~16~
The Holding Land
"My friends," Jiromie began, and it was impossible to fail to notice the significant way in which he spread his hands in the universal invitation for peace. This was a man who knew of the galaxy.
"We have visitors among us from the outside galaxy, the first we have ever welcomed to Whilldri," he continued.
"What did they do with the others, burn them at the stake?" Anakin murmured from behind Lilandra. She giggled softly, while Cace gave him a puzzled glance over his shoulder.
"It seems only fair to tell them the story of who we are, and how we came to be." Jiromie was looking right at the space where Lilandra, Cace, Anakin, and Tara were sitting, looking sheepish and excited all at the same time. "No filling in the blanks, Lendene," he addressed Cace, and the crowd tittered.
"The story begins centuries ago, before any of us was born, except perhaps for Verina – " Here he paused for comedic effect, while chuckles rippled through the gathering again, " – and it begins with a race of gentle people who were possessed of a strange and terrific power: the ability to see the future, to prophesize about events that came to truth even centuries later. Not only that, but their gift of foresight allowed them to explore the expanded capacities of their own minds, and they realized that their talents extended to not just seeing, but being able to move things, construct and deconstruct them, all with the power of mere mental suggestion.
"They documented the exploration of their minds in a collective diary, along with their prophesies, and it became the central tenet of a religion they founded based on the assumption that they had been granted their miraculous powers by some sort of almighty deity, whom they later came to refer to as Wele, the spiritual embodiment of the human will. They called themselves the Wills, W-I-L-L-S, because their entire existence seemed based on the power of the will: the will to move things, the will to foresee and understand the implications of the past, present, and future existing as one boundless circle of time, and the will to understand their own minds and the minds of others – the modern Jedi practice of thought interpretation and spiritual healing. The Journal became their bible, of sorts, and around this, they constructed their civilization."
Jiromie paused to allow this introduction to sink in before he continued:
"The Wills built their cities and homes and farms on the fertile terrain of a world called Raltonen, and their society flourished. They constructed temples, made pilgrimages to the far corners of their world to pray and reflect, though theirs was anything but a conventional religion. Their society was the only one in history that could be considered completely free. There was no government, as they established their laws through the things they foresaw. They reported prophetic dreams to a central elder, who was known as the Keeper of The Journal, and whose role was not to act as a dictator, but as more of a figurehead.
"If someone foresaw a famine, the Keeper would order more food grown, less food gratuitously consumed. If someone foresaw an epidemic, the Keeper would designate quarantine for the sick and, based on the nature of the illness prophesied, adjust health regulations accordingly to prevent its spread. It was as though they thrived on the power of suggestion alone, and so their world became a populous one.
"As years went by, the Wills began to branch out from Raltonen. The emergence of space technology had made it possible to travel to other planets, where many settled and began their own factions of the Will religion, always in keeping with the Journal, but under different names, different methods of teaching. One of the first of these factions was the Massassi, the race of people native to Yavin 4, the world from which our friends have come."
Lilandra found herself smiling in spite of herself. So that was who the Massassi had been, mysterious race that they were.
"The Massassi favored tangible worship, and so constructed temples appealing to the various capacities of Wele – its generosity, its healing, its power, and its love. These, they believed, would keep them safe, and would protect the small community they'd established. No one knows what happened to the Massassi, but they only existed for a few centuries. Some say they tired of Yavin 4, and ventured into the galaxy to form independent communities on other worlds. Others say they were wiped out by the marauding planetary explorers who swept through the galaxy at the end of the last century and populated the worlds they conquered as they saw fit. Whatever the case, we know that they never completely died out, because the proof of their legacy is sitting right in front of me: the modern-day Jedi of the world of Yavin 4."
There was some shuffling of feet and clothing as the entire population of Whilldri turned or craned to see the seven missionaries. Cace quickly released Lilandra's hand, cupping his own palms nervously over his knees. Lilandra smiled down at her feet.
"The Wills who stayed on Raltonen continued to flourish, existing in their free society, far removed from the tyranny of the emerging governments in the galaxy beyond. They worshiped not material possession, but the gifts of the mind, and held no store by physical domination: fated love was considered divine, and sexual satisfaction only achieved therein.
"There were none of the designations and restrictions that we have imposed here on Terapinn – these are simply a means of ensuring our survival. The Raltonen Wills knew what was required of them for their survival, and each pursued their own interest or area of particular expertise. The beauty of freedom is that because it was given so willingly and so unflinchingly to them, the Wills knew better than to abuse it, and so they behaved, and so they lived.
