SUNRISE
by ardavenport
- Part 2 -
He lowered the axe that he had taken from her. She studied him and lowered the axe she still had.
She turned and walked around the butchering block. He didn't move until she was almost within swinging distance. She pulled her arm back to attack when he crouched, but she completely missed him as he jumped high up in the air, flipping backwards off the platform. He twisted in the air to evade a spinning axe that came after him. Qui-Gon landed on the ground of the arena as the axe clanged against the wall behind him.
The Executioner frowned down at him. She could not jump down that far without injuring herself. She turned and walked back to the stairs; she did not hurry this time.
Qui-Gon quickly threw down the white shrouds. He took one and cut off a large triangle with the sharp blade of the golden axe head. He folded over the long, ragged edge that he'd just cut and then tied the triangle over his head, knotting it under his chin. He took another shroud, cut and then ripped a large square off of one end. Another cut with the axe blade gave him a hole that he pushed his head through, the fabric hanging down as a crude poncho over his exposed arms.
The Executioner had come around the platform, but instead of attacking, she simply walked around him, though she clearly looked unhappy with Qui-Gon's use of the death shrouds. She continued on to the wall of the arena.
The axe, lying on the flat stones at the base of the wall, lifted up off the ground and flew past the Executioner before she even got close to it. It landed neatly in Qui-Gon's outstretched hand. The Executioner whirled and stared at it. Then she stared at Qui-Gon.
For the first time, Qui-Gon finally sensed doubt in her. She remained fixed in place while he calmly used the second axe to cut another piece of shroud. He tossed the axe to the ground next to its mate and then tore off a long strip of fabric. He began tying this around his waist to hold the front and back ends of the poncho fabric to his body.
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!" Seizing a curved blade from her belt, the Executioner rushed at him.
She went flying back, pushed by the Force from Qui-Gon's outstretched hands. He slowly lowered his arms and watched her pick herself up from the ground. When he was satisfied that she was uninjured, he bent down and picked up the strip of fabric and began tying it around his waist again.
He could not injure her. That would count against him as a real crime under Noi'i law, though keeping out of the Executioner's reach wasn't. This was a conspicuous loophole in Noi'i law, a loophole clearly meant to ease the consciences of the judges condemning others to death. Typical, unarmed and bound prisoners could take little solace from knowing that if they somehow evaded their sentence without escaping or attacking, they would not be penalized for it.
He finished tying the fabric around his middle and picked up the remaining pieces of the shroud. He needed to fashion something for his feet before the sun rose too high. Even the Force could not protect him all day from the hot sand and bare stone of the arena. Already, an edge of brightness crept down the wall of the arena under the main gallery. Soon, there would be no escaping it. From mid-morning to late afternoon there would be no shadows to protect him.
The Executioner was standing again. She took the whip off of her belt.
Crack!
The barbed tip snapped loudly over Qui-Gon's head as he tore off two wider strips of fabric to make pads for his feet. Fabric was poor protection, but folded and layered, it would be enough. The Executioner swung the length of her whip, preparing for another strike. Qui-Gon felt her motions as an extension of himself.
He was himself, a Jedi Master; he was the arena, the stones, the platform in it, the rising heat in the air, the hard packed ground, the Executioner nearby, looking for her chance for a fatal blow. He felt a phantom touch on his back through the Force where the whip end would miss him again. He didn't flinch when it missed him, coming closer this time. He used the axe blade to make another cut in the fabric to make ties for the pads for his feet.
The Executioner threw her arm back, the whip flipping back behind her.
Qui-Gon ducked forward and spun. The golden axe blade flashed as it sliced the air. The end of the whip fell to the ground. Qui-Gon did acknowledge the Executioner this time with an annoyed glare before he picked up his dropped fabric again and went back to tearing it into strips. He heard several whumping sounds as she experimented with what she had left of the whip, but the instrument was clearly ruined.
