NOTE: The Shadow's quote (italicized) is a direct quote from the postscript of the book "Master of Many Treasures" by Mary Brown. I take no credit for it.
Chapter IX – Man of Three Magics
According to Tuck, who was a stickler for such things, we remained at the Shadow's home for ten days, though to me it seemed longer. There was something strangely elastic about time in the company of the sorceress, as if an hour could shrink to a millisecond or expand to a millennium whenever its whims desired. To me, those ten days seemed a year. To Nightwind, they seemed ten years, and to Ash, a breath. I wondered if it was the Force or the Shadow's magic, but she informed me that it was all in our minds.
"To one as young as the acklay, who has lived scarcely six months, days last forever. But to Ash, whose lifespan predates civilizations, days are but moments. Perspective, young one, perspective." She touched the corner of her eye with a gloved finger. "And in your case… well, time always seems to crawl by when you're not busy, no matter how old you are."
None of us ventured outside. Instead, the Shadow gave us free reign of her home and the adjacent garden. Her dwelling was nothing fancy, but to our travel-weary party it seemed a mansion brimming with luxury. We were fed, watered, had access to medical and bathing facilities – and above all, we were safe. The threat of attack or discovery, always a danger on the road, was absent here, and for once we could relax.
Everyone found their own means to occupy their time at the Shadow's. Fett spent a great deal of time in the gardens, completing endurance exercises and pushing his body as far as he could, often until he dropped from pure exhaustion. Luke and Tuck talked a lot, forming an unusual bond as they each discovered the perspective of a soldier on the opposite side of the war. Ash and Nightwind occupied equal portions of the Ky-Lin's time, the former discussing things of magic and philosophy, the latter engaging in play at every chance. Jessa mostly "hung out," as she called it, in the greenhouse, and whenever I ventured out there I could hear her singing one of her unusual Earth songs. (At one point I discovered her hanging upside-down from a tree limb by her legs, arms hanging loosely, seeing how fast she could sing "All-Star" without garbling the words. Pretty fast.)
I, meanwhile, spent my hours completing a journal.
"These rightfully belong to you," the Shadow told me the second day of our stay, handing me two thick tomes.
I examined the first book, which bore a richly embossed leather cover exhibiting the images of animals – dragons, unicorns, birds, cats, fish, toads, sea serpents, and more. Its pages were soft-edged and tan-yellow with age, and the Old Basic script was ornate but shaky, as if the hand penning the words had never held a writing instrument before. One crackling page at the beginning of the book bore a title – "The Journal of Fleur O'Connel, known to her friends as Thing."
"Your ancestor wrote her tale a few years after settling down, after her beloved knight taught her to read and write," the Shadow explained. "The original record crumbled to dust long ago, but not before I created a copy." She brushed a gentle finger along the text. "The script is hers. I was able to preserve that much. I have also added a few… relevant bits here and there."
"And the second book?" I inquired, setting the first aside. The second volume bore an equally fabulous cover, seeming almost alive with horses, bears, dogs, birds, tortoises, Ky-Lins, and a great black dragon dominating the image.
"Your mother's, Talitha-Summer's. Again, a copy, with my own additions where necessary. The original survives in the care of my master, the Ancient, but can only stand a few more handlings before it, too, falls to pieces."
I gazed at the pages, then shut the book. "I cannot accept this gift. My mother was Shmi Skywalker. Not this woman." The Shadow's story was still too much for me to digest. To know that the one I had called mother for so long was not my mother… to know I had a father after all, a father who was not even human… I could not accept that.
The Shadow's silver eyes softened. "Son of the dragon, Talitha-Summer carried you and gave birth to you. I cannot change that fact. But Shmi Skywalker raised you, tended you in your youth, thought of you as a son and loved you. In that way, she is also your mother."
I looked into her half-wild eyes. Her revelation left me torn. In the past few weeks the foundation of my life had been ruthlessly smashed piece by piece, and she had practically jerked the final fragment of that foundation out from under my feet when she had revealed that Shmi was not my mother. On the other hand, she had also provided me with a lifeline to cling to – the knowledge that I had a father. The feeling that knowledge produced wasn't hope, not exactly… more of a burning curiosity. Had Luke felt this very way when he had learned I was his father?
