CHAPTER FOURTEEN – IS THIS A DAGGER WHICH I SEE BEFORE ME?

LUX

I don't put much stock in magic. I know the Jedi don't either, and if the look on Ahsoka's face is any indication she agrees with the Council on this matter.

But from the look on Tandin's face, and because he's the only thing standing between us and Sprinkles the titan anooba, I refrain from saying "Yeah, right."

Instead, I repeat what he said. "Magic?"

"Yes," he says, deadly serious. "I can explain further, but first let me put on some real clothes." With his free hand he gestures to his baggy sleep shorts.

"Right," Ahsoka nods. "You go do that."

Tandin emerges from his room fully dressed and holding, of all things, a box of cookies.

Ahsoka raises an eye marking. "We just threatened to expose you for breaking and entering, and you offer us cookies?"

For a split second Tandin's face belies the fact that he has no idea why he's offering cookies, but he covers like any diplomat. "My mother always taught me to offer guests refreshments," He says and pops one into his mouth before sitting down.

Sprinkles ambles over to the chair, lies down, and rests his enormous head on Tandin's lap. Tandin scratches him behind the ears.

"I have a question," I say, breaking the silence. "What possessed you to name that behemoth 'Sprinkles?'"

"I didn't," he says. "Sprinkles is a search anooba who I worked with in the past. The kennel named him when he was just a pup, and it was a fitting name then."

Sprinkles growls either from relaxation or at me. As I don't want to become anooba chow, I desperately hope it's the former.

Ahsoka isn't distracted by the cookies or the two hundred pounds of terror that is Sprinkles. "Whether Sprinkles' name is fitting or not isn't the question here, Tandin. Why did you steal your own family heirlooms?"

Tandin stops petting Sprinkles.

"I suppose there's no other way of putting it," he sighs. "The blade, the music box, and the ring Senator Bonteri is wearing right now don't belong to me. They've never belonged to me."

My eyes drop to the ring on my finger, the one I wear proudly thinking it was a Tandin family heirloom.

"I'd had my doubts about the Separatist occupation of Onderon even before Rash tried to execute Dendup," he continues. "Their methods were brutal, swift, and well, ineffectual. Neither Rash nor his benefactors understood the power in subtlety, and for all Rash knew about the nuances of politics he didn't seem to think they applied to him. He believed in an iron fist, preferably a hot iron fist."

"But you digress," I interrupt.

"I am not; I am explaining," Tandin shoots back and continues. "Our planet is a powerful one, and where men like Rash are concerned, there are some powers you just can't let fall into their hands."

"What do you mean?" Ahsoka asks.

"Naddists."

"Lux, Naddists. Define."

"They were a Sith cult led by Freedon Nadd, who controlled Onderon during the Beast Wars," I explain. "The war only ended because of a marriage alliance between Princess Galia and Oron Kira, but after the Mandalorian Wars they're all but dead." The Naddist reign, however, would be an entirely different story.

"The Naddists used more than fear to keep their hold over Onderon," Tandin continues. "Freedon Nadd taught his followers the dark arts, and by the time the Beast Wars ended they had enchanted a great number of relics."

I remember something from my history classes. "Those relics were destroyed."

"Not all of them."

The words hit me like a ton of bricks and I thoughtlessly rip the ring off my hand while he speaks.

"Some of the relics were preserved and kept in the Royal Palace. They've remained there for years, until I defected." His eyes harden. "I didn't think of them at first, but I passed the throne room on the way out and my eyes fell upon them. I knew Rash wouldn't hesitate to use them if the thought crossed his mind, and if he had – I can't imagine."

I think it's really not that Tandin can't imagine, it's that he doesn't want to. A desperate megalomaniac like Rash having supernatural power on his side…

"He would have crushed the rebellion and likely all of Onderon along with it," Tandin finishes my thoughts. "Rash would destroy the world if he could be king of the ashes."

Ahsoka sits forward in her seat. "So you split up the relics among the leaders of the rebellion to keep them from Rash."

Tandin nods. "I knew their true power and I was careful with them. I gave each rebel the relic with the magic which best matched their personality. That way no one would notice anything suspicious if they accidentally used them."

"This ring," I hold it up with the very tips of my fingers. "You say it's enchanted. What does it do?"

"It is," he says. "That ring, through its enchantment, brings limitless luck to its wearer."

Really?

Ahsoka bursts into laughter once that sinks in. "Wow Lux, no surprises there!"

"It clearly doesn't work. If I had limitless luck, then Sprinkles would have slept through this whole incident."

"Not true," Ahsoka corrects. "I dropped the blade, not you. And from a certain way of thinking, that could be lucky. Now we're getting the answers we came for." She holds up a finger before I can say anything else. "Nothing will convince me you don't have the best luck in the galaxy, and now it all makes sense."

She has a point there. Still, I put the ring in my pocket instead of on my finger.

"What about the blade and the music box?" I demand, trying my best to ignore Ahsoka's smirking face.

"The music box itself isn't enchanted, but its song is. It soothes anyone who hears it; much like Steela herself. I assumed that if she ever used its magic by accident, a bystander would simply chalk it up to her charisma."

"Steela did have that effect on people," Ahsoka admits. "But the music is something entirely different, General Tandin. It's entrancing. Its magic is probably what got Jack and Maria to spare Saw."

