This man may have unmasked him, to be sure. The Council might even now be sending men to take him, but this spy would never know the results of his work. He would profit nothing here.
He flipped the distorter from under his arm.
As the Master Protector started to raise his distorter, Naran felt a sharp twinge of regret. He had resigned himself to this, and had made his preparations, but he hated to leave Barra to someone else. Of course, the man had no chance now. The disturbance he had keyed himself to make if he were hit with a distorter would be heard by every scholar in Ganiadur, and by half the Council. But—
Suddenly, he felt a sort of pity for the killer before him. The guy wasn’t really altogether to blame. He’d been living for all these years with everything against him.
Born into a psionic family, he had been the family skeleton—a thing of disgrace—to be hidden from the rest of the world and given tolerant protection.
And when this barely tolerated being had managed somehow to gain power and get amplifying devices? Well—
The crystal was leveled at him now. He looked at it indifferently, thinking of the man who held it.
“Poor, lonesome weakling!”
Abruptly, the clearing was lit up by a blinding red glare. Naran closed his eyes against the searing light. [p 46] Seconds went by and he opened his eyes again, looking about the village in confusion.
Had he somehow managed to retain full consciousness of ego, even after being reduced by a distorter beam? Was there a release into some other state of being? He had felt no—