After the somber mood of the storytelling had been broken, it was time for the Whills to show their guests how they had fun. For, as Cace explained to Lilandra, music and dancing were the ways the Whills chose to honor their past struggles, rather than dwell on them.
"Resentment is a restraint; the Whills are a people who worship the possibilities of the future," he said to her, his smile bringing one of equal optimism to Lilandra's lips.
They were walking, shoulder to shoulder, back to the place where the long table had been, and where now there was a large area of open ground.
Cace had broken his reverie, but still seemed appreciative of Lilandra's attention. So they talked, mostly about the Whills and their remarkable tale until Cace turned the subject to the outer galaxy.
"What of you, of your society? It just occurred to me that I know next to nothing about your life, Senator."
Lilandra flicked a shock of hair over her shoulder and looked sidelong at him. "The outside galaxy is … one of great turmoil at the moment, to say the least. I don't suppose you have any knowledge of political systems?"
"I'd be willing to learn," Cace shrugged.
"Fair enough," Lilandra grinned, all too pleased to impart upon him her knowledge of her area of specialty.
"Our current government is a democracy, which means the general population has a say in choosing their leaders and laws, through elections and votes and referendums and such. The Imperial regime was an *auto*cracy - meaning the government was self-contained. They appointed their own rulers and laws, and no elections or referendums were held. The Empire had complete power over its domain."
Cace nodded slowly. "So when Palpatine died …"
"It signified the end of the Empire in its present form, but not entirely, as we retained some Imperial traditions and simply integrated them into the trappings of a Republic, such as the Senate – that's where I come in," Lilandra explained. "I'm a senator, appointed by the people of my planet of citizenship and the Chief of State to govern that particular sector. Any bills or laws that are proposed by the Planetary Legislature come to me. Once a month, the Galactic Senate meets at Coruscant – that's the planet in the very center of the galaxy – and reviews all the proposed bills. We debate, and vote, and once the Senate has reached a consensus on something, the bill goes to the Chief of State, who is in charge of every planet in the galaxy, and she …"
She forced herself to trail off, noticing that Cace was regarding her with something of a pained expression.
"But then again, you know nothing at all of the outside galaxy," she murmured apologetically. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting."
"That's alright," he said, turning his eyes to his feet. "It sounds … *big*."
"It is," she agreed. "Big, and unmanageable at times. I look around at your society, see how *orderly* everything is, and I'm jealous, in a way."
Cace was silent for a moment, considering that with a pleased look.
"Your planet …what's it called?"
"It's actually not too far from here," Lilandra replied, only just realizing that her home was a short hyperspace hop through Imperial territory from Terapinn. "It's called Chad."
"That seems like a good place to start in the galaxy, then," Cace said, smiling cautiously. "What's it like?"
Lilandra looked at him again, surprised. He seemed to be asking her to teach him, in a sense, something about the galaxy as well as herself. Even more surprising was the fact that she was glad for the opportunity.
"It's covered almost entirely by water," she began. "Salt water. Oceans. There is one continent near the equator, Yfar, and most communities spread outward from there. The land is mostly grassland dotted with forests, and there is one city, Glitterglass. I work there sometimes, when I'm not on Coruscant. My home is on the water, though, in a floating fishing village called Glimmer."
"Your house floats?"
This seemed almost beyond Cace's comprehension.
"Yeah, kind of," Lilandra grinned. "Glimmer is built on a sandy reef at the entrance to a large lagoon off the mainland. The foundations of the buildings are anchored to the ocean floor and connected by floating docks and bridges, and until you see how shallow the water actually is below the village, it does seem a little impossible. Can you picture it?" she asked.
"I'm trying," Cace replied, his eyebrows coming together. "I just thought of something. What did you say the continent was called again?"
"Yfar," Lilandra said immediately, curious.
"You know, 'Yfar' is our word for fire," Cace told her, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Coincidence?"
"I don't know," Lilandra shrugged. "Chad didn't just come by its Jedi naturally. They had to settle there first, didn't they?"
She paused. "It's amazing – everything sort of moves outward from the people you used to be," she added.
"Maybe Yfar was the first Jedi settlers' idea of a joke," Cace grinned. "You know … fire and water."
Lilandra considered this, marveling at how even though Cace had never been to her planet, or any planet for that matter, he was already showing her new ways of looking at the things she had begun, without realizing it, to take for granted.
As they were talking, Ilsa Lendene, Jiromie, and a few others left the gathering, but returned in a few moments carrying musical instruments of some sort. Jiromie held in his hands a large drum, a tightly banded barrel with a thick yellowish skin stretched over its top.
Ilsa carried a wooden, box-shaped instrument with seven fitted strings, and the two others held pipes and flutes of various sizes that appeared to be hollowed out of the same flexible, tawny stems.
