A few ragged cheers sprang out at the mention of his name, but far more people booed the elf's obvious sentimentality. Jedra turned back to look at Sahalik, who stood just inside the entrance with a bemused expression on his face. Thank you, Jedra mindsent, amazed that the elf would risk the king's wrath for them; then, not knowing if his message made it through or not, he raised his sword in salute. Sahalik shrugged embarrassedly.

"Their pleas did not fall on deaf ears," Kalak said. "Because so many have asked it, and because I am a merciful king, I decree..." He paused dramatically, and Jedra held his breath while he waited for the words that would end this farce. "I decree that the winner of this battle shall go free!" Jedra exhaled noisily. He felt as if he'd been stabbed in the heart. The crowd went wild, stomping and cheering, but it was all show. Nobody really believed there was any mercy involved. No one who had ever loved someone, anyway. The last thing either Jedra or Kayan wanted was to win their freedom with the other's life. Kalak's gift of freedom would mean nothing but the undisturbed opportunity to dwell on the horrible way it had been achieved. And of course it disrupted any plans they might have made for throwing the fight, which was no doubt Kalak's main intent.

"Kayan!" Jedra whispered to her. "He could fry us with a thought."

"What difference would it make?" she asked.

But the king only laughed and said, "You amuse me. Good. Amuse me some more. Let the battle begin!" He raised his arms out to either side, then clapped his hands together in front of him. A peal of thunder shook the arena. The crier echoed the king's command in a much tinier voice: "Begin!"

Jedra looked at Kayan. She looked at him. They stood well inside each other's guard; either could have stabbed the other to death without hindrance. Instead they leaned together for a final kiss. At first the thousands of people in the audience laughed at their bravado, but they soon grew restless and began to chant, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Kayan took a step back. "Now what?" she asked. Her voice wavered, and her pulse beat visibly in her neck.

Jedra swallowed. His own heart was beating so hard that the crystal he wore around his neck bounced against his chest with each beat. "We put on a show, I guess," he said.

"And then what?"

"I don't know!" He turned away, unable to face her, unable to say the words that had to be said, unable even to think anymore about what they must do. He looked up at the stands full of people, all of them expecting a bloody battle, and finally something snapped. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he tilted back his head and howled a long, ululating cry of rage and frustration. He howled until his lungs were empty and his throat was raw.

The crowd ate it up, thinking he was being punished psionically for not fighting. And with that encouragement, they began throwing rotted fruit and meat. Jedra easily dodged the offal, but he couldn't dodge the unseen fists that seemed to pummel him, nor the hands that gripped his sword arm and swung it toward Kayan. The guards were letting the crowd's psionic powers through to them.

A babble of voices filled Jedra's mind. He was about to shield them out when a familiar voice overpowered the rest. The message was the same-merely the single word, "Fight," but it came unmistakably from Kitarak.

Jedra whirled around toward the source of the voice, but it had been too brief to locate. Somewhere on the east side of the stadium; that was all he could tell for sure.

Kitarak is here! he mindsent to Kayan. The psionicists would know he had spoken to her, but they couldn't eavesdrop on their conversation. They could only block it, and if they did that then they would have to block the crowd, too.

I heard him, Kayan replied. He wants us to fight, too. She still sounded dispirited, as if her last hope had died.

No, Jedra said. He must want us to buy him time to get us free!

Some of Kayan's former enthusiasm returned to her psionic voice. You think so? she asked.

It's got to be.

Kayan fended off a melon with her shield, but it splattered seeds and juice all over her feet. Let's do it, then, before they start throwing rocks, she said, and she raised her sword in the en garde position.

Fighting the psionic members of the audience who would rather have him simply hack away at her, Jedra brought up his own sword and they crossed blades. The crowd cheered. Then Kayan darted forward, corkscrewing around Jedra's sword to stab him right in the thick leather over his chest. If he hadn't been wearing armor, she would have skewered his heart with her first blow.

"Hey!" he shouted, leaping back in surprise.

"You didn't think I was paying attention during practice, did you?" she asked, grinning wickedly. Without waiting for an answer, she attacked again, this time with a slash at his midsection which he parried easily enough, but she flicked her blade around to the other side with lightning speed and hit the armor over his left flank.

Jedra belatedly struck back at her, slashing down toward her heavily armored chest, but she raised her shield and blocked him easily.

"You'll have to do better than that," she said. Then, in a mocking voice, she said, "Come on, fight! Do you expect me to do everything?"

This was a sophisticated audience, though. They knew a mock battle when they saw one, and they began to boo. More fruit flew. The psionic battering Jedra and Kayan had felt earlier had died down when they began to fight, but now it picked up again as the frustrated crowd tried to force the fight in a bloodier direction.

"We're losing them," Jedra said, panting now from the exertion. "Kitarak had better hurry up."

"Let's make it flashier," Kayan said, and to show what she meant she attacked him psionically with a burst of light and thunder. Jedra rocked back, his ears ringing, and barely parried her accompanying sword attack.

"Hah!" he shouted, recovering after a couple of steps back. "You think that's flashy-watch this." He concentrated on the air around her, whipping it into a wind that blew her hair out straight behind her and nearly wrenched her shield from her grip. Then, not sensing any restrictions on his power yet, he froze the air until frost swirled beside her, dumping the heat into a tiny spot of ground a few feet to her right, which after a few seconds exploded in a shower of hot sand which the wind blew away from both of them.

The crowd cheered, but Kayan said mockingly, "Big deal. How about this?" The air shimmered around her, and suddenly there were two of her, then four, then eight, all lunging toward Jedra at once. Only one of them was real, but he didn't know which one, not until he felt a blade bite deep into the armor over his right biceps.

"Ow!" he shouted, twisting away. She'd cut right through the leather. A rivulet of blood ran out from under his armor.

"Jedra!" Kayan shouted. The phantom copies of her vanished, and she reached toward him, instinctively wanting to comfort and heal him.

No! he mindsent, at the same time slashing at her as if he feared her approach. Don't ruin the effect!

The effect? You're hurt!

We're supposed to be trying to kill each other, Jedra pointed out. He feinted left, then swung right, reaching past Kayan's guard and nicking her right forearm.

"That hurts!" she yelled.

I'm sorry, but I had to do it. Jedra mindsent. Numb the pain, but let it bleed a while.

The crowd cheered at the sight of blood, but Jedra didn't know how much longer they could keep up the deception with superficial wounds. He directed a thought toward Kitarak in the eastern stands: Hurry up, or we'll have to hurt each other worse than this.

Kitarak's voice spoke in his mind again. You must do just that. You must kill Kayan.