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Chapter 6

Five Septik rangers crept through the corridors of the now-silent ship. They had heard the barrage of gunfire and the distant crump of a grenade exploding, but as yet they were unsure as to their comrade's fate. It could be said with certainty that one side had triumphed, and if the literature of the age was a reliable source it had been the Knights.

"They come," one whispered, hearing two men running down the halls of the ship. The empty vessel carried quite a bit of echo, and living on a world with such impenetrable haze had sharpened the Septikkian's hearing. The ranger behind him produced a grenade from his rags as he slowly peeked around a corridor.

The grenade was, he supposed, the only weapon at their disposal that could penetrate a Knight's PPF field. It was rumored that if they could get close enough their guns would stand a chance, but it was also a known fact that getting close to a Knight was tantamount to suicide.

"What do you see?" one asked.

"Nothing... just the door."

"Is it open?"

"Yes," he replied, then stopped to consider that fact. It hadn't been open a moment ago.

The instant that thought struck him, his head was separated from its shoulders. A hot splash of blood gushed across the wall, painting everything except for a thin stripe where Ciara had been standing. The girl stepped past his writhing corpse, cutting off the hands of the man who held the grenade. She quickly reversed her grip on her sword and plunged it into his chest, pinning him against the wall.

The last three apparently figured out what was happening and proceeded to empty their weapons into their comrade. Ciara shot forward at superhuman speed, moving beneath them and coming up to grab the end of one's rifle. She pulled it to the side, making him nearly cut his partner in half before she delivered an elbow roundhouse to his wrinkled, gray face.

The last man stood nearly terrified at the inexplicable violence before him. He suddenly felt the girl's small hands grip the sides of his head like tiny vises. She raised one knee to the side and swung it around as she pulled his head down, nailing him in the ribs hard enough to splinter his sternum.

"Praise the Source for compound muscles," Ciara said as she looked over her shoulder and saw the fourth ranger clutching his battered face. In one smooth motion she kicked back, breaking his neck, and then drove her knee forward into the face of the man she was still holding on to.

"Ciara!" Malaki shouted. The girl dropped her cloak, letting him see her blood-splattered form as he surveyed the carnage she had wrought. "C..."

"Stop calling me that!" she shouted back.

"Chill out!"

"No!" she protested.

"You're going to get us all killed. Now I know how you feel-"

"No you don't!" Ciara shouted, "You have no idea how I feel! I want them all dead!"

Grev could only stand back and watch as Malaki suddenly blurred. His hand shot to the girl's throat and slammed her against the wall, bringing his bovine face so close that she could feel the hot breath pouring from his muzzle. She had never seen him so mad... he was abjectly terrifying in his rage, with his muzzle crumpled up in an almost canine snarl.

But even more frightening than his expression was the anger that she could feel. It was like being buried under a load of bricks, a burning weight on his chest that crushed her into a tiny ball and smothered her. She could taste the angry bitterness in his words, in his thoughts, and it scared her. That was a new sensation... she had felt a lot of things for Malaki in the short time she had known him, but she had never actually been afraid of him.

"Don't you dare say that again..." he warned, "Did you... ever... stop to think... who was my partner, before you came along?"

All Ciara could do was stare on, scared stiff, her sapphire eyes wide open as she looked into his.

"Malaki..." Grev said, resting a hand on the minotaur's shoulder. Ciara almost flinched at it. She expected Malaki to just spin one arm around and take his head clean off. But no... he released the girl, dropping her a full foot. She hadn't even realized he had lifted her off the ground. And he hadn't even shown the slightest effort in holding her there.

But now he couldn't stand to look at her. Nor could he hold back his thoughts from her, no matter how he tried. His anger had completely subsided, the burning in his chest having been replaced by an icy weight that slowly slid down his throat. He regretted what he had done, and he was ashamed of himself even though he had every right to do it.

"Malaki..." she whispered, but he still didn't look.

"Just cool down for a second," Grev advised her, "You both need some space. Besides, I feel someone coming." The Major quickly changed clips and made his way over the corpses to stop in front of another door.

"Hang on," Malaki said, trying to focus. It was too hard... Ciara kept interfering. She wasn't actually interrupting him, but the harsh words between them had thrown his mind into confused chaos. He held out his hands in front of him and pushed imaginary waves to the side, but it didn't help. No Tar-Thul meditation was going to help him here. All he could do was try to focus. He could 'see' the gentle flicker of the oncoming soul-flame, but he was too hurt to try and taste its thoughts. It existed on the edge of his awareness, as though he was doing well to even see it in the first place...

