The Jester
(I'm not making any money off this and I don't own Star Wars)
Spoilers - Edge of Victory I and II, Star by Star
WARNING
The end contains a MAJOR theory for upcoming NJO books. I
may be wrong, but I don't think I am.
Shortly before Star by Star
The Noghri did not struggle against the blorash jelly
restraints when he saw Nen Yim enter the chamber. By now the
prisoner knew he could not win free through simple strength. He
the still, deadly patience of a born predator he followed the shaper
with onyx-black eyes, watching for the slightest lapse of
precaution on the part of his keepers. Given a chance, even a fifth
of a chance, he would slip his bonds and kill his tormentor with
nothing but his hands and teeth.
He might as well have been a baby ngdin for all Nen Yim's
reaction. She was aware of the Noghris' capabilities, but she also
knew the strength of the jelly restraints. There was no way the
alien could possibly get loose, so what was there to be afraid of?
Nen Yim extended an extracting needle from one finger of her
master hand and slid it into the Noghri's arm, careful to keep the
hand well away from the prisoner's mouth. She nodded to herself
as the eight-fingered hand drew in blood, then turned and walked
out the door, leaving the Noghri to try his glares on the four living
walls.
Suung Aruh was waiting for her outside, along with the
Maa'ju Haar who guarded the door. The newly-made adept
genuflected with his headdress when he saw Nen Yim. "Master,
Col Rammok's team has attained successful results with their
experiments," he could barely keep the grin from his face, "he
requests your attention."
"As do five other research groups." Nen Yim turned her
maa'its to her master's hand, an excretory orifice in the palm
opened and two small capsules spilled out into her normal hand.
She gave them to Suung Aruh. "I need this sample analyzed. We
may need to apply the Protocol of Mezhan to the gene pattern."
She named one of the shaping methods she herself had devised.
Suung Aruh's eyes flashed with excitement. "Are we close,
Master, if I may ask?" Nen Yim considered reprimanding the
adept, such a display of emotion was not worthy of a shaper, but
decided against it. Some cautious optimism was not unwarranted
at this point.
"I believe so." She answered, leading their way down the
coral hallway of her damutek. They saw several Maa'ju Haar
along the way, stationed at various doorways, ready to slay any
infidel prisoner who might get loose within the damutek.
Normally, a shaper compound had no garrison, but Master Nen
Yim recognized the need for the guards: there were three Jeedai
imprisoned here, and even unarmed, bound hand and foot and
surrounded by ysalmari-laden walking trees, Nen Yim was taking
no chances with them. She remembered well the damage Anakin
Solo had wrought when let loose in a damutek.
The Maa'ju Haar didn't offer either greeting or salute as the
two shapers passed, their blind faces were as impassive as carved
stone and they stood with predatory alertness that made the Noghri
look undisciplined and awkward by comparison. That was all to
be expected: the Maa'ju Haar, the Eyeless Watchers, were lord
Shimrra's personal guard.
They had made Nen Yim uneasy during her first days in
the supreme overlord's service. Now she supposed she was used to
them, though she would never be able to ignore their presence.
The Eyeless Watchers were taller than most warriors, armored in
jet-black vonduun armor, but though they had the scars and
augmentations of warriors the Maa'ju Haar boasted no tattoos
detailing their families and lineages. They had no red whorls to
indicate battles fought, no symbols that denoted great deeds, the
Haar had only a single mark: the symbol of lord Shimrra's House,
branded on their foreheads.
They differed from the normal rank-and-file warriors in
one other way, in the source of their name. None of the Maa'ju
Haar had no eyes, so they could never look upon the supreme
overlord. Instead, they had been implanted with sensory organs
that could hear a particular methcham forceps working amid the
roar of a processing maw luur, that could detect sniff out a trail
five cycles cold and 'see' body heat and nonvisible light.
They were more alike than sacred twins. The Eyeless
Weren't creche born, they sprang full-grown from cloning vats,
their genetic template honed by master shapers and their minds
sculpted by Qah cells. They owed allegiance to no domain or
caste and had no lives apart from Shimrra's will. The shapers were
constantly adding to the genetic pattern of each generation with the
DNA of the greatest warriors of the time. Doubtless Tsavong Lah
had donated a blood sample for their shaping, it was accounted a
great honor for a warrior's genes to be included in the makeup of
the supreme overlord's bodyguards.
Nen Yim supposed that might be part of why they made her
uneasy: she occasionally wondered if the new brood had some of
Vua Rapuung in them.
"I'll speak to Col Rammok as soon as I'm able," she
continued as they reached the laboratory. "I want to begin
applying this protocol immediately. If it is successful, we may
receive approval to grow our first specimen." She was interested
in seeing how her shaped Noghri would fare against the original in
a field test. Not to mention against Jeedai, though she couldn't
afford to risk any of her three subjects. Captive Jeedai were
scarce: the voxyn might be able to track them, but they were more
interested in killing Jeedai than in taking them alive.
She stifled a sigh of irritation as she presented her wrist to
the sensor, thinking of how her villips would be pulsing with
messages from the research teams, all demanding more resources
and her particular attention. As the chief shaper in this damutek of
heretics, it fell to her to manage all the projects within. Nen Yim
had no taste for administration, she was no intendant, she preferred
the ground-level research and development.
"I thought you'd never get here." A voice greeted them as
the door irised open. Onimi stood at a table, fingering some
specimen bulbs. The jester didn't even bother to look up as he
spoke. "Dear, dear shaper, why do you leave me to cool my heels
for so long?"
"What is the meaning of this?" Suung Aruh slid past Nen
Yim and strode into the room to confront Onimi. "This is Master
Shaper Nen Yim's laboratory, forbidden to all but shapers, how did
you gain admittance?" He demanded.
(Because he is one of lord Shimrra's operatives,) was Nen
Yim's answering thought, (no door is closed to him.) Being
around the deformed jester always made her uncomfortable. That
feeling was not allieved when she recognized the bulbs he was
toying with.
The jester lifted his head and regarded her with those
misaligned eyes of his. Onimi's twisted mouth made something
close to a smile as he rolled one bulb along the back of his hand.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't eager to see me." He
feigned a wounded tone.
"Did you hear me?" The adept snapped. He was now less
than an arm's length away from the jester. "You will explain
yourself or I-"
"Send this noise-maker away." Onimi said to Nen Yim,
ignoring Suung Aruh altogether. "When I have need of a footstool
you can summon him again." It was a private joke that the adept
missed: he didn't know Onimi had posed as Kae Kwaad on the
dying worldship Baanu Miir. The remark still left him red-faced
and sputtering.
"Suung Aruh, go to Col Rammok and tell him I will join
him soon." Nen Yim said.
He glanced at her. "Master-?"
