The Darkness Before the Dawn (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 2)

The stars provided just enough light to see two ghostly silhouettes locked in battle: Kitarak with his gythka lunging at something long and low and reptilian that dodged faster than the tohr-kreen could swing his weapon. Jedra scrambled to his feet and grabbed the b'rohg spear. Kayan was even faster; she'd still been enfolded in his arms a moment ago, but by the time he could whirl around and aim the spear toward the source of the noise she was already in front of him, running straight for it.

"No!" He shouted. "Kayan, get back!"

She answered with a scream of terror-from behind him. Jedra turned to see her right where they'd been sleeping, struggling to stand while sla

pping frantically at her arms and legs. How could that be? She'd been in front of him a second ago.

She was still there, too. Jedra swung around with the spear again and saw her joining Kitarak in battling the lizard, but she had no weapon! Jedra watched, horrified, as she leaped at the creature with her bare hands.

"No!" he screamed again and ran forward with his spear ready to throw, but Kayan was in the way. And as he watched, helpless, the creature lunged for her. With one snap of its powerful jaws it tore her belly open clear to her spine. She fell to the ground like a rag doll, and the creature backed off, its mouth glistening with her blood in the starlight.

"Kayan!" Jedra screamed. He flung the spear with all his might, but he overshot the lizard's scaly head. Worse, Kitarak chose that moment to attack, and the spear sailed straight into his side, punching halfway through his lower thorax and adding a ghastly parody of a third pair of arms just below his real ones.

The tohr-kreen turned his head toward Jedra in surprise, then with a rattle of exoskeletal limbs he collapsed on top of Kayan's still-quivering body.

But another Kitarak still fought! He swung his gythka at the lizard again, and this time its multiple blade tore a gouge across the thing's left flank. The lizard screeched and whirled around, whipping its tail out and knocking the gythka out of Kitarak's grasp.

Jedra shook his head to clear it. Behind him, Kayan screamed again, and when he looked toward her he saw her standing where she had been before, clawing at her back as if something were biting her there, just out of reach.

When he turned his head once more, the Kitarak and the Kayan who had died were gone. Jedra's spear was wedged into a cleft in the rock beyond the creature that was advancing on Kitarak, whose gythka lay on the ground between Jedra and the lizard's scaly tail. Jedra rushed forward and picked up the strange metal weapon. The blade on one end looked perfect for chopping; he swung it high over his head and was just about to bring it down on the lizard's back when Kayan leaped between them again.

"Get back!" he shouted, but she stood right in his way. "Strike it!" Kitarak yelled, backing frantically away. "I can't!" Jedra jumped to the side, trying to get around Kayan, but she stepped between him and the creature again.

He risked a look behind him. She was still there, slapping at herself as if she had a whole hive of insects crawling over her. Yet there she stood in front of him, too, right where he would hurt her if he made any kind of attack on the lizard. This one couldn't be her, it wasn't possible, but Jedra couldn't bring himself to strike down whoever or whatever it was.

Growling in frustration, he tossed the weapon over her head toward the tohr-kreen, who snatched it out of the air and swung it at the lizard's head.

Something seemed to be interfering with Kitarak's aim as well; what should have been a sure blow merely glanced off the thing's scaly hide. The creature lunged toward him, and Kitarak barely escaped its teeth by springing away with a powerful kick of his hind legs.

Jedra ran back to Kayan. "Link up!" he said, but she was so preoccupied with slapping and tugging at herself that she didn't hear him. He grabbed her arms. "Link up!" he shouted. She struggled to break free of his grasp, and the look in her eyes was one of pure terror. Her face had twisted into a mask of agony, and her screams had dwindled for lack of breath to an almost constant moan of pain.

"Agony beetles!" She writhed free of his grip and slapped at herself again.

"There's nothing there." Jedra grabbed her arms again. "Stop it. You're hurting yourself."

Another snarl from the lizard split the night. Link up, now, Jedra mindsent. He held Kayan tight against him, trying to establish the link on his own, but he couldn't. Fight it! he sent. It isn't real.

Kayan stopped struggling. Her body quivered exactly as if she were still being bitten, but a moment later Jedra felt the mindlink form.

It was like being dropped into liquid fire. Pain shot through every nerve in his body. If this was what Kayan had been feeling, then no wonder she'd screamed. It was hard to maintain the link while such agony coursed through him, but this was their only weapon. Even though their intellects weren't completely melded this time, they were still more powerful than if they fought alone.

The creature's doing this, Jedra thought. It's gotten inside our minds somehow. He willed the pain to stop and felt it respond to his command. It didn't go away completely, but it no longer filled his entire consciousness.

He and Kayan turned their attention to the lizard creature. It wasn't a creature now; it was Kayan who stalked Kitarak, easily dodging his wild swings with the gythka. Kitarak flailed at empty air a few feet to her side, stabbing and slicing exactly as if something were there. Obviously he was having trouble distinguishing reality as well. Their psionic vision overlaid the starlit scene. In it, they saw the creature as a glowing knot of light, long colored ropes of it that stretched out to entwine around Kitarak and themselves.

Cut those, Jedra thought, imagining himself slicing through the light with his hands. The ropes flickered when he struck them, and the pain he and Kayan felt fled, then returned. The image of Kayan disappeared momentarily as well, but the tendrils of light reestablished themselves and the image and the agony returned. Forget this, Kayan said. Let's just squash it flat. Jedra winced at the thought. He knew it wasn't really Kayan out there, but all the same, he couldn't bring himself to attack whatever it was that fought in her image. And since it was his telekinetic power that their union amplified, Kayan couldn't initiate it herself.

Smash it! Kayan insisted, but he couldn't do it.

The Kayan thing leaped toward Kitarak, and this time it grabbed Kitarak by his left leg. Kitarak screamed and stumbled to the ground, and for just a moment as the creature concentrated on its attack, the image flickered backed to reality. In that instant, Jedra struck with all the force he had, greatly augmented by Kayan's presence. He imagined a huge hand swatting the lizard, crushing its body and blotting out its tendrils of light.

The ground shook. Thunder boomed, and the light flared bright, then died. The intense pain Jedra and Kayan had felt ceased instantly. Something else flared around Kitarak, though, a different kind of light. A halo of bright blue radiance surrounded him in a glistening cocoon.

Jedra and Kayan unlinked, and looking with their normal eyes they saw Kitarak getting slowly to his feet. There was no halo of light in the real scene; here the tohr-kreen's body itself glowed blue. His light was strong enough to illuminate the ground a few yards around him, and by its glow they could see the crushed body of the lizard creature lying flat as a shadow at the bottom of a shallow depression of pulverized rock. Cracks radiated out from it in all directions, but where Kitarak stood they veered away, and the ground looked undisturbed in a tight circle around him. Kitarak himself looked healthy as well, except for the blue glow.

"Are you-are you all right?" Jedra asked him.

"It clawed me on the leg," Kitarak said, limping slightly and using his gythka for support as he stepped toward them.