Suddenly his eyes shot wide as he realized what was happening. It wasn't that he was distracted... the soul was shielded!

"Don't open the door!" Malaki shouted.

"Right," Grev said, stepping cautiously away from it. He didn't open the door. The door opened by itself. For just an instant he saw a crystalline katana hanging in mid-air before the transparent blade lunged forward and sank into his gut. The Major stumbled back, cutting his hands open as he tried to grab the weapon. It was too slick to get a grip on... too slippery with his own blood.

The sword twisted around a full 180 degrees and then pulled itself slightly to the left. Grev was vomiting blood even as the crimson fluid gushed from his gut and pooled at his knees. Suddenly the blade lunged upwards, slicing through his diaphragm and five ribs before it finally stopped halfway into his lung and slowly pulled itself free.

The man remained upright, on his knees, for just a moment longer before he slumped to the side. Ciara blurred as she rushed to catch him, cradling his head in her lap as she stared on in horror. He was dead.

"Ciara!" Malaki shouted, pushing her aside. His own sword turned aside a blow from the free-floating blade that had been meant for her. The minotaur circled around until he could see down the hall.

Ynok marched steadily towards him, a black cape billowing out behind him as he walked. The lupine replicant wore no matrix, but somehow he still commanded power that was quite likely second only to the Source himself.

Raising one furred-furred hand, his sword sprung to life again, driving Malaki back in a flurry of blows. The minotaur had just begun to battle it when he was suddenly hurled back by a blast of telekinetic force. He slammed up against the wall. Though dazed, he still managed to dodge Ynok's animated sword by the slimmest fraction of an inch.

Ynok? Ciara psychically gasped, her mortal terror evident as she was forced to abandon Grev and draw her blade. The blade suddenly spun in mid air, driving Malaki back, before turning it's keen edge to the girl again. The girl blurred and vanished as she leapt to the side, running up a wall to avoid its blindingly fast spin. She suddenly cracked her skull against an invisible wall and collapsed on the floor, dazed by her collision with Ynok's psychic barrier.

She quickly pressed one hand against the wall and watched it shimmer as she found it. Next was the sword... where was the sword? Ciara silently cursed as she realized it had already moved back to the other side of the barrier. She was cut off from both Ynok and Malaki, the latter of which was being forced back into the cargo bay.

Malaki! she shouted, Don't let him get you in there! The cargo bay was exactly where Ynok wanted him... a place with plenty of ammunition for his psychic attacks.

But Malaki was too confused to effectively fight back. He made do with a steady retreat, swatting at the airborne sword as it came at him again and again. Ynok again threw up his hand, blowing Malaki backwards with a painful blast of invisible force. The minotaur stumbled back a few feet, before a second blast struck him in the face and sent him rolling across the floor. He quickly came to his knees and tried to ignore the hot drip of blood rolling down the front of his muzzle. But there was no time to think... the minotaur had to throw himself to the side to dodge another long swipe of Ynok's blade as it scraped across the floor.

Ynok? he asked himself as he fell back. Why? How? Malaki could barely believe that this was happening... The wolf didn't even have his matrix on... It shouldn't have been possible...

Malaki! he heard Ciara call to him, Hit him back!

Ynok sent another wave of force at Malaki's hiding place, blowing the crates away from him and threatening to crush the minotaur. The other replicant leapt across the room, rolling and landing behind a stack of palettes. It didn't do him much good, as Ynok toppled them over with a thought. Malaki was superhumanly fast, though, and quickly moved out from beneath them and straight into the path of Ynok's blade. He
lashed out to parry and- No! he shouted to himself, Don't parry! Go around!

With a slight nudge Malaki redirected the blade and ducked beneath it before leaping ten meters across the room. He landed right in front of Ynok, leapt over an intended foot sweep, and brought his sword down on the wolf's head.

At least, he tried. Malaki's sword met unexpected resistance, and he fought against it. It was like trying to cut through a wooden door. He could feel his energy coursing through the channel crystal, fighting against Ynok's wall of force. For a moment he felt the lupine's power slipping, his power slowly giving way...