"What was my father's name?" I asked. "Or did dragons have names?"
"The Dragon Council called him He-Who-Beats-His-Wings-Against-the-Clouds-and-Lights-the-Sky-With-Fire, but that is only a ceremonial name and you could never pronounce it in their native tongue. He did have two shorter names – his dragon name, Master of Many Treasures, and his human name, Jasper."
Master of Many Treasures… Jasper… the dragon-man…
"Read the journals," she encouraged, tapping the image of the Ky-Lin that pranced across the cover of the second volume. "They will answer your questions better than I can. Perhaps they will also inspire you to record your own memories."
She was correct, and by the end of our stay I had filled one volume with the story of my life and begun a second. The first volume ended shortly before the discovery of the ring, and the second…
At the moment, it ended with our arrival at the Shadow's, for there were many things I could not bring myself to think about yet, let alone write.
Every day for the first seven days of our stay, the Shadow led one of us into the gardens for a discussion. For that period of time, the rest of us were restricted to the house until the interview was over. Nightwind was the first.
"Strange lady," he remarked when he emerged half an hour later.
"Well, we knew that already," Luke said with a laugh. "Why, what'd she say?"
He cocked his head at a puzzled angle. "Asked me what I wanted. Told her. Then asked what I remembered of my homeworld."
"And you said…" prompted Ash.
"Feelings, mostly. Images. Mother, father, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, pack. Play, wrestle, food, water, cool, dark, den…" His eyes grew distant a moment, then he shook his head as if to shoo away insects. "Asked me if I thought a human master could replace all that."
"And you said…" repeated Ash.
"Nothing. Couldn't think of anything to say. Shadow says we can go back in now."
The next day, the Shadow visited with Tuck.
"She's a funny lady all right," Tuck said at the end of his interview. "And she doesn't seem to know a whole lot about clones."
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"I told her what I wanted and gave my reasoning – that we are exact duplicates in mind and body, and that any difference, no matter how small, sets us apart and makes us inferior to the rest. She proceeded to ask me if those who created the clones could guarantee that they would face the same trials, live through the same experiences, and emerge from said trials and experiences having gained the same memories and wisdom. If they ensured that all clones suffered the same injuries and bore the same scars. And she asked, if all of us were the same, why did we still have ranks and specialties and officers among us?"
Luke rolled his eyes. "Is she trying to talk us all out of what we came to her for?"
"Hey, she's a sorceress," Jessa retorted. "She might have her own agenda to look after."
That was not reassuring in the least.
Ash was next.
"The flippant, disrespectful, insensitive child," she grumbled after the visit, landing tersely on the back of a chair and ruffling her feathers angrily.
"What did she do?" asked Fett, looking up from completing a stretch.
"She is young, comparatively speaking," Ash went on. "She can't know what I've been through, how weary I've grown of living… instead she tells me that she could explore this galaxy for a thousand years and never grow tired of it. And she tells me that I can't be tired of living or I never would have joined your fellowship, and that I need to be reminded of my duties. Ha! Give her a few hundred thousand years more, and see if her tune changes…"
"Reminded of your duties?" asked Tuck.
"Never mind." And that is all we got out of her about that subject.
The fourth day, Fett went before the Shadow. What went on in there I never found out, for he refused to divulge it when he exited the greenhouse. Nightwind later told me he had overheard Fett muttering something about "the Mandalorian ways have died out, no use digging them up now, and who is she to think my father would have wanted it that way?"
Jessa was next, and she was a bit more forthcoming.
"Didn't say much to me," she reported. "I did a lot of the talking. When I finally got done telling her my life story, she just said 'People move on, Jessa. Believe it or not, your mother and father will move on after your brother's death. And they will move on after your disappearance. It may take years, but they will go on with their lives. The question is, are you willing to move on?'"
"What is she trying to pull?" asked Tuck. "It's as if, rather than helping us, she's trying to convince us to change our minds."
