The Seventh Wave
Chapter Fifteen
by
Destina Fortunato

From the Adar Book of Prophecy, Getren Version, Chapter V, Section The Last:

A new age shall dawn; war shall come upon the Order. Seven years shall there be of struggle; seven years shall there be of death; seven years shall there be of despair; seven years shall there be of redemption.

One shall come, Chosen among all others, to restore balance between Light and Darkness. One among many, grown into purpose. By the light shall ye know the Chosen among his people; by the vagaries of fate shall ye know his purpose. Seek not, for ye shall not find him. He shall be revealed to you when the time of the Destroyer is come.

***

Obi-Wan sprawled flat on his back, just where he’d fallen, and stared up at Yoda’s ears. They were twitching, something Obi-Wan remembered well from his early days of training. The fluttering ears could only mean his master was displeased.

“Focus. Concentrate.” Yoda stared down at him with one of those particularly searching looks, and Obi-Wan was eight again, shrinking back into the mats. Admiration for his teacher’s skills had colored everything Obi-Wan did as a young apprentice. The feeling had returned with a vengeance as soon as Yoda knocked him down with minimal effort – with a maneuver Obi-Wan had learned to counter years ago.

Still, he couldn’t give Yoda the upper hand. Too much time had passed; too many changes, for them both, and he was no mere student any longer. “It’s been a trying day, Master Yoda.”

Yoda’s ears flattened to his head. “Excuses now, have you? This from a Regent of Imperial worlds? Disappointed, am I.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “No longer a Regent. In case you had failed to notice.”

“Ahhhh! Hot-tempered still, I see.” Yoda clucked his tongue. “Argumentative, are you. Impatient. Changed little, in all these years.”

“I’m simply tired,” Obi-Wan said. It was easier than the alternative – too much to tell, too many feelings still raw and new. All too much. Emotions crowded together in his head, in his heart, jostling for attention. No room to breathe; no time to reason, to think things through.

“Up.” Yoda waved the hilt of his lightsaber at Obi-Wan. “Up!”

Obi-Wan flexed his muscles, tapped into the Force, and leapt to his feet. Yoda matched the movement. His lightsaber was a cool blue against the green of Obi-Wan’s saber as they circled one another warily.

“It’s been some time since I sparred this way,” Obi-Wan said. “Many years.”

“Trained you, they did, in the Jedi arts,” Yoda said, and spun into the air to aim a deadly blow directly at Obi-Wan’s face. Obi-Wan countered and dodged the blow easily. “Difficult, is Sith training. Deadly.”

“Yes.” Images flashed through Obi-Wan’s mind, a counterpoint to the erratic rhythm of their sparring. His Sith combat instructor, scarring a boy while the other students held him in place, drawing his initials on the boy’s thigh while he screamed. Another boy, maimed for life when his instructor’s live saber rammed through his shoulder, just above his heart. Moments in time he’d tried to leave behind, with little success. He’d had to pretend to be clumsy, inept, to forget every bit of skill Yoda had drilled into him. The cost had been enormous.

“Focus!” Yoda ordered sharply. Obi-Wan yanked his attention back to the present with effort, but not in time to avoid a sizzling cut to his cheek. “In the moment, you must be!”

Obi-Wan took a few running steps and was in the air, spinning, whirling, faster than an untrained eye could follow. Yoda matched his movements, turn for turn, and their sabers met, over and over until they were a frenzied blur in midair.


***

“Are you certain you’re well enough for this?” Qui-Gon pointed to Xan’s ribs with the hilt of his saber. “Your injuries were quite severe. I had difficulty healing them.”

“I need the distraction,” Xan answered. He smiled and pressed one hand to his chest, a gesture of dismissal, shunting aside Qui-Gon’s concern. “I will take a rest period if I require it.”

“Or if I require it,” Qui-Gon said. Xan’s amusement and surprise registered clearly on his face, and Qui-Gon understood the reasons why. The tone of authority had returned very quickly, and without prompting.