The dinner table had been pushed to one side of the open ground on the opposite side of the path from the village, and by way of the lanterns in the trees, and the reflection of the moon in the water hundreds of feet below them, it had been transformed into a stunningly lit outdoor dance floor.
Cace and Lilandra seated themselves at the table, facing the floor and watching the musicians prepare.
Ilsa exchanged her stringed box with another tall, reed-like woman for the longest flute, and began conversing with Jiromie in their rapid language. He grinned at her and ruffled her hair.
"Musicians aren't designated," Cace informed Lilandra. "Ilsa plays flute for hobby, and she's very good. Jiromie often jokes that when she plays, she holds in her hands the most powerful weapon: the means to move people."
"That's beautiful," Lilandra grinned.
"We have one of these dances almost every week. There's always something to celebrate – a marriage, the birth and designation of a new child, even a funeral wake, or just another day successfully lived. It's what has kept us going these past twenty years."
"I like that – celebrating life because of how lucky you are to have it," Lilandra said. "The only one who dances around the academy is Mara. She used to be a professional, you know."
"She has the stature for it," Cace noted, angling his head towards the fire where Mara was stretching the long sit from her bones, the fabric of her robe pulling tight across her flat stomach. "How does she dance?"
"Infrequently," Lilandra said, and Cace chuckled.
As they watched, Jiromie signaled his band, and on a swift four-count, began to beat on his drum with the flats of his fingers in a syncopated double rhythm. The other players followed his cue, and added their own unique instruments to the beat one by one. There was something improvised about the individual melodies they turned out, but the different sounds all seemed to meet together in the middle in an energetic, consonant blend that lifted the corners of Lilandra's mouth as if by magic.
The Whills had begun to dance, in pairs or in groups, with no particular structure. A young mother had taken her young daughter by her tiny fists and was spinning around and around with her, the child shrieking with laughter, their nimble feet flying in the dirt. A couple were practicing a complicated two-step and having a time of it, clutching each other and laughing when their feet tangled. Silver bands winked noticeably on the fingers of their intertwined hands.
Even the mission crew was getting into it. Jaina and Dave were simply skipping around the edge of the dance floor, hand in hand like two young children. Neither one was possessed of any sort of rhythm, but the expressions on their faces belied a humbling joy that had not been demonstrated by either of them in the past four months at the academy. Tara resisted Anakin's amorous advances for as long as she humanly could, but when he actually got down on his knees and batted his reflective blue eyes at her, she folded, and allowed him to take her in his arms and spin her around the floor a couple of times.
Luke and Mara declined to dance, but they seemed happy, sitting a little way down the bench from Lilandra and Cace with their foreheads pressed together, talking quietly. Seeing them made Lilandra's stomach sink with a sudden pang of regret, and just a little jealousy.
"You're going to dance with me, right?" Cace teased her, lightly poking her shoulder.
Glad for the distraction, and the invitation, and the opportunity, Lilandra nodded and beamed and let him pull her onto the dance floor.
"He doesn't mind, right?" Cace murmured to her, gesturing towards Luke.
"Why should he?" Lilandra laughed, shrugging off her heavy cloak and tossing it onto the bench.
"Just asking," Cace said, and took her by the hand. "Ready?"
"Absolutely."
"Just follow my lead," he said, and suddenly, the music changed, picking up in tempo as Cace abruptly jerked her around and grabbed her other hand, crossing his wrists and leaning back. They spun in a wide, dipping circle, faster and faster, to the pounding rhythm of Jiromie's drum, and for some reason, Lilandra couldn't stop laughing. She felt like a child again, just zooming round and round, gripping Cace's hands for dear life, and just when she thought her feet were catching up with her whirling thoughts, the music changed again.
No less fast, the flute was suddenly present above all the other instruments, repeatedly playing a melodic phrase that reminded Lilandra of the birds they had seen wheeling through the sky. Cace released her hands and then grabbed them again, this time without the cross, and brought them up over his head, turning her so that they were back to back, but only for a moment, as he arched himself backwards and swooped underneath their raised elbows so that they were facing again.
He laughed when he saw the look on her face as he spun her easily out of the tangle of their arms, and whirled her off, galloping around a the edge of a circle that Lilandra realized, with acute embarrassment, the Whills had formed around them.
"Come on, don't be shy," he urged her breathlessly, and she smiled in spite of herself, snatching the hem of her robe and pulling it up to her knees to free them. "Ready? Here we go …"
He pulled her artfully to the center of the circle and grabbed her right hand, flinging it up above their heads, and she spun around and around, bending from the knee to keep up her momentum, a trick she remembered from long-ago dance lessons.
