Lineage III
Part 4: Witness
Jocasta Nu stood roughly eye to eye with her new assistant, but the look she bestowed upon him – one suggesting that he was as suspicious as an unsubstantiated rumor seeking inclusion in the Archives – would have been sufficient to make any other being melt slowly into the marble floor.
"Why abuse of power should be a fitting reason to consign you to my supervision, is a mystery beyond my grasp," Madame Nu remarked sourly. "I am no specialist in delinquents, Padawan Kenobi."
Obi Wan decided he would have preferred five thousand laps round the Temple perimeter, or even interminable duty in the refectory kitchens, to this particular punishment. Which was undoubtedly why the combined genius of BenTo Li and Qui Gon Jinn had eventually determined that Madame Nu would be the perfect person to drill some self control into him. He sighed. At least he had not been sent back to the healers to serve out the period of his penitence as a laboratory rat. But then, the Code did forbid explicit torture of Padawans.
He sighed. "Yes, Madame Nu. I am not a specialist in delinquency, either. I should much prefer to be here studying than inconveniencing you."
She favored him with a piercing look, but some of the hard lines radiating around her eyes smoothed into faint wrinkles, and she unclasped her hands. "Very well. Since we have reached a satisfactory understanding, you may begin making yourself useful. And you may start doing that," she added, leading the way to a data accessioning terminal in the Archivists' back offices, "By updating some discrepancies in our records. Here you will note are mission reports and other files that make oblique reference to locations in a particular sector of the rims. There seem to have been minor oversights in cross-referencing these items to the astrocartographical compilation."
He nodded, sighing inwardly again at the proposed task of learning to properly use the Archives' computers complex programming. He was competent, certainly. But circuits and cybernetic pathways were not his passion. The fingers of his left hand strayed longingly over the saber's hilt, hanging upon his belt, just where it had always belonged.
Of course the subtle gesture did not escape Madame Nu's keen eyes. "I'm afraid," she observed pertly, "That between your duties here and your regular studies, you won't have much time for saber practice this week."
He was trying hard not to think about this fact. With an effort, he released his surge of resentment into the Force. A Jedi was resourceful; he would find a way. In the meantime, "Yes, master," was a safely noncommittal response.
"Best three of five," Mace Windu magnanimously offered, after two consecutive victories.
Qui Gon bowed his acceptance of the new terms. It was good to spar with his old friend, without need of teaching, without need of restraint. They saluted once again and fell to, blazing a furious dance across the senior dojo, blades clashing like storm fronts over high mountains. Green fire slammed against violet lightning, two vast strengths exploding into unparalleled noise and thunder. The sabers shrieked, screamed and howled their joy as the two tall, broad-shouldered masters let loose upon one another, peerless skill matched against peerless skill, light against light.
Mace flashed his startling smile. "You're growing old, my friend," he taunted his opponent. "Soon enough your Padawan will be able to beat you without trying."
"I shall retire and teach the crechelings, then," Qui Gon replied, narrowly missing a decapitating blow. "Or if that proves too taxing, I shall spend my senility studying Vapaad."
Mace's growl rumbled low, counterpoint to his violet blade's humming. An insult to his saber form was an insult to the man himself. "You won't make it to old age, Jinn," he threatened, switching immediately into his signature style, a personal variant on Form VII. Light exploded into the blinding emptiness of Vapaad– the dark burned into an eye that stares too long at the scintillating sun.
Qui Gon floundered, ringed round with such power; he parried, spun, felt his defensive guard compressed into a tight circle, a noose of constricting light. He fought hard, calling upon the Living Force, letting its boundless, wild-spreading river tumble over the banks of his awareness, flooding full through his blood. Life swelled, tremendous, untrammeled, against Vapaad's impossible welding of shadow into Light…
But Mace still won the contest. Qui Gon's saber hilt skittered across the polished floor, his left knee twisted beneath him as the last blow caught him off balance, and he ended with the purple blade thrumming sonorously a centimeter from his throat.
He raised a hand . "I yield. And do not say, best four out of seven."
Mace's weapon snapped sharply as he deactivated it and extended a broad, richly-hued hand to haul his friend to his feet. "I would never abuse the elderly in such a fashion."
"Yes you would, were you not needed in the Council chambers."
They chuckled together, the years dropping away, like the perspiration running freely down their bare chests.
But the moment quickly passed. The Korun Jedi straightened, playfulness evaporating into his customary somber regard. "Yan arrives tonight. I will meet personally with DuCrion when they land; if his intent to seek reconciliation seems genuine, I will call a formal meeting in the morning. Both you and your Padawan will be required to attend."