“Still my teacher, after all these years,” Xan said. “Perpetually asserting your authority.”

“Not of late,” Qui-Gon said. “The student has had much to teach the teacher.”

They looked long at one another, until finally Xan broke the moment by beginning his stretches.

Together, they ran through a brief kata, one designed for warm-up. It was the simplest of the exercises Qui-Gon had long ago taught Xan. He could still remember how Xan had chuckled as the boy swayed and wobbled his way through the first few tries. Qui-Gon had worked hard to remain stern, to stem the tide of laughter, but it had been difficult. Xan’s enthusiasm had been hard to resist.

“Your skills are not as sharp as I remember,” Qui-Gon said. He took a few steps back and regarded Xanatos’ tense posture with a teacher’s eye. “You hesitate to draw upon the Force.”

“I haven’t had cause to employ these particular skills in quite some time,” Xan said. “I practiced the katas when I could, but…there was so little privacy, in the seraglio. As you know.”

“No, I suppose not. Perhaps it would be better if we—”

“No,” Xan said. His direct gaze halted Qui-Gon’s unspoken suggestion. “Would you have me go back to my duties unprepared?”

“You are hardly unprepared.”

“I will improve.”

“So you will,” Qui-Gon said, and struck forward, moving into Xan’s territory with easy strokes of the saber, over, under, to the side. Xan activated his saber and countered him at each stroke.

“You are far better than I remember,” Xan said, breathing heavily, as they circled to a halt.

“You were young then, and arrogant. Always of a mind to best your teacher,” Qui-Gon said, with a small smile. “I’ve had a great deal of practice since I last saw you on Coruscant.”

“Yes,” Xan said. “I suppose so. I should have been at your side through those years.”

“I should have seen to it that you were.”

Blue eyes flashed surprise, then became guarded again. “You could not have known. The collar prevented me from reaching out to you. The training bond was useless.”

“Your safety was still my responsibility. Had I known you were not dead, I would have come for you. I should never have stopped looking.”

Xan’s fingers tightened on the saber. “I don’t blame you.”

“Yes. You do.” Qui-Gon lowered his arm and deactivated his saber. “And so you should. But you can’t cling to this forever. Nor can I. Cleanse the bitterness and be free of it. Let this be the last time we speak of the past.”

“It was the will of the Force,” Xan said. His hand lifted, traced the outline of the bracelet on his arm. “If you had come for me, I would not have been sold into slavery by the Sith. I would not have been the one to watch over Obi-Wan, and I would not have been of use to him there.”

Qui-Gon could not take his eyes from the bracelet encircling Xan’s upper arm. He had been anxious to remove his mark of bondage, to wipe that memory from his mind and retain only the essence of it, to deal with what it meant to him as a man and as a Jedi. He needed no reminders for that process to begin. But Xan…

“When will you remove the bracelet?” Qui-Gon asked quietly. “You are no man’s slave any longer.”

“When I am ready,” Xan said. In the blink of an eye, Xan’s saber sparked to life and he leapt for Qui-Gon, slashing, pressing, cutting down, over and over.

Qui-Gon fended off the blows and retreated, always circling back, back, back again, drawing Xan with him in an endless circle.

***

From the Adar Book of Prophecy, Getren Version, Chapter V, Section The Last:

Obeying not the prohibitions, the Destroyer will come, spreading Darkness two by two across the stars. One master shall there be, and one apprentice; yet, the Darkness heeds not the ancient wisdom. Worlds shall fall before the strength of the Dark Side. Two by two they rise unseen, invisible, in the midst of order; three by three shall they be conquered.

*******

One erratic stroke of the saber after another, and Obi-Wan landed on the ground with a thud. He rolled over, panting; he couldn’t get enough air into his burning lungs. He was barely keeping up. He felt as though he was a first year student again. And his teacher was there, not even winded, looking at him with a gaze that cut straight through his straining lungs into his heart, into the very core of his being.

