Moments of Truth/Part 6

The Second Chance had gathered enough orbital data to approximate Guudria's rotation speed, so Tirien woke an hour before dawn with time to spare for a few moments' preparatory meditation. When Narasi finally came down the ramp she was smothering a yawn in the crook of her elbow, but Zaella looked nothing short of miserable. The bandage around her ruined lek tip was loose, and it looked like she had not changed it. Tirien almost asked, but decided to leave it alone. The young Twi'lek had made her feelings clear, and he was determined not to use compulsion save when needed to protect himself or Narasi or prevent her from escaping. Once they joined him and Narasi raised the ramp, Tirien led the way back into Marekka.

Sunko had given him rudimentary directions to the village's Jedi shrine, but as they grew closer Tirien could feel the subtle shifts in the Force's current. It was not quite the dark side, but neither was it a pure fountain of light. "Do you sense that?"

Narasi cocked her head. "I…maybe? I don't know if I'm sensing what you're sensing."

"Zaella? Zaella?"

Tirien turned to face her. She had dragged Izkara's hooded black cloak out of her bag this morning, but even as he watched she shrugged it off, draped it over one arm, and tugged at the neck of her tunic. She only reacted to her name the second time, blinking and shaking her head with a wince. "What?"

"Do you sense the shrine?"

She grimaced; in the brief moment their eyes met, Tirien noticed her pupils were constricted. "It's a Jedi thing, how should I know? You two are chafing on my mind and you're right here, it's distracting."

Tirien let it go, but with a direction set in his mind now, he drew his perceptions down to his surroundings as they walked on. The predawn breeze had no effect on him, but Narasi was wearing her hood down too, and Tirien sensed his apprentice just skimming the Force for a bit of added warmth. Though he had never been to Ryloth, Tirien knew the habitable area was narrow and even most of that sun-baked; he had not been surprised by Zaella's chill the night before, but the speed with which she had surmounted that obstacle troubled him. He would have chalked it up to Narasi's proficiency as a tutor, except that he did not sense Zaella using the Force as Narasi was.

The only flagstones Tirien had seen in Marekka led down from an overlook past a carpenter's shop and the rock-filled yard of what Tirien assumed had to be a stonemason's. Down the crude steps he saw a round drum of a building, with a shallow conical roof like someone had given it a sun hat. The building had as many windows as a drum would have had studs to fix its skin, allowing light from all sides. A pond burbled off to one side, and Tirien noticed a flat stretch of rock near the shore, ideal for meditation—and, as he considered it, probably not accidentally so. Beyond the shrine was an expanse of valley half-lit by the shadowed sunrise; Tirien tried to get a glimpse of the Jedi castle in the distance, but an outcropping of hills a few kilometers away obstructed the view.

Jebba stepped out of the shrine, dressed in a white robe that looked tougher and more functional than his attire the evening before. His surprise at seeing them, though brief, told Tirien his strategy had been sound—trust could be won only by proof of good intentions, and this small follow-through was a first step on that path.

"Good morning," Jebba greeted them. He did not call them Masters, though Tirien could not judge whether deference to their wishes or lingering suspicion that they might be Sith infiltrators animated him. Considering that a third of their party was Sith, he found it hard to think ill of the Guudrian.

"And to you, Jebba." Tirien swept the surroundings with his gaze. "Where would you like to meditate?"

The Guudrian rubbed his hands together. "When the queen's here, she and her Knights prefer to meditate in the shrine. Of course, only they and I enter the corae."

"The what?" Narasi asked. Tirien and Jebba both looked at her; Zaella, her eyes glazed a little, had zoned out of the conversation. Looking a little defensive, she asked, "What?"

"You've never been to a Jedi shrine?" Tirien asked.

"No. Wouldn't you remember?"

"There are several in the heart of the Temple, at the Tranquility Spire."

"Oh." Her surprise at the revelation showed Tirien how derelict he had been as a master. "Well, no, the masters never took us."

"Temple, you say?" Jebba asked. "With multiple shrines?"

"The Jedi Temple, on Coruscant," Tirien said. "The heart of the Order. Did the queen not tell you about it?"

The Guudrian's eyes tightened. "She told us there were once temples on other worlds, but they've fallen. She said, when we can gather enough resources and skilled laborers, we will build a new temple here.  Perhaps you saw the work of Zubbin Mygog's son and Nerfi Belfar's daughter?"

"The cut stone? I did.  Where will you build the temple?"

Jebba frowned. "The queen will decide that; where she senses the Force is strongest, I suspect. Speaking of which, meditation…?"

