Chapter Ten – The Gods
In an earlier time, when Mortis was living and whole, the Father was watching his children play when the disturbance in the Force arrived. They were in their favored winged forms, flying up into the air as they curled around each other, tracing a double helix through the sky. In one way, the Father knew, they were already incredibly ancient beings, each having lived centuries longer than any sentient species in the galaxy could. But in another way, when compared to him for example, they were still very young, and their play was a reminder of that. Maturation could be allowed to take longer when possessed of almost inexhaustible life. His children could, if all went well, outlive the stars, and thus achieve their purpose. The Father, however, had already been old, even by the standards of his lost people, when his children had been created.
He had built for them this paradise, safe from the temptations and exigencies of the physical world, and had spent the greater part of his power to do it. It would all be worth it, he thought to himself, so long as they could grow into their power free from the corrupting influences of the world. Mortis was perfect in that respect, for they could not leave it without his permission. He only hoped he would endure long enough that they would be ready for what was to come, a world without him. Here on Mortis he could extend his life almost indefinitely, but not quite. The day would come, tens of thousands of years hence, when his strength would fail. But, he told himself, there was plenty of time before that; time to enjoy his children being children in this fortress he had made to protect them from the world, and the world from them.
It was his confidence in his fortress that made the disturbance in the Force so terrifying. This realm that no one should have been able to enter had been penetrated by not one but two Force users of tremendous power. His children, absorbed as they were in their playful exploration of their power, did not notice them, but the Father did. Unlike his offspring he did not need to travel by transforming himself, at least not on Mortis. He simply willed himself to the spot he wished to be at, and he moved to that spot. Or perhaps it was better to say that Mortis moved around him.
One moment he was looking up at his children and the next he was looking at a human woman and a large, hooded figure. They stood on the small mountain where he had already decided he would construct his monastic residence. Despite the many years he and his children had already been here, he had not begun the work. There were uncounted years ahead of them and he did not want to rush any aspect of its planning or construction. The woman had been startled by his appearance in the valley below them, but if the hooded figure took any notice of him, the Father could not tell.
The presence of these two intruders was deeply unsettling to the Father. He had no idea how they had found their way in, and thus had no idea what kind of power was at their disposal. Was the threat they posed one of strength that allowed them to push through the barriers he had created, or a cleverness that had found a way around them? He walked serenely towards them. The woman took a step towards him in turn, but stopped as the hooded figure reached out, a black gloved hand emerging from his robes, and grasped her shoulder. The two of them were going to wait for him to arrive, and it was clear that one among them was the leader. A master and an apprentice, the Father thought, despite knowing the time had not come for such things.
By the time he reached them he could hear his children's wings in the distance behind him. They had noticed his departure and gone looking for him. He hoped their curiosity would not unbalance the situation, if balance there was to be found in it.
"Welcome brave souls, to Mortis," the Father said to his mysterious guests.
"Hello," the woman said hesitantly. The man, the Father was somehow sure it was a man, said nothing and when the Father turned his mind towards the mysterious stranger he found nothing but a wall. What manner of being had the strength in the Force necessary to resist even his gentlest probing? Surely only his own brethren, most of whom were long dead and none of whom would have condescended to come to Mortis. The Father pushed a bit harder at the mental wall and felt it give, if only a little. Behind it he sense only malevolence. The Dark Side.
"Why have you come here?" the Father asked, filled with trepidation.
"For help," the woman said, in whom the Father senses only a deep sadness. There was no trace of darkness in her. How had she come to serve the silent, hooded figure who accompanied her, he wondered.
"Hmmm, perhaps introductions would be in order before any requests are made, or considered," the Father answered.
"My name is Rey and this is…," she began before being cut off.
"Our names are of no consequence. They would mean nothing to you," her companion said.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. We see many things," the Father said as he heard his Son and Daughter land behind him. "Perhaps we have seen you and would know you."
"What are these creatures Father?" the Son asked.
"How did they come here?" the Daughter said shortly after.
"If I am not wrong they are humans," the Father said. "A new species, new to the galactic stage that is. I had not thought any of your kind possessed the ability to find us."
"A lie," the hooded figure said.
"You dare?" the Son spat.
"Brother please," the Daughter said softly while placing her hand gently on his back.
"I think what my companion means to say is that there is a woman in this time, or so we think, who was aware of you and able to find Mortis' location," Rey said.
The Father considered this answer for a time before answering, "Yes, I am aware of Myra."
"Myra?" Rey said, surprised.
"Does her name come as a surprise?" the Father asked.
