But she knew what it was. Although she’d never seen anything quite like it before, she recognized it immediately.
It was an image of the Yuuzhan Vong deity Yun-Yammka, the Slayer.
A wail came bubbling up from inside her, crying out in a language she wasn’t supposed to know: Ukla-na vissa crai!
Tahiri clutched the totem to her chest as the world grayed around her and plunged her, finally, into black.
* * *
In the week following the telling of the Rapuung story, Nom Anor accompanied I’pan on his missions to the upper levels. Using his knowledge of security codes and resource management, he was able to appropriate many of the raw materials the Shamed Ones needed to build their new home, things they hadn’t previously been able to gain access to. Slowly but surely this ragtag bunch of Shamed Ones was becoming indebted to him, living a life they would not have been able to had he not been introduced to them. He had given them the lambents that supplied them light when the bioluminescent globes failed, and the arksh that gave them warmth during those colder nights, as well as the h’merrig, the biological processor that produced a significant percentage of their daily food. He had stolen the materials in good conscience, not caring how the thefts might hurt Shimrra’s war effort. For now, all that concerned him was engendering the trust of his new companions. And while his small contributions had helped in this, it hadn’t been enough to win over everyone—especially the likes of Kunra, who remained suspicious of his motives.
None of that mattered right now, though. He was on another mission with I’pan, and this time collecting equipment and gaining the Shamed Ones’ trust was far from his mind. This time, he had a different agenda.
“How much farther?” His tone was full of irritation as he squeezed himself between two enormous conduits.
“Almost there.” I’pan looked around to get his bearings, then headed for a small hole in one of the walls. On the other side was a ferrocrete tunnel originally intended to give maintenance droids access to a seemingly endless stream of cables and pipes bunched overhead. The tunnel curved away slightly to the left and had no entrances or exits other than those that had been knocked through the ferrocrete by other explorers. For all Nom Anor could tell, it might have circumnavigated the entire wretched planet.
They came across the corroded remains of a droid halfway along their journey. It was slumped on its side, burned out and stripped of all its useful parts. The expression on its blackened, empty face was a hideous parody of life. Nom Anor kicked it over, stepping on the fragments for good measure as he passed.
Soon they reached a narrow crack in the side of the tunnel, and I’pan put a knobby finger to his lips, calling for quiet. Then he slipped awkwardly but soundlessly through the crack. Nom Anor waited anxiously in the tunnel, fearing a trap. There was nowhere to hide in this endless, abominable place.
I’pan’s hand suddenly reemerged from the crack and waved him through. “They’re not here yet,” he said. “We’ll have to wait.”
Nom Anor followed I’pan into the sub-basement. Despite years of infiltrating the infidel societies, he still felt slightly hemmed in by the sharp edges, flat planes, and impossibly perfect corners that characterized such rooms. Nothing in nature exhibited such properties as these artificial monstrosities—or at least not simultaneously, anyway. It felt as though their very design was intended to suck the life out of those who occupied them, as if in some vain attempt to fill their terrible emptiness.
The room’s only door was locked from the outside. If he was patient, he told himself, he would soon be safely back in the reassuring jumble of the deepest levels, where the weight of all the buildings above warped the edges, bowed the planes, and thwarted the corners sufficiently to fool the mind into thinking it might almost be natural. Almost.
I’pan collapsed bonelessly into a corner, appearing in the shadows to be little more than a pile of rubbish under all the rags. Finding a spot in the center of the room, where someone had unsuccessfully attempted to soften the room’s harshness by planting a vurruk carpet, Nom Anor concentrated on breathing exercises to pass the time. He was much fitter than he had been before Ebaq 9. He hadn’t noticed how the years of stress had racked his body until a few weeks of a solid, simple exercise regime washed it clean. His pulse was again strong, and the gash across his fingers had healed perfectly into a ragged, attractive scar. He felt younger than he had in decades. Nom Anor’s self-imposed exile may not have advanced his return with any great speed, but physically it was doing him a world of good.
