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Kayan couldn't find the oasis either, but that wasn't so surprising, since sensing things at a distance wasn't one of her strong points.
"I think we should link up again and try it together," Jedra said after she had tried it on her own. They were sitting on the sand with their knapsacks open before them, sharing another honeycake for breakfast. "We need to know where we're headed, or we'll get lost out here."
"If we can't find the oasis, we're already lost," Kayan pointed out. "But you're right. It just seems like every time we rest up, the first thing we do is tire ourselves out again."
"We can make it fast," Jedra said. "Together, we should be able to find it in no time."
"We hope." Kayan shrugged, then held out her hand. "All right, let's try it."
They had not needed to touch in order to join their minds before, but Jedra took her hand in his anyway. "Ready?" he asked.
"Let's do it."
They merged. Once again all their worldly cares dropped away in the birth of a single being. Their simple kiss a few hours ago seemed insignificant compared to the communion they now shared. All the same, now that they were one, each realized what that kiss had meant to the other at the time, and that realization-plus the physical contact they made now-enhanced their bond well beyond their previous experience. Where before they had vibrated with power, now they sang.
To the oasis! they cried, arrowing westward in the form of a huge roc, an eaglelike bird of prey with a wingspan of nearly a hundred feet. This was the most detailed and realistic of their psionic visions yet; the desert below them undulated with regular waves of dunes, like ripples in a water cask, and the stars overhead were crisp points of light. The few animals inhabiting the sandy wastes glowed softly with auras of green or blue light, but their shapes were readily discernible even from Jedra and Kayan's great height. There were a few wild kanks, possibly escapees from elf tribes, an insect colony of some sort in a cluster of five-foot domes, and a few other animals that they didn't recognize. They remembered the locations of every creature they saw so they could steer clear of them just in case they proved hostile.
The oasis, however, wasn't obvious. After a few minutes of flying-many miles under the roc's immense wings-they realized it simply wasn't there.
They hadn't drifted that far off course during their hikes the previous day. There could be only one explanation, and they voiced it instantly: The elf chief lied. He had waited until Galar was out of earshot to give them directions to the oasis, and then he had sent them off to their deaths.
The roc screeched in anger. We should go back and teach him a lesson, they decided, and the great bird whirled around to fly east, but they immediately thought, No, we can't waste our strength on simple revenge. We need to find a safe haven, and soon.
They swept over the desert in great circles, searching for an oasis, an outpost, a caravan-any sign of water or intelligent life that might be carrying water-but the elf chief had sent them directly into the most barren wastes in the region. They knew what lay to the east; they had just walked it, but the terrain to the north and south looked just the same. Only to the west did it change, but that change was hardly for the better. There they found only stony barrens and rocky badlands.
Beyond that, however...
The city of Tyr rested in a circular basin at the base of the Ringing Mountains. As dangerous as it was there, with King Kalak enslaving everyone who even looked at him wrong and forcing them to build an enormous pyramid in the center of the city, it was still better than dying in the desert. Trouble was, traveling on foot it was over a week's walk away. They could never reach it on the provisions they carried with them.
Jedra and Kayan circled the enormous walled city, crying out in frustration with their psionic roc's powerful call. They could be there now if they knew how to transport their bodies along with their minds. But they didn't know. They hardly knew what they were doing as it was.
For the want of a mentor, we shall perish within sight of salvation, they thought.
The city glowed with the light of thousands of minds at work, one of which could undoubtedly teach them what they needed to know. But how could they find that one mind among so many? Some were brighter than others, but Jedra had learned the hard way that the signature of a powerful mind didn't necessarily mean a friendly psionicist waited behind it. In Tyr, with its immense slave pens and massive military buildup to keep the peace, most of the psionicists would be slavemasters or warriors.
Their agitation weakened the contact. The roc began to diminish, and though their controlling minds remained linked, they separated into two distinct points of view.
The Kayan part of their mind said, It's not going to happen. We 're wasting our strength; we've been linked too bug as it is. At this rate we'll exhaust ourselves before we can even take our first steps toward anywhere.
What difference mill that make if we have nowhere to go? Jedra asked.
We can't give up. Kayan said. We still have a day's supplies. Two if we're careful. Tyr is the closest sign of life; we'll head there and hope to find some form of help along the way. There isn't any-
Save it. Before Jedra could protest further, Kayan broke the link.
If coming down from their convergence was hard before, being dropped out of it unexpectedly was like feeling his own death. Jedra lurched drunkenly and had to put out his arms to keep from falling over.
"Yuh..." he tried to speak, but words wouldn't form. You might have warned me! he mindsent instead.
It was the wrong thing to say, and saying it mentally was the wrong medium. They were both suffering from the post-link depression, and filtered through his frustration and hers, his mental words carried far more freight than spoken words ever could.
If you weren't so indecisive, I wouldn't have had to break away so abruptly, she snapped back at him.
Her meaning came across instantly, along with her contempt. He looked up to see her glaring at him. Indecisive? he sent back. I don't call walking seven days to Tyr on two days' rations a decision. I call that stupidity.
Oh, so what would you rather do? Wait here? Go back to the elves and say we're sorry, will they take us back in?
