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bearings.
                When he’d initially bolted from the room where the platform was located, he’d tried to head for the maze, hoping to lose the eye worms by going to the gardens. But their numbers were too big. The creatures carpeted the floor, barring that route.
                His next bet was to head outside. Going toward the rock slab suspended above the crevasse was suicide, so he opted for the sandy desert outside the temple. But the eye worms seemed to have anticipated that move as well, leaving him with no other recourse than to dodge and weave his way through parts of the temple that had yet to be explored. Areas that were unknown to him. Which was how he’d ended up in that oddly-shaped little room.
                As he meandered through the narrow corridors, he kept his eyes peeled overhead. Like the maze leading to the gardens, the walls didn’t extend all the way to the vaulted ceiling, which rose hundreds of meters above them. More than once he debated whether he should try to get on top of the walls to try and get an overall view of the landscape, but he had to admit he didn’t have the energy.
                He could smell the heat coming from within his body. His footsteps left moist prints on the ground, and his handprints did the same on the walls he touched. Kyber knew he was sick, and prayed to the four gods it wasn’t from an infection.
                A scuffling noise broke through his prayers.
                He whirled around, a silent snarl lifting his lips to show the long canines. He raised his hands with claws extended and waited.
                A form drifted toward him—dark, out of focus, and foreboding. As it drew closer, a second shape joined it. Kyber could hear something but whatever it was, it sounded like gibberish. Growling, he raised his hands threateningly.
                Another noise alerted him something had snuck up behind him. He whirled around, uttering a deep-throated roar, when he was hit in the back with something that flared through his body with mind-numbing pain.
                He had no recollection of toppling to the ground, face first.

Chapter 7
    Prisoner
     
     
                Isup stared at the unconscious Seneecian lying on the floor. Kyber’s face was scratched and bloody, his hands and feet securely bound. His waist was wrapped in a blood-stained cloth and he was barefoot. Perspiration soaked the former Por D’har’s fur to the point where moisture puddled beneath his body.
                Giving a snort, Isup walked back over to the fire, taking a seat beside it. Plat dropped another rock into the blaze.
                “Something has made him sick,” Isup noted, speaking in Seneecian.
                “Screw you both! Speak where I can understand!” Dayall angrily demanded.
                “He said Kyber is ill,” Plat repeated in Terranese.
                “Well, hell, anyone can see that just by looking at him.” The ex-commander sniffed. “And he stinks.”
                “It happens when we are sick,” Isup noted.
                “His smell tells us his blood is tainted,” Plat continued.
                “Is he dangerous to us?” Dayall asked.
                “We will have to wait until he awakens,” Plat answered. “If he poses a threat, we will kill him.”
                “Why not kill him now?”
                “He could prove more valuable to us alive. But if he dies…” Isup left the comment hanging.
                “What good is he to us?” Dayall insisted.
                “His life,” Plat told him. “Those who follow him will try to rescue him. We will use him to lure them away.”
                “We will gain information about them,” Isup added.
                A breathy groan came