"You are dismissed." She said calmly. The adept was
within Onimi's reach, and the jester wasn't disabled in the least,
despite his deformities. Indeed, quite the opposite, and if Suung
Aruh continued to annoy the Onimi the jester would make him
dead before he hit the floor. Nen Yim could ill afford to lose such
a skilled aid.
Suung Aruh cast a final glare at Onimi, genuflected to Nen
Yim and left.
"Alone at last, my pretty Nen Tsup." Onimi crooned when
the door clamped shut.
"I'll thank you not to call me that." Nen Yim replied
coldly, every inch the master shaper, though her head was
pounding in fear: he had stopped rolling the bulb along his hand
and was now spinning it on one finger! "Put that down." She
spoke as if the container held nothing of great value. "You could
have used the villip if you needed to speak to me."
"But dear Nen Tsup, we see so little of each other these
days." Onimi was rolling the bulb down the length of his entire
forearm now, from the tips of his fingers to his elbow, then back to
fingertips. He walked around the table as he played with the bulb,
holding the other three in his free hand. "I so look forward to
surprising you."
"If you have a message from lord Shimrra, I'll hear it now."
Nen Yim crossed her arms to keep her hands from shaking and
fought the urge to bolt. If one of those bulbs should break...
"Can't I pay a simple social call?" He misjudged and the
bulb rolled over his fingertips and arced through the air. Nen
Yim's maa'its bulged and she felt her stomach give birth to a
scream that shot up her throat. Onimi caught the bulb without
even looking at it, then tossed it into the air, followed by another,
then another. Before Nen Yim's horrified maa'its he began
juggling them!
"Put those DOWN!" She tried to grab one of the bulbs
from the air, but Onimi danced backward and jumped onto a table,
then he began to dance and caper as he juggled, his movements
sure and agile despite his twisted back and shoulders. He laughed.
Laughed at her.
"STOP IT!" Nen Yim was so angry she forgot to be
terrified. For a second the jester's image dissolved into a
confusing blur of cells interacting with each other in the air before
her. She refocused her maa'its: they had just been implanted and
occasionally slipped into other modes of sight when she was
stressed. She was tempted to stomp her feet like a petulant child.
And Onimi stopped dancing and caught the bulbs.
"No need to shout, Nen Tsup." He hopped down to the
floor and set the bulbs on the table.
Blood was pounding in Nen Yim's ears. Every encounter
she had with Onimi was like this, though not usually so hazardous:
the jester never missed a chance to attack her dignity.
Unfortunately these encounters where more often than she would
have liked, as he often bore instructions from the supreme
overlord.
She would like to report this behavior, but who to? Onimi
answered to Shimrra alone. What was she to do: request an
audience, go before that godlike being and say "Your jester is
bothering me."? Impossible.
And who could say he would even take her side? Onimi
had almost daily access to the supreme overlord, while Nen Yim
had spoken to him directly a total of two times. Their
communications consisted of her sending him reports of the
research projects every cycle or two by villip, so the overlord could
decide which had priority and what sort of weaponry or defenses
were needed for the war.
"I'll shout if it pleases me to shout." She ground her teeth.
"We're not on Baanu Miir anymore, I don't have to jump when you
snap your fingers."
Onimi tilted his misshaped head to one side and leaned
against a wall. "Why such a cold shoulder? You seemed
interested in establishing a...closer...relationship on the worldship.
As I thought: you're a tease."
Nen Yim's face heated. That was true, but she'd had to use
any means available to her to restore the dying rikyam, including
attempting to seduce Kae Kwaad. Besides, she'd intended for him
to die as soon as she had the knowledge she needed, and certainly
she would never have tried such a tactic if she had known he
was...what he was.
"Well if you insist, so be it: all business." Onimi stepped
away from the wall and some of his apparent cheer vanished. "I
bring a message from lord Shimrra, and a gift." He was still
smiling, but there was something sickly and false about it, as if he
were suffering from a bad wound but refusing to let the pain show.
But that didn't make since: he was obviously unhurt.
"Go on." She prompted.
"Lord Shimrra wishes you to know he is aware of a certain
plan you're hatching." In a single, fluid motion he reached out and
gathered up all four specimen bulbs from where he had lain them.
"He is not pleased."
"What plan is that?" Nen Yim asked with apparent
nonchalance. No, he couldn't tell her to stop: she had the right!
"That you have rediscovered Mezhan Kwaad's formula for
putting the marks of a shamed one on a true-caste Yuuzhan Vong."
He tossed the container and caught it with one hand. "That you
intend these bulbs to find their way to the Baanu Raas. That
you've prepared Qah cells to implant in a shamed one to be
transferred there in a labor group, instructing him to release the
contents in the presence of Master Yal Phaath and his new
apprentice, the Adept Tsun." He showed his teeth. "That plan."
"What does it matter?" Nen Yim snapped. "Yal Phaath is a
backwards fool, and Tsun has all the skill of a blind grutchin!"
Bitterness colored her tone with that last phrase. She'd heard Tsun
had been raised to adept-level: his reward for deceiving and
betraying her on Yavin IV. "They're no great loss." and they were
two of the hated five.
Five beings had been responsible for Mezhan Kwaad's
downfall and death. Anakin Solo, Tahiri, Vua Rapuung, Yal
Phaath and Tsun. Five, and herself, by her own foolish naivety,
but she would make up for it. She would. So she told herself
every night, when Mezhan Kwaad's accusing eyes tormented her
dreams.
Vua Rapuung was beyond her reach, as were the two
Jeedai, at least temporarily, but not so with Yal Phaath and Tsun,
that bastard get of Yun Harla. What better revenge than to destroy
them using one of her master's own weapons?
"It matters, Nen Tsup, because Yal Phaath serves in his
own way, and lord Shimrra wants nothing to interfere with the
voxyn project."
"Nothing will interfere with it." Nen Yim pressed.
"Someone else will just head the project. Most of the development
is already finished, there labs there do nothing but reproduction.
Any shaper could oversee that."
Onimi shook his head. "The supreme overlord has been
very generous with you, Nen Tsup. Perhaps too generous." Nen
Yim had to agree, she had her own damutek, almost unlimited
resources, lord Shimrra had even complied with her request and
transferred Suung Aruh and the other shapers of the Baanu Miir to
this special project, as well as many of that dying worldship's
residence for the labor and maintenance teams.
"He is becoming concerned that you may have too high an
opinion of your own worth." Onimi continued, the sarcastic edge
had left his voice, which was now strangely gentle. "The same was
true of Mezhan Kwaad, in the end. She forgot that while she was a
favored servant of the gods, she was still only a servant.
"The supreme overlord does not want a repeat of Mezhan
Kwaad's mistakes. Her personal grudge against Vua Rapuung was
damaging to her own work and to the war in general. She took
him out of the battlefield, where he was useful, and put him into
the slave pens, where he did us all great harm. You don't know
how badly this affected the warriors' morale: seeing the gods
seemingly turn their backs on such a great commander. Even
worse, it contributed to the Jeedai heresy our shamed ones are so
fond of. Lord Shimrra commands you to set aside all such
personal animosities." He turned and tossed the bulbs into a wall-
mounted disposal.