The surroundings whirled in Lilandra's vision, and she became only vaguely aware of the Whills watching them … clapping to the beat and cheering them on as Cace held her fingers and watched as her feet barely skimmed the dust.
She wanted the moment to last forever, just flying round and round at Cace's hand, his other arm circling her waist, her feet hardly touching the ground, the firelight glowing behind her eyes, the lanterns winking their encouragement in the trees, everything colored miraculous shades of rich green and velvet blue and brilliant orange and white, white, white.
She could have danced for hours like this and not felt a thing, if only Cace would keep his eyes on her as he was, his hands appraising on her back and her waist and her shoulders, but the song was over all too soon, and, dizzied, she fell forward into his arms, panting and giggling.
He caught her by the arms, and they held each other that way for a moment while they caught their breath and brushed their damp hair off their faces, watching each other all the while. On the sidelines, there was a smattering of applause, and more than a little snickering from the Yavin corner.
"You're really good!" Lilandra gasped, strolling back to the bench and flopping gratefully onto it.
"Why, thank you," Cace said, looking proud before dropping his voice to a dramatic, mocking bass and murmuring, "I live to please."
Lilandra grinned, "Such a generous man," and poked her tongue out at him.
"Don't do that unless you want to share," Cace warned her, and she smirked.
"Oh, I couldn't contest your brand of munificence," she teased.
"I'm so openhanded, I'll even let you have the last word," he teased back, and stood, stretching. "Oh, and you weren't so bad yourself," he added, winking.
The next song had started, this time a slower, more heartfelt piece that called upon the magic of the flute to lend it its emotional breadth. True to Cace's word, Ilsa was fantastically talented. The moment she blew the crystal notes into the breeze, the entire scene seemed to still for a moment, frozen in a drop of pure sound.
Jaina and Dave had slipped their arms around each other, and were gliding around the floor, lost in the bliss of coupledom, while Anakin swept Tara gallantly into his arms and plastered her face and neck with kisses in a showy but adorable display of affection. This time, even Luke and Mara danced, still retaining that dear perfection of impossible closeness that only they were capable of as they swayed almost imperceptibly in the center of the floor.
"Fancy another go?" Cace asked Lilandra. "You know that once you've had a taste of the master, you'll always come back for more."
"I think I'll sit this one out," Lilandra demurred, faux naïf, and though Cace seemed surprised, he winked at her again before approaching another young woman, a native Whill with short chestnut hair and dark, twinkling eyes.
Watching them, Lilandra realized that the two were evidently good friends, perhaps even potential or past lovers, though she was cool in his embrace and they did not speak. Still, Cace was a perfect gentleman, holding one of the girl's hands in his own as he led her in a slow glide, his other palm resting easily on the small of her graceful back.
Lilandra mentally slapped herself for denying Cace his dance. Had she accepted, that might've been her laying her head upon his shoulder, feeling his stomach pressed to hers. Willingly playing the part of the couple in love.
Once again, she was on the sidelines, watching her friends and their lovers, their husbands and wives circling slowly in a space and time separate from the physical world. Theirs was the promise of forever, of infinity, impossible though they knew it was. The ways in which they held each other dictated the mysterious laws of love, not the how and when but the who and what and why and yes, insulated for the time being in an unbreakable realm of both never and always at the same time.
By the time the dance ended, Lilandra was feeling distinctly downhearted, sitting alone with her head in her hands and her heart heavy with envy. As the music drew to a close, it was beautifully clear the way in which the intimacy of the dance had seemed to seal the fate of all the couples. From the expressions on their faces, dewy and smitten and falling in love all over again, it was obvious that within that span of five otherwise insignificant minutes, they had renewed their promises and their confidences and their devotions without saying a single word, and they were happy.
It was miraculous.
It made Lilandra feel betrayed.
Perhaps Cace had noticed the way she scowled at the floor, and perhaps it had abolished that reservation within him that had caused him to release her hand during the story, or perhaps he just felt sorry for her, but whatever it was, he came immediately back to her side when the dance had finished, and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Lilandra."
A shiver raced up her spine; it was the first time he'd used her name, instead of casually calling her 'Senator'. To hear him say it was both an embarrassment and a comfort, and it made her squirm because she could feel him looking at her.
"Yes?"
"I'd like to show you something, if I may."
The music had resumed playing, and everyone was dancing again, at an upbeat tempo this time, with renewed vigor and faith. The young married couple was showing Jaina and Tara the same two-step they had danced before, while Anakin and Dave had retreated to the table to drink thirstily from cups of water. Luke and Mara had gone back to talking. No one would notice if they left.
"Alright," Lilandra consented reluctantly, pressing her lips together.