"Her name, like ours, does not matter," the hooded man said.
"There are outsiders who can find us?" the Daughter asked in a frightened tone. The Son took her hand to comfort her just as she had soothed him.
"Fear not my child. Her mind ranges far, across time and space, but it is not for us that she searches," the Father said. "She seeks her lost family and others of her kind. She has no interest in us."
"If she can find us, so might others of her people," the Son said.
"No, there will not be another of her strength among her people for some time," the Father said, aware as he said it that both beings before him, one clearly human and one likely so, were both stronger than Myra. But he had begun to piece together what had happened. "And she has shared her knowledge of us with no one, of that I am sure."
"But yet they are here," the Daughter said.
"We didn't mean to frighten you, and I am sorry for the intrusion…," Rey began to say.
"You are sorry?" the Son laughed. "Sorry? You will be sorry. You do not belong here!" The sky darkened as the Son's rage grew and cold wind began to blow.
"Control him," the hooded figure said to the Father.
"CONTROL ME?" the Son screamed. He leapt in the air, taking his batlike form as he did so. Then, as quickly as he changed he was thrown back down, hitting the ground in his humanoid form. The Father felt it as the hooded figure lashed out with his own power, and as he stared into the darkness in which his face hid the Father became sure of what had happened.
"It is from the future that they come to us my son. Myra has not told you of us, but she will one day. I am surprised. I had thought her wiser than that," he said. The Son was getting slowly to his feet, clearly shocked at what had happened to him. He pushed his sister away rather than accept her help when she came to get him to his feet.
"Well she did ask us not to do this," Rey said.
"But you have done it anyway. I am curious as to how," the Father said.
Rey opened her mouth to answer but the hooded figure spoke first, "You know how, and you know too the details must remain hidden from you."
"What does he mean Father?" the Daughter asked.
"They came here from here, from Mortis in the future. But that means…," the Father said before closing his eyes. "Yes I understand."
"Understand what?" the Son demanded.
"You must leave me to speak to our visitors alone my children," the Father said.
"I will not be sent away!" the Son protested.
"Please Father, let us remain with you," the Daughter said.
"Do as I say! I will deal with this situation and when it is safe I will send for you," the Father said.
"Safe? Safe! You think we are in danger from these two animals!?" a shocked and angered Son said.
"If you have forgotten the flavor, I can give you another taste," the hooded man said, raising his gauntleted fist into the air in front of his hidden face.
The Father prepared himself to fight, knowing that his son would find it difficult to resist the provocation, and that the hooded figure contained power within himself to defeat his son. But before the situation could escalate further, Rey turned to the robed figure and placed her hand on his chest. His head tilted downward at her and for a moment they simply traded wordless looks. After a few seconds she turned back to the Father.
"Please, we don't mean any harm," she said to the beings before her. "We need your help. The galaxy needs your help."
"The galaxy will need our help you mean," the Father replied.
"Yes," she said.
"But they have you. If you are powerful enough to enter Mortis unbidden, then what problem is there that you cannot solve yourselves?" he asked.
"We…," Rey began to say.
"She is the only one left," the man said.
The Father absorbed this statement for a time, looking once more into the darkness beneath the hood, before saying, "You have passed on."
"Yes," he said.
"But you have not become one with the Force," the Father said.
"A secret learned shortly before everything else was destroyed," the figure said.
If this information surprised the Father he did not show it. He turned to Rey and asked, "And you are?"
"The last Jedi," Rey said sadly.
"The galaxy got on quite well without the Jedi for a very long time. In the whole history of intelligent life in this galaxy the Jedi are but the smallest blip. And if they are so important, I imagine this one," the Father said, pointing to Anakin, "can keep those traditions alive indefinitely. Indeed, one suspects he could teach you his method for avoiding absorption into the Cosmic Force."
"You don't know what happens. You don't understand," Rey said.
"And I suppose you cannot show me, for it is my own future you would be revealing," the Father guessed. "Since you seem familiar with me and my children, I must suppose that we survive almost to this time of tribulations you are so desperate to…what? What is it you hope to do?"
"We seek…," Rey started to say, before trailing off. The Father could sense her trepidation.
"The World Between Worlds," the hooded figure said. "The power of which you are the guardians."
"You will not find power there," the Father said stiffly.
"I read about it. In the ancient Jedi texts. And you told…another Jedi I met that you defended the power. The power to defy time," Rey said.
At this the Brother laughed harshly. He and his sister had pulled back at their father's command, but had not departed the scene entirely.