Suddenly Malaki was blown backwards, slamming up against a crate. Ynok dropped his battered wall of force and focused on freeing his sword. The blade lifted itself up, turned towards Malaki and- This time it was the lupine's turn to retreat, as wave of flame washed over him. Ynok created a bubble around him, deflecting the jet of flame Malaki had thrown. "Sneaky," he complimented, realizing that in the
chaos of combat he hadn't noticed the chill in the air. Of course, that meant there were other things he hadn't been paying attention to...

The only thing that saved him from Ciara's blade was the slight tap of her feet against the deck and the whisper of her sword as it passed through the air. Ynok blew her back, sending the invisible girl rolling across the floor. He grinned at the sight of blood splattering against the floor and the sharp cry of pain that echoed in his mind. The child had cut herself in her fall.

He shrugged and turned back to the enraged minotaur, stopping him cold with yet another psychic barrier. Malaki furiously pounded against the invisible wall, threatening to tear it down. His sword produced sparks and arcing lightning as it battered against the barrier, cutting deep gashes in its hard-as-stone surface.

Ynok quickly redirected his sword, sending after the latest drops of blood to hit the floor. He grinned again as it met resistance and became stuck in mid-air. It seemed to be in two separate pieces, hanging there, but he knew it was an illusion. It had actually gone through the girl's body and out the other side. There was a satisfying scraping sound as it pulled free again. Ciara screamed in agony, her invisibility dropping away as she lost her focus. The girl was bleeding from her leg and shoulder, her suit dripping hit hot crimson blood. She groped at her wounds, blood running between her fingers as the suit's foam tried to seal the cuts.

Ynok turned back to his imprisoned opponent just in time to see Malaki annihilate his wall with a blast of orange energy. A bolt of ball lightning spun through the air between them, forcing Ynok to retreat as fast as he could. The wolf leapt ten meters backwards, clearing a pile of crates in the process and summoning his sword to his hand.

Malaki followed an instant later, and Ynok had to desperately parry a flurry of the enraged minotaur's blows. Their swords sparked as they clashed together, and the sparks hung there, frozen in time, as the two dueled at incredible speed. Instead of the usual whisper of air, the swords roared like rolling thunder as they sailed through the air. Sonic booms. They were both amazed at the sheer impossible speed of it all as they passed back and forth, dodging side-to-side, parrying and thrusting.

Ynok felt snot running from his canine nose as he fought, his fur damp with sweat. Malaki's muzzle was smeared with dark blood from where he had been struck before. Both of their eyes were brimming over with fury and rage... when they could be seen. Neither could catch a good glimpse of the other as they whirled and spun, lightning bolts arcing between their blades as they came together again and again.

Malaki could hear nothing but the crackle of lightning and the roar of the wind as they fought. Ynok's senses were flooded with the smells of the combat... the metallic scent of blood, the sickly taste of hot sweat, and the sharp sting of burning ozone. Even his superhuman muscles began to grow sore as they danced back and forth... Up, down... left, right... He could barely keep track of his opponent's blade as it sailed back and forth.

Trying to see one's opponent was like staring into a strobe light. The quick flash of their crystal blades... bursts of sparks and lightning... dazzling rainbow colors as their blindingly-fast weapons caught the light and twisted it... It was disorienting for both of them, even more so as Ynok retreated over fallen palettes, to the tops of crates, between the railings of the cargo elevator...

Malaki tried to stop, far too late. He crashed headfirst into a psychic wall, dropping his sword as he fell flat on his back and looked up at the cables of the cargo elevator above him. Ynok's spinning sword suddenly appeared, producing a shower of sparks as it sliced through the thick steel wires. The minotaur felt the elevator fall away beneath him and could only try to slow his fall. It didn't work. A cage roof caught him, dragging Malaki straight down ten stories into the depths of the lifeless ship.

For a moment Ynok looked around for Ciara... she was gone. He couldn't feel her soul flame, either. That meant that either she had raised her cloak again, or had crawled off to some quiet place to bleed to death.

Since he doubted that, in her injured state, she could focus enough to hide herself it should have been the latter. Of course, she was a Knight. He hadn't hurt her bad enough to make the girl bleed to death; the suit had probably sealed itself by now. He'd just have deal with her later. There were more important things to do...

For a long time Malaki was still at the bottom of the elevator shaft. He slowly stirred, groaning as he pushed himself up. He knew he had bruised some ribs, but the pain inhibitors kept them from hurting too much.