The sixth day, Luke went before the sorceress. His visit was much the same.
"I asked her what she could do to keep you safe," he told me. "She replied that it was up to you. She also said your fate wasn't my concern, that other matters depended on me."
"What did she mean?" asked Ash.
"I know good and well what she meant," Luke replied, looking stubborn. "The Jedi Order. I told her I have no intention of beginning a new Order…"
"Luke!" I exclaimed, shocked. "The galaxy almost destroyed itself the first time the Order dissolved! If you do nothing to restore the Order…"
"What kind of Order forbids one to use his heart?" demanded Luke. "What kind of Order would rather adhere to some ancient tradition than help another that's in pain and need? If they had helped you save Mother, maybe you wouldn't have turned. And if they expect me to abandon my friends and family to become a Jedi… I can't do it. I'm sorry, but my heart's too valuable to turn my back on."
Oh my son. I could not argue with him – his accusation was perfectly correct. There is no emotion; there is peace… how could one deny another the right to feel, to love, to fear – the right to be human? How could one be expected to serve the galaxy as a guardian of justice, yet not be allowed to feel for those people?
At last, the day came when it was my turn to talk to the Shadow – a long-overdue discussion in my mind.
"Welcome, son of the dragon," she told me as I entered the gardens. "Have a seat anywhere you'd like. On a rock, in the grass, in a tree, wherever suits you."
The Shadow's gardens were thick and wild, nothing like the orderly botanical sanctuaries of more civilized worlds I was accustomed to. It seemed that the Shadow did absolutely nothing to organize or trim the plants and let them grow any way they pleased, so that the bushes and trees looked oddly feral and the flowers didn't grow in beds but thrust their colorful heads from the grass everywhere like errant children. There were no paths, no benches, no plaques identifying specific trees as memorials to the deceased, no sign of civilization.
Strangely enough, I liked it.
I lowered myself to the grass, and the Shadow did likewise, crossing her legs and resting a hand upon each knee. We gazed at each other for a very long time.
"So," she said at last, "how's the journal?"
"That depends," I replied. "Are you referring to reading the journals you gave me, or writing my own?"
"Reading," she clarified.
"I finished long ago," I told her.
"Oh good," she replied. "Any questions?"
I began to say no, then remembered. "The postscript you added to the end of Talitha's journal. It mentioned something about…"
The Shadow raised a hand to silence me. "It describes an island discovered almost two hundred years ago, as well as a legend regarding a dragon. Of the legend it says, and I quote: 'There were two points of consistency, otherwise the tale had obviously changed with the years and recollection. The points of agreement were that one day in the distant past a great black dragon, sore wounded, had arrived in the skies from the northeast bearing a burden. It had circled the island three times before alighting somewhere in the hills to the north. The other point of agreement was that the creature eventually left in the same direction, after circling the island in the same fashion.
"'Between these two 'facts,' there were two different versions of events. The first had it that the dragon laid waste to the forests of the island till the air was black with the fires, then he buried whatever he carried in a cave high in the mountains before flying away again.
"' The other version had the dragon again alighting in the mountains with his burden and three days later a man and a woman, both badly injured, coming down to dwell among the islanders. This story would have it that the pair recovered and lived for many years at peace, the woman communing with the beasts of the field, the man a master of weather. In the fullness of time the woman died, and the man bore her body up into the hills and buried it, then the great dragon appeared again and flew away, sorrowing…'"
She looked at me, then chuckled at my stunned silence. "Yes, I remember what I wrote, young one. Now, you understand that passage, don't you?"
All too well, for it hinted at two possible fates for Jasper and Talitha. The first version would have Talitha dying at the hands of the Dragon Council, and Jasper burying her body after a fit of grief. The other would have the two of them recovering from the attack, spending the remainder of her life together as they had dreamed of doing, then Jasper mourning her natural death.
"Which version is correct?" I asked.
"I do not know," she confessed. "I was not there. When I went back to research the story, the tale had already split into two. There is no way to verify which is the right and which the wrong."
