The road was clear of traffic, open, leading to the inner heart of the south bay. All around were eucalyptus, palm trees, the hazy sky of midsummer and the wondrous blue of the western sky.

And through it all, cutting like a stare of hatred across a room, was the shimmering asphalt on which my car rode. That, and the cement walls, new with vines as part of the city’s beautification project. “The beautification of cities”. Never has an oxymoron so conjured my bile.

I swept past the beautiful palms too fast to notice them. Also escaping my notice was the pleasant breeze felt by the leaves of the eucalyptus as they closed their eyes and swayed naked in the wind. Nor did I see the timid rabbit, watching me from the palm’s base. The peace, the quiet — the whole essence of this field of nature — was divided irrevocably in two by the black proof of man’s scientific genius.

Not only was nature divided from nature, but man from nature as well. As if a straight line (forgive the metaphor) had bounded man’s soul, and forced him into the role of a spectator over what he had once known.

So clear, black, and definite, this “Straight Path” mean for oil-burning machines. But is the soul’s straight path so antithetical to the terrain surrounding it?

Now as I look to my left, I see those creeper vines along the cement wall again — but now they appear as animals, green geckos, scurrying over the side to return to their native home. Man’s industry has created a world within a world, and our attempts to import what we destroyed in creating it, only produces a mass exodus of those elements to their original habitat. Even the H-bombs appear as an infinitely subtle attempt on the part of those materials used for their construction, to return to the dust from whence they came.

Green lizards, leaping from the river of black that nips at their toes,
scampering with tremendous effort to reach the edge of that shore and beyond…

But where am I…
Who am I…
these are only creeper vines
planted for the gracing of a highway!

Perhaps my vision has unveiled to me
a secret yearning in the heart of things:
to return to their primeval nature.

The rocks crumbling underfoot went unnoticed next to the burning sun above. The air was dry, and quickly blew all moisture from Majnún’s skin, leaving a brief tingle as the evaporation cooled his arms. There was hardly a cloud to see, and on the ground was only cactus and rough bushes. Likely snakes and scorpions hid all around, but even they avoided the heat of the day. Hiking the desert at midday takes a special kind of madness — or a very special reason.

The next hill remained forever distant from Majnún’s laboring feet. Dust, the color of calfskin, stretched in all directions, with only a few sprays of green in the form of spiny plants. Even breathing took the moisture from one’s lungs, so Majnún drank constantly. His bottle of water grew lighter with every step.

Somewhere in all this chaparral lived a fair maiden — a princess of great reknown. He trekked to find her, and to present his gift of love, that she might favor him with a glance. It was said her gaze could heal wounds, and the shape of her face granted wishes. Certainly the stories he had heard in California promised nothing less. Could it be true? Had he found one who would touch his heart and leave in its place a thing of beauty and light? One foot following the other, he continued on his way to find out.

Even her name was a mystery. A ravishing women from the East, named after a famous nom de plume of a century ago. They say that, in public circles where many came to admire and capture her beauty, she used other names and told other tales. This only heightened the mystery of that precious being, who even now pulled at Majnún’s heart like a magnet deep in the Earth. Although the sun fell dim and blood red in the west, and his bottle carried less than a trickle, he knew the time was drawing near when he would find refreshment simply by her words, “I am here.”

The creatures of the desert regarded the wanderer in silent amusement. No fools for love, they. There is a wisdom in saving the heart, and keeping one’s focus on matters of food and shelter. But the lover who catches a glimpse of his hope — his beloved — cares nothing for the laws that govern ordinary lives. He goes from shelter to rain, from surfeit to famine, just to hear her name one last time. He is a creature foreign to the world of being. How well the Master relates:

Love accepteth no existence and wisheth no life: He seeth life in death, and in shame seeketh glory…. Blessed the neck that is caught in His noose, happy the head that falleth on the dust in the pathway of His love.

And dust there was, everywhere; and Majnún with a longing to throw his head — his life blood! — down upon it! to drain away his life in remembrance of her; to prove, by becoming a stain upon the ground, his undying devotion. To a lover, these are the marks of true living and the heights of glory.

But first, to find her — to tread this barren valley of Search on a mare both intemperate and slow. For Majnún recognized that his own being was the steed he rode, and so he willed each leg to chase the other down dusty trails and up crumbling hills. Each step was an insult to his thirst; every moment, a sliver of time pressing into his heart. But since the Master counsels patience, he whispered to each leg, to each cell, to hold back from their madness, until he could watch her smile and feel the dawn of reunion breaking over the dark night of absence.

The awesome cactii, with dusty arms reaching for heaven, said nothing. The rabbits here and there gave no comment. The first stars peeked in the darkness, and twinkled, but remained shy. The brushing of scaly bodies, and sinuous tracks through the dirt, was all that was heard from the snakes. Only the coyote and his plaintive howl seemed to agree that life without a sun is not enough. But while his sun had passed beyond the hills, Majnún’s had yet to rise in the East of recognition. Where was she?

Searching high and low, under rocks and behind trees, he looked for her. Everyone he passed, he questioned; every broken leaf he pondered for signs of her passing. As the Master told:

In every face, he seeketh the beauty of the Friend; in every country he looketh for the Beloved. He joineth every company, and seeketh fellowship with every soul, that haply in some mind he may uncover the secret of the Friend, or in some face he may behold the beauty of the Loved One.

But he met so few on the trail, and of her there were only hints and stories. He pursued them all, looking for whatever clue might lead to her palace. In the end, he even fell down on the dust, and begin sifting its grains, in case she had made the ground her home.

One must judge of search by the standard of the Majnun of Love. It is related that one day they came upon Majnun sifting the dust, and his tears flowing down. They said, “What doest thou?” He said, “I seek for Layli.” They cried, “Alas for thee! Layli is of pure spirit, and thou seekest her in the dust!” He said, “I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her.”

Where could she be? The hapless wanderer was out of food, out of water. He lived now on the energy of his own tissues. He consumed himself like a candle to give forth a weak flame in the night — his only guide. And like the candle, he wept hot tears streaking his face, and guttered whenever biting winds rose from the north. Almost without hope he struggled on, and lived for the one thought that perhaps she was near. His state recalled the Master’s tale:

From the rule of love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his heart’s wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow.

When shall it end? Feet numbed from travel, a heart weighing like stone, Majnún pushed ahead. Everything he’d brought fell to his side as he gave up the final impediments. A trail of worthless belongings littered the trail, marking his passage by tokens that offered no solace. Soon even memories were swept away, knowledge — the fragments of his very being. Existence itself he sloughed off, to be replaced by the sole image of his beloved.

Nor shall the seeker reach his goal unless he sacrifice all things. That is, whatever he hath seen, and heard, and understood, all must he set at naught, that he may enter the realm of the spirit, which is the City of God.

How does one follow the track of a ghost? The weary one became invisible to his own eyes, and so perhaps the story must end here. But he’d yet to find the aim of his longing, and the strength of his yearning still sparked the air and thrilled the atoms by its vibration. Everywhere he went he brought life, which he gave freely because he himself sought death. Or rather, he thirsted for the death of absence, to taste the draught of reunion. “He had given a thousand lives for one taste of the cup of her presence…”

A thing of pure spirit, he drifted over the desert sands. The animals were still quiet; the bunnies flopped their ears, and paused to muse the secrets of a blade of grass. What the snakes knew they kept to the trails, and wrote only these lines in their gliding calligraphy:

Love’s a stranger to earth and heaven too;
In him are lunacies seventy-and-two.

Some day, fate promises, the aching bellies will reach to the table of bounty, and the parched tongues taste from the meads of delight; the aching travelers will soak in the ocean of nearness, and besotted poets drown their misery in the wine of union. But when shall these things be?

In answer to this, one must recall His words to mind, where He speaks of the life of the soul, and the sweet death of the seeker who vanishes, to enter the heaven of his Goal:

[Love] yieldeth no remedy but death, he walketh not save in the valley of the shadow; yet sweeter than honey is his venom on the lover’s lips, and fairer his destruction in the seeker’s eyes than a hundred thousand lives….

For the head raised up in the love of God will certainly fall by the sword, and the life that is kindled with longing will surely be sacrificed, and the heart which remembereth the Loved One will surely brim with blood. How well is it said:

  Live free of love, for its very peace is anguish;
  Its beginning is pain, its end is death.
  

Peace be upon him who followeth the Right Path!

In the skies above the ocean sat a cloud to dwarf the heavens. It was light grey, dark in patches, and occasionally flashed bright during a late summer’s eve. It drifted slowly, but never left the sea unattended. It stood dark and tall between the rays of the sun, and the wide, ponderous deeps — which were always blue, and surged in countless waves.

The cloud was truly a matrix, giving birth from time to time to tiny raindrops condensing from its vaporous mixture around airborne dust. The cloud’s countless billions of watery children joined in blocking the light, making it an immense band of gray in the sky.

Once, one of these drops was born to its lofty life with a question: What am I? Why am I here? He was no different from the others, no less humble in his origins or simple in his needs, yet he burned with this question. Day after day he would ask it, but no one answered. “We are here just because”, they would say; or, “This is how it’s always been.” But the question would not leave him.

The other drops grew in size over time, adding infinitesimally to their moisture, still centered on the speck of dust that generated their being. Whole societies and echelons were created — of course based on the size and disposition of one’s water.

The questioning raindrop also grew, but could not see a reason for it. Everyone else was doing it, so he did it also. After all, loneliness is sometimes worse than a burning question. Most of the drops were quite proud of their size, and boasted their dimension. They formed hierarchies among themselves, and constantly compared their growth to others’. In an airy kingdom of liquid beings, certain raindrops reigned supreme.

At times — indeed, often in certain seasons — whole colonies of drops would give up their competition and drop suddenly from the sky. “Jumpers”, they were named. It was seen as a terrible madness that must be contagious. The rest avoided sharing their demise with much fervor, refusing to associate with anyone who had even known a jumper. Society was a precious thing, and well worth preserving.

About the jumpers, the questioning raindrop wondered most of all. Where did they go? What became of them? He considered these questions deeply and long, for days and hours on end, not noticing how heavy he became, how gravid from all these weighty thoughts.

The other drops respected and feared him both. It was said those who grew too much or too fast were bound to fall. Although his social standing was impeccable, they saw the look of a jumper in his eyes. So he avoided their high society, and kept to himself among the drifts. He was a stranger to his own family, and hardly spoke to anyone. Since he tended to follow the air currents, without thinking about it, they began calling him the wayfarer.

One day, when the sun shone especially strong, and his wandering had led him to the bottom of the cloud, the wayfarer caught a wide, blue glimpse of something wonderful. Gleaming with light, he couldn’t understand what he saw. It stretched as far as the drop could see — which was considerable — and seemed alive with a strange purpose of its own. What was this thing, which the wayfarer had never heard mentioned before? Could this be involved with the fate of the jumpers, a sort of graveyard they added to over time?

Moving to the bottom of the cloud for a better view, the raindrop peered as intently as he could — but made out nothing more. It was a mystery, and would remain a mystery. But faintly, so faintly he could barely discern it, he felt something reaching back from the expanse, seeming to echo his regard. So faint it was, at first he thought he’d imagined it. So he tried once more, gazing for long minutes into the myriad waves — and again felt an unquestionable sense of response. Further, it was not an indifferent feeling, but one of profound understanding and regard. It compelled him to look deeper — if only to know that feeling one more time.