“If escape your memories you cannot, embrace them you must. Flow through you, they will. Feel the Force within you,” Yoda said. “Let it wash away this pain.”

“Nothing can do that,” Obi-Wan said. A knot formed, hard in the pit of his stomach, born of a thousand doubts and regrets. “It’s too late.”

“Never too late,” Yoda said. “Reach out, you must. Feel the Force. Let it work within you.”

“To what end?” Obi-Wan asked. He rolled to a sitting position. “Nothing can undo what I’ve done. Nothing can nullify the pain I’ve caused.” He fell silent for a moment as he struggled to breathe normally. “What’s done is done.”

“So it is,” Yoda said. “Embrace it, you must.”

“I cannot. What you ask of me is impossible.”

“From the beginning, it was so,” Yoda said. His quiet words cut deep, sharp edges straight through blood and bone. “Always impossible, was this task before you. Yet completed it you did.”

“No – not me. It was never me.” Obi-Wan pushed up from the mat and stood. “Xanatos solved this problem for you when he killed Anakin.”

“Did he?” Yoda squinted up at Obi-Wan with that wise, steely gaze, and Obi-Wan sighed. “Think you your responsibility ended, then?”

“I am not that foolish,” Obi-Wan answered, with a small smile.

“Remain clear, the memories must. Let them.” Yoda was in the air, and on the ground – everywhere at once. “In motion, the body must be, so the mind can follow.”

Obi-Wan began moving, jerkily, like a man long out of practice with the simple motion of limbs through air. Like a tide hastening toward shore, memories rushed back upon Obi-Wan, flowing through him, through the Force, magnified a hundred-fold or more.

“You are skilled with the saber,” the old man said. He reached out with a single finger, pointing to the door. “Still, your training is not complete. You may not carry it with you when you leave this place.”

“I understand, Master.” A deep bow, one of respect, but given without depth of feeling. A finger on his chin to lift it, to bring his face to the scrutiny of the Emperor.

“You have but this one chance to serve me, so you must serve me well. Lead the boy into an understanding of his true place in the galaxy, and you shall have a place here, beside me.” The Emperor gestured to the empty space beside him, a place where no one had ever stood save a few trusted advisors. A place reserved for the one who would follow him, who would be his primary apprentice. A coveted spot, one Anakin was to occupy, if Obi-Wan could not achieve his mission.

“I will,” Obi-Wan promised, and dropped his eyes –

“Get up!”

Chun hovered over him, malicious in victory. “Get up, you worthless piece of bantha fodder! Up!”

Obi-Wan crawled backwards, away, as far from Chun as he could, and stood. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth; he wiped it away.

“You never could beat me,” Chun sneered. “You clumsy idiot. I will be at the Master’s right hand. It doesn’t matter who you’re related to. It’s a fluke.”

“Think so?” Obi-Wan couldn’t resist; the taunt came to his lips, unbidden.

“Know so.” Chun spat at his feet. “I’m better than you. I’ll always be better than you, you ass-kissing…” –

“Your name?”

“Xanatos.”

“You will serve me personally.”

“It is my honor to serve.”

Graceful bow, and a look of gratitude; Obi-Wan was undone from the start. –

Thrusting deep, deep, never deep enough, always seeking to be inside, and never really reaching the places where desire lurked, elusive. Obi-Wan  mingled Xan’s sounds of pleasure with his own vast guilt and drew the pain through his heart like a threaded needle, stitching up the edges of need and necessity, and did not think of what it might cost. –

“You will kneel.” A Jedi. And a fugitive, at that. Obi-Wan looked at the man and wanted him. Wanted his obedience, his power. His will. It had been so long since he’d seen a living Jedi; he’d nearly forgotten what it could be like, to be free, to have a cause, a purpose so clear and open for anyone to see. Qui-Gon looked up at him, eyes filled with wary compassion, and Obi-Wan wondered if he could survive this compulsion to free the man, to let him go, against every Imperial edict –

