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The audience didn't stay quiet for long. They had come to see a battle to the death, not a couple of inept sword fighters giving each other practice-field wounds. This battle had already gone on longer than most, and it was proving to be a big disappointment.
Thousands of people, all of them with the same wish, were evidently too strong for the psionicists to control completely. Jedra felt his arms and legs jerk again as people fought to control him, and he had to be extra careful not to harm Kayan with a crowd-induced twitch at the wrong moment. But if the crowd could get through to him, he might be able to get through to the crowd....
He glanced up toward Kitarak, but before he could mindspeak to him, the dwarf beside him waved, and a different voice in his mind said, Hello, traveler. We meet again! Only this time, I am the explorer in your world.
The last time Jedra had heard that voice, he'd been escaping in a whirlwind through a crystal sky. Yoncalla, he thought as he faked an attack toward Kayan's head. Kayan, Yoncalla's here!
I know, she said distractedly, making a halfhearted block with her notched shield. The immortal must have been mindspeaking to her, too. Sure enough, a moment later she said, Hah, he's still crazy, too. He wants-wait a minute! That's Lothar's body. He's alive again in Lothar's body! She swung excitedly at Jedra as she mindspoke, catching him by surprise and landing a solid blow to his left side. He felt the blade bite through his armor and into the soft flesh beneath.
"Yeow!" he shouted, leaping back. Watch out!
Sorry, she sent, but she didn't sound sorry at all. She sounded jubilant as she said, But Kitarak is right; you'll have to... do worse to me. But it doesn't have to be permanent.
What do you mean? Jedra demanded, parrying another blow. Dead is dead!
Tell that to Yoncalla. She attacked again with a straight-in lunge that he parried easily, forcing her sword arm out to her side and leaving her wide open for a fatal stab to the heart. He backed away instead, and the crowd booed.
Damn it, Kayan said, I did that on purpose. Next time take advantage of it.
What?
She frowned. Kill me, you fool, or we'll never get out of here alive!
Then she broke contact. Her presence vanished like a blown-out candle flame, as if she had already died. Her body stood slack, her arms twitching with the crowd's attempts to control her, but Kayan was no longer home. The crystal around Jedra's neck, however, suddenly radiated her presence. She had made the transfer, trusting in Kitarak's ability to somehow revive her body and put her mind back into it as he had apparently done with Lothar's body and Yoncalla. Jedra didn't have nearly as much faith in their mentor as she did, but she had forced his hand, because without her there to continue the fight he had only one option.
This had better work, he mindsent to Kitarak. Then, weeping with fear and frustration, he knocked Kayan's sword aside and plunged his own blade straight through her armor and into her heart.
Chapter Twelve
The audience roared as if they had all shared in the final blow. In the last few minutes of the battle Jedra had nearly forgotten the whole city full of people surrounding him, but now he looked up at the stands, where everyone stomped and cheered and waved their hats. When he pulled his sword free from Kayan's chest and they saw the blood covering the end of the blade they went wilder still. Even Kitarak and Lothar/Yoncalla were on their feet, and Jedra heard Kitarak's voice in his mind saying, Well done. Now take her body and meet us outside the city. Along with the tohr-kreen's voice came an image of a secluded spot between two hills not far to the east.
"I grieve with you," the elf warrior said. "But you did what you had to, like a true warrior. Come with me to the desert and live with the Jura-Dai."
Jedra shook his head. All is not what it seems, he mind-sent. He sent the image that Kitarak had given him and said, Meet us there tonight.
Sahalik gave nothing away. "As you wish," he said, nodding.
Jedra pushed past him and the other gladiators who crowded around to see the body, but one of the psionicists who guarded the gladiators, a stocky, gray-haired, no-nonsense sort of woman, stopped him before he reached the tunnel to the other side of the ziggurat.
"She's dead," Jedra told her.
"I'll determine that," she replied. She touched her hand to Kayan's forehead, then to the bloody wound in her chest. She frowned, perhaps sensing that something wasn't quite right, but at last when she could find no sign of life she said, "Yes, you seem to have done the job. Where are you taking the body?"
"Out into the desert," Jedra replied. "To give her a decent burial."
"Scavengers will get her within a day no matter how deep you dig," the woman said. "You'd be better off letting us bury her here."
She said it kindly, but an image formed in Jedra's mind of a mass grave, a pit full of decaying bodies, most of them slaves who had died on the ziggurat. He shuddered at the thought of Kayan lying among them, even if Kitarak couldn't revive her body.
"No," he said. "She's mine, and I'll take care of her." He pushed past the woman, following the torch-lit corridor beneath the ziggurat until he emerged out the other side, then he marched straight on through the nearly deserted city and out the caravan gate. Th
e guards there gave him no trouble over leaving the city with a dead body in his arms; in fact, when they saw who he was and whom he carried, one of them laughed and held out his hand to the other, saying, "Hah, I win. Pay up."
* * *
The rendezvous spot was at least three miles out of town. Jedra found it easily enough, but he ached in every muscle by the time he got there. He'd tried levitating Kayan's body, but the drain on his energy was worse that way than if he simply carried her, so he'd finally bowed to necessity and slung her unceremoniously over his shoulder, holding her legs against his chest and letting her head and arms dangle over his back.
She hadn't begun to stiffen yet. Jedra didn't know if that was normal or if Kayan had done something to prevent it before she had... vacated her body, but when he laid her on the ground he was glad that she didn't stay folded up in the position in which he'd carried her. He arranged her on her back with her arms folded over her chest, then sat down on a rock beside her to wait for Kitarak and Yoncalla and Sahalik to arrive.