"They want to travel through time Father!" he yelled mockingly. "They think to change what has already been. These are the fools you would have me fear?"
"If you will not honor your father enough to obey his commands, at least be silent!" the Father shouted. "My son is right, however. If you seek the paths through time, you should know that they cannot be used for the future to travel to the past."
"But the ancient Jedi, they say some have gone there before and interacted with their past," Rey said, desperation in her voice.
"The past can be touched; it can even be pulled onto the paths. But the future may not intrude upon the past. You seek no doubt to travel to a time before whatever calamity you seek to undo. That is not possible. You are not there, so you cannot be there. The paths, the doors beyond time, they cannot create something from nothing. I am sorry. I can appreciate that you have given up much to be here, but your hope was in vain," the Father said.
"But if they can interact with the past, the past knows something of the future. Warnings could be given," the hooded figure said.
"Yes, but none of them could change what has already been. Whatever you told them, whatever you did, could not make what you have already seen happen not happen. If it did, then no one would have warned the past, for you would not have known to do it," the Father said.
"But we aren't in the future anymore. We are already in the past, here with you," Rey objected.
"You are not in the past. You are not in your present either. Mortis does not exist in the time of your world; it has its own. All moments are present here, it is only in our minds that we perceive them passing away and coming to be," the Father said, shaking his head sadly.
"We are already there aren't we?" the hooded figure asked as he looked around.
"Yes, Mortis is within what you have called the World Between Worlds. Here my children are safe, and here we can defend this place from those who would misuse it," the Father said.
"But you said they can't change anything, so what is there to protect?" Rey asked.
Before the Father could answer her companion interjected, "Because it's a lie."
"It is no lie. You cannot go back," the Father said grimly.
"We will," the hooded figure insisted.
"You cannot change anything!" the Father yelled.
"If that were true you would not be so desperate to dissuade us. This place, Mortis, and the place it is located within, they were made. They were created. It is part of the Force and life creates the Force. Once upon a time, before life, this place did not exist. And what was created might not have been created. And then things would be different wouldn't it? Then all those who ever walked the paths between worlds, and all who ever will, they would not have done so, and had no influence on their pasts. And no one would have glimpsed their future. It is a lie, the lie you tell to hide the secret, to trick the unworthy into giving up the quest," the hooded man said. "We will try without your help if you make us. You cannot stop us. You cannot stop me."
"The danger in what you attempt…," the Father started to say before trailing off. "Yes, the past can be changed, but it is beyond you, beyond any." After saying this the Father took several steps back and sat down on a stone that rose from the ground to meet him just as he did so. He was old, but until that moment he had not felt the weariness of his age.
"Why?" Rey asked.
"We have the power to come here, against your will, here in our past. We have already done it. He simply seeks to frighten us," the hooded figure said.
Rey looked at the hooded figure and shook her head. She turned back to the Father, and knelt down before him so she could look up into his downturned eyes.
"Please," she said.
"It is not a matter of your power," the Daughter said from behind them.
"Quiet sister!" the Brother hissed.
"No," she responded. "You cannot change just the past. You have to change everything, everything but this place. The universe as a whole must be reshaped, changed. From beginning to end."
"What can do that?" Rey asked, looking past the Father who was smiling sadly at his daughter's words.
"Only the Force itself," the Father said. "The Cosmic Force, which lies beyond time, and behind it."
"And you cannot make the Cosmic Force do anything. You see, it is not a matter of your power. It is not about strength. It is about convincing the Cosmic Force, the sum total of all the life that has ever been, will ever be, to reshape reality," the Daughter said.
"What does that mean?" the hooded figure asked.
"You seek to redirect the trajectory of the world, to take what might have been and make it what is, to substitute one story for another," the Father said.
"So you must make the story a good one," the Daughter said.
"But we cannot do so by entering the past ourselves?" Rey asked. The Daughter shook her head and Rey continued, "What if one of us is already there? What if they have no body to take through?"
"It has never been done, never been attempted," the Father said. "But if you are what I take you to be," he said looking at the hooded figure, "if you are truly one who has transcended mortality and reside in the Living Force, perhaps through you this might be done."
"We will attempt it," the hooded figure said.
"What makes you think we will allow that?" the Son interjected.
"What makes you think you can stop it?" came the response from within the shadows beneath the hood.
"Be silent my son!" the Father called out. "I will accompany them. You and your sister remain here. I shall return shortly."
After saying this the Father held up his hand and closed his eyes. When he did so it seemed too all those assembled there that darkness descended suddenly, and completely, on the world of Mortis.