by Greg Keyes
"Yu'shaa," Tahiri said, "why are you wearing a masquer?"
She felt Corran's reaction in the Force-a sudden height-ening of
suspicion. But he didn't say anything, and she was watching the Prophet for
his reaction.
But the Prophet showed no surprise, nor should he have-any Yuuzhan Vong
would see the masquer for what it was an organism that presented a false face
to the world.
"You know our ways," he said. "I wear this masquer for my people. I have
sworn not to remove it until our redemption has come. For you, I might take it
off, but I have adhered it with dhur qirit. The removal process is very
lengthy."
So it was basically sutured to his face. That made sense, sort of-several
Yuuzhan Vong sects in the past had habitu-ally worn masquers as a matter of
daily ritual. They had, in fact, originally been developed for that rather
than as a means of disguise.
But here, in this context, Tahiri didn't like it. Corran obviously
didn't, either. "No offense, Yu'shaa," he said, "but Tahiri and I need a
moment to discuss this alone."
"Of course."
They walked a comfortable distance.
"How does this smell to you?" Corran asked.
"I don't really like it," Tahiri said. "But part of that might be a
reflexive dislike of Shamed Ones."
"You think that affects your read of the situation?"
"I hope not. I'm trying to fight it. But there's something about him I
don't like, that's for sure."
"Well, that makes two of us. But the question isn't whether we like him,
or even whether we trust him. The question is, Is he telling us the truth at
this moment, as he knows it?"
"I can't say for sure," Tahiri said. "But this all seems pretty elaborate
for a trap."
"My thought exactly. It doesn't make any sense-if they were going to do
something, why not here? No, this has the feel of a real plan, albeit a pretty
shoddy one. In fact, it's sort of reassuring." He smiled. "Are you still game?
"
"Of course. I thought you would be the one to object."
"We're in pretty deep already. You've shown me you can handle yourself.
And Kenth was right to send you along-I couldn't have made the call about the
masquer. Let's at least see what the plan is."
"There are hidden ways into Shimrra's palace," Yu'shaa told them. "Some
have been discovered, but there is one 1 am still certain of. I have been
reluctant to use it, for once I do so I cannot do so again. Once within, we
must make our way to the shaper compound."
"If she has a ship, why can't she just fly it out?" Tahiri asked.
"I don't know," the Prophet replied. "I know only that she requires
defense of a substantial sort, or the escape will be impossible."
"That's not all there is to it," Corran grunted. "She wants it to look
like a kidnapping, doesn't she? So she can have deniability later."
"That seems possible," Yu'shaa agreed.
"Hmm. Do you have a diagram of this compound?"
"Yes."
"How many warriors will we have to face?"
"My followers will help, of course," Yu'shaa said. "They will create a
nearby disturbance, which should draw war-riors to another part of the palace
compound. And you have friends inside the damutek, of course."
"That's all well and good," Corran said, "but how many warriors will we
have to face?"
"My guess is all I can give you, but I suspect no less than ten.""And as
many as?"
"If things go wrong? A few hundred."
"Ah," Corran said. "Then your people, the ones creating the distraction..
."
"Will likely be killed, yes. But they are willing to die."
"But I'm not willing to let them die," Corran said. "Not forme."
"They die for their own redemption, Jedi Horn, not for you. It is only if
our mission fails that they will have died in vain."
"Still, I-hang on."
Tahiri felt something in the Force, then, a flash of insight from Corran.
He was staring at the glowing plants they'd been discussing a moment ago.
"I think I have an idea," he said. Tahiri thought he sounded reluctant.
"It might buy us the edge we need, and get fewer of your people hurt in the
process."
"The Jedi shall lead the way," the Prophet said. "Tell me your plan."
"I wish you wouldn't keep saying things like that," Corran said, "but
here's what I'm thinking..."
TWELVE
When they emerged from the darkened tunnels and into the light of Supreme
Overlord Shimrra's palace, Tahiri's knees went momentarily weak at the sight.
His command ship, an enormous winged sphere, was nested at the top of it, as
if the whole palace were a scepter, a symbol of might.
"Pretty impressive," even Corran admitted. "Nowwhat?" Yu'shaa pointed a
finger toward a much more modest, star-shaped complex. "That is the shaper
damutek," he said. "Wait here for a few moments. When our ruse begins, it will
be there." He pointed to a large, hexagonal building rather low to the ground,
with a roof of gabled mica. "It is an amphistaff breeding gla. The guards will
think my people are raiding for weapons."
Corran counted at least fifty warriors patrolling the vast plaza.
"Your people will be slaughtered."
"They will not fight for long. They will flee, and your brilliant plan
will make certain that most of them are not followed."
Corran sighed. "I'm not so sure it's brilliant."
"They may escape," Yu'shaa said. "You have given them a better chance
than they had. If they do not, they will die with honor, something more than
Shimrra would ever allow them. They will die knowing they have blazed the
trail to redemption."