"Come with me," Cace said, and helped her to her feet. She grabbed her cloak, throwing it over her shoulders, and together, they slipped from the loud, light, happy scene and into the shadows of the path, beyond the watchful eyes of the lanterns.
Instead of heading back into the village in the direction of the Jadesaber, he led her in the opposite direction, around the lip of the escarpment and onto the rocky, treed part of the canyon rim. The wind was much more fierce there, moaning through the canyon below, and whipped the hem of Lilandra's scratchy cloak against her bare ankles, but she wasn't nervous or frightened, as she should've been, going for a lightless walk with a man she hardly knew. Cace held her hand tightly in his own, his palm warm on her suddenly freezing fingers.
"You're cold," he commented.
"Yes," she replied, swiftly losing sight of the point of anything but this moment in time.
"Yfar. Think of the scent of fire," he suggested. It was a ridiculous proposal, but Lilandra felt her heartbeat speed up a bit. Pausing a moment on the path, Cace reached into the pocket of his pants, and produced something in the palm of his hand.
Peering curiously at it, she realized that it was a cigarra lighter – an older model, plated with silver and engraved with the graceful symbols of a language she didn't recognize.
Smiling softly, Cace flicked at it, and a small flame leaped from its top, the tangy scent of combustion swirling around Lilandra's head and warming her to the tips of her toes.
"Where did you get this?" she asked, sounding astonished. Such decadent utilities were rare even in the hallways of the Palace nowadays – lighters were vestiges of a wasteful empire.
"I don't suppose you wondered at all today how some of our people came to possess old Imperial relics, like bits of uniforms and the lanterns you see in the trees?"
"It did cross my mind," she admitted, "when I saw you wearing a soldier's pants this morning."
Cace nodded, a silent credit to her observance. "The part of the story that Jiromie never mentions is that, when we sought refuge on Yavin and were attacked again, we actually fought back. Palpatine sent an entire army to dispose of us, and yet we killed several hundred of their number before we were taken. We lost hundreds of our own, as well, but those who did not fight, fled, and along the way they stole. They stole clothing, and rations, and weapons, and anything they could get their hands on. This is never spoken of here, because it is an embarrassment."
"Why? You did it for survival," Lilandra reasoned.
"We stole from the dead, and we have always had tremendous respect for the dead. Even though we did it out of necessity, it was like breaking with our beliefs," he explained.
Lilandra waited, sensing that he had more to say.
"I was just a boy when we were attacked. Three years old. This was years before Ilsa's birth. Jiromie was only in his twenties, and our respective families were very close. When my parents went to battle, Jiromie took me and fled. He would kill and steal as he went, keeping me protected all the while, and we amassed a wonderful collection of things before his grandmother announced our surrender and we were both captured and taken aboard Palpatine's transport ship. I was reunited with my parents there, who had both survived, by some miracle of the maker. Ever since then, Jiromie has been my teacher, and my guardian. He is an incredibly brave man, you know."
"He sounds wonderful," Lilandra agreed. "He gave you the lighter?"
"He stole it from a soldier who had been trying to flee. The wretched boy was just eighteen, and he had been forced into the troops against his will. Already, he had been wounded by one of our fellows, and he begged and pleaded with Jiromie to show him mercy and dispose of him. Jiromie refused, knowing that the boy would die in time anyway, but stayed with him until he did, giving him water, telling him stories, blessed him when he finally lapsed into unconsciousness. He considers the lighter to be more of a gift, a memory of that poor boy's spirit. Since then, I've been fascinated with the scent of fire."
"Why?" asked Lilandra. "Wouldn't it remind you of the horror of that day?"
"It does that," Cace conceded, "but in the same way, it gives me hope for the rest of humanity. The human race can't be that bad if it can still produce a child who is hesitant to kill, even in a situation where his very life depends on it."
"In the military, they call them cowards," Lilandra sighed bitterly. "Which goes to show you how skewed human logic can be sometimes."
Cace nodded. "All I know is that that soldier could have killed me with his bare hands if he chose to do so, but he didn't. He showed Jiromie a kindness by sparing my life, and Jiromie showed him a kindness by respecting his honor as a man."
Lilandra thought for a moment. "The history books tell us that Palpatine outfitted all his soldiers with lighters. To him – "
"Fire represented passion, and the scent was its essence. It was supposed to lend the bearer courage, strength, loyalty, and desire," Cace filled in for her. "I know. That is one of the only Imperial philosophies that Palpatine derived from the Journal. The Wills were elemental people, and held great store by the power of nature. The writings on the various capacities of the four elements are some of my favorites of the Journal. I like symbolism."
Lilandra nodded soberly. She had not been aware that fire was apparently a source of comfort for Cace, as well as something of an aphrodisiac. Knowing this was revealing. She mouthed the word 'yfar', tasting it, hearing the hiss and spark of a match behind the whispering syllables.