Soon the drop spent most of his days contemplating this great, wide thing of a sea. His friends were forgotten — and soon forgot him. Society abandoned him. No matter the weight of his water, a drop with so little respect deserved none in return. They turned their back on him, but he did not notice. He thought, and prayed, and reached out with his being to that wonderful thing below — and each time felt it reach back. There was a bond that formed between them, a connection, and every day it grew stronger.

Then one day the drop noticed that nothing held him back from the sea but his own willingness to remain apart. Every drop was suspended in the cloud, but how? They had grown by attaching water to an insignificant grain at the core of their being, carried there on the winds. It was the insignificance of their size keeping them aloft, bearing them and all their water across the mysterious realm below.

So the wayfarer resolved to balk this mindless following of air currents, and started to move downwards, toward the sea. Of course, everyone else could see what was coming. They hurriedly moved apart, lest they be contaminated by association with a jumper. And because they moved, he was less attached to the general flow, and found it even easier to move downward. At first slowly, then imperceptibly faster, then faster. The other drops hurriedly shunned him, and he fell still faster. Then he truly began to fall.

In the society of his birth, they bemoaned his “fall from grace”, as they called it. One so promising had violated all the responsibilities of his potential. He had failed them all.

Soon velocity tore him from the cloud, and he was in truth a jumper. The wind whipped past his fragile form, shaking him and straining every fiber of his being. The wayfarer grew frightened, and wondered if he could survive the journey much longer. As well, the home he’d always known started to recede behind him, at the same time that the great blue rushed up beneath. The air brightened, and was soon full of light. Vast, strange beings sped past, while still he gained speed. Soon he was completely stretched out, and felt the essence of himself ripping apart. Again he prayed, but this time it was for firmness and steadfastness — for the courage to endure the journey.

The wayfarer raced to his destiny. At a certain point his speed changed, and right then he knew he would survive. Although the forces were tremendous, they grew no worse. The constant pain became familiar, and he learned to understand it — even thrill in the new depths of feeling they allowed. The cloud become a distant thing, and the ocean a huge, immense plain. He could feel its beckoning now, much stronger, and its powerful love and pride at his progress. Could he have, the drop would have willed to go faster — even allow his being to be torn apart — just to reach that loving presence a moment sooner.

As the ocean rushed up to meet him, the drop’s mind and heart filled with a grandeur that can never be repeated — and he fell headlong in love with that great being of the sea. He forgot himself, and offered his own soul in admiration for its massive waters. Whatever the society of clouds, if truly they value a drop’s weight, they should esteem this fathomless Being beyond all measure. How strange they did not seek its fellowship, or race down, as he was doing, to find it.

In the final moments, just before all consciousness was lost — to be replaced by a consciousness broader and more profound than any a drop could conceive of — the wayfarer wished to give a token of his love to the sea. Because he had nothing but water — and the ocean knew all there was of the mysteries of water — the drop try to reach his arms wide, and however feebly he might, to hug the wide width of the sea.

With puny arms flailing in the wind, and an eagerness far greater than his form, the wayfaring raindrop offered his arms to the Ocean, and was straightaway consumed by an embrace that taught in an instant all there is to know of love. For in the end, the drop had found his answer — the same answer — to every question he had ever thought to ask.

With his hair waving in the wind, Zan Shin laughed. His beautiful hair was black, flowing in unseen currents that played along the wind like a dancing spirit.

His horse complained of the ride, but trudged on. They had been going all night on these dusty trails — the sound of frogs croaking in the long grass, the hidden moon behind the clouds. It was an evening of white clouds against a black sky, dividing the vast field of stars like enormous ghosts fattening themselves on the dark.

They rode until colors awakened in the far sky, bringing a glow to the horizon. Not until the horse almost collapsed did they break for a rest. He was chasing after someone — who in fact was as tired as he; but every minute counted in this battle of time, and it was only moments before his prey reached the border.

Resting briefly, Zan Shin examined his horse. It could go no further. Perhaps it would die if he pushed it to the next town. But these were times of life and death, nor will avoiding death always merit the life thus bought. So he climbed on his wheezing mare once again and dug his heels into her flanks. She staggered, faint; but then mustered the energy and continued on.

They struggled this way until the town. Surprisingly, his horse did not die, though it would be a long while before she rode again. So he left her, and continued on a young, faster breed at dear cost. It was worth it, however, in light of the goal.

Thus they sped on, the cropped-hair rider above his shimmer of new speed. Legs flashing over the trail, Zan Shin could no longer make out the animals and insects as he passed them by. He could feel in his heart they were gaining now, just as he somehow felt the weariness overcoming his fugitive. The intensity of their ride linked them as surely as night chases the sun. They rode madly, each of them, incarnations of insanity — but with a purpose so intent, it created new destinies.

After several hours Zan Shin caught sight of the other rider just cresting a hill. He was moving slowly, unable to renew his mount at the previous town. He straggled and swayed, but with a strenuous, fighting spirit. It was a display of energy where there was no energy, the fury of purpose ignorant of worldly concessions. They moved impossibly, weaving up and down the grassy hills toward the western borders. But Zan Shin gained; his strength was magnified by the feeling of new muscle beneath him, and he would not be outdone.

Finally the rider ahead sensed Zan Shin’s determination and came to a stop. At least a rest before meeting. He allowed his horse to collapse on the ground, and took a seat in a clearing of grasses. His eyes closed, and he followed Zan Shin’s arrival by the sound of hooves — by their beat upon the ground, and the echoes he felt in his heart.

Zan Shin was then next to him, motionless. They waited: the rider above and his enemy on the ground. They waited and listened to the breathing of the air, the sigh of the wind. The clouds forlornly moved against the sky, the sun showed an infinite patience to climb. For a long while there was nothing but the depth of silence, in which they both took their rest.

With this fulfilled, Zan Shin drew his reins and dismounted. He walked over to the other, who was named Qi Yin, and waited. There needed no words. Everything had been understood by the chase. Qi Yin kept his head level to the ground, his eyes closed. Yet their gazes met in other ways, and they stared at each other long and hard. Too much was understood, too much exchanged. It was awful: the full, blazing clarity of that exchange. Neither could tolerate it, and neither could look away. They endured it as payment for what must come.

As the minutes took on a guise of hours, and each second passed far beyond its natural limit, Zan Shin began to move. He placed his feet beneath the line of his shoulders, and exhaled a breath. He felt his spine linking his pelvis to the heavens. The balls of his feet pierced the Earth — mantle and core — and his breathing became like a bellows that stokes coals in the furnace of the gut. His eyes would have gleamed fire, had they not been close to weeping. So ferocious was the will behind his eyes, in fact, that one expected the wind to begin turning in devotion around his head.

This presence demanded the response of Qi Yin. In admiration, respect, and foreboding, he sank into himself, while lifting his whole body as though pearls straightened upon a string. So lightly, so easily did the crown of his head raise up, that Zan Shin expected he would make his escape by floating into the clouds. He could not allow this, so he clasped his hand on his sword. At this, Qi Yin became hard, and snapped to an attitude of perception. He too played his fingers along the hilt of his weapon.

“Qi Yin,” began Zan Shin — using words, that their battle might take place in worldly ways as well — “you have travelled long and hard. For this I would grant you rest, and a meal, before our contest. But I have little hope you would honor it, given what has happened. So it must be now, both of us too weary to give our best.”

“I understand.” Qi Yin had a look of raw flint, as if drawing his sword might cause a shower of sparks to distract Zan Shin. Careful of this, Zan Shin made himself flow along the lines of the spirit: to see without seeing, to listen to what was not said.

Qi Yin smiled then. His eyes smiled a laughing, easy smile. At this, Zan Shin was assured of his readiness, and the deadliness of the contest. He bowed his head, and when their eyes met again, it began.

There is no way to depict how their swords leapt from the scabbard like two silver tigers; or how their arms wielded them, as two dragons flapping their wings into the sky. The sun’s light burnt more golden, more fiercely, in response to these men. Steel rang against steel, bright notes that pierced the air for miles. The grasses leaned, hoping to avoid the fray; the wind found ways to flow around them. It was neither too cool, nor too warm. The day was early, the ground firm. With reality thus suspended, the two became like a cyclone all of sharpness and edges.

At one point, a drop of ruby essence was flung from the melee. It splattered against a small rock, inches from a waiting grasshopper. Unnoticed, it soaked into the earth and was lost. From whom, could not be said. The two moved with such speed, it defied separating them into this or that combatant. In truth, there was only one soul on that battlefield then: one epic soul locked in struggle with its own essence, pitting all the evil within it against the onslaught of justice. It longed for both outcomes, both results — even as it prayed for a lone victor. The soul cannot hate either part of its nature — -nor cease to long for an end to their striving.

These two that were one played edge against edge, stroke against stroke. But as all things must, at one instant there came a weakening — an act far enough from perfection, it allowed a crack to form. Into that crack wedged a blade of shining steel, and it went deep. It coursed through sinew and bone, dividing the essence of a body as surely as it parted the spirit from flesh. Until at last it found the beating heart it sought, and plunged in thirstily. Then it drew back, slick and oiled with its foe’s life. At that moment what was one became two — and again there was a fighter and the fought: a victor and his vanquished enemy.

Zan Shin drew back, attentive to the choking sounds of Qi Yin as his spirit fought to make its way from this life. They locked eyes one last time, and Zan Shin watched the tortured soul arise from its place of hiding.

“There can be nothing more for you from this life,” he told the spirit. “Be gone now, to where you must.”

Qi Yin gasped, and fell to his knees. In his eyes flickered a dark mystery, something Zan Shin would not grasp until his fated day. Thickened blood welled upon Qi Yin’s tongue, and flowed to either side of his mouth. Speech was taken from him, but his eyes bade a last farewell, and awareness of the mastery Zan Shin had shown him that day. It was a lesson spent upon the earth at a cost of priceless blood, but Qi Yin would take it with him as he departed. He closed his failing eyes against the cool wind, and bowed his head at last, never to rise again.

Zan Shin touched the cold length of blade to his forehead. “And to you too, stealer of lives; and also preserver, in your own way.”

Then he climbed his mount, and turned back toward the sun, high in the east. It was a fine day still, but the magnificence somehow lessened. As it must be, whenever brilliant souls depart the world.

I remember there was dark everywhere — dark and smoke. The smoke burned at the base of my nose, inside, where one feels the air as he breathes in deeply. It stung, and reminded me that I was somewhere I usually don’t find myself.

I came only to watch him play. He’d traveled three thousand miles from the East Coast, playing at various bars and theaters. This bar happened to be on his route because it was an attraction in San Francisco. I felt that perhaps a concert hall might be more appropriate for an accomplished pianist, but he preferred the “earthy” quality of places of relaxation like this. Here, amidst the dark and smoke, people opened up their hearts to pour out all that was in them. And while open, the heart is in a suitable condition to receive. You might not think that, with all of the emotional release, there would be enough room for anything else to enter (one pictures a boat trying to float upstream), but the nature of the heart is that it is forever pumping in blood at the same time that it’s pumping it out.

The people seated around me tonight, feasting on a chance to expel their garbage of the day, were at the same time allowing his gentle music to settle into their lives, nestling in places of the heart that are only accessible at times like these. Where there is a lack of the genuine, the real and painful, there is also a lack of true sentiment. Perhaps concert hall feelings are more grand or exalted, but at the same time these are feelings lifted up out of an ambitious soul, and not placed there by the artist who, by placing them, gives a gift of his art to those of us without a concert hall to go to.