"No!" Nen Yim started forward, but it was too late. Onimi
pressed the touch-pad on the wall and the creature's mouth
clamped shut. The temperature within the disposal would now
increase until the bulbs and their contents had vanished. The
shaper glared at him, but for once Onimi didn't mock her with a
ready jibe. "You've delivered your message," she said, "you may
go now."
"Not yet, Nen Tsup." Onimi crossed the room to a supply
closet. "You forget, I bear a message (and) a gift." He reached
for the pad, then hesitated and looked back at her. He had that
expression again, as though something caused him pain. He
touched the pad and the door opened.
Mezhan Kwaad stood inside.
Nen Yim's knees were watery, her vision swam as the
Maa'its shifted through half a dozen sight modes. She opened her
mouth to say "Master," but no sound emerged.
"Come out, Mezhan." Onimi said. "Come out. Come out
here." He repeated the phrase as though to a half-trained pet.
Mezhan Kwaad shuffled out into the lab. Her face was dead,
expressionless, her eyes blank. A line of discolored skin circled
her neck where her head had been reattached. Her master hand
was gone, in its place was a simple claw-clamp: she wouldn't
know how to use a more sophisticated creature.
Nen Yim understood immediately, and her mind recoiled
from the knowledge. Her legs went numb, she was falling. Then
Onimi was at her side, help her down to a chair. Nen Yim's
maa'its regained their focus. She saw him and pulled away,
seating herself.
Onimi turned away, wincing as though he'd been struck.
"How?" She swallowed. "Why?"
"Lord Shimrra ordered her body preserved and sent to him
the moment reinforcements arrived on Yavin IV." The jester said.
"He authorized the Protocol of Yu'muur."
Mezhan Kwaad had stopped moving a few steps into the
room. Eyes that had once shone with intelligence now stared
vacantly at nothing. The Protocol of Yu'muur was accounted one
step away from blasphemy: taking back a life that had been given
to the gods. Only a supreme overlord could command its use, and
only in the most extreme of circumstances, when it was crucial to
the Yuuzhan Vong that a recently-killed individual have a second
chance at life. But if the corpse was damaged, if decay had
touched the brain, then what was brought back was little more than
a living machine.
"Lord Shimrra decreed her life was not worthy of the gods,
that she had profaned her mission with her arrogance. She is to be
your new lab assistant, she's fit to fetch and carry things for you,
but not much else." Onimi said. "This is her punishment, and your
warning."
"My warning?" Nen Yim repeated dully, unable to tear her
maa'its from her former master.
"Mezhan Kwaad was once lord Shimrra's favored shaper,
now you stand in her place." He grimaced. "Continue to follow
your own agenda and you could very easily have her current
position." He made to leave, then paused beside her.
"Do what lord Shimrra says." He spoke gently. "Prove
yourself and he may allow you to kill her one day." He departed
then, leaving Nen Yim with those dead eyes that would stare at her
whether she woke or slept.
***************************
The hall was vast, the vaunted ceiling lost in shadow,
occasionally lit by the color-shifting wings of the rainbow Quaana
as they perched among the high columns and sang, accompanied
by the instrumentation of their wings, the drum-beats of their limbs
pounding against their own bodies and the whistle of air through
the pipework of their beaked mouths.
The single occupant of the hall, a figure seated atop a
pulsing dias, shrouded in shadow, leaned back his head and closed
his shimmering maa'its. The acoustics in the chamber were
perfect for music, and the Quaana were just concluding a
particularly glorious song: the epic tale of Yo'gand. The song was
reaching its climax: Yo'gand was making his Final Sacrifice to end
the Cremlevian Wars and unite all castes and domains forever.
Shimrra let the music wash over him. Triumphant but
mournful, with a bittersweet tang that haunted the soul. It was so
beautiful he found himself reaching out with his modified hand to
try and catch the music before if vanished.
He sighed as the Quaana wound down their song.
They were fine singers, and they were also his last line of defense:
in a case of dire need, he need only utter a single word and the
Quaana would fly down from their perches and make everyone in
the throne room save Shimrra himself very, very dead.
He turned his thoughts back to the problems at hand. Since
the destruction of the Sernpidal worldship it was necessary to
separate out the Yuuzhan Vong most essential to the war effort for
transport from the dying worldships. It was a bothersome
distraction from more important matters, such as the invasion of
Coruscant. Shimrra briefly considered putting the Peace Brigade
to work transporting the worldship inhabitants to some reclaimed
planets. The infidel allies easily had enough ships for the task,
even if they were abominable machines.
Shimrra weighed the value of having the worldship-bound
Yuuzhan Vong on their new worlds, working toward victory,
against the blow to morale that would come from making use of
machines instead of living transport and discarded the idea. Their
contribution just wasn't worth the cost, so let them face death like
true Yuuzhan Vong; those worldships that could reach an occupied
planet would have a new home. Those that could not...would not.
The gods would decide who was worthy.
He leaned his head back and felt the throne's cognition
hood flow around his temples. Joined to his worldship's rikyam,
he opened the qahsa and called up records of the current progress
in producing ships, dovin basals and other war material, along with
projected results. Prefect Drathul would be coming before him
later this cycle, with some proposals for administering these
planets more efficiently.
Knowing Drathul, he would also include chances for him to
increase his own power and wealth in the process. The high priest
Jakan also wished to speak to him regarding the Jeedai heresey and
what actions, decrees and sacrifices might induce the shamed ones
to abandon this blasphemy. Jakan swore he would do anything to
turn them back to the gods.
"Then make them true caste, you fool." This was another
blunder he could lay at Mezhan Kwaad's door. A pity she was
unaware of how low she had fallen and how terrible was her
punishment. (I must have my own Jeedai now, for no other
reason than to counter this heresey.)
Abruptly, he disengaged from the qahsa and called up his
Eyes and Ears in the special projects damutek. He wanted Onimi
present during these audiences: he was most useful during such
audiences, his tumbling and capering often distracted those who
came before Shimrra's throne, so that they slipped and said more
than they meant to. The jester was both clever and perceptive as
well.
He had a gift for satire and could mimic scheming prefects
and pompous priests with a wit so sharp it could draw blood.
Often Onimi would interrupt a supplicant with a single, biting
remark that laid all his schemes and hidden agenda's bare. He so
loved showing up beings supposedly his betters.
A wall of mist rose up before Shimrra, then a window
opened in the heart of the mist, looking into another place. When
he last looked in on the malformed jester he was waiting in Nen
Yim's lab for the shaper herself to appear. Shimrra was
disappointed to see that the meeting was almost over. Nen Yim
had been presented her 'gift' and Onimi was leaving the laboratory.