The flame went out; they kept walking.
The trampled gravel of the path gave way to the cracked, jagged stone of the escarpment's edge. Here and there, boulders jutted out from the loamy earth – it was dark; the trees here were thicker, and blocked out the moonlight. Ahead of them, there was a stand of low shrubs that spilled over the edge of a steep slope and down into the river basin below. An extension of the path they traversed disappeared over this ridge as well. As Lilandra peered over the edge, she could see the gleam of moonlight on rippling water.
Cace helped her over the embankment, and onto the rough, one-person continuation of the path that zigzagged down the steep, muddy face of the slope.
"Where are we going?" Lilandra asked, her sandals slipping on the damp piles of fallen and rotting leaves that littered the path and feeling the first glimmers of uncertainty.
"You'll see," Cace said.
Lilandra was truly mystified, but didn't ask any more. She trusted him.
They reached the bottom of the slope, and found themselves faced with a tall, immovable wall of hedges. Down in the valley, the eternal mist was much thicker, and the tear-shaped green leaves of the bushes were coated with dew. Lilandra was about to protest, but then Cace drew aside the leaves as though they were a curtain, and revealed a sight that made her heart pound with excited disbelief.
She found herself staring at an exact copy of the Temple of the Galaxy on Yavin.
The same small, sand-colored stone exterior with its sloping pyramidal sides, the arching doorway through which she passed onto a stone ledge that wound its way around a cavernous room … it was identical. Contained in the middle was a shining, smooth pool, and the walls were covered with the intricate, whimsical details of what she now identified to be the life of the Wills on Raltonen.
Her mouth fell open. "Impossible."
Cace smiled with quiet pride and satisfaction. "The Massassi preferred tangible worship, remember? We learned from their example during our two-month stay on Yavin 4. We spent that time unlocking the secrets of their temples and their shrines … so that we might carry them with us wherever we went." "Cace!" Lilandra exclaimed, hopping up and down upon her heels. "This is unbelievable!"
"What's so unbelievable about religious devotion? Faith is boundless, even in the physical world. Where there's a Whill, there's a way, as Jiromie is always joking."
Lilandra laughed, out of complete surprise and amazement. "Praise the Massassi," she breathed. "I had no idea."
"So, you're familiar with the Te'am Galatsia?" Cace queried, delighting in her delight.
Lilandra paused. "The Te'am Galatsia," she repeated wonderingly.
Cace nodded. "The Galaxy Temple. What do you call it?"
"The Temple of the Galaxy – same thing, really. But I'd read Te'am Galatsia in a book, and wondered what language it was …"
Cace shrugged. "Te am can also mean 'to love'. Isn't that what a temple is for, after all?"
Lilandra smiled dreamily. "To love the galaxy," she murmured, and flushed when she felt Cace looking at her.
He gestured towards the lake, an invitation.
Lilandra nodded eagerly, and tossed her cloak into a corner, anxious to see the incredible reproduction of the galaxy again, to compare it to the one on Yavin.
"Come," Cace said, and took her hand. She felt a shiver of desire course through her at the touch of his skin, at his suggestive tone. The sweeping silence that followed resonated around her, and she turned to him, a little bewildered. But he only nodded, cocking his head to the side to examine her from a different angle.
Together, they stood on the ledge, and then, without warning, Cace jumped into the smooth waters, pulling Lilandra down with him.
She panicked for a moment, tangled in her robe, unable to breathe or kick or move, but Cace was already dragging her to the surface. Her head and shoulders broke free of the endlessly deep water, and she took large gulps of air, reeling with confusion.
"Are you alright?" Cace asked.
She nodded, her breathing slowly returning to normal. "You just surprised me, that's all. I wasn't ready."
"Are you ready now?"
He sounded so impatient that Lilandra laughed.
"Yeah … yes," she said breathlessly. There was a pause, during which Lilandra attempted to grasp at the focus of the conversation on the whole. "Hang on. Ask me again?"
"Are you ready?" he asked, bringing her hand to the surface and twining his fingers in hers.
This time, she was sure. "Whenever you are."
"On three, then," he said. "One."
"Two," Lilandra added.
"*Three*!" they both yelled together, and ducked beneath the water.
Lilandra opened her eyes, feeling the same rush of exhilaration as she had the first time she and Luke had seen the galaxy lake.
As before, the galaxy lay mapped out all around her, stars bursting forth, spinning away in shades of glorious white, pink, royal blue, orange, yellow, and violent purple.
There are uses for this map you probably haven't even dreamed of yet, Cace said, going inside her mind. He sounded … proud, yet sheepish.
So am I correct in assuming that it's not just an aesthetic form of worship? Lilandra asked him.
