by Ryan Hughes
" 'Even I'?" Jedra asked. "What do you mean by that? Who are you, anyway?"
"I am Kitarak," Kitarak said. "Tohr-kreen noble of the House of Antarak." He paused. "And psionics master."
"Psionics master?" Jedra sat down heavily. "You knew all this time that we were looking for someone like you, and you didn't say anything?"
"Seek and ye shall find," Kitarak said. "You made a false assumption when you met me. I looked powerless and helpless, so you assumed I was. I allowed the deception to continue, for it gave me opportunity to study you."
"You weren't dehydrated?" Kayan asked. "I checked you psionically. You certainly seemed dehydrated."
Kitarak clicked again. Definitely laughter. "I can seem many things> when I choose to. Including disinterested. But in truth, I am very interested in you, and have been ever since I detected your presence over Tyr. Yours is the strongest manifestation of psionic synergy I have ever encountered."
"You knew about us?"
"Oh, yes. I make it my business to be aware of the major psionic talents in the region. In fact, as soon as I noticed you I intentionally put myself in your path so I could meet you."
Kayan bent back to her work on his leg, but Jedra said, "How did you know where we were going? We didn't even know ourselves that we would go north."
"You?"
"Of course me. I drew your attention with a flash of light while you were searching for an oasis. I projected the image of the city for you to see when you came to investigate the light. And I planted an attraction in your mind so you would be sure to come, even though it may not have felt like the logical thing to do."
Jedra couldn't believe what he was hearing. Going to investigate the city hadn't been his idea? Sure it had seemed a little reckless, but there hadn't really been any other choice, had there? Kayan had thought so, but she had finally agreed with him to try it. Of course she had probably been under the tohr-kreen's influence as well.
"Why did you lure us to an abandoned city?" he asked.
Kitarak looked away. Softly, he said, "I might have had to kill you. And strong as you were, it might have been dangerous to innocent bystanders."
"Oh." Jedra focused on Kitarak with all his ability, trying to see through the surface to the psionics master's true intentions, but he still felt no threat. He had trusted that impression before, but now he wasn't sure what to believe. It sounded like Kitarak could project whatever he wanted Jedra to receive, no matter what his real thoughts were.
Don't worry, Kitarak mindsent to him. If I had wished to do you harm, I would have done so long since.
Well, that's a relief, Jedra sent back, hoping the sarcasm would translate as well.
Evidently it did. Kitarak said, You have an interesting attitude for one so naive. It's a wonder that hasn't gotten you killed by now.
What attitude? Jedra asked, but Kitarak merely clicked his mouthparts in laughter for reply.
His blue glow had begun to fade already, especially along his leg where Kayan practiced her healing power. Evidently she was using some of the energy for her work. The glow had nearly disappeared from his entire lower leg when she leaned back and said, "That's as good as I can make it. How does it feel?"
"Good as new," Kitarak said. He stood up and tried his weight on it. "Ah, yes, I can still feel the weakness in the chitin. Hmm. I'm not sure I want to travel on it, especially with the added weight of my pack."
"Maybe we can splint it," Kayan said.
Kitarak weaved his head from side to side. "There is a better way... provided you're willing to accept me as the mentor you've been searching for."
Kayan looked to Jedra. What do you think? she asked.
I think it's pointless to mindspeak around him, Jedra replied.
"All right, then, what do you think-out loud?"
Jedra wasn't sure what he thought. Kitarak obviously knew his stuff, but...
"I don't know," he said. "It'd be hard to trust someone who started out manipulating and deceiving us."
Kitarak made a chittering sound. "Think of it as your first lesson: Don't let your initial impression blind you to hidden possibilities."
"That may be good advice," replied Jedra, "but the best lesson I ever learned on the streets was to never make the same mistake twice. I'm just trying to decide whether or not trusting you was a mistake the first time I did it."
"I have done you no harm. In fact, had I not diverted your path, you would have died of thirst and exposure before you got within thirty miles of Tyr."
"You don't know that," Kayan said. "We might have made it."