He took one of the wide strips hanging off his arm and folded it into a pad a little bigger than the sole of his foot. Immediately, he realized that it wasn't nearly thick enough to work. He shook out the folds and hung the white strip back on his arm and reached down for more fabric from the diminished shrouds. The Executioner had not moved any closer to him.
"The sun will have you," she told him, but her voice had gone flat, losing its fanatical edge.
"For the day, at least," he acknowledged. Molty Kohm's death warrant, the one that he had accepted for himself, expired at sunset. Whether he lived or not, Kohm's crime would be erased. This was yet another conspicuous loophole in Noi'i law, that another person could assume the guilt and punishment for a capital crime.
However, Qui-Gon Jinn had absolutely no intention of dying for Molty Kohm, a former Senator to the Republic and overall loud-mouthed politician who had badly overplayed his position in a struggle between tradition and change. Kohm was aggressive and manipulative, but his motives came from a life of struggle against the prejudice that he had suffered from simply having been born at night, away from the blessed sun of the Noi'i. With his own natural talent alone, he had risen to the highest ranks of his world's political elite, but he had a character that would never be satisfied with his accomplishments. Kohm had pushed his fellow elites too far.
Qui-Gon folded another pad for his foot and when he had combined it with his earlier attempt he was satisfied that it would do. The Executioner had not moved. Qui-Gon laid the first pad down on the ground and started working on the second.
The Executioner walked in a wide circle around Qui-Gon; her footsteps on the stone and packed dirt hardly made any echo at all in the still, humid air. The huge, electronic sound baffles amidst the complex of buildings around the arena cancelled the sounds of the city around them. Even the voices and sounds of the occupants of the main gallery were muted. The heat of the day rose. Perfectly aware of her actions, her intentions, her surface thoughts, Qui-Gon tore off another few strips of fabric.
The light of the sun had reached the lower half of the wall under the main gallery. Bright tans and grays glared into the shadows of the rest of the arena.
Qui-Gon sat down on the hard ground to tie his improvised footwear to his feet. This time, the Executioner hesitated, but she couldn't resist what appeared to be an opportunity, while his hands were busy. One of her long knives hissed out of it's leg sheath. With three strides, she swiftly came from behind, the knife raised to slit his throat, her other hand reaching to grasp his hair.
Qui-Gon rolled to the side, his head going under the swish of the blade through the empty air. She cried out her frustration as she pulled back for another stab and he caught her wrist. Continuing his roll he took her arm with him and pinned it to her back as he rose to stand again. With one sharp twist of her wrist the knife fell to the ground. Before she could turn to free herself, he captured her other arm as well. Qui-Gon pushed forward and down, forcing her to her knees and then flat on the ground. She grunted when she landed.
The Executioner was heavyset, well muscled and massed at least as much as Qui-Gon, but with his full weight on top of her, she could not struggle free. He then took the strips of fabric that he still held in his hand and bound her arms behind her. She squirmed and thrashed her body as well as she could. She bellowed her outrage as he repositioned himself on her buttocks as he reached for more fabric to tie her wrists.
When he was satisfied that she was properly bound, he twisted around and took the other long knife out of its calf sheath. He tossed it over to where the two axes lay. He searched the back of her belt, removing tools and deadly implements and tossing them onto the pile of weaponry as well. Then he rose to his feet and pulled her up.
She unsuccessfully tried to kick him.
Qui-Gon pushed her down hard to sit on the ground and with one arm firmly holding her across the shoulders, he removed the rest of her tools from her belt and added them to the pile. He also found a few, small cutting tools under her animal hide collar. She wordlessly struggled against him while he disarmed her. The Executioner pushed back at him and let her body sag, trying to pull him down. He released her suddenly, letting her fall to the ground. While she got her feet under her, Qui-Gon picked up a last, dropped knife and added it to the now considerable collection on the ground.
"You. Are. Condemned. Jedi."
Qui-Gon turned.
