Lineage VII


Chapter 28

This chapter is for Valairy Scot, who patiently served as beta reader and invaluable editorial resource for the entire thing, but this part most of all. If you like it, thank her – for I surely lack words to express my own gratitude.


Obi-Wan gingerly rolled his shoulder, clenching his teeth a bit as a renewed flare of pain shot down his arm and back. "Blast it."

But his hasty reinforcement of mental shields was not swift enough to deceive Qui-Gon Jinn.

"Let me see that," the tall Jedi master commanded, pointing to one of the meditation pads in their quarters. He dropped to one knee, spreading a broad hand along his apprentice's back near the shoulder blade. "You've been overdoing it," came the predictable reproof. "Ben To is going to have your head."

The young Jedi closed his eyes gratefully as a wave of healing warmth spread outward from the point of injury. "It's that star-forsaken kata every evening," he grumbled.

Qui-Gon raised a brow. "And the illicit sparring sessions with Knight Spruu and Master Drallig. Do not think I have been so busy elsewhere that I don't know what you are up to… and now you've reaped the consequence of imprudence. I should ban you from the salles entirely until this is fully healed."

"But-"

"Do not plead boredom, Padawan, or I will find ways for you to occupy your spare time."

Obi-Wan wisely held his peace, letting some of his simmering frustration seep outward into the Force, where it was swiftly smoothed into the universal currents.

"Better," Qui-Gon decided, standing. "I think tea is in order before we retire –"

He cocked an eyebrow and turned to the apartment's door as the chime was sounded. Before either of them could speak or raise a hand to release the lock, the portal slid open to admit a most unexpected visitor.

Instantly, Obi-Wan was on his feet and making a formal bow beside his mentor.

"Master," they greeted the newcomer in unison.

Yoda stumped his way into the sparsely furnished chamber, the rap of his cane muffled by the thin yarbanna-weave rug in the room's center. "Tea," he grunted imperiously, sliding onto the empty pad and glowering up at Qui-Gon.

The tall man gave a curt nod and retreated to the miniscule kitchen nook. "Yarba, Qui-Gon," Yoda commanded. "Silpa, tarine – like these I do not." Fussing, he laid his cane aside and arranged his fraying robes about his knobbly knees. One hoary claw pointed up at the Padawan. "Smirk not at me, young one. Sit here. Talk we will."

"I'm sorry, master." Alarmed by the ancient Jedi's foul mood and not daring to disobey, Obi-Wan settled upon the opposite cushion, watching Yoda's face warily.

"Council meeting tomorrow morning," the Grand master told them. "Attend, both of you will."

They exchanged a sober glance as Qui-Gon knelt to serve Yoda his tea. The ancient one sipped at his bowl with wrinkled lips, gimlet eyes half-hooded.

"The Derridas succeeded in breaking the data matrix encryption, then?" Obi-Wan inquired, astounded once again by the Phindians' misdirected genius.

"Yes. Bad news there is," Yoda admitted, ears drooping. "Treason and conspiracy. Good it is, Qui-Gon, that you discovered this so soon."

They sat in silence, waiting for him to elaborate, but no further revelations were forthcoming. Obi-Wan accepted his own serving of tea, cradling the hot ceramic bowl between his hands, where the suffusing warmth might mitigate the cold crawling up his spine, the icy fingers of premonition stroking and tickling at the back of his mind.

"Focus," Yoda chided him, sharply. "Speak we must, Obi-Wan. Watching you, I have been. Distracted, preoccupied you are. Know I do, what it is that weighs on your heart."

Startled, he risked an upward glance. "You do?"

This provoked an impatient snort. "Eight hundred fifty years and you think me blind? Seen this foolishness many times, I have."

The Padawan swallowed down his pained objections. "Yes, master."

Yoda thrust a single blunt digit at him. "Great potential you have. In need of you, the Order may be. Waste not your energy on base passion."

