"Form VI is better than nothing," Harshee Nefkin said.
Jirdo made a face. "Don't Form VI stylists who get into duels tend to…you know…die?"
"All depends on the duelist," the little Svivreni reasoned. "Besides, it's the Way of the Rancor!"
"Yeah—slow, obvious, and a great big target."
Zaella dueled Gaebrean past them, but stopped to toss over her shoulder, "It's perfect for you!"
Jirdo glared at her, but she had already turned away. Parrying one of Gaebrean's lunges sideways, she shoulder-rolled into him until they were back-to-back, hooked her knee behind his, grabbed the back of his tunic with one hand, and threw him to the flagstones. He groaned when he hit them, then coughed when Zaella singed his throat with a downstroke. His voice was froggy when he rasped, "Solah."
Harshee punched Jirdo in the thigh with enough force that he winced, distracted. "Ignore her. Focus on you."
Focusing on himself wasn't the cheeriest exercise for Jirdo, but it beat focusing on almost anyone else. He knew better than to compare himself to the true luminaries, of course—Tirien, Raven, Raina, and Lord Brascel were far better than he would ever be, but he got the distinct impression, from overheard comments both awed and grudging, that they were a cut above anything most Jedi would ever achieve. But all the other Knights outclassed Jirdo as well, including little Harshee; she would wait him out, skipping around his attacks and meeting him blow for blow when she felt like standing her ground, until he slipped up and she could score a killing stroke. Even Narasi and Zaella had never taken so much as a cut from him; the best he could hope to achieve was making them work for it. He beat Renata more often than not, but she had gotten in some tricky thrusts too; weeks of studying under half a dozen Makashi stylists had refined her technique just in the short time he'd known her.
He sighed. "Right."
"There's no way you can get competent in anything else before we go," Harshee said. "You've got the building blocks for Form VI, at least."
Jirdo glanced at the one-handed duels going on all around him. "I was never a Padawan, but isn't Form II the one form that isn't a part of Form VI?"
"Well, then you've got some extra tricks the other Form VI users won't!" Harshee said, raising her blade. "Come on, I'll teach you some more Form III."
And she did. She was not the only Jedi to let him rain attacks on her, blocking them all without bothering to counterattack, but she was one of the few with the courtesy not to look bored, and the only one who stopped every now and then to explain what she was doing, help him into the corresponding positions, and let him test out her defensive tactics for himself. Her lightsaber—longer than Raina's offhand shoto, but less than the full meter of a standard lightsaber's blade—posed some logistical challenges, but Harshee suggested it was better to practice up close anyway; both lunge specialists like the Makashi mob and the sentient pinball of an Ataru master would be hampered fighting at that close range.
"Switch weapons!" Tirien barked.
This was something new, and many of the Jedi looked around for guidance, but Tirien and Narasi, sparring one another, barely slowed; each tossed the lightsaber in hand, caught the other's weapon, and picked up the duel, Tirien fencing with Narasi's blue blade while she slashed with his green one. The others caught on and traded weapons, but the dueling that followed was slower and more awkward in most quarters; Zaella kept switching her grip on Gaebrean's bell guard hilt, and when Raina gave Kobold Baliss her lightsaber and her shoto both, his baffled expression said it all. Only Lord Brascel, who had acquired Amaani's weapon, appeared entirely at ease.
Harshee rapped Jirdo's knuckles with her lightsaber hilt, drawing him out of his abstraction, and they traded weapons. She got a steady, wide grip on the training weapon he borrowed from the Kaivalts each day, but he could fit only a hand and a half on hers. He wound up cupping the pommel with his off hand, pushing and pulling with his palm to twitch the blade a bit farther.
"Innovative!" Harshee praised. "Form VI doesn't have the depth of technique the others do, so creativity's important."
