Moments of Truth/Part 11

Zaella could only watch Tirien teaching the Guudrians about the galaxy for so long before the inanity of it became too much. His belt imagecaster could project a holo of the galaxy, and even zoom in and out at will for a bold attempt at conveying scale, but there was only so much beings who had never left the same ten square kilometers could comprehend about a galaxy more than a hundred thousand light years across. He'd had the wisdom to invite Guudrians of different ages, not just Boss Mukka and her usual entourage, but Zaella thought it was no use building a tower of durasteel on a sand base.

She stepped out of the Big House into the muggy afternoon; it had rained the day before, and though the earthen streets were still slippery with mud, the oldsters among the natives swore a second storm was on its way. Zaella made her way toward the edge of town, feeling the aches where Narasi had landed blows in their latest sparring match. They had sparred every day since the river, and even though Zaella felt she was learning more about Narasi's style all the time, she continued to lag behind the Jedi in their duels. Narasi had never yet walked away without a bruise of her own, but the more they fought, the more she adapted to Zaella's style and the better she defended against it.

Zaella didn't understand; Juyo was supposed to be invincible. She might have been lied to, but if Darth Alecto really was a Juyo expert herself, that didn't seem to be the case; certainly nobody had yet brought the Sith heroine down, and from the tidbits Zaella had pried out of Narasi, it sounded like some impressive people had tried. No, Zaella was inclined to believe, painful as it was, that Narasi had been right: Juyo was a style rooted in the mastery of other, lesser forms, and training in Juyo alone just didn't cut it.

Just one of the many ways Izkara and Lady Hadan had shortchanged her.

Without meaning to, Zaella found her feet carrying her to the flagstoned steps leading down to the Jedi shrine. She still woke at a ridiculous hour each morning to attend meditation with the Jedi and Jebba; Tirien did not require her to come, but would not leave her alone on the ship, and she thought she might learn something eavesdropping—or, failing that, be able to take a nap indoors rather than against one of the Second Chance ' s landing struts. Feeling the Jedi in the midst of their meditation was strange and uncomfortable; even Zaella could sense they had things on their minds, but they felt more at peace than at any other time during the day, and they reinforced each other at it. With Jebba secluded in the non-Sith section of the shrine too, Zaella had grown accustomed to the feeling of exclusion, of being the other—the extra in the group, the cargo the Jedi hadn't planned to bring along.

Then, the day after the river, Narasi had declined to enter the corae, staying outside in the main shrine to meditate with Zaella instead.

If it was hard to like Narasi—and there was a challenge in liking someone who had reduced her to begging for her life to avoid death by lightsaber-to-the-face—it was harder to hate her, too. Sometimes Narasi looked at her like an outsider, her distrust plain; other times she went out of her way to rope Zaella into whatever she was doing. Zaella had not stopped committing to memory all the details about the Jedi and their ship she could, for her eventual defection to the Sith Empire, but she found it easy, almost natural, to teach Narasi Juyo techniques as they came up. She felt lost without a GPS; she did not know what Darth Alecto or the other Imperial Sith would do, never having met any, but neither did it serve any purpose to wonder what Izkara or Lady Hadan might have done. Something destructive, probably.

Zaella had no illusions that Tirien was warming to her; since he had cut off tchun's tip, their conversations had been few and spare. Even when she tagged along for breakfast—since the Guudrians had accepted Tirien and Narasi as Jedi, different families had invited them to breakfast each morning, and Tirien thought it rude to refuse—most of the questions were for the Jedi, and Tirien spoke to her only to offer her a plate going around. True, he had invited her to his galactic geography class, but Zaella was not fooled by the pretense of inclusion. He was the real reason Narasi would not return her lightsaber, and Zaella had not forgotten his ultimatum: either she met their standard by the time they returned to the Republic—by which she knew he meant his standard—or they would turn her over to the Jedi Council for…what did the Jedi Council do with former Sith Apprentices? Would she be handed over to Republic Intelligence and tortured for information? That seemed like them; they might not sully their hands with sharp questioning themselves, but with the Republic under their heel now, they had plenty of less scrupulous lackeys to do it for them. Or perhaps they would judge her of too little value and just disappear her to some nameless world where the Republic held its most reviled? Assuming her custodians were not instructed that she should have an 'accident' on the way.