What do you take us Whills for? Cace teased her. We have an impossible number of tricks up our sleeves. It's just a matter of believing in the power of your own suggestion.
Find Yavin IV, he instructed her.
Drifting among the glowing pinprick stars, Lilandra sought the giant orange star of Yavin, and, successful, pointed out the fourth jungle moon – the home of the Jedi Academy.
Wherever there have been Wills, there have been temples like these, Cace said. We didn't truly know the power they possessed until we realized that when two such temples are constructed, they form a tangible link. We don't know how, we don't know why, but we believe that it was the Massassi peoples' way of ensuring that no matter where they ended up, they would have a means of contacting 'home' in times of peril or sorrow.
He raised his hand to the moon of Yavin 4, cupping his palm gently around it.
As Lilandra watched, the area around the dot began to swirl in a circle, scattering the surrounding stars across the map, and spreading outward like the ripples in a pond when something is dropped into it. The ripples became larger and larger, filling the whole map over and over until only Yavin was visible, and the rest of the galaxy was just a jumble of heaving color.
Step one: said Cace, The invocation of power.
The ripples began to clear, dying away and leaving Yavin circling alone in the center of a huge circular area of impenetrable darkness bordered by the stars that had fused into an indistinguishable, shifting blur of color.
Step two: State your case.
Around them, the stars began to lengthen and darken, growing vertically until they had become the thick, leafy stalks of jungle trees, bursting into bud and then leaf as Lilandra watched in awe. She was no longer floating in the lake, it seemed, but rather standing on the packed, solid mud of the jungle floor. And, most remarkable of all, just ahead of her, the trees bent and parted, revealing flashes of a crumbling yellow façade, a gaping garage, rows of dust-caked windows.
That's the Academy! Lilandra cried, and without thinking, took a step forward, every fiber of her suddenly homesick being aching to run the path and break through the trees and leap across the landing pad and kiss the floor.
But though it felt liked she had moved, she went nowhere. Instead, a painful, familiar ringing started up in her ears, and she backed away again, panicking as the jungle receded into blackness, the stars all rushing back to their stations to accost her for her gullibility.
Step three: Cace said, sounding satisfied, triumphant, Contact.
Lilandra opened her mouth to cry out, filled with an immediate, overwhelming understanding, and she felt her windpipe filling with water instead. She kicked to the surface, the sudden motion disturbing the map. It faded away into pitch-blackness again, but her ears still rung, and she was still gripped by a most potent awe, heavy and dark.
She surfaced, coughing up bitter water. Cace appeared before her, looking worried.
"Lilandra?"
She stared at him, her eyes filled with a weight and sadness that completely destroyed any notion of frivolity about her.
"It was you?" she asked quietly.
He didn't answer right away. Averting his eyes first, he then turned, ducked beneath the water, and began gliding slowly through the blackness to the ledge.
"Hey!" Lilandra called, her voice still gentle, though strained. She kicked after him, filled with anxiety.
At the ledge, he surfaced; she reached out and grabbed his hand. He turned to face her, backing against the wall at the same time, both of them standing face-to-face on a step some depth below the surface.
With great caution, Lilandra raised his hand from the water, and pressed it gently to the base of her throat. Cace dared to meet her eyes when he felt her heart pounding wildly beneath the damp, cool skin.
"Hey," she whispered, frowning, releasing his hand. He moved it to her shoulder instead, his cheeks flushing slightly.
"It was a long time ago," he mumbled.
"Ten years," Lilandra nodded. "I wondered why you didn't seem more surprised to see that map this morning."
"I've had ten years to think about it," he replied. "On and off."
Lilandra took a deep breath, if only to calm her pulse. The revelation and her immediate proximity to Cace were sending her heart rate skyrocketing. Stay calm, she instructed herself, and aloud asked, "How? I mean … why? Wait – "
She pressed her hand to her forehead, exasperated with her own inability to articulate at this most inopportune of times to shut down mentally. "That was the wrong question. I know why. Just … how? Yeah. How? And why you?"
Cace managed a tiny smile, looking down. "I ask myself the same thing sometimes," he murmured.
Lilandra leaned forward, arranging her features into what she hoped was an expression of compassion. To her surprise, he didn't flinch away, but held her gaze evenly, reading past her sympathy to the rather frightened yet impressed woman beneath.
"The story of the Whills is the story of every individual in this village. All of us remember it in different ways. For some, the story ended on Yavin, with their deaths. For others, the story continued for years after we came here."
Lilandra nodded, sidestepping him and leaning on the submerged wall of the ledge behind her, feeling shaky and unusually alive, though her immediate instinct was to remain subdued.
"And you?" Lilandra prompted.