I find that the notes flow more smoothly, that they are mellower in a place like this. One has to concentrate to separate the music from the noise, but this effort yields a certain reward. Where there is only silence and the music, it is too easy for the listener, and sometimes a thing is more pleasurable if a small barrier keeps us from having it all-at-once and immediately. In some aspects of life, people thrive on frustration. It is not a bad thing, but spice.

He continued playing for an hour before taking his first break. Most of the music was contemporary, or well-known classical. The bar was quieter than one might imagine such a place in the middle of the city to be. About eighty people were seated among the two levels, sipping coffee or drinking. Some sat by the bar, and a small crowd danced slowly in an open area near the window. The piano was back from the center, closer to my table on the far side of the window, and the music lifted evenly through the upper-balcony tables. Some sat listening, as I did, wondering some far-away thing, abstracted in a state of deep appreciation. But this was by far the minority reaction. Most seemed to ignore the music, or to let it flow into a nondescript background of chatter and noise. It was strange to hear Chopin played under such circumstances, but that was the desire of the player, and it was good.

He returned to his bench and continued for another hour, playing favorites that attracted attention as well as others I had never heard of before. It wasn’t until ten o’clock that the people began to thin out. Then more time passed, and the people became fewer still. Once there were about thirty or so, he began to play things more and more inappropriate to the venue: Beethoven, Bach — music which made the difference between a bar and the concert hall even more striking. No one complained, however, and he continued on.

The night was slowed by his music, as he drifted further into the fields of the nocturne. It was during this time that I first heard him play Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven. It was preceded by a long silence — one whole minute — and the expectations of the group were piqued. His eyes remained closed the whole time, and he sat perfectly still, arms drawn in, almost as if in a kind of pain. I found out later that my perception of pain was correct, but his action was not one of defense. He was calling on the muse of broken love, and dreams out of reach. But none of this did I know then as I heard the first chord, gentle, stroking like a lover’s touch beneath a canopy of moonlight. Was there an ocean near the balcony, and the dinner guests now from another era, standing in admiration as the wan lover spoke of his heart’s sickness, speaking to the cure who sat at her table listening with admiring eyes to his serenade?

Then came the first sigh of agony, colored by hope: the lover, don in a black suit with long tails that hung openly over the bench, and the one played for, with her dark braids coiled in a comely fray about her back. She sat spell-bound, frozen in silence by the sincerity of her lover’s tone. He caressed each note into being, playing the gentle harmonies and rhythms, ever-attended by a deepening current of bass. She was plied, opened by the seeking power of his notes. Above, the cold moon was dispassionate, suffused with the fullness of a black night. The clouds had kept the stars away, but she, in her brightness, could not bear to be absent from this rendering of love. Does devotion call the stars into being? Or do we imagine as our gods those things we feel they ought to be, such as sun, moon, planets and stars? Then if these are tokens of the great mysteries, why is not Love herself a goddess? Not ascribed as the virtue of some seething planet, but a true goddess in her own right: fickle, playful, leaving as dead those who would offer her their lives as sacrifices. That is the god our lover played to, unfolding his melody to an accompaniment of inward tears. Such tears have softened hearts of white granite as Love takes her hold and does not let go. What chance do we have, or reason to submit? But somehow, in her girlish charm, she is able to portray death to us as fairer than dear life. Her poison is true favor, and we, Socratic thinkers all, when offered this cup of hemlock, do trade our one life for another we only imagine. No sign of the future life is given, but for evidences of pain and anguish. It is mysterious that her hold is deeper than the mind itself, reaching through the brain to lay cruel hands on a thing as tender as the human heart. And we submit willingly, with smiles on our faces. This is the mystery hidden deep within the mystery.

He continued playing, not as the heaven-struck lover, but as a simple piano-man playing his song, making me see him as the truest lover I had yet known. I looked at the aimless crowds peering through their glass bottoms and yawning — such that from disgust as well as intrigue I turned back to see the woman in braids giggle as the music became more playful. She understood too well, but yet did not understand. Perhaps women cannot know the secret passion of men, how it surges in us like a groaning sea, desperate to cast its burden on some lovely shore of tenderness and warmth. Again my mind singled out the hoarse, throbbing bass, and I felt my attention drawn there though others be distracted by the playful rhythms above. The bass was electric, whispering, strong, subtle and yet patient in a manner that was agony. The damsel’s face remained innocent: did she refuse to realize the menacing tone of that bass? It, below, sent up froth in a mighty wave that pounded on her shore of precious grains. And above, the thoughtful melody separated those grains through kindness and soft-spoken words. Man is both these halves, and though often a woman would have only the one, yet she is doomed to both if she would have a man in her life. Gentle women! You must know the double-mystery, or else find some way to calm the roiling current which stirs always in our breast. I hate to be a man for this at times, but then I realize it is the lens through which I view the world, and without it everything would be blurred and indistinct. It is the dark that pulsates through the left hand, dark and ever-cursed as the side of evil and mischief. But the right hand, honored and a title of trust, is the voice we use to speak where our worlds meet. This is our song: the sound of an anguished lover, fingers on ivory and clutching at the vacant hollow of his flesh. He sings to the woman in braids who can only ever half-understand him.

I could feel the image slipping away as the song reached to its gentle conclusion. The player paused, feeling more silence was necessary, then decided it were best to take another break.

Late into that night, when everyone had left, I asked the man how he had played that song so deeply, and what story there must have been behind it. He smiled, and gazed deeply into my eyes to see if I would understand his answer. He said, in a very simple tone that vastly differed from the rarefaction of my own soul, “If you want to play the Sonata, you need to remember only one thing: that each hand is different. You can’t play them the same as you would play Chops or something simple like that.”

Then he looked even more intensely, and waited a moment. The air drew apart between us, and a curtain lifted to reveal his eyes of penetrating green. He said, with his eyes and with his words, “And remember always that your left hand is the tone of your passion, and the right is what you reveal of that passion. Don’t reveal it all, or you might scare people away, because not everyone can contemplate the passion that dwells in some. But rather mete it out, soft and gently through the right, and those who can hear it will understand.”

With that he closed the piano and stood to walk away. I felt like asking more, but my voice was silent as he continued toward the door. But before leaving he turned, and looked once more with his green mirrors into the depths of my soul. And for a moment, only a moment, I swear that I saw the reflection of a distant woman in braids.

It was a cold light that filtered down, one winter morning. Lighting up the hoary crust on the bedroom window, it shone on the sleeping eye of one Mariam Reynard, still in the clutches of dreaming. It was at first a rosy light, soft and glowing; then it grew brighter and brighter, causing Mariam to stir and turn and unconsciously lift her blanket to escape. But even through wool fibers the light reached down, touching her mind to wake it.

At last, her eyes opened, and she blinked away the feelings of sleep. She sat up, stretched out loud — and thought about laying down again. Then she remembered the day ahead. It was enough to propel her out of her sheets and up! Outside the day was white and gleaming, glinting from a thousand surfaces that had frozen in the night. The snow was heaped high and soft, ready for anyone willing to play in it. And this was exactly what Miriam planned to do.

Quickly she hurried out of her sleeping clothes, and threw on a shirt and pants to wear under her snowsuit. She brushed her hair back, and tied it with a ribbon. Her mother chided her for being so much in a hurry, but the snow was waiting! Her boats took forever to get on; her jacket arms kept running from her hands. It took impossibly long, but finally she was ready to go plunge into the snow.

When the door opened, letting in that white light of the sky and the snow and the ice, she took in a breath. It was cold, and sting a bit. There was so much of it, the snow: on the lawn, on the driveway, all the way from the curb to the end of the street. More snow that one person could ever walk on, even if she tried until nighttime. What fields of dreams were open to Mariam eyes, shining with the cold light of promise.

Then it was running, falling, rolling and getting back up again. Too much snow! It got everywhere, melting down her back and into her mittens. She laughed. It was such a good feeling, little prickles of cold at the edge of a warm feeling she had inside. She bunched some of it up and threw it far out into the street. It fell straight through, leaving a hole with bits of dribbled snow beyond. Then she lay back, stretched out her arms and legs, and carved images of angles into an icy heaven.

Her breath blew out clouds, and she got tired. It takes work, clearing out holes and building up mounds, making snow men, snow tunnels, snow castles, snow towns. And after all that, only a tiny bit of the lawn had been remade. So much pure, untouched snow. Even all winter’s long, maybe she would never get to it all.

The cold on her face slowly crept down. It tingled at her neck and made her fingers feel stiff and slow. Her feet were like tiny logs. When she stamped them, it didn’t feel like much. Her mittens had long since stopped keeping her hands warm. Now they were a little wet, and the snow didn’t melt very fast when it got caught inside.

Slowly, she reached the point where feeling warm seemed a better idea than making more things out of snow. She stood up, shook off the flakes clinging here and there, and made it to the door. A knock later, and a rush of warm air, Mariam left her winter wonderland.

I don’t remember how we came to be in that place, gathered beneath that magnificent tree, its long branches touching the sky. All of us were huddled together, though I don’t know how. Nothing makes sense when I think about it. But I do know we were dry, safe, and secure, wherever we were — and we were also thirsty.

Most of us did not recognize the desire as thirst. It was just a vague burning that kept getting worse. Some tried everything to distract themselves from it. We yearned and writhed, but no solace came. We spoke to each other about it, but did not properly understood what it was. We only knew that something was not as it should be, somehow. Peace eluded us.

Outside the tree it was raining. Everyone could see that, could hear it. What the rain meant, we did not know. Since very few had ever ventured out from under the tree, we took it to be another of the unaccountable details of life. Stories even built up about the rain and what it might be. It was said to strip the flesh from a man’s back, or to induce insanity. Some who went into it never came back. Since we knew that the tree offered safety and security, most of us remained there. We kept to telling each other stories.

At some point a questionable character went off into the rain. He came back claiming it was refreshing, and had relieved the parching thirst of his tongue. He couldn’t drink much, but he was obviously tantalized. He tried to encourage some of us to follow him out, but we couldn’t imagine leaving the tree. I don’t even remember what we did there, though I recall not wanting to leave.

The adventurer did not give up, however. He went out again, for a long while. When he came back, he held something that looked like a gourd. We could also tell, from his eyes, that his thirst was gone. He had found something we needed! Whatever could alleviate our terrible hunger was worth considering. And thus, he told us a strange tale.

The rain, he claimed, was the very thing we needed. It surrounded us always, pouring bounty from the clouds. However, as prodigious as it was, catching it was not easy. Holding one’s mouth to the sky gave a little comfort, but not much. Then he told about the science of the cup, and how it allowed one — given patience — to slowly gather the waters into one place, from which they could be drunk. Even more, it permitted the waters to be carried out of the rain: for example, under the tree. This was how I first tasted what I had been longing for.

He held out the cup for each of us, but we only took a sip. There was not enough for all, and certainly not enough to calm our thirst. If anything, it made us feel worse, the burning more intense. He ran out and back again several times, but the thirst was great and his vessel small in comparison.

He told us we would each have to fashion a cup, and holding them to the sky, walk out from under the tree. We would have to stand in the rain a while, letting the waters fill our cup, and then we could drink, and continue repeating until satisfied. If our thirst returned, we could do the same thing to satisfy it again. The man had offered us a way out of misery.

There were still many under the tree who refused to try, however, not believing the water meant anything — or calling it poison. We tried to tell them, but they questioned the necessity of the cup. So crude and awkward, after all, and the water so formless and transparent. It didn’t make sense how important they were, or the connection between the two.