Surely the tea bowl in his hands could not be any hotter than the blood coursing so swiftly into his face. Obi-Wan's chest tightened in outrage, in mortification. "Master! I have not – I have never – I promise you, I honor the Code at all times. I –"

The ancient troll cackled in amusement, ears perking up on either side of his head. "Speak not of dalliance, do I," the old one chuffed. "Such indulgence - easy to correct, it is. Master Jinn would teach you better, I think." His green eyes slid down to rest upon his gimer stick, clear meaning in their limpid depths. "Speak I do of more difficult matters. Custody of the heart."

"Oh… yes, master."

Yoda watched him intently, saying nothing more.

Obi-Wan could not help squirming where he sat, just a bit. "I – I understand," he said, miserably, wishing the ancient master would simply strike the killing blow and move on.

"Aspire you do, to be Knight of this Order, above all else," Yoda observed, dispassionately. "Know this I do. Trust you, I do, to cleave to that path. Only one road is there, Padawan, and narrow it is – wide enough for one to lead and one to follow. No more."

"What is it I must do?" the young Jedi asked, miserably.

"Nothing," the wisened old master declared, voice rasping, but not unkindly. His piercing gaze softened with something akin to pity. "No command do I issue. Your own choice this must be. But choose wisely: one step off this narrow path, and into Darkness you will fall." He set his cup down and clambered to the floor, leaning heavily upon his stick. "Now. Wasted enough time we have." He tottered to the door, hesitating one last time in the threshold, white-crowned head twisted over one bent shoulder. "May the Force be with you both."

And then he was gone, the Force weighted with time's legacy, with the heavy silt of wisdom deposited over long centuries.

Obi-Wan sat, motionless, a strange resentment rising within him. It was too much, too soon, one demand too many heaped upon his besieged heart, grief glutting itself on him even as he struggled to keep his head above the waters of attachment. And his master – Qui-Gon, who stood there so solemn and glib while Yoda spoke of narrow paths— had he not forged for himself a secret pass, a trail blazed with characteristic defiance across tradition's high peaks, a way to circumvent the agony he so calmly condemned his own student to suffer?

Where was the guidance in that? Where was the authority?

"Drink your tea," Qui Gon softly urged his apprentice, when the ancient Jedi had long since disappeared.

But Obi-Wan merely rose to his feet, paced across the room with thunderous determination and carefully poured the cold and bitter brew down the disposal. He set the empty cup upon the counter and turned, feet planted in battle stance. "I've had enough," he quietly declared, voice thrumming low with tightly leashed emotion.

The tall man folded his arms, chin coming up in salute. "On the contrary, you have barely tasted it yet."

The younger man's brows rose, meeting the challenge head-on. "If you have drunk your fill, master, then do not chide me for growing weary of the same."

Qui-Gon closed the space between them, mouth thinning as he looked down upon his coldly furious apprentice. "I would not wish the same bitterness upon you."

"That's what she said."

Tahl's name hung unspoken, howling in the Force between them , a shared lamentation.

Qui-Gon inhaled deeply. "You asked her. Behind my back."

"I asked her, and she told me, master."

"That was not your place, Obi-Wan. You trespass gravely upon my trust by prying into her- our- affairs."

The word trust lashed like a razored whip, a brand searing across their bond, a place where old pain flared anew, doubt marching in its train.

"You trespass gravely upon my trust by concealing such a thing," Obi-Wan countered, yet more softly, every word enunciated with dangerous clarity. "You bid me avoid that which you embrace, and counsel an obedience your own heart will not brook. You tell me that words are but the echo of deed and understanding; am I now to set my compass by mere words while you reserve wisdom to your own sole privilege? Forgive me if I wandered too far into the realm of your own defiance; without your example, I must find my own way as best I can."

The Jedi master's hands slammed onto the counter's edge to either side of his Padawan, gripping hard at the curved surface. Pinned in place with his back to a wall, the older man looming threateningly close, Obi-Wan did not yield, returning his master's infuriated stare with unflinching fire.

"Brat." There was no jest in the familiar term.

"Hypocrite." The accusation flew from his lips as though of its own accord.

Qui-Gon's hand came up, lightning fast; Obi-Wan closed his eyes, bracing for the well- deserved blow.

But none came. There was a soft exhalation, the Force full of an unexpected grief and weariness, the compounded bruises of a heart already battered by looming loss. Instead of an open-handed strike, Qui-Gon's fingers brushed against the Padawan's braid, gently, and then rested on a trembling shoulder.