Clever ideas without a lot of depth, Jirdo thought. Sounds fitting for the ex-High Priest of the Church of the Jedi…
Harshee pushed the attack to draw him out of his glum reflection, but Tirien called a halt before they could get far. Returning Narasi's lightsaber, he said, "We have to face the reality that some of us may fall trying to bring Gasald down. We'll always be most comfortable with our own weapons, but if circumstances compel us to use a comrade's—or an enemy's—we need to be ready."
They switched partners, and Jirdo's makeshift Form III defense promptly collapsed under a series of lightning stabs from Kobold. When he faced Zaella, he held her at bay for a moment by closing to jostling range, and actually knocked her down with a Force push when she tried a jumping stab, but her face contorted with focus, and on the next charge he couldn't close with her fast enough; she rashed his wrist, cheek, and thigh with slashes before he hit the ground, then stabbed him in the ear before he gasped, "Solah!"
He knew the burn was preferable to the instant kill it would have been with a live blade, and he knew from experience that a cupped hand over the wound and some channeled healing energy would take the edge off in a few minutes. But Zaella had managed to singe the auricle and drive the tip of her blade into his outer ear canal; apart from the awful sting, which rubbing only made worse, his ear was filled with the sound of his sizzling flesh.
"You know, I was probably dead enough," he growled.
"If you're still breathing, you're still fighting."
"That hasn't always been my experience."
"Yeah, well, you're a coward." She turned away. "How about you, Jawa? Up for a rematch?"
"I told you no," Raina called.
Through his good ear, Jirdo heard Tirien, Raven, and Raina bickering, but it couldn't hold his attention; you're a coward rang in his ears in a way no lightsaber burn could tune out. Part of him wanted to knock her down with the Force, hard enough this time to shatter her body against the stone, but much as that instinct shamed him, worse was the knowledge that he would be hurting her for the crime of telling the truth.
He had fled the Order rather than return, and wound up with Bras and Maia. He had followed Maia even as her regime grew ever more despotic, succumbing to Chelshgodrû Brokkodd's mental manipulation rather than speak up; I didn't know what he was, a sad excuse to begin with, withered to pitiful when Jirdo realized he should have. And then, of course, he had surrendered to Tirien, Narasi, and Zaella; sometimes he wondered whether death might have been more merciful.
Sitting out the next round, nursing his ear, Jirdo watched the combatants. The duelists' skill had only increased since their training had begun, but he noticed several of them sporting burns on their flesh or char marks on their tunics. Yan Razam swung full-power blows at every opponent she faced, and Jirdo was not the only person on the receiving end of Kobold Baliss's more precise but no less ferocious assault. Tirien and Raven fenced almost too quickly for the eye to follow, but Jirdo sensed the intensity of the duel.
They were all breathing hard when they finished, and Tirien called a few minutes' rest. Renata plunked down beside Jirdo, burying her face in the crook of her elbow so her tunic could soak up her sweat. Some strands of auburn hair had come loose; as she retied her ponytail, she asked, "How're your fights going?"
"Oh, good as ever," Jirdo grumbled. "Zaella giving you more crap?"
"Nah, my master won't let me fight her." Renata frowned. "I kinda want to try again."
"I don't know, she's still pretty far above our level."
Jirdo hadn't intended the comparison, and he hoped the demands of training were a believable enough excuse for the flush in his face. Renata was more than ten years his junior, and yet she was his closest peer. He had thought sparring with Maia and Bras had been enough to refine his swordsmanship, but his time on Pelagon had burst that fantasy in a hurry.
"Yeah, but she knows a lot of stuff nobody here uses," Renata ventured, sipping some water. "Nobody in the whole sector uses her style; I want to learn how to fight it. If she uses it, other Sith might too. Real Sith, I mean, not…whatever she is."
That question had made the rounds through the strike team more than once; Jirdo had discovered, to his mingled bemusement and dismay, that most of the Jedi didn't really notice him when he wasn't speaking or sparring with them, and so as long as he sat quietly in a room, they felt comfortable speaking in front of him. Yan still credited Zaella with saving her life, Harshee seemed inclined to defer to Tirien's views, and of course Gaebrean had a…unique perspective, but most of the others were convinced, to various degrees, that Zaella was still some form of Sith. Once, Jirdo had heard Raven broach the subject with his sister, but Raina had shut it down hard.
