"He grabbed me," she said. "I told him to leave me alone and he didn't listen."

Kitarak looked up at the roof. "Dragons forbid that Jedra not obey your every whim," he said. When neither of them replied, he looked back down and growled, "Argh. This is pointless. You've got me doing it now."

He got up and walked into his workshop. They heard rattling and sliding sounds from within, and Kitarak said through the doorway, "That is probably appropriate, since I no doubt share the blame. I have been driving you too hard."

His sudden turnabout left Jedra speechless.

Kitarak said, "The rigors of psionic study have been too stressful for you, particularly since you need to develop your personal bond better in order to use it. I was foolish not to see that before now." He emerged from the workshop with his backpack, into which he stuffed a handful of books that floated out from the library and a few cooking items that did the same from the kitchen.

"What's that for?" Kayan asked.

"I am giving you a vacation," Kitarak said. "Your psionics training is suspended until you solve your personal problems and become true clutch-mates."

"You're leaving?"

Kitarak tied closed the top of his pack. "Your powers of deduction are truly amazing," he told her. To both of them he said, "You may call for me to return when you are ready to continue your education, but you had better be truly ready. In the meantime, you will find food enough in the pantry to keep you for months, if you are frugal with it. Jedra, you must remember to keep the cold-box from warming up, and Kayan, you must prevent the vegetables from spoiling." Jedra hardly heard him. The cold-box and the vegetables could vanish in a puff of smoke for all he cared.

But Kitarak could leave, and he did, dragging his pack to the door and pausing there only long enough to say, "By the way, I was visualizing a rain cloud." Then he hoisted his pack onto his back and stepped outside, closing the door solidly behind him.

Chapter Seven

The silence in the great room was thick enough to slice into wedges. Jedra looked at Kayan, and she looked at him, but neither of them wanted to start the accusations they both knew were coming. A gust of wind rattled one of the skylights, and Jedra reached up telekinetically through the roof and rearranged the rocks holding the glass shell in place, the motion dislodging a pinch of grit that pattered on the cushion between him and Kayan.

She seemed to know what he was doing even though he hadn't looked up. "Yes, show off, why don't you," she said.

He shook his head. "I was trying to save the skylight."

"Like you were trying to mindlink with a crystal?"

"Yes! Yes, I was. Here, see for yourself." He nearly levitated one of the crystals from the bedroom, but then he thought better of that and got up to get it himself. Both of them were right where he'd dropped them on the cushion; he picked up one and brought it back out to the great room.

"See?" he said, holding it out to Kayan. "There's something strange about this. I can sense some kind of energy in it, almost as if it's alive. I was trying to mind-link with it when you got mad at me."

She hardly looked at the crystal. "So it's my fault, is that what you're saying?"

"What?" Jedra sat down across from her again.

"You were just minding your own business when I blew up at you. So it's my fault that we fought, and that Kitarak left. That's what you think, isn't it?"

Jedra looked down at the crystal. "Well, I was trying to mind my own business, but I guess I was probably thinking about you, too, so that's why I accidentally mind-linked with you instead."

"Accidentally. Hah. Never mind that you came into the library looking for some mental action, and when I was busy you accused me of slumming, or that-"

"You're the one who called me a warren rat."

"I did not."

"You did, too. You said 'your kind of people' like we were some kind of filth on the bottom of your sandals."

Kayan stared at him, her nostrils flaring with each breath. Without a word, she stood up and went into the bedroom, emerged with her knapsack, and went into the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Jedra asked, following her to the kitchen door.

She had gone into the pantry and was stuffing vegetables and dried meat into her pack.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she asked. "I'm leaving."

"What makes you think Kitarak will take you with him?"

She looked up at Jedra as if he'd just spoken a foreign language. "Who said anything about Kitarak? I'm leaving by myself. The two of you can do whatever you want when I'm gone. Rearrange the furniture with your stupid telekinesis-I don't care."

Even without the mindlink, Jedra could tell she meant it. She really intended to strike out on her own.

"Uh, Kayan," he said. "I don't think that's such a good idea. We had a hard enough time crossing the desert together?

She came back out of the pantry, her pack bulging with food. "Oh, so now I'm helpless, too? What do you think I did all this time we were here, ignore everything Kitarak said? I may not be able to move things around the way you can, but I did learn a thing or two. I can take care of myself." She filled her waterskin from the jug they kept on the counter, then pushed past Jedra into the great room and crossed into the bedroom, where she packed her clothes. She didn't have much; besides the tunic she was wearing she had just the elven robe and the shirt and short pants she'd made.

Jedra followed her and stood in the doorway while she tucked them into her knapsack around the food. "You can't make it alone through the desert and you know it," he said. "Who's going to stand watch when you get exhausted? And what will you do if another tokamak finds you?"

"I'll hit it with the same thing I did to you," Kayan said. "The same thing I did to Sahalik. Very useful for driving off unwanted advances."

"What are you afraid of?" he asked her suddenly.

"Huh?" She tied her pack closed.

"Why are you so eager to run off into the desert? Just because we had an argument? Because Kitarak left? Or are you afraid of me?"

She pushed past him into the great room again. "I'm not afraid of you or anybody else," she said. She pulled on her pack and pushed open the door. Wind swirled inside, carrying a cloud of fine sand with it. The evening light outside was dirty red, filtered through all the airborne sand.

"It's going to be dark soon, and there's a storm blowing up," Jedra told her. "You ought to at least be afraid of that."

She looked out into the blowing sand, but if it scared her, she didn't show it. When she looked back at Jedra, her expression was hard as stone. "Good-bye," she said, then she stepped through the door and closed it behind her.

Jedra wanted to go after her, to bring her back and make her listen to him, but he knew she wouldn't let him. He thought about mindspeaking an apology to her, but she probably wouldn't listen to that, either. The only thing he could do for her was watch over her psionically, and get ready to go to her rescue if she needed it.

The storm saved him the trouble. His disembodied mind hovering over her every step of the way, he watched her climb out of the canyon, but she had hardly made it up the switchbacks before the wind hit with gale force. Billowing clouds of sand made it nearly impossible to breathe, much less find the trail. Kayan tried it anyway, probably using her psionic vision to see through the blinding sand, but even so she only made it a quarter mile or so beyond the rim of the canyon before she turned around and headed back.

Jedra let her fight her way to the switchbacks again, then when he was sure she was committed to returning he used his newly learned skill to calm the wind immediately around her while she trudged dispiritedly back to Kitarak's stronghold.