He spoke a command and a second window opened beside the
first, so he might view the images and sounds recorded in the lab.
Shimrra steepled his fingers as he watched. When he saw
Onimi cast a last, longing look back at Nen Yim before the door
clamped shut, he smiled.
***********************************************
In his chambers aboard the living vessel taking him back to
Shimrra's worldship palace, Onimi honed a coufee until the edge
was sharp enough to split skin with a touch. He tested it with his
finger and watched the blood run down his hand.
He drew a crimson mark on his forehead before the cut closed, the symbol of
a domain that had disowned him. His brother would probably
have it scrubbed away when they found Onimi's corpse, and the
crew who saw it would doubtless be sacrificed to keep them silent.
Onimi hoped so. He hated them, as he hated all who were born
whole and well-formed in the gods' eyes.
He looked to the coufee. It was clean: the living blade had
already drank the blood that had touched it. "You don't reject me,
at least." Onimi gave a sardonic smile. "You may even appreciate
me, in your own way. Well, take your nourishment."
His thoughts turned to Nen Yim, as they often did. His
sweet Nen Tsup, she had no idea how close he was to breaking
those specimen bulbs. Nen Yim a shamed one: who would want
her then? Not Suung Aruh, that pet of hers who followed her
around like a loyal bruz toy and cast her loving looks when she
wasn't looking. No one would. No one but Onimi. She would
even be blind when her maa'its rotted and fell out, so she might
even grow to care for him if she didn't have to look at his face.
Onimi had wanted to break those bulbs and release the
toxins inside. He'd decided to, intended to, been about to, only
to look at her and find that he just couldn't. That was the cruelest
joke of all, and as a jester he appreciated it fully.
Onimi balanced the knife on the palm of his hand. It was
traditional to pray to the gods before offering sacrifice. He smiled.
"You've cursed me since the day I was born, and every time I
thought things couldn't be worse you produced a fresh torment. I
could've done this years ago, but I decided to live just to spite you
all. Now you've finally found the one torture I can't endure." He
tossed the coufee, watched it spin, then caught it. "My thoughts
are drops of blood, pooling at my feet. My every thought a
sacrifice. No more. Let someone else feed you with their pain,
you've had enough of me."
He was eager to look on those gods that had seen fit to do
this to him. Yun Yuuzhan, Yun Shuno, Yun Harla, Yun Txiin and
Yun Q'aah especially. Perhaps he would hack a few more pieces
off them, create some supernovas and give birth to a couple of
solar system full of creatures. "Now, comes the reckoning." He
placed the tip of the blade over his stomach.
A shadow formed in the cabin, coming from nowhere and
filling up the room like a searchlight in reverse, sucking in light
instead of projecting it. Two shimmering eyes gleamed in its
heart.
"The gift was received well?" Came Shimrra's whispered
voice.
"That was cruel, what you did." Onimi turned his head
toward the patch of night. "Needlessly cruel."
"And cruel to make you deliver the news." Shimrra
responded. "No matter how liberally to used my name as the chief
shaper in this, Nen Yim will always remember you as the bearer of
her punishment. If ever there was a chance she would look with
favor on you, it is gone forever."
Onimi didn't ask how Shimrra had guessed his feelings: the
supreme overlord wasn't a fool. "The gods alone know how much
I hate you." He could say things like that when they were alone, he
had the right: if Shimrra's flesh was sacred then so was Onimi's,
they shared the same being.
"I think I can imagine that hate." Shimrra said. "Your face
is dirty, Onimi. Clean that mark from your forehead and prepare
yourself. I wish your presence during an audience."
"My apologies, but I have a prior appointment." He
gestured with the coufee.
"I did not give you permission."
"I did not ask for it."
"Onimi," Shimrra shook his head, his maa'its shimmered
from red to purple to green, "you know the gods hate a coward."
"They hate me already." Onimi snapped. "And how am I a
coward?"
"You are running from pain rather than embracing it."
"Pain?" He threw back his head and laughed. "What do
you know of pain? What do any of you? The warriors put a few
scars on themselves, hack off a limb or two and are showered with
glory. Ha!" Onimi rammed his fist into the wall. "Let me tell you
what a real sacrifice is. It is having a thousand scars that no one
will ever see and wonder over," he tapped his chest, "it is being
low, despised and mocked. Real pain is being so close to-" his
throat hitched "-what you want most in the world and knowing you
can never have it." He lay the edge of the blade against his throat.
"How do you suffer? You speak of sacrifices, well brother,
what sacrifices do you make?"
He tightened his grip on the hilt, but something held him
back. There was one question he wanted answered before he died.
And now was his last chance.
"Do you want me to behave? To come back and play the fool
for you some more? Then tell me why. Why did you let me live
and why do you keep me alive? Tell me or I'll seek my answers
among the gods."
Onimi glared at Shimrra, imagining the so-familiar face behind the shadows. Onimi
would have been given back to the gods at birth and spared a
miserable life had the law not decreed only one hand could slay
him. So, as it was ordained, he was separated from the other-that-
was-he, trained in the arts of war, of politics and administration, of
religion and the mysteries of shaping, his teachers never hiding their
disgust of him. Then at his fifteenth naming-day he was reunited with his twin.
Onimi had cast away his coufee without offering battle and
knelt before Shimrra, as was expected: all his life his teachers had made
it clear to him that he was inferior, a mistake. His last sight would
be his own face and form, free of deformity and perfect in the eyes of gods and
Yuuzhan Vong.
Shimrra had watched Onimi with unreadable eyes, raised
his own coufee, then opened his hand to let the blade clatter to the
floor. He then made his first decree as supreme overlord and had
rewritten history. All the official records would say his twin, his
perfectly normal twin, had perished in combat, as was ordained. It was
easy enough to manage: both of them had been raised in seclusion.
As for Onimi himself, Shimrra found a place for him.
For a long moment Shimrra was silent, and it seemed
Onimi would die without his answer. Then the shadow spoke.
"I wanted to kill you that day we were brought together for
the second time. I looked down at you and saw myself, twisted
and malformed, and rage tore at me. Yet in the midst of it I heard
a voice, commanding me to stay my hand. It was the first time
Yun Yuuzhan spoke to me, Onimi, and he said you must not die,
that there was a service you had yet to perform for them."
He folded his hands and spoke in a calm, soft voice. "Since
then not a cycle has passed that I have not looked upon you at least
once, and seen the wretched thing I might have been, that is as
much a part of me as my own flesh, and every time I look at you I
feel swarm of grutchin tearing me apart. Perhaps Yun Yuuzhan
means to keep me humble." Shimrra tilted his head. "So you see,
Onimi. You are my sacrifice." The shadow began to fade.
"Clean my mark from your face and ready yourself. I'll expect you
in my throne room in one quarter of a cycle."