"It ended for a little while for me," Cace said. "I had a new life here for many years. I didn't see it as imprisonment. Most children wouldn't. It was like moving away – just a different setting for events that would have happened wherever we had lived. Me growing up, Ilsa's birth, watching her grow up … it seemed natural to me. I was happy as long as I knew that my family was close at hand, as any kid would be …"
He trailed off, resting his palms on the surface of the water, watching with interest as it conformed to the shape of his fingers, accepting them for the time being as a part of its realm.
"Eleven years ago," he continued, "when I was twelve years old, eight people from our village set out in the morning to explore the rest of this world on an expedition to claim it. I suppose the adults had grown restless of our imprisonment, and wanted to branch out, so Verina permitted these eight to undertake the task of charting the region.
"My parents were among the explorers. They left Ilsa and I in Jiromie's care, promising to return for us someday, and they left. Months passed, my thirteenth birthday passed, I put another tick on the wood beneath my bed frame, and still there was no word from my mother and father. After a year from their departure, the village became resigned to the fact that our explorers were never going to return. Funeral rites were held with empty pyres, and my parents were committed to the spirit and forgotten."
He shrugged, appearing pained.
"Jiromie saw how lonely and confused I was, and so that year, he began showing me the secrets of this lake. He thought it would cheer me up, and it I suppose it did. It assured me that I wasn't all alone in the galaxy, as I had formerly thought. But he didn't expect that I would gain the strength of mind to use the lake's power myself.
"One night, the rumor started circulating the village that my parents and their companions had been murdered by Palpatine's spirit, as punishment for trying to leave, and fear swept through the village. The worst was that nobody had any sympathy for Ilsa and I. None of the other explorers had had children. Their families treated us like it had been our fault somehow, they held us accountable – Ilsa was only five and only Jiromie was willing to take us into his custody, and even though I'm grateful now, at the time I was angry. I felt so … betrayed – "
He halted suddenly, his gentle features darkened with anger.
Lilandra reached out and softly stroked his damp hair with the flat of her palm, thinking of the Ilkhaines, of accidentally using her inborn power one day to snatch a cooling cupcake from the table in plain sight of her mother … of the walloping she got that day, which her father justified by claiming it was the principle of the thing – she had to be taught the consequences of stealing – but what she really saw now as the first time she had wielded an incredible power over her parents, who lived in such pronounced fear of the Jedi that they'd felt it their duty to frighten those instincts out of her.
She'd been angry then, too, had felt betrayed. She was five when the cupcake incident occurred. Until then, she had never used the Force in her life. She would not use it again without feeling the sting of her father's palm or the guilt that accompanied it until she was twenty-one years old.
Cace responded to her gentle touch with a guilty smile, lowering his head.
"Oh, they forgot about it soon enough," he continued, taking her hand and curling his fingers over top of hers. "But just then, I felt I had forgotten what it was like to belong, felt I'd become an exile among exiles, to turn a phrase."
He chuckled. "I went to the galaxy lake to seek counsel. I suppose that … I wanted help, I wanted out, so I did the only thing I could think of: I used the link between the lake on Yavin 4 and the lake here to send for help."
"How?" Lilandra asked again, her voice disbelieving but encouraging, settled. She drew her fingers more tightly in towards her palm.
He shrugged again.
"The steps I told you. Invoke the power of your own most secret, powerful desire, state your wish, and make contact by 'touching' the planet. I didn't know how my message was going to reach the people I had observed inhabiting the world of Yavin 4, and years passed with no help, and no further disturbances.
"When I turned sixteen, I started work, and got completely absorbed in it, and taking care of Ilsa, and calming her fears as well as my own, and it got easier and easier to just forget about the whole experience … until now. Until you arrived with your Jedi."
In the silence that followed, the echo of his words died away, and Lilandra allowed all of this remarkable new information that she had just been given to sink in, connecting it to what she already knew from her experience with the galaxy lake.
"Then I was right," she marveled after a time. Cace eyed her expectantly.
"The night before we received … your message," she began, smiling curiously as she returned his earnest gaze, "Luke and I visited the Temple of the Galaxy on Yavin – the model for this temple."
Cace nodded silently, and then frowned. "How had you known about it? That temple is miles from the Great Temple where your academy is housed, and I doubt you knew much about it if I'm to base that assumption on your surprise at its capacities. Granted, there are references to it in the Journal, but …"
"A simple history text," she explained. "I studied the modern variations of the religion of the Jedi extensively after I met Luke, mostly the Holocron, and a few other supplementary reference books. They referred to the temple more as myth than as fact. I was tempted to believe in its existence, though, simply because the moon of Yavin is dotted with Massassi ruins. Of course, I didn't know then that the Massassi had been Jedi."