Qui Gon's joy fled, as dew before a scouring sun. "I see no purpose to be served by subjecting my Padawan to such an encounter."
Mace's face briefly registered empathy, but the calm mask fell into place almost without hesitation. "You should let the Force be judge of that, or at least the wisdom of the Council." His eyes twinkled, a glitter of humor moving in dark depths.
Qui Gon snorted. "I take it our attendance had been officially mandated by the Coucnil?"
"I would prefer," Mace rumbled, "That you participated willingly. But I'll take grudging obedience from you anytime I can get it."
They paused outside the changing rooms. "And if I refuse?'
Mace went for the throat, again. "Then I will directly command your Padawan to attend, contrary to your orders. Why don't you make it easy on the boy and set a good example?"
A muscle in Qui Gon's jaw leapt, as he realized his second defeat at the hands of Vapaad. Neither Mace, nor it would seem the Force itself, was in a mood to play fair. He bowed his acquiescence to the summons, and they parted ways.
Obi Wan soon realized that his vocation lay in other realms than the musty halls of the Archivists. Knowledge he loved; order he loved – some would say with an immoderate passion – but forms and beaurocracy and record-keeping….
He sighed for the hundredth time and shut down the data terminal at last, his tedious task complete. He had, of course, missed the midday meal and this was a secondary source of irritation. Nor had it escaped his notice that all of the purported "oversights" in the astrocartography files had been made in one particular sector, a wide swath of space lying just rimward of the Rishi Maze, a segment of unincorporated and sparsely populated asteroid belts and proto-planets, for the most part, but still…
Suspicious. Especially since the errors stretched over a ten to fifteen year period. It was as though the Archives computer system had developed a blind spot to that particular district. Doubtless a cybernetics expert, such as Master Kaama, would be able to remedy the glitch. He stretched, muscles aching and stomach growling in a most unbecoming manner. He could, he should, leave now and plunge into his other assigned studies, cram some dinner down and then return to the same. He was expected to meditate with Qui Gon at tenth hour; and if he did not rise early the next morning, he would never complete his manifold duties on time tomorrow. There would be no sparring whatsoever. No exercise of any kind.
"Blast it." He etched a small circle on the polished desktop with one finger, glaring at the reflective surface. A small voice of conscience issued its own sanctimonious pronouncement. You should not have tricked Bant. He banished its unhelpful and obvious pronouncement to the back of his mind and stood, reluctantly resolving to move on to the pile of Astro-Navigation and Galactic Civics Theory assignments waiting his eager attention.
It was a sincere resolution; but the Force had other things in mind. He had just emerged into the main stacks, and was on the point of crossing the wide central aisle between the soaring shelves, when a familiar presence fluttered across his awareness. Instinctively he shrank back into the shelter of the nearest rank of shelves, hand clasping at his saber's hilt, a cold chill passing down his spine.
Childish. But he tightened his mental shields to breaking point and disappeared within the plenum, every sense widening into painful receptiveness. His breath came slow and deep, his heart matching its cautious pacing.
Master Syfo Dyas strode purposefully down the wide central aisle and waved a hand at the lock mechanism for the holocron vault at the Archives' far end.
The Force nudged him, and he acted: a holovolume nearby flew from its sedentary roosting place and clattered to the marble floor at the Jedi master's feet, just as his cloak swept over the now-open threshold to the vault beyond. Obi Wan followed the fallen book, a wall of determination and the Force holding the vault doors open, against the pressure valves' will.
"Master Dyas?"
The Sentinel turned in place, surprise suffusing his angled features with an unwonted openness.
"I'm sorry to disturb you…. ' He held the holobook up, expectant, eyes raking over the interior of the dimly lit chamber beyond, the rows of glowing cubicles, the low ceiling, looking for he knew not what. "It seems as though you might have dropped this?"
Jedi did not drop anything. Master Dyas' slanting brows formed a dismissive peak. "No, Padawan, I did not. Thank you. You may replace it."
Obi Wan bowed, the Force urging him to thrust his way into that forbidden place, to see what lay beyond, to act, now… but he was defeated, and when he unbent, the panels curved shut, petal-like, before him.
He steadied his breathing, the vertigo induced by the command of the Force, unfulfilled, even now ringing in his ears, hammering with his pulse.
"Are you well?" a voice asked at his elbow.
He turned. "Bruck." His former rival, reduced to mere Temple staff, apparently now assigned to the Archives as a clerical assistant. He inclined his head politely, knowing what conduct both honor and Qui Gon demanded of him.
