Trial By Tide

2.

The tidal surge carried them up two and a half meters, and then down again, salt spray flinging itself into their eyes and nostrils, dripping off barnacale-encrusted cliffs. Obi Wan crouched on the water-craft's bows, watching the jagged cliff face carefully, body tensed for a spring. Down, the waves sucked them. A pause. And up they rose again, waves smashing themselves against the wall like horned mountain tharex clashing in mating season. White spray drenched both Jedi. Obi Wan sprung mightily upward at the apex of their cresting rise, reaching for the cliff face, and then clinging there like another dripping barnacle.

Qui Gon waited until he caught a glimpse of motion, of cautious upward ascent, and then turned the ship about and left his dangerous proximity to the rocks and jagged walls of the bay's fortress, maneuvering his way past the ragged lines of waves breaking on hidden underwater reefs, skimming over barely submerged stone outcroppings. The Force guided him; the moon cast illusory promises on the seething waters. When he had escaped the trap unscathed, he looked back at the clifftop, where the dark silhouette of a ramshackle palace glowed like a paper lantern, lit from within by clusters of glow rods. The structure itself, even from this distance, was clearly constructed of plastoid partitions salvaged from industrial cargo containers, and roofed in a fibrous netting.

Below, visible as a shadow moving against darker shadows, Obi Wan steadily climbed to the summit of the sheer cliff, finding handholds and footholds in its slimy surface with the aid of the Force and much training. The Jedi master had no doubt in his apprentice's ability… but he still watched until the small figure had leapt lightly over the edge and stood outlined in the dull glow of the shanty-town dwelling atop the bluff. Qui Gon chuckled, fancying that he saw the young Jedi's shoulders rise in a droll shrug before he strode forward to meet with the clan leader housed within.

He had decided to assign Obi Wan the task of speaking with Coraloxa, instinct dictating that Obi Wan's natural charms might more easily ingratiate him with the reputedly fickle and suspicious matriarch. If reason, eloquence, and wit could not overcome the clan leader's obstreperousness, perhaps the Padawan's winning smile could melt Coraloxa's maternal heart. One could always hope, and peace could be negotiated in any number of ways.

His own task took him to another inlet, one where tumbled rock fell in frozen avalanches to a narrow and rocky beach. Here, above the tide line, another masterpiece of ingenuity had been constructed, a second makeshift fortress occupying nearly the entire shingle, a castle of scraps and leftovers barricaded behind high walls topped with pikes. Some even had shock arrays fixed to their business ends, though the Jedi master privatey doubted whether these features will still functional. The walls themselves were clearly the gutted remains of holoboards, blank screens where once blaring advertisements and city-wide newscasts had screamed and flashed at Coruscant's passing crowds. Refuse disposal fees for tech garbage were steep on the capitol planet; many contractors found it cheaper and more expedient to tow the trash out here to Vandor and dump it in the unincorporated zones – where it was transformed by intrepid architects from trash into treasure, at the dictate of need.

Fishing equipment and small water craft were scattered outside the walls of Loxanthan's fortress, a huddle of primitive tools and boats resting on the sand under the shadow of the weird barricades. Qui Gon drew his own vessel up onto shore, deliberately taking his time about the business. Soon enough a bevy of aggressive and burly Quinloxa had stationed themselves before the gates – close enough to suggest threat, but not close enough to bring themselves within striking distance. Their webbed hands grasped the long hafts of shock staves, the weapons' pulse fields casting flickering blue shadows on the smooth sand piled before the entrance. The Jedi master smiled grimly to himself and squared his shoulders.

"Name and business," one of the guards demanded, his traditional garb of woven fibers parting along the chest to reveal curious tattoo markings. His gills flared along his neck, and wide coral eyes blinked slowly, indicating serious intent.

Qui Gon took a step forward, hands folded before him loosely. "Jedi Knight Qui Gon Jinn, here to speak with Loxanthan on behalf of the Galactic Republic."

"Jedi?" the sentinel demanded sourly. "Proof of this?"

Qui Gon quietly pushed aside the drape of his cloak to reveal the glint of metal at his side. The Quinlox's eyes rested on the 'saber hilt unblinkingly. "My friend," the tall man murmured. "You are better off without proof."

There was a muttering and grumbling in the wake of this pronouncement, but the guards seemed to understand this language all too well. Some were told off to remain stationed at the gates, while a foursome cautiously gathered about Qui Gon in formation, and duly led him through the creaking gates into the main courtyard beyond, a tumbled concatenation of outhouses surrounding a massive central structure, a sort of longhouse built of discarded plasteel panels and salvaged metal sheets. Merchant insignia and spacecraft identification codes still brightly adorned portions of the walls, the pitched roof. Qui Gon recognized the bold signet of the long defunct Old Dominion Freight Corporation, one of the many smaller trading franchises eaten up by the Trade Federation's Senate-sanctioned monopoly.