"Are you gonna keep sparring with us?"
Jirdo shrugged. "Maybe, a bit."
"It's the only way we'll get better, right?"
"Yeah, I guess…" Jirdo frowned, rubbing one of the welts Kobold had given him. "Aren't you sore?"
"I…yeah." Renata touched one of the marks on her tunic. "But my master says we have to push through being tired. The Force will help us if we let it."
Is that what she told you? Jirdo wanted to ask. He was open to the Force helping him—he had been his entire life. He had invited it, begged it, cajoled it, pleaded for a little more power, a little more strength to get him through. The Force, in his experience, wasn't the most reliable helper. He was about to voice that reality to Renata when Tirien called the group back together.
Yan clapped her clawed hands. "All right, next issue: we're going to Gasald's stronghold, so there'll probably be more of them than there are of us. Let's do some two-on-one spars. Try to spread the non-Makashi people around."
"Don't try to fight them both head-on," Tirien added. "Use positioning to your advantage."
Renata took another swig of water, then hopped to her feet. "Gotta go!"
Jirdo watched what followed, shaking his head. Most of the Makashi stylists ignored Tirien's advice and wound up marked with lightsaber burns on necks, wrists, and torsos. Raina tried to fight her two opponents with her two blades, but the resulting Makashi-Jar'Kai abomination led her to the same end. Tirien fought Lezascan Wisté and Kobold Baliss, and Jirdo caught glimpses of the strain on his face; he wondered until he realized Tirien had chosen two beings likely to fight well together—onetime master and Padawan—to test himself against one of the greatest challenges.
When they switched partners, Tirien came over; his tunic bore fewer marks than most. "Why aren't you fighting?"
"If what I've accomplished so far is any indication, you'd probably be better without me on your mission," Jirdo sighed.
Tirien did not deny it, but said instead, "Why not for yourself, then? Train for your own improvement?"
"What's the point? I can barely keep up against one opponent; I'd be lucky to get a block off against two."
"Narasi and Zaella have taken their fair share of blows; if Renata takes any more, I'd think her tunic was black to begin with. They're still practicing."
"Yeah, well…Narasi's had you, hasn't she? And Renata has Raina. Even Zaella…I don't know much about that Izkara character, but she must've done something right. I only got Form I on the praxeum ship, then odds and ends from Maia and Bras. Besides, I was Service Corps, remember? The 'Padawan rejects'. If I had what it takes to mix it up with Knights, the Masters would've put me on the path to be one."
What might he have become, he wondered, if he had passed his Initiate Trials—if the Praxeum Council had given him another chance at them? Would he, with training under a Jedi Knight, have succeeded as a Padawan? Even been a Knight by now? Or had he failed his Initiate Trials because he wasn't fit to be a Knight? What was the point in mastering the least of the combat forms, for a mission on which he was unneeded and unwanted? Even if they succeeded and he escaped Allanteen with his life, would the High Council give him his chance, or sweep him to the side again?
Tirien measured him with a look for a moment before something changed in his face. Tipping his head sideways, he said, "Come with me."
Jirdo sighed and rocked to his feet, following Tirien around the estate. He wondered if the Jedi Knight was going to give him a heart-to-heart. He remembered Tirien rousing himself from considerable exhaustion and injury to lead the attack on Brokkodd's tomb; he imagined Tirien could give a pretty motivational speech if he was in the mood. Not that even a Consular's words could make him a better swordsman, but…
When they were out of sight of the others, beneath one of the tall trees, Tirien stopped and said, "I thought, to keep your dignity intact, it would be best not to do this in front of everyone."
Jirdo gave him a look. "What, the 'you can do it, we all believe in you' speech? Yeah, that'd be pretty embarr—"
Tirien slapped him across the face.
As Jirdo staggered for balance, Tirien said, "This is not a motivational speech, it's an ultimatum."
