Chapter Eleven

The people in the audience screamed and cheered and stomped their feet. King Kalak had given them a wonderful variation on the usual gladiatorial fare. Most couples did one another in with poison or with a dagger in the night; people hardly ever saw lovers-even ones who quarreled as much as Jedra and Kayan-fight to the death in the arena.

"Come on," one of the two men said, taking Jedra's sword from his unresisting hand and tugging on his arm. "There's more waitin' their turn."

Jedra and Kayan allowed themselves to be led back underneath the ziggurat. Normally the gladiators all stayed until the end of the games, but this time the two of them were led straight past the slave pens and on out the other side, where their ever-present psionic guards and a couple of Rokur soldiers escorted them up the hill to the estate. Jedra didn't know why the difference in treatment today, but he wasn't going to complain. The less time he had to spend in the stadium, the better.

The stadium! He could still hear the king's voice echoing across it as he had pronounced their doom. He collapsed on his bunk and buried his face in his hands, while Kayan sat and stared at the stone wall.

The walled compound was nearly deserted. The two psionicists, one of the old men and one of the middle-aged women, watched over the exhausted gladiators, and a few soldiers patrolled the grounds as usual, but nearly everyone else was still at the games. Jedra peeked through his fingers at the psionicists. They weren't paying any attention to him or Kayan, no doubt assuming the captives were too tired to make a break. Which made now the perfect time to try. It didn't look like Kitarak was coming back for them, and there was no way they could wait around until the next game. They would both be killed then for refusing to fight.

He itched to extend his psionic senses, but he knew that anything he and Kayan did would have to be done suddenly in order to keep the element of surprise. They would have to join their minds and make their attack immediately, which meant planning ahead without mindlinking. Which meant whispering. Which meant getting closer to her. Jedra didn't particularly mind that idea, but he didn't expect her to feel the same way.

First things first. He sat up, wincing as his wounded arm protested the movement. No one had healed him this time. Either they didn't feel it was necessary or they didn't want to waste their effort on the doomed. He didn't care. He wouldn't be needing the arm anyway, not for this.

"Kayan?" he said softly. He swung his legs off the side of his bunk, and his ankle chain rattled to the floor.

"Hmm?" She looked over at him, her eyes still glazed over.

"I, urn, I want to apologize for some of the things I said out there today."

She said nothing, just blinked at him.

He went on. "I was trying to get you mad so you would fight. But I guess I overdid it. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

Jedra heard one of the psionicists shift in his chair. They would no doubt love to eavesdrop on this tender conversation, but if he and Kayan were going to plan anything...

"I... can I just hold you?" he asked.

She didn't look very pleased with the idea, but she didn't say no, so he shifted over to her bunk and put his left arm around her, being careful not to smear her clothing with his bloody right arm.

They looked into each other's eyes from the closest vantage since they'd been captured. Kayan blinked, then smiled ever so faintly. "I'd almost forgotten what it felt like when we touch."

"So had I." Jedra lowered his head and kissed the hollow where her neck and shoulders met, tasting the unmistakable essence of her skin beneath the sweat and dust of the arena. He raised up to kiss her on the mouth, but she pulled back.

"Don't."

He stopped with his lips just brushing hers. "Why not?"

"Because it'll only make me love you even more, and I can't bear it."

Jedra said, "You can't bear to love me? Why not?"

She shook her head. "I can't bear to lose you."

"Ah," he said, but he was thinking she had a funny way of showing it, if that's how she'd felt for the last few weeks. Or maybe the sudden realization that they had only a week left had made her examine her own feelings. Who could say?

"You're not going to lose me," he whispered to her.

"How can you say that? We have to fight each other next time." She pressed her face against his chest, and hot tears left streaks as they fell. "Oh, Jedra, what have we done?" "Listen," he whispered. "We're going to escape. Right now."

"Do what?"

Jedra kissed her neck again, nibbling his way up to her ear. Barely mouthing the words, he said, "When we link up, the first thing we do is blast the psionicists before they can react. Then... I don't know. I guess we try to make it over or through the wall somehow, and try to get into the crowd leaving the city after the games. Maybe I can disguise us a little bit by bending the light around us."

"Maybe? Jedra, this doesn't sound very well thought out."

"If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

She shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"Then let's go. Are you ready?"

"No." She lifted her head and kissed him, her lips already hot and soft from crying. The rush of sensation caught Jedra by surprise. He lost himself in the kiss, closing his eyes and letting it carry him away for an eternal moment into a place where only the two of them existed.

"Now I'm ready," Kayan whispered.

If the kiss was a welcome surprise, joining minds again was fantastic. The surge of strength and well-being that flowed through them was better than they had remembered, and the heightened sense of awareness made them feel like immortals. Time seemed to slow to a crawl while their intellects joined once more into a single mind. The psionicist guards, still smiling embarrassedly as they watched their prisoners embrace, had no idea what incredible new power was being born right under their noses.

Jedra and Kayan never gave them time to discover it. As soon as they had merged, they exploded outward and attacked straight at the psionicists' unprotected minds, overrunning their defenses without resistance. They weren't able to suppress the guards' instinctive cries of alarm, neither vocal nor psionic, but they managed to cut them short, using Kayan's medical abilities to drop the guards into a deep sleep.

Before the bodies had even slumped to the floor, they had moved their focus of awareness on out through the wall and into the compound beyond. It didn't look as if anyone had noticed anything unusual, but they couldn't be sure. The psionic shout could have been heard halfway across the city if anyone was attuned to it.

The servants' gate in the alley was the least guarded; it was visible from only three observation towers-one along the wall and two on the rear corners of the mansion. That meant deceiving six guards, maybe seven if one of the ones on foot patrol was nearby. Not the best of odds, but it was the best they would get, and they were committed now. They brought their awareness back inside the gladiators' quarters and tried to rise up from Kayan's bunk. They broke their chains with a thought, but it quickly became apparent that they couldn't remain linked to such a high degree and control their individual bodies at the same time. For fine muscle control, they needed to remain separate.

We'll have to break apart at least until we get through the wall, Jedra said. He let his awareness return to his own body. He stood up, fighting the depression that always hit him when they came out of convergence, and his gaze fell upon the two sleeping psionicists.