So, these days I venture out from the tree of knowledge by myself, or with a few others, and hold the cup of my religious discipline to the sky, awaiting the bounty of heaven’s grace to fill my cup. When I drink, thirst is allayed and I see the reason for the thirst, the water, and the cup to hold it. They all exist to bring us together, so that my soul comes out from the tree, and looks up to contemplate the heavens always above me. What strange creatures there; what amazing patterns in the clouds…

This, I think, is the connection between the varying forms of religion, and the ineffable, formless Mystery it conceals.

The waves rocked under the boat with a subdued motion. Waves are patient; they gently nudge, calmly suggest, lap delicately at your toes. But beware of those waves. Ultimately, they and their accomplice Time render all things to sand, be it rock, granite or mountains.

Today these waves are my last comfort. Time is drawing short, so I needn’t fear their patient insistence. Warm sun, balmy day, friendly waves: you are my only remaining friends.

Perhaps the iron beside me, too, is a friend, but he is more a merciful doctor, assisting Fate in her designs. No, you are not a friend, my iron. You do not move in gentle, easy ways. With one push you compel me to follow: down, down, beneath the rolling waves, through deeps too horrifying to imagine… But my waves never frighten; they destroy without menace, unknowingly, their intentions veiled in a thousand-year vigil. But my iron, he strikes with heated determination — so I call him merciful.

He is merciful for what will end here today. It has been too long; my mind avoids the awful chore of thinking: Katherine. Deadly Katherine. She too was unaware, unknowing in her steady drain on a man’s soul. As if my heart were stolen grain by grain, evaporated under the steady gaze of a burning sun. I was drawn in like a naive child, playing in waters too deep, not considering the current. And today: welcome to my madness. The masculine responds to the feminine. Soft, considerate destruction is replaced by one last act of determined living. An act to end it all, without discussion — without banter.

Again the waves beckon me. They say, “Wait dear friend, consider not your sorrow. Take solace in our constant companionship. We are dedicated, without condition.”

And I respond, “Dedicated to what, pray tell?”

They glint with a reflected smile, “Dedicated to you, dedicated to you…”

On such a summer day, with a sun that warms to the marrow, and a soft, suggesting wind that might sprout seeds it was so nourishing, I would ordinarily accept, and accuse no more my delightful surroundings. But today, of all days, my ears were attune to things I had not heard before. Katherine’s blade was still lodged deep, and in its telling feel I scented another voice, hidden beneath the voice I heard. “Dedicated to you…” It transmogrified in my mind into a dark and sinister thing, more horrifying than anything my mind had ever imagined. What horrified me most was exactly that choice of verb: “dedicated,” as a killer is “dedicated” to his prey, a virus “dedicated” to its host — dear Katherine “dedicated” to me.

Dedication wears like the feet of a million solemn pilgrims to their sacred land: stones are worn to pebbles, glass smoothed to bits, lines erased and all sharp edges dulled. Anything male, definite, defined, stable, unbroken, becomes shattered beneath the innocent weight of each individual foot multiplied over time. A billion billion feet, each placed carefully, an unwitting accomplice to the next, adding up to a sum never imagined by any part. I had become Katherine’s Mecca, and through the course of her steady visits she wore away everything that was me.

“Be calm,” said the clouds. “Be enduring,” spoke the winds. But I answered, “That is not my way. I am what I am: a man. I ask for no recompense, no consideration. Hand me fate on a good day to die, and I will embrace it with two hands and carry it off to my altar. There I will sacrifice to gods too strange for any woman to consider. But in a woman’s softness, her waiting, and silent expectation — I find a grim death too strange for me to face. Give me anything, but let me face it. That is the way I know.”

They looked back at me with sorrowful faces, my summer friends, and considered long and hard the choices open to me. Then finally one of them — I know not which — conspired with my iron, and gave me the gift I had longed to give myself: the gift of decision.

As I spiraled downward into the murky deep I realized that my own personal hell was that I didn’t choose it for myself.

Attack

This and the next chapter were written long before, and do not properly fit into the scheme of the characters, as presented in the later chapters.

Crackling with blue fire, Abu Sinwa swung his saber at the place where Jenna’s head had been. He then ducked, anticipating the counter stroke that missed his own neck by inches. With furious concentration tempered by mastered calm, Sinwa looked into the lines of possible futures, divining where his foe would next appear. He then closed his eyes while crouching low, and calmly dropped his saber down and to the left. Jenna’s left leg was severed.

The scream came after a long moment, shock and amazement stealing over Jenna’s face. “How, Abu? I did not see it.”

Abu bowed to his vanquished foe, his enemy of long years. “My foe, I ceased to look for the way. I then let the unexpected find me.”

Jenna experienced a sudden calm as understanding filled him. “Indeed, you have gone where I have not. I am at your mercy. Do what you must.”

The blue energy of Abu’s saber cut through the air, resounding in its subtle, deadly force. But it did not fall upon Jenna’s offered neck. “No, my foe, I do not feel now is the time. There is yet more for us both, and we must find it in struggle. This day, however, let there be no more deaths.”

With that he returned the saber to his coat, and bowed again, which Jenna returned in solemn grace. Then he was gone, moving through the door at a brisk pace, to return to his waiting spacecraft.

Reflections

Abu passed through the depths of space in contemplation and thought. His mind was a storm of opposites, each winning for a brief time the sense of a conclusion, only to recede again into doubt and worry. What was the force, that good should be forced always to fight against evil? It was the way of evil to battle and cry out in rage, engaging the efforts of the Jedi to quell rebellion and fury. Why not the good drawing out the best of evil, that it might grow better? It seemed the pace was dictated by those determined to destroy the foundations of society, leaving the builders to work with what little peace remained.

The hyperspace window opened, letting in a flood of stars, and the dark blue of a vast nebula behind the planet Marthana. The planet’s golds and greens of desert and forest intermingled with great blue expanses of water. The cities sparkeled like jewels on the dark side as Abu approached, the rumble of atmospheric entry deep in his chest.

He passed broad stretches of midnight before landing outside the city of Cantzeen. The ship touched down on points of yellow fire, and let down the footway just as all came to rest.

Visit from Cortin

Abu Sinwa closed the door of his study and walked to his chair. He posed himself thoughtfully in its rigid wooden form, amid the severity of an office that said, “The body does not rule here, but the mind.” He could still hear the sounds of his padowan practicing their rudimentary forms. He knew by that sound alone which were nearing the next level. The force opened out his senses like a map, and every movement and stillness had a place on that map, inching toward or away from the goal.

The goal. His encounter with Jenna had fired his thoughts, renewing his need to understand the goal. The purpose of the force, its aim, was toward something he could recognize instantly, but not name. In the artistry of their last battle, in the movements of parry and thrust, he felt it, in the shape of every muscle and the sweep of each stroke. It defined the meaning of mastery, but Sinwa, a master, could not define it.

“Master Sinwa?” For a moment, Abu Sinwa did not know if it was the force itself, asking him a question in return. “Master Sinwa?” The young padowan knew that the Master had felt his presence long before, but could not interpret his silence.

Sinwa raised his head to his pupil, as if there to find the wisdom he could not discover. “Yes, my padowan, what is it?”

The boy swallowed. He knew his master had a mind for practice only, but still feared to offend. “Master, there is a member of the Jedi Council here to see you.”

At that Sinwa looked toward the door, the motion itself like sniffing the air. “Ah, Master Cortin, yes; it is right he should come so soon.”

“Master?”

“Ask the Jedi to enter, please, padowan.”

“Yes, Master.” With a bow the boy left, and was replaced momentarily by the Master Cortin.

“Cortin, my old friend, why has it been so long?”

“Abu, I am concerned about the latest attack. It troubles the force, as eddies before a storm.” Cortin was tall, green-skinned, of an amphibian race that could not tolerate dry climates. He was also famous for speaking his mind as though the other person were merely another part of it.

“Be calm, friend. All things have their place, even storms.”

“But can you tell me the meaning of this attack? What does Darth Jenna hope to gain?”

“I was, but a moment ago, pondering that myself. It would seem things have been too calm for too long. Whatever else, the force seems to favor change over statis.”

Cortin rolled his left eye, a sign of impatience. “Abu, your metaphysical flights of fancy leave us nowhere. You seem to insist the force is some kind of living entity, more than just the connections between life. Well, has it anything to say for itself, that it might have mentioned lately?” Cortin’s green foot smacked the ground as he clumped the chair with his fist: a poignant exasperation.

Sinwa chuckled. “No, Cortin, this is not what I meant. Though the sum of events, viewed in large, do present patterns that seem oddly… purposeful.”

“Be that as it may, the Council seeks your input. I trust you have something more practical to recommend?” Cortin focused both of his eyes on Sinwa.

Sinwa only rubbed his chin, in the same attitude of mulling silence in which Cortin had found him. “I do not know, Cortin. That is my answer.”

Cortin’s eyes lowered. He had not expected much, seeing the look on Sinwa’s face. “Very well, I return to Coruscant in the evening for the convocation. You are welcome to join my transport.”

“I would be happy to, Cortin. It will free me to think of something more… substantial, for our meeting.”

Cortin bowed, at which Sinwa rose and returned the gesture. The large amphibian then left for his temporary lodgings on the school’s grounds.

Sinwa resumed his seat and pose. The force… as if a living entity, but no entity to be found. We feel it everywhere, but no center, no source. How can it seem so much like an epoch-spanning mind, yet no thoughts present to sift our from the background and betray the workings of a higher intelligence? And if it was a mind, what was it working towards, how did one like Jenna fit into the design?

In frustration at nothing to grasp toward which to apply his reason — other than the lack of such — Sinwa stood and strode into his padowan’s training room. They stood as a group, sabers raised in silence, having sensed his footsteps down the hall.

“Good, my padowan, to be observant is the beginning of awareness. You will now show me the series you have practiced today.”

As one, their light swords flashing like a school of brilliant butterflies released into the room, they moved through their lessons, each twitch and breath noted by the Master’s watchful eye.

A memory of Jenna

Abu Sinwa felt the sun falling low against the forest of Marth’nna. He turned to see its mute red roaring and blazing in the cavern of the sky. The trees held odd shapes at such an hour, a mixture of branch and shadow, like strange creatures coming out for the night.

It was nearing time to begin the journey to the city planet of Coruscant. Cortin’s apartment was on the other side of the complex, and it was a long walk through the twilight. Sinwa turned off the power to his office and left through the hall, past the atrium, and into the gardens.

The flowers of Marth’nna’s spring were arranged in fading colors, the hues draining out in time with the sun. It was a red sun, very old, giving the plants under its care a theme of purple and brown.

Sinwa strode past without seeing them; the sight was too familiar and his mind too occupied. Thus far he had no word for the Council on these latest attacks. It was typical of Jenna to work underhandedly, at a distance, always making sure not to be there when the Jedi arrived. But these past few times Sinwa had caught Jenna making a later and later escape, until this last time he had confronted Jenna right in front of a bomb he was trying to set.

“Abu Sinwa, how appropriate,” Jenna had seethed, his smooth face wrinkling in a look of distaste mixed with fear. He glanced over at the device he was working on, then at his ship waiting on the outside platform.

“Darth Jenna, my foe. Long and hard I have sought to meet you in battle. I am tired of watching your running feet. En garde!” Sinwa lit his saber, the long shaft of restrained power crackling in contact with the air. He brought his blade about to salute the enemy.

“Yes, Sinwa, let us fight. The sound of your head rolling on the floor would please me greatly.” Jenna’s red blade cast a pinkish glow on the floor and walls nearby. They were standing at the exit corridor of a power station orbiting the gas planet, Juppo.