"I am an old fool, Padawan."

"No, master – I-"

"Do not apologize. Come. This discussion is long overdue." He shepherded the younger man back into the adjacent room, where they settled again upon the round cushions, the Force rolling their stormclouds away into its supernal luminance, into the ocean of the living present.

"Master Tahl told me," Obi-Wan repeated. "I am sorry. I had to know."

Qui-Gon nodded gravely. "You do. I should have told you myself, before now. I never imagined that your path would lead you to the same dilemma. Certainly not so soon… In that, I was unwise."

The Padawan gathered his composure on a long indrawn breath. "I love her," he said, simply, the boundless plea, the pang of terrible understanding sonorous in his tone.

"I am sorry," Qui-Gon responded. "For your suffering – for that is what such devotion means. There is great truth in all you have been taught."

The younger man's brows quirked together. "But you chose-"

"We chose nothing. Jedi cannot formalize a bond. Nor speak openly of it. Nor live as life-mates. Nor nurture a family. Nor take action or make choice of duties to accommodate such mutual need. Nor cherish hope of the other's well-being, or survival, beyond that which the Force allows. There is nothing to choose, Obi-Wan."

"But you still …. You are honest. With each other."

The Jedi master rested his hands on his knees, exhaling slowly. "It means great pain, Padawan. It would be easier – far, far easier – to renounce all such feelings."

But they both knew that the easy path was not a temptation. Qui-Gon had taught that lesson all too well.

Obi-Wan studied his folded hands and then looked up, pain already brimming in twin blue pools. "I will do as you say. If you forbid it… I will obey, master."

"No," Qui-Gon softly answered. "This is yours to choose. I have given you my advice. But I will not impose it upon you as a command, for I have forfeited the right. Only choose well, Padawan. Do not make the same mistake as your foolish master."

But even as he spoke the words, he knew that fate would not be so merciful.


Seldom was Coruscant subject to weather patterns besides mild sunshine and moderate temperatures; the orbital meteorological regulators saw to that. But today was a scheduled precipitation; the planet's scattered clouds had been manipulated by artificial pressure fronts into lowering themselves over the first through seventh primary districts in a glowering blanket.

The first drops spattered against the Council tower's windows as Master Windu brought the session to order. Obi-Wan watched the rivulets run crookedly down the convex transparisteel as the Korun master expounded the Phindians' findings, detailing the contents of the stolen data matrix. The words were of grave import, each ensuing revelation worse than the next, a nightmarish parade of unlikely connections.

"Disturbing," Yoda summed up.

"More than disturbing," Mace growled. "We are looking at an interplanetary conspiracy to form an economically and functionally independent federation within the Republic's borders. The Techno Union stands in violation of countless laws by supplying these people with weapons and vehicles; the government of Apsolon has committed egregious crimes against its own citizenry; Telos and the other investors are to be censured for their involvement in such an illegal and perfidious scheme, and above all…. The leadership of this movement has been established beyond doubt by these transmission records and confidential files."

An uneasy stirring swept about the Council chamber as all present exchanged worried glances. In the room's center, Qui-Gon, Adi, and their Padawans stood in a tight cluster of expectation.

"You have not yet told us who is responsible," Qui Gon pointed out.

Mace nodded his head, and the window blinds lowered smoothly, masking the driving rain behind opaque panels. The chamber was cloaked in darkness.

"A traitor, he is known to be. A murderer also. But now, into utter depravity has he sunk," Yoda rasped, activating the ceiling-mounted holoprojector.

Adi and Qui-Gon stepped apart, permitting the flickering image to appear between them, a blue effigy standing proud and unabashed in the midst of his peers, an echo of the memorial pillars on Apsolon.

"Syfo-Dyas!" Obi-Wan exclaimed aloud, contrary to protocol. His eyes stayed riveted on the moving hologram of the rogue Jedi master. "This is all his doing?"

His outburst earned him one or two stern looks, but Mace Windu merely nodded.

