LIVING HISTORY
by ardavenport
= = = Part 19
"The Maarzim have more of Yarr's artifacts than just the holocron. They will all be released to us after the performance of the History Play."
Qui-Gon's voice echoed in the darkness behind Obi-Wan's eyelids. He listened for more, but did not reach for it. If the Force had something to reveal to him, then it would. Or not. It was not for him to decide. The voice returned.
"The Maarzim have more of Yarr's artifacts than just the holocron. They will all be released to us after the performance of the History Play."
The words floated in darkness, colorless and separate from reality.
"The Maarzim have more of Yarr's artifacts than just the holocron."
He saw shapes, pale auras of Yarr's mask, long ropes, gloves, a black cape, a cube. Everything was cold and dusted with frost in pale blue light.
"The Maarzim have more of Yarr's artifacts than just the holocron."
The light changed to warm yellow and the frost faded, but it brought no life to the Sith remains. They were old and worn and . . . . passionless.
" . . .more of Yarr's artifacts than just the holocron."
Shadows whisked by, hands grabbing the artifacts as they went, people laughing as they ran by the bin of Falgan's Play props.
" . . . the holocron."
" . . . the holocron."
" . . . the holocron."
"Huh!"
Obi-Wan's eyes flew open. He sat cross-legged on the padded bench at the end of his sleeping platform. It was morning, the windows bright white with fog that had not burned off yet.
From the food prep area, Qui-Gon looked back at him, a spilled cup of water at his Master's feet.
"My apologies. I did not mean to disturb you."
Obi-Wan got up. When he first woke up, the darkness beyond the windows was just beginning to turn gray. Even Qui-Gon had not awoken for his morning meditation.
"No, I was finished anyway." In bare feet, he went to the fresher while Qui-Gon slid open cabinets, looking for something to clean up the mess with.
At first he did nothing, just standing in place, his mind frozen on what he had seen in the Force. Then he moved through his usual morning routines, taking his time, relieveing himself, washing up, re-tying his Padawan's lock on the back of his head, re-tying the end of his braid and checking himself in the mirror. Some of the images were bound to be the meaningless clutter that could turn up, but Qui-Gon had taught him that what he felt was most important. And he was now sure of something that Qui-Gon was barred from speaking to him about. And about which he was barred from asking.
Darth Yarr's holocron was not destroyed. It was whole and Qui-Gon had seen it.
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"There is a way. Into the Castle." The words echoing from the performer's audition area of Tamwa Hall were followed by a long pause.
Qui-Gon lunged, sweeping the air before him with his lightsaber. Obi-Wan nimbly lept back. Five hovering holo-recorders cirecled them. Pecku and Falgan paced at a safe distance with hand-held controllers. On one side of Tamwa Hall a recognizable stage had emerged from days of construction. The builders had worked through the three full days of the quarantine. On the other side of the Hall the audition voices continued.
"Will you take us? Please, Nirid." A second person answered the first.
"What will you do? Kill our Lord?"
Qui-Gon jumped back, lightsaber blade horizontal in an upward defense against Obi-Wan's downward slash, an arm's length out of reach. On the other side of the Hall the Nirid auditions continued.
"The Sith are evil. How many people has Yarr had put to death?"
That morning, the quarantine had been officially declared over; no new cases of the sephrada virus had been diagnosed. The Healers had successfully pre-empted their predicted epidemic. Healer Mwassil had happily delivered the news to them that morning. They met her and Healer Zhenum at the foot of the tower stairs as they came down after their morning meal. The stouter male healer cast his eyes upward with a thankful sigh that he would not be climbing up to them.
The auditions and preparations for the celebrations in all the Living History Lands were free to continue. When they arrived in the Hall, Pecku met them. The Nirid audition did not have any scenes with lightsabers, but he needed recordings for the new shadown dances. Except for one poisonous glare from Director Tykon, he ignored them as he and a couple of assistants lined the performers up into groups of three and had them read the same scene over and over.
It was obviously something from the beginning of the Play. Keth and Minigan were trying to convince Nirid to help them into the Castle. There was no hint in the dialogue about the Mystery, that Nirid was actually Darth Yarr.
Around them, Tamwa Hall was being transformed into a huge theater. The force field that muffled the noisy stage construction had been taken down. The stage at one end appeared to be finished, with a huge black platform, tilted with the back end noticeably higher than the front. Large black flats with projection walls hung behind it. An area in front of the stage had been fenced off and Qui-Gon spotted Roobi Mwemas and Thwurn Aka there with builders and technicians. Along the sides of the Hall, towers were in various stages of constructions. Daylight still shone down in through the windows, but huge black vertical panels now hung next to them, ready to seal the room from the outside light.
