The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,18

completely out of place, while Kayan would no doubt feel right at home.

Actually, considering her former station, she would probably think this was still roughing it. But would she accept it, and Jedra, as part of her new life? He couldn’t make himself believe that she would.

There was their age difference to consider, too. Jedra was at least three years younger than Kayan, maybe more. He’d had to grow up fast to make it on his own in the city, but he was still naive about a lot of things that she had probably experienced many times. Did she find that attractive, or would she become bored with him? He didn’t know that, either.

The richly appointed tent made Jedra nervous. He got up and went back outside, and this time he stopped the first elf he saw—one of the old women who couldn’t get out of his way in time—and asked why the tribe wasn’t moving out at dawn.

She peered at him through eyes gone white in patches, but Jedra got the impression she was looking deeper than the surface level anyway. Finally she sniffed and said, “We’re waitin’ on Sahalik. He’s not back yet.”

“Oh,” Jedra said. He felt a mixture of relief and anxiety. He didn’t necessarily want to see the big elf again, but on the other hand, if anything had happened to him, Kayan would be responsible. “How about Galar?” he asked. “Has he returned?”

The woman started to laugh, but it turned into a dry, hacking cough. When she got it under control she said, “Come and gone again, hours ago. The night creatures chased him and Ralok back to camp before they tracked Sahalik more than a mile, but they went back out as soon as it was safe.”

“Oh,” Jedra said again. No, this wasn’t good at all. “Thank you,” he told the woman, then he went straight back into the tent.

Kayan was still asleep. “Wake up,” he said, shaking her softly by the shoulder. “Kayan, wake up.” When she didn’t stir, he shook her a bit harder, but she didn’t respond.

Kayan, he mindsent.

Mmmm?

Kayan, wake up. We have to find Sahalik.

Mmmm-mmmm.

Come on, this is important! He shook her again, but she didn’t awaken. He felt the mindlink break, and when he tried again he couldn’t make contact. Evidently Kayan had blocked him out. He didn’t even know if she had understood him, or if she was just too much in need of sleep to be roused.

Well, maybe he could do something by himself. He didn’t have nearly the control that Kayan had, but he could still make mental contact with people. Much as he hated the idea, maybe he could track down Sahalik and persuade him to return. Or failing that, he might at least be able to find out if the elf was all right.

Jedra tried to orient himself inside the tent. The fire pit was beyond the wall to his right, and Sahalik’s tent was behind him and a bit to the right as well. Sahalik had run away from the fire and over another tent, which would mean he had gone more or less directly to Jedra’s left. To the east. Jedra sat cross-legged on his sleeping mat facing that direction and closed his eyes so he could concentrate.

The first time he had gone on a psionic voyage, it had felt like he was dreaming. He had found himself face down in a crystal-clear pool of water, a pool so impossibly large he had actually floated in it. Far away at the bottom of the pool had been the desert floor, over which he had drifted like a cloud in a breeze. He tried to recapture that image now, tried to become a cloud, or a bird like the second time he’d gone voyaging with Kayan. Now that he was concentrating on it of course it was harder to do, but the camp was quiet and the tent peaceful enough; eventually he felt his consciousness drift free of his body and begin to rise.

The camp receded below him, the dozen or more sand-colored tents of varying sizes looking more like an outcrop of rock than anything. Puzzled, Jedra swooped down and realized that the camp was a rock outcrop, at least in his psionic vision. The insectlike kanks in their pens beyond the tents had become dung beetles, then metamorphosed into ants as he rose into the sky. Great.

He couldn’t count on any correspondence with reality, then. Except for one thing: himself. He