As Erid sat with his back against the fortress wall, he felt a voice in his head. He had heard it before, of course, but never charged with such a sense of excitement.

"You'll take out the man to the right of the prime guard."

Erid looked at Paldul, who was sitting in the sun at the other side of the yard. Thanks to his telepathic abilities, he had become the link between Rahatan and the other transformed.

"I hear you," Erid thought. He glanced at the guard in question, gauging the distance between them. "And I'll be ready."

"Good," thought Paldul. "Wait for my signal."

Erid waited. While he did this, he thought about his parents. The first thing he would do when he was free was get in touch with them and let them know he was alive.

And after that? He had no idea, really. As far as he knew, none of the others did either. The need to escape loomed so large in their minds, there didn't seem to be room for anything else.

Maybe there was nothing they could do. Maybe this escape of theirs wouldn't accomplish anything in the long run-and they would end up back inside these walls, or in another fortress somewhere else. But if their efforts only alerted the world to their plight, it would be worth the effort.

Abruptly, he felt the voice in his head again. "Ready," it said. "On the count of three. One ... two ... three."

Pointing his right hand at the guard a.s.signed to him, Erid unleashed a beam of brilliant, white energy. It struck the man before he had any inkling he was threatened, causing him to drop his weapon and collapse on the battlement.

Erid was pleased with his accuracy. His nightly practices had improved his skill with his energy releases, but he had never consciously sent out a bolt so powerful-or over such a great distance.

Meanwhile, his a.s.sault hadn't been the only one. Far from it. All over the yard, every one of the transformed with a projectable energy power had put it to use simultaneously, creating a bizarre, multicolored barrage.

Half a dozen guards were jolted off their feet-and those who weren't had no better time of it. One was struck by an invisible a.s.sailant, who then grabbed his weapon and cracked him across the face with it. Another found himself firing at an adversary who was only an illusion-and hitting one of his comrades instead. A third tried to track a blur of speed and couldn't, firing instead at the places where Corba had been.

It was chaos. But as Erid shot another stream of energy, spinning a guard around, he began to imagine their plan might work.

Then he felt the ground tremble, and by that sign he knew Rahatan would soon be joining the fray. Also, Leyden and Denara, who had been imprisoned in cells alongside him.

"Watch out!" he heard someone cry.

A fraction of a second later, Erid was smashed hard in the ribs and taken off his feet. At the same time, a stun blast splattered against the wall where he had been standing.

He looked up into the face of his savior-and saw the man with the luminous eyes. "Thank you," Erid said.

"Don't mention it," the other transformed replied. Eyeing the guards warily, he got to his feet and began to move off. "Just keep doing what you were doing, all right?"

Erid nodded. "I will."

Whatever the other man's power was, it didn't seem to be very useful in a fight. But to his credit, he was looking for other ways to help.

Turning to the battlements, Erid picked out another guard and extended his hand. Once again, a crackling stream of energy traversed the yard and found its target, slamming the man into the wall behind him.

Additional guards raced out onto the parapets, replacing those who had fallen. They fired down into the yard, stunning a transformed with four arms and another who had generated a net of electricity.

But they couldn't stun everyone. Not when Corba was running around disrupting their aim. Not when one of the transformed had grown twelve feet tall and was throwing them off the battlements like dolls.

And the longer the guards were kept busy, the easier it was for Erid and the other energy-wielders to strike. One after another, they blasted their adversaries into unconsciousness. The guards' ranks thinned moment by moment, until only a handful were left on either side of the yard.

Then a steely voice rang out: "This must stop!"

It was Osan. As Erid watched, the administrator came out onto the battlements, his hands notably empty of weapons. No doubt, he had seen how ineffective such things were against the transformed, and opted to take a different tack with them.

"We need to speak, not fight!" Osan cried out.

He signaled the guards to stop firing and held his hands out. It looked to Erid as if he were praying.

The transformed looked at each other-and desisted, as the administrator had asked. The yard grew quiet, though it was a decidedly uneasy quiet.

But Erid was skeptical. What did Osan think he was going to do? Marshal the forces of sweet reason against the misguided youths wreaking havoc in the prison yard?

As it turned out, that was exactly what the man thought. "This is insane," he told the transformed. "We're not your enemy. We're here to help you-to protect you from the outside world."

"We've heard that speech," someone called out.

"If you want to help us, open the gates and let us out!""

Or is it the outside world you want to protect from us?"

The administrator shook his head. "You've got to trust us. Whatever the problem is, we can work it out together."

Suddenly, Erid heard his own voice raised as well. "You wouldn't let me contact my parents!" he shouted.

Osan found him and looked at him. "Perhaps we can change that policy. Perhaps it wasn't necessary in the first place."

"Perhaps you're lying through your teeth!" someone shouted, his voice echoing dramatically in the yard.

Erid turned and saw Rahatan standing there, Denara and Leyden directly behind him. The earthmover pointed a finger at the administrator.

"You've kept us down and deceived us long enough!" he shouted. "Now it's time for you to reap what you've sown!"

Rahatan gestured and the walls of the fortress began to tremble, as if caught in the throes of an earthquake. Osan tried to protest, but his words were drowned by the sound of stone grating against stone.

Some of the guards were shaken off their perches. Those who managed to stay on their feet tried futilely to take aim at the transformed.

But the transformed had no trouble taking aim at them.

Erid sent a burst of energy at a guard. Someone else blasted another one. Then the rest of Osan's men leaped from the battlements, reluctant to get caught in the collapse of the wall.

The transformed in the yard were waiting for them. Leyden disarmed two of the guards and battered them with their own weapons. Denara enveloped one in her shield and cut his air off. And Seevyn sent more of them flying from imaginary pursuers, until they collided and knocked each other out.