(I'm not making any money off this and I don't own Star Wars)
Spoilers - Edge of Victory I and II, Star by Star
WARNING
The end contains a MAJOR theory for upcoming NJO books. I
may be wrong, but I don't think I am.
Shortly before Star by Star
The Noghri did not struggle against the blorash jelly
restraints when he saw Nen Yim enter the chamber. By now the
prisoner knew he could not win free through simple strength. He
the still, deadly patience of a born predator he followed the shaper
with onyx-black eyes, watching for the slightest lapse of
precaution on the part of his keepers. Given a chance, even a fifth
of a chance, he would slip his bonds and kill his tormentor with
nothing but his hands and teeth.
He might as well have been a baby ngdin for all Nen Yim's
reaction. She was aware of the Noghris' capabilities, but she also
knew the strength of the jelly restraints. There was no way the
alien could possibly get loose, so what was there to be afraid of?
Nen Yim extended an extracting needle from one finger of her
master hand and slid it into the Noghri's arm, careful to keep the
hand well away from the prisoner's mouth. She nodded to herself
as the eight-fingered hand drew in blood, then turned and walked
out the door, leaving the Noghri to try his glares on the four living
walls.
Suung Aruh was waiting for her outside, along with the
Maa'ju Haar who guarded the door. The newly-made adept
genuflected with his headdress when he saw Nen Yim. "Master,
Col Rammok's team has attained successful results with their
experiments," he could barely keep the grin from his face, "he
requests your attention."
"As do five other research groups." Nen Yim turned her
maa'its to her master's hand, an excretory orifice in the palm
opened and two small capsules spilled out into her normal hand.
She gave them to Suung Aruh. "I need this sample analyzed. We
may need to apply the Protocol of Mezhan to the gene pattern."
She named one of the shaping methods she herself had devised.
Suung Aruh's eyes flashed with excitement. "Are we close,
Master, if I may ask?" Nen Yim considered reprimanding the
adept, such a display of emotion was not worthy of a shaper, but
decided against it. Some cautious optimism was not unwarranted
at this point.
"I believe so." She answered, leading their way down the
coral hallway of her damutek. They saw several Maa'ju Haar
along the way, stationed at various doorways, ready to slay any
infidel prisoner who might get loose within the damutek.
Normally, a shaper compound had no garrison, but Master Nen
Yim recognized the need for the guards: there were three Jeedai
imprisoned here, and even unarmed, bound hand and foot and
surrounded by ysalmari-laden walking trees, Nen Yim was taking
no chances with them. She remembered well the damage Anakin
Solo had wrought when let loose in a damutek.
The Maa'ju Haar didn't offer either greeting or salute as the
two shapers passed, their blind faces were as impassive as carved
stone and they stood with predatory alertness that made the Noghri
look undisciplined and awkward by comparison. That was all to
be expected: the Maa'ju Haar, the Eyeless Watchers, were lord
Shimrra's personal guard.
They had made Nen Yim uneasy during her first days in
the supreme overlord's service. Now she supposed she was used to
them, though she would never be able to ignore their presence.
The Eyeless Watchers were taller than most warriors, armored in
jet-black vonduun armor, but though they had the scars and
augmentations of warriors the Maa'ju Haar boasted no tattoos
detailing their families and lineages. They had no red whorls to
indicate battles fought, no symbols that denoted great deeds, the
Haar had only a single mark: the symbol of lord Shimrra's House,
branded on their foreheads.
They differed from the normal rank-and-file warriors in
one other way, in the source of their name. None of the Maa'ju
Haar had no eyes, so they could never look upon the supreme
overlord. Instead, they had been implanted with sensory organs
that could hear a particular methcham forceps working amid the
roar of a processing maw luur, that could detect sniff out a trail
five cycles cold and 'see' body heat and nonvisible light.
They were more alike than sacred twins. The Eyeless
Weren't creche born, they sprang full-grown from cloning vats,
their genetic template honed by master shapers and their minds
sculpted by Qah cells. They owed allegiance to no domain or
caste and had no lives apart from Shimrra's will. The shapers were
constantly adding to the genetic pattern of each generation with the
DNA of the greatest warriors of the time. Doubtless Tsavong Lah
had donated a blood sample for their shaping, it was accounted a
great honor for a warrior's genes to be included in the makeup of
the supreme overlord's bodyguards.
Nen Yim supposed that might be part of why they made her
uneasy: she occasionally wondered if the new brood had some of
Vua Rapuung in them.
"I'll speak to Col Rammok as soon as I'm able," she
continued as they reached the laboratory. "I want to begin
applying this protocol immediately. If it is successful, we may
receive approval to grow our first specimen." She was interested
in seeing how her shaped Noghri would fare against the original in
a field test. Not to mention against Jeedai, though she couldn't
afford to risk any of her three subjects. Captive Jeedai were
scarce: the voxyn might be able to track them, but they were more
interested in killing Jeedai than in taking them alive.
She stifled a sigh of irritation as she presented her wrist to
the sensor, thinking of how her villips would be pulsing with
messages from the research teams, all demanding more resources
and her particular attention. As the chief shaper in this damutek of
heretics, it fell to her to manage all the projects within. Nen Yim
had no taste for administration, she was no intendant, she preferred
the ground-level research and development.
"I thought you'd never get here." A voice greeted them as
the door irised open. Onimi stood at a table, fingering some
specimen bulbs. The jester didn't even bother to look up as he
spoke. "Dear, dear shaper, why do you leave me to cool my heels
for so long?"
"What is the meaning of this?" Suung Aruh slid past Nen
Yim and strode into the room to confront Onimi. "This is Master
Shaper Nen Yim's laboratory, forbidden to all but shapers, how did
you gain admittance?" He demanded.
(Because he is one of lord Shimrra's operatives,) was Nen
Yim's answering thought, (no door is closed to him.) Being
around the deformed jester always made her uncomfortable. That
feeling was not allieved when she recognized the bulbs he was
toying with.
The jester lifted his head and regarded her with those
misaligned eyes of his. Onimi's twisted mouth made something
close to a smile as he rolled one bulb along the back of his hand.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't eager to see me." He
feigned a wounded tone.
"Did you hear me?" The adept snapped. He was now less
than an arm's length away from the jester. "You will explain
yourself or I-"
"Send this noise-maker away." Onimi said to Nen Yim,
ignoring Suung Aruh altogether. "When I have need of a footstool
you can summon him again." It was a private joke that the adept
missed: he didn't know Onimi had posed as Kae Kwaad on the
dying worldship Baanu Miir. The remark still left him red-faced
and sputtering.
"Suung Aruh, go to Col Rammok and tell him I will join
him soon." Nen Yim said.
He glanced at her. "Master-?"
