Lineage IX

Chapter 16

The Enclave's graceful curve sheltered the west-facing meditation gardens from the rising sun, velveting the paths and groomed shrubbery in a soft gloaming half-light. Mating thranctills circled and dove above the Khoonda plains to the east, their graceful bodies silhouetted in fire against the bright young star. Insects chirped and buzzed, tiny drazzils skittered among the undergrowth, cunningly placed fountains and a meandering rivulet skipped and chuckled between the loosely connected grottos and courtyards. The Force coiled like heavy incense in each of the hallowed shrines along the way, nourished and sustained by Dantooine's thriving wilderness and the generations of Jedi who had trod the graveled paths smooth.

Dooku chose a hushed green cloister near the far end, one paved in concentric circles about a shallow reflecting basin. Here they knelt, drawing in breath and the Force in equal measure, slowly submerging themselves into the universal lifesource. The morning spread like a rising flood on all sides as they plunged deep, deep into the world's nexus, master and apprentice together. As always, Dooku led the way, blazing a trail through the Force's pulsing currents, his purpose honed to a saber's burning edge. Obi-Wan let himself be drawn in by the Sentinel's focus – and yet, on this morning, a part of him also soared free, unfettered and giddy with a indefinable nascence.

Even as they spiraled ever deeper into the contorted paths of the future, of unfolding conspiracy, of the myriad webs of possibility, he remained aloft in present radiance, the throbbing life of the planet seeping into his awareness like intoxicating drink, like the warmth of an ethereal sun. Somewhere, deep in the galaxy's center: a dark weaver tangling a treacherous skein, wrapping knots within knots, spinning illusion and deceit - his presence a vague certainty, a shadow of a shadow, the portent of things yet unrevealed. Here, in the now: the Force pouring endlessly over the edge of its infinite fountain, reshaping, renewing, rejoicing, resounding in soundless chorus.

Attend to the Living Force, young padawan.

I am, Master. At last.

It was a place long forgotten but suddenly rediscovered, an awakening so subtle that it left not a ripple in the broader currents yet so profound that his very marrow thrilled with it.

"Attend," Dooku warned, sensing his apprentice's divided focus.

"Yes, Master." Except here, the Force alone was master and guide, and even as he allowed his mind to slip deeper into the Sentinel's own questing trance, he stood aloof, saturated by the eternal morning, laughing with the shards of light upon the reflecting pool's surface, bottomless heaven mirrored in a delicate scrying glass.

Syfo-Dyas. The enemy.

I am his death. I am death.

And yet …There is no death, the swelling day proclaimed.

I am death. There is no death. There is only the Force.

"Attend," Dooku growled, frustrated by their disharmony, by the counterweight of the younger man's unruly focus.

Deep in the Living moment, there was no death, his or any other's. And there was no destiny, no weight of debt and guilt, no ruthless fate to be fulfilled. No grief, no loss, no loneliness, no dark horizon. Only the Force.

And it was one, and it was many.

Part of that many silvered the dancing light with gentle mirth. You should attend, don't you think?

"…Master Uvain?" Why – how – are you here?

I am here because you are here.

But…

Oh, sweetheart. Be strong. Keep your face to the Light. Do not forget.

"Padawan!" Dooku's sharp bark of exasperation shattered through his distraction, his inward focus splintering into a gasping realization, Light spilled and flooding back into the outward, into sensation, leaving only a glimmering meniscus at the bottom of his soul.

He opened his eyes, blinded by the serrated morning light glinting off the Enclave's roof. "I am sorry, Master."

Dooku's angular face was impassive, those his deep-set eyes burned with thwarted purpose. "You do not generally suffer from an attention deficit… at least in the absence of Padawan Tachi," the Sentinel observed trenchantly.

"Forgive me, Master. The Force is… different here." It was the same, it was unchanging, it was everything. It was beyond imagining.

The older man stood, tsking in his throat as he brushed miniscule flecks of dust off his trousers. "It is of little consequence. We have other matters to pursue. We shall express our gratitude to the Keeper and return to the ship after morning meal."

"Yes, Master." It was with some regret that he trailed in the senior Jedi's shadow, leaving the garden and its revelations behind. But theirs was a path of action and duty, as well as contemplation. And they still had work to do.

They descended in stately procession, wending a steady spiraling path deep into the mountain's bowels. The mistress of the Ieng'lis led the way, her train rasping featherlight against the rough hewn steps as she glided down the endless passage. Qui-Gon paced in her wake, followed by a double-line of her squat underlings, the latter making more racket as they stumped down the stairwell than a bevy of overenthusiastic demolition droids tackling a scrapped freighter.

As they penetrated deeper into the cold rock, the air chilled to a cutting edge and the natural phosphor glow of the native mineral dulled and hollowed; in the reflected light of the pale ingrained threads, the Angel's white flesh transformed, gradually losing its apparent radiance; soon she appeared ghostly and grey, delicate bones jutting beneath translucent flesh, the gaunt traces of skull and skeleton picked out in harsh highlight, the glimmer of her Iegan silk robes muted to a funerary pallor.