Wearing gray skirt and tunic with a matching gray band holding back his longish hair, Pecku politely asked them to circle each other as they attacked back and forth. They lunged and evaded, their sabers stopping as if their slashes and blocks made contact though their blades never came within an arm's length of each other. Pecku had explained that this was the nature of the shadow dances; they would be stylized lightsaber fights, mirroring the action on stage.
Falgan arrived; Pecku raised his hand and the two Jedi stopped in mid-attack/defend, extinguished their sabers and stepped back. The two men conferred as the floating holo-recorders darted back into a holding pattern above.
Falgan went to his props table and brought back two light sticks. Pecku took them and held them up.
"Could you try it with these? So we can compare? Just do the same things that you've already been doing."
Qui-Gon clipped his lightsaber to his belt and took the offered prop. His Padawan did the same.
Touching the activation button on the silver and black tube, Qui-Gon grimaced at the fake blue lightsaber blade that snapped out. He would have felt better about sparring with a tree branch. Either one would have been just as inert a weapon in his hand, but the mock lightsaber felt especially wrong since it pretended to be something that it wasn't. He gave it a few experimental twirls and swipes.
"The handle should have more weight, to counter-balance the blade," he commented critically.
"Ahhh!" Falgan tapped his own notes down on a hand-held terminal. "Good point. That will make the movement much more natural."
Obi-Wan touched the activation button on the prop in his hand. A glowing, bright red blade shot out. His eyes went wide, crimson reflected in them and he grasped the hilt with both hands.
"Obi-Wan."
Smiling at his apprentice's reaction, Qui-Gon advised him, "It is only a Play prop, my young Padawan. Do your best," he instructed, swiping the air with his own lightstick.
"Yes, Master." He responded with an up and down salute with the fake blade.
Pecku had them repeat all of the same things they had done; he even played some of the recordings he had made of them using their own lightsabers on a hand-held viewer. Falgan made notes and occasionally commented on adjustments he needed to make to his lightsticks.
"Interesting," Pecku told them during a break. "You don't move the same way with these as you do with your own lightsabers."
"Of course not," Qui-Gon confirmed, "these are not lightsabers."
Pecku looked unimpressed with the difference. "Well, I think we can adjust the choreography to compensate."
They all turned to see a tall older man in dark blue tunics, trimmed in silver, that went down to the tops of his blue shoes, approach.
"Venerate Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Venerate Lady of the Tower wishes to speak with you. Privately." The man flicked a respectful glance toward Obi-Wan while keeping his head pointed forward.
"Of course. Obi-Wan, please continue to assist Pecku while I am gone."
He left, following the man up the stairs, past the gallery through a corridor under the tower. They headed toward the Castle archives, history laboratories, preservation studios and administrative offices. They passed through an open courtyard of covered tables surrounded by a tall forest of bushes. Qui-Gon's guide led him back inside, down a corridor, a line of high, colored windows on one side, bare wall on the other. The man touched a wall control, opening a door for Qui-Gon, and then followed him in.
Qui-Gon heard the door lock softly click as they descended a dimly lit stairwell. He stopped at a landing, waiting for his guide to lead him either through a door on that level or further down the stairs. He did neither, standing at attention before the Jedi.
"Venerate Master Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn. I have been instructed to only lead you here. The Venerate Sebo told me that you would be able to open the doors on your own." Then stepping carefully, he turned his back.
Eyebrows raised, Qui-Gon looked about. It was a plain corridor going all the way around the stairs, the walls roughly textured graying-blue with a pattern in black and dark green at the base, matching the railing and steps. There was a skylight high abover and a slight updraft of dusty air. He turned around; behind him was a corner. He closed his eyes, raised his hand. A slight pressure of the Force touched his palm and he drew it across the air at shoulder level. He heard a door softly sliding open. Opening his eyes, he turned his head, but the man in dark blue had not moved.
He crossed into the dark space beyond. Raising one hand, he gestured behind him and a tug of the Force on his fingertips pulled the door closed again. He waited a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. He stood at the end of a corridor built of rough stone blocks with no doors or visible openings. He went to the other end where the corridor turned; light shone in from somewhere. Following the corridor back the same direction he had come, he went toward the other end of that corridor where there was another hall going back again. He wound around three more corridors and turns before he finally came to a black door, a light in the ceiling overhead. There was another identical, illuminated door on the wall at the far end of the hall, a blank dead end next to it.
Looking from one to the other, he walked slowly down this last corridor. He suddenly stopped in the middle and turned his head toward the blank wall. He raised a hand and pulled it across the air. A section of wall, the real door, slid aside. He walked through the portal and with another gesture closed it.
This new room had a short, long entryway leading into a large area with a high ceiling. Long artificial lights, the colors of Maarzim's sun and moons hung down from the ceiling. Other lights shone down on human and humanoid statues in alcoves along the walls. All were physically muscular, smooth and youthful, their scantily clothed bodies posed to reveal various attractive curves and bulges, some of them very obviously sexually aroused. There were stone columns decorated in swirling carvings in the corners.
