Pythias

The narrator, a former medical student turned Senate guard, recounts how a longtime friend saved him during a violent attack by throwing himself onto an exploding grenade, then revealed that he had developed techniques to influence physical events through trained mental effort. The friend demonstrates small, startling feats and claims broader capabilities, drawing the narrator into secrets that unsettle him. Their renewed intimacy unravels when the narrator, aware of a crucial undisclosed action by the friend, deliberately shoots him; arrested and facing execution, the narrator anticipates a perfunctory trial while reflecting on motives, the moral ambiguity of violent salvation, and the dangerous promise of mind-linked power.