I shook my head, unaccepting. There had to be a way. There must be a way. I had to know…
"I suspect you've had a change in your desires?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied. "I want to know of my parents. How did they die? When did they die? What has become of the Dragon Council that turned against them? And what of this supposed deal with Palpatine? What exactly did you promise him?"
She plucked a blade of grass and rolled it between her fingers. "I do not know whether your mother perished at the hands of the Dragon Council, or whether she died of natural causes. Only your father knows that… and he is still alive."
That caught my interest. "He is?"
"Dragons live hundreds of years. He is old and frail now, but yes, he is alive. He lives in exile far from the land of the dragons, for the Council would not have him among them after the egg fiasco." She shook her head. "Fools… refused to accept him… and now they are long dead, their inability to forgive leaving them without a young, strong member to continue the ways…"
"Then the Council is dead?"
"Their flesh became dust and their bones stone centuries ago."
"Then Jasper and I are the last…"
"Far from it. Jasper was not the first dragon to be exiled. There are others scattered throughout the galaxy, offspring of other outcasts, wild and lonely, without a leader… but they thrive all the same, though they tend to keep out of sight."
So Jasper lived. I had to find him. There was much I wanted to ask of him.
"You made a bargain with Palpatine," I told her. "What sort of bargain?"
She closed her eyes as if in pain. "If he helped me preserve your life and transfer your soul to a healthy body, then he could claim you as a servant when he judged fit – on the condition that, once you had performed whatever service he required, he tell you of your past and pass on your mother's ring."
The unicorn ring pulsed as it was mentioned. I stared at it with new respect. It was more than a fragment of a long-dead beast – it was an heirloom, part of my heritage.
"But he made a grave error," she went on, opening her eyes, which were now filled with a vindictive joy. "He thought he could renege on the bargain. He thought my caution was a vain one." She shook her head, eyes still gleaming. "He can't say he wasn't warned, can he? My warning was clear – if he broke his end of the agreement or mistreated you in any way, you would turn against him. No, he thought he was smarter than I. He thought he could get away with using you, with hiding your heritage from you, with attempting to claim the ring and its magic as his own. Oh, how I wish I could have seen his frustration when he tried to ram the ring onto his own fingers, only to find it too small every time…
"And I can only imagine his stupid shock when his servant suddenly turned on him, enraged and desperate to save his son, armed not only with the power of the Force, but with the power of the dragon… and a ring that had lain in the presence of two powerful Sith all this time, a ring whose powers had not faded with time, but that had absorbed energy for forty years and endowed you with far more power than even Fleur-Thing and Talitha-Summer knew."
"Power of the dragon?" I repeated, puzzled.
"Many types of power and magic exist, son of the dragon," she told me. "Only a very few of the most talented magicians – and certainly not me – can wield all of them. Most creatures have no understanding of them, or at most a very little. Some can use one type of power, like Tuck. A select few have access to two, like your son. You are privileged, young one, to claim the right to use three types of power… the power of the Force, the power of the dragon, and the power of the ring. You are a man of three heritages and, thus, a man of three magics. That, and that alone, marks you as the Chosen One."
"That's impossible…"
"Human creates," she told me, reaching out and touching the front of my helmet with her fingertips. "Dragon destroys." She placed a palm over my heart. "Unicorn heals." Her hand rested on mine, covering the ring. "The legacy of the Chosen One. You created in the form of your children and you relationships with others… you destroyed in the form of the Jedi Purge and the Galactic Civil War… and you healed in destroying the Emperor. If the Jedi had stopped to study their own prophecy a little closer, they might have been very surprised."
"But I have never used the power of the dragon…"
"You have touched it, you have even tapped into it a little in times of great emotional distress, but you have not utilized it to its full extent. The power of the dragon is what drove you to avenge Shmi Skywalker's death, what drove you to lead an army against the Jedi Temple, what drove you to overthrow your master once and for all. You have used it to great effect each time. And if you were ever to unleash its full potential, the mightiest army would tremble in fear."
I could not help a shudder. If the power of the dragon was this deadly, I wanted no part of it…
"But the power of the dragon can be used for much good as well," she replied. "Your father helped your mother many times with his power, remember. You can use your power to aid your friends if your heart is in the correct place."