The Executioner's eyes filled rage, her dark gray face was now smeared with dust and sweat, her white and yellow dress smudged and askew. She hated him now. Qui-Gon could not fault her for that.
"You chose to stand for another. And now you cheat justice? Coward," she accused, her pleasant, feminine voice had gone low with rage. Qui-Gon appraised her unemotionally as he paced before her.
"Justice? If I have trod on your justice, then there are plenty here to enforce it." He waved his arm toward the witnesses in the main gallery, high over the arena, and toward the few guards scattered in the otherwise empty galleries all around them. The spectators watched with intense interest, but none took any action.
The Executioner simply glared back. Then she backed away from him, her head lowered.
"I will leave the field. I do not twist justice with slippery words. I will satisfy justice." She turned toward the single dark, open doorway through which she entered the arena. Qui-Gon quickly blocked her way. Any executioner who left her victim alive with the death sentence still active was required to forfeit her own life at the next sunrise.
"I think not. There are far too many willing martyrs here." Qui-Gon's eyes flicked toward the gallery where Molty Kohm glowered down from amidst the other politicians and his Padawan near the back of the crowd. Qui-Gon deeply disdained martyrs; as a Master of the Living Force, martyrdom symbolized only death, darkness and false sacrifice to him.
Denied what she thought of as an honorable death, she angrily tried to push past him; he easily pushed her back. In danger of losing her balance and even more of her dignity with her arms and hands tied behind her, she backed away.
Qui-Gon lifted his hand and approached her like he might a wounded animal.
"You have done your duty well," he told her, his voice low and soothing. She had a strong will, not easily influenced, but her weakness was her duty and Qui-Gon used it. He fixed on her pale, blue eyes and held them with his own. He sensed her thoughts through the Force as if they were partly his own. To the Jedi they were. He pushed away the anger. "Your duty is here." He gestured upward. "Under the sun." A veil of confusion clouded her determination; her broad face went slack.
Qui-Gon turned her away from the door and walked with her along the wall.
"Come, sit," he urged.
"No." Her eyes widened with surprise. "I must stand. It is my duty."
"Of course," Qui-Gon agreed immediately. He stood with her a moment before leaving. She contentedly gazed upward, admiring the blue sky and fluffy, scattered clouds above.
Qui-Gon went to the collection of weapons and gathered them up in a large piece of shroud cloth. Then he took them to the open doorway and tossed them far into the black shadows within. He heard them slide along the duracrete floor, sometimes colliding with wall or furniture in the darkness. Qui-Gon glimpsed a few black-on-black outlines of people inside and heard their movements, but none of them spoke or came near the door.
He glanced back at the Executioner when he was finished. She hadn't moved and she even had a small smile on her lips as she admired the sky. Sighing, Qui-Gon went back to the pieces of shroud, now trampled on the dirt. With his back to the platform and the main gallery and facing the Executioner, he quickly folded and then tied his improvised 'shoes'. They would be adequate enough to protect his feet from the hot ground and stone, but if he had to run, he doubted they would last more than ten strides. He tucked the rest of the fabric and strips of cloth under the length tied around his waist so that it hung behind him.
Qui-Gon went to the wall near the Executioner, where the morning shadows would last longest. He sat down and crossed his legs, his back to the wall, the Executioner motionless on his left.
He readjusted his improvised scarf to shade his head better. His hair and skin were damp and sweaty, especially where the shroud fabric was tied under his chin and around his waist. The sweat on his body did not evaporate in the humidity; it only weakened and dehydrated him more than he already was. Qui-Gon was thirsty; he had been since the night before in his cell. He accepted what his body told him he needed and focused on his need to wait until the sunset. He breathed in deeply, willing his body to generate less heat.
The arena was now nearly a third filled of sunlight. The day would get much hotter.
Qui-Gon's eyes scanned the gallery above. There had been only muted exclamations from the dignitaries in the main gallery. The observers were only for ritual purposes; the arena was a sacred space where the blood and killing could be purified when the sun passed overhead. The scattered guards, in their formal orange uniforms, trimmed with white that stood out against their gray skin, looked down with mixed surprise and concern. The Noi'i were a human-type species with pale, sometimes bleached eyes and hair, and varying shades of gray skin, toughened by their planet's white primary.