The bracelet glistened against smooth skin. Obi-Wan traced it gently, fingers light against metal and skin for fear of waking Qui-Gon. This was not what he had planned, not what he had wanted, or had been taught to anticipate. A Jedi, in his bed; a willing slave. –

“These women are yours,” Valorum told him. Something subtle must have changed on his face; Valorum gripped his arm in an iron clasp. “Do not show your emotions,” he hissed. “You must not.”

“I can’t accept them,” Obi-Wan said, in a tone as pale as his face must be. Slavery – how many times had Master Yoda told him he must never bind another sentient being to him, nor permit a sentient being to be bound?

“If you do not, all will be lost,” Valorum said. His grip tightened on Obi-Wan’s arm like a band of steel, merciless in its insistence. “Accept these gifts. I will find a place for them and you need never see them again.”

“They’ll know,” Obi-Wan said simply. He looked at Valorum. “The Emperor has spies everywhere. I’ll have to keep favorites.”

“Then choose,” Valorum answered, just as simply. No pretense; no point in ignoring the practical nature of the challenge ahead.

Obi-Wan inspected each one of the male slaves presented to him. One man looked up, then glanced away, afraid of having been caught in the act of staring at the Regent. His green eyes lingered in Obi-Wan’s mind, an afterimage of strength. “That one,” he said, and pointed. “And that one,” he added, with a gesture to the smaller blue-eyed blond beside his first choice.

“I’ll have them brought to the seraglio,” Valorum said. Then, under his breath –“Never forget, this is your privilege and obligation.”

“It is not my obligation to subjugate others,” Obi-Wan whispered. “I cannot do this thing.”

And yet, it had been so easily accomplished. How naïve he had been, in those early days, and how foolish to think he could withstand the torrents of desire.  –

Xan’s mouth on his cock; Xan’s hands on his body. Qui-Gon on his knees, accepting a fate he could no longer control. Ket’al bent across his bed, moaning, guttural sounds, welcoming Obi-Wan into his body. Valorum, carrying out his orders, killing rebels and maiming Imperial enemies. –

“I will have your obedience,” Obi-Wan whispered, as he smoothed Qui-Gon’s hair.

“I will do what I must, and only what I must.” The bond thrummed between them, strong, inexplicable. “Nothing has changed in that regard.” —

Anakin’s hatred made him weak, and his command of the Force was unsteady. It would be so easy to kill him, to lock him away. Proclaim it an accident; take what was Obi-Wan’s by right…

The ground met Obi-Wan hard, unyielding; he crashed back down, concentration shattered as the turmoil within him spread out into the Force surrounding them. He flung his saber away, a useless thing, no longer an extension of his arm as it had been when he was a child. He drew his knees up close against his chest and buried his face against his folded arms. “I am not fit to be a Jedi.”

Yoda did not speak, but stood near – waiting, perhaps, to see if Obi-Wan was broken, if he would rise from the floor once more and engage in pointless sparring. Better if his teacher were to strike him down, Obi-Wan thought; no Jedi could have mistaken the rush of bitterness and fear he’d released into the Force. His silence was strength, as it had always been for Obi-Wan, but there was no comfort in it now.

Obi-Wan raised his head and looked into Yoda’s eyes. The stern kindness there penetrated all defenses. Obi-Wan’s walls crumbled. Slowly, he said, “The Code meant nothing to me in that place. I took what I wanted. Not only what I had to take, but what I wanted. Anything I wanted. The power…the obligation of it…”

“What say you, Obi-Wan, to the question of abandoning the Code? Did you, or did you not?” The question was gentle; it burned like acid.

“I don’t know. Yes. No. There were…shades of Darkness, of Light. I don’t know anymore.”

