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

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.