"What the hell…?"
Tirien grabbed him by the lapels of his tunic and shook him; the power behind his yellow eyes choked off Jirdo's objections. "My Padawan is seventeen years old, and she's going to face Gasald, knowing she might be going to her death. Zaella isn't even a Jedi and she's going with us. Renata's outclassed by every swordsbeing here, even you, but she tries her hardest, every day."
"So…what?" Jirdo gasped. "So they're all better than me? Yeah, I got it—"
"That's what you don't understand, Yushari—what I suspect you've never understood. You didn't fail to become a Padawan because the Force is weaker with you than others, or because you're a poor swordsman, or for any failure of skill or even natural gifts. You failed because you've never understood that it's not about you."
"I—"
"Being a Jedi is about more than self—about putting yourself last. For all the people who've beaten you down in life, your ego's never taken that fatal blow. It remains about you—'I should've been a Jedi', 'I should've ruled with Maia and Bras', 'I don't want to train because I'm not as good as everyone else'. Every one of us here has failed in life—often and painfully, sometimes—but you're the only one who refuses to learn from it."
He let Jirdo go, tossing him back with just enough force that Jirdo staggered for balance; he crossed his arms and shook his head, lip curling. "If you want to leave, then go; you've earned a reprieve for your help in saving Yan. I won't stop you, nor will I allow anyone else to if I can prevent it. Once you reach Pelagar, you can get transport anywhere in the Republic. If all that a return to the Jedi Order and the Force will do is drive you deeper into your own self-pity, then you serve us and yourself best by leaving now.
"But if you choose to be a Jedi," he added, taking a step forward, "then stop sulking, feeling sorry for yourself, and admitting defeat before you even start, and be a Jedi. You went to Guudria because the Order wouldn't let you be a Jedi and you wanted to be a Knight anyway. We're all defying the Order now—do you have the courage to truly be a Jedi when you're given the chance, or was Guudria just an act because you weren't man enough to be the real thing?"
He poked Jirdo in the chest. "Being a Jedi is in your heart, so look into yours, and look hard. If you don't have what it takes, go now. But if you stay, then be a Jedi."
He stormed off without another word, skipping down the hill toward the sounds of dueling practice. Jirdo stood rooted in place until his legs gave out, then sat against the tree trunk until the last echo of plasma on plasma faded. Tirien was neither the first nor the most senior Jedi to call him a failure, but no one had ever put it quite so baldly before. He remembered Renata swallowing her fear of facing Gasald's minions, before Raina had grounded her, and a paroxysm of shame doubled him over. He sat there, silently weeping into his folded arms, until he heard the periodic cries of triumph that told him the others had gotten to stealth practice again.
Rising and wiping his nose on his sleeve, he ran for the front door, trying to get into the manor unseen. As far as he could sense, he made it, but the sight of Donarius Kaivalt's statue brought him up short. Tall, broad-shouldered, heroic…he was everything Jirdo knew he would never be—the dream of Jedi Knighthood that would never come true. And he stared straight forward on his elevated platform, eyes facing whatever challenge the sculptor envisioned, casting no glance on the feeble imitation of a Jedi below.
After a quick shower, Jirdo changed into civilian clothes and crammed his few belongings into a backpack Tirien had lent him from the Second Chance. He took his time, grappling with the enormity of the decision to go and the cascade of thoughts that followed the question of where he could go. Would Tirien or the Kaivalts lend him some money? Would it be better to take ship for the Core Worlds and their relative safety, or the far Outer Rim, where he could more easily disappear into the masses?
If it's remote enough, maybe I could— He stopped the thought, shaking his head. He might be forgiven once, for Guudria, but not a second time. Tirien was right—Guudria had been his chance to build up a false image of himself, to foist on the Guudrians what the Jedi Council hadn't given him. But it wouldn't work twice; even more than Tirien's words, the horrors Brokkodd had wreaked on Guudria had opened his eyes to the sham he, Maia, and Bras had constructed. Even if he subjugated some primitive race until they worshipped him like a god, he could never un-see the hollowness at the heart of it all—the hollowness in him. Leaving behind the Jedi on Pelagon meant leaving behind the Jedi, period.