"You are dismissed." She said calmly. The adept was
within Onimi's reach, and the jester wasn't disabled in the least,
despite his deformities. Indeed, quite the opposite, and if Suung
Aruh continued to annoy the Onimi the jester would make him
dead before he hit the floor. Nen Yim could ill afford to lose such
a skilled aid.
Suung Aruh cast a final glare at Onimi, genuflected to Nen
Yim and left.
"Alone at last, my pretty Nen Tsup." Onimi crooned when
the door clamped shut.
"I'll thank you not to call me that." Nen Yim replied
coldly, every inch the master shaper, though her head was
pounding in fear: he had stopped rolling the bulb along his hand
and was now spinning it on one finger! "Put that down." She
spoke as if the container held nothing of great value. "You could
have used the villip if you needed to speak to me."
"But dear Nen Tsup, we see so little of each other these
days." Onimi was rolling the bulb down the length of his entire
forearm now, from the tips of his fingers to his elbow, then back to
fingertips. He walked around the table as he played with the bulb,
holding the other three in his free hand. "I so look forward to
surprising you."
"If you have a message from lord Shimrra, I'll hear it now."
Nen Yim crossed her arms to keep her hands from shaking and
fought the urge to bolt. If one of those bulbs should break...
"Can't I pay a simple social call?" He misjudged and the
bulb rolled over his fingertips and arced through the air. Nen
Yim's maa'its bulged and she felt her stomach give birth to a
scream that shot up her throat. Onimi caught the bulb without
even looking at it, then tossed it into the air, followed by another,
then another. Before Nen Yim's horrified maa'its he began
juggling them!
"Put those DOWN!" She tried to grab one of the bulbs
from the air, but Onimi danced backward and jumped onto a table,
then he began to dance and caper as he juggled, his movements
sure and agile despite his twisted back and shoulders. He laughed.
Laughed at her.
"STOP IT!" Nen Yim was so angry she forgot to be
terrified. For a second the jester's image dissolved into a
confusing blur of cells interacting with each other in the air before
her. She refocused her maa'its: they had just been implanted and
occasionally slipped into other modes of sight when she was
stressed. She was tempted to stomp her feet like a petulant child.
And Onimi stopped dancing and caught the bulbs.
"No need to shout, Nen Tsup." He hopped down to the
floor and set the bulbs on the table.
Blood was pounding in Nen Yim's ears. Every encounter
she had with Onimi was like this, though not usually so hazardous:
the jester never missed a chance to attack her dignity.
Unfortunately these encounters where more often than she would
have liked, as he often bore instructions from the supreme
overlord.
She would like to report this behavior, but who to? Onimi
answered to Shimrra alone. What was she to do: request an
audience, go before that godlike being and say "Your jester is
bothering me."? Impossible.
And who could say he would even take her side? Onimi
had almost daily access to the supreme overlord, while Nen Yim
had spoken to him directly a total of two times. Their
communications consisted of her sending him reports of the
research projects every cycle or two by villip, so the overlord could
decide which had priority and what sort of weaponry or defenses
were needed for the war.
"I'll shout if it pleases me to shout." She ground her teeth.
"We're not on Baanu Miir anymore, I don't have to jump when you
snap your fingers."
Onimi tilted his misshaped head to one side and leaned
against a wall. "Why such a cold shoulder? You seemed
interested in establishing a...closer...relationship on the worldship.
As I thought: you're a tease."
Nen Yim's face heated. That was true, but she'd had to use
any means available to her to restore the dying rikyam, including
attempting to seduce Kae Kwaad. Besides, she'd intended for him
to die as soon as she had the knowledge she needed, and certainly
she would never have tried such a tactic if she had known he
was...what he was.
"Well if you insist, so be it: all business." Onimi stepped
away from the wall and some of his apparent cheer vanished. "I
bring a message from lord Shimrra, and a gift." He was still
smiling, but there was something sickly and false about it, as if he
were suffering from a bad wound but refusing to let the pain show.
But that didn't make since: he was obviously unhurt.
"Go on." She prompted.
"Lord Shimrra wishes you to know he is aware of a certain
plan you're hatching." In a single, fluid motion he reached out and
gathered up all four specimen bulbs from where he had lain them.
"He is not pleased."
"What plan is that?" Nen Yim asked with apparent
nonchalance. No, he couldn't tell her to stop: she had the right!
"That you have rediscovered Mezhan Kwaad's formula for
putting the marks of a shamed one on a true-caste Yuuzhan Vong."
He tossed the container and caught it with one hand. "That you
intend these bulbs to find their way to the Baanu Raas. That
you've prepared Qah cells to implant in a shamed one to be
transferred there in a labor group, instructing him to release the
contents in the presence of Master Yal Phaath and his new
apprentice, the Adept Tsun." He showed his teeth. "That plan."
"What does it matter?" Nen Yim snapped. "Yal Phaath is a
backwards fool, and Tsun has all the skill of a blind grutchin!"
Bitterness colored her tone with that last phrase. She'd heard Tsun
had been raised to adept-level: his reward for deceiving and
betraying her on Yavin IV. "They're no great loss." and they were
two of the hated five.
Five beings had been responsible for Mezhan Kwaad's
downfall and death. Anakin Solo, Tahiri, Vua Rapuung, Yal
Phaath and Tsun. Five, and herself, by her own foolish naivety,
but she would make up for it. She would. So she told herself
every night, when Mezhan Kwaad's accusing eyes tormented her
dreams.
Vua Rapuung was beyond her reach, as were the two
Jeedai, at least temporarily, but not so with Yal Phaath and Tsun,
that bastard get of Yun Harla. What better revenge than to destroy
them using one of her master's own weapons?
"It matters, Nen Tsup, because Yal Phaath serves in his
own way, and lord Shimrra wants nothing to interfere with the
voxyn project."
"Nothing will interfere with it." Nen Yim pressed.
"Someone else will just head the project. Most of the development
is already finished, there labs there do nothing but reproduction.
Any shaper could oversee that."
Onimi shook his head. "The supreme overlord has been
very generous with you, Nen Tsup. Perhaps too generous." Nen
Yim had to agree, she had her own damutek, almost unlimited
resources, lord Shimrra had even complied with her request and
transferred Suung Aruh and the other shapers of the Baanu Miir to
this special project, as well as many of that dying worldship's
residence for the labor and maintenance teams.
"He is becoming concerned that you may have too high an
opinion of your own worth." Onimi continued, the sarcastic edge
had left his voice, which was now strangely gentle. "The same was
true of Mezhan Kwaad, in the end. She forgot that while she was a
favored servant of the gods, she was still only a servant.
"The supreme overlord does not want a repeat of Mezhan
Kwaad's mistakes. Her personal grudge against Vua Rapuung was
damaging to her own work and to the war in general. She took
him out of the battlefield, where he was useful, and put him into
the slave pens, where he did us all great harm. You don't know
how badly this affected the warriors' morale: seeing the gods
seemingly turn their backs on such a great commander. Even
worse, it contributed to the Jeedai heresy our shamed ones are so
fond of. Lord Shimrra commands you to set aside all such
personal animosities." He turned and tossed the bulbs into a wall-
mounted disposal.
