Legacy
Book I
Chapter 7
Beneath the most colossal white monolith, tucked deep in the shadow of its jutting bulk, stood a door – a set of heavy blast panels sealed into the raw mineral, their scuffed and worn paint barely visible. Obi-Wan traced the dim outline of aurebesh letters upon the pock-marked, oxidizing surface.
'Besh-17…? This was a mine shaft," he concluded.
Beside him, Kerrn nodded. "Aye. That's all done now – the planet's stripped. You want ionite nowadays, you got to collect it after a storm – that's our meat and bread. The Urbs won't come out on the plains during the season – soft-skinned cowards that they are. We'll gather and trade… this cycle's been hell and a half. We'll be eating off it for months."
"I see," The young Jedi replied, though he did not, quite. He glanced over the heads of the company at Qui-Gon, who was deep in conversation with a stooped elder of the tribe. The tall man spared him a swift glance, one conveying curiosity but not suspicion, and returned to his earnest interchange with the rag-decked crone.
"Everybody in, let's go, let's go." Kerrn swiped an antique code key across the doors' access plate, and chivvied his followers into the black pit gaping wide behind them. "Somebody light a kriffin' lamp, that's it – come on, you too, strangers. Or you can stay an' let yer blood boil in yer veins."
The Force surged high, validating the grisly warning; Knight and Master slipped through the portals on the heels of their new acquaintances.
"Now then," Kerrn rambled on, enjoying his role as docent, "This here's the storage corridors. You and your friend can pick a corner to make yer own for the night, just keep the fire down to a minimum – smoke us all out otherwise. We stow the ionite crystals here between trading meets... you ever seen the stuff before?"
When the young Jedi shook his head, indicating a negative, the elder chuckled and pried the lid off a plastimold barrel. "Unique magnetic properties, it has. Industrial applications – supposed to be good for AI – you know: droid brains and whatnot, sensory enhancement prosthetics. Doesn't degenerate like other compounds. Now this," he fished a chunk of blue-white crystal out of the container, "Is low grade. Worthless, doesn't have the same molecular alignment. Pretty, though, eh? The early settlers called it heartstone. Made it up into figurines, jewelry, tokens and such. Said the rock captured a bit of the artist's heart, see?"
"Very whimsical."
Kerrn tossed the glinting rock back into its pile. "Whimsy keeps many a man alive when he's got nought else left, youngster. Don't underestimate imagination. What they would do now – you know most these original folk were slaves, runaways?"
"Yes, I've read much about your planet's history."
"Most of it ain't in writing, my friend. But that's true. These runaways, they would leave their lady loves behind. Or their families. Children. Friends. Brothers. Hoping those would come after, find their own way out of bondage. They would carve these waystones with a… symbol, like. A bit of their heart. For the other one to find later. And leave 'em strewn on the plains."
Obi-Wan listened politely to the tale of ancient superstition. There was a melancholy undercurrent to the tale, one bittersweet. "I wonder if any of them were ever found by the intended recipient," he said, fingering a very small, smooth piece of flawed ionite. Sapphire blue but not as translucent as an Ilum crystal, it was threaded with white veins, and fit easily in the palm of his hand.
"See, there. That maybe never happened. But they say, if you carved enough of those and left 'em behind, you'd eventually empty out yer heart enough so's it didn't hurt no more. Either way, a good thing."
"I see." The young Jedi took the idly wandering conversation by the reins. "How many of the present population are descended from escaped slaves?"
"Oh, most all of us out here," Kerrn readily supplied. "Half went on – drifted into the Core, into the Republic, found another way to give up their liberty. The rest realized what a treasure they had, and stayed."
"But you are a Republic protected territory… you are all citizens now."
"Hmmph." The leader of the Wanderers stuck hands in to his fraying jacket pockets and led the way back to the central cavern, where the community gathered for a late meal. "That don't affect us, thank the stars. An owned man's an owned man. Slavery means more'n one thing, dependin'. We got no great guns fer the Republic, an' neither should you. You think it through. Workin' in the Core, that's a different kinda gladiator ring, not freedom. You look like a smart feller. Stay here." Kerrn nodded gravely. "Stay free."
They ducked beneath a jagged stalactite portcullis and entered the large central hall, where Kerrn's nomadic comrades had efficiently pitched a makeshift camp. The scent of food drifted in the warm air; voices and footsteps echoed deafeningly off the high, marbled ceilings of the cave. "Thank you for your advice," Obi-Wan told his host. "I will remember it."
The ancient crone shook one bony finger at Qui-Gon, voice quavering with a banked passion. "Paxel, Paxel," she spat. "They're here, you know. Raided other Folk already – they'll come for us next. And mark my words, they'll take the able bodied and kill the weak. That's their way. I'm not afeared… I'll be dead. But you – and that lad you're with – they'll take you back in chains. You know what they do to runaways what get re-captured, don't you?"
"It can't be any worse than the gladiator rings," Qui-Gon reasoned with her.
The old woman cackled derisively. "Where's your imagination, man? It's an example you'd become. Savage, cruel those Paxellians are. You should know it already."
The tall man accepted a bowl of indifferently appetizing stew. "Thank you. I am surprised that any warships were able to penetrate through Heaven's Scythe. My companion and I barely survived the descent ourselves."
"In season, it's calm," she assured him. "We've been left alone thus far. Nobody wants trouble with the Republic. You make it this far, you've escaped. Until now. What'll happen now I don't like to think."
The Jedi master shifted upon his seat, a smoothed boulder set beside the cookfire. "There are rumors that Niffrendi has petitioned the galactic senate for permission to raise a standing army – as protection against raids."
