Moral shock.
A veil has fallen: between the moment when Depa came to me in the compound, and the moment I came back to myself on the slope below, there is in my mind mostly a blurred haze. In that blurred haze, I find two conflicting memories of our meeting there- And both of them, it seems, are false.
Dreams. Imaginative reinterpretation of events.
Hallucination.
In one memory, she extends a hand toward me, and I reach to take it-but instead I feel a tug at my vest and her lightsaber leaps from its inner pocket and flips through the air to smack her palm. Blaster bolts from the gunships' laser cannons smash craters in the compound; each bolt makes rock and dirt explode like grenades; the air around us fills with red plasma and orange flame-and that old familiar half smile tugs up one corner of her lips and she says, 'Up or down?' and I tell her Up and she leaps into an aerial roll over my head and I take a single step forward so that she lands with her back against mine- And the feel of her back against my own. that strong and warm and living touch that I have felt so many times, in so many places, pulls the dread from my heart and the darkness from my eyes and our blades in perfect synchrony meet the fires from above and cast them back into the dawn-scorched sky- As I said: a dream.
The other memory is a silent image of walking calmly at Depa's side through the rain of blasterfire, conversing with calm unconcern, as oblivious to the gunships as we are to the jungle, and to the sunlight of the dawn. In this dream or memory, Depa turns her blindfolded face toward me, her head cocked as though she can see into my heart. Why have you come here, Mace? Do you even know?
I don't hear these words: again like a dream, it seems we merely intend our meaning, and somehow make ourselves understood.
Why did you send for me? is my answer.
That's not the same thing, she reminds me gently. You have to define your conditions of victory. If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you tell when you've done it?
Why have you come? To stop me? You can do that with one slash of a lightsaber.
,'suppose, I somehow reply, lam trying to find out what has happened here. What is happening. To these people, and to you. Once I understand what's going on, I'll know what to do about it.
The only thing you don't understand, says this blind dream-image of my beloved Padawan, is that you already understand all there is to understand. You just don't want to believe it.
Then the veil thickens, and deepens toward night, and I remember no more until sometime later-not too much later-when I was running helter-skelter down through the jungle, quite alone.
Bounding down a long, long slope half barren with old lava where it wasn't burned with new, I could feel the guerrillas somewhere ahead by the dark pall like smoke they trailed in the Force-and I could track them by the blood spoor their many wounded left on ground and rock and leaf.
And I remember skidding down the rim of a dry wash, and finding Kar Vaster waiting for me at the bottom.
Kar Vaster- I have much to say of this lorpelek. Of the powers I have seen him L
wield, from the drawing of the fever wasps out of Besh and Chalk to the way the jungle itself seems to part for his passage and tangle itself behind. Of his followers: those six Korunnai he calls the Akk Guards, men he's made into lesser echoes of himself. How he has trained them in their signature weapons-those terrifying 'vi- broshields'-that he had designed and built. Even the smallest details: the primal ferocity of his gaze, the jungle- noise growl of his wordless voice, and how you hear his meaning as though it were your own voice whispering inside your head- all deserve more depth of comment than I can give them here.
I'm not sure why it took me so long to understand that he and I are natural enemies.
The lorpelek stood on the slope below Mace, holding the reins of a saddled grasser. The grasser kept one of its three eyes fixed warily on Vaster, and when he spoke, the grasser trembled as though it would shy away were it not held in place by an invisible force that overpowered its instincts.
Jedi Windu. You are sent for, doshalo.
Mace did not need to ask by whom. 'Where is she?' An hour's ride ahead. Resting in her hoiadah. She no longer walks.
Mace felt dizzy; the world shifted focus as though he looked at its reflection in a rippling pool. 'An hour. no longer walks-?' It made no sense, but in the Force it felt like the truth.
'She was here-she was jus'there-' No.
'But she was-she greeted me, and-' Mace passed a hand over his skull, checking for blood or swelling: searching for a head wound. 'I returned her lightsaber-we fought-we fought the gunships-' You fought alone.
'She was with me.' I sent two of my men to check on you, when you did not join the march. They watched from below, hiding from the Ealawai ships. They saw you: alone in the compound, your blades flashing against the blasterfire. My men say you drove them ojf single-handed, though they did not seem to be damaged. Perhaps you have taught Balawai to fear the Jedi blade. He showed Mace his sharp-filed teeth. Nick Rostu spoke much of your victory at the pass. Even I might not be equal to such a feat.
'She was with me.' Mace stared at the traces of portaak amber that stained his palms. 'We fought-or we spoke-I can't seem to remember-','/ is pelekotan you recall.
'The Force-? You're saying it was some kind of Force-vision?' Pelekotan brings us waking dreams of our desires and our fears. Vastor's tone was grave, but not unkind. When we desire what we fear and fear what we desire, pelekotan always answers. Have the Jedi forgotten this?
'It seemed so real-it seemed more real than you do.' Vaster shrugged.,'/ was. Only pelekotan is real. Everything else is forms and shadows: less even than a cloud, or a memory. We are pelekotani dream. Have the Jedi forgotten this as well?
Mace didn't answer. He had only then become aware of the balanced weight of his vest: he put a hand to his right-side ribs, and felt through the stained panther leather the outline of a lightsaber, matching his own, which he wore on his left.