"It probably is," Tandin agrees. "The blade, on the other hand, is far from a healing object. Its magic allows the user to cut through time when traveling."

I chew on that for a minute and come up with nothing. Ahsoka says what's on my mind: "What?"

"A story I heard as a child explained it like this. Has anyone ever said anything about 'the fabric of time?'" Tandin asks. We nod. "Alright, now imagine time as being composed of literal fabric, like my shirt. Now if one end of my shirt is where we are now, and the other end is where we want to go, then we would have to travel the whole distance over the shirt. But if we wrinkle the fabric like this," he brings the ends of the shirt together. "Then our points are practically touching. This is what the blade's magic allows us to do: wrinkle time in order to travel long distances over short periods of time."

"But we can travel through hyperspace now," Ahsoka points out. "Why would we need it?"

"It would be invaluable to those traveling to and from Dxun," Tandin explains. "And you can't use your hyperdrive in atmosphere, Ahsoka. This blade provides instantaneous transportation, anywhere you can think of, without a ship. Do you understand now?"

She nods.

"There's a fourth artifact as well," Tandin explains. "I held onto it instead of giving it away because there were only three rebel leaders and I know Jedi can't keep possessions. It's a piece of blown glass in a golden frame."

"What does it do? Focus the sun into a death ray?" I ask half-sardonically.

"No," he says, irritation written all over his face. "The glass is a decoder. It allowed the Naddists to read the Beast Riders' coded messages, and I assume it would work the same way today. I haven't really tried it."

"Why?"

"Because we shouldn't play with forces we don't understand," Ahsoka interrupts. "If these are really Naddist artifacts, then their magic could be tainted with the Dark Side."

"Exactly. Which is why they can't fall into the wrong hands."

"Why didn't you just tell us from the beginning?" I demand. "Steela, Saw, and I – we would have kept the secret. You didn't have to go lying to all of us!"

"Yes, I did." He takes a second cookie from the box and feeds it to an expectant Sprinkles. "The relics hold incredible power, that's true. But there's also a reason that they weren't destroyed despite their power. These relics are keys."

Ahsoka and I lurch forward in their seats.

"What do they open?" she demands.

"Please tell me they don't open the tomb of Freedon Nadd," I say at the same time.

Tandin cracks a smile, and then his smile fades just as quickly. "No, they don't open the tomb of Freedon Nadd. According to legend, there's a second tomb in the catacombs below Iziz which may or may not actually contain a body. The artifacts are necessary to open the tomb and gain access to whatever's inside."

He doesn't need to elaborate on "whatever's inside." If you need magical artifacts to open it, then the tomb has to contain something. Whether it's unprecedented wealth or unprecedented power, it's something people will kill for.

"I don't know what it is," he says. "But I knew that Rash could never have something locked away by four enchanted relics. I stole them, split them up, and prayed that you would all pass them down to your children until their true purpose would never come to light."

"Until Jack and Maria stole the music box."

Tandin runs a hand through his hair. "It happened before they even landed. Last week, someone broke into my house while I was at work but nothing was stolen. I can only guess they were after the artifacts. When Jack and Maria stole the music box I thought they were also responsible for the break-in, so I secured the blade and checked in on you two frequently to make sure you still had the ring."

"Do you know who could be behind this?"

"No. Only King Dendup knew about the artifacts in the first place and I haven't breathed a word to anyone else."

Sprinkles lets out a whine and looks up at Tandin as if to ask him Hey, got more cookies?

I grab one from the box and hold it out to him, hoping to get on the anooba's good side. "Here you go, boy."

Sprinkles growls at me.

Ahsoka raises an eye marking. "General, was Sprinkles home during the burglary?"

"…Yes. Yes he was."

"And if our encounter with him was anything like the burglar's, and the burglar wasn't carrying a cooler of bantha steaks…"

My face lights up. "Ahsoka, you're a genius!"

"I know I am," she preens. "General Tandin, finding your burglar should be as easy as calling the local hositals and clinics. If they so much as breathed on your property, I'm willing to bet that Sprinkles took a bite out of them."

"I'm happy to help on that count," Tandin says and picks up his comlink. "Lux, get a tape measure. We'll need to measure Sprinkles' jaw."

"Nice Sprinkles," I squeak, holding a cookie in the air.

Ahsoka rolls her eyes. "Stop being a drama king, Lux."

"You're not the one he's eyeing like you're a big juicy bantha steak!"

"No," she says. "I'm not. I'm the one measuring his mouth, not that I should be scared of that. He's just a big sweetheart."

As if on cue, Sprinkles growls at me.

Meanwhile, Tandin is on the comlink.

"Hello, Iziz Municipal Hospital? This is General Tandin from the Royal Milita. I need the names of all your patients who came in to be treated for an anooba bite six days ago. The bite would be -."

"Five standard inches wide," Ahsoka says.

"Five standard inches wide," he says and pauses for a second.

"Yes, that's a very big anooba. Its owner is very concerned about security.

"Really? Just one?

"I'll need his name and address, ma'am. We need to talk to him."

And now it's time to gather up the remaining artifacts and to find out who broke into Tandin's house. Before anyone has to deal with blood magic.

Anyone who got the A Wrinkle In Time reference gets an internet cookie (::). I love that book.

Thank you to TessaFred, McAwsome, and jchrisharvey for your reviews. And speaking of which, please review!

Until next time,

LS