This was a trick Kitarak hadn't taught them. Jedra wasn't quite sure how he was doing it, but somehow just the thought of rising was all he needed to make it happen. He imagined looping around the way Kayan had just done, and with stomach-twisting speed he whirled around in midair.

Kayan flew down toward him, arced around just out of his reach, and said, Bet you can't catch me! Without waiting to see what he would do, she took off in a wide circle, just inside the trees surrounding the waterfall.

Jedra reached forward with his arms and imagined himself following her, and suddenly he leaped forward, the wind rushing past him, blowing his hair back and flapping his tunic around his thighs. Slower! he thought, veering to miss a tree. He curved around, flying a tighter circle than Kayan in order to cut her off, but when she saw what he was doing she sped up and ducked around behind the rushing wall of water.

Jedra flew in behind her, suddenly shivering in the cold spray, but she was gone.

Up here, he heard in his mind, and he looked up to see her spiraling lazily upward around the falling river. He followed her and this time she waited for him, hovering at the top of the waterfall just beyond the drop-off, with over a hundred feet of air between them and the turbulent pool below.

He was almost afraid to touch her for fear the strange spell would break and they would once again plummet to their deaths, but when she reached for him he glided into her arms and they kissed.

Your hair is sparkling with mist, he told her.

So is-look! She pointed over his shoulder, and he turned his head to see the antlered beast that had chased them off the cliff, now munching placidly on the grass beside the river.

It's an herbivore? he asked incredulously. I got chased off a cliff by an herbivore?

What are you griping about? I jumped.

Jedra laughed. I thought you jumped off because I did.

Kayan looked at him with her head tilted to the side and a smile on her lips. There are a lot of things I'd do for you, but I don't think jumping off a cliff is one of them.

Oh. Well, how about showing me what you would do? He kissed her again, and she giggled.

Here? Now?

Anywhere, Jedra told her, kissing her again and again. Anywhere, anytime.

The bright yellow sun had moved across a quarter of the sky by the time they finally grew tired of flying. They had left the waterfall far behind and were now gliding gently down the long slope from the mountains toward the ocean. The forest had given way to open grassland, still peppered here and there with individual trees and clusters of wildflowers. There seemed to be no order to it; if anyone had planted any of this the gardener's hand had been concealed admirably.

From a hundred feet in the air the world seemed nearly silent. The ocean made a soft rushing sound, but it was so constant it was easy to forget the noise was even there. As they drew closer, though, it grew louder, and with it came a smell unlike any they had ever experienced before. It was a mix of wet sand, rotting vegetation, and exotic animals both living and dead.

A wave toppled over with a roar just as they landed. A gray-and-white sea bird cried out as it flew overhead, and a flock of smaller, long-legged birds ran back and forth right at the edge of the water. Jedra and Kayan stood in the sand and watched the constant motion for long minutes before either of them spoke.

"What are those birds doing?" Jedra finally asked.

"I think they're finding food," Kayan said. "See how they pick at the sand right at the edge of the water?"

Jedra's stomach growled. "I wish we could find some food," he said. "It's been a long time since we had those rolls."

"Yeah, I could use something more to eat. Something substantial." Kayan turned once around, scanning the beach. "Too bad there aren't any trees around," she said. "If there were, I bet we could coax one into giving us something else."

"Maybe we should fly back to the forest," Jedra suggested.

"Maybe. There must be something to eat here, though. The ancients wouldn't have flown back and forth every time they got hungry, would they?"

Jedra thought about that for a minute. "No, you're right, they would probably have food brought to them."

Kayan said, "That would be great, but I think we're the only people here." She laughed. "That's the perennial complaint of the rich-you can never find a slave when you need one."

Jedra laughed with her, but he stopped abruptly when a wave broke with a louder than usual rush and a hard-shelled, eight-legged creature crawled forward out of the foam. It was only a couple feet across, and most of that was legs, but it also had two enormous claws in front which it held raised while it advanced toward Jedra and Kayan.

"What is it?" Kayan asked, backing away.

"It looks like some kind of bug. A big bug." Jedra got ready to run, or even fly away if it looked like the creature would attack, but it merely crawled forward at a steady gait. It stopped about five feet from him, lowered its body to the sand and stretched its legs out, then it lowered its claws as well and stopped moving entirely.

Jedra heard a soft sizzling sound over the constant hiss of the waves, and a few seconds later he smelled a wonderful, buttery aroma of cooking food.

Kayan smelled it too. "Eeewww, disgusting!" she said. "It's cooking itself!"

"It is, isn't it?" Jedra stepped closer, fascinated. The sea bug's dark brown shell was turning red as it cooked. The creature was like nothing he'd ever seen before, but the aroma of its heated flesh made his mouth water. He was suddenly ravenous. "I wonder how you're supposed to eat one of these?" Kayan looked at him as if he'd just gone crazy. "You can't be serious."

"But-" Kayan stuttered for words. "But it was alive just a second ago! And it killed itself!"

"Yes, isn't that amazing? I wonder how the ancients managed to breed a creature that could do that? It would have to have some kind of psionic heating power, but the moment it died, the power would stop, so there would have to be some way to keep it going afterward, and-"

"Jedra, it isn't amazing, it's disgusting."

"It is?"

"It just committed suicide!"

He tried to see what she was getting at. "Well, yes, I guess it did. But it didn't look like it suffered any."

"That's not the point! The point is, it killed itself for us. I can't eat something that killed itself just so I could eat it."

Jedra held his hand out over the sea bug's corpse. It was now bright red, and too hot to touch, but it had stopped sizzling. "You'd rather kill it yourself?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Hmm. What makes that any better? When you do it, you're eating something that didn't want to die. At least this way we know the meal was its own idea."

"It's just-just-arrgh!" Kayan growled, turning away.

Jedra looked at the creature with his poison sense, but saw nothing dangerous. "Come on," he said, "we're hungry, and it's food. Let's argue about the moral implications later." He took one of the segmented legs in his fingers, bent it backward until its hard outer shell broke, and pulled it apart. White, stringy meat stuck out the ragged end. Jedra wondered if it would be tough, but he'd eaten much worse in his life, so he blew on it to cool it a bit and took a bite.

The meat was soft and tender, buttery, and nearly melted in his mouth. "Oh, yeah," he said around a mouthful. "Mmm." When Kayan still didn't move to try any, he couldn't resist adding, "This is even better than halfling."

"You've never eaten halfling." She looked over her shoulder at him. "Have you?"

"Not knowingly, but a lot of what you buy in the market could come from anywhere." Jedra cracked the leg open along its length to expose another big bite of steaming flesh. "Here," he said, holding out the leg to her. "It really is good."