of the life he sensed. Now that they were close it seemed to be weaker.

At last he thought to climb up on top of a particularly large stone and look around from there, and from that vantage he finally spotted a dusky yellow, chitinous leg sticking out from behind another block. "Over there," he said, pointing with the spear. He jumped down, and he and Kayan advanced cautiously. He didn't think they needed to fear this thri-kreen, but it never hurt to be ready for trouble.

When they rounded the edge of the stone and saw the entire creature, they knew they had no reason to worry. Not about it attacking them, at any rate. The mantis warrior lay on its side, its six limbs sprawled out and its head resting flat on the ground. The only sign of life was a faint pulsing in its bulbous abdomen.

There were no obvious wounds. "What's wrong with it?" Jedra asked Kayan.

She leaned down and gingerly touched one of its clawed hands, then closed her eyes. "Dehydration," she said after a moment. "Wonderful. Thri-kreen can live for weeks without food or water. If this one is dying of thirst, there can't be any water around for a hundred miles."