"Yes, and mekillots might fly," Kitarak said. "But knowing what I do of your abilities, I would give better odds to the mekillots."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jedra said. Kitarak's blue glow was definitely fading now. It no longer illuminated anything around him, only his own features. He looked cold, both physically and emotionally. His bulbous eyes never blinked, and his narrow, hard-surfaced head displayed no feelings that Jedra could read. Jedra wondered what kind of a mentor this alien creature would be, whether or not they would have enough in common to allow for true communication. Would Kitarak actually teach them what they wanted to know, or did he have his own agenda?
"What do you get out of this?" Jedra asked him.
"Satisfaction," Kitarak said after a moment. "You are inquisitive, and you have potential. I would enjoy helping you develop your skills. Also, I have not had clutch-mates for many years."
"Companions."
"Oh."
"So, do you want to return with me to my home and learn how to use this talent of yours?"
Jedra and Kayan looked at one another for a moment, trying to read in each other's expressions what they couldn't say aloud or in the mindlink. The trouble was, Jedra had no idea what he wanted to say. He didn't trust the tohr-kreen as far as he could throw him, but on the other hand, this was probably the best-maybe the only- offer they were going to get.
He looked beyond Kayan to the crater with the flattened tokamak at the bottom of it, then to Kitarak, still glowing with faint blue light. If he hadn't protected himself from Jedra and Kayan's excess psionic force, he would have been killed along with the id fiend. Their original reason for looking for a mentor hadn't changed; they were still dangerous.
But they might become more dangerous still, from some people's viewpoint, once they learned how to control their gift.
"What if you decide later on that we're a threat?" he asked. "Will you try to kill us then?"
Kitarak picked up his gythka from where he had placed it when Kayan had been healing his leg. He grasped it just below each head and twisted the shaft, and the metal tubes slid into one another again, shortening the weapon to less than two feet in length.
"Despite your facetious comment earlier about ruling the world," he said, "I don't believe that will become necessary. If it does, however, then yes, I will."
"Great."
"To do anything else would be uncivilized," Kitarak said. "That is one of the things I will teach you. I ask you for the final time: Do you choose to learn from me, or not?"
Jedra took a deep breath. Despite that unsettling admission, there could only be one answer, so he gave it: "Yes."
"Kayan?" the tohr-kreen asked.
She nodded. "Yes, certainly. But can it wait until morning? I'm exhausted."
Kitarak clicked merrily. "Yes, by all means, sleep. That will aid us immeasurably in returning to my home."
"You don't have to get sarcastic just because you don't have to sleep," she said.
"No, no," said Kitarak. "I meant it sincerely. The first thing I will teach you is how to dreamwalk." He walked over to where he had been sitting before the attack, picked up his ancient artifact and his pack, and brought them back to where Jedra and Kayan waited. "Lie down next to each other, like you were before," he told them.
They did as he said. Kitarak placed all three of their packs beside them, then knelt down next to their hea
ds.
"I will put you into a light trance," he said. "You will dream, but don't try to direct it in any way, or you will wind up somewhere else. Let me control the vision."
"All right," Jedra said. He couldn't have slept now if he had to, not on his own, but Kitarak extended clawed lower hands to touch his and Kayan's temples, and Jedra felt himself growing sleepier. Within seconds, his breathing had slowed, and he drifted away.
Light suddenly blossomed as if he had just opened his eyes to daylight, but he hadn't. The sensation wasn't quite the same anyway. His field of view was broken up into dozens of hexagons, each one overlapping the next just a little so there were no blind spots, but it wasn't a smooth picture like he normally saw. The colors weren't right, either. The rocks were bright yellow, and the sky was deep purple. The stars were still out, shining much more brightly than usual, and each one was a different color. Jedra recognized some of the constellations, but now the tip of Drini the dwarf's nose glowed red, and his eyes were different shades of blue.
He was seeing the world through Kitarak's compound eyes, he realized. They were more sensitive than human or even elven eyes, but if this mosaic of separate images was how a tohr-kreen saw the world, then Kitarak could have it.
