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Ceremony. It all looked pretty enough, the clear white snow under the late afternoon sun, but winter weather was no fun at all when you had to fly through it at speed. Snow and ice produce bracing, if not downright bitter, winds, and the freezing air cut at the Paragons like knives as they shot through it on their way to the Arenas. Lewis and Finn crouched down behind the force shields that protected the front of their sleds, huddled inside their cloaks, and hunched their shoulders against the growing cold that gnawed at their bones. They could have slowed down, made it easier on themselves, but this was an emergency. People were in trouble.
    And, although neither Finn nor Lewis would ever have admitted it, even to themselves, neither of them would have given in first.
    The Arena was set square in the middle of the city, just as it had always been, a huge stone colosseum surrounding blood-soaked sands. The structure had been expanded several times over the last two centuries, but there was still a long waiting list for even the poorest seats, and the right to certain prime locations were jealously guarded and handed down only within the family. Everyone watched the holo broadcasts, of course, but everyone knew it wasn't the same as being there in person. These days, it was strictly volunteers only; and every would-be gladiator had to undergo a strict psychological profile before he or she was allowed out onto the bloody sands. And the current high levels of medical care meant that very few people actually died and stayed dead in the Arenas. But it was still all about courage and honor and skill, and putting them all on the line for the pleasure of the crowds. The Arenas had never been more popular. The Board of Directors had put on a special bill for Christmas and the Coronation, involving all the main champions, several tag teams, and a whole load of vicious and dangerous nonsentient aliens imported from all across the Empire. The crowd was the biggest ever, standing in the aisles shoulder to shoulder. The greatest show on Logres. And then the ELFs came.
    The ELFs. In the time of the blessed Owen Deathstalker, the espers discovered that they had been secretly manipulated by the needs and desires of their own subconscious gestalt mind; the Mater Mundi.
    Diana Vertue exposed this, and all the espers in the Empire joined together in a single great conscious gestalt, and took control of their own destiny for the first time. They called this mass-mind the oversoul.
    Millions of minds, working together, achieving miracles, never to be alone again.
    But some esper minds were too disturbed, or damaged, to remain a part of the gestalt. Their madness threatened the whole, and so they had to be expelled from the oversoul. Other minds removed
    themselves from the gestalt, fearing the loss of their individuality, afraid of domination by a conscious Mater Mundi. And some had secrets and shames and desires they would not share with anyone, turned their faces away, and hid in the shadows.
    These were the new ELFs; the Esper Liberation Force. Dedicated to liberating themselves from the tyranny of the oversoul. Banding together, seeing all others as enemies, the ELFs declared themselves clearly superior to the ungifted members of the human race and therefore destined to first rule and then replace baseline Humanity. They said the oversoul was mad and had to be destroyed. And since everyone was the enemy; any ELF attack, no matter how vicious, was really nothing more than self-defense. No one knew exactly how many ELFs there were. They struck from the shadows without warning, hurting the world before it could hurt them, exulting in the punishing of those who would hold them back from their rightful destiny.
    That's what everybody knows. But there were rumors . . . dark, ugly rumors.
    Some said the ELFs were led by the last of the super-espers: mental freaks and monsters created on the secret order of the Mater Mundi. Mad minds, terrible