A drop of blood fell from his nose and he could taste blood in his mouth. The little telekinetic power the minotaur possessed brought his sword to his hand, where it dangled in his limp grip as he rose.

What the hell was Ynok doing here? he thought as he took a few steps forward. His entire body was sore from exhaustion, but he knew he couldn't stop now. Ynok would be coming for him after he finished off Ciara... That thought made him cringe.

No! he demanded, Focus!

The minotaur took a moment to pull a straw from his neck and drink from his reclaimed water from the suit. It was warm and tasted foul, but at least it washed the bitter taste of blood from his mouth. Halfway through his drink the water turned cold and then froze completely as he drew the heat out of the air around him.

One thing at a time, he told himself, before searching his sphere of perception. There were a handful of Septikkians thirty meters to his right, along with a shielded matrix-user. And above... another one.

Ynok slowly descended the elevator shaft, floating gracefully down with his black cape billowing out behind him. His hand rested on katana, and he smiled as he spotted Malaki below. The Knight came to a stop a few feet off the ground and hovered in place as he studied the minotaur.

"Is she dead?" Ynok asked.

"I don't know," Malaki replied.

"Too far away? You must not have been together long... A bit chilly in here, don't you think?"

Malaki's grip on his sword tightened.

"That was quite a scrap back there... Made me work for it... Are you ready for an encore?"

The minotaur nodded, and Ynok hurled his sword at him.

Bishop Kanyte waited quietly, listening to the sounds of carnage echo down the halls of his ship. He stood in a large spherical room lined with crystal, in the center of which sat the largest piece of Lattice Obsidian anyone had ever seen. Besides, possibly, the Source, but He was a different story altogether. This was his engine, his masterwork... the heart of the ship that would lead them to Psion, assuming the Knights didn't interfere.

And it appeared they would. The five rangers around him shifted uncertainly as their listened, hearing the sounds of battle come closer. It sounded as though someone was fighting a war beyond the wide doors they guarded. Sonic booms, explosions... the crackle of lightning and the sharp peal of crystal blades clashing... They questioned exactly how much good their puny rifles would do.

Suddenly the men were hurled to the floor by a blast of fire and frag. Out of the explosion came Ynok, skipping and skidding backwards across the debris-strewn floor as he struggled to keep his balance. The air was filled with the pungent odor of smoldering metal and burnt hair. Ynok's sword was chipped and worn, and his KCS was nearly splitting at the seams.

Out of the shattered door came an icy wind and soft tendrils of misty snow. Malaki stepped forward from the shadows, the lights flickering around him as he hungrily drew in all the power he could. He was tired, though, his exhaustion evident in his worn and battered face. This was it for him, the end either way.

Kanyte raised his scaly arms and a sphere of glowing flame appeared between them. He let it grow for a moment, his tail flicking back and forth as he summoned his own power and-

The attack never came. Malaki struck first, a hot orange burst of ball lightning flying from his fingertips and into Kanyte's chest. The reptile jerked and spasmed as it coursed over him, burning away his robes and blistering his scaly flesh before he vanished in a fireball, having lost control of his own building energy.

Ynok leapt upon Malaki's temporary distraction, blasting him with a wave of concussive force. The minotaur flew back, slamming into a wall and collapsing to the floor. Ynok didn't stop, striking him again and again until he was satisfied the minotaur was unconscious. Unconscious was probably the best he could hope for... he had never seen a Knight with such stamina.

The rangers were looking in horror at the charred remains of their leader when Ynok called out to them. "Put this one in the chair!" he demanded, "And go find the girl."

It was nighttime outside, and even though it was said the mists cleared at night, the bottom of the chasm was pitch black. Ciara clawed her way through the soft mud with one tiny hand and pushed herself along with her one good leg. For a moment she slipped, sending her face into the black sludge. The girl didn't try to get up but just rolled over onto her back and let herself sink into the mud an inch or two.

Her small lips formed the word "Why?" as a tear rolled down her cheek. When it hit the mud it stayed on the slick surface, as though the toxic soil was unwilling to accept the intrusion of purity.

Focus! she shouted at herself, rolling back over and crawling a few more feet. The starship would be back in only a few hours... they would pick her up then... all she had to do was hide and wait. The gray foam her suit bled had already sealed its wounds. That was the strange thing about a KCS? the exterior cracked like glass when you punctured it. She could see where the gray ooze had hardened in the cracks on her leg and shoulders. Now all she had to do was wait as her nanomachines stitched her back together. It was only a matter of time?