"No!" Nen Yim started forward, but it was too late. Onimi
pressed the touch-pad on the wall and the creature's mouth
clamped shut. The temperature within the disposal would now
increase until the bulbs and their contents had vanished. The
shaper glared at him, but for once Onimi didn't mock her with a
ready jibe. "You've delivered your message," she said, "you may
go now."
"Not yet, Nen Tsup." Onimi crossed the room to a supply
closet. "You forget, I bear a message (and) a gift." He reached
for the pad, then hesitated and looked back at her. He had that
expression again, as though something caused him pain. He
touched the pad and the door opened.
Mezhan Kwaad stood inside.
Nen Yim's knees were watery, her vision swam as the
Maa'its shifted through half a dozen sight modes. She opened her
mouth to say "Master," but no sound emerged.
"Come out, Mezhan." Onimi said. "Come out. Come out
here." He repeated the phrase as though to a half-trained pet.
Mezhan Kwaad shuffled out into the lab. Her face was dead,
expressionless, her eyes blank. A line of discolored skin circled
her neck where her head had been reattached. Her master hand
was gone, in its place was a simple claw-clamp: she wouldn't
know how to use a more sophisticated creature.
Nen Yim understood immediately, and her mind recoiled
from the knowledge. Her legs went numb, she was falling. Then
Onimi was at her side, help her down to a chair. Nen Yim's
maa'its regained their focus. She saw him and pulled away,
seating herself.
Onimi turned away, wincing as though he'd been struck.
"How?" She swallowed. "Why?"
"Lord Shimrra ordered her body preserved and sent to him
the moment reinforcements arrived on Yavin IV." The jester said.
"He authorized the Protocol of Yu'muur."
Mezhan Kwaad had stopped moving a few steps into the
room. Eyes that had once shone with intelligence now stared
vacantly at nothing. The Protocol of Yu'muur was accounted one
step away from blasphemy: taking back a life that had been given
to the gods. Only a supreme overlord could command its use, and
only in the most extreme of circumstances, when it was crucial to
the Yuuzhan Vong that a recently-killed individual have a second
chance at life. But if the corpse was damaged, if decay had
touched the brain, then what was brought back was little more than
a living machine.
"Lord Shimrra decreed her life was not worthy of the gods,
that she had profaned her mission with her arrogance. She is to be
your new lab assistant, she's fit to fetch and carry things for you,
but not much else." Onimi said. "This is her punishment, and your
warning."
"My warning?" Nen Yim repeated dully, unable to tear her
maa'its from her former master.
"Mezhan Kwaad was once lord Shimrra's favored shaper,
now you stand in her place." He grimaced. "Continue to follow
your own agenda and you could very easily have her current
position." He made to leave, then paused beside her.
"Do what lord Shimrra says." He spoke gently. "Prove
yourself and he may allow you to kill her one day." He departed
then, leaving Nen Yim with those dead eyes that would stare at her
whether she woke or slept.
***************************
The hall was vast, the vaunted ceiling lost in shadow,
occasionally lit by the color-shifting wings of the rainbow Quaana
as they perched among the high columns and sang, accompanied
by the instrumentation of their wings, the drum-beats of their limbs
pounding against their own bodies and the whistle of air through
the pipework of their beaked mouths.
The single occupant of the hall, a figure seated atop a
pulsing dias, shrouded in shadow, leaned back his head and closed
his shimmering maa'its. The acoustics in the chamber were
perfect for music, and the Quaana were just concluding a
particularly glorious song: the epic tale of Yo'gand. The song was
reaching its climax: Yo'gand was making his Final Sacrifice to end
the Cremlevian Wars and unite all castes and domains forever.
Shimrra let the music wash over him. Triumphant but
mournful, with a bittersweet tang that haunted the soul. It was so
beautiful he found himself reaching out with his modified hand to
try and catch the music before if vanished.
He sighed as the Quaana wound down their song.
They were fine singers, and they were also his last line of defense:
in a case of dire need, he need only utter a single word and the
Quaana would fly down from their perches and make everyone in
the throne room save Shimrra himself very, very dead.
He turned his thoughts back to the problems at hand. Since
the destruction of the Sernpidal worldship it was necessary to
separate out the Yuuzhan Vong most essential to the war effort for
transport from the dying worldships. It was a bothersome
distraction from more important matters, such as the invasion of
Coruscant. Shimrra briefly considered putting the Peace Brigade
to work transporting the worldship inhabitants to some reclaimed
planets. The infidel allies easily had enough ships for the task,
even if they were abominable machines.
Shimrra weighed the value of having the worldship-bound
Yuuzhan Vong on their new worlds, working toward victory,
against the blow to morale that would come from making use of
machines instead of living transport and discarded the idea. Their
contribution just wasn't worth the cost, so let them face death like
true Yuuzhan Vong; those worldships that could reach an occupied
planet would have a new home. Those that could not...would not.
The gods would decide who was worthy.
He leaned his head back and felt the throne's cognition
hood flow around his temples. Joined to his worldship's rikyam,
he opened the qahsa and called up records of the current progress
in producing ships, dovin basals and other war material, along with
projected results. Prefect Drathul would be coming before him
later this cycle, with some proposals for administering these
planets more efficiently.
Knowing Drathul, he would also include chances for him to
increase his own power and wealth in the process. The high priest
Jakan also wished to speak to him regarding the Jeedai heresey and
what actions, decrees and sacrifices might induce the shamed ones
to abandon this blasphemy. Jakan swore he would do anything to
turn them back to the gods.
"Then make them true caste, you fool." This was another
blunder he could lay at Mezhan Kwaad's door. A pity she was
unaware of how low she had fallen and how terrible was her
punishment. (I must have my own Jeedai now, for no other
reason than to counter this heresey.)
Abruptly, he disengaged from the qahsa and called up his
Eyes and Ears in the special projects damutek. He wanted Onimi
present during these audiences: he was most useful during such
audiences, his tumbling and capering often distracted those who
came before Shimrra's throne, so that they slipped and said more
than they meant to. The jester was both clever and perceptive as
well.
He had a gift for satire and could mimic scheming prefects
and pompous priests with a wit so sharp it could draw blood.
Often Onimi would interrupt a supplicant with a single, biting
remark that laid all his schemes and hidden agenda's bare. He so
loved showing up beings supposedly his betters.
A wall of mist rose up before Shimrra, then a window
opened in the heart of the mist, looking into another place. When
he last looked in on the malformed jester he was waiting in Nen
Yim's lab for the shaper herself to appear. Shimrra was
disappointed to see that the meeting was almost over. Nen Yim
had been presented her 'gift' and Onimi was leaving the laboratory.