“Hmph.” Yoda’s gruff noise told Obi-Wan the answer was not enough. “Avoiding the question, are you.”

“You knew I could not withstand it,” Obi-Wan hissed angrily. “The need for power was too great. I was only a boy. How did you expect me to resist?”

“Temptations there were, in abundance. Still – maintain a balance you did, and do.”

“You don’t know that. I survived the Sith only because I could not complete my training. Fate intervened.” Obi-Wan dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I clung to the ideals you drilled into me. Freedom for the galaxy. Get close to the Emperor. Assassinate him at the first opportunity. Do you know what it was like, to be so close to that…that…” Words failed him; he groped for a way to express his pain. “And to believe he was reaching straight into my mind? To wait for him to hear my thoughts, to know my plan? I was sixteen. I was…I was alone.”

“No.”

“Don’t,” Obi-Wan said wildly. “Don’t say the Force was with me. I betrayed what you taught me, my master.”

Yoda was silent for a long moment. He leaned against his walking stick, the picture of the wizened, kindly teacher he always appeared to be, to the younger students – but his eyes were blazing with determination. “Think you any other Jedi could have walked this line, between the Dark Side and the Light? Wrong you would be. Misguided. Chosen, you were, for this task – faith we had, but more than that. Belief. Trained you we did, but true to the Force, which was strong with you. Always strong, in your family.”

The words barely registered with Obi-Wan. Like distant noise, he shut them out, and they rolled off his skin like water. “I killed. I ordered others killed. I demanded strict obedience. I took what others would not give. I used them. All of them. I would have done more, taken more. I could have. I wanted to.” The words tumbled forth, poison released into speech, freeing Obi-Wan’s heart one bit at a time.

“All true,” Yoda said. Obi-Wan looked up at him; the expression on Yoda’s face was hard to decipher. “Wanted to, and yet, you did not. Saved lives, you did. Hundreds. Thousand, perhaps. In time, know this you will. Conflict there remains within you. So it will be for some time to come. What you have done – come to terms with it, you will, for done it was in service to the Jedi, and to the Force.”

“So you say.” Obi-Wan’s head seemed too heavy for his body. His heart pounded in his chest; the knot in his stomach rose, to become a tight lump in his throat, strangling him. “What does your other spy say now? Did he tell you how I used him? How I enjoyed it? How I forced Qui-Gon to bend to my will as well, when I desired it?”

“A disservice this is, to a brave man who served you well,” Yoda said. “Choices were made. Not all choices were yours. More to this, there was. Too stubborn to see this, are you? Or too proud?”

“The bond means nothing. It’s—”

“The will of the Force,” Yoda finished for him. “For Qui-Gon, perhaps. Think you Xan’s place in this was not of your doing?”

Obi-Wan found he could not speak. He thought of Xan, of the moments of weakness when he had entrusted his plans, his feelings, to a slave. Memories crowded him, made him vulnerable to the doubts Yoda urged within him. He remembered the warmth of Xan’s body against his own, the healing touch of familiar hands against his skin. He thought of Xan, dying slowly at the hands of Bruck Chun.

“It was his duty,” Obi-Wan said dully. “Duty drove his actions; nothing more.”

“Perhaps. Know this man, you do, and yet you do not.”

“I can’t know someone who was never what they appeared to be.”

“And you, Jedi? What of you?” Yoda’s emphasis on his title made Obi-Wan wince.  “Appeared as one thing, you did – enemy of the Jedi, ally of the Sith. Knew you, then, did Qui-Gon? No. Yet knew your heart, he did.”

“I don’t know what to believe, anymore.”

“Simpler it was, when all was beneath your control, hmm?” Yoda’s firm touch on his shoulder anchored Obi-Wan. “Control is an illusion. Power, hate, desperation, anger – fleeting things. Truth remains when all else is gone.”

Obi-Wan raised his head. “I cannot love them both,” he said.

