The droid’s presence unsettled him for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on. He said, “We have a package for her. From Dok-Ondar on Batuu. He sent us.”
The droid cocked her head to the side and said, “A package from Batuu?” as if she wasn’t quite sure if that was the truth or not. “Entrusted to two travelers from…elsewhere?”
Her tone implied a prompt and a question, so Karr answered it. He gave her his name and added, “This is RZ-7. We’ve been on a quest to visit and collect Jedi artifacts. As part of a school project. We met Dok-Ondar and he let us see some of his stock, then traded us this favor for an item or two.”
This time, it might be best to stick to the truth—or a near version of it. The longer he stood there within the castle walls, the more confident he felt that it was sacred ground of some kind. He could sense the Force in that place.
The droid nodded and said, “Very good. I am Emmie-Eightdeenine, though I am mostly called Emmie by the locals—and you may call me that as well, if you like. Come along and I will take you to Maz Kanata. She will be interested to see what you’ve brought.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said RZ-7.
ME-8D9 led them past the cantina and down an alley, through a door and down some stairs. “You are welcome here, as is everyone,” she informed them. “For exactly so long as you can refrain from violence. All fighting is prohibited. All fighters will be evicted.”
“Sounds fair,” Karr muttered, following along behind her.
Soon they reached a level just below the cantina band, or that was how it sounded through the floor. The music rose and swelled and tinkled and thrummed, and if Karr had been feeling better, he might’ve tapped his feet.
But suddenly, he felt the weight of the place above him and the weight of the place below him, too. He was sandwiched between two heavy spots, and he struggled to stand upright.
ME-8D9 noticed, and she stopped. “If you’ll tell me what’s wrong with you, perhaps I could assist.”
“It’s not like that. It’s just…it’s very…”
He was still hunting for a word when a small person appeared at the end of the corridor where they stood. “Heavy,” she said.
The woman was tiny, perhaps half Karr’s height. Her skin was brownish and very tight on her skeleton; she wore big round goggles that distorted her eyes and made them look bulbous. She could’ve been a hundred years old or a thousand years old. ME-8D9 could’ve told Karr either one, and he would’ve believed her.
ME-8D9 nodded respectfully at the wee figure. “Maz Kanata, these two have been asking for you—all over the castle. I do not think they mean any harm, and they claim to have a package for you. From Batuu.”
“Batuu?” She approached Karr and popped up her goggles so they sat atop her head. Her eyes were much smaller that way, and they stared so intently that he was half afraid she could hear him thinking.
Could she hear him thinking?
She laughed. “No, you silly boy. I can’t hear your thoughts, but I am very old, and I have spent a very long time watching people. I know a lost child when I see one. And I know a fellow who can sense the Force, when I see him struggling in a place such as this. But I’m glad to see you,” she concluded. “It’s about time you got here.”
Karr was confused. His head felt like it was stuffed full of wadded-up fabric. “I don’t understand. Were you expecting us?”
“I always expect everything!” she said cheerfully, peering up at him with those bright little eyes. “But yes, in particular—I was expecting you.”
Karr took her in for a moment. “Because of the Force?” he asked.
“No. Because Dok sent a message.”
Karr gave her a look as if he’d just been had, but she continued. “About a droid and a boy with a passion for Jedi artifacts that practically knocks him off his feet!”
“He told you all that?”
“In not so many words, yes. You are welcome, as I’m sure Emmie told you—but I can see that you are not comfortable here.” She walked away from them then, gesturing that they should follow. “Come with me and I’ll tell you why. I might be able to help.”
“Help with…what?” asked RZ-7. “Our only task is to give you a package.”
“Ah, but your quest is quite different from your task, isn’t it?” Over her shoulder, she gave Karr a wink. “You feel a connection to the Jedi, to the Force. It’s very strong, I should think.”
Vaguely but honestly, Karr said, “I don’t understand what’s happening….”