The field of view changed. Long, spiky, chitinous arms reached out as if from Jedra's own body, drew on the tohr-kreen's enormous backpack, and cinched the straps tight. Without turning, Jedra could see to the side where two short, fleshy creatures put on ridiculously small packs of their own. Himself and Kayan, he realized. This was how they looked to Kitarak: small, fragile, their flesh unpleasantly exposed and quivering on their bones when they moved. It was an unflattering image. From Kitarak's viewpoint, Jedra watched himself take one of the tohr-kreen's extended arms while Kayan took another, then the three of them began walking to the southwest. It wasn't a normal pace; each step they took moved them hundreds of yards in a long, smooth glide. They slid over boulderfields as if they weren't there, rising and falling over the rolling hills with a hypnotic rhythm that matched their pace.
Jedra tried to ignore it all and just remain a passive observer, but once he saw a flicker of motion off to the right, and their smooth stride faltered for a moment. They veered toward the source of the distraction, but Kitarak pulled them back onto the straight course before they reached it. A good thing, too; as they passed it Jedra saw another flailer feasting on the remains of some unfortunate animal.
The terrain grew more rugged the farther they went. The hills grew higher, and the valleys between them steeper. Some had become true canyons, the ground suddenly dropping away in sheer cliffs hundreds of feet deep. There would often be no warning that one was there until the dreamers were right on top of it. Such terrain would have proved nearly impassable to travelers on the ground, but Kitarak's pace never faltered; he stepped over the chasms as if they were merely cracks in his path.
We wouldn't have made it on our own, Jedra thought when he saw them. He got no reply; this was evidently not like a mindlink.
The sky seemed to be traveling faster, too. The stars slid westward almost as quickly as they did, and the sky was growing light behind them when Kitarak stopped at the rim of a small canyon. It seemed identical to all the others they had crossed, but Kitarak unerringly found a pathway leading down to the bottom of this one, and he led the way down the narrow trail, going ahead while Jedra and Kayan followed.
The bottom of the canyon was a flat, sinuous channel that had once held a river, but not for many centuries. There was evidently still moisture in the ground, however; a few stubby bushes grew in the cracked soil, and even a tree grew near the edge of a big rock pile.
Kitarak stepped closer to the rock pile, and Jedra saw that he had misjudged it. It was a house. He hadn't recognized the curved walls at first because they weren't smooth or even straight up and down. They were made from unmortared stone, and they bulged in odd places, giving the whole structure the appearance of a haphazard pile of rocks. Kitarak walked around to the back side of the structure and tugged on what looked like a loose piece of shale sticking out of a slanting gravel slope, and the whole business swung out on silent hinges. The gravel had been glued to a stone slab door.
A white, smooth-walled entry led into a hemispherical central room, its walls also finished in white stucco or something similar, and the whole space lit from milky-white skylights shaped like the hollow insides of rocks. From outside, Jedra supposed, they would look just like all the others in the pile.
Two circular cushions on the floor were the only furnishings, aside from the narrow stands supporting sculptures and the shelves on the walls holding hundreds of tinkercraft artifacts. Doorways led off in four directions from the central room, but Kitarak knelt down on one of the cushions and motioned for Jedra and Kayan to lie down on the other. When they had done so, he reached out with his lower hands and touched their heads.
For Jedra, the sensation felt as if his mind had been poured from one vessel to another. He had been in Kitarak's viewpoint, but when the tohr-kreen awakened him he suddenly felt his consciousness slide back into his own head. He blinked, and the room came into focus without the hexagonal array. He sat up and felt the welcome response of his own body moving to his commands.
Kayan sat up beside him, blinking and flexing her arms and legs as well. She ran her hands over her body as if reaffirming that everything was still there.
Kitarak merely tilted his head and looked around the interior of the room. "Ah, yes," he said. "Here we are. Welcome to my humble abode."