“So small is your heart, that you cannot find room for both?” Yoda patted his arm, then moved away. “Seek answers, you must. Meditate. All will become clear in time.”

“You know, don’t you? Why these bonds have formed – why this is happening.” Obi-Wan’s eyes narrowed. “Why won’t you tell me, Master?”

“Suspicions I have, nothing more, but only for this bond with Qui-Gon. Xanatos…this matter is more complicated.” Yoda’s lips thinned into a straight line. “More to say on this, I have, but not here. Meditate, you must; answers are there, to be found.”

“Cryptic to the last,” Obi-Wan sighed. “Why is it that you’ve never given me a straight answer in all these years? Are the Jedi incapable of answering simple questions?”

“Learn more, you do, when answers do not come easily.”

“You forget I have been a teacher, too,” Obi-Wan said. His heart filled with regret, for opportunities lost, for tasks left incomplete, as Anakin’s face leapt into his mind’s eye.

“Some students do not learn.” Yoda turned and shuffled away slowly. “Meditate, now,” he called back over his hunched shoulder.

Obi-Wan stared after Yoda. Meditate. As if that was the answer to all universal questions. A typical Jedi solution to a problem too complicated to solve with simplicity.

Rage smoldered just beneath the surface, where Obi-Wan’s guilt and self-doubt flourished. He’d released the feelings into the Force; time and again, over the many years with the Sith. Each time he’d subjugated a slave, and enjoyed it. Each time he had violated the Code Yoda taught with such reverence. Each moment he looked at Anakin and resented him, resented his presence and the catalyst he’d become, and tried to discern if he was truly the Chosen One. Every time he’d saved a Jedi from death, and wondered how he could continue without jeopardizing his mission.

He’d learned to savor the anger, to hold it close in the darkest moments, when the lives of innocents on Taganor rested in his hands. It kept him sane, until he could fling it far from him, and begin again.

He’d reveled in his power. It was his secret, and his shame; it was the battle he’d waged throughout his time among his enemy. One of them, and yet alone. But not alone.  

So much had changed. So many things to consider. Darkness had crept into him, had turned his heart to ashes, and he was tired.

Face in his hands, he closed his eyes, opened his heart and wept.


*****

Xan made two quick stabs forward, tagged by a subtle manipulation of the Force. Qui-Gon was forced to use a trick of his own to spin out and away from the coming blow.  

“I didn’t teach you that,” Qui-Gon gasped, as Xan pressed his attack.

“No,” Xan said. “Master Billaba taught me.”

They fell silent again as the intensity of the mock battle notched up, each man deep in concentration, completely in tune with the Force. Qui-Gon felt Xan’s resolve, his focus. Xan was younger and faster; he moved quickly, but Qui-Gon had the advantage of long years of intuition, and could sense where Xan would carry through his moves.

As if by mutual agreement, they began to slow the pace of their sparring, cooling down through feints and lazy aerial maneuvers. Xan was stealth personified, Qui-Gon thought. He would be a formidable Jedi, and none of it was due to his tutelage.

“You’ll be made a Knight,” Qui-Gon observed, as they came to a halt in the center of the floor. “I suppose the Council will have plans for you.”

“I may have plans of my own,” Xan said, in a neutral tone.

“You’ll go where the Council sends you,” Qui-Gon said. In the back of his mind, he ran through the Council’s scattered plans. There was no organization, no central plan. Should the meeting with Bail Organa produce no tangible gain, the Jedi would return to a nomadic existence, dying out one by one until none were left. It was his hope this would not come to pass; he wondered if Xan had any idea what was in store.

“Perhaps.” Xan deactivated his saber and hooked it to his belt. His uniform was an odd mixture of Jedi rough cloth and native silks. He still wore a sleeveless black tunic, obtained on board ship, but his pants and boots were standard Jedi issue, black instead of the more traditional brown. “I would prefer to go where the Council sends Obi-Wan.”