She was ancient, as burdened and memory-laden as the Old One, a creature weathered by centuries of loss, of strife. When they reached the bottommost step, she turned haggard eyes upon her guest. "Here you must go on alone. This is your Trial."

The Force was weighted here, quiescent and furled, waiting in ambush. Qui-Gon inhaled deeply, searching for an elusive center - the massive edifice of the mountainside, the fortress at its crown, the long history of this dying race compressing the moment into a nebulous fluidity, slippery and mutable. Dark and Light swirled, blending uneasily.

"What must I do?" he asked, not knowing whence the mistress derived her strange authority, nor what lay ahead.

A long, bony hand was thrust in the direction of the black aperture before them, a cave mouth wafting icy breath over their unshod feet, its secrets shrouded in impenetrable ink. "You will enter this place. One of those you find therein must die, if your quest is to move forward. Choose well and strike surely."

"Jedi do not kill in vain."

The lady of the Ieng'lis narrowed her eyes. "Nothing is done in vain within these chambers. Do this or turn back on your path. I will not send one unworthy to sit at the feet of the Shaman."

He grasped the 'saber hilt at his side and nodded once, tersely. He felt the vergence ahead, the terrible compression of the Force here, gathered into a silent vortex at the roots of the mountain. He would face whatever perils were here contained, and choose wisely. There was no other option but that of cowardice.

Immediately upon his entrance, the cold claimed him, gnawing through his gauzy raiment and shivering flesh straight to the bone. Shuddering, he lurched forward, numb toes scraping against hardened rock, unsmoothed surfaces. Sight failed him, wrapped as he was in smothering blackness, but his other senses and the murky Force guided him surely forward, pulling him to some inexorable center where shadow and radiance pooled together, wedded in unlikely alliance.

He moved, unable to resist the deepening trance, unwilling to turn back, to fail. The walls and air seemed to meld into one thing, until he was propelled through a yielding medium neither dark nor light, neither solid nor liquid, neither physical nor psychic.

And was ushered, dizzy, into a blank sanctuary, an opening and easing of the pressure all about him, a withdrawing of the Force's terrible presence, both sides releasing their crushing hold upon his heart and limbs. He fell forward, panting, a cold sweat chilled to frost upon his skin, pulse throbbing in his veins. His knee hit a sharp edge in the floor, and the pain shot up his thigh, real and dangerous. His 'saber crystal chimed – mewled, whined- a feeble protest against the overbearing fullness, the invisible ramparts on all sides.

He stood, waiting.

And there, out of the gloom, out of the hidden light, a man stepped.

"Feemor!" The cry of greeting, or pained recognition, of unbelieving welcome was wrung from his lips.

His first padawan looked up at him – the difference in age between them eroded to inconsequence by the passing decades, the difference in stature not – and smiled, a once-familiar radiance warming the Force, however briefly. Feemor was hearty and hale and laughing, the golden hair at his temples finally turned to silver, the lines about his eyes deeper than once they had been, furrows carved by decades of quiet laughter. Yes, the man was always laughing, though never impertinent, never cynical. Qui-Gon remembered.

He clasped his former student to his breast, laughing also. "It has been far too long." he chided, as though some paltry command of his own had been violated. "Why are you here, Feemor?"

The other Knight smiled enigmatically. "I am here because you are here, of course."

Qui-Gon sobered, nodding once. "Of course." The herald of things to come. The first vision, precursor to others more terrible.

Feemor grasped him about the upper arm. "Brother," he said, all earnestness now, the laughter fled from his warm eyes. "Choose wisely and strike surely. Those who follow after me… it will not be so easy."

Was this an invitation? Qui-Gon stared.

Feemor nodded, gentle as ever, hands folded before him. "This is the easiest path, Qui-Gon. Heed my words."

"No," the tall Jedi scoffed. "I will not strike you down." Never. He reached out again, trying vainly to close hands upon tabards, upon flesh- but Feemor disappeared into the surrounding night, into the womb of the potential, a faint and wistful chuckle echoing behind.

Qui-Gon sighed, and knelt, knowing even as he adopted the ingrained posture that meditation would be impossible here. Here, he was a thing tested, subject to the Force's whim. Consolation it would not grant, nor peace without its concomitant price.

An illusion, he reminded himself. But was not the Force more real than sense? Were they not luminous beings far more than this gross matter? Which was truth and which illusion?

"Philosophy always made your head turn, didn't it, Master?" A cold voice, knifing through the void, slicing a ragged vent in the plenum, an open wound through which it slid like a narrow shiv's blade.

He did not open his eyes. "Xanatos. You are dead."

"One with the all-living Force," the younger man taunted. "Like Tahl, Master. She and I have more in common now. She never trusted me, you know. That bitch."

He was on his feet in the next instant, blade alight. His second padawan prowled about him, predatory, deriving perverse satisfaction from the spectacle of his mentor reduced to such unbecoming passion. The Dark crested and rose, howling and keening at the margins of awareness. The 'saber thrummed.

Qui-Gon deactivated the blade. Illusion. Reflections of the ego, of fear, nothing more.