I twisted the ring a half turn, feeling its pulse as if it contained a tiny heart of its own. "I want to speak to my father. And I want to know what happened to my mother. I know she is dead… but I must know how she died."
She arched an eyebrow. "That is all you desire? Are you certain?"
"Will you never be satisfied?" My anger began to rise again. "The others say you played this very game with them…"
"I play no games…"
"Trying to talk them out of what they came to you for in the first place…"
"It is always hard to hear what you don't want to hear…"
"Or are you stalling, knowing you cannot give them what they want…"
"I'm only providing guidance…"
"They need no guidance! They know what they want!"
"They THINK they know!" she screamed, eyes flashing like silver lightning. The wind outside the greenhouse battered against the transparisteel panes like a wild animal trying to break in.
"Sorry," she said quietly. "Lost my temper." She clasped her hands in her lap. "Young one, I cannot solve anyone's problems. I can provide a solution, but it is up to them to take advantage of it. A doctor can prescribe medication, but it does no good unless the patient makes a conscious decision to repair his condition and take the medicine. Likewise, it is pointless to fulfill anyone's wish unless I am absolutely certain that is truly what they want. How many times have you gotten something you wished for… and thought better of it when it was too late?"
I felt my stomach twist. Her words hit home…
"We're done talking," she told me. "You may go."
Of the others, I only entrusted Luke with what had gone on between the Shadow and I, for it concerned his heritage as well as mine. He said nothing for the longest time, taking time to digest the weighty information I gave him.
"I wonder how much of this Obi-wan knew," he said at last.
"I think," I replied, "that was part of the Jedi Order's problem. They had no idea how to handle a dragon-man, let alone a Chosen One. Their mistake was in trying to alter the dragon to fit their rules, rather than altering their rules to fit the dragon."
"They were Jedi," Luke replied. "Altering the rules would have popped an artery."
"You are too young to be so cynical," I chided.
Break…
The last few days of our stay were spent in preparation. The Shadow set us all to packing supplies and charting hyperspace routes. Bewildered, we complied, not questioning but waiting for an explanation.
"Let's just say I'm sending you on a quest," she told us. "A journey of self-discovery. A binding, if you will."
"What the hell is she talking about?" muttered Fett.
"The first wearer of the ring and her company had to embark on a quest in order to bind them more closely to face a greater trial," I explained. "Though in reality it was seven separate quests – one for each member of the company."
"He's right," the Shadow replied. "Though this journey is more than a binding. It will hopefully answer questions and help you better understand what you want and why."
"Seven quests?" repeated Nightwind. "We just got done with a quest!"
"Then consider this a great adventure!" the Shadow exclaimed, patting the acklay's shoulder. "The Ky-Lin will escort you to a waiting ship on the edge of the plain. You will program the hyperspace route Luke and Fett have so helpfully drawn up into the computer and follow that path. As for the quests… the ring will help you identify them."
So I would be leading this journey. Again. Did this never end? I was tired of being the leader, the commander, the one to make all the decisions…
"A word, young one," the Shadow told me, drawing me aside.
"Shadow, are you sure about this?" I asked. "Sending us off on such an escapade when we have just barely recovered from our journey here?"
"Young one," she told me, "I am trusting you to take care of the others. You wear the ring; that is a great privilege, but a great responsibility as well. Your mother and many-times-great grandmother took it on and did well. I have faith that you will do as well as they."
"You place too much faith in one who has failed so many times," I replied.
She rolled her eyes. "If Yoda had just agreed to help me all those years ago, I could have dealt with a halfway convincible young man. As it is, I have to put up with a world-weary cynic."
"Then Yoda knew of my heritage?"
She snorted. "Why do you think he was so reluctant to train you?"
"Perhaps he was not entirely in the wrong."
"Oh, stop beating yourself up," she chided, slapping my shoulder. "Go on and complete your quests. I'll be waiting for you at the end of the trip. Take care of each other."
That last caution – to take care of each other – would serve us well on what would eventually prove to be one of the craziest adventures any group of travelers had ever embarked upon.