Her hand touched warm water, and after recoiling for a moment she leaned forward and let her hand slide into the greasy mud. This was good... her O2 nanos could let her breathe for four hours if she just rested, and that was all she wanted to do. Ciara slowly lowered herself into the brackish, soupy water and curled up on the stream's bottom, letting the mud rise up and capture her. She wondered if she would be able to get back out when the time came, but right now that was the least of her problems.

All she could do was wait and heal. Idleness was a dangerous thing. What if her body cramped up? What if she fell asleep some how? No, that couldn't happen. Ciara was shivering with fear. She couldn't fall asleep if she wanted to. But what was dangerous was the way her mind was sure to wander. It would be like when she went to bed and reviewed the day, mulling it over and wondering what she could have done
differently.

Right now such thoughts could be lethal. She knew this, and for a long time she tried performing math problems and reciting Diktat scripture to keep her mind focused. It didn't work. Even though she knew where the danger in idle thought lay, she could not stay focused, and eventually found herself asking questions.

Where was Malaki? What was happening to him? Was he dead? Although the though chilled Ciara to the core, she couldn't stop it. Where had she failed? She had done everything right... even better than she did last time. She was invisible and coming at him from behind? Had he heard her or smelled her? Or was he simply powerful enough to see through her veil of mental obscurity?

Am I useless? she asked herself. It seemed like when anything got done it was Malaki's work... He didn't need her, just like Ynok didn't need anybody. Why didn't they just pair Claymores together and let them do all the fighting? That would be truly dangerous... She wouldn't need someone to rescue her every time...

Why did Tharsis even bring me here? What was he thinking?

For a moment she remembered the good days... she remembered the first time Daddy showed her a starship. Ciara was four and her mother was pregnant, and they were in a starbase. She vividly remembered watching the burst of blue light that accompanied its drop out of hyperspace, and the hot jets of plasma that sent it drifting gently to the docks at the top of the station. It had been a destroyer, a small ship but one bristling with weaponry... coil guns, rotating torpedo tubes, missiles both conventional and atomic... Even the point defense lasers and rail guns had been bared for the public to behold.

That was the true might of the Diktat. If Ynok was going to conquer anything, he had certainly chosen the right away to go about it. The Knights, she thought, were utterly outdated. Now all the wars were fought in space. That was where the real power lay.

She had wanted to join the Navy. From the moment Ciara had laid eyes on her daddy's destroyer, she had wanted to be in the Navy. She would spend her time coloring pictures of battleships, reading about them, doing research on the old wet navies of eras past... If she had lived the life of a normal child she would be just beginning her years at the Naval Academy on Aaramac, not sitting at the bottom of a poison river waiting for little robots to put her back together.

And then her mother died... tragic illness... Her father couldn't bring them with him on his cruises, so he shipped her off to the DPC. Girls, maturing faster, were inducted earlier than boys so when she got there she was the youngest in her class. She was lost in a sea of strangers and strange machines, educated not in art or poetry but in the rites and rituals of the Source Almighty. They wanted to make her a human war machine, the ultimate weapon of the Diktat.

But how could a little girl be one of the elite? If they wanted weaponry they should have built bigger and better starships... starships that could defeat Ynok's on their own turf, rather than having to use assassins (which, she had concluded, was really what the Knights were).

It was there, curled up at the bottom of the stream, with it's warm but poisonous water washing over here, that Ciara eventually fell into a troubled sleep.

Malaki regained consciousness slowly. For a long time he was lost in darkness, feeling nothing but the throbbing pain of his aching muscles. It took a while for him to put things back together, to review exactly how he had ended up here. Indeed, he had to concentrate to even grasp where 'here' was.

He was sitting upright in a chair, bound by thick chains on his arms and legs. They were thick enough to hold him, although he doubted he would have been able to escape thin ones. Every diamond-laced bone in his body ached.

And he was blind. Not blind in the usual sense, but his matrix was gone. For one so used to seeing the spiritual as well as the physical, it was a strange feeling indeed. You might as well have made him deaf.

"I bet you've never had a concussion before," Ynok said, pacing the floor in front of his prisoner, "I can't see someone as big as you getting knocked out often."