"In the increasingly turbulent atmosphere of the galaxy beyond, their religion was viewed as both ingenious and ludicrous, but the Wills were secure in their faith, and that is the way they continued, through the ages, to the birth of the fair but uncertain Old Republic, when the modern star charts and galactic archives were first compiled. In them, the world of Raltonen is registered as a little inner-core planet called Wayland – you may have heard of it."
Luke and Lilandra exchanged an amazed glance, and Mara nudged her husband, grimacing.
"During those final years, one of the city women gave birth to a son, and he was to be the new Keeper when the current, female Keeper passed on. His name was Caus, and right away, the Wills could tell that he was different from any child that had ever passed through their society. He was persuasive and charismatic in childhood – definite, stolid, and determined. Everyone thought he had the makings of a revolutionary Keeper.
"But in his adolescence, he developed an interest in galactic politics. He became controlling, supercilious, and dangerously violent. Whatever was created, he would be tempted to destroy. He was abusive. No one could understand how such a child could have been born of such a gentle, popular, and hard-working woman as we knew his mother to be. We didn't realize quite the extent of his internal turmoil, though he left Raltonen as a young man to pursue a grander political career. He wasn't the first. We hoped he would change. He didn't.
"He was the boy who became the man called Caus Palpatine, and while we didn't understand how one individual could have so much anger contained within him, we would certainly come to feel it. The day Caus Palpatine declared himself Emperor over all the galaxy was the day the Keeper had a terrible nightmare.
"She foresaw us scattered on the breeze, like so many delicate seeds, some to be murdered by nightbirds and wolves, some to live half-lives in seclusion and fear in the shadows of mountains. She awoke with the injustice of persecution pounding in her head, and she did not understand. It was too new. So she didn't report the dream to the people. She buried it deep in her subconscious, and though it was out of her mind, guilt and remorse plagued her.
"She never forgave herself for being so faithfully reserved, because it wasn't long before Caus Palpatine turned his rage on us, the people of his childhood, and we were completely unprepared."
A chilled silence descended on the crowd, broken only by the snapping and hissing of the bonfire and the melancholy sighing of the breeze in the trees as everyone tried to picture the sullen little boy who would eventually destroy their lives. What had he looked like then? The same handsome dark hair and eyes? The same silver skin?
Lilandra risked a glance at Cace, who was staring down at his feet. Somehow, their hands had joined again, though noncommittally. Cace's mind wasn't on flirting. He was thinking wistfully, perhaps, of a time when he would've been truly free, not just theoretically free. Free to have a profession of his choice and a girlfriend and babies and the opportunity to joke about life's little intricacies. Free to be holding her hand, even when he knew he probably shouldn't.
"Perhaps half a decade after the Keeper's dream – long enough that she had put it far from her mind," Jiromie said, his voice now deeper, more sinister, "Palpatine's forces attacked.
"They did not kill at first. First, they chased us from Raltonen, scattering us throughout the galaxy, only to round us up later as prisoners. The majority of us spent two months on Yavin 4, long evacuated by the Rebel Alliance, which at that time during the war was unstoppably gaining support and ground."
Some feet away, Luke and Mara exchanged an admiring glance between themselves, Luke chewing his lip thoughtfully but smiling.
"We camped in the jungle, in the shelter of its temples, praying harder than we'd ever prayed in our lives, but it was fruitless. Palpatine was as a predator who knows that he is stronger than his prey but wishes to indulge in the thrill of the chase.
"He spent the next two months searching for the perfect place to chase us to – a place so remote that there would be no hope for our return to the galactic core, and hopefully so barren that, stripped of our once advanced technology, there was a chance we would not even survive the first winter. The planet he picked was this one, for its location, obviously, and its obscurity – our world is not registered in any known documentation of our galaxy. He called it Ter'rapin'n, which in our language means 'holding land', from terra, the almost universal word for solid ground, and pin'n, which can also mean 'trapped'. In the common spelling, though, we usually drop the second 'r', since it is a silent syllable."
Lilandra looked sidelong at Cace again. His lips were parted slightly in a smile that practically mirrored Lilandra's own. Jiromie noticed their faces, and smiled himself.
"Our language is second-nature to all of us, of course, but we have to remember that there are strangers in our midst," he said. "The language of the Whills has no name, because it borrows marginally from so many other languages. It is based entirely on Basic syllables, utilizing the same sounds produced by Basic consonants and vowels, except in special cases. Each syllable consists of a consonant followed by a vowel, and each one makes up a new character of our language."
"Is that why it has been so easy for you to learn Basic?" Luke asked.
"Partly," Jiromie said. "And partly because our years of interaction with the outside galaxy while we were living on Raltonen demanded a keen knowledge of the most common galactic dialect. But I'm getting sidetracked."