“What have you been planning, Jenna? These strikes don’t seem to do you much good. I would like to know the cause for this.”

“Wouldn’t you though, Sinwa”, Jenna replied.

He swung out his blade in a flashing arc, cutting the air with a hum that sounded like anger. Sinwa parried, catching the blade and returning it, striking himself at Jenna’s legs.

“So this is the training of a leader of the Jedi?” Jenna sneered. He flashed again and again, aiming at head, torso, thigh. Sinwa calmly deflected all of his blows.

They continued their ballet of light, moving toward and away from the exit as each took the intiative. Jenna added insults to his strokes, but Sinwa was calm, intent; the fear in Jenna’s face began to deepen.

“Sinwa, there is more to this than you can realize. End my life now and you will end your hope of finding the truth.” The hint of sincerity was strange enough in Jenna’s voice to sound as if it had been choked out.

“That may be, Jenna.” Parry, thrust, parry, in sweeps of light that divided the air between them. “If you care to tell me, we can stop this and chat about it.”

Jenna’s answer was a fierce series of jabs and thrusts that made no mark. They were moving together gradually toward the exit as Jenna lost ground.

“Sinwa, I will see all of you fall before I lift a finger to help your craven Council!”

Sinwa increased the speed of his attack, showing a part of the strength he had kept hidden, hoping Jenna would reveal something by his taunts. Jenna returned the onslaught with desperation, but could not keep up his defense. He fell, his saber — still gripped by the severed arm — scattering to the side.

It was at this point Sinwa had felt a brief glimpse of the force as if part of a great purpose: a design whose will is in the design itself, and not apart from it — as a man does not feel apart from his thoughts. In that glimpse he sensed that ending Jenna’s life would have caused far greater harm to the Republic than letting it continue — even if meant a likely resumption of his program of destruction.

Sinwa did not stay long as Jenna hobbled toward his ship. He disabled the bomb and radioed the authorities to search the station for more. The parting, red glow from Jenna’s thrusters was like a last wave from a ghostly saber, a malicious glee implying he had yet again gotten away with something of which Sinwa was fully unaware.

The smoldering sun on the horizon of Marth’nna seemed almost like that thruster falling behind the curve of Juppo: a cold, red fire, hinting at secrets, but hidden too soon in the folds of approaching dark.

Flight to Coruscant

Sinwa found Cortin finishing his preparations for the journey, wetting his skin, filling his spray canisters for use on the ship. He looked up with a probing glance, watching Sinwa enter the room. There was only silence as Cortin gathered his belongings. Sinwa was leaving empty-handed, since he kept an apartment on Coruscant for such meetings.

When ready, the two walked out into the semi-darkness of the streets, on their way to the spaceport a short distance from the complex. The evening barkers stood at their tables, trying to interest passersby in food, wares, entertainment. They all knew the austerity of the Jedi, and only watched as the two robed figures made their way down the alley.

“Did Darth Jenna say nothing that might suggest a purpose?” blurted out Cortin. Sinwa gave a heavy sigh, admitting that this was the very subject on his mind.

“He did speak as though it had purpose, but did not mention it further. That alone tells us something. Cortin, I have long suspected a more powerful mind behind Jenna. His is just the hand, with the arm and body kept hidden in darkness. We know the Sith have adopted a scheme of pairing, to continue their evil, but the success of Jenna at eluding battle has left us wondering his powers until now. I have fought him this past day. I know he is no master. I had already sensed as much from the crudeness of his tactics. My informants so far have succeeded only in learning a name — but that informant quickly perished mysteriously. He spoke of a Lord Serat, unknown and unseen, but so fearsome none will speak of him. My own queries have yielded nothing. Only the reticence of some of the darker elements gives a hint. Have you heard anything of this?”

“Not at all, Abu, I have heard nothing.”

Sinwa nodded. “Neither had I, until my doubts about Jenna led me to searching. If there is a path we must follow, I believe Serat will lie along it, or whatever he represents.”

Cortin only looked sideways at Sinwa and blew air out of his nostrils in bewilderment. Sinwa’s own face held his typical pose of concentration, his greying hairs like streaking stars from the heaven of his mind. His eyes were jewel green, piercing and aflame with an inner light. Many of his enemies had failed in their intent by being caught in the intensity of those eyes. They were set under a wide brow, and chestnut brown skin, as if Sinwa’s older years had become a symbol of wisdom itself: but a wisdom which never forgets to doubt its own veracity.

The two entered the spaceport and loaded their baggage onto the ship. Servant droids stowed the containers and prepared for take-off. They waited for a moment on the landing. Marth’nna was not very trafficked, being known only for its great, colorful forests slowly aging under a dying sun. Nor was it particularly wealthy or large — exactly the kind of place Sinwa had wanted for the founding of a Jedi school: enough resources to flourish with intent, but barren enough to attract only those with a true desire.

The ship closed up, fired its thrusters, and lifting from the platform on a cone of blue fire. It was a small interstellar craft, arranged in a simple triangular formation. It had a large bubble for a viewport on one side.

Cortin and Sinwa watched the city, then the planet, drop away below, into a black sea with endless dots of stars. Regis, the old sun, broke over the horizon in false morning, filling the ship with a baleful light. The ship moved out of the planet’s gravitational range, then turned toward distant Coruscant and engaged its hyperdrive engines.

For a moment, the black and stars were unchanged, scattered through the sky as if a great Sower had expected a harvest of new worlds beyond count. Then the ship plunged into hyperspace, and the dots were pulled into stalks, then streams, then pathways of light all aimed at the faraway city-planet.

Sinwa watched the procession of racing starlight in admiration, feeling as if the whole of the universe had sent that light as emissaries to a great ball in space: to be counted among the members of an infinite kingdom. How many empires had risen and fallen, he wondered, how many republics tried and failed, before that light had even made it to this point, travelling at the crawling velocity of light. And how impatient, man, to insist on the invention of near-instant travel, when the monarch suns of the universe themselves had contented to send their messages at lightspeed.

Cortin was unmoved by the display. His eyes watched the control panels and course projections, acting as backup to the computer’s watchful programs that sensed for debris and the unlikely possibility of collision. Sinwa allowed himself a smile. He leaned back, to watch the stars, leaving Cortin undisturbed in his fastidiousness. When all the history of ages was streaming into your eyes, he thought, it deserved a moment to be admired.

Arrival

Coruscant came into view as the ship exited hyperspace, a bright ball hanging in decoration amid the lights of the galaxy. As they approached, it grew on the viewscreen: a warm, metallic grey festooned with its own points of brilliance. Below, countless ships and speeders plied the lanes of sky between the great districts — though movement was indiscernable at this distance. From space it seemed like strings of ice tinsel, reflecting the light of stars. Their bright, curving streams were the life of Coruscant, the center of the Republic, going about their business in order to keep everything else functioning as it must.

Cortin was talking to space control, negotiating the intricate course that would take them into those streams — now beginning to show movement as they drew closer.

“That’s it”, Cortin said, leaning back. “It’s all in the hands of the computers now.” He said this with resigned eyes, his lack of certainty in any mind but his own obvious. It was also his greatest strength: his willingness to question every assumption and confirm every result.

The false ground was visible now, a massive expanse of metal beneath grey and white clouds. As they neared one could see the mammoth buildings hiding the true ground, rising kilometers into the atmosphere by the clever design of each supporting the others by a network of bridges and cables; and then again by the streams of traffic, and still again by the knowledge that the life of one depended on all the rest — on a planet with no natural resources but what remained under the ground.

The ship swooped down toward the top of a building in the near distance. Cortin continued to check the instruments, even though everything was happening flawlessly — as it must when there is so little room for error. The ship put out its landing struts, and gently settled on the roof of the Central Jedi Academy.

The travellers followed the droids carrying Cortin’s baggage to an elevator shaft with a car waiting. They climbed in, and waited for as long as it had taken the ship to descend, to drop three hundred floors to the middle of the building where their quarters were located. They stepped out and walked to Cortin’s door.

“I will see you again in the morning, Abu. May the night grant you productive thought.”

“You as well, Cortin. Peace and rest.” They bowed to each other and separated, Sinwa following the corridor to his own apartment nearby.

He stopped at his door, wondering if it was really worth the effort to try for early sleep, to arise rested and ready for the meeting tomorrow. However, he could feel his thoughts stirring inside him like a kettle to boil, and knew sleep would not come, no matter how helpful it might be. He left his door closed and turned back to the elevator. What would help on a night like this was a walk in the city, to rummage out his thoughts and weary his body. Perhaps then an hour or two of rest before the meeting.

Musings in the city

The city was alive with motion and light, as it always was, the activity coming from all directions. The people themselves reflected the diversity and profusion of the night life: every shape and color, every race from thousands of planets around the galaxy: tall and short, two eyes or eight — some in multiple heads, others on stalks protruding from giant, central bodies. Only the overall motion had a vague consistency; seen up close, one never observed the same sight twice.

At this level the lanes of speeders moved so swiftly they burned the air with their light and speed, leaving a trail of ozone and after-images of receding light. On the whole it was like a constant lightning forking between the buildings, driving the pulse of life between the sections of the city. Sinwa stood below, looking up from ground level, watching the red of the speeder’s tail-lights merging together, until it was like some huge saber of wrath hanging over the city, waiting for the right moment to drop down on the innocent masses below.

He walked the streets around the Academy, following his whim at each crossing, never losing that feeling of connection he experienced whenever near so many of the Jedi. People and shops were everywhere. Without paying attention — except by his inward senses and the corner of his eye — it was almost as if here were not moving at all, but repeating the same, nameless street over and over again.

As he walked, he returned in his mind to the problems of the Council. To truly understand those, he felt, he must understand his troubling connection with the force, a thing that until now he had not thought so much about and simply relied upon, the way one does not question an old friend. He had a feeling this friend was more than he realized, only waiting for him to see it to deepen the relationship.

The force. The web of life binding each to all, like an infinite array of mirrored globes, each reflecting the whole and each only a part. Every being was part of that web, linked in ways most could not perceive. The Jedi, the Sith, certain gifted races, could observe this web directly, watch its tremors and tensions, and understand how an effect in one part became a cause in another. They could even reach out and touch the fabric of the web itself, pull on it, push, strum the fine filaments of interconnection to produce effects of their own — sometimes appearing to contradict what most expected from nature. Yet the force too was part of nature: a great framework from which all the rest was suspended, every erg of energy and every particle of mass throughout the universe. The Jedi were oarsmen of that invisible sea, its waters saturating every cell of the millions of beings of the Republic.

It was taught as such in the Acadmey, as an inanimate superstructure underlying life itself: all life, whether animal, vegetable or mineral. Even the lives of stars could be seen playing out their changes imperceptibly on the lives of their planetary brood. What was not taught, however — but only debated at higher levels — was why it should be there at all. This was a question without answers, but full of argument. Sinwa had given up long ago on these discussions as useless, contentious and without result. To him the fact was the only reality, and he was more interested in why life responded as it did, then why life should be there to respond at all.

Only his recent experiences had returned him to the memory of those debates of his Academy days, after his elevation to the rank of Jedi, when he was learning to master the rarer talents of the force. Some thought the force was a benevolent entity — but were hard pressed to show any evidence of that entity’s existence, unless it were seen as entirely passive; some thought it was generated by life itself, and that if all life were to cease, the force would also cease. Not much to argue in that theory, its being completely untestable. Still others thought the force was a plane of perfect energy, which had coagulated into the cruder forms of matter and energy in the known universe, but still retained a connection to those lesser forms. This made the most sense to Sinwa, but did not explain the Jedi’s special relationship to that energy, or why that connection would have anything to do with the Jedi’s ability to see into the near future.