"Only Council members and a few others are permitted in that vault," Bruck Chun reminded him, sharply. "You should not have attempted to sneak in."
Obi Wan forced his hand to loosen about the saber's hilt. He held out the holobook. "Of course," he replied, smoothly. "Would you be so kind to replace this volume, as Master Dyas requested?"
Bruck squinted at him hard, pale watery blue eyes raking over him head to foot, as though performing a radiation scan or a bio-check. "Of course," the white haired youth mimicked him. "And I shall be so kind as to ask Madame Nu about the restrictions, as well. For the sake of clarity."
"Thank you," Obi Wan answered, lightly, indifferently. "I would appreciate that."
"My pleasure," Bruck responded coolly.
"May the Force be with you." Obi Wan extended his bow into a slow and graceful irony.
Bruck Chun mirrored the gesture – though not so elegantly – and took his leave.
"You are preoccupied, Padawan."
Obi Wan had eaten only half his dinner. "I'm sorry, master. I've been... sitting for twelve hours straight. Do you suppose we might -"
"No, I'm afraid not. We will attend Master Yaddle's lecture on Meditative Stillness this evening, and I expect you in quarters at tenth hour. Sparring is out of the question."
The plate was shoved aside, with the faintest hint of petulance. 'Yes, master."
"I hope you were productive in the Archives today?"
"I hope so too... do you think that if I excel, Madame Nu might be persusaded to-"
"Obi Wan." The tall man waited to be sure he had the boy's attention. "You cannot negotiate your way out of every difficulty. And Madame Nu will not be issuing any early paroles for good behavior. Master Li and I made certain of that when we spoke to her."
The Padawan's shoulders rose in a dissatisfied shrug and stayed that way, hunched tight with undissipated energy.
"Eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"You mean that you are resentful."
The young Jedi blushed, mouth hardening into a quite obviously resentful line.
"Perhaps you should seek out Padawan Eerin; she might be able to soothe your frayed nerves."
Obi Wan offered him a look of wounded sarcasm. "Yes, master."
Qui Gon pointed sternly at the half-emptied plate, and his apprentice dutifully if grumpily set to work on its cooling contents.
The tall man sighed. If only this were the extent of the difficulties they faced. Tomorrow would bring its own travails.
Qui Gon felt the shuddering imbalance in the Force before he heard the gentle knocking at his bedroom's door.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," Obi Wan mumbled, filling the doorframe, a pale ghost outlined in faint moonlight, fair skin and white sleep pants etched with a sickly glow from the window beyond.
He crossed the room in two strides. The Padawan's shoulder was slick with sweat where he touched it. "A vision?"
"I'm very sorry, master. But you said-"
"I did. You did rightly to wake me." There had been few such premonitory dreams, of late. But they had just returned from Ilum. And the Force was disturbed, fretful. "I feel it too."
"I saw a death. One yet to come."
Qui Gon nodded. "That is nothing to fear. Death claims us all, eventually."
His Padawan looked away, kneaded absently at a taut muscle in his chest. "This was in the Temple. The river in the arboretum runs with blood. And there was a… a gundark."
Qui Gon's heart skipped, then steadied. "Dreams pass in time," he reminded the boy. "And this one is too vague to be interpreted."
"Yes, master… should I meditate upon it?"
"No," the Jedi master decided. They would not be imbalanced by the future. Or the past, for that matter. "You should get some rest." A most unpleasant day lay ahead, though he had not yet told his Padawan this news.
Obi Wan quirked a curious brow at him when he followed the boy into the adjacent bedroom. "I don't require tucking in," he complained.
"Lie down."
His apprentice sprawled across his sleep mattress, eyes gleaming humorously in the dim lit room. "And a lullaby won't have any effect, either. Bant can assure you of that."
Qui Gon perched on the edge of the thin mattress, fingered the Padawan's braid, the tiny scarlet thread wrapped at its end – a marker signifying Obi Wan's first disastrous encounter with Xanatos DuCrion.. "I would not be so foolish as to attempt any of the healers' soothing techniques," he smiled, his heart aching.
"You are wise, my master," Obi Wan smiled back, smug as an overfed felix.
"Yes, I know." Relax. A yawn textured the silence. Peace. Mental shields unraveled, loosened into compliance. Sleep. The young Jedi's eyes slid closed as he obeyed.
Qui Gon lingered a few more minutes before taking his weary leave, wishing perhaps that the present moment did not always have to be so very fleeting.
They ate breakfast in their quarters the next morning.
"Are we leaving on a mission?" Obi Wan queried, uneasily.