He smiled bashfully. "Cace – I'll leave it up to you to tell our guests more about the language, if they so desire."
"Couldn't take all the glory, eh?" Cace teased back.
Jiromie tapped his finger against the side of his head. "The old brain doesn't work as well as it used to."
He paused for a moment, letting the darkness resettle the solemn mood of the point at which he recommenced the story of the Whills.
"After two months came and went, we had been lulled into a false sense of security, so that when Palpatine's lackeys caught up with us again on Yavin 4, we were completely defenseless. There was nothing to do but run, but of course, there never was anywhere to run. Those who resisted were killed, and those who surrendered were rounded up again, thrown together, and transported here on slave ships.
"The journey took two months, and everybody was sick. Hundreds among our number perished from illness only heightened by loneliness and misery and starvation and the unfamiliarity of the torture that had been dealt them."
Jiromie sighed, leaning forward on his wooden podium with his chin cupped in his hand, and Lilandra was immediately, inexplicably, reminded of Kerryna.
"This story has a happy enough ending, I suppose," Jiromie continued, tilting his head to the side. "Miraculously, through everything, our Keeper remained with us. Her name was Verina, and together with her son, Janck, his wife, Emmerry, and their son – that's me – they kept the remaining Wills as safe as they knew how until we were deposited here, on Terapinn. Then, the two hundred or so of us that had survived began the difficult task of rebuilding just a fraction of what we had had on Raltonen.
"From felled trees and broken rocks and barren soil we created the village you see around you. We began to call ourselves 'the Wills of the Hills', a mild amusement to keep our minds from the gravity of our situation, which eventually evolved into the term you are all familiar with today: the Whills. It came to seem as though we had come here of our own volition, and so could leave just as easily, but that proved to be a naïve assumption.
"Palpatine may have been mad, but he was thorough, and he took his precautions to ensure that neither us nor our 'crazy' religion was heard from again. He had already conducted a number of purges of Jedi children, rounding up the descendents that had resulted from the Massassi marrying into the families of humans and non-humans alike, and those who had been taught to use the powers dormant in their own minds by Massassi instructors."
A familiar, latent anxiety stirred in Lilandra's stomach. She had been among those children, orphaned at three years old, mercifully left alive but deposited with and adopted by a Jedi-fearing family of Imperial affiliation. They taught her to fight with words rather than her powers, which she was forbidden to use, and that peace came from without rather than within, and all the orderly things that had attracted Lilandra to politics.
"We were the last step on the road to an almost Jedi-free galaxy, just the way Palpatine wanted it. He lived just long enough to have us disposed of. Barely six months later, he was assassinated, and our visitors could tell you the rest of the galaxy's story better than I."
Luke grinned. "It's long and terribly complicated. We'd much rather you carried on, Jiromie."
There was some chuckling, and Jiromie grinned, "Have it your way."
He picked up the story with: "We never heard the news of Palpatine's death firsthand. But a feeling settled over all of us like that of a great pressure relieved in some way, and heightened in another.
"We would have left as soon as we felt the release of his physical presence… but it was not that simple. One of the principle beliefs of the Wills is that, when you die, your spirit returns to stay with your people, to guard them. Of course, Caus Palpatine had been born a Will. It is irreversible; we could not leave, even if we tried."
"What would happen if you did?" Lilandra asked hesitantly.
There was an uncertain pause as there was some shifting in seats and adjusting of garments.
"We don't know for sure, because we've never once left the soil of Terapinn in the twenty years we've been here, but there have been people who have tried to simply leave the village, to explore the rest of Terapinn, to find resources to turn to when comes the day that the population of Whilldri reaches this valley's maximum sustainability, but … they never made it. They were never heard from again. We lost mental contact with them, and their bodies were never found. We let that stand as a warning to anyone who dares step beyond the boundaries set for us by the spirit of Caus."
Jiromie ended the story there, and for a moment, there was silence, during which Lilandra glanced sidelong at Cace again. His face was troubled, his eyes haunted, but Lilandra didn't ask any questions of him. The past twenty years had evidently not been easy ones for him, this child of an archaic religion in danger of dying out.
All of a sudden, Lilandra was filled with compassion for him, and without really understanding the meaning of the gesture, released his hand and placed her palm on his shoulder. He looked up at her – gratefully? With surprise? Tenderness? – and smiled halfheartedly.
"Good story, that," he murmured.
"Very good," Lilandra agreed, just as quietly. They sat in silence for a long time, thinking, while around them, the Whills rose in groups of two and three and four, and drifted back to the fire to warm the chill from their bones.