"He'll kill us all in the process," the other man said bluntly. "So what do we do?"

"We can take him," the first man said softly. "He's good, I'll grant you that, but there's three of us and

one of him. We'll have to get hold of Miscroft and explain just what's going on. Targyn can't use that crazy mind business on us because we're not Shields. It's just a case of three fighting men against one. We can handle those odds."

"Whatever we do it had better be quick. Since that other Shield arrived Targyn's been acting crazier than ever. He says he's going to prime the prisma, whatever that means."

"Let's find Miscroft. We'll make our move now. I think you're right. Targyn's mind is going fast and there's no telling what he'll do next."

Gryph listened to the conversation and decided there was an element of rationality to it. If the three bandits turned on Targyn they might just possibly take him. If they didn't succeed in that, they could at least distract him long enough for Gryph to do something permanent about Targyn's future. He lowered the arm he had raised in preparation for hurling the lock at a bandit head.

There was an old Shield saying to the effect that a little strategy went farther in the long run than a great deal of indiscriminate bandit bashing.

Unfortunately, strategy had its limitations. Even as Gryph made the decision to let the bandits pass down the corridor, he heard their choked yells.

"Targyn!" The first one sounded shaken. "Hey, wait a minute. What's the matter with you? We were only going to - "

A faint whooshing noise filled the corridor, followed by a gargled scream. Gryph recognized both sounds. The first was the deadly vibration of a throwing disk. The second was the sound of death. Scratch one bandit as a potential ally.

Gryph heard the panicked, scrambling noises the second man was making as he tried to fire a blade bow. He got off one wild shot, but the next moment he too fell with an unmistakable thud.

This was as much of a distraction as he was likely to get, Gryph decided. He had to move now while Targyn was still resonating with the satisfaction of his kills. This was the point at which a hunter was most vulnerable.

Gryph pinpointed Targyn's position in the corridor as best he could based on the length of time it had taken for the hurled throwing blades to cut down the two bandits.

He launched himself out into the hall. A part of him objectively noted that he had approximated Targyn's position quite accurately. The other Shield stood a few meters away, facing Gryph. His burning eyes were surveying his victims who lay on the floor in widening pools of blood. In his hand he held a third throwing blade. Targyn was well-trained. He left little to chance.

Gryph sent the heavy metal lock hurling toward Targyn along a trajectory that would have caught the other man in the throat if all had gone well.

But it didn't. Targyn saw the flicker of movement an instant before Gryph appeared in the corridor. He reacted to it instinctively, throwing his lethal blade even as he whipped himself to one side.

The lock struck Targyn's shoulder instead of his throat. Targyn's blade whooshed down the corridor toward Gryph, who was no longer occupying the middle of it. It missed its target by scant centimeters.

As soon as he had launched his own poor weapon, Gryph had followed it toward its goal. He leaped the bodies of the bandits in the process and closed the gap between himself and Targyn swiftly. He had to reach the other Shield before Targyn could rearm himself.

But Targyn made no move to pull another weapon from his kit. Instead he slapped his fingers over the prisma lock. A deathly grin stretched his lips and an unnatural glitter lit his eyes.

Gryph sensed the mental blast of light a fraction of a second before it hit him. That small warning saved his life, but the blow stopped him cold. He went down beneath it as surely as if Targyn had struck him with a blade.

Instinctively he fought the slamming force of the light inside his head the same way he bad fought it before. But this time he had no prisma to use as a focus tool.

Somehow ne caught his mental balance and blocked the paralyzing rays before they could rip his mind to shreds. His whole body vibrated with the energy it was taking to adjust to the strange battle. He didn't know how he was managing the defense without his prisma lock, but he didn't question it. Gryph simply held on.

He opened his eyes and saw Targyn braced a short distance away. The other man's eyes widened and his grin broadened.

"This," Targyn said, "is going to be interesting."

Gryph's only consolation was that Targyn apparently had to exert as much physical energy in focusing the mind blast as Gryph was using to block it. At least the rogue Shield couldn't cut him to pieces with a blade while holding him pinned with the invisible light rays.

But Gryph knew he couldn't hold out for long. Already Targyn's mental weapon seemed to be gathering energy and strengthening itself. Targyn's fingers played on the prisma lock as if the man were searching for just the right wavelength.

Gryph closed his eyes, satisfied that his enemy was as physically immobilized as he was. For all the good that did. Then he started concentrating on feeling his way back along the wavelengths of painfully brilliant light that were trying to shatter him.

He had thought about this a lot during the past few hours. He'd had little else to do but think about it while locked in the prison chamber.

His only hope lay in the suspicion that projecting the kind of mind violence Targyn was projecting couldn't be too dissimilar from projecting thoughts and images. The mechanics of the thing had to be the same, Gryph had reasoned. And he'd had plenty of experience lately projecting images into Sariana's head.

He concentrated the way he would if he had his lock under his fingers. The pulsing rays of light separated under his mental touch, just as they would if he were tracking prisma. Gryph found the ones he wanted and started the task of countering their rhythm, feeding the pattern back upon itself and projecting it.

The first indication he had of any success was when Targyn screamed in rage. "You bastard! Do you think you can play this game? I'll show you how weak you are." Gryph sensed the redoubling effort Targyn was making and he moved to counter it before the new

blast could strike.

The battle was fought in an agonizing silence, the blood of the dead bandits trickling between Gryph's bare feet as he stood braced in the corridor.

Targyn screamed again, rage and hatred flaring out along the invisible beam of mental light. Gryph caught the rage and hatred and sent it pulsing back along with the full force of the beam. Targyn's control faltered for a moment. It resumed almost immediately, but Gryph had sensed the