The time had come. Qui Gon straightened his spine, set the tea cup down. "The Council has asked us, each individually, to attend an interview with a visitor to the Temple."
The Padawan waited for further elaboration. A line appeared between his brows. "You and I… specifically? Is it somebody with whom we are acquainted, master?"
The tall Jedi's mouth thinned. "Yes."
Another awkward silence. Qui Gon's hand crept unconsciously to his side, rested against his saber's hilt. His apprentice mirrored the gesture, eyes never leaving Qui Gon's face.
You teach your Padawan nothing by avoiding the encounter.
"We are going to speak with Xanatos DuCrion," he said, simply.
The remainder of the meal passed in unnatural, strained silence.
They ran into Bant Eerin on their way through the fifth-level central court, the one watched over by a statue of master Chakora Seva levitating a sphere.
"Obi Wan!" the diminutive Mon Cal accosted her friend.
Qui Gon slowed his pace and waited. He was not anxious to arrive at their destination anyway.
"Bant."
The wide-eyed Mon Cal Padawan all but thrust a webbed finger in Obi Wans' face, her vestigial gills flaring. "That was a dirty trick. Master Li has set me to cleaning the Halls after hours as an incentive to be more mindful." Her enormous eyes blinked once, sadly. "That wasn't worthy of you."
Qui Gon felt his apprentice's pang of remorse as a twisting deep in his own gut. He released it into the Force.
"Bant… I'm sorry. It was thoughtless. I … I'll speak to Master Li Again. I'll help you do the cleaning. Perhaps he will let me do it for you. I never intended harm to you. It won't ever happen again. I promise."
In the face of such abject apology, Bant's mien softened. She glanced sideways at Qui Gon, and morphed the incipient embrace into a mere formal bow. "I believe you." Her globular eyes shone with restrained tears, and she hurried away on her mysterious healers' business.
Obi Wan heaved in a deep breath, watching her retreat.
"Come," Qui Gon said, leading the way onward. "You are going to be a very busy man this next week, my young friend."
"Yes, master."
They walked onward, heading for the assigned meeting place. As they progressed, Qui Gon felt his companion's mood descend further into dark valleys, and slid inexorably down the same slopes himself. The Force thickened, surged between them, around them. When they reached the arched threshold to the west wing corridor, where morning light shafted through tall windows, casting translucent golden barriers across the hall, Obi Wan finally balked.
"Must we do this, master?"
Qui Gon merely increased his stride, eating up the stretch of corridor at an alarming speed, pressing through the weightless walls of light. His Padawan was forced to into a half-jog alongside him. "Yes, Obi Wan, we must. By decree of the Council."
They stopped at the lift doors. The Padawan shifted impatiently, fingers drumming against his saber's pommel. "That has never posed an obstacle before, master."
Qui Gon was in no mood for impertinence. "Padawan."
The doors opened, and they stormed inside, a thundercloud and its shadow. "I don't see why the Council would insist on such a thing," the boy muttered, his foul mood mirroring Qui Gon's and sending its own echo across their bond, until they were trapped in an endless corridor of reflected ire.
The Jedi master's voice roiled with contained emotion. "Then perhaps I have spoiled you; we shall in future practice obedience without the need for taxing justification first."
Obi Wan, however, was far past intimidation. "You said he who obeys without thinking is a traitor to the Living Force."
The lift had halted, but Qui Gon held the doors closed with one upraised hand. He looked down into a pair of blue eyes sparking with the same irate resentment he struggled to quash in his own breast. Exhale. "So I did. What do you so badly need to know?" he demanded, blocking his apprentice's exit.
His Padawan's chin came up. "Why are you making me do this?"
The Force sizzled, blinding actinic light at the periphery of vision, a twisting plea across their bond. Qui Gon looked at his student, arms crossed in perfect imitation of his own habitual stubborn posture, and his belly clenched. Force help me. "The Council is commanding you to do this. As it is me. And we shall obey."
The automated safety system blinked into life. "Lift occupants: do you require assistance? Is there a technical difficulty?" the flat droid voice spoke over the comm.
"We do not require assistance and all systems are functional. Thank you," Qui Gon informed it placidly. He returned his burning gaze to Obi Wan. "Is that not correct, young one?"
The learner's braid swung as the young Padawan jerked his head sideways, scowling furiously. Qui Gon waited, towering above his fierce apprentice.
"Yes, master," Obi Wan growled, a slight break in his voice the only indication that his wrath was mere façade.
Qui Gon released the doors and led the way out, his protégé stalking at his heels. They had an important appointment to keep.
