The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,59

came into focus without the hexagonal array. He sat up and felt the welcome response of his own body moving to his commands.

Kayan sat up beside him, blinking and flexing her arms and legs as well. She ran her hands over her body as if reaffirming that everything was still there.

Kitarak merely tilted his head and looked around the interior of the room. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Here we are. Welcome to my humble abode.”

This was humble? Jedra felt as if he had just awakened in a palace. The waking in itself was incredible enough, miles away from where he had gone to sleep, but the surroundings managed to overshadow even the method of travel. He looked around at all the things on the walls, at the paintings and other artwork, at the unfathomable pieces of tinkercraft—some of it art in its own right—and thought, Yes, this was a good decision.

Chapter Six

Kitarak stood up and held out his hands. “Come, let me show you the rest of my home.” He led Jedra and Kayan through one of the doorways into another skylit room, this one smaller and filled almost entirely with books. Shelves full of them lined the walls, and more rested in heaps on cabinets. None of the walls were straight—the room extended off the central one like a petal from a flower—but Kitarak had custom-built everything to fit.

Irregular-shaped windows looked out through nooks in the rock, preserving the house’s camouflage while providing even more light than in the skylit central room. Another circular cushion in the middle of the floor had the much-rumpled look of long use. It was obvious that Kitarak spent a great deal of his time here.

Kayan admired the library. “There are more books here than in the templar archives,” she said.

“More valuable ones, too, I’ll bet,” Kitarak said. “Some of these date back to the collapse.”

“I’d love to read them,” said Kayan, picking up a cracked leatherbound volume from one of die stacks and opening it carefully.

Her face fell, and Kitarak laughed his clicking laugh. “You’re welcome to try, but first you’ll have to learn the language. Don’t worry; it took me only five years.”

Kayan set the book back on the stack. Jedra didn’t bother to pick up one; no matter what language it was written in, he wouldn’t be able to read it. He had never learned that skill. Maybe he would be able to now, but by the sounds of it that would take a while.

All the rooms in the house were interconnected. Kitarak led Jedra and Kayan through a side doorway from the library into another room, this one much less orderly. A chest-high workbench ran along the circular outer wall, and on it rested the disassembled remains of more tinkercraft gadgets. Parts lay strewn everywhere, and more filled boxes on the floor. The odor of metal and oil was strong here.

“This is my workshop,” Kitarak said. “Don’t touch anything in here without my permission. Some of the equipment can be easily damaged, and some of it could easily damage you.”

Jedra was about to pick up a twisted piece of metal from the workbench; he dropped his hand instead and backed away.

The next room was the kitchen. Kitarak had built a stove into the outer wall, and cabinets on either side of it provided work surface and storage. A wide basin had been set into one cabinet, and beside it a hand-pump provided water from a well dug directly beneath the kitchen. Trust Kitarak to have an indoor well, Jedra thought. He was relieved to see that it had just a single up-and-down handle; he wouldn’t have to learn how to operate all that arcane machinery the tohr-kreen had used in the ruined city. Pots and pans hung from hooks overhead—nearly out of reach for Jedra, and definitely out of reach for Kayan.

“Can either of you cook?” Kitarak asked.

Kayan shook her head. “The templars all took their meals together. Slaves did the cooking.”

Kitarak looked at Jedra, who said, “I’ve scorched many a lizard over a campfire, but I’ve never used anything like this.”

The tohr-kreen made his rasping noise with his arms. “I can see there is much to teach you,” he said.

Jedra was beginning to feel uneasy. It looked like he would have to learn reading, cooking, and maybe even tinkercraft along with psionics. How much else had he gotten himself into?

From the kitchen they went into the storage room. This was much cooler than the others, with no windows or