He was issued into the central house, nothing more than a single long hall with exposed rafters of wood and twisted fiber. A corrugated metal roof sloped to either side; the walls were adorned with organic weavings of seaweed and other fibrous matter,a traditional Quinloxa art form; and the space was warmed by several old fashioned thermal generators humming away in the corners. Loxanthan sat in state at one end, surrounded by several hoary councilors, their thick aquatic skin age-mottled and sagging heavily.

"Master Jedi," the fierce Quinlox greeted his visitor. "So the Republic has at last sent aid. You are here to help me retrieve my grandson from those perfidious Cora-quin. This affair is outrageous," he continued. "Their dealings must be met swiftly, and without mercy."

Qui Gon interrupted the incipient tirade. "Your pardon. I am here to see this matter settled peacefully and equitably. If indeed the Cora-quin are unjustly holding your grandson –"

"Who else would be?" the clan elder roared, his voluminous jowls quivering, gills flapping open to reveal scarlet slits of wrath along either side of his neck. "His tramp of a mother stole my son, and now her people are trying to steal his child, keep the boy away from his fathers and fathers' fathers, in violation of all our laws! Have we not enough reason to hate those conniving, brine-bibing, foul –"

"Enough," the Jedi master quietly interposed. "Tell me: where are the child's parents?"

Loxanthan sighed deeply, anger brewing in his opalescent eyes. "I will tell you where: they are gone to the deeps, to sleep with the ancestors. And why? Because my son would have a Cora-quin wife, against the clan's wishes. She cast some vile dark magic over him, I promise you. Against the wishes of her clan. Our families have been enemies for generations, and there has never been such an abomination before. These two young fools built their own quin-talog on the hill, apart from any clan, like gibbering idiots who tempt fate. And for what? I'll tell you: to produce a child, a stone about both their necks. The girl died in labor, for none of the birthing wives would help her, shunned and disgraced as she was. My son threw himself off the cliffs afterward, still bound in her evil enchantments."

"But what happened to the child?" Qui Gon persisted.

"There was a nursemaid – an old crone, caretaker to the Cora-quin girl. She was there – doubtless she took the infant back to them. But he is ours by birthright – his father was Loxa-quin, and so the child is too. He belongs to us. He is of our blood, And we will spill all theirs before we see them taint our own blood with their lies and perfidy."

"There have already been two deaths," the Jedi countered gravely. "Will you readily invite more? You spoke of fools who tempt fate. Is that not what you do by courting warfare?"

The Quinlox scoffed at these words. "What pretty solution do you offer in its stead, Jedi? The Cora-quin have kidnapped the boy, and they are so bold as to accuse us of doing the same. There is no reasoning with such fanatics and liars. They respond to every accusation with denial, with protests that they do not know where the boy is, that we have him already and torment them for no good cause – anything but the truth."

Qui Gon stood tall before the enraged chieftain. "My solution is this: that you leave the question of truth to me. I will personally find the boy's whereabouts and insure his safety. You, in the meantime, will meet with Coralox tomorrow at sundown, on neutral gorund, to determine the legal custody of this child, with Republic mediation."

"You?"

"Yes. I will be present at the meeting to ensure a peaceful outcome. And I will find the child before that time."

The Quinlox leaned back in his wide throne, still trembling with contempt for his rivals. "You promise much, Jedi! Tomorrow evening, then. But I tell you this: if you have not found the child by then, or if that meeting goes ill, it is war the next morning. They have stolen our blood and we will pay in blood. What do you think of that?"

"I think it very foolish."

The leader waved a hand at him, spluttering dismissively. "You have no family. What do you know about such things?"

But the Jedi master was already departing, his tall figure retreating into the shadows outside.

Not far away, in the opposing clan's encampment atop the high cliffs, Obi Wan Kenobi was finding Coraloxa no less a difficult personality. Not that the clan matriarch was rude to him; far the contrary – once he had been ushered into her rather… overwhelming… presence, the massive leader of the Cora-quin tribe had developed a spontaneous fondness for him and had taken him into her confidences. She sprawled upon, indeed she overflowed, a creaking throne of driftwood logs and metal reinforcements. Its ornamental back rose behind her head in grotesque contortions, the sea polished wood as twisted and unpredictable as Coraloxa's logic.

"…and those mollusk-eating brine-drunk Loxa-quin have the child and will not admit to it! Old Nexaloxa, my daughter's nursemaid, whom I sent with them when they abandoned reason and wedded against all clan customs – she has gone mad, barricaded herself inside their accursed talog on the hill. My daughter dead, that she nursed and raised like she was her own. And that worthless cur husband of hers drowned like he deserved, and then the child ripped away form her arms…no wonder the poor thing is insane. Mad from grief! She has a mother's heart, and what mother would not go mad at such treatment? I am half mad myself!"