Soon, there were no longer any guards on their feet. Of all the uniformed personnel in the fortress, only Osan was still conscious, still able to bear witness to the escape.

But the parapet beneath him was twisting and cracking. Large stones were coming loose and striking the ground with lethal force. Finally, with a sound of thunder, the wall wavered and caved in on itself-not in one place, but in several at the same time.

Osan fell, too. He dropped out of sight into the clouds of dust that billowed in the yard. For several long seconds, Erid choked and gasped for air. Then, as the clouds settled, he spied the administrator lying on a chunk of the ruined wall.

But was he alive? Erid hoped so. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone, just win his freedom.

Rahatan himself approached Osan, inspected the administrator's face. Then he turned to the other transformed, all of whom seemed to have the same question in their eyes.

"He's hurt, but alive," he announced. "Not that he deserves to be, after what he did to us."

Erid breathed a sigh of relief.

"But we're not done yet," Rahatan announced, his voice full of urgency. "Before the guards regain consciousness, we've got to bind them and place them in what's left of the cells. And those of us who were stunned must be revived. Quickly, now ..."

Erid didn't hesitate. Though covered with dust and sweat, he started to help with the binding of one of the guards.

Then Denara came over to him. "Rahatan wants us to check on Mollic."

Erid recalled the name. Paldul had mentioned it the other day. He's insane, the telepath had noted. And dangerous, too. He can set things aflame just by looking at them, so they don't dare let him out into the yard.

That was why Rahatan wanted Erid to accompany Denara-because Mollic was too dangerous for one of them. Getting up, he followed Denara in the direction of the cells.

When they got there, he saw that one of the outer walls had crumbled half away-the result of Rahatan's efforts, no doubt. Stepping over the rubble, Erid and Denara went inside and waded through the dust-ridden air.

There were barred cells on either side of a long corridor. Three of the ones on the left displayed ruined masonry and twisted bars. No doubt, they had held Rahatan, Denara, and Leyden.

The cells on the right, however, seemed perfectly intact, despite the tremors to which Rahatan had subjected the entire fortress. If Mollic was inside one of those those cells, as Denara had indicated, he might well have gone unscathed.

Before Erid could find out one way or the other, he heard a bizarre croaking sound. It repeated itself over and over. Turning to Denara, he noticed her lack of surprise.

"What is that?" he asked.

She grunted. "That's the man we're looking for." Then she pointed to the last cell on the right.

Erid followed her gesture. There was something about the croaking that made his skin crawl. Nonetheless, Rahatan had given him a job, and he meant to see it through.

As he walked the length of the corridor, the croaking grew louder and louder, echoing from wall to wall. Erid took the opportunity to glance to his right and left. All the other barred compartments were empty, he noticed. Only Mollic's was occupied.

Finally, he came to the cell he was looking for. All at once, the croaking seem to diminish in intensity, signifying Mollic's awareness of him. Clenching his jaw, Erid peered inside the compartment.

Mollic was in there, all right. But the fellow was naked, his garments shoved into a corner of his cell as if he no longer had any need of them. His skin was covered with razor-thin black stripes, and there were sacs on either side of his neck that inflated and deflated as he breathed.

"Are you all right?" Erid asked him.

For a moment, Mollic just stared at him. Then he smiled slyly and created a flash of fire in the s.p.a.ce between them.

Instinctively, Erid flinched. That made the transformed in the cell smile even more. He made another flash, and another.

"Mollic," he said in a reedy voice. "Mollic Mollic."

It was the sound Erid had heard before-but now, he knew it wasn't just a croak. It was the poor man's name.

"Mollic Mollic," said the prisoner.

Erid wanted to free him-but in this case, at least, he had to agree with Osan's approach. It would be better if they left Mollic where he was.

He turned back to Denara. "He seems all right. But if we take him with us, he's likely to hurt someone. Himself, maybe."

She nodded. "We'll have to get him some food, though. He may be here for a while before the government finds him."

Erid agreed.

As he and Denara went to find sustenance for the only transformed who would be left behind, he vowed never to curse his fate again. Ugly and afflicted as he was, he was still a lot better off than some people.

Chapter Ten.

IT HAD BEEN a long day.

Weary and begrimed like all the other transformed alongside him, Erid stood silently, almost reverently, amid the rubble of the fortress's eastern wall and considered the not-so-distant city of Verdeen.

It sprawled in the foothills, a scattering of bright lights that housed more than a hundred thousand people. The place looked calm, peaceful ... unaware of the momentous event that had occurred in the ancient structure above it.

Erid had a hard time grasping it himself. Minutes earlier, he had been a prisoner of the worldwide government. Now he and all the other transformed-with the exception of Mollic, of course-were prisoners no longer.

They were free.

"We did it!" Leyden thundered all of a sudden.

As if a dam had broken, a cheer went up from the throats of the transformed-all thirty-seven of them. Fists were pumped into the air. There was a sense of triumph, of invincibility, as if they had proven conclusively that there was nothing that could stand against them.

Nor could it have happened without Rahatan. Erid knew that and he was sure the others did, too.

Without Rahatan's spirit, none of the transformed would have found the courage to defy Osan. Without Rahatan's leadership, they would have been ensconced in their respective quarters at that very moment, staring into the darkness without hope or the prospect of any.

"Rahatan!" cried Denara.

"Rahatan!" sang the youth with the luminous eyes, which seemed even more radiant in the dying, orange light of dusk.

"Rahatan!" Leyden roared.

The earthmover didn't say anything. He just basked in the glow of their admiration, looking almost humble.

"What now?" asked Corba.

"Where should we go?" another of the transformed asked Rahatan.

He pointed to Verdeen, in all its splendor. "That's where we'll go," he told them.

"Into the city?" asked Denara.