"Yes, let's." As they walked toward the shrine, Tirien said, "The corae is the heart of the shrine. It actually means that in High Galactic—'heart'.  It's where we get 'Core' for the Core Worlds in Basic."

"Huh." Narasi studied the overhanging roof as they passed under it. "Why is it the heart? Is it in the center?"

"Often, but not always. It's the heart because it holds the senganimie—the object of contemplation."

Narasi's follow-up never came; after Jebba discarded his sandals outside, they kicked off their boots and walked inside, and she took in the wide circle of solid walls and lacquered wooden floors, which had a faint gleam from the dawn breaking through the windows. In the center of the drum, wooden walls rose at angles to screen off the corae.

"This is really nice," Narasi said.

As Jebba looked at her, Tirien sensed his emotions softening a little. "Chuwanna Shurp's daughter spent many days treating the wood. We only just completed this shrine last spring.  Before, we had only a small tent to house the senganimie."

"Your devotion to your faith does you credit," Tirien said, "but the Force can be found in the greatest or smallest structures, or alone in nature without ornamentation at all."

Jebba shuffled. "But doesn't a shrine help focus the Force's energy?"

"It can," Tirien allowed, thinking of the Force nexus at the heart of the Temple, though he was inclined to believe the nexus had preceded the Temple.

"The queen told me our Force is getting stronger here as we devote more to our faith."

Tirien stretched out with his feelings, trying to perceive the resonance the queen had described. It would have been unfair to expect in a village shrine the power of the Jedi Temple, though he kept one of his mind's eyes open for the possibility—he had, after all, just told Jebba that size did not matter. Even as he focused, though, he felt only that faint, muddled whisper of the Force's power. Either this spot had started with no touch of the Force at all and even a whisper was an improvement, or the queen had thrown a crumb to the faith rather than seeing it starve.

Neither seemed a wise speculation to share aloud, and so Tirien said instead to Narasi, "The circle shape is common for Jedi shrines. It represents the infiniteness of the Force."

She nodded, but looked at the corae curiously. Tirien asked Jebba, "Shall we proceed?"

Jebba's checker-patterned eyes tightened as he looked from each of them to the next. "We…we were told only Jedi and the village priest can enter the corae."

Tirien bowed. "I understand. Zaella, do you mind waiting for us here?"

He had meant it to reassure Jebba at the same time he cemented his and Narasi's standing as Jedi, but Zaella ruined the effect somewhat when she did not respond. Turning, he narrowed his eyes and found her swaying. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms and said, "Huh?  Oh, yeah, fine, whatever."

Tirien did not turn back at once. "Sie'chu eniki?"

"I'm fine," she growled in Basic. She sat down on the spot, sprawling her legs out as if to relax for some mild entertainment. But Tirien, who had some experience unbalancing opponents in combat, noticed that, while it was Zaella's decision to begin her descent, she quickly reached a point after which she was going down even if she changed her mind. When she caught him studying her, though, she got enough focus to glare up at him, and he shrugged, turning back to Jebba.

The Guudrian hesitated, but finally led them into the corae, opening a panel door for them. The room was a few meters across, an octagon stretching up to the ceiling, where an oculus in the conical dome opened onto the sky. Here the floor was soil instead of wood, and a sapling no taller than Tirien's thigh stretched out a few shoots with green buds peeking out along their lengths.

"Will she be all right?" Jebba asked.

"I hope so," Tirien said. "She was injured at our last stop; she's still in the process of recovering."

"Like you?" Jebba asked Narasi. When she blinked, obviously caught off guard, he said, "You have burns on your ear."

She brushed it with her fingertips. "…yeah. We were part of a fight.  We won, but it was tough."

"…Mowba Dhukk's daughter is our village healer," Jebba said. "Perhaps she could help you."

"I'll be okay," Narasi assured him. "I'm learning healing meditation."

"But it's very kind of you to offer," Tirien added.

Jebba shrugged. "The queen has taught us that Jedi—and we who worship the Jedi and their Force—must be ready to aid others who need our assistance."

Tirien found himself discombobulated by the sentence. The sentiment was at the core of his identity as a Jedi, and the worship of the Jedi fit the narrative he had been constructing that the Jedi queen came to Guudria to establish dominion over the planet's more primitive population. Taken together, though, the two sentiments did not fit, and Tirien was left to admit that his paradigm was flawed.

Narasi caught the lull in conversation and saved him, pointing to the walls. "Is eight symbolic too?"

"It is," Tirien said, refocusing. "It's been a symbolic number to the Order as long as we've had an Order."