He dithered until it dawned on him that he was hoping someone—Baron Kaivalt, Narasi, even Renata—would appear at the door, having heard the story of Tirien dressing him down and come to urge him to stay…to reassure him of his value…
To stroke my ego, he realized. Maybe Tirien was right.
Repulsed, he stepped out and saw Zaella coming up the hall. She took in his backpack and snorted. "Running away? Well, you stuck it out longer than I thought, but Gaeb was still betting you'd come around…can you tie on a bet…?"
She strolled into her room without another word. He wasn't sure whether Gaebrean Kaivalt's optimism or the fact that even his early departure was more than Zaella had expected of him hit harder. He tried not to jog through the manor, down the stairs, and across the foyer, but when he got out into the sunshine he broke into a run.
The Second Chance and the Kaivalts' ships sat on the docking platform, but he didn't know any of the access codes. Could he perhaps take one of the Kaivalts' wavespeeders? During his long hours of not training with the other Jedi, he had studied Pelagon instead, and he thought he could make his way to the capital city.
As he stood by one of the Second Chance's landing struts, he heard a high voice yell his name. Turning, he saw Renata running across the lawn.
"Jirdo, wait!" She must have pulled some of the Force into her run, he thought, because she overshot him and almost went into the ocean; her boots left rubber burn where she braked, but he still had to catch her by her collar. Whirling around and panting, her freckles in sharp relief as she flushed from exertion, she said, "Narasi said you were leaving!"
"How did…oh, of course." Narasi and Zaella were best friends these days, but evidently Narasi hadn't thought it worth coming after him either. Reminding himself that he shouldn't want her to, he told Renata, "Yeah. Think the baron will mind if I take a wavespeeder?"
"You can't just go! This mission's really important, they need help!"
"They have help—better help than mine."
"You don't know that. What if there's something only you can do, and they need your help for it? Won't you feel bad if you're not here?"
Jirdo wanted to imagine that possibility—his chance to save the day—and he hated himself for the wanting. "Something like…?"
"Well, I dunno…I don't know what it is either. But that's the point—you won't know until it's too late."
"Narasi and Zaella are the least skillful of the people involved here, and they're both deadlier than me. This mission team is fine without me."
"So? I'm not going either, but I'm still helping."
"Why?" Jirdo had never heard any of the Jedi discuss that. "I know it's a great chance for you to practice—"
Renata waved that off. "It's not about me. I really like Raven, and Lord Brascel's my High Lord, and all the others are Jedi. Well, not Zaella, but…I want them all to come back safe! Even Zaella."
It's not about me. She said it so easily, as if what Tirien thought was Jirdo's greatest flaw was second nature to her…which, he realized, it probably was. She's a better Jedi than me too…
"I took a wrong turn a long time ago, Renata," he said, turning to face the sea but forced to turn right back to her; the sun hung overhead and made the waves a blinding sheet of reflected light. "I wasn't much older than you when…"
He trailed off, realizing that, if Raina and Raven fell on some out-of-the-way world, Renata would not wander off in search of primitives to "protect". She would come right back to Pelagon and ask what to do next. She's a better Jedi than I was at her age, too, when I was a Jedi.
"Well…yeah," she admitted. "But this is your chance to fix it! You don't have to go to Allanteen; just stay and help."
"Be the spare again? Hanging out at the back of the lines to patch up whoever comes home?"
"I thought you didn't want to go?"
"I…" He brushed the thin strands of his beard. "I want to mean something! I don't want to just be some nobody afterthought!"
All about you again; his internal monologue was starting to sound like Tirien Kal-Di's voice as well as his words.
Renata crossed her arms and made a face. The effect was less intimidating than he thought she meant it to be, and he was about to tease her to lighten the mood when she asked, "What does it mean if you go?"