The sound of scuffling from the far side of the basement’s door broke his meditation. Nom Anor and I’pan rose to their feet together as the lock clunked, the door opened, and three people stepped through. The leader, a tall man with no eyesacks to speak of, stopped in front of I’pan but stared critically over at Nom Anor. He held a sack in one hand, which he passed to I’pan without a word.
I’pan took it. “Aarn, T’less, Shoon-mi,” he said when the door was safely shut, addressing each of the strangers in turn. “I have brought someone who wishes to learn more about the Jeedai.”
The three Shamed Ones studied Nom Anor closely. It was clear they didn’t recognize him. He knew their type well. They carried an air of toil with them, as though subservience was an atmosphere that could be bottled. I’pan had explained in advance that these three didn’t belong to a rogue group such as the one Nom Anor had stumbled across; such were rare, even following the spread of the Jedi heresy. These three were properly employed workers operating under cover.
“His name is—” I’pan started, but was stopped as Nom Anor stepped forward, pushing his companion aside.
“I am Amorrn,” he said. The false name was intended ostensibly to avoid alarm over his former existence, but mainly to reduce the chances that word of his survival would reach Shimrra.
The tall one nodded. “I am Shoon-mi,” he said, “Niiriit’s crèche-brother. When she fell from grace, it was I who freed her from the priests’ cells and allowed her to escape. She has told you about me?”
Niiriit hadn’t, but Nom Anor could see in the man’s sad eyes a yearning for acknowledgment. He knew this sort, too: his immediate family would have been Shamed along with Niiriit, and he was brave enough as a result to resist the established order in small ways, yet too cowardly to abandon it entirely.
“She has told me many things,” he said. “She tells me that you, too, follow the ways of the Jedi.”
This was mostly true; she had spoken of a person closer to the surface who believed in a slightly different version of the heresy. She and Nom Anor had had many conversations on the topic of the Jedi, but she had never once mentioned her relationship to Shoon-mi. He wondered if her devotion to the heresy had burned out all other concerns—perhaps even any feelings for Kunra that might once have existed.
“I pay heed to what I hear,” Shoon-mi said cautiously.
“Will you tell me what that is?”
One of Shoon-mi’s companions looked nervous. “This is neither the place nor the time,” she said. “We are due back in—”
“You go, T’less,” Shoon-mi said with an edge as sharp as the room’s corners. “Tell Sh’simm we were held up in the yorik nursery. This is more important.” He looked directly at Nom Anor, his narrow eyes studying the ex-executor intensely. “And this is as good a place as any.”
The one called T’less nodded, glancing at Nom Anor before hastily slipping out of the room.
“Don’t let us get you into any trouble,” Nom Anor said ingratiatingly.
“We won’t be missed,” said the Shamed One I’pan had named Aarn. “Things are chaotic on the surface. Whatever it is that afflicts the dhuryam still causes great discomfort. There is confusion and instability. Many are joining our ranks as they are blamed for mistakes or inefficiencies caused by those higher up, and this influx makes it easier for us to slip through the cracks.”
Nom Anor listened with stunned amazement. Aarn clearly suffer
ed from a different kind of heresy: that of rebellion. He’d had no idea that such things were discussed at any level of Yuuzhan Vong society, even among the Shamed Ones.
“I’pan has told me the story he heard on Duro,” Nom Anor said, swallowing his surprise. “But he tells me also that there are differences between his story and yours.”
Shoon-mi nodded. “In the version he tells, it was Mezhan Kwaad who killed Vua Rapuung. But I have heard that he survived her blow, and that he sacrificed himself directly so that the Jeedai could escape. And I also heard that it was his brother who killed him. Hul Rapuung was willing to consider that Mezhan Kwaad had Shamed him intentionally, but could not go so far as to accept the Jeedai as allies. When Vua died, his supporters fell on Hul and killed him, and it was during this confusion that the Jeedai escaped.”
“Even so,” Nom Anor said, “the message is essentially the same, is it not?”