Qui-Gon stopped to consider the implication of Xan’s words. Since their return, he had avoided the conversation and the questions surrounding the bond, but now the evidence of it was here before him, and there was no escaping it. “It may be the choice is not yours to make, Xanatos.”

“Or yours.” Xan’s head tilted to the side. “Will you abide by his choice, Master?”

“It is, as you say, the will of the Force,” Qui-Gon said mildly.

Xan smiled, a rough, sad smile. “There is no answer to my question in your response.”

“Then best to leave it for now, don’t you think?” Qui-Gon’s head tilted a bit as well. Impasse.

“There’s certainly nothing to be gained by pressing the issue. That much, I remember.” Xan shook his head.

Qui-Gon smiled at him. “Then you did come away with a lasting lesson, after all.”

“Not the only one, I assure you. Your methods of—” Xan’s eyes widened; he stepped back, away from Qui-Gon.

Like an incandescent flare, the bond rose up between them, a direct link to Obi-Wan’s thoughts and feelings. Qui-Gon struggled to catch his breath as his instincts battered at him: go to him. Despair, loss, pain, guilt, horror…and too many other vague emotions, cluttered together in one agonized cry.

Xan began to run, but Qui-Gon caught his arm. “No. You cannot.”

“And you can?” Xan twisted, ready to strike. “Release me. Do you not feel it?”

“I do.” Qui-Gon fought to close the link, to stifle the urgency gnawing at his heart. “These are not demons you or I can fight. This is Obi-Wan’s battle. It is not our affair.”

“It is now. We are linked to him.” The pain in Xan’s voice wrenched at Qui-Gon. “Let me go to him!”

“No.”

“Is this how it will be, then? You’ll try to keep me from him?” Xan knocked Qui-Gon’s hand away. “Your bond with him gives you no claim to him beyond that which he allows.”

“That is true,” Qui-Gon said, and lifted his hand again, as if to stop Xan by suggestion alone. “But you must not go to him.”

“Get out of my way.” Quiet, and dangerous; this was the thin edge of menace Qui-Gon remembered well in his student, and it had intensified over the many years since that memory.

“No,” Qui-Gon said, and stepped closer. Xan’s face changed, subtly; his eyes flashed a warning. For a moment, Qui-Gon wondered if he would resort to violence to pass. He placed his hand on Xan’s shoulder. “Some things a man must face alone.”

Xan looked hard at Qui-Gon. “You believe he does not want me there.”

“I believe the presence of anyone else will only increase his pain. You can feel it. You know the torment is born of his past deeds. Let him release them and move on.”

“Move on,” Xan echoed. His body was vibrating with alarm; without touching him, Qui-Gon could feel it, could sense the mirror of that anguish in his own skin.

They stood together, eyes fixed on the door, and waited.

*****

Entering the void. It was how Yoda had once described the process of meditation. Obi-Wan could still remember Yoda describing the Force as the invisible sky that filled the void, lifting him to places he could not find alone. Obi-Wan felt as though he had been sitting at the edge of the void for years, staring into its depths, meditating just deeply enough to find his strength and renew his focus…but nothing more.

Obi-Wan extended his thoughts into the emptiness and reached for the Force, drawing it to him like an old friend, one too often ignored. It slipped from his grasp; his control was tenuous. His concentration wavered.

The vastness of his own heart beckoned him in. He let himself fall, let the Force carry him forward. He had come as a seeker, but the Force would not reveal its will to him. It pressed at him, hard and suffocating, against him, not through him, and he opened his mind just a bit more.

Waves of energy, of white light. This was what he sought. Images, splinters of larger truths; he called them to him, assembled the puzzle from its tiniest pieces.

Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan could feel his strength flowing in the Force, as he had from the moment they met. More than that, there was…courage. Compassion. Even forgiveness. Something…essential. Obi-Wan considered the possibility of breaking the bond.