None of these answers satisfied Sinwa, any more than they had those decades ago. The answer must involve all of it, he thought: the Jedi, the Sith, the future, life, energy, matter. All as a great whole, and the force a part of that whole: as connected to the will that does evil as to the great bursting of stars in the maw of the galactic center. Yet though he could describe what he wanted the answer to cover, he had no answer, and was confounded even in the matter of finding a good question.

Sith attack

Sinwa carried on in this way, waging philosophical battle as earnestly as he might strike with his saber, cutting with the blade of logic into the yielding mass of his confusion. It was during these thoughts that he felt something wrong, very wrong — like a sudden and gaping silence where for so long there had been constant noise. He raised his head and looked about, knowing instantly what this feeling meant.

“Come out, Sith. I can feel you like a sore.”

For a moment there was nothing, then a dark form moved from the shadows, advancing toward Sinwa into the light. It was not Darth Jenna, but Sinwa knew that already. The feeling was different. And it was not the great evil he had hoped to meet; that being would not so easily choose the honor of combat. This was some other evil entirely: a ronin of the Sith.

Abu Sinwa addressed the approaching figure: “Nearly all of your kind have been dealt with, Sith. Are you come to finish the number?”

The Sith master — Sinwa could feel his mastery like tentacles reaching into the darkness of the force for their power — removed his hood and glared insolently at Sinwa’s placid face.

“Jedi,” he said in a hissing tone, “my pupils are gone by your self- righteous hand, you and the rest of your vainglorious kind. I am here to settle a score with you in person for the loss of my most promising student. You will now answer in blood for what you have done.” The Sith powered his saber, a dual-sided lance whose blades hummed in the darkness.

“I am surprised you have come so far, to this place, to find me. But then, where better to hide and wait than the center itself, when all eyes are focused outward to find the last of your evil and rid it from the galaxy. You may have your chance to finish me — and I to honor my pledge that the Republic be rid of your scourge forever.” The shimmering green of Sinwa’s blade rose into the air, a sharp and familiar tang of burnt air reaching his nostrils. The saber glowed as if all the intent energy of his eyes had been trapped and fashioned in a tool of his will — as if all the fury of his inner dimensions were now matched by the power and deadliness of his lighted sword, the symbol of his rank as a champion.

The Sith came at a run, all his rage and hatred pouring out from him in the form of whirling blades. He swung and hurled his pent up malice on Sinwa’s saber. The two sparked and turned, swinging and thrusting with amazing speed. The white flashes of contact lit the air of the night. Any would-be onlookers had fled at the approach of battle, leaving the two to play out their contest in silence, but for the sound of the striking columns of light.

This Sith, unlike Jenna, was a master of his anger and hatred, channeling them into instruments of his terrible purpose, never missing a stroke. Sinwa released more and more of his strength to match the power of the Sith’s attack. Hatred, however, best runs cold, and cannot the survive the heat of contact too long — whatever the fierceness its strength — before it begins to wane.

Sinwa, in contrast, was fueled not by the heat of quick-burning anger, but by the powerful certainty that he fought for justice, knowing it demanded the death of this enemy who had caused the death and suffering of so many — and that he placed the beauty of justice above life, limb, even future. He did not pause or think of himself as he followed the Sith’s actions. He had become pure purpose, a bright point of will committed to victory, shining brighter and more powerfully with each moment as the glory of his intention shone in his actions, the power of his strokes, the certainty of his speed, and his untroubled calm.

Against this torrent of unrestrained might, growing brighter with each moment, the Sith quickly lost ground. At first he had had the upper hand, unleashing his hatred like a chained beast thirsting for the kill, spending all of himself in the first moments of the attack. But then he found himself matched, and then falling back as Sinwa continued to grow faster, more sure — more like a heroic bastion of light than the simple grey-haired figure who had paced the square a moment before.

The Sith struck again and again, feeling his certainty and energy draining away. There were no loose objects nearby to send flying at his foe. He felt himself shrinking away before the brimming glory of this human — who had seemed so pitiful before, only to become better, faster, greater with each moment. Sinwa, by his actions and purpose, was transforming into a being of light: a streak of lightning flashing out from the dark of his body’s humble demeanor, a creature of brilliance flaring out like the exploding fire of a star that had appeared too docile. In the face of this intensifying revelation, the poverty of the Sith’s nature became more and more apparent, fading as surely as night before the steady rising of the sun, a thousand suns, all the brightness and glory and radiance that filled the universe with light.

Then that being of shadow, that benighted soul of ill-intent, was struck by a mortal ray from Sinwa’s saber; and as dark is wont to, he collapsed into nothing as night before a candle. His attack had been nothing but show, his strength no more than a sudden gathering of feeble energies. The Sith’s decaptiated body crumpled to the ground in a pile of black cloth and flesh. Sinwa turned away, his rays of inner light returning to him like the energy of his saber to its hilt.

He resumed his walk about the city, to contemplate this ineffectual evil that had somehow gained a foothold in the great Republic.

Before the convocation

The Jedi Master Cortin vi Jubnaya sat up from his slumber with much smacking of lips, a joyous meeting of the new day. Though the problems of the Council weighed on his mind, he was certain one among their member would find a path, and that united in their efforts, they would be irresistible in pursuing it to completion. Although the citizens of the Republic might view the power of the Jedi as in their saber, their speed, or their command of the force, yet Cortin believed it was in that very certitude behind their actions, which erased all consciousness but for the goal — and the right way to reach that goal.

Cortin moved about his apartment swiftly, with expert movements, finishing the duties required by his body on waking. He had refined the necessaries of life down to a science, and then an art, not wasting one moment more on the demands of his physical self than necessary.

With his skin properly moistened, his simple clothing clean and pressed, flowing along the sides of his large frame, he gave the impression of refinement — as if the lack of ornamentation and the strangeness of his features only emphasized the grace of his bearing and the serenity that was the constant foundation of his teeming energy. Without waste he arranged the room, turned off the light, and walk down the hallway.

He strode among rows of doors to the elevator. The Council’s meeting room was far above, near the top of the building, with a giant window looking out on the city. He felt the movement of the elevator begin, passing through floors of libraries, archives, dormitories, practice rooms; the building itself was like a small city, an entire ecology comprised of teachers and tradesmen, gardens, cooks — even limited facilities for entertainment.

When he reached his destination, the door opened to a large room supported by columns of white marble, the ceiling itself four levels above. Cortin passed through this enormous space, a tiny figure among structures far larger. There were gardens to the sides, and small pools of water trickled gently — and as much silence as space. The floor and ceiling were set in various colored marbles from all parts of the galaxy, while the pillars were single pieces of white stone, standing as supports between the water and greenery below and the intricate mosaics above.

The Council chambers were near the back, at the end of the main hall, where a few early risers had already assembled. He saw Abu Sinwa there — which probably meant he had not slept at all, and might be good for the Council if it meant his thoughts had been engaging enough to keep him awake.

“Greetings to Master Cortin,” said Master Korlay with a bow, a short and squat Jedi from one of the higher gravity planets.

“And to you, my friends,” Cortin bowed. Those who were capable of returning the motion did; others lowered a hand, or their head, following whatever manner of respect was natural in their culture.

“We await only a few,” said Korlay, “Please, Master Cortin, refresh yourself before the deliberations begin.” A small table of food and water was located at the side of the room. Cortin stood there, easing his hunger, as he watched the splendor of the city at morning.

At this height, the sun reflected from a thousand moving surfaces, scintillating like a bounty of jewels cast in the sky. The glass windows of the other buildings, the speeder cockpits, the crystalline structures of ornament on some of the towers, scattered light everywhere — as though the sun itself had shattered, and small pieces of it floated constantly down to the surface of Coruscant, so many points of light alive amidst the life of the city.

The Jedi Academy rose high in the sky, still many levels higher than where Cortin was standing. The main spire of the Academy ended in the lower clouds, a lone figure in silent vigil over the city. It seemed so peaceful, the city, so engaged in its own business, that the meeting now to take place was just a bad dream next to the real, living world outside. But it was not a dream, as the results of Cortin’s own thinking would attest.

Members of the Council

The Jedi were assembled, the twelve most experienced of the Order: Abu Sinwa, human and teacher-philosopher, residing at his own Academy on the planet of Marth’nna, beneath the sun Regis.

Cortin vi Jubnaya, of the amphibian race of the Borti, a skilled engineer who worked mostly on the systems of the Central Academy itself.

Master Wosa, a Cetean, a humanoid race with deep blue skin like the oceans of their birth. His was a mammalian species that found itself equally at home on land or sea. He was a teacher at the Central Academy, and an artist.

Master Luudia, of the strange race of the Severan — one of the species gifted with extraordinary perception of the force. His body was serpentine, without arms of legs, coiled on itself and rising up to a great neck that ended in a face with pensive, mesmerizing eyes. His race had adapted to using the force in place of hands, and he wielded his saber using only these invisible powers — demanding constant concentration from his mind, and exceptionally deadly to his enemies, who could not use their eyes to predict where the next strike would come from. Unfortunately, as the Severan had developed and grown in numbers, they began to misuse these abilities in their pursuit of power and control, and all but wiped themselves out before discovering and joining the Republic. Luudia was one of the last of a dying breed that knew the force literally as well as his own hands — as it was. He spoke through a translator, and was a famed astronomer.

Master Ene, a female human from the planet Erta in the Soli system, with long, white hair that flowed along her back like a river of frozen ice. Her piercing blue eyes were set in a face of calm: the face of a great social theorist of the Republic.

Master Korlay, a Rigelian, built to withstand the crushing gravities of his large and dense planet. He was a physical icon of his planet: his huge chest dwarfing his small arms and legs, all thick with muscle. Only those who faced him in battle knew how agile and deft that body truly was. He was a mechanical engineer, fond of tinkering with ships and speeders.

Master Tollo, pure white, without eyes, his flesh constantly coated by a protective gel against the harsh sunlight. He race had lived entirely beneath the ground of a large, dying planet, where the gravity and temperature were too severe on the surface to support life. His body was muscular, and his senses of smell, touch and hearing incredibly acute. Like seeds in the ground, most of his race had sought to escape the soil of their home planet, and ventured out into the broad arena of the Republic, adapting as they found necessary. In many ways his lack of sight made his skill with the saber more deadly, since feints were not possible against an opponent with no eyes to distract. Master Tollo was an architect, expert at designing arrangements of space pleasing to the full array of senses. He was the designer of the great hall, its subtle sounds and scents in a cavern of gentle silence conveying the peace of a Republic supported by the great and pure pillars of white.

Master Yelley, of a race of vestigial avians, retained a suggestion of wings and a streamlined face and body, but was no longer capable of flight. He was an economist who flew instead among the vast complexities of math that sought to describe and predict the balance of health in the Republic.

Master Xorn, who did not see in the visible spectrum, but in all the shades of the infrared. It — for their race was hermaphroditic — had been born to life beneath a very dim, very old star, and so had adapted to visualizing the heat signatures of their prey. He was a geologist and ecologist who spent most of his time away from Coruscant.

Master Hochin, a human male with asiatic features from a remote asteriod colony, of short but compact build, his calm demeanor suggesting expertly contained power. He was the coordinator of the various branch Academies, and also between Coruscant’s government and the Central Academy.