She cackled. “Quite the understatement, young man.” She led him into what looked like an office. There was a desk with no chair behind it and two chairs in front of it. She did not go behind the desk but sat on top of it and crossed her legs. “Thank you, Emmie. I’ll take it from here.”
Emmie bobbed her head and made a discreet exit.
Karr and RZ-7 took the seats. Even with Maz positioned on the desk, they were all nearly at eye level. The boy reached into his satchel and pulled out the package Dok had given him, then held it out to her.
Without even looking at it, she took it and set it down beside her knee. “I like your gloves,” she told him.
“Thanks? My grandmother made them for me.”
“A family that makes things, yes. A good family to come from. But you don’t wear them for the cold, or for the protection from callouses, do you?” Before he could respond, she answered her own question. “No, you do not! You wear them so you can be choosy about the things you touch. That’s more like it, yes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered. His vision wanted to double up again, but he fought it. He focused on his breathing—one, two, in, out—until he didn’t want to close his eyes anymore.
“Young man, do you know where we are?”
“In…in your castle. In your…library?” The room was about the size of a bedroom, lined with shelves that were overloaded yet somehow tidy. On one wall hung framed paintings, light sconces, and some plaques in languages Karr couldn’t read.
“Close enough, yet insufficient. This castle, as they call it—it’s been here for a millennium. Before that, it was broadly thought to have been a Jedi compound, with catacombs beneath. This was only a rumor, you understand. But that may be why you feel it….” She peered at him. “Both coming and going. The weight of the Jedi presses down on you, and it rises up against you.”
“Catacombs?” he squeaked.
“The Jedi dead must go somewhere. Why not here?”
He couldn’t think of a good reason, and the idea that he was sitting in a room above a Jedi graveyard thrilled him so much that for a few seconds he completely forgot about his headache. “They’re buried? In a crypt, right below us?”
She corrected him. “They’re interred, my boy. Not buried. If they are here. All Jedi are cremated, if possible—so if you want to get fussy about it, you should call it a columbarium. So you maybe are feeling their presence above and below, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Do you…do you feel it, too? Because if you do, I have to know—how do you stand it? I can hardly breathe down here.”
She shook her head. “Oh, I feel something, but it doesn’t hurt me. Whether that’s due to my age or my own abilities, I suppose we’ll never know—the Force works in different ways with different people, understand?”
“Maz, are you a Jedi?”
Her rusty little laugh came back again. “Me, a Jedi? No way. But I’ve known more than a few, and I have…my own sensitivity. It’s not an easy thing to explain, but you know this. You tried to lie, rather than explain. I’m not upset. I understand the impulse. Sometimes a lie is easier for everyone, and when it hurts no one—who can mind it?”
“I didn’t tell the truth because…well, I didn’t think your droid would understand, and I was going to lie to you because I didn’t think you’d believe me. Besides, not everyone we’ve met so far has a lot of love for the Jedi.”
“Oh, I know that’s true. The universe is a darker
place for it, too. The Force requires balance, and these days it seems like the dark side is the only side getting any traction. These are difficult times indeed, to favor the light.”
Maz Kanata went on to explain—in a little more depth than Karr’s grandmother had done—what the Force was and how it worked best when it was in balance. “But balance is hard to come by, these days,” she finished with a sigh. “Now tell me, how does the Force move you, young man?”
“Like you guessed about the gloves, I touch things.”
“Guess? I did not guess!” she objected, but with good nature. “I never need to guess. That’s not all of it, though. You’re not touching anything now except for your bottom on the chair—and that chair has never known anything of the Force, dark or light or otherwise.”
“Oh. Right. Um…I can sort of…I get visions, when I touch things sometimes. Especially if they witnessed great events. The Jedi visions are the ones I like the best. But they do hurt me—they give me terrible headaches—and sometimes I don’t…sometimes I don’t like the things I see….” He lost the thread, thinking about watching himself murder a Jedi Knight. He wanted to confess it to her but couldn’t make himself speak those words.
