arms if the vines had let him. “I’ve got one more live one in the very next room.”
“Who is it?” Yoncalla’s eyes glittered. He leaned forward eagerly.
“I don’t know,” Jedra said. “I haven’t entered it yet.”
Yoncalla laughed. “You had best take care when you do. Few immortals are as benevolent as I.”
Kayan shook her tethered hands at him. “You call this benevolent?”
“I do.” Suddenly Kayan’s body sagged in her restraints.
Her hair turned white and her face wrinkled, and her eyes glazed over with a milky film.
“You see what I am capable of?” said Yoncalla.
Kayan! Jedra sent, struggling to free himself, but she replied, I’m fine. None of this is real. It’s all appearances here. In fact, I’m beginning to get an idea…
Her body grew younger again, and she said to Yoncalla, “You could learn a few things about dealing with women.” She gestured with her hands and the vines lowered her gently to the ground and released her.
Hey, how did you do that? Jedra tugged frantically on his own vines, but they didn’t budge.
I just wished for it, Kayan said. That’s apparently how this place works.
“You cannot escape me,” Yoncalla said. As he spoke, the grass grew up around Kayan and snared her legs.
She looked down at it and the grass turned brown and brittle. She kicked free of it and stood there in front of Yoncalla’s right foot, her head barely reaching his shin. “I’d love to play longer,” she said, “but I’m sorry, I really have to be going.” A hole opened up in the ground, and she jumped into it.
“No!” Yoncalla shouted. He stomped on the hole, but she was already gone. Jedra felt the mindlink grow more tenuous, stretching out as if over a long distance, but it didn’t break. Kayan’s voice, nearly drowned out in the sudden wind that shook the tree, said to him, Just wish to be free.
What do you think I’ve been doing? he demanded, but he realized what she meant. He’d tried psionics and he’d struggled against the vines, but he hadn’t actually tried to manipulate the crystal world on its own terms. He imagined it now, trying to visualize a way out. Instead of Kayan’s hole in the ground, he imagined the wind whirling around him, enclosing him and carrying him off through the crystal sky.
Sure enough, the vines snapped like string, and the wind bore him aloft. Yoncalla made a desperate lunge for him, but Jedra’s whirlwind surged upward and the would—be god’s oversized hand swept by yards below.
“Don’t leave me!” Yoncalla shouted. “If you stay, I’ll worship you!”
Then the whirlwind reached the sky. Jedra felt the same disorientation as before, and he found himself in Kitarak’s library again. Kayan was struggling to sit up beside him.
We’re still linked, she said.
He nodded. They were both so tired they hardly felt it, but he knew what would happen when they separated. Promise you won’t hate me, he said.
I’ll try.
He reached out and took her in his arms. It felt like hugging a skeleton. Her face was all harsh angles and sagging skin, but he kissed her anyway. The mindlink momentarily strengthened, then weakened again when they drew apart.
Here goes, Kayan said.
Her presence faded from Jedra’s mind, and all the troubles of the world came crashing down to replace it. Of two worlds. He thought of Yoncalla, suddenly abandoned again after millennia of isolation, and he felt bad for doing that to him. If he hadn’t been so weak, he might have tried to go back.
And then there was what he had done to Kayan. He couldn’t look at her. She got up and staggered into the kitchen, but even though his stomach screamed for food, he stayed in the library.
How long had he been gone this time? The candle had only burned down an inch or so—not even an hour then. An hour, and all he had eaten had been used up. No wonder Kayan had fallen unconscious before he did; she hadn’t eaten before they entered the crystal, and they had been gone for nearly a day.
Jedra picked up the tiny world and turned it over in his hand. Yoncalla was definitely still alive in there. Alive and active; his presence radiated like any other mind would. There would be no way Kitarak could dismiss it now.
He thought briefly of calling for Kitarak. He and Kayan obviously needed their mentor. But the tohr-kreen had been gone only a couple of days; he probably wouldn’t return even if Jedra could