Malaki looked up at the other replicant for a moment, trying to focus on him. As the world slowly became clear again, Malaki took the time to look at his surroundings. He was in a large, round, room. Right next to him was a giant block of obsidian set in a giant glass chalice. It had to be glass, because there was no way anyone could get that much Channel Crystal. And the obsidian had to be just another black rock... That much Lattice Obsidian could outfit an army.

"Yes, it's real," Ynok explained, "We found it on an asteroid. It's the biggest piece of Lattice Obsidian in the universe."

Malaki shook his head. That was unbelievable.

"Oh yes... That stone can channel enough power to create a PPF around this entire starship. You can bring it up into orbit just by thinking about it. It's really incredible, believe me."

"You..." Malaki began, "You piloted it..."

"Against the Stillecho? Indeed I did. I also destroyed the starbase and the hyperspace buoy. After we hid it here I returned to Epaulets, but had to come back right away thanks to the Archbishop's investigations. I bet none of you expected to see me here..."

"Get to the point," Malaki said through his clenched teeth, "Why? What's the point of it all?"

"The point is this..." he explained, pointing Malaki's sword at the black stone before him. "There is a whole planet full of this stuff, just waiting for someone to find it. Whoever finds it has all the cards as long as they can hang onto it. The Knights can only do so much... Naval power is what will determine the fate of Psion. And here we have the most powerful ship the universe has ever seen."

"And you're going to take it to Psion..."

"Not right away... We have to find out where it is first. This block of obsidian helps us with that, too. Are you familiar with the idea of morphic resonance?"

Malaki stared at him for a long moment before slowly shaking his head.

"It's the thought that certain psychic energies get passed down through the generations. It's also the thought that we're all psychically linked. The closer you get to a person, be it through birth or friendship, the tighter your link. That's why Knight partners can share their thoughts more easily the longer they've known each other."

"And?"

"Stop being impatient. This all goes back to Tar-Thul philosophy. A person is linked with other people as well as the people in his past. It's a poor interpretation to say it's a sort of collective mind, but there are indeed certain things we share. Call them racial memories. Now, the Tar-Thul monks knew where Psion was. They had been there. They were masters of the psychic arts until Jorab sold them out to Praxus, which of course led to the bastardized version of their order that we call the Diktat. The point of it all is that somewhere, locked away in our collective memory, is the location of Psion. It's just a matter of doing a little psychic surgery and digging it out."

"Let me guess," Malaki interrupted, glancing at the obsidian stone, "You're going to test it on me."

"Yes, but I don't expect to learn much. The problem is that we... you, me, and poor Bishop Kanyte..." He paused and pointed the longsword at the charred reptile's corpse before continuing. "We're replicants. We were born in test tubes. We aren't part of the collective and we don't have racial memories. Do you follow me? If I let you explore your primordial subconscious, who knows what will happen?"

"So why are you keeping me alive?"

"You're awfully dim. There are two reasons: There's a little girl running around out there. She's human, trained in the butchered version of the Tar-Thul arts the Diktat teaches, and if I remember correctly she has a long naval heritage. Prime material for our purposes."

"Secondly, I want you to join me. You've seen what one of us can do... imagine what the three of us could accomplish! We would be invincible! If we pooled our power together, no force in the galaxy could stop us, not even the Source."

Malaki's bovine face turned grim. "No."

"I didn't think so," Ynok admitted with a grin. "But you're not a complete waste. Ciara will come to rescue you eventually, assuming she's not here already. In the meantime, I think we will find out exactly how this thing works. Are you ready?" The lupine held up a lattice obsidian crown, connected to the obsidian engine by a pair of gold wires. He circled around Malaki's back and seized his bovine skull in a headlock before placing it between his horns.

The minotaur instantly spasmed as a bolt of lightning shot down his spine. He jerked left and right, grimaced and starting breathing hard. For a moment Ynok wondered if something had gone wrong. The channel crystal circuitry was in a much different configuration than when he had flown the vessel. It was designed to force the minotaur into a trance of sorts... like the Tar-Thul monks were supposed to have done.
After a moment Malaki stopped and slumped back in his seat, every muscle in his body gone limp. Ynok felt his soul-flame flicker and twist, expand and shrink, eventually falling in on itself so that it was just a tiny hot ember on the head of a match. Not dead, quite alive and still dangerous, if only it could be awakened. This was the trance, he knew. He could not taste Malaki's thoughts because the minotaur had retreated in on himself. He was searching a place so deep within his psyche that no one could read, save perhaps the Source himself.

This, Ynok knew, was going to be interesting.