People spoke quietly amongst themselves in the main gallery. While the sunlight grew in the arena, the shadow over the spectators increased. Molty Kohm and two members of the Traditions Committee seemed to be haranguing Obi-Wan, who stood impassively with his arms folded before him and tucked into the sleeves of his Jedi robe.
A small smile curled Qui-Gon's lips. Kohm still seemed to think that he could intimidate his barely nineteen year-old Padawan. Obi-Wan Kenobi replied calmly. Only a trace of the sound of voices reached him, but Qui-Gon could guess what the exchange was about.
Kohm had been furious that Qui-Gon had stepped into his grand gesture in court two days ago. Obi-Wan hadn't been very thrilled with his Master's surprise declaration either, but he had waited to argue with Qui-Gon in private. Kohm had been quite public about it, his stone gray face coloring brownish-gray with outrage while he delivered his diplomatically phrased, but still cutting insults about Qui-Gon's inability to grasp the depth of tradition, and life and death in general.
Even after they'd discovered that Kohm's chosen Executioner had been replaced by one loyal to the Traditions Committee, Kohm had still held onto his outrage. He had declared that he was willing to perish if necessary, to allow his deputy to push forward the demanded changes in Noi'i laws. Qui-Gon knew with a certainty that Kohm meant it, too. He was aggressive and obnoxious, but Kohm was sincere and completely dedicated to his cause. Qui-Gon had no doubt that Kohm would find some spectacular way to sacrifice himself someday, but the Jedi Master did not care to be around to see it.
In the gallery, Kohm had given up on getting anywhere with Obi-Wan and now, backed by his deputy and his followers, took on the Traditions Committee members and the Speaker of the Planetary Duma. Obi-Wan visibly stayed at the edge of the debate. His apprentice had participated in negotiations before. Qui-Gon thought he had a natural talent for it, but this was the first time that he had been forced into the lead under such dramatic circumstances. Now, from what little he had been allowed to see as a prisoner, Qui-Gon noted, with some pride, how much older and mature Obi-Wan looked.
In the arena, the sunlight had claimed nearly all the open area, except for the narrowing band of shadow that Qui-Gon sheltered in.
Qui-Gon sensed movement on his left.
The Executioner had stepped forward into the sunlight. She stretched her body upward, as if she drew strength from the bright light streaming down from overhead, her arms and wrists still bound behind her by the white fabric. Qui-Gon watched her carefully, but she did nothing else. He closed his eyes, feeling himself at one with the space around him, the Force and the Executioner from whom he sensed only calm contemplation and joy in the sunlight.
Jedi mind influences could be powerful, but they were temporary. Qui-Gon doubted that even he could keep the Executioner from returning to her purpose of killing him for the whole day, but for the moment she seemed content.
Qui-Gon's haven of shade shrank until he was finally forced to stand on his improvised shoes in the direct sunlight. The arena had been designed to retain the heat of the day like an oven; the stifling humidity intensified the temperature even more.
Up in the gallery above, a white servitor droid arrived with refreshments for the witnesses. Another droid circulated around to all the guards.
Qui-Gon bowed his head, pulling the edge of his scarf further over his face, tucking his arms under the white fabric draped over him, keeping as much direct sunlight off of him as possible. Noi'i's sun was harsh with short wavelength radiation and while direct exposure was not immediately harmful, Qui-Gon needed to last the whole day.
A movement on his left caught his eye again. The Executioner was walking forward, into the arena. Qui-Gon watched her calmly walk toward the platform.
She was halfway up the stairs when Qui-Gon felt the warning through the Force. Up above, Obi-Wan frantically gestured, his words muffled by the arena's sound bafflers. Qui-Gon ran.
- - end Part 2 - -