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" Xanatos' arrogant chuckle resounded off some distant ceiling, within the tall man's aching bones. "Well? Are you going to strike me down? You didn't have the guts the first time… or the second time…or ever. Coward. Old man. You make a pretty picture, Qui-Gon. They'll put a bust of you among the memorials to the Lost… crechelings will tell tales of your folly and delusion."

"Then they will tell tales," the Jedi master replied, recovering his serenity with an effort.

The raven-haired man snorted, raised his own weapon, brandishing it in an aggressive salute. "The circle is complete," he snarled, falling into dueling stance.

"I will not strike you down this time, either."

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and waited the blow… but none came. Xanatos faded into decayed memory. For a moment, before his phantasm was obliterated, it stood erect, a loosely knit jumble of bones held together by corroded tendons, strips of melting flesh hung like pennants off socket and joint… and then collapsed into a pool of nothingness, of fading deception, and was gone.

The tall man sank again to his knees, gathering what tatters of the Force he could, breathing a kindling spark into his failing body. It was deadly cold, the frigid walls of his outer prison no mere illusion. And he waited, trembling.

Time passed, and he fought the numbing hand of death, and he felt the tight coiling about him as the Force closed in again, merciless, probing his very depths. And then it parted, abruptly, an ethereal warmth brushing over his senses before the next –and dreaded – apparition could make its advent.

An exhalation, staccato with the muted rattle of chattering teeth, just beside him. He reached sideways, impulsively, and his fingers closed about solid flesh. Warm, Blood moving beneath icy skin, a pulse fluttering under his touch. His eyes snapped open.

He watched the uncoiling cloud of vapor as the younger Jedi exhaled again. "Obi-Wan."

He watched the furrow of concern stamp itself between his third padawan's brows. "What are we doing here, Master?"

He watched as long chestnut strands wafted gently in a cold updraft, frost settling among the unbound hairs. A pair of equally frost-bedecked brows rose as bright eyes skimmed over his shimmering and insufficient garb, a jest lurking at the corner of nearly-blue lips. The young man's snort of amusement issued forth as another puff of silvered cloud.

"Obi-Wan. You're here, too."

"Well." The voice deepened a trifle, signifying droll humor. "From a certain point of view."

"Where… where is your braid?" He looked again, and noticed the scruff faintly adorning the familiar pugnacious jawline.

"Master, you are mocking me. Shame."

Qui-Gon's hand tightened about his 'saber's hilt. "Are there… others… coming?" he asked, hoarsely. Let there be at least one other. If he must choose among those here…

Obi-Wan stood and jerked his head round.. "Blast it. Where in stars' name has he got to? I –"

"I'm here," a petulant squeak answered. Followed by a child.

Qui-Gon slowly found his feet, shaded his eyes with his hand. The boy was rimmed in blinding light, a nimbus of painful intensity. Who…?

"Master Qui-Gon sir!" the newcomer chirped, drawing nigh. His halo scintillated, pierced beneath lowered eyelids, stabbed into the senses.

And then it transformed to fire, to consuming black flame, licking about the child's features, wreathing him in a crown of ash and flame, consuming without destroying.

"Who is that?" the Jedi master inquired, helplessly.

Obi-Wan bowed his head. "Master, I …."

The flaming figure watched them, hesitant. The fires were banked, reverting to white actinic brightness again. "Master Qui-Gon? What's the matter?"

The tall man shook his head, vertigo clawing at his senses. The Force gathered round, smothering. Commanding. A choice must be made.

Obi-Wan's hand was on his sleeve now; he became aware of his fingers clenched about his weapon's hilt. "Not him, Master. He's…"

"He's dangerous, Padawan. And I must choose one."

The grip about his wrist tightened. "He's dangerous, but you must let him be. He's.. needed. Special. To the Force."

The child blazed wrathfully again, going up in immolating fire, mercuric and untrammeled – wild. Untamed. Dangerous.

Qui-Gon blinked furiously in the hot effluvia off this terrible figure. "Obi-Wan, I must choose one here."

His student looked up at him – why did they always look up?- with knowing eyes, far too wise and burdened for their years. "Choose me, then," he said. "I am ready. And there are no others after us."

The child waited, watchful and grave, wreathed in lightless fire. "I need you , Master Qui-Gon sir!"

The emerald saber's blade thrummed sonorous in the stifling dark. Choose wisely and strike well.

Obi-Wan knelt before him, head bowed in obedience, patiently waiting the blow. "Master. There is no try."

"No." The weapon expired. Qui-Gon closed his eyes, shut out the suffocating embrace of the Force, the dirge rolling in his blood. "No. I will not choose any of you." He turned the 'sabers' hilt inward, toward himself, poised below his ribcage, toward his laboring heart.

If this was illusion, he was woven of the same stuff. All was one in the Force.

The bright and blinding child cried out, convulsing in horror, in denial.

Obi-Wan looked up at him, too insightful and weary for his years… eyes glazing with terrible knowledge.

He breathed out, into the Force. There is no death, my padawan.

And he thumbed the activation switch.