“Oh, enough of your uncertainty. You’re learning every hour, unless I’m wrong. And I’m almost never wrong,” she assured him, thoughtfully tapping her finger on the side of her jaw. “When I first saw you, I thought you might collapse under the weight of your own pain. But now? You’re uncomfortable, yes. But you’re hardly dying.”
She was right, and he agreed with her. “It still hurts, but…”
“But you’re finding the balance, without even meaning to. You’re finding the place that’s level.” On the desk was a clear glass filled halfway with milk. She picked it up and showed it to him. “Do you see where the surface lies? If I tip the glass to the left, the surface tips high to the left and low to the right. And the reverse, when I tip it the other way. But if I hold it still—even if I swish it a little first, like this!—you watch, and it’ll…settle. It soon finds its level. Its balance. You’re doing the very same thing, though I’m sure you couldn’t explain it if I tried to force you.”
“You’ve got me there. I don’t know how it happens, or how to control it.”
“But you’re getting better at it, all the same. The Force is both a subject and a teacher. If you listen to it, you will learn a great deal. Now, I have a thought. I have…more than a few things which once belonged to the Jedi. I do not have the curated collection of my friend Dok-Ondar, but there are quality items to be found all the same! I will give you one to hold, as a test, and you can tell me what it says to you.”
“How will you know that I’m right? Or that I’m telling the truth?” he asked.
“I will choose something with which I’m already familiar. I will give you something, but only if I know its history. One moment,” she said. Then she hopped off the desk and disappeared into the hall.
When she was gone, RZ-7 said quietly, “Sir, you do appear to be feeling better, if you don’t mind me saying so. The color’s come back into your face, and your heart rate is returning to a normal range.”
“I don’t feel great, but I do feel better. Sitting down helps.”
Maz returned a minute later, holding something round on a wide ribbon. “Here,” she said. “Take off your gloves.”
Karr removed them and left them in his lap. He held out his hands.
“Do you feel it?” she asked him. “From there?”
She was still standing maybe three meters away. He said, “I don’t know—I can’t tell. There’s so much…background noise.”
“Fair enough. How about now?” She came closer by a few steps.
There it was, yes. He could feel that. It came off the object in faint, pulsating waves that sharpened his fading headache. “I can feel it now.” He reached out farther with his right hand. “What is it?”
She hopped back up onto the desk, where she apparently preferred to sit. “It was entrusted to me for safekeeping, some years ago—by a man who couldn’t pay his bar tab. You’ll know more when you take it. Go on, hold it. Listen to it. Tell me what it says to you.”
He did as she asked, jerking back reflexively when the first touch zapped him. He recovered and reached for it again. Maz Kanata dropped it into his palm, where the object felt thick and warm and buzzing.
“What is it, sir?” asked RZ-7.
Visions were brewing in his brain, but they didn’t flare immediately to life—so he went with what he could see with his own eyes. “It’s a medal? A big round medal with some symbols on it. It belonged to…” The vision smacked him hard upside the head. The room went white, and then it went black, and he fluttered his eyes trying to find the balance. He pictured the glass half full of milk. He imagined it sloshing around, back and forth, light to dark and back again. He thought of the surface, level and smooth.
Stay in the vision but stay in the real world, too. Find the level.
“Go on. Tell me. What do you see?” Maz asked.
He tried to obey. “Two men. One taller, with darker hair. One smaller and younger. This belonged to…it belonged to Skywalker.” That name again! “It was put on his neck…around his neck. A woman put it there. She had dark hair, in a long braid. There was a battle, and he was a hero. It was given to him for bravery, and in thanks for his service.”
Maz interrupted, “Wait. You say it was Skywalker’s? Are you sure?”
Karr nodded and Maz laughed, deep and loud. She slapped the table beside her and slapped her thigh, and probably would’ve slapped Karr if he’d been sitting any closer—so great was her hilarity. “That bastard!” she said merrily. “That tricky bastard!”