The young Jedi patiently waited out the storm, privately noting that he would have amended the latter diagnosis in the direction of eighty or ninety percent, and focused on anything but the waves of indignant hatred spewing from the matriarch as she ranted. He unwound the skein of her words from the seething emotions she projected in the Force, anchoring himself in the intricate weaving of the mats beneath his feet. They were fashioned of reeds, and in their pattern were the shapes of waves and sea foam, and some strange undulating creatures swimming amidst soft ocean grasses. The walls of the chamber were made of an unfamiliar and stiff netting, impervious enough to keep out the cold fog but – unfortunately- also impervious enough to keep in the assaulting odor of quanta worms. The court behind Coraloxa was feasting – masses of tiny freshly hatched worms wriggled slightly in mounds upon thin flatbread and seaweed, passed hand to hand with the shell drinking cups. The Quinlox slurped up the delicacy with enthusiasm. Obi Wan swallowed hard and wrenched his abhorred gaze away.

The matriarch noticed his momentary distraction. "Are you hungry, dear? Coming all this way from Coruscant and I have not thought to offer you proper hospitality! We are not savages, you know."

He made a hasty bow. "Thank you, but I require nothing." He blinked, trying to banish the revolting spectacle from his mind's eye. Focus. "You said the nursemaid Nexaloxa has barricaded herself inside the parents' home?"

"Yes, yes, poor creature, she's mad with grief, as I told you. She won't come out and we can't get in. you see, the talog is surrounded by mines, and she has activated them. If she loses her wits completely, and wanders outside herself without deactivating the security system, ….boom!" The enormous Quinlox accented this last descriptive remark with a wide flap of her webbed hands, upsetting the drinking shell at her elbow. Thick and pungent liquid seeped in the mats, and servants scuttled forward to clean the mess. Obi Wan wondered how many cups of this beverage she had consumed, and whether it was indeed Coraloxa speaking or the wine, but he had no way to know, not when the Force was already so turgid with her rage and his own disgust.

"Mines," he repeated. Mines. Wonderful. "Something they salvaged, from an offworld source?"

The matriarch pointed to the ceiling, the walls. "We live off the scraps of the rich here," she snorted. "What do you think?"

"I see." Those mines could be malfunctional, factory rejects or worse. He had a bad feeling about this. Still, the nursemaid was an eye witness, and must be interviewed.

"Those two young fools installed them around the perimeter of their home – out of spite, to prevent either clan from molesting them, as though we cared. They said they refused to participate in clan warfare.. and look what has happened! Because of their obstinacy there will indeed be war. We will not tolerate the Loxa-quin's interference in our family any longer."

Obi Wan frowned. "Your pardon, but my limited understanding of your laws leads me to think that the child is always considered a part of its father's clan?"

To his astonishment, Coraloxa actually rose from the throne in one powerful motion, a swift and ferocious heaving of muscle and fat he would not have thought possible in one so rotund. Her vestigial tusks stuck, spearlike, from her lower jaw and her gills rippled. "That clod of excrement was no father to that child. Without the clan mother's blessing, his coupling with my daughter was mere rape! There is no law that protects their crime."

He bowed again, gagging on the omnipresent stench of quanta worms. "Thank you for clarifying," he choked out. "My information was limited."

A servant handed the clan leader another brim-full shell, and she downed the contents in one go as she settled majestically back in her throne, its beams groaning slightly beneath the burden. "You have nice manners. Are you sure you will not dine with us?"

Force take me first. "I must seek out the missing child," he politely demurred. "And I ask you this favor: will you delay your attack upon the Loxa-quin one day? Grant me that much time to seek a peaceful solution to this dispute, before your clans begin slaughtering one another."

"One day will make little difference," Coraloxa snorted.

"Indeed," he insisted. "So you can spare it for the sake of peace. Give us one day in which to find the child."

"And then?"

"Then, you must meet with Loxathalan to negotiate a settlement. You will have Jedi assistance. If you can meet these terms, many lives will be saved. Many of your clan will live who would otherwise die in warfare with the Loxa-quin."

The matriarch considered this proposal, grumbling to herself. Her wide, coral colored eyes squinted at him assessingly, sliding over his comparatively small figure with a mixture of dubiety and indulgence, as one would look at a toddler proposing to slay a draigon. He offered his most winning smile.

"Very well, Jedi-ling. I grant you one day. And I will appear at this meeting you propose. But you cannot convince the Quinloxa with your pallid and abstract Republic laws, I warn you. We stand by our traditional ways: they are rooted in our hearts and the tides. No other clan will ever take this child from us, and no bloodless dictate of the Republic will force us to give him up. Blood is a deeper bond than any other, Jedi. There is none stronger."

"There is the Force," Obi Wan said quietly.

"You are too young to know what you are talking about," the matriarch declared, but the Jedi was already making his formal bow and departing.