The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,55

Kayan said. “How can that be fine?”

Kitarak looked back at the crater with the lizard at the bottom of it, then at Kayan again. “I am radiating the energy from your blow,” he said. “It will fade soon.”

“You what? How can you do that?”

Kitarak held his hands out in a four-armed shrug. “Ah… psionics,” he admitted.

Jedra and Kayan looked at one another. Psionics? Jedra mindsent. I thought he didn’t like psionics.

“No, it’s magic I disdain,” Kitarak said. “Psionics follows the rules of tinkercraft.”

“You—you heard that?”

You should be more discreet with your sending. The voice in Jedra’s head was definitely Kitarak’s. The tohr-kreen crouched down carefully next to Kayan, leaning to the side to keep from squashing his abdomen. He laid his gythka on the ground.

“All right,” Kayan said, bending down to examine his leg. Its glow bathed her face in blue light. “We’ll see if it works.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jedra. “Did he say something to you?”

She looked up toward him. “Yes, didn’t you hear it?” “No. But you—” he spoke to Kitarak “—you hear whatever we say to each other?”

“Yes,” the tohr-kreen admitted.

“You’ve been listening to us all along?”

Kitarak clicked his mandibles, then said, “‘Don’t let him know we can communicate without speaking. Or mind-merge. We may need the advantage if he’s not what he seems.’”

Jedra balled his fists angrily. “You… you lied to us!” Kitarak ignored his threatening posture. “I most definitely did not. You never asked if I knew psionics, and I chose not to tell you. I figured I might need the advantage.”

Jedra didn’t know what to say to that. While he fumed silently, Kayan bent over Kitarak’s injured leg and passed her hand along the deep gouge the lizard had made in his hard exoskeleton. The blue glow made the bones of her hand show up like dark shadows beneath her skin. “I don’t know if there’s much I can do here,” she said. “I can heal the tissue damage underneath, but most of the surface isn’t alive in the first place. I can’t heal that. Your leg will still be weak where it’s been clawed.”

“That will heal on its own, in time,” Kitarak said. “In the meantime, I will simply be careful with it. Repairing the inner damage will be fine for now.”

Kayan nodded.

“What was that thing that attacked us?” Jedra asked while she worked. “Another one of your little tests?”

Kitarak leaned back on his arms. “If it had been a test, I would not have been careless enough to let it reach me.

No, the tokamak was a surprise to me as well. I was too engrossed in repairing the jernan to notice its approach.”

“Tokamak?” Jedra asked. “I haven’t heard the name before.”

“That’s the tohr-kreen name for them. I have heard your kind call them id fiends. They project fear at their prey, so you find yourself tormented by whatever you are most afraid of.”

“I kept seeing Kayan getting hurt,” Jedra said. “That’s why I couldn’t hit it; Kayan was always right there.”

She looked up at him. “With me it was agony beetles. They were crawling all over me, going for my back so they could tap into my spinal cord and burn out my nerves.”

That would explain her frantic slapping. Jedra looked to Kitarak, who merely said, “Tinkercraft. Magically animated tinkercraft. I was able to see through most of the effect, but even I couldn’t block it entirely.”

“‘Even I’?” Jedra asked. “What do you mean by that? Who are you, anyway?”

“I am Kitarak,” Kitarak said. “Tohr-kreen noble of the House of Antarak.” He paused. “And psionics master.”

“Psionics master?” Jedra sat down heavily. “You knew all this time that we were looking for someone like you, and you didn’t say anything?”

“Seek and ye shall find,” Kitarak said. “You made a false assumption when you met me. I looked powerless and helpless, so you assumed I was. I allowed the deception to continue, for it gave me opportunity to study you.”

“You weren’t dehydrated?” Kayan asked. “I checked you psionically. You certainly seemed dehydrated.”

Kitarak clicked again. Definitely laughter. “I can seem many things when I choose to. Including disinterested. But in truth, I am very interested in you, and have been ever since I detected your presence over Tyr. Yours is the strongest manifestation of psionic synergy I have ever encountered.”

“You knew about us?”

“Oh, yes. I make it my business to be aware of the major psionic talents in the region. In fact, as soon as I noticed you I intentionally put myself in your path