"Of course," Cace grinned. "Aren't you the presuming one?"
Lilandra looked down into the shining ripples encircling her waist, coloring slightly, although he couldn't see it.
"Natural curiosity is not a crime. Surely you can appreciate that, Cace Lendene."
She dared to look up, anticipating a reaction to her use of his full name. His knowing smirk warmed her to her center.
"Now there's a generalization if I've ever heard one," he replied.
She made as if to retaliate, but he held up a hand, chuckling. "Only kidding, Senator. Continue."
"Well, while Luke and I were checking out the map, we found our eyes were drawn to the planet we now know as Terapinn, and Luke … I don't know how to explain this, exactly … touched the image. Reached his hand out and passed it through the apparition, sort of like you did when you made contact with Yavin. I didn't think anything of it until the next morning, when I reached out and took that same hand, and caused a huge emotional disturbance in the Force, accompanied by what I presume was a physical manifestation of your message for help – the map I showed you this morning. The most obvious connection was the lake, but there was always a missing link …"
"And that was?" Cace prompted.
" … You," she replied, after a moment's thought. "Even when Anakin traced the map's origins to Terapinn, and Mara identified Terapinn as the Emperor's secret experimental penal colony, we still didn't know how the message had found its way to us, particularly since Mara seemed to believe you, as prisoners, had been stripped of all modern transportation and communications technology."
"That is true, yes," Cace affirmed. "But now you only know who sent it, not how. At least, not completely. See, when I was thirteen, I actually had no idea how my message was going to find its way to Yavin. I only trusted that it would."
Lilandra considered this for a moment, staring past him to the arching doorway of the temple, and the mottled fringe of green that appeared in the darkness beyond it.
"Maybe that's the secret," she murmured, meeting his eyes once more. "It functions solely on …"
"The power of the will," he finished quietly for her, regarding her with such sobriety it made her heart ache for him. "Had anyone been to the temple before you and Luke visited it?"
"No," she replied softly. "Not for over twenty years at least. Not since before the war."
"Then that's the explanation. I sent my plea in faith, where it resided on your shores unnoticed for ten years, until Luke absorbed its intent when he passed his hand through the waters of the lake, and made it tangible by touching another who believed in its power."
"I don't believe it," Lilandra whispered, allowing the corners of her mouth to lift only a little as she realized that her hands had found their own way, unbidden, to his shoulders, where they held him at arms length, a gesture more intimate perhaps than any she might have imagined earlier.
His own hands, calloused and rough and damp but somehow warm now resided gently on her face, his fingers lost in the wet tangle of her hair.
"Yes, you do," he murmured. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't."
Her smile lengthened.
For a moment, she wondered if she should kiss him, wondered if he was wondering the same thing. It would be so natural, she realized, understanding at this moment in particular that she was falling for Cace Lendene in a rather bad way. To kiss would be to turn this into an alluring, scripted, holovid occasion like so much of this mission had already been. She wished passionately for it to be so – nothing more than a clever plot, both of them actors, anticipating the future before it happened, the players in a great, improbable romance.
But when she shook off her uncertain reverie, they were still standing there, limbs tangled like vines, motionless, each terrified to break the peace, even breathing silently. The water had stilled around them; they had become part of the scenery now, an extension of the temple, an oversized, unlikely carving on the wall.
And Cace seemed sad, perhaps because she had lost her smile.
"I'm cold," she whispered.
He nodded, pulling his fingers from her hair, and then brushing it back into place. "Let's go."
"Let's go," she agreed. But he didn't move. For a moment, she thought he might have more to say, but he was merely waiting on a shiver to propel him to action.
Bracing his hands on the ledge behind him, he pulled himself up onto it, still facing her. His feet caught the hem of her robe, and she ducked to her neck in the water, fighting a smile as his toes grazed her stomach.
When he had climbed onto the ledge, he knelt at the water's edge and held out his hand to her.
She took it, again shocked at its warmth, and clambered gracelessly out of the water, beginning to shiver immediately as her stiff gown suddenly doubled its weight and clung heavily to her form. She buckled slightly on the stones; he caught her by the wrists, and she hastily smiled thanks before crawling for her cloak.
Drawing it around her, relishing its relative warmth, she got to her feet and slipped into her leather sandals.
Cace had risen also, and was staring out across the moon-dappled water, dripping into a puddle beneath his own feet. As he watched the surface of the lake dimple in the light wind, scattering the pale moonbeams on little ebony rafts, he perceived a brief, guilty sensation of being exposed, emptied … he wondered if maybe he'd taken too great a risk in telling Lilandra Ilkhaine his secrets.
He turned back to the doorway for reassurance as a cloud fell across the moon, but Lilandra had already turned and wandered self-mindedly into the gathering darkness.