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

She shook her head. "I can't bear to lose you."

"Ah," he said, but he was thinking she had a funny way of showing it, if that's how she'd felt for the last few weeks. Or maybe the sudden realization that they had only a week left had made her examine her own feelings. Who could say?

"You're not going to lose me," he whispered to her.

"How can you say that? We have to fight each other next time." She pressed her face against his chest, and hot tears left streaks as they fell. "Oh, Jedra, what have we done?" "Listen," he whispered. "We're going to escape. Right now."

"Do what?"

Jedra kissed her neck again, nibbling his way up to her ear. Barely mouthing the words, he said, "When we link up, the first thing we do is blast the psionicists before they can react. Then... I don't know. I guess we try to make it over or through the wall somehow, and try to get into the crowd leaving the city after the games. Maybe I can disguise us a little bit by bending the light around us."

"Maybe? Jedra, this doesn't sound very well thought out."

"If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

She shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"Then let's go. Are you ready?"

"No." She lifted her head and kissed him, her lips already hot and soft from crying. The rush of sensation caught Jedra by surprise. He lost himself in the kiss, closing his eyes and letting it carry him away for an eternal moment into a place where only the two of them existed.

"Now I'm ready," Kayan whispered.

If the kiss was a welcome surprise, joining minds again was fantastic. The surge of strength and well-being that flowed through them was better than they had remembered, and the heightened sense of awareness made them feel like immortals. Time seemed to slow to a crawl while their intellects joined once more into a single mind. The psionicist guards, still smiling embarrassedly as they watched their prisoners embrace, had no idea what incredible new power was being born right under their noses.

Jedra and Kayan never gave them time to discover it. As soon as they had merged, they exploded outward and attacked straight at the psionicists' unprotected minds, overrunning their defenses without resistance. They weren't able to suppress the guards' instinctive cries of alarm, neither vocal nor psionic, but they managed to cut them short, using Kayan's medical abilities to drop the guards into a deep sleep.

Before the bodies had even slumped to the floor, they had moved their focus of awareness on out through the wall and into the compound beyond. It didn't look as if anyone had noticed anything unusual, but they couldn't be sure. The psionic shout could have been heard halfway across the city if anyone was attuned to it.

The servants' gate in the alley was the least guarded; it was visible from only three observation towers-one along the wall and two on the rear corners of the mansion. That meant deceiving six guards, maybe seven if one of the ones on foot patrol was nearby. Not the best of odds, but it was the best they would get, and they were committed now. They brought their awareness back inside the gladiators' quarters and tried to rise up from Kayan's bunk. They broke their chains with a thought, but it quickly became apparent that they couldn't remain linked to such a high degree and control their individual bodies at the same time. For fine muscle control, they needed to remain separate.

We'll have to break apart at least until we get through the wall, Jedra said. He let his awareness return to his own body. He stood up, fighting the depression that always hit him when they came out of convergence, and his gaze fell upon the two sleeping psionicists.

"Get their clothes," he said. "We can pretend to be them."

"Good idea." Kayan helped him tug off their earth-brown tunics and short breeches, blushing a bit at stripping them naked, but she didn't hesitate. Nor did she hesitate to strip out of her own halter and loincloth to put on the psionicists' clothing. Jedra didn't either. They lad been more intimate than this only moments ago. In only a minute more they had both transformed themselves from gladiator-slaves into respectable servants wearing the livery of their noble. Both tunics were loose on them-nobles' servants ate well-but they gathered them up and tied them at the waist.

"Walk like you've got every right to be there," Jedra said, stepping to the door. "Ready?"

"I used to be a templar's assistant," Kayan reminded him. She was smiling again. They were getting out of here!

Jedra opened the door and stepped outside. Kayan followed right behind him, and together they strode across the compound, past the cookhouse and the storage sheds and the servants' quarters, toward the back gate. Jedra concentrated on twisting the light around them to blur their faces. He couldn't control it well enough to project an image of the psionicists they were trying to impersonate, but he hoped that anyone who looked their way would merely think the heat was affecting their eyes.

They made it almost to the gate before Jedra's danger sense began to tingle. Someone had taken an interest in them, or was about to. He tried to locate whoever it was, but could find no one in the guard towers, anywhere behind them, or to either side. That left only-

"Run!" Jedra said, and this time Kayan took his advice. They both sprinted down the alley, with Shani right behind them shouting, "Escape! Guards! Slaves loose!"

She was full-blooded elf, and faster than either of them. Jedra heard her footsteps draw closer and heard Kayan shriek as Shani grabbed her. He skidded to a stop and turned around just in time to see Shani draw her dagger from its scabbard at her belt and hold it across Kayan's neck.

"Don't move, either of you," Shani panted.

Link up! Kayan mindsent. Jedra did, and they suddenly became a single mind again. Effortlessly, they snatched the knife away from Shani and broke her hold on Kayan, forcing her back into the wall hard enough to rattle her teeth when she hit. Slowly, clumsily, they move

d their bodies together and put their arms around one another, then levitated themselves into the air.

The last time Jedra had tried this he'd only had his own power to draw on. Now with the synergy of Kayan's presence they leaped upward, and when they shoved off against the alley wall they shot away like an arrow from a bow.

But a sudden wind howled up from the end of the alley and blew them backward, swirling dust around them at the same time to blind them and make them cough and gasp for air. They tried to still the wind, but it merely became more turbulent. They searched for the source of it, but in the moment it took to locate the psionicist in the guard tower on the wall, it had blown them up and over that same wall and back into the compound.