His companion guffawed noisily at this. "You hear a lot, but you don't know much. If those Urbs want protection, you can be sure it isn't about us Folk. They'd not lift a finger to save the Wanderers. Much less raise an army. Likelier they're worried about their own skins. One look at a Paxellian walord and most of 'em'd drop dead on sight."
"Hm." Qui-Gon applied himself to the food, mulling over these scraps of information. The portrait of planetary politics drawn by his new acquaintance was not encouraging.
Obi-Wan appeared a few moments later, squatting upon another stone and warming his hands over the crackling fire.
"So," the aged Wanderer inquired. "You're a bit young for the Rings. I'd have pegged you for the pleasure house auctions. You're lucky," she decided, with a rasping sort of laugh. "Death by rancor's better'n farking a Hutt. Here, boy, eat up afore there's none left." She shoved a bowl into the younger Jedi's hands and scooted away on her own business.
"Charming dinner conversation," Obi-Wan darkly observed.
"Her name is Ayya," the Jedi master supplied. "She spent fifteen years in just such an establishment as she describes before escaping and running to Niffrendi with a group of other slaves. Her companions all died on the journey; she has been here ever since and knows the ins and outs of the nomadic communities better than any."
"Kerrn gave me the tour," Obi-Wan reported in his turn. "They live on the open land for the most part, but use this complex as a shelter and base of operations. They are economically dependent on the cities for everyting but meat – apparently the frequent ion storms produce some sort of rare mineral which they harvest and trade. Ionite? Have you heard of it?"
Qui-Gon frowned. "It may be a tech secret. Certainly it is not listed on the planet's export register."
"Untaxed resources," the young Jedi mused. "Well. That's one mess we've discovered already. Though… do you suppose the raids are related? I can't imagine warrior tribes like the Paxellians having the sophistication to hoard minerals with rare cybernetic applications."
"NO, it does seem unlikely. But it makes me wonder about this standing army the government is so eager to garrison."
Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed. "It makes me wonder who buys the ionite from the Niffrendi market. The Trade Federation isn't above making an inside deal."
His companion exhaled slowly. "And I wonder how much of this the Council suspected already… certainly our mandate seems to have expanded its parameters."
This did not sit well with his former padawan. "Should we not focus upon the origin of these raids, and alert the Council to our suspicions? Prying further may create more trouble than is needful."
Qui-Gon stretched his legs out. "We cannot alert the Council to anything until the storm has burned itself out. I guarantee communications are blocked; and even then, we have the luxury of patience. I am curious to see one of these purported raids for myself."
"Curiosity killed the gundark, Master."
Late that night, as the storm raged wantonly overhead, Qui-Gon lay beside the paltry fire provided them for warmth, watching contorted shadows writhe upon the rough hewn roof of their allotted corner in the Wormholes' labyrinth. Obi-Wan sat with back propped against the wall, huddled in his cloak, Force signature deeply convoluted and hands busy at some intricate task. The tall man turned his head to one side, peering curiously across the circle of firelight.
His tiny motion caught unwanted attention, however. Obi-Wan's eyes came up , meeting the Jedi master's gaze, and the spell was broken. The young man tucked away his project in an interior pocket, though Qui-Gon caught a flash of gleaming Vespari steel as the small knife was slipped back into its boot sheath.
"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan murmured. "I did not mean to keep you awake."
Qui-Gon propped his hands behind his head and contemplated the mutable shadow-play upon the pale dome above. "Nor I to distract you."
They were silent for a long moment. the young Knight shifted in place, restless despite the day's demands and the promise of strife yet to come. "This reminds me of the Young. People living in exile, beneath the surface, suspicious of the Republic and life in general. How does this happen?"
"This?" Qui-Gon gently inquired. "Dissolution and isolation are entropies common to all sentient nature. All it takes is time and neglect."
"Time and neglect," Obi-Wan repeated. "Do you ever wonder why the Order's numbers have dwindled over time, while the Republic's boundaries continue to expand? How is that? Should there not be more Jedi now, rather than less?"
"Should be is a treacherous game to play, Obi-Wan. You know this."
"I do. But sometimes, I allow myself to ask whether the neglect is somehow ours. Whether we are too few, and too arrogant. Should mortal beings claim the right to hold a decaying center together?"
Qui-Gon pushed up on his elbows. "That is the danger in ideals, and absolutes. You would do better to focus upon individual good, upon the alleviation of particular suffering, than upon the universal abolition of evil."
Their eyes met briefly across the smoldering bones of the fire.
"Neither you, nor any Jedi, will be able to save the entire galaxy, Obi-Wan. No one person is so burdened, or blessed… even with the Force as his ally. Unless you believe the prophecy of the Chosen One."
"Do you?" the young Knight demanded, a quiet urgency in his voice.
"You know what I think of prophecies," the older man scoffed.
His friend's mouth twisted into a fleeting, insouciant smile. "Except your own, of course."
"Brat."
The once familiar nickname banished the specter of dread. Obi-Wan chuckled, pulled his cloak close about his shoulders, and unexpectedly rolled onto his back, close beside Qui-Gon. Dying embers sparked and popped behind the fire's encircling barricade; the darkness crept near but did not penetrate their restful harbor.
"I have terrible dreams," Obi-Wan abruptly confessed. "Visions."
"I know." The Jedi master reached out and brushed fingertips across his companion's face. "But not tonight." The Force surged between them, unopposed, lending supernal authority to the wistful hope.
And they slept, while the sky outside poured forth unparalleled fury upon the naked plains of Niffrendi.