He looked at Jebba. "Would you like to explain, or shall I?"

Jebba hesitated long enough to confirm Tirien's suspicion. "Please."

"In a shrine, they represent the unity of opposites. Mind and body, life and death…" he said, gesturing to the four walls that made an X across the tree. Pointing to the sides, he added, "…Unifying Force and Living Force…"

He gestured to the back wall, then the door. "…and light and dark. Normally the entrance portal door is kept open, or it doesn't even have a door, to represent that the dark side is the exception—it's not essential to existence, nor is it a natural complement to the light."

"Huh," Narasi said, in the way she did when she found some tidbit he shared somewhat more interesting than usual. Jebba, however, had narrowed his eyes in a look of deep contemplation.

"But doesn't the dark side exist naturally, as the light does?" he asked. "Can there be darkness without light?"

"The light side is the Force," Tirien said. "When we speak of 'the will of the Force', what we mean is the will of the light side. The dark is just perversion and corruption of the light; that may exist, but we can hardly consider it natural."

"The will of the Force…is that what you call the Whispers?"

Tirien frowned. "The Whispers?"

"Perhaps that is something else you haven't encountered." Jebba considered that for a moment before his face smoothed out. "I know what I'll be meditating on, then. Shall we begin?"

They sat cross-legged in a triangle around the sapling, and Tirien closed his eyes, slowing his breathing and concentrating on the gentle whisper of wind down through the oculus to take his mind away from physical distractions. His own meditative focus was Narasi—now that she had skated through her trial against Pavac, she had the next steps of her Jedi journey before her, and he needed guidance to lead her forward—but he found concentration more elusive than he had expected. The conflicting reports of the Guudria Jedi and the situation the Guudrians themselves faced demanded focus too, and Zaella kept intruding on his concentration—the possibility of redeeming her as well as the need to prevent her from doing anything dangerous or damaging. When a bell in the distance clanged loudly enough to bring him back to the moment, he found himself frustrated with how little clarity he had achieved.

For her part, Narasi looked more settled, while Jebba opened his eyes only to narrow them at once, cover his mouth with one hand, and rest that elbow on his knee, the picture of glum introspection. His mane of red hair rippled in the breeze.

"I hope you'll excuse us, Jebba," Tirien said. "Boss Mukka wanted to see us this morning."

"Mmm? Oh, yes, yes, of course."

He rose to open the door for them. In the main shrine, Zaella sat exactly where they had left her, her amber eyes half-closed and glassy. She did not react when Narasi said her name, moving only when Narasi kicked her calf, and then only to draw her legs in and struggle to her feet after several tries. Tirien frowned, wondering how bad he could allow the situation to become; he did not want to be ward of her in all things, but neither could he allow her to die on his watch.

She made it out of the shrine under her own power, though, and Tirien followed her out, feeling Narasi's calm concern. They started up the stone steps to the village, but Tirien stopped when Jebba called to him.

"Tirien…perhaps you would like to return for meditation tomorrow? We could continue our discussion of Jedi philosophy then as well."

"I'd like that," Tirien nodded.

"Then may the Force be with you this day."

"And also with you."

Tirien caught up with Narasi and Zaella at the top of the stairs, but he trailed behind them rather than take the lead, observing. Zaella plodded forward, but her feet weaved first left, then right, and her head was bowed. Narasi walked to one side and a pace back, her robe draped over one arm. Guudrians were stirring from their homes as the trio wound their way into the town; some of the diminutive beings stopped to stare while others gossiped behind their hands and still more ducked back through the nearest doors.

Marekka's Tree was in sight when Zaella stumbled. Narasi caught her before she could fall, but though Zaella's boots scraped against the dirt, she could not get them under her weight again. Tirien moved forward to help, but he had forgotten his apprentice's strength—she was a little shorter than Zaella but, closing on adulthood, she was almost as strong as Tirien. She swept one arm behind Zaella's knees and lifted her, and though she took a few quick steps to get her balance, once she had it she held the Twi'lek with no sign of difficulty.

Tirien took Zaella's injured lek gently in his hands, sliding his fingers down its length and noticing how they slipped in her sweat. Her flesh warmed near the bandaged end, and she had enough left to hiss in pain. "Pumme down!"

Ignoring that, Tirien said, "Take her back to the Second Chance. I need to meet with Boss Mukka and the others, but I'll join you as soon as I'm able."

"Yes Master."

She carried Zaella away, and was almost through the square before Tirien finally sensed her using the Force to bolster her natural strength. Despite his concerns, Tirien permitted himself a smile in his apprentice's wake before he turned toward the Big House.