Corran looked back at the damutek. "And we just go in the front door?"
Tahiri was staring at the damutek as well. The momen-tary reflex to
worship she'd had at the sight of Shimrra's palace was gone, replaced by a
cold feeling that lay on the borderlands of anger and fear. Bad things had
happened to her in such a place.
"Yes," she said. "We just go in through the front door."
"And where will we meet you?" Corran asked the Prophet.
"There is a shrine to Yun-Harla nearby. The shaper will know where it is.
If I survive, I will see you there."
"You haven't seen whether you survive or not?" Corran asked.
The Prophet smiled. "I am confident that I will."
"Well, good luck anyway," Corran said.
"Yes. May the Force be with you."
As the sounds of the Prophet's footsteps faded, Corran opened his mouth
to say something, and then stopped. He looked at Tahiri.
"Yes," Tahiri assured him. "That was weird for me, too."
Nom Anor continued grinning as he left the two Jedi. While nothing was
certain, he did expect to survive the coming battle, because he did not intend
to be in it. His fol-lowers would fight, and they would die, and he would
leave by the way he had come in and make his way to the shrine. If the Jedi
and the shaper died as well, then he would vanish back underground and try to
think of something new.
He wasn't particularly happy that Corran Horn had been chosen to come.
&nb
sp; While it looked good to his followers, for him it would be a continual danger.
Horn was not the sort to be lulled easily out of suspicion. If he discovered
the
"Prophet's" true identity, Nom Anor suspected that the appearance of
present good intentions would not overshadow his actions against the Jedi in
the past.
Of course, Tahiri was a problem, too. Her knowledge of Yuuzhan Vong ways
made her another potential threat. She'd seemed less than entirely convinced
by his explana-tion for the masquer.
He paused in the darkened tunnel, considering. Perhaps he shouldn't go
through with this, after all.
But, no, he had to. Since Ngaaluh's death, Nom Anor's influence had begun
to wane. Shimrra was now extremely vigilant against spies at his court, even
at the highest levels. Sweeps of the lower levels had increased, and Shamed
Ones removed farther from where they might do harm. Worse, while his following
hadn't dropped off, it hadn't grown, either, partly because too many of them
were getting killed without any apparent movement toward the ultimate goal of
"redemption." The potential for an uprising that might catapult Nom Anor to
power was farther away than it had ever been. He needed a new catalyst, a new
source of strength. He needed, in short, new allies.
Still... He patted the pouch-creature fastened to the flesh beneath his
arm. It contained the one piece of his past as a respected executor. He wasn't
even sure why he'd risked bringing it, but... if he were to deliver two Jedi,
a rogue shaper, and the planet Zonama Sekot into Shimrra's hands, it might be
enough to...
No it wouldn't. Not if even a suspicion of his role as Yu'shaa were to
enter Shimrra's mind.
No, he would have to work with what he had. It was far too late to
flinch. Nor could he panic at the prospect of the trip he faced.
He did not, like his superstitious followers, believe in an ordained
destiny-destiny was something created by sheer force of will, and that was
something he had in abundance. So he would play the role of compassionate holy
man for the Jedi. He would win them or they would die.
For Nom Anor, there could only be forward and upward, never back or down.
One moment nothing was happening; the next a yellow-green explosion
blossomed from the side of the building across the square and the outer wall
collapsed in sticky shards, as if it had melted. Warriors all across the
square raced for the source of the explosion, but before they could reach it,
a mob of Shamed Ones sprang from a pit near the buildings and fell upon the
warriors with coufees, am-phistaffs, batons, even pipes and rocks.
The fighting was confused by distance, but Tahiri could tell they weren't
faring very well, though they fought with absolute conviction, some impaling
themselves on the am-phistaffs of the warriors, immobilizing the weapons long
enough for their companions to drag their foes down by sheer weight of
numbers. This distraction wouldn't last long. She tensed to run.
"Hang on," Corran said. "Wait until..."
Even as he spoke, new actors appeared, four figures in brown cloaks
bearing long glowing tubes of light. And everywhere went up the cry of
"Jeedai," from warriors and Shamed Ones at once. But their tones were
quite different. The Shamed Ones were exulting, while the warriors were crying
out in challenge and fury-and perhaps a little fear. There were few things
that could bring a warrior greater honor than bringing down a Jedi in combat-
the warriors didn't worship them as the Shamed Ones did, but they had learned
respect.
The "Jeedai" suddenly turned and ran, and guards went after them,
howling. Indeed, guards who had not already left their posts now did so.
Corran had called that one pretty well. If there was anything that could make
a warrior forget every duty he had, this was it.
Of course, when it came to their superiors' attention that they had
abandoned their posts to chase Shamed Ones bearing the light-plants that grew
below their feet, things would not go well for any of them.