Shoon-mi shook his head. “There are differences there, too. The Jeedai stands accused of using fire in his attack on the Yavin Four installation. That is an abomination of the first order. Most people who hear the story shy away from it, preferring to ignore it as an awkward detail rather than try to examine it and thereby come to a better understanding of the Jeedai’s way. But understanding is the key. Anakin Solo proved himself to be more than just an infidel tool user. Later, when his créche-mates were in danger, he sacrificed himself in glorious combat so that they might live. He did not shy away from death. You and I both know that these are not the actions of primitive infidels. They are adaptive strategies—strategies we can learn from.”
Nom Anor nodded, absorbing what he’d been told. This story of Vua Rapuung’s death rang closer to his memories. There was no mass uprising in the records, no clash between warriors with different ideologies, as I’pan had related it. But Shoon-mi had not mentioned the slaughter of the Shamed Ones on Yavin 4, either. In the mythic sense, clearly the deaths of a thousand Shamed Ones were irrelevant compared to the death of a single significant one.
The fact that Nom Anor had once turned down an invitation to duel with the great Anakin Solo would never be known. The executor had killed an entire squad of warriors with an infidel’s blaster in order to keep that particular secret from getting out.
“Where did you hear this story?” he asked.
“From me,” Aarn said, stepping forward.
The relatively youthful Shamed One had narrow features that spoke of generations of Shame before him—so much so, in fact, that Nom Anor found it an affront to his dignity even to be in the same room as the man, let alone talk to him.
“I heard it from one of us who served on Garqi.”
“And where did they hear it?”
Aarn shrugged, his craggy face pinched into a frown. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Why do you need to know?”
Nom Anor shrugged this time. “I am merely curious how there came to be two stories that differ so dramatically about the same event,” he said. “It’s not as if it happened that long ago. One of the stories must be partly false—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the other is entirely true. If one should be false, why not the other, too?”
“They overlap enough to convince me that the foundations, at least, are true,” Shoon-mi said. “You know how quickly rumors change. Word of mouth can distort truth in a very short space of time. But that does not change the essence of the story.”
Nom Anor nodded thoughtfully, pretending to consider the point Shoon-mi had made. “But which, then, is the most true? Which Jedi do I listen to? The one who uses fire, or the one who doesn’t?”
“You must follow your instincts,” Aarn said.
Nom Anor glanced at the Shamed One, briefly and with a hint of a snarl at the corner of his mouth. It incensed him to have to associate with the likes of the man, when a few months back it would have been beneath him to even waste a thought on his kind.
“I’d rather hoped to follow the story back to its source,” he said, speaking directly to Shoon-mi. “To the one who took it off Yavin Four in the first place—the one who saw it with his own eyes and was brave enough to repeat it.”
“I don’t have that one’s name,” Shoon-mi said. “I don’t know that anyone does, either.”
“He was never named in your version of the story?”
Niiriit’s brother shook his head. “I’d remember if he had been. That person would be as famous as Vua Rapuung.”
He’d also be dead, Nom Anor thought to himself. Going around telling stories about heretics was one thing, but admitting who it was who disobeyed War-master Tsavong Lah’s direct order was another thing altogether. It could have been anyone, though: a warrior might have smuggled out a favorite slave; the shaper Nen Yim might have spoken of her experiences on Yavin 4; or someone belonging to a domain rivaling Kwaad might have even spread such rumors. The possibilities were numerous.
“Are there any other differences between the stories, then?” he asked, hoping to sound more like an innocent student of the Jedi rather than someone with an ulterior motive.
“There’s some discrepancy over when the events occurred,” Aarn said.
“Yes, I know. One version suggests that all this happened when Yavin Four was still in the hands of the Jedi. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not really,” Aarn said. “Stories do change of their own accord. I would be more suspicious if all the versions were exactly the same.”
“Do you know of any others who tell tales like this, then?” Nom Anor asked.
“A few,” Shoon-mi said. “Everyone tells a handful of trusted friends, and each of those in turn tells another handful. That is the manner by which rumors spread. Not knowing who told who more than one or two reiterations ago may be frustrating, but it certainly makes things safer for all of us.”