Master Bri, a dark-skinned woman from the equatorial regions of Aresa, the planetary neighbor of Erta. She was a brilliant physicist whose contributions had helped to advance the capabilities of the Jedi in dealing with matter and energy, as her mastery had helped them to deal with the force.

Finally, the venerable Master Kuwann-ri, eldest among the Jedi and the convenor of the Council itself. He was of an obscure race from the fringes of the galaxy, about which little was known but for their apparently long life. His features were close to human, with only the slight oddments of bone structure to belie any comparison.

Kuwann-ri raied his hand, at which the Jedi Masters fell silent. They remained so for a full minute of meditation, to empty their thoughts and make their minds and hearts receptive to the greater movements of the force, whose ways were the subject of their convocation.

Sinwa speaks

“My fellow Jedi,” spoke Kuwann-ri, “You have been gathered here to discuss a matter troubling many. Initially I refer to the actions of the Sith who calls himself Darth Jenna, but the greater reason for our meeting is that many of you have expressed disturbing currents in your experiences with the force, to which these recent acts of sabotage may be connected. I am informed Master Sinwa may have more to say in this regard.

“We know the Sith have been causing much disruption — those still remaining after their own conflicts and our efforts to purge them from the Republic. They are fond of piracy, sabotage and outright attacks using tele-operated machinery. What disturbs us most about Darth Jenna is the apparent meaningless of his actions, and the deliberation shown by their consistency. These hint at a larger plan — which is the immediate cause for our convocation.

“Additionally, there has been growing unrest among the Jedi as though a storm is brewing, and we do not know the source or nature of this storm. We may presume it involves the Sith, and most likely Darth Jenna is connected to it. For this we are lacking evidence, however, though Master Cortin tells me he may have something to say on this matter.

“What this storm may bring, and what damage it may do to the Republic, we are also to consider; and how it may be forestalled, and how ameliorated, if not. You are encouraged to present whatever ideas occur to you, however trivial they may seem.

“We begin with the recent experience of Master Sinwa and his thoughts.” Kuwann-ri turned his head to Sinwa and inclined it gently, while the Jedi remained still and centered in themselves.

Abu Sinwa leaned forward, projecting his voice softly into the space offered by his companions. “My dear friends, I would not trouble you with premature thoughts, but in this case your input may help to discover connections my own thinking has not.

“As many of you read in my last report, I was able to face Darth Jenna before his escape from an attempted act of violence. He was setting a bomb to disable a power station around the gas planet Juppo, in the Soli system. I did not, however, succeed in learning what plan this act was a part of.

“At the end of our brief struggle, I had an opportunity to do away with his evil, but at that moment I felt as a man might, walking along a smooth desert and suddenly finding himself at the beginning of a fathomless canyon.

“There is much more to this than a simple matter of destroying minor industry and shipping. I cannot say for certain, and I do not like speculation, but it feels as though we are approaching a moment of profound crisis. Whatever Darth Jenna represents, it is causing resonances to build in the force that I think will soon be revealed — likely with significant changes for us, or for the Republic, or both.

“Previous to this encounter, I had attempted to learn whether a greater mind was at work behind Jenna’s actions. I learned only a name: Lord Serat. My own research has led me to feel there is truth to this rumor, and I intend to continue in my search for more information.”

Sinwa paused, looking at the Jedi in their various moods of concentration. Master Luudia was looking back at him, the faintest suggestion of movement in his long, sinuous neck. His eyes were slits of jewelled yellow, piercing the veils of space and time, looking directly at the heart of Sinwa’s utterance: at the manner in which his thoughts disturbed the force around him.

“There has always been debate,” Sinwa continued, “as to the nature of the force itself. At present I have nothing to offer to this debate; but I shall remain here at the Academy for a few days to look into some ideas that may reveal a direction to these recent affairs. I will send my results to you as I find them.

“Lastly, I would like to report the death of another of the Sith, only last night, near the ground level of our own Academy.”

Some of the Jedi left their poses of concentration to express surprise. Master Tollo said, “There has not been Sith activity on Coruscant for a long time! This is most peculiar.”

“Indeed,” said Sinwa, “This Sith claims he was seeking to personally redress a wrong done to one of his students — namely, his death for crimes done to others. We met in a duel and the teacher is no more. At first I thought it was simply an uncannily perceptive place to hide and wait — so close to where the Jedi have grown accustomed not to look — but now I wonder if it does not play into the other changes we are seeing. I can believe he came to hunt me, but why now, and why here, the night before our meeting? I did not see any reason not to conclude the battle with finality, but I am left with a growing unease at all of these coincidences in so short a time.”

Master Ene turned her head to Sinwa and said, “Master Sinwa, you yourself have been the locus of most of these recent coincidences. Have you considered how your involvement might play a part in your theories of a greater plan?”

“No, Master Ene, I had not considered that; thank you. I will add it to my meditations.”

Kuwann-ri gathered the folds of his robe together and addressed them all: “Now that we have heard Master Sinwa’s thoughts on a possible course encompassing these events, and his assurance to undertake further research, we now will hear from Master Cortin, who has also been pursuing some disturbing facts related to our inquiry.”

With a nod in his direction, Master Cortin sat forward and removed a computing tablet from a pocket in his robe. He touched the surface a few times in preparation, then cleared his throat and began to speak.

Cortin presents an idea

“Friends, we have been wondering at these recent attacks,” began Cortin, looking around at the room. “We also know the Sith work by deception and subterfuge. Their best successes are those we never see or hear about — which in fact the victim himself accepts as his own doing. This is the nature of their evil: to corrupt the innocent into complying with their own destruction.

“With this in mind, I have looked at these attacks by Darth Jenna, and asked not why are they occurring, but why are we seeing evidence of them only now? If there is a plan underway, it is almost certain to have begun before now, and we are only just becoming aware of it.”

Cortin lifted up his computer tablet and continued, “With this in mind I have re-examined events through the Republic in the last several years, looking for acts of murder, destruction, and failure, whose cause remained unexplained. There have always been such events, with various causes ultimately discovered, but what I did find is a pattern that stands out against the background of other data.

“In the past five years there has been a steady increase in unexplained crimes — without any corresponding increase in crime rates, economic depression, political instability, or aggressions with neighboring governments. In other words, an independent rise in crimes of a destructive nature whose agent was never learned. There is no definite connection between these events and Darth Jenna, of course, but it strikes me as peculiar that such an inexplicable rise should occur, and then such an explanation should present itself.”

Cortin stopped, putting his tablet down, leaving a silence that invited questions.

Master Wosa was first to speak. “This is both informative and troubling, Master Cortin. Is it possible to establish for certain your proposal of Sith involvement?”

“I do plan to investigate both here, and at some of the sights themselves, to see what clues may have been left behind.”

“Do you think this record of unexplained activity relates to Master Sinwa’s premonitions?”, asked Master Ene.

“I can only regard them as separate for now, Master Ene. The facts will have to demonstrate such a connection for me to be convinced of it.”

Master Ene inclined her head. Master Yelley looked at Cortin with an intent stare. “Do you, Master Cortin,” he said, “suggest any plan of action for this Council? It seems we have heard only forebodings today, but no plan of action for the whole of us.”

Cortin sighed. “I do wish the course were more clear; vague indications are irksome to me as well. It is important now to make you all aware, to hear if others might have learned something we have not, and also to give a definite voice to this seemingly general agitation. But since it is only that, a general sense of danger, we lack the specific form we might hope to give it.”

“Yes, well put of course, Master Cortin.” Master Yelley seemed to resign himself to hearing no further detail. “We must leave this matter to the future and your efforts, I fear.”

Kuwann-ri lifted his head. “My fellow Jedi, we must not undervalue these contributions, however meager they may seem to us now. Perhaps we are uncovering the uppermost features of an underground collaboration whose constructions has been taking place beneath our very feet. Let us not treat it lightly, but proceed with a resolve to uncover what we may. Neither haste nor delay are called for here.” He spoke in resonant tones, his voice measuring out the wisdom of his years, causing each member present to feel somehow chastened, supported and encouraged all in one moment.

“Master Cortin,” said Abu Sinwa, “what signs of Sith involvement do you think it may be possible to find after so much time has passed?”

“Ah, Master Sinwa, sometimes it is not the thing itself one must look for, but what is not there.”

The two held each other’s gaze for a moment, as if together they were fashioning a smile from the air between them.

“Indeed, indeed. I may have need of your method myself in the next few days. It can be curiously effective, looking for what is not there, amidst so much of what is…”

The two remained in silence a few moments more, and Kuwann-ri raised his eyebrow at the exchange — an expression rendering his features unreadable to human eyes. Master Yelley reached to comb the feathers under his chin, and Master Luudia permitted a wave of muscular contraction to pass up the length of his neck, ending with his head tilted to one side, amusement in his eyes.

“I think that this is the most we can expect from today,” interjected Kuwann-ri, in the tone of dusting off an unfinished sculpture for the day. “We shall leave our companions to further their quest for knowledge, and hear from them again when things are made clearer. Thank you all for making the effort to be here today.”

The circle of Jedi each bowed or otherwise gave respect at these words of closing. Several remained in attitudes of thought, while others left the room to pursue their own reflections in private. Sinwa and Cortin both rose, and left the room to walk in the great hall, remaining silent, but with a feeling of unspoken conversation continuing between them.

Leave-taking

Cortin and Sinwa walked slowly down the corridor of the great hall, each in his own world of thought, two planets of differing temperment yet orbiting the same sun. Cortin’s steps were firm, direct, marching like his thoughts toward whatever goal his mind presented; Sinwa’s steps were quiet, almost as if the ground were an extension of his own feet, and so close was he to this foundation of this movement that the two met like skipping rocks over water, making smooth progress toward his goal.

Then the two stopped, almost as if, by such different methods, they had reached the same destination at the same time. It was at this point the hall divided, where each would now begin a different trail. There were benches here, around a large pool circled by ferns and blue flowers, and they both sat, never a word having passed between them.

“What troubles me most, Abu,” began Cortin, his words in the silence like drops condensing from a heavy, inner fog, “is that Jenna seems to have wanted this to happen: for us to be discussing this matter now, like this. Why do I have the feeling we may have caught and released him, but the real result is that we’ve been caught in a net far more invisible and insidious?”

“Yes,” answered Sinwa, stroking his chin as he mused, “it does have an air of strange coincidence. Although, he did leave an arm behind for his troubles, if you have not forgotten.” He said this with a smile, but Cortin could not tell if it was one of understanding, or a hope to dispel the gloom.

“Maybe whoever directed him to begin revealing himself — if such an entity exists — has decided Jenna is now expendable, but Jenna refuses to believe he could be so easily defeated?”

“What you say has a ring of truth to it, my friend. It is common for the Sith to imagine themselves invincible. They put so much store in that reputation — however often it is disproved — that I doubt they are capable of a fair assessment any longer. Jenna acted both afraid and sure when we met, though the latter quickly left him.”

Cortin looked around at the pool, feeling a touch of home in the still waters and the fronds that hung down and met the pool’s surface. The stone bottom was of the faintest green, giving the impression of a forest continuing beyond the ferns, when there were only walls and pillars of marble.

“How long will you stay here?”, he asked, looking back at Sinwa, whose eyes were opened but not focused on anything in particular.

“I think only a couple more days, unless something interesting turns up. Where will you go?”

“To visit some of those older sites of activity, where there might still be clues of some kind. I will see how well it goes before deciding how long to continue with that inquiry.”

