into the rucksack. I owe you so much, he 'pathed, gently.
We owe each other.
You nursed me when I was sick, badgered me into going on when I would have given up.
And you gave me something to occupy my mind. Raging at your Pure stupidities, I had less time to doubt the purpose of the voyage.
Jask turned out the light. We better start out for Boomer's Pass.
Yes, the bruin 'pathed. In another week we should reach the Black Glass.
Do you think the Presence waits there?
If not, we've two more maps to employ.
23
Tedesco and Kiera walked in front of the gypsy wagon, while Chaney sat in the driver's nook and urged the horse on both with slaps of the reins and with gentle psionic images of eventual reward for its efforts. Jask and Melopina walked to the left of the wagon, at the edge of the crumbling roadbed, holding hands and occasionally conversing telepathically.
Above them the snowy Gabriel Fit Range gleamed ghostily in the moonlight, fifty kilometers above them as they entered the mouth of Boomer's Pass. Jask was commenting on their beauty when the first power rifle opened fire on them. The energy bolt caught the horse and killed it instantly.
Pures!
The wagon turned nearly striking Jask and Melopina.
They dived off the broken concrete and stone.
The wagon rolled backward down the steep incline for a hundred meters before Chaney succeeded in applying the hand brake. The dead horse, fallen in its harness, left a trail of dark blood to indicate the path that had been taken.
Jask leaned against the curb wall at the edge of the road and risked a look up the hillside. He could see three Pures stationed in the center of the way, kneeling with rifles brought up to their skinny shoulders. Tedesco was running for the side of the road, ushering Kiera ahead of him. The Pures fired. A bolt of energy either passed so close to the bruin that it singed him or actually struck, for he screeched, both aloud and telepathically as he leaped to safety in the heavy brush at the edge of the highway.
Another energy bolt struck the wagon.
The vehicle shattered into a hundred smoldering pieces.
Jask hoped Chaney had been far from it when that happened.
It's kill or be killed, Melopina 'pathed.
A moment later one of the Pures was consumed by flames, threw down his rifle and, screaming, ran blindly down the road, flailing at himself. In the space of a dozen meters he fell, dead.
A second Pure flamed up.
Ahead, from the foliage on either side of the road and from the piled boulders at the brink of Boomer's Pass itself, more energy weapons opened fire on the espers. The curb wall beside Jask and Melopina exploded into boiling fragments.
The third Pure, who had been the last man exposed on the open road, had turned to run for the shelter of the rock formations above, but went only fifty meters before the magic fire scorched him. He fell and rolled down the road, past Jask and Melopina, no longer a man but an ember.
Tedesco 'pathed, We make out nearly a dozen more.
That wagon was my father's handiwork, Kiera 'pathed. Those bastards will pay for that.
They never reckoned with Kiera's temper! — laughing, Chaney.
Tedesco, were you hit? — concerned, Jask.
Singed.
The worst thing is the stink of smoking fur! — Kiera.
I see another one, Melopina 'pathed. A second later a Pure who had stood up in the rocks to see what the espers might be doing was ashed.
Chaney just joined us over here — Tedesco.
You're bleeding! — frightened, Kiera.
A few splinters from the wagon, nothing serious — Chaney.
Let me look! — Kiera.
Woman, Chaney 'pathed, we've got more immediate problems than tending to cuts and scratches.
He's right, Tedesco 'pathed. If those Pures stay hidden in the rocks, we can't very easily reach them with our fireballs. We've got to get closer, and we've got to make them expose themselves. He thought a moment, their best strategist, and 'pathed, I'll work my way up toward the pass on this side, while Chaney and Kiera wait here. Jask, you work up the road on that side while Melopina protects your back.
Good enough.
Have you got your power rifle? — Tedesco.
Yes, but—
Use it first. They know the fireballs are our weapons. If they see their own getting killed by their own weapons, we'll sow a bit of confusion.
I see.
Let's move it, then.
Melopina grabbed him as he started forward into the dense brush, kissed him hard.
Neither of them said or 'pathed any last warning to be careful.
Jask initially moved farther away from the road, then circled slowly back as he neared the crest of the hill, making almost no noise in his bare feet.
Small animals, startled by his stealthy progress, dashed away through brambled tunnels. These did not frighten him, for they were now on the edge of civilized lands and were no longer in the Chen Valley Blight, where monsters of one sort or another were most to be expected.
The scrub brush, stunted locust trees, and brambles gave way to fair-sized pines that grew thick and closed out most of the moonlight. Jask proceeded more carefully than ever through these, gliding from trunk to trunk, giving his eyes time to adjust to the change in light. He had gone perhaps two hundred meters into the stand of pines when he heard voices: Pures.
Something here, he radiated.
Pures? — Tedesco.
I see them now, three of them, stationed near the curb wall of the road, waiting for something to happen.
Get them, Tedesco 'pathed. I've seen nothing over here, yet.
Be careful — Melopina.
He crept forward, still using the trunks of the trees as shelter, until he was only a few long steps from the Pures. Each, he saw, was armed with a power rifle, and each was extremely agitated. They were all peering through a berry bush down the deserted road. Apparently it had not occurred to them that the espers might sneak around behind them and take them by surprise. Their lack of insight made Jask realize what a disservice the Pure way of life was for those who embraced it; it generated ignorance, naivete, and a vulnerability that was appalling.
Jask bent onto one knee, raised the power rifle and sighted on the nearest Pure.
His finger on the trigger, he hesitated. These were, after all, men he had once called his brothers. Their bond of blood had been broken because of his genetic faults — yet, all those years of common ideals, common heritage, common doubts and hopes, could not so easily be erased. He had killed in the enclave in order to escape. That was surely murder. But that had been in desperation, at a time when he had been terrified of dying. Now, he knew how superior he was to them, knew that in any contest these weaklings could only lose. To confront them like this and destroy them seemed grossly unfair.