That much was true, at least, Nom Anor thought. Without that fact working in its favor, the Jedi myth wouldn’t have filtered far enough to reach his ears. At the same time, though, not being able to trace it back would hardly work in his favor. Shimrra wouldn’t be happy with only half the information, if Nom Anor decided to divulge it. Unless the Supreme Overlord could be assured of wiping it out at its source, he would never believe that it had been completely eradicated. This would undoubtedly frustrate him, and that would make Nom Anor the source of this frustration.
The heresy was like disease eating away at the underside of Yuuzhan Vong culture. Beneath the surface, as he had always thought of it, beneath the warrior, shaper, and intendant castes, lay the foundations built by the workers. The efforts of the workers were sustained by the priests, who shored up any weak areas with babble that would barely hold water if one poked a single claw at it. The priests made everything possible because, without gods demanding sacrifice and servitude, what was there to stop the workers from rising up? Or the warriors from turning on the weak? The intendants from stealing from anyone they felt like? It was the glue of the gods that kept not just the Yuuzhan Vong invasion on course but the Yuuzhan Vong race as a whole together.
If something were to supplant the gods—new gods, or no gods at all—Nom Anor suspected that Yuuzhan Vong society would fly apart like a shattered planet. There would be no center left to hold it together; it would be eaten away, decayed. He knew it was his duty to report the extent of the heresy to Shimrra. To do otherwise would be to actively participate in the destruction of everything he had worked toward for decades. Yet part of him still wondered if there might not be some way he could turn all of this around to work in his favor, without bringing everything down around him. And wouldn’t that be the greatest irony of all? To use his enemies, the Jedi, as the means to his own victory?
“Amorrn?”
He realized that he had been too preoccupied with his thoughts to notice the conversation taking place around him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gritting his teeth on the false camaraderie. “I was thinking of how strange it must have been for Vua Rapuung to be so close to a Jedi for so lo
ng.”
“There have been others,” Aarn asserted. “I heard of a Jeedai who allowed himself to be captured, and he couldn’t be broken.”
I’pan nodded. “I’ve heard of him, too,” he said. “His name was Wurth Skidder. He seduced a yammosk with his mind and then killed it.”
Nom Anor said nothing, although he was certain he knew more about the incident than the Shamed Ones relating it to him. The Jedi Wurth Skidder had been a prisoner on Créche, a yammosk-carrying clustership destroyed at Fondor. Its commander, Chine-kal, had been circumspect in reports prior to his death, but what seemed certain was that Skidder had been close to the breaking point before an attempted rescue by one of the New Republic’s most daring irritants, Kyp Durron’s so-called Dozen. One member of this group, a Jedi by the name of Ganner, managed to kill the yammosk, but he had been unable to rescue his friend. The galling thing was that, although Wurth Skidder had died, it was true he had never been broken.
“Mezhan Kwaad couldn’t break the Jeedai-who-was shaped,” Aarn said.
“And then there are the Twins, also,” Shoon-mi said. “Both have been captured, and both have escaped. Yun-Yammka has never been able to break them, either.”
“So you are saying that they are even more powerful than the gods?” Nom Anor asked.
The question seemed to make Shoon-mi nervous. “Not necessarily,” he said. “But perhaps the Jeedai know more about the gods than the priests do.”
And there it was, stated boldly: the true heresy that had the potential to bring the Yuuzhan Vong species to its knees. Once the workers stopped listening to the priests, what would fill the vacuum? The warriors? The intendants? The Jedi?
The latter truly would be an abomination, Nom Anor knew. He would never allow himself to be dictated to by an infidel. But he would use them to get what he wanted: either news of the heresy could regain his favor with Shimrra, or the heresy itself could destabilize the Supreme Overlord’s rule. That seemed a simple enough progression. It wasn’t the normal way an ambitious Yuuzhan Vong climbed the ranks—but since the ladder one would normally ascend to further one’s status in the Yuuzhan Vong hierarchy had effectively been kicked out from under him, he was forced to resort to other methods. It wasn’t something he was particularly proud of, but it was necessary.
Remnant: Force Heretic I Page 19