"Now," Corran said.
Tahiri was already springing forward, now utterly focused on the single
guard who still remained at the front closure of the damutek.
To the guard's credit, he wasn't too distracted by the fighting to see
them coming. Unfortunately, his attention did not do him much good against two
Jedi.
At the door, Tahiri put her hand against the membrane.
"Veka, Kwaad."
The opening dilated.
"That was easy," Corran said.
"It should be," Tahiri answered. "This damutek belongs to my domain."
"Master Yim," someone asked from the doorway.
She looked up from the series of kul embryos she'd been vivisecting. It
was Qelah Kwaad. "What is it?"
"There's some sort of disturbance in the outer com-pound. They say it is
Shamed Ones."
"Disturbance? What are they doing?"
"They've attacked the amphistaff nursery."
"Trying to arm themselves, I suppose," Nen Yim replied.
"Go, secure the laboratories."
"Yes, Master Yim." The adept hurried off.
Well, she considered.
This must be it.
She straightened from her task and moved to the wall. From a pouch
adhered to her belly, she withdrew a thorn-shaped creature with a thin, hard
shell, located a nerve cluster in the wall, and thrust it in. It hissed softly
as it began injecting toxin into the damutek. It would paralyze the living
structure's de-fenses, allowing whoever was coming after her to do so without
having to deal with corridor-sealing membranes and debilitating gas. Of
course, those defenses had not stopped the Jedi on Yavin, but this needed to
move quickly. The thorn tapiq would soon dissolve and leave no trace of itself
or its effect.
She grabbed an enveloping cloth surrounding a set of se-lected shaper
bioware and a qahsa and hurried up the cor-ridor toward the Sekotan ship. She
was amazed at how calm she felt. Of course, she still hadn't taken any
irrevocable steps. She could counteract the effects of the tapiq, and she
probably had the means at her disposal to stop the Jedi. But no. Zonama Sekot
was a mystery she could not let lie. The planet called to her. She would go,
if she survived the next few moments.
The ship was as she had seen it the day before, shimmering gently,
waiting for her. Excitement grew in her. She was step-ping forward, touching
it with her master's hand, when sev-eral figures burst through the doorway
into the room.
Two humans, and, by their whipping, burning unlife brands, certainly
Jedi. They were engaged with eight war-riors. Both of the humans already bore
several bloody gashes, but as she watched, two more Yuuzhan Vong warriors fell
from sizzling, cauterized wounds.
One of the remaining guards turned to face her.
"Master Yim, flee. There is danger here."
She knew him-Bhasu Ruuq, quiet for a warrior. She thought she'd caught
him giving her admiring glances before.
"My apologies," she said. She extended her master's hand, and a long,
whiplike sting no thicker than a straw snaked out and impaled him through the
eye. He died without a sound. She curled her hand, and the sting wrapped
around the neck of another warrior and bit through the arteries of his neck.
She released it, recalled it, and shot it back out to kill a third.
The Jedi cut down the last of their stunned opponents and stood panting
over corpses, staring at her.
The gaze of the yellow-haired one struck Nen Yim like a I thud bug, and a
jolt of recognition ran through her. Every - j thing changed, suddenly, and
she realized her only triumph was death.
"You," she said. "You've come to kill me."
Tahiri gave Nen Yim a cold grin.
"You think so?" she said. "Why would I do that? Merely because you
tortured me, turned my brain inside out, tried to turn me against everything I
h ad ever known?"
"You two know each other, then," Corran speculated. Tahiri nodded grimly.
"She's one of the shapers who experimented on me. Her name is Nen Yim." She
looked at the fallen warriors. "I see you've got a new hand. Like Mezhan
Kwaad's."
"Mezhan Kwaad was a master. Now I am."
"I should have known it was you," Tahiri said. Rage was j suddenly a
whirlwind in her. "Watch her hand, Corran. She has..."
"I saw what she did to the warriors," Corran said. "If she thinks it will
work on me, she's welcome to try."
"She's mine, Corran," Tahiri growled. She stepped for-ward, raising her
weapon to guard between them. Turning*' to the shaper, she continued, "You
have no idea what you've put me through, Nen Yim. I nearly died. I nearly went
mad."!
"But you did not."
"I did not. Nor did I become what you were trying to! make of me."
"That was fairly clear when you decapitated Mezhan Kwaad," the shaper
replied.
"Yes," Tahiri said. "That was a quick end for her. My torture lasted a
lot longer."
The rage was blackening in her, a vua'sa nearing a rival's j den. She
watched for the slightest twitch of the shaper's hand, the smallest excuse to.
.. To what? Kill her? She took a deep, slow breath, and lowered her weapon.
Her hand was trembling and her belly was tight. She willed the muscles to
relax.
"We've come a long way through a lot of trouble for you," she said. "I
don't intend to kill you, not now. You're the reason we're here, aren't you?"