Turning all the way around, Qui-Gon puzzled at the familiarity of the room, the dark, patterned tapestries, the low tables, chairs and padded lounges along the pale beige walls. At one end of the room, steps leading up to it, was an immense, heavy wooden table with padded benches on either side. It looked like a stage commanding the whole room.
Qui-Gon smiled. This room was very similar to the projected scenery for the stage taking shape on the far end of Tamwa Hall.
"Welcome Jedi."
He turned around. He faced Darth Yarr.
He recognized Sebo in the same black and red costume that Director Tykon's performers had auditioned in. She did not have a youthful dancer's physique, being a bit heavy in the hips and upper arms, but the outfit fit her well. The mask concealed her eyes. She strolled toward him. He supposed that her movements were meant to be seductive, but she was clearly out of practice. When she was within arm's length, he quickly snatched off her mask.
"Oooh!" She clapped her hand to her head where some of her hair had been pulled out.
"If you were a real Sith Lord, I would be obligated to kill you immediately."
Her cheeks flushing, she pulled back. Her graying brown hair was tied back, flat on her head, held in place with a red band. Qui-Gon took the mask in both hands, the eyeless black-and-white face staring up at him. "Is this room also preserved from Yarr's time?"
"Yes." She nodded. "This is where Yarr held court and where Nirid renounced her power. Jedi Keth died on this very floor . . . though the furnishings have been restored many times." She sighed as if she was disappointed in them for not being able to last eight thousand years without help. "It was sealed up when Nirid was exiled to the tower.
"And this is where I have been staying while you occupy it," she admitted.
He looked about. There were some visible metal doors, presumably leading to other rooms. "It is . . . unique. Why did you wish me to see it?"
"You know the Mystery. There was no reason for you not to know. And after the Play, I will no longer preside here, either. Ever again." Her brown eyes stared up at him; there were green highlight in them. "I do not just serve as the Lady of the Tower. I was initiated as Venerate here, to be the living embodiment of Nirid. Ard Darth Yarr."
Her hands grasped her black collar and ripped apart her tunic and armor. Underneath her bare skin was pale and stomach a little paunchy, her breasts were large and round, sagging only a little. She wore mostly metallic circles and thin straps that approximated minimal clothing. The pants came off next and she stepped toward him, locking her eyes on his.
"Darth Yarr's power was a power of passion." Her voice lowered to a husky whisper as she came closer, her eyes alight with religious fervor. "And you were aroused when I revealed Yarr's lightsaber in the Hall of Mysteries."
Qui-Gon drew in a breath, suddenly uncomfortable with her closeness. Frowning he did not answer. She continued.
"I didn't notice. I suppose I've spent too much time in the tower." She quirked a smile. "But Director Tykon saw it. Of course, he did. Roobi Mwemas and Quembu Smetin confirmed it ater." Her eyes ducked down below his waist. "You said you did not see Nirid." She advanced and he backed up. "What did you see?"
Exposed, he did not have an answer. At least, not one he would speak out loud to someone who was so sadly devoted to an idealized memory of the Sith that she felt compelled to dress up as one. He turned his back to her, his body suddenly warm from within. But it was not just disgust, it was also the Force, a nova rising in the closed room of ancient stone; it sucked all the oxygen out with its stifling heat. His shadow suddenly grew huge, stretched out over the table and chairs above him; Outlined in blazing red and orange, the black shape swelled up the wall.
His lightsaber flew off his belt into his hand and activated. Whirling around, he thrust his free hand out to push back at the massive, pulsing fireball hurtling at him.
The fire suddenly snuffed out with a whoosh.
A blinding light remained behind a lone figure on its knees before him. The silence hit him like a blow, leaving white noise in his ears, the room going cold, like vacuum in space. He felt the Force leaving him like air rushing ouf of his lungs. His saber went out, the hilt falling from his numb fingers and clattering away on the floor. He wanted to reach for the power, for life again, but it hurt too much. Tears streamed from his eyes. He was stripped bare of his past, the Force and life itself. He was clean.
Ice crystals forned on the clouds of his breath in the bluish-white light. He sucked in freezing air and it barely gave him sustainence. But it was enough. And it was more than he deserved.
He fell to his knees and the figure kneeling before him reached out a hand, touching the tears frozen on his face.
The air suddenly rushed back, the bright light vanishing into room lighting that now looked as dim as twilight. Ordinary warmth returned. Every table, bench, chair in the room, vase was overturned. Some of the statues were toppled from their alcolves. Sebo stroked his wet cheek with the tip of one finger, her brown eyes wide.
"What did you see?"
= = = End Part 19