"The Absolutes' attempt to torture information regarding current Jedi security codes and way-station coordinates form Master Gallia demonstrates that his ambition extends to the very foundations of the Order. He has become an enemy of the Jedi, not merely the Republic," the dark-skinned master intoned, gravely. "He must be stopped."

"And he shall be," a smooth voice answered, from the circle's opposite side. At ease in his chair, Yan Dooku sat and regarded the image of the former Jedi shadow with elegant contempt, his silver brows lowering dangerously over his glittering eyes. "He has become a very great danger."

"Indeed," Mace concurred.

Obi-Wan glanced in alarm at Qui-Gon, but the tall man merely flicked his grey eyes in his apprentice's direction and turned his attention back to the Councilors.

Yoda grasped the gnarled end of his stick between both clawed hands. "So it must be," he agreed. "The Council must approve."

A solemn nodding of heads and soft murmuring of ayes followed this grave pronouncement.

Dooku stood and bowed. "I will see to it. He will, of course, be difficult to corner."

"The Order's full resources are at your disposal," Mace told the Serrenoan master. "This has become our most pressing priority. It has been a long time since a lapsed member of the Order has undertaken folly on this scale. It does not bode well for the Republic that such atrocities can fester undetected in its midst. We are become blind and complacent."

Yoda grumbled his agreement, ears drooping. "Confidential must this information remain for now. Report to the Chancellor and the Senate we shall when action has been taken. This threat – stop it we must before larger it grows. Already, remiss have we been."

Mace folded his hands. "Now is the time to act, not to engage in discussion. May the Force be with us all."

Obi-Wan followed Qui-Gon out of the dim chamber and into the lift tube, his mind in a dazed whirl. When they were issued into the soaring hall at teh tower's base, and were once again alone, he struggled to voice his stunned disbelief.

"Master…Has – did I misunderstand – or did the Council authorize Master Dooku to…"

Qui-Gon's eyes betrayed the answer.

"So he will not try to capture him. Even though he is a Jedi."

"He is no Jedi, Obi-Wan," the tall man replied grimly. "It is necessary."

Obi-Wan halted in mid stride, staring intently at the older man, instinctual horror and ruthless rational comprehension at war in his eyes.

"Yes, master," he murmured at last, after a weighted pause. "And the secret federation Master Yoda spoke of… I have a bad feeling about it, too."

Qui-Gon sighed as they resumed walking."As do we all. I fear we have come to a crisis in the Republic's history. Events will be slow to develop and unfold – if Syfo-Dyas can be destroyed – but my instincts tell me that even that will only mark the beginning of something larger."

Surprised, his apprentice raised his brows. "Then we have the same bad feeling."

"I am afraid so, young one. But for now –"

"…Yes, master," Obi-Wan muttered. "The present moment."

"Where your focus belongs," Qui-Gon gently finished. His voice softened further, conveying a measure of compassion blended with firm counsel. "I think there is at least one more thing you must do, Padawan, before this day comes to its end."


He did not have to send a message, nor issue any summons. She came of her accord, as though she already knew, as though it was the Force itself that dictated the time and the place.

And perhaps it was.

The Room of a Thousand Fountains was a place of textured veils at night, the darkened paths picked out in faint starlight by twinkling constellations of glow-lamps, tiny points of fire amid the rumbling music of the falls and the streams.

They walked side by side, along the gravel path, the nebula twisting along their private ecliptic, a meandering road leading only further inward, to the center of a secret labyrinth. Their fingers wound together, and then clasped. Their footfalls softened to the barest whisper and then stopped altogether, still beneath the thundering falls at the garden's very heart. Here the only lights were those reflected dimly in the depths of the churning pool, a pantheon of forgotten divinities peering out of time's depths.

In the dark, their breaths mingled and then merged as they drank a libation poured over a forbidden altar, a taste of intoxicating wine not mellowed by age nor jaded by long experience.

And when they at last drew separate breaths, the drowned stars still gazed expectantly at them as they stood in the brink of the black pool, beneath the cold spray of the dizzying falls. Destiny toppled over their high ridge, plummeting gracefully to its own perpetual destruction, sacrificed without beginning or end.

Siri Tachi found her voice first. "We're leaving at dawn."

