Why Seek Power? Kitarak Asks the Hard Questions - The Darkness Before the Dawn Chapter 5
This chapter is basically a walking interview. The three of them are crossing the desert toward Tyr, and Kitarak decides it’s the perfect time to figure out who he’s traveling with. But the way he does it tells you so much about who he is.
Keeping Up With a Giant Bug
First, the physical reality of this journey. Kitarak is a tohr-kreen. Long insectoid legs. Massive stride. Jedra and Kayan are normal-sized humans trying not to fall behind. They’re practically jogging just to keep pace with his casual walk.
Every conversation they have is happening while these two are slightly out of breath and sweating through their clothes. Not exactly the ideal conditions for a philosophical debate. But Kitarak doesn’t care about ideal conditions. He has questions.
The Big Question
Here’s the thing about Kitarak’s approach. He doesn’t ease into it. No small talk about the weather or the sand or the distance to Tyr. He goes straight for the throat.
“Do you lust for power?”
Just like that. Walking across the desert, casually asking two young psions whether they’re dangerous. He tells them there are only two reasons anyone seeks knowledge: genuine curiosity or lust for power. That’s it. Two categories. Pick one.
And honestly? It’s a great question. On Athas, everybody with psionic ability has to make this choice at some point. The sorcerer-kings chose power. The preservers chose curiosity. The defilers chose power and didn’t care what it cost. Every person with special abilities eventually faces this fork in the road.
Kitarak wants to know which fork Jedra and Kayan are heading toward before he invests any more time in them.
Two Very Different Answers
Kayan goes first, and her answer is the honest one. She says she just wants to use her abilities better. Being ignorant of your own powers isn’t just frustrating, it’s dangerous. You can hurt yourself. You can hurt other people. She’s not chasing power for its own sake. She wants control because the alternative is chaos.
Then Jedra opens his mouth.
“Power. Greed. I want to rule all of Athas with an iron fist.”
I laughed out loud at this line. It’s so perfectly Jedra. He’s nervous, the question is too serious, and his default response to serious things is to crack a joke. Deflect with humor. Classic defense mechanism from someone who spent his whole life on the streets where showing real feelings could get you killed.
Kitarak sees right through it. His response is perfect: “Do not take up gambling. You lie poorly.”
That one line tells you everything about their dynamic going forward. Kitarak is sharp, direct, and completely unimpressed by deflection. He’s also kind about it. He’s not mocking Jedra. He’s telling him: I see you. Stop hiding.
What Jedra Won’t Say Out Loud
Here’s where the chapter gets interesting on a quieter level. After the philosophical sparring, Jedra is left alone with his thoughts while they keep walking. And his mind doesn’t go back to power or psionics or the journey ahead.
It goes to Kayan.
He’s thinking about their kisses in the desert. He’s turning over the question of whether what he feels for her is actually love. Not a crush. Not attraction. Love. The real thing that makes you stupid and brave and terrified all at once.
The romance isn’t separate from the quest here. It’s tangled up in it. Jedra wants to understand his powers, but he also wants to be worthy of the person walking beside him. Those two drives push him in the same direction, and that’s smart writing.
Kitarak the Mentor
Something else is happening in this chapter that’s easy to miss. Kitarak is auditioning them and they’re auditioning him. Every question he asks, every observation he makes, reveals a mind that’s curious, patient, and deeply thoughtful. He’s not just testing them. He’s teaching them how to think about their own motivations.
By the end of the chapter, you can feel the shape of the relationship forming. Kitarak is becoming the mentor they’ve been looking for since they escaped into the desert. Not because he declared himself their teacher. But because he asked a question nobody else had bothered to ask them.
Why do you want this?
It’s the most basic question in any education and nobody on Athas seems to ask it. The sorcerer-kings don’t care why you want power. They care whether you’re useful or a threat. Kitarak cares about the answer itself. That’s what makes him different. And the fact that neither Jedra nor Kayan has a fully formed answer yet? That’s the point. They’re still figuring it out. Kitarak just wanted to make sure they were thinking about it at all.
Title: The Darkness Before the Dawn | Author: Ryan Hughes (Jerry Oltion) | Series: Dark Sun, Chronicles of Athas #2 | ISBN: 0-7869-0104-7