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

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

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

* * *

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

"Where is she?" Jedra asked.

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

"Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Barely."

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

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

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

"Me, too."

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

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

"What?"

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

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

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

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

"I suppose so."