Shadows swallowed the rotting piles of debris that lined the alley as evening crept upon the village of Korsa.  The dark, cramped passage was empty except for a lone figure slinking along the wall, a tiny animal close at his heels.  The youth peered cautiously into the dusky surroundings, at last pausing and lowering himself behind a stack of discarded barrels and crates.  Oblivious to the filth and cobwebs that festooned the hiding place, he curled up and closed his eyes, all but invisible in the shadows.  His companion, a diminutive fennec fox, flattened her oversized ears in disgust and pressed herself against the young man's legs.  He stroked her reassuringly with a long-fingered hand.

                The youth, about twenty or so years in age, was built short and slight, his thinness at least partly due to a lack of adequate meals.  Unruly blond hair framed his narrow, high-cheekboned face; large eyes of greenish-hazel peered out beneath thick, arching eyebrows.  His nose was straight and fine, his mouth full-lipped and pouting, giving him an almost effeminate appearance.

                He yawned, watching Ary yap threats at a rather large rat that had sneaked out of one of the barrels, and at last drifted off into an uneasy sleep, his mind alert for suspicious approachers.  He awoke not a few hours later and got to his feet; nighttime was when he travelled.

                The black, star-specked sky had transformed the alley into a lightless tunnel.  The youth crept slowly forward, carefully navigating the rubble-strewn ground, his only protection a small knife and his innate telepathic powers.  A sudden gust of stale wind that carried the foul odor of Korsa's slums caused him to shiver in his thin, worn shirt and breeches.  He had no change of clothes; he didn't even have any food, his only nourishment being whatever scraps he could find, steal, or beg.  There weren't many citizens in all of the tyrannical Queen Einyna's realm who respected or even tolerated telepaths, and he was constantly on the move, his days one long nightmare lined with dread of discovery.

                After almost two weeks in the small village of Korsa, it was time to slip out--news of his abilities had reached the ears of the villagers.  He ran a finger along one of the many bruises that darkened his fair skin, remembering all too vividly the enraged, hostile shouts, the fiercely hurled stones, the disgust and fear that seethed through the people's minds.  He didn't dare leave the deserted alleys in the sun's revealing rays--they would slaughter him if given the chance.

                The youth froze, his hand instinctively grasping his knife, as Ary let out a soft growl of warning.  Then he felt it--something in his mind not his own, a sense of intrusion disturbing his thoughts.  Someone was approaching!  In one agile movement he melted into the blackest shadow, crouched down and drew his knife.  Footsteps disrupted the stuffy silence.  Not just one person--several men, at least four, coming from both directions.  Fervently thankful for the darkness, the telepath held his breath, waiting for the men to pass by.  They didn't.

                "All right, Nicholas, we know you're back here," a deep voice suddenly exclaimed, startling the youth so badly that he nearly leaped out into the exposing lantern beam that was mercilessly probing the shadows.  He gulped, one hand resting on a trembling Ary, his knife clenched tightly in the other.  He loathed hurting anyone, even in self-defense--his telepathy forced him to feel others' pain as if it were his own.

                “Come on out, you pretty-faced telepath," a second voice demanded, and the harsh beam of light lanced across the wall just inches from where Nick cowered shuddering, his heart thudding relentlessly.  He seemed to be surrounded; he couldn't run.  As quietly as possible he slunk along the bricks, and after a yard or two his boot-clad foot nudged a solid stack of crates.  He scrambled up into them, out of the reach of the lantern's glow, and froze.  His stalkers disturbed the stillness of the passage with beckoning calls, threats, and heavy footsteps.  Nick heard the metallic ringing of chainmail and stiffened as icy shock coursed through his veins and numbed his limbs.  The queen's own guards--after him!!    

                The lantern beam, blinding in the darkness, sliced through the shadows below Nick's precarious perch, revealing the stack of crates, and then swung upward.  The youth froze; the light framed his crouching form against the brick wall.  Eyes wide, he spun around and lost his footing as the crates slid from beneath him and toppled to the ground with a resounding crash.  Ary shrieked as she plummeted down onto the fallen telepath's chest.  Nick shielded his gaze from the exposing glow and tried frantically to leap to his feet, but his legs, buried beneath the crushing load of tumbled crates, responded only with sharp flares of fire.  He cried out in pain and terror and rolled away from the light.

                "There he is!" one of the guards shouted triumphantly, lunging forward.  Nick gasped, squeezed his eyes shut and desperately summoned his talent.  He let loose a mental bolt into the guard's mind and the man spun around, confused, and the lantern smashed to the ground.  The shadows quickly draped their shroud back over the alley but it was too late--there were too many men.  Rough hands grabbed the youth's shoulders before he could gather enough energy for sufficient confusion, and his weak mental lashes hardly fazed the hulking guards.  Someone tore the knife from his hand, slicing a bleeding gash across his fingers.

                "Don't even try to escape," one of the men snarled in Nick's face as he dragged the telepath from the rubble and held him up by the front of his shirt.  "It won't do you any good."

                "Einyna will be so pleased," the guard with the deep voice gloated, seizing Nick's wrists and binding them tightly while another man tied his ankles.

                The youth screamed, swore and thrashed wildly as the coarse rope cut into his flesh.  A vicious blow to his face ended his resistance and started a trickle of blood from his nose.

                "I thought I told you not to struggle, little mindreader," a guard sneered.  Nick cringed at the brutality and wicked glee that radiated forcefully from the man's mind.  He let himself go limp, concentrating only on pulling enough air into his gasping lungs.  At least Ary got away, he thought to himself as the guards hauled him out of the alley and through the darkened, indifferent streets of Korsa.

                The last thing he saw before he succumbed to pain and despair and blacked out was the face of a solitary woman staring at the proceedings through a lone lit window.  The relief she felt upon seeing the telepath captured seared into Nick's semiconscious mind and he let out one last cry of anguish.

* * * *

                The youth came to, bruised and hurting all over, in a dank, foul-smelling cell deep in the moldering bowels of Queen Einyna's castle.  Teeth gritted against the pain that lanced through his limbs, he forced himself to sit up, and leaned against the cold stones of the wall.  He wiped crusted blood from his face and tried to focus his blurred vision and muddled thoughts.  Staring despondently at the tiny barred window on the cell door that let in nothing but more greyness, he wondered what the hated queen could possibly want with an outcast like him.

                It wasn't long before he found out.  And regretted ever wondering.  Just minutes after he regained consciousness, the heavy door grated open and he was rudely dragged down a series of musty, moss-streaked corridors.  Too weak to even attempt to resist, he yelped in pain as the guards shoved him into a room filled with crude metal instruments that poked glistening needles out from the dimly-lit corners.  Nick huddled miserably in the center of the chamber, tied again, until after an eternity the queen herself strutted in.

                "Good morning, telepath," Einyna sneered, tossing her dark hair over a shoulder and dusting off her richly brocaded robes.  "Are we ready to begin our--`experiments?’"

                Nick slumped to the floor as dreadful realization struck.  He eyed with wild terror the gleaming torture instruments that loomed in every corner like greedy claws and shrank from the approaching woman, trying to swallow the bile that rose in his throat and filled his mouth.  And trying not to imagine what those instruments would do to him.  Einyna's intentions were as clear as if she had voiced them; she meant to corrupt his abilities and make them her own.