This was humble? Jedra felt as if he had just awakened in a palace. The waking in itself was incredible enough, miles away from where he had gone to sleep, but the surroundings managed to overshadow even the method of travel. He looked around at all the things on the walls, at the paintings and other artwork, at the unfathomable pieces of tinkercraft-some of it art in its own right-and thought, Yes, this was a good decision.
Chapter Six
Irregular-shaped windows looked out through nooks in the rock, preserving the house's camouflage while providing even more light than in the skylit central room. Another circular cushion in the middle of the floor had the much-rumpled look of long use. It was obvious that Kitarak spent a great deal of his time here.
Kayan admired the library. "There are more books here than in the templar archives)" she said.
"More valuable ones, too, I'll bet," Kitarak said. "Some of these date back to the collapse."
"I'd love to read them," said Kayan, picking up a cracked leatherbound volume from one of die stacks and opening it carefully.
Her face fell, and Kitarak laughed his clicking laugh. "You're welcome to try, but first you'll have to learn the language. Don't worry; it took me only five years."
Kayan set the book back on the stack. Jedra didn't bother to pick up one; no matter what language it was written in, he wouldn't be able to read it. He had never learned that skill. Maybe he would be able to now, but by the sounds of it that would take a while.
All the rooms in the house were interconnected. Kitarak led Jedra and Kayan through a side doorway from the library into another room, this one much less orderly. A chest-high workbench ran along the circular outer wall, and on it rested the disassembled remains of more tinkercraft gadgets. Parts lay strewn everywhere, and more filled boxes on the floor. The odor of metal and oil was strong here.
"This is my workshop," Kitarak said. "Don't touch anything in here without my permission. Some of the equipment can be easily damaged, and some of it could easily damage you."
Jedra was about to pick up a twisted piece of metal from the workbench; he dropped his hand instead and backed away.
The next room was the kitchen. Kitarak had built a stove into the outer wall, and cabinets on either side of it provided work surface and storage. A wide basin had been set into one cabinet, and beside it a hand-pump provided water from a well dug directly beneath the kitchen. Trust Kitarak to have an indoor well, Jedra thought. He was relie
ved to see that it had just a single up-and-down handle; he wouldn't have to learn how to operate all that arcane machinery the tohr-kreen had used in the ruined city. Pots and pans hung from hooks overhead-nearly out of reach for Jedra, and definitely out of reach for Kayan.
"Can either of you cook?" Kitarak asked.
Kayan shook her head. "The templars all took their meals together. Slaves did the cooking."
Kitarak looked at Jedra, who said, "I've scorched many a lizard over a campfire, but I've never used anything like this."
The tohr-kreen made his rasping noise with his arms. "I can see there is much to teach you," he said.
Jedra was beginning to feel uneasy. It looked like he would have to learn reading, cooking, and maybe even tinkercraft along with psionics. How much else had he gotten himself into?
From the kitchen they went into the storage room. This was much cooler than the others, with no windows or skylights. In the dim light filtering in from the kitchen they could see sacks of vegetables hanging from hooks and a rectangular wooden chest nearly as tall as Kayan standing on end against the wall. When Kitarak opened its door, tendrils of white vapor wafted outward and a cold draft spread across the floor. Inside, haunches of meat were packed tight, and a pebbly white layer of frost coated them all. Jedra had seen frost only once in his life, on an exceptionally clear night after a cloudy day, when all the heat had radiated into the sky.
"Is this some kind of tinkercraft?" he asked.
Kitarak weaved his head from side to side. "No. I have tried for years without success to design a mechanical cold-maker. Instead, I must still use psionics to slow the dance of particles that makes things hot."
"I didn't know it was possible to make something cold," Jedra said. "Why don't the templars use it to cool our cities?"
Kayan said, "I don't think the templars know it's possible, either. At least I've never seen it done before." "There is another problem with your idea," Kitarak said. "The heat must go somewhere. With a cold-box, there isn't enough to worry about, but the heat from an entire city would be very hard to disperse safely. More likely it would burn the psionicist to ashes, and all the buildings around him as well."