He spoke a command and a second window opened beside the
first, so he might view the images and sounds recorded in the lab.
Shimrra steepled his fingers as he watched. When he saw
Onimi cast a last, longing look back at Nen Yim before the door
clamped shut, he smiled.
***********************************************
In his chambers aboard the living vessel taking him back to
Shimrra's worldship palace, Onimi honed a coufee until the edge
was sharp enough to split skin with a touch. He tested it with his
finger and watched the blood run down his hand.
He drew a crimson mark on his forehead before the cut closed, the symbol of
a domain that had disowned him. His brother would probably
have it scrubbed away when they found Onimi's corpse, and the
crew who saw it would doubtless be sacrificed to keep them silent.
Onimi hoped so. He hated them, as he hated all who were born
whole and well-formed in the gods' eyes.
He looked to the coufee. It was clean: the living blade had
already drank the blood that had touched it. "You don't reject me,
at least." Onimi gave a sardonic smile. "You may even appreciate
me, in your own way. Well, take your nourishment."
His thoughts turned to Nen Yim, as they often did. His
sweet Nen Tsup, she had no idea how close he was to breaking
those specimen bulbs. Nen Yim a shamed one: who would want
her then? Not Suung Aruh, that pet of hers who followed her
around like a loyal bruz toy and cast her loving looks when she
wasn't looking. No one would. No one but Onimi. She would
even be blind when her maa'its rotted and fell out, so she might
even grow to care for him if she didn't have to look at his face.
Onimi had wanted to break those bulbs and release the
toxins inside. He'd decided to, intended to, been about to, only
to look at her and find that he just couldn't. That was the cruelest
joke of all, and as a jester he appreciated it fully.
Onimi balanced the knife on the palm of his hand. It was
traditional to pray to the gods before offering sacrifice. He smiled.
"You've cursed me since the day I was born, and every time I
thought things couldn't be worse you produced a fresh torment. I
could've done this years ago, but I decided to live just to spite you
all. Now you've finally found the one torture I can't endure." He
tossed the coufee, watched it spin, then caught it. "My thoughts
are drops of blood, pooling at my feet. My every thought a
sacrifice. No more. Let someone else feed you with their pain,
you've had enough of me."
He was eager to look on those gods that had seen fit to do
this to him. Yun Yuuzhan, Yun Shuno, Yun Harla, Yun Txiin and
Yun Q'aah especially. Perhaps he would hack a few more pieces
off them, create some supernovas and give birth to a couple of
solar system full of creatures. "Now, comes the reckoning." He
placed the tip of the blade over his stomach.
A shadow formed in the cabin, coming from nowhere and
filling up the room like a searchlight in reverse, sucking in light
instead of projecting it. Two shimmering eyes gleamed in its
heart.
"The gift was received well?" Came Shimrra's whispered
voice.
"That was cruel, what you did." Onimi turned his head
toward the patch of night. "Needlessly cruel."
"And cruel to make you deliver the news." Shimrra
responded. "No matter how liberally to used my name as the chief
shaper in this, Nen Yim will always remember you as the bearer of
her punishment. If ever there was a chance she would look with
favor on you, it is gone forever."
Onimi didn't ask how Shimrra had guessed his feelings: the
supreme overlord wasn't a fool. "The gods alone know how much
I hate you." He could say things like that when they were alone, he
had the right: if Shimrra's flesh was sacred then so was Onimi's,
they shared the same being.
"I think I can imagine that hate." Shimrra said. "Your face
is dirty, Onimi. Clean that mark from your forehead and prepare
yourself. I wish your presence during an audience."
"My apologies, but I have a prior appointment." He
gestured with the coufee.
"I did not give you permission."
"I did not ask for it."
"Onimi," Shimrra shook his head, his maa'its shimmered
from red to purple to green, "you know the gods hate a coward."
"They hate me already." Onimi snapped. "And how am I a
coward?"
"You are running from pain rather than embracing it."
"Pain?" He threw back his head and laughed. "What do
you know of pain? What do any of you? The warriors put a few
scars on themselves, hack off a limb or two and are showered with
glory. Ha!" Onimi rammed his fist into the wall. "Let me tell you
what a real sacrifice is. It is having a thousand scars that no one
will ever see and wonder over," he tapped his chest, "it is being
low, despised and mocked. Real pain is being so close to-" his
throat hitched "-what you want most in the world and knowing you
can never have it." He lay the edge of the blade against his throat.
"How do you suffer? You speak of sacrifices, well brother,
what sacrifices do you make?"
He tightened his grip on the hilt, but something held him
back. There was one question he wanted answered before he died.
And now was his last chance.
"Do you want me to behave? To come back and play the fool
for you some more? Then tell me why. Why did you let me live
and why do you keep me alive? Tell me or I'll seek my answers
among the gods."
Onimi glared at Shimrra, imagining the so-familiar face behind the shadows. Onimi
would have been given back to the gods at birth and spared a
miserable life had the law not decreed only one hand could slay
him. So, as it was ordained, he was separated from the other-that-
was-he, trained in the arts of war, of politics and administration, of
religion and the mysteries of shaping, his teachers never hiding their
disgust of him. Then at his fifteenth naming-day he was reunited with his twin.
Onimi had cast away his coufee without offering battle and
knelt before Shimrra, as was expected: all his life his teachers had made
it clear to him that he was inferior, a mistake. His last sight would
be his own face and form, free of deformity and perfect in the eyes of gods and
Yuuzhan Vong.
Shimrra had watched Onimi with unreadable eyes, raised
his own coufee, then opened his hand to let the blade clatter to the
floor. He then made his first decree as supreme overlord and had
rewritten history. All the official records would say his twin, his
perfectly normal twin, had perished in combat, as was ordained. It was
easy enough to manage: both of them had been raised in seclusion.
As for Onimi himself, Shimrra found a place for him.
For a long moment Shimrra was silent, and it seemed
Onimi would die without his answer. Then the shadow spoke.
"I wanted to kill you that day we were brought together for
the second time. I looked down at you and saw myself, twisted
and malformed, and rage tore at me. Yet in the midst of it I heard
a voice, commanding me to stay my hand. It was the first time
Yun Yuuzhan spoke to me, Onimi, and he said you must not die,
that there was a service you had yet to perform for them."
He folded his hands and spoke in a calm, soft voice. "Since
then not a cycle has passed that I have not looked upon you at least
once, and seen the wretched thing I might have been, that is as
much a part of me as my own flesh, and every time I look at you I
feel swarm of grutchin tearing me apart. Perhaps Yun Yuuzhan
means to keep me humble." Shimrra tilted his head. "So you see,
Onimi. You are my sacrifice." The shadow began to fade.
"Clean my mark from your face and ready yourself. I'll expect you
in my throne room in one quarter of a cycle."