“I’m…I’m sorry?” Karr said, not knowing what the right response ought to be. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No! No, you’ve done nothing wrong, and you’ve told me something I should’ve known in the first place! That scheming bastard Solo, always a cheater when cheating is easy. One day, that man will come to a terrible end—you mark my words.”
He still had no idea what was so funny.
RZ-7 declared, “Words marked, ma’am.”
“The medal was supposed to be a reward from Leia Organa to the man who became her husband—Han Solo, may you never be so unfortunate as to cross his crooked path,” she said, but she didn’t really sound angry. She sounded amused and as if she felt a little silly about having ever believed that man about anything, ever.
“Karr,” she said, using his name at last. “What I’m trying to say is that the swindler swindled me. He told me that the medal was his own, but he gave me his friend’s instead. They all fought at the Battle of Yavin and were rewarded together—along with a very handsome Wookiee who would never cheat me in such a fashion, nor would he allow it to occur if he’d been aware of it. We’re very fond of one another, and he would not treat me so badly. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“No, ma’am, I wouldn’t.” Especially since he’d only ever seen a couple of Wookiees in his life and couldn’t imagine the day he’d contradict one—or anyone who cared about one.
“That pain in the rear he runs around with, though.” She shook her head. “Well, you have shown me what I needed to see. You passed my little test. Now this one should tell you even more, if you’re correct—and I have no reason to doubt you. I knew what Solo was when I took the medal. I should’ve asked more questions, not that it matters in the scheme of things, I suppose. They were all identical, I believe.
“Here, let us try something for which I now believe you are ready.” With that, she produced the package that Karr had only just delivered to her.
“I don’t understand….”
“I do. Dok-Ondar does. He sent you this package.”
Karr frowned. “But he sent it to you.”
“He sent it to me so that I could give it to you if I deemed appropriate. Try to keep up, boy. Look, this should tell you a great many th
ings about the Jedi, if you’re strong enough to see them, which I now believe you are.” She snipped away the twine that held the package shut and opened it to reveal a large cylinder of rusted golden metal. She held up the bruised and dented object and asked Karr what he saw.
“Is that…? I guess it looks like an arm.” It began a few centimeters above the elbow joint, where the jumble of twisted connection wires suggested it’d been ripped free of some poor droid somewhere.
“Very good, yes. That’s precisely what it is. Although how Dok-Ondar retrieved it from the belly of the beast that swallowed it is beyond me. He is a master collector, however, and when he sets his sights on something, he does not rest until he acquires it. You know the feeling, am I right?”
Karr nodded. His journey to find himself, to find out about the Jedi, was both fresh and old. Granted, he and Maize had only left Merokia days before, but he’d been obsessed with the Jedi since his grandmother called out his connection to them years before. Since she had given him hope that his headaches weren’t so much a curse but rather a blessing that needed to be nurtured. And that if he could learn about the Jedi, he could learn about himself. He’d done his best, but sometimes the galaxy must also play its part.
“We have reached that moment,” she said, pushing it toward him as if she had heard his thoughts. “I want you to touch it, but you must prepare yourself. I know the droid who wore this arm, and I know how much he’s seen, and how much he knows. This old arm may have quite a lot to say.”
Eagerly, as if he hadn’t even heard the warning, Karr seized the old metal arm with both hands.
And the whole galaxy exploded behind his eyes. He struggled to keep up with the flashes of images, one after another, two at a time, ten at a time. Men and women, coming and going. Starship battles, lasers flashing. The Death Star! He knew it in an instant, watched it collapse into a fireball the size of a moon—twice even—while small ships streaked away from it. He saw Wookiees and space slugs. And tiny Wookiees. Or…not Wookiees? Something Wookiee-like, certainly a forested moon or planet with these hairy little tribes of creatures who looked like toys, carrying spears and shouting battle cries.
Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Page 14
