Inheritance


39.

This is the part of peacekeeping that I don't like.

I can feel the resentment of the younger generation, the outrage of the older. The twofold ire of the Feorians has ensnared the whole village in its impalpable coils, setting family against family, friend against friend. The Dark seeps in the corners of shadows, at the outskirts of the dwelling-places' circle. I stand sentinel in the center, waiting for the subtle, persistent trickle of wrath -of whispered lies - to take its toll.

Sometime tonight, it will come to a violent confrontation. The Dark side is on the loose here, a splintered band of predators prowling and creeping at the edges of awareness. The jabuur-weki has not returned, but the scattered strands of its formless body are being drawn back inward, an inevitable undoing of the diaspora in the cave. It's only a matter of time before it returns in full force - and in the meanwhile, its malignant influence bends the minds of every sentient here.

Yes, even mine.

The Dark is delusional if it thinks I will rise to the bait, but it teases me nonetheless, taunting me with cold memory. And I have lived enough years to have earned my full share of those. I stand firm, waiting, while the wisps and tatters of Darkness fling their jibes and insults at my mind, stirring up the muddy slime of recollection until the pools of thought are murky with regret, or sorrow.

It is cold here on Outer Gola, but it was hot and humid that day on Korun… my skin sticky with clotted perspiration and grime, slick with gore…

A wind rises here to play at my cloak hem, but that day on Melus the wind was invisible, a howling storm of loss. I could not separate my voice from the keening wails of widows, of mothers….

Here the night clothes the land in darkness; there, on Ilum, night fell endlessly until the crystals fretting the cave roof were the pitiless stars burning in their empty thrones, and I was falling among them, plummeting into infernal evening without hope of end….

Wood fires decorate the air here with twining columns of blue… but in my day I have seen and scented the bitter pillars of funerary fire, again and again, until the leaping tongues seem to dance a mocking carillion, a mute and tormented ecstasy, one inviting despair….

I have killed both men and monsters.

I have crushed the hopes of mere children, broken the hearts of burdened elders.

I have been the face of terror, the cowled visage of the unknown.

I have ridden the Dark like a beast, whipped and chained it… wrestled and fought it, tooth and claw and vital screaming need…. And emerged merciless conqueror.

I have faced evil and seen myself.

The Dark throws these jests and accusations against me without respite. But they are nothing, for the Dark itself, beneath its flowing mantle of pomp and false promises, is nothing. It is hollow void and untruth, a power that feeds on negation, on absence. The Light has no use for its lies. I turn my back on it, once again, and stand firm. It will not triumph.

Not on my watch.

And here are the Feorians, as though sent expressly by the Dark to attempt one last assault upon my defenses. They approach from opposite ends of the wide village, each group armed with flickering torches, with rude implements which I can only imagine they intend as weapons. These people have no skills, no history of martial anything. What brews here is nothing but an amateur and disorderly riot. Nonetheless, it could be dangerous to its participants.

They halt when they reach the center, murmuring in confusion when they see me. Both sides are knots of sullen and explosive anger, hot eddies in the universal energy. They draw up in ranks, faced off like the pieces of a dejarik board at the game's commencement.

"What do you think you're doing?" I demand.

Yonso and his belligerent comrades only cast me hateful glances. The chieftain steps forward, shaking his staff at the malfeasants across the way. "We have come to stamp out this rebellion and madness! These young upstarts have stirred up the avenging spirit of our people. They have brought the jabuur-weki down upon us, with their foolishness and their disrespect for the old ways. We will punish them and appease the monster. The terror must come to an end."

"You will bring an end to terror by imposing more?" I ask. "That is no part of your cherished folkways."

A rumble of protest and impatience meets my words.

Yonso is emboldened by his elder's speech. He thrusts forward, waving a torch. Sparks spill like rain about him, a bright scattering of angry words. "Thou speak of peace, Jedi, but it was thou who sent thy boy to kill us on the plains! He lured us into a trap and thou pretended to come to our rescue. Thou are with the chieftain, one of those who conspire to oppress us. We will not have it anymore! We are taking over this village! It is time doddering idiots no longer ruled the Feorians! The future belongs to us, to the young!"

"And your first act as new ruler will be one of violence?" He cowers back when I address him, and his followers cluster round, a protective circle.

"Blasphemers!" the chief shouts.

"Murderers! Oppressors!" Yonso's crew retorts. A cold wind puts out several of the torches, extinguishing them in a single bitter gust.

"The jabber-weki will come for thee!" someone wails.

"It is coming now!" someone else hollers.

The assembly disintegrates into panic, and there – beyond the borders of the village, the Dark takes on form, coalescing into a textured shadow as though sculpted on a potter's wheel, given shape by the mingled wrath of these people.

"Go back to your homes!" I command them, summoning the Force's aid to give power to my words. Light rushes to meet the gathering storm, battle-ready, armed with coruscating bolts of fire. I swear the very ground below the thing out there flickers with the seeds of deadly lightning.

The Feorians scatter, fear driving them back into their separate shelters like children before the roar of distant thunder.

And I am left peering out into the gloom where the jabuur-weki waits, growing into itself, into a thing with place and form. My saber's hilt is in my hand, and my blood is coursing with a rare fire, the chained Dark straining for release, for direction.

It rises higher, impossibly high, a great wave of nameless power, without origin or end, rushing forward like a tidal wave, crashing down upon me with the weight of centuries, the groaning cries of a hundred generations.

I raise my saber high and stand firm in the Light as the thing rises, blots out the sky and descends in black majesty.

My saber screams; the jabuur-weki howls; the night explodes with fear and wrath, and my blood rages in my veins; the Dark reaches out with snatching claws and grinding jaws, shadow-winged, foul, putrescent, overwhelming…

And rushes past. I stand upon the firm shores of Light, of balance, and the power of chaos crashes over and around, breaking on the cliffs, shattered to fading oblivion.

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no death, there is the Force.

And when I again look out upon the shadows beyond, the monster has unfurled and dissolved, the source of its power depleted and released. Flickers of rampant lightning still coil along the earth inits wake, electric footprints left by an unseen presence. It is not yet strong enough, not yet an entity in its own right. Without a concrete focal point, it is indeed a peregrinating wraith, an illusion.

But I know, with the deep certainty of instinct, of hard-earned wisdom, that it will return soon. And that it will be stronger.

And we must be ready.