Zaella waved a hand to open the doors of the shrine, relishing the chance to use the Force efficiently without the Jedi throwing her disapproving looks. Muscle memory had her boots off before she realized what she was doing; she considered putting them back on just for spite, but shook that thought off. Spite was all well and good—spite was really just a form of hate, and hate was power—but pettiness reminded her too much of Izkara. Alone in the shrine, Zaella walked a circle around the corae, noting the uniformity of the shrine's design—window placement, flooring, even decorative wall motifs. That fit the Jedi obsession with control and order, she thought, though a Sith could respect imposing order on chaos as well.

Once she had circumnavigated the main shrine, Zaella snapped her fingers, listening to the way the sound echoed off the conical ceiling. She whistled, then hummed in the back of her throat. Among her few talents not related to harming others, Izkara had been a good singer with a pleasant mezzo-soprano voice; Zaella wondered offhand what her dead master could've made of this space.

She toyed with the idea of meditating; there was a perverse appeal to dwelling on her hatred and rage here, pulling the power of the dark side into a Jedi shrine. The more she thought, though, the more she realized she was less vindictive than she was curious.

''Keep me out, will you? 'She's not one of us'? If it's that important, you should've been a better babysitter instead of playing starchart with the Guudrians''. Smirking, she opened the door to the corae and stepped inside.

She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but she knew she was disappointed anyway. It was just an octagonal room with a little cut-in for a shrub. Above, she saw some wooden carvings that looked vaguely familiar, though she had no idea what they were supposed to represent; at the peak of the corae ' s narrowed ceiling was a patch of gray cloud.

"This is it?" she said aloud in Twi'leki. "Yeah, real deep secrets here, Jebba. It's an octagon and a plant."

She kicked the shrub's trunk hard enough to make all its leaves wobble…and when she did, she felt an answering ripple in the Force. Caught off guard with one leg in the air, she windmilled her arms and almost fell; seizing the door frame at the last second, she felt her body weight jerk her shoulders until she wrenched herself upright. Staring at the shrub with narrowed eyes, she asked, "What are you?"

The shrub did not answer, but from behind her a voice said, "You should not be there."

Still clinging to the door frame, Zaella spun so quickly she whacked the thickest part of tchun against the wall in her haste and her vision blurred. Clinging to the wall with one hand and clasping her bruised lek with the other while she tried to force stability back into her legs, she got her eyes focused enough to see the stocky little priest, Jebba, standing in the middle of the shrine's curve with a frown on his lips and narrowed eyes.

"Shouldn't you be learning about the great big galaxy with Tirien?" she fired back.

"Jedi Kal-Di has been generous with his knowledge, and I've learned far more than I had ever guessed, but there's too much for one lesson. We've taken a break for lunch, and I thought I'd come here and meditate." Zaella hadn't gotten used to the strange, checkered eyes of the Guudrians, and the intensity of Jebba's gaze unnerved her. "Did you already know everything he was teaching us?"

"More or less," Zaella lied. She knew galactic geography well enough, but the politics underlying certain regions had been revelations to her, as had the scope of the Sith Empire's conquests. But she had no desire to appear ignorant in front of Jebba.

"And yet you didn't want to offer your own knowledge and perspective to us?"

Dammit, there's no winning with these people. "Not my job," Zaella reminded him, stepped out of the corae and rapping one of its eight walls with her knuckles. "Not a Jedi, remember?"

Jebba nodded. "You're a Sith, are you not?"

Cold stole over Zaella, and when she spoke her voice was harsh with surprise, not threat. "Did the Jedi tell you that?"

Neither Tirien nor Narasi had said it in her hearing, but as soon as she said the words their obviousness struck her. Tirien was so desperate to get control over the situation on Guudria, and any chance his plans might be upset was too great a risk. He wasn't going to execute her himself, but by telling the truth he could wash his hands of any responsibility for her actions if she deviated from his plan—maybe even justify killing her in his own mind. Yes, it all made sense when she thought it out…

Jebba shook his head. "No."

Which pulled Zaella up short and left her wrongfooted. He might be lying, of course…but even as she thought it she reached into his mind and felt no deceit. Izkara might not have been the most diligent master, but she had trained her apprentice to perceive deception. Reeling, Zaella managed, "Then why…?"

"You come here every morning to meditate," Jebba pointed out. "Some of the villagers have seen you practicing with Narasi, and who could stand against a Jedi's arts in battle but a Sith?"

"There's more to the galaxy than just Jedi and Sith," Zaella said. "There are Dark Jedi, and…and…"

And what? Zaella had never heard of a Light Sith, and she didn't think Jebba would be inclined to see distinctions between Lady Hadan's True Sith and the many false claimants…though even Zaella, who had felt Lady Hadan's sorceries for herself, was beginning to doubt what she had been told about her former empress's unique claim to Sith heritage.

