Inheritance


Author's note: A reader has asked why in the world young Anakin does not carry a lightsaber in this tale. Anakin here is barely ten years old, has been a Jedi for less than six months, and is a human male with a proclivity for wreaking havoc. It would be utter folly to hand him a hyper-polarized open arc plasma energy blade, don't you think? In this chapter, Obi-Wan veers close to irresponsibility by letting the boy use a much less deadly implement, but he is to be forgiven on grounds of inexperience and a generous heart. -rb


41.

"Here, lord Jedi. Drink this."

I start awake – or at least fully awake. Dawn comes early, and my watch stretched from midnight until now, a lonely vigil and a cold one. I accept the warm ceramic bowl gratefully, and tip the hot brew over wind-chapped lips and down my throat. The Feorians drink a sort of mild argees – a sweeter, aromatic version of the common dark variety which is popular in the Core. It is uncommonly sweet this morning, and I realize that she has softened its slightly bitter taste with sugar and milk from a domestic groat. A few of the amicable beasts are tethered behind huts here and there.

"Thank you," I tell the old Feorian nursemaid. It is RuRu, the one who cared for Anakin when he was suffering the aftermath of his self-inflicted hashka poisoning. I hand her the emptied bowl, but she does not wander away.

"Dost thou feel the madness coming?" she inquires in her rasping crone's voice, leaning in closer. Her sagging and mournful features lend her words an air of doomsday prophecy.

Do I feel the madness coming? Well. That depends on one's point of view, does it not? But something tells me RuRu here is not referring to the stresses of training a very young Padawan. "The madness?" I repeat.

The elderly Feorian nods her head sagely. "Aye, the madness. Thou hast heard the tale of the jabuur-weki, hast thou not, Pada-Wan? It is an avenging spirit, thou knowest."

"So I have heard." Again and again, in point of fact.

"Soon we will all be mad," she informs me, conspiratorially. "Unless thou dare face it and slay it for us."

"I-"

She pokes a gnarled finger into my chest. "Vorpal blade," she grunts. "Not a weapon thou can carry, young lord Jedi. But I think thou already know of what I speak."

The Force is the blade of the heart. So we are taught, from earliest infancy. It is a mantra oft-repeated, perhaps never fully understood. I am amazed to hear this simple elder from a primitive tribe profess the same wisdom… but the Force is one thing, and just as every pathetic life form has a use, every sentient being – no matter how humble – has his or her share in its universal Light.

I bow. "Indeed. And I promise you that we shall do all in our power to protect your people from this… avenging spirit." I only hope it will be sufficient.

RuRu tucks the ceramic cup into a voluminous pocket, and starts to shuffle away. She halts a few paces distant. "Beware. The madness will soon be upon us.. and then thou will stand alone, thou and the other lord and the boy."

And before I can formulate a reply to this ominous pronouncement, she has tottered off into the women's shelter. And here is Anakin, looking frayed about the edges. The poor creature did not sleep well last night, nor the one before. Darkness creeps closer after sunset, and both our dreams have been disturbed, though I have not confessed so much to him.

He kicks at a loose pebble on the ground, surliness writ large across his Force signature.

I raise an eyebrow at this unbecoming display. "Whatever ails you, Anakin, rest assured that you cannot solve the problem by kicking gravel about."

He looks wounded. I am not moved.

"I just wanted to help," he complains. "You know, with the new hover-barge. It's actually kinda junky like the old one. And I thought maybe I could fix it up for them… but Lorra and the other guys wouldn't even let me near it. They told me to go away. They said the Jedi are a bunch of 'noxious somethings."

I shrug. "And this disturbs you why?"

He stares, outraged. "'Cause we're not! It's not true!"

"Well, then, if you know it's not true, why are you so disturbed by a false opinion?"

Another pebble goes flying, skittering fiercely over the frozen earth.

"Padawan."

"Sorry, master," he addresses the far horizon.

I exhale, a Yamalsa technique calming breath. Anakin is ostracized at the Temple, at least according to his perceptions; and he is likewise shunned here. I am not unversed in what loneliness means, to a young boy…. But there is no excuse for ill conduct. I consider him warily. His bad mood is dangerous in an environment such as this, where an unseen monster lays in ambush, ready to swell with anger, sorrow, fear, resentment. Something must be done to diffuse even Anakin's trifling peeves.

"Come with me," I instruct, heading for the village outskirts. A rickety cart sits behind the last hut.

"What are we doing?" His footfalls patter eagerly behind me, hunger for action – any kind of action – instantly replacing his melancholy. He is a mercuric spirit, this child. I may never fully understand him… but I am learning to manage his volatile shifts of mood.

"We shall help these people whether they want it or not. I've noticed that their firewood supplies are dwindling." Doubtless they are too afraid of the jabuur-weki to venture far beyond the village.

Anakin catches up to me and peers over the wasteland beyond, where a paltry scattering of native bushes provides the only source of fuel. To gather sufficient wood for cooking and warming their homes, the Feorians must wander far into the unprotected tundra, where the monster is thought to prowl.

"But… firewood?" the boy repeats, dubiously. "That's kinda dumb. I mean, we're Jedi. Can't we do something better?"

"Perhaps – but we need to do this, too. Without fuel, they will freeze and starve. A humble task is not a useless task, Anakin."

"I guess." We set off across the unforgiving, barren turf, heading for a clump of vegetation just visible in the distance. Anakin pushes the cart, its ancient frame creaking grumpily as it rattles over dips and cracks in the earth. The plants turn out to be twisted stumps, little more – but their dead branches will suffice for our purposes.

Anakin is happiest when his hands are busy fixing – or at least dismantling- something. I slip my knife out of its hidden sheath in my left boot.

"Can I use it?" my Padawan asks, eyes wide with hope.

"You may." He accepts the tool eagerly, turning the blade over in his hands. "On condition that you do not sever your own arm."

"Is it true that Vespari steel can cut through pretty much anything?" he demands. When I nod an affirmative, he prattles on, hacking branches off with murderous ease and tossing them into the cart. "These are super rare. I heard a spacer at the cantina talk about them once. You can mostly only get them from a forge-smith if you're somebody special like royalty or something. And they get handed down in families. If you inherit one it means you get like the whole estate and the family title and stuff. That guy at the cantina said it was a symbol of… . of, um, primo- something."

"Primogeniture," I supply.

I am not certain how accurate his informant's tale is. Certainly I've not heard these details before. But then, I never asked.

"Rugged," Anakin decides, still marveling at the knife's craftsmanship. "Do you think I'll ever have one like yours? Maybe a bigger one, even. Then I'd have like more primogenitals than you."

Only a decade's practice at playing sabaac against my own master enables me to keep my composure intact. Besides, my little friend: you may be the Chosen One, but midichlorians do not make the man.

"Master Qui-Gon gave me the knife," I say, neutrally, to deflect the conversation from its current disastrous trajectory. I can sense that he wishes to hear more, but … he won't. To relate the tale is to remember, and to remember is to dwell in the past. I cannot afford that – not here, not now.

"Oh," he replies, almost reverently. "Wizard."