He tucked her dangling braid behind her ear. "I know. Master Gallia told me… and I checked the vehicle requisitions schedule."

She leaned into him, their arms mutually encircling the other. "We will be called off on assignment after that.. she spoke of a journey mission – humanitarian aid – it could be months, years –"

He pulled her closer still, lips brushing her temple, eyes closed. "It will be – years." He swallowed. "I know it."

Siri's fingers twisted in his tunics, bunching the rough-woven cloth. "You've seen it? The Force told you?"

Pressed against her, swaddled in the misting dark, he could feel the taut stretch of muscle beneath his hand, the soft-hard curve above her hip, the dip of her spine just above her belt, the oceanic swell of her lungs. Her hair curled in the moist air, tickling his nostrils. The world was incensed with chiming music, with mandrangea blossoms.

"We should.. we can't, Obi-Wan. We have a duty."

"We will do what we must."

She felt for his face, her hand softly tracing over his features, as though seeking the truth, the narrow path between twin chasms of grief and defiance. "You mean…."

He kissed the tips of her fingers as they found his mouth. "I mean that we have to part."

She buried her face against his shoulder. "Then we must pretend this never happened – never speak of it – not even remember or think of it – "

"No, Siri."

The falls roared, the streams burbled and danced, the mist swirled, a phantasmic and ethereal witness to a perilous vow.

"No? We can't act on this…. they won't change the rules for us – there is no way we can be together. You know it, as well as I do. We've been deceiving ourselves if we ever hoped otherwise."

"Siri…" He clung to her, cherishing that which must be renounced, holding that which must be yielded over to the Force. "We can't be together… but I won't live an untruth. I won't deny what happened… what still is, between us."

"Oh, ben'ke… my heart will break," she whispered.

He slipped a hand into his inner tunic pocket and found the stone there, warm against his skin, pulsing faintly within the mourning Force. "Here… Siri. Take this and keep it." He pressed his most precious possession - his first inheritance, his last refuge, a thing attuned to the Light and the Light alone - into her hand, closing her fingers over it with his own. "Safeguard it for me."

"You can't give me this…. you shouldn't."

"I already have."

The river stone nestled close against her breast, one heart cleaving unto another. "So… this is goodbye," she rasped. "Until… someday. Or maybe forever."

They sank to their knees together, the weight of sacrifice overburdening them, hands still entwined, foreheads barely touching. The falls thundered behind them, bathing them in glittering dew, adorning their cloaks in delicate finery.

"What do we say?" Siri asked, helplessly. There was no rite dedicated to this grave occasion, no sanctified language by which to compact their trust, their aching dissolution.

For a long while they were silent, and then the Force seemed to speak out of the falls' heart, the words of a ceremony as deep-rooted as the tradition which claimed their unfailing allegiance.

"I do pledge myself to the service of the Light, in body, mind and spirit, by the grace and strength of the Force - unto my very death or even beyond."

They stood, purpose binding them to separate paths, to a conjoined solitude. It was ended, and yet not. They flowed together, salt mingling on their cheeks as they exchanged a last solemn salutation - a long and tender exchange of faith, a promise made without condition, without reservation, without the lurking shadow of greed.

And then they stepped apart.

"Farewell, Siri. May the Force be with you."

"And with you, Obi-Wan. Until we meet again."


When he returned at last to his own quarters – well past midnight – Qui-Gon was waiting for him upon the balcony. Their rooms were swathed in night, in the flitting reflections of distant air traffic, of the waning moon.

He stood at the railing beside the Jedi master, letting the tears flow unchecked. The tall man's hand moved to rest against his forearm, in a mute pledge of solidarity.

Over the city-planet's horizon, the sun still burned, unquenched by her seeming death at each successive twilight. Within their spirits, a greater Light still kindled, life itself, the Force in all its subtle impalpable splendor, immune from loss and grief. Around them, a second shadowed mantle cast over the dark drapes of their cloaks, the future drew near, bearing a young woman away into the stars and an older woman away into the Force itself, never to return.

And they stood, silent but not yet broken, contemplating the ascendancy of night without fear or joy, slowly, painfully learning the bitterest of lessons taught by the Force's guiding hand - master and apprentice together.

FINIS