"I don't know." That they were all right—my teachers, my Clan mates, Bras, Zaella… That I was never supposed to be a Jedi, and I never will be. That I can't make up for Guudria, no matter what I do.
"Well, I don't want you to go, and I don't think you should," Renata said. "But if you do, I think you should know what it means before you go."
She walked back, glancing over her shoulder every ten meters or so as if hoping to see him following her. Jirdo thought about Maia and Bras again. Maia had told them both about her prophesized destiny; he supposed she had fulfilled it by drawing Tirien and his friends to Brokkodd, but was that all her life was for? If he wasn't a Jedi, was he retroactively making her death meaningless? And Bras…even if he'd never been a Jedi, he'd gotten a lot more evil under Brokkodd's guidance. If Jirdo did nothing with his life, then the only purpose Bras had had was to murder Maia and unleash Brokkodd.
Nauseated by that prospect, Jirdo sat down at the seaside, struggling to think it through. When he had chased the same thoughts in circles for twenty minutes straight, he drew his legs up under him and closed his eyes. His Force powers had always seemed weaker than those of his fellow Jedi, but meditation was the one area of study where he'd held his own with even those everyone had said were destined for Mastery. He listened to the waves sloshing up against the artificial shore, imagining them as the ebb and flow of the Force's currents, brushing destinies this way and that, washing away confusion and leaving the sandy shore of the mind clean and damp from their passage…
What am I supposed to do? he asked. What's my destiny?
He thought for a long time, but no insight came to him. The splash of water grew louder again, his physical body taking over perceptions from his mind, when it occurred to him to ask instead, Can I help them?
The Force did not peel back the veil covering the mortal world to reveal its grand design to him for his humility in asking the right question, but his spirit stilled a little and the waves softened again. He continued to ask the question, trying to picture all their faces: Tirien, Narasi, Zaella, Yan, Lord Brascel, Lord Wisté and Sir Amaani, Sir Kobold, Raven and Gaebrean, Harshee…he even imagined Renata, Raina, and Baron Kaivalt for good measure. How can I help them? What can I do?
He smelled ozone—the sharp odor he associated with electrical discharge…or Force lightning. He heard the snaps and crackles of lightsaber blades connecting, the screams of the dying, and the thunderous roar of an explosion. He shivered in bitter cold, such as he had only known around Brokkodd's tomb on Guudria, where plant life had withered and no number of clothing layers could hold warmth. He tasted the rusty tang of blood, unsure if it was his, or even Human.
Show me, he pleaded. I can't see.
The Force did not obey…and at the same time it did. Jirdo perceived that his mind's eyes were not so much blind as obscured—shrouded by darkness. He realized it was no mere perceptual dark, but the dark—the one darkness that underlay the Force. He had dabbled with it on Guudria, and Zaella had been half-trained in it without fully succumbing, but this was the true darkness, and in its endless shadows even stars faded. He felt—
—pain. A sharp flash of pain in his shin wrenched him back into the physical world. Squinting against the glare of sunlight, Jirdo heard Sir Amaani say, "I'm told you're abandoning us. I'm going into Pelagar for a day or two, and Baron Kaivalt's asked me to convey you there, if you wish it."
His tone conveyed his distaste, but Jirdo couldn't be bothered to care. Was the darkness a new question, or an answer to one he had already asked? Was it the threat? Obviously it was, he thought, but how was it the threat? Surely it couldn't be the solution…?
"Yushari?" Sir Amaani sounded just as unhappy, but more confused.
"I…" Jirdo coughed, wet his mouth, and looked up at the muscular Knight towering over him. "You were misinformed. I…I'll stay."
Sir Amaani blinked, then smoothed his face into that mask all the nobles had. "I'm sure we all rejoice to hear it. If you're certain…?"
"I…yes, I am."
"Very well. Good day to you, then."
He nodded, and he had barely turned away when Jirdo got to his feet and started back toward Inimă Eserzennae at a run, wondering whether anyone was still training, and where he might join in.