“The man we seek… is an esper,” the General said.
In the quiet, fog-shrouded morning, the words fled the length of the street like a knife drawn across the wet cobblestones, echoing, echoing, hard and urgent.
Standing by the window, Jask received the distant echoes of fear in the minds of the Pure soldiers and in the minds, as well, of the mutated villagers who listened from doorways and windows in other buildings. He could not block the receival of such agonizingly sharpened emotions.
“You're certain?” Belmondo asked.
Already, as he stood there, his eyes began to stray betrayingly toward Jask's open window.
A ripped open brain… cracked like a nut… with long, pale fingers stirring through the meat and picking out the choicest morsels…
Jask received the terrified visions radiating from Belmondo and knew the mutant feared espers too much to protect one of them. Turning, stumbling clumsily over an ottoman, he fell, taking the floor square against his chin. He almost passed out as a hard twist of pain ground through him, and he tasted blood as his lower lip split open.
He stood, holding to the bedpost, tried to regain his usual calm. This charging off like a damaged power sledge was no good at all. He was a Pure, one of the Chosen, and he must always remember to act with dignity that his heritage demanded, even if he had been rejected by his own kind.
He opened the door of his room and looked both ways down the musty hall of the inn's sleeping quarters. When the search party had arrived, Belmondo had been downstairs preparing the dough for breakfast pastries. If he had accomplished no more than that in readying to feed his boarders, the average guest would not yet have arisen — unless stirred by the General outside. The corridor was empty.
He stepped out of the room, closed the door quietly. Reaching out with his esp power, he touched the minds of the Pures and of the General, found that they had not yet entered the inn but that they would do so in a few moments. He walked swiftly to the stairs. Holding to the rail, prepared to retreat if necessary, he went down each squeaking riser as if there were a poisonous snake coiled upon it: cautiously.
The steps ended in the public room. No lanterns had been lighted here, and the candles were cold as well. Most of the large, brick-floored chamber was in a soft, purple darkness. The grimy, stained-glass windows filtered the poor morning light even further; amber light spilled through one pane, crimson through another, green through a third. But it was all cathedral decoration, not genuine illumination. The heavy wooden tables, gleaming now and then with a reflection of foggy, early light in their waxed surfaces, the chairs racked atop them, seemed like a strange array of alien sentinels waiting to be entertained by the chase and the kill.
Abruptly, as Jask was trying to decide which of the doors behind the bar might lead to the kitchen and the rear entrance to the inn, his mind was innundated with a fury of emotions, images of blood and death. Belmondo had told them: The flush of emotion he registered with his psionic brain was evidence that the General and the soldiers knew he was trapped. He had killed three men already, had given them special reason to be careful — since those first three had died without a mark on them. No Pure could say what ethereal weapon Jask had brought to bear, though all were aware that it was part of his telepathic talents.
He walked toward the counterman's gate in the long mahogany bar, wondering if he could sneak out the kitchen door.
Outside, someone barked short, harsh commands; others ran to obey, the sound of their footsteps hollow and cold.
Without time to round the bar now, Jask placed his hands flat on top of it, muscled up and crashed over it ungracefully. His thin, weakly bred Pure body ached with the effort and gave him an ugly premonition of just how long he could expect to survive if the chase grew hot. He lay with the smell of sawdust and the taste of blood, quite aware of how lucky he had been not to break any bones. Then he pushed up and staggered weakly through the nearest door behind the bar.
The kitchen lay immediately behind the public room, a blazing fire chattering in its stone hearth. Sheets filled with pastries were lined on heavy, crude tables, cooking instruments scattered about. The odor of flour, sugar and cooked apples permeated the air. Jask did not pause to enjoy it, but crossed to the rear door and looked onto the dirt alleyway behind the inn. To either side Pures ran to cut off this avenue of escape.
His deadly esp ability, with which he had killed three men in the fortress during the night, could not help him here. It worked slowly, very slowly. At least two of these soldiers would bear him down before he could take care of all of them. Besides, he was weary of murder, sickened by the transgression of molesting Pure lives.
Turning away from the door, he looked around the kitchen, willing to make do with whatever he could find. If there were knives here, he might be able to fight his way free without wreaking any permanent damage. He hefted a weighty, wickedly curved butcher knife, then dropped it, angry with himself for his slow-wittedness. He could no more fight Pures and their guns with a knife than he could fight the Wildland beasts with bare fists. And, unlike himself, the soldiers would feel no reluctance when the time came to destroy him; he was, after all, nothing but an animal, tainted now, unfit.
On his right, near the fireplace, an open door revealed descending stairs. He hurried to them, looked into the gloom of the hotel's cellar. He hesitated, certain that this could not lead him anywhere. At most he would find a tiny, street-level window that looked onto an alleyway that the Pures already controlled.
Then he heard the soldiers in the public room. The Pures in the back alley had reached the locked kitchen door and were rattling it experimentally.
Without pausing to consider his fate any longer, he stepped through the door, shut it behind, and went quickly down the wooden steps.
2
The cellar was nearly lightless. A single window faced an alleyway, perhaps large enough to leave by though effectively barred by thick iron pipes. What little light there was found its way through the dirty glass beyond the bars, casting impenetrable shadows in the subterranean chamber. In this chiaroscuro chaos, it was impossible to find a way out in time. Even if there were a way out. Which was doubtful.
He was about to turn and leave, to take his chances in the occupied upper floors, when he felt light, teasing mental fingers working along the surface of his own mind, the fingers of an esper. They were weightless fingers, yet sharp and insistent, like the spidery cracks in crimson pottery glaze.
He turned and examined the shadows, frightened and yet curious. He knew that his only chance of survival lay in the unexpected, and he had certainly never expected to meet another esper here, now.
On your left, the voiceless voice said, the crisp metallic whisper of telepathic conversation.
Jask turned, squinted into darkness.
Someone waited there, though he could not discern the nature of the man.
Come closer.
He went closer, and his eyes adjusted to the intense blackness. But the moment he saw the creature, he stepped rapidly backward, his throat constricted and his heart thumping in terror.
You have nowhere to run. Help me instead.
“Can you speak?” Jask inquired.
“You do have it bad, don't you? You're as prejudiced and snottily superior as those upstairs hunting for you!” The voice was deeper, harsher than even the General's voice, and it made Jask sound like a woman by comparison.
“What are you?” Jask asked.
“Don't you mean — who am I?”