Essential. The answer came unbidden with all the Force of a shout, echoing in his mind. A tie that could not be broken. Not Obi-Wan’s choice to make.

Xanatos. Deeper, this bond was. Different. Obi-Wan felt his need, his desire. There was a calm beneath the desperate burning of Xan’s heart; he could feel it, just as he had always felt it. A new bond. It called to Obi-Wan, thrummed with a unique intensity. This sensation…not new. It had been there, just beneath, always, a feeling with no name. Too dangerous.

Something worked within him, a twining, grasping sensation of aloneness.

Slowly, Obi-Wan gave his fears over to the Force, and understanding began to come. Tied to both, inextricable. Flashes of understanding filled the void. Feelings did not matter; duty was irrelevant. A larger picture, then. Something beyond their control. Beyond Obi-Wan’s needs or desires. Love…love was not the key, nor the bridge, nor the foundation. It was outside. Apart.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and whispered to the empty room. “Xan.”

*****

From Master Dev Ariy-Arya’s ‘Interpretations of Ancient Wisdom’, Volume Six:

Master Sedet’s strange and convoluted prophecies leave us with little certainty as to the substance of his visions. He issued his divinations while deep in the throes of meditation, yet could offer little clarification once he rose from his state of trance. Three of his prophecies are known to be true in hindsight, though a complete understanding of events in relation to their foretelling did not become available until after the events described came to pass. Deciphering these word puzzles has been the study of lifetimes for hundreds of scholars.

One such prophecy has recently been reinterpreted as the imminent fall of the Order. In ominous verse, Master Sedet has left his veiled warning to the modern age.

From the deeper world, in the time of Darkness
The invisible shall come,
The unseen power swelling in the World
Rising in cities, in lands,
Across the stars,
Over borders, across frontiers,
Nothing shall withstand its reach.
The symbols of fear shall be seen
In every corner and crossing,
Anger and greed, hatred and destruction,
The assassin at hand.
From the deeper world, in the time of Darkness,
The invisible shall come.
At the still point of destruction,
In the center of fury,
In every living thing,
The wave shall rise.
Twice in bondage, thrice in thrall,
One wave of blood, one of death, one of silence,
One of solitude, one of hope, one of renewal.
From the empire of the invisible, in the time of Darkness,
The invisible shall come,
Three for the seventh wave.


Yoda closed the book slowly and tapped the cover. Two other ancient texts shared space on the table, alongside a dozen datapads and other research materials. Some of what he most needed was long gone, destroyed in the library of the Temple many years before. The resources available had thinned to a tiny pool of knowledge, instead of the once-vast repository the Jedi had built over two millennia. Yoda did not often feel the strong pangs of loss, for he had never been tied to material things, but on occasions such as this…yes. When what was needed could not be obtained, it was a source of frustration.

He let his mind drift, let it absorb the totality of Sedet’s prophecy. The annoyingly vague nature of the text was not impossible to conquer, but it would take time. Already, ideas were taking shape, coalescing into haunting patterns.

“Invisible,” Yoda murmured, and bent his head, eyes closed, turning the phrases over and over in his mind.

After some time, he glanced up again. Knight Bant, who had become the keeper of all the remaining texts, was watching him. “Master Yoda?”

“Your research,” Yoda said. “Found, have you, references to this prophecy of the seventh wave?”

Bant’s large eyes blinked closed once before she said, “No, Master Yoda. But I haven’t been through all the data. There’s still so much of it not cataloged and more comes in every day. Do you remember where I might find it?”

Yoda sighed. “A vague recollection only.”

“I’ll start searching right away,” Bant said, and collected the datapads from the table.

Learn more, you do, when answers do not come easily. Yoda chuffed a small laugh at the memory of his own words coming back to haunt him. He closed his eyes and spread the information out before him, words and images across the mental landscape of experience. All would become clear, in time.

End

Continue to Chapter Sixteen



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