Jebba waited, and Zaella wondered whether he was polite enough to be sure she was done, or cruel enough to highlight, by lingering silence, how little she had to say in her own defense. When it became clear she had run out of examples, though, Jebba said, "You know more of this than I've been taught, but you contend with a Jedi, and I've been told only the Sith—the enemies of the Jedi—can do this."

Zaella crossed her arms. "So what, then? What if I am?  Or was?"

And which is it, Zaella?

Jebba sat down on the floor and gestured; Zaella eyed him skeptically, but he didn't go on, and eventually she rolled her eyes and sat as well. Nodding, the Guudrian said, "Why?"

"Why?" Zaella echoed, bemused.

"The Jedi protect us here," Jebba said, gesturing with both hands. "Even the Jedi who came with you have taught us, helped our village, given us just judgment. Why be a Sith, rather than that?"

Whatever she was now, Zaella had been trained as a Sith, and she attacked rather than defend. "You're so sure of your Jedi queen and her lackeys? I was there in the Big House the other day, I saw how frightened people were of Tirien sitting in judgment.  They expected a tyrant, didn't they?"

Tyrant turned out to be one of the few Basic words Jebba did not know, but once Zaella tossed off a definition, the Guudrian's face grew troubled, and she knew she had landed a blow. "Tirien's judgment has been better-received by the people than the queen's, it's true," he said. "But sometimes a ruler must be firm for reasons beyond one…"

He stopped, eyes narrowing, and Zaella sensed him deep in thought. "One what?"

"Jedi Kal-Di told me the other day that every life is precious to the Jedi. Is it not so?"

"They say that, yeah. It's one of their weaknesses."

"Why is it a weakness?"

"It's like what you almost said about your queen: you have to look at the big picture. If you want to rule, you can't worry about every individual."

"'If you want to rule'," Jebba repeated. "What if you don't?"

"Either you rule, or you're ruled by someone else."

"Which are you?"

Zaella clenched her jaw. "I'm on my way to being a ruler. Even empresses start somewhere."

"And until now? Have you been ruled well?"

Zaella had no response, for she knew the answer. Lady Hadan's rule governed all of Ryloth, and it was not a merciful one; had Zaella fallen before a fellow apprentice rather than Narasi, while Lady Hadan rather than Runganna looked on, she had no illusion that she would have survived. And Izkara was worse in every way. "The women who've ruled me made me strong."

Jebba's silence spoke volumes, and Zaella gritted her teeth, furious that this little rube from a backwater nowhere could unbalance her. Remembering her training, she tried another salvo. "What about you? You think so much of Tirien and Narasi, how do you feel about your Jedi queen now?"

"More and more I meditate for a clear mind when I consider that question," Jebba said. "I hope the queen comes soon, so she and Jedi Kal-Di can speak and we can all come to learn the truth of…many things. The Force, the galaxy, what part we all have to play in it."

"Well, I wish you good luck with that," Zaella said. She hoped Tirien and the Jedi queen would meet as well, but only because she thought there was no way it could end without bloodshed and she was eager to see Tirien tested against someone more potent than Izkara Raltadus. If the real power of the Force lay with the light, as they Jedi endlessly claimed, there would be his chance to prove it; and if not, she would have the measure of his limits to report to the Sith Empire—assuming he survived.

Jebba didn't answer at once, and Zaella got to her feet to go. When she was even with him, though, the Guudrian priest looked up and said, "You didn't answer my question."

"Which question?"

"Why were you—or are you—a Sith?"

Answers abounded; Zaella thought of the weakness of the Jedi, the endless failures of their Order over six centuries of war to stamp out the dark side, the clear truth of dark side philosophy in the ordering of nature, even the lust for power of the Jedi in taking over the Republic that showed their protestations of some higher spirituality were just a veil to disguise how kindred they and the Sith really were. But those weird, dejarik-board eyes threw her, and memories of Narasi's mercy jumbled her thoughts and tangled her words on their way to her mouth, and what came out instead was, "Not all of us are lucky enough to be born in the Republic. Some of us have to seize our destinies instead."

"Like Narasi?" Jebba asked.

Brought up short, Zaella asked, "What?"

"She has not told you of becoming a Jedi? You should ask.  It was a touching tale." While Zaella was still lurching from that, Jebba added, "Now that you've seized your destiny, what are you going to do with it?"

Zaella could stand it not longer. She swept to the door of the shrine, jammed her boots on, and strode out into the drizzle that promised rain, wondering that same thing.