“If you find something of value, come back to Marth’nna and visit me. We may be able to exchange results that will be of help. It would be good to see you there again anyway. Perhaps a walk through the Elder Forest?”

“You know your forests are entirely the wrong shade for me!”, he laughed, “It makes me feel like I’m walking through a graveyard. But I would certainly like to come. I have been hearing much about one of your newer pupils. It would be good to see for myself if the rumors are true.”

Sinwa looked up, as if remembering something after a long time. “Ah yes, Hielo. Yes, I think you will like him. He has much promise, although quite a temper, and always wondering about his own progress. Yes… you must come. See what secrets the galaxy is hiding, then come and join Lehann and myself for supper. We shall invite young Hielo so you can judge for yourself. It reminds me how much I like that boy. But there are resources here our Academy is lacking, and I must remain for a time and find what I can.”

“We will both be busy for a while before we can be together again — for a pleasant evening under those strange, red moons of yours.” Cortin stood up, stretching tall and wide and cracking the joints of his back. Sinwa also stood, to wish his friend goodbye.

“Farewell, Abu, until we see each other again — and I hope, exchange much news.”

Sinwa bowed his head. “Farewell, Cortin. Until that time.” They clasped hands in a gesture of parting from Cortin’s world; then the tall amphibian turned and walked away in the direction of the elevator, then to his apartments, and the ship, and finally into the oceans of space beyond.

Sinwa remained seated for some time, reflecting on the waters and the walls of stone around them. In the peace there was no sense of hurry, only in the memory of the task. He held that peace for just a moment longer, then stood and walked to the library.

Basic plot

Here follows the attempts of Lord Serat and Darth Jenna to slowly cripple the planet Erta, in preparation for a devastating attack. Cortin, Sinwa and Hielo discover the plot, and act to prevent it, ultimately leading to the last chapters. Lehann is killed by Serat, in an attempt to weaken his spirit and make him susceptible to corruption. Hielo fights with Jenna and defeats at one point, but at the cost of much wounding. Serat’s reason for destroying Erta is that the greatest number of Jedi come from the human race. His plans are very long-term, and aim at weakening, not outright attack.

Race to avert destruction

Sinwa and Hielo find out about the asteroid attack, and head to intercept. They discover the control ship. Hielo puts on an environment suit, and has Sinwa swing by the asteroid, himself leaping across space to climb onto it. At the same time, Sinwa heads toward the control ship. Hielo searches the asteroid but finds no way to control it from there. Then he looks toward Erta and gives his thought monologue on space and approaching.

Sinwa faces Serat

Sinwa docked alongside the larger craft, already out of his seat and flying towards the airlock. He worked the mechanism at a speed that made his hands seem like a blur, himself not really seeing them but only the actions they were to accomplish, letting the muscles and bones work out the details faster than he could have observed with his eyes. The door came open with a whoosh of air and he raced into the control ship, moving like a humaniform image of purpose — abstract yet incarnate in the movements of flesh. As he neared the door to the central bridge, where the controlling computers were located, he saw a tall figure in black, completely robed, only the tips of its pale fingers showing from the sleeves.

“Serat!”, Sinwa growled in righteous fury, “This ends now!” He powered his saber and moved instantly toward the figure, closing the distance as if it were absurb that two separate objects should stand apart from each other.

“My dear Abu Sinwa,” said the voice from the hood. Something about that voice slowed Sinwa, then stopped him. He knew that voice. Well.

“Yes, the truth is coming clear to you even now, before any knowledge has passed through your brain. You were always very perceptive, Abu Sinwa.”

Slowly — Sinwa feeling trapped by something he could not even think to name — the fingertips grew into hands, lifting toward the cowl of the figure’s pitch black robe. It grasped the cowl at the sides and removed it, showing a fair, human-like face that was as familiar as any Sinwa had ever known. It was the face of Kuwann-ri.

He chuckled, looking at the immobile form of Sinwa, his saber still raised to begin the attack. Sinwa could only gasp, “No…”

“Oh yes, Abu Sinwa, oh yes. You have no idea, yet, how perfectly it ties in with every other thing you’ve known, sensed, or felt wrong in the happenings around you. But you will. Your capacity to ferret out ideas has always impressed me. It has been one of my greatest assets, in fact.”

Serat laughed again, this time deeper and more sonorously — sounding almost gleeful. “Yes! One of my best servants you were, never knowing it. You think my great evil, as Lord Serat, consists in a willingness to destroy Erta without a thought — except to plan it, of course. Oh, far from it, Abu. You see, you cannot even know the greatness of my evil. You have never allowed enough of it into your heart to ever know it. If you had, you might have discovered my presence among you long ago — at the very center of your own life. For my evil is not one of destroying planets. That, any Sith could attempt. My masterpiece is that I will destroy you, Abu Sinwa, not only without lifting a finger, not only using your own hand to deliver the blow — but I am going to tell you why you will obey me, and still you will do it!

“You can see that I am unarmed. I have always loathed the light saber. Such a crude instrument. The Sith who use it have no concept of the dark side and its true power. No, when I wish to strike down a Jedi, I let him use his own saber to do it, watching him — letting him know I’m watching, and what I expect — as he plunges it into his own heart.

“I mean this metaphorically, of course. It is not in the obvious I excel, but quite the opposite.

“You see, Abu Sinwa, there is a blade, twisting in your gut right now: a blade whose edge is dangerously close to the tenuous beating of your heart. That blade is your faith, your faith in me as Kuwann-ri; that maybe, somehow, there is a part of me who truly is Kuwann-ri and Serat is only his nemesis; that everything you know of my goodness must be true, or else it could not exist. You have faith in me, Sinwa, in everyone, in the potential for good in every created being. What I represent, in my real form, is the annihilation of your view of life. To destroy me, you must destroy who you are. The blade you feel turning inside you exists only because you believe in it: you believe in the pain that must come with a willingness to accept the potential for good even in a being of evil. My hand is on the handle of that blade, Sinwa, and I am the one turning it. But even though I tell you this, still you cannot let it go, still you cannot make the blade vanish and the pain disappear, and do the easy thing and destroy your beloved Kuwann-ri.”

Sinwa faced Kuwann-ri — Serat — without having moved a muscle. The quiet hum of his saber filled the silence. He found he could not think. It was like thought itself had become impossible, something that existed only in a world of reason — and what he was seeing before him negated all reason and logic. He saw his guide as a Jedi, his defacto leader, the rallying point for the very battle which had led to this moment; and now he saw the beginning, Kuwann-ri, standing in the footsteps of the end, Lord Serat. He felt as though the world had been torn into small pieces, thrown back together without any rhyme or reason, and hastily reglued by a child’s hands without care or thought. He was seeing unreality itself, the impossible — with hands, eyes, a smile — and he knew those hands, those eyes, that smile. Unreality had the face of his reality; his reality was unreality. Sinwa himself faded and teetered, on the brink of a chasm he could not allow himself to fathom, or else he would forever continue trying to do so as he fell endlessly toward its bottom.

Facing such a pure absence of decision — the meaning of “decisive” had seemed to have vanished — he could only stare, seeing two people where there was in fact only one, but still unable to resolve them into a single being.

Serat continued, “You wonder, how can evil and good be the same person? Can they, Sinwa? Can two opposites co-exist so closely they are actually the same thing? Is contradiction resolved by the identity of contending propositions? Is this the answer you sought for so long — and if so, what am I then? Am I Kuwann-ri afflicted by the evil of Serat, longing to defeat him — asking, begging your help to conquer this demon inside me; or am I Serat, using Kuwann-ri — using justice, right, the good itself as the tools of my evil design? Am I light yearning to shed its encroaching shadow as I lose a mortal battle, or am I the dark that has learned to wield the light? What am I, Abu Sinwa? This is what you want to know.

“I will tell you what I am, openly and clearly, but it will not help you. You will still do what you must, and that is to destroy yourself. That is the true power of the dark side: that even in the final moments I can be revealed, unmasked, but still it serves my purpose. I will show you what I am using a simple demonstration, quite basic, but I think it illustrates my point.

“Dark cannot wield light, Sinwa. Contradictions cannot exist. The dark succeeds by convincing the light to do its bidding, and since the light cannot believe this is possible, it is propelled by its own blindness into the very compulsion the dark places upon it. Evil knows the weakness of good: that it can never truly fathom evil. Perhaps evil cannot know good either, but I care little; my purpose is my only concern.

“I don’t wield any saber, Sinwa; I use your hands to wield yours for me. And since you cannot accept that I am doing so, you will follow its motions, believing they are your own — even if that motion is to cut your own neck.

“You see, it is your virtue. Your virtue is the saber I speak of: your commitment to justice. I have no virtues — none whatsoever — so it is appropriate that I carry no saber. I could not win such a contest on your terms, anyway. I do not fight virtue with virtue.

“But you can only conceive a world in which those are the terms of battle, where two contending wills meet, one to do evil and one to do good, and the morally superior wins. I do not. In my world, good never meets evil. Good is set upon itself, and its commitment to virtue is what makes this perversion possible. Evil simply waits by the side for good to finish the job. That is why it does not matter to me how skilled you become in the force — you will never match the greatness of the dark side, which does not need to rely on such skills. I exist outside your terms of battle, Abu Sinwa: I encompass you, as the dark has always encompassed the light.

“You can see the light of the sun because your eyes see only light; they are equipped to perceive the emission of photons from an isolated star. What you fail to see is the infinite darkness surrounding that sun, drinking its enery, watching, waiting for the sun to burn itself out. And thus the dark side always wins.

“Here is my demonstration, Sinwa. See what you think of it. Your beloved pupil is soon to discover that there is no way to divert that asteroid from its surface. There are no controls, and the engines are secure from meddling. The only way to change its course — to save him and your blessed planet, the home of your race — is in the control room behind me. You are free to enter, to adjust the controls, and save both of them. But understand that this room is filled with a deadly toxin — affecting only humans, I might add — a toxin that enters through the skin, not by breathing. It works very quickly, but then you have always been superb at everything you attempted. I am sure this will be no exception.

“Or you can fight me here, end my evil, reveal my secret, and conquer finally your nemesis whom you have sought so hard for so long. I will not be easy to catch, mind you; you will have to subdue me first as I evade your attack; but again, I have no doubt of your capacity to succeed. It must come at the cost of Erta and your Hielo, of course.

“And so make your choice, Abu Sinwa, and make it quickly. Time is running out for either option. I knew long ago which one you would decide, but I wanted you to know it too: that you had a choice, and yet you never had a choice; that your own virtue has made you a creature of my will, and hence your very goodness has rendered you a servant of evil. As you feel your dedication compel you, know that it is my hand compelling you. Your own commitment to justice is the very life of my capacity to destroy it!”

With that, Serat ducked to the side and ran off toward the escape pods, leaving Sinwa only the briefest moment to make his decision.

Sinwa’s choice

Sinwa made his choice, the value of his life expressed by his willingness to lose it to do what he must. He pressed the panel next to the control room door and ran in quickly, seeing through the thin gas, faintly green, the controls he wanted. Already he could feel the poison working into his joints like a hidden hand stuffing his body with cotton. He fought against it, willing more and more of his strength into his arms and legs, punching out the sequence to direct the asteroid away from its course and into harmless space. He then collapsed on the ground.

As he fell, giving himself up to the poison that was chasing the life from his veins, his mind opened to one bright moment of clarity, fully understood by him in that instant, but without time to draw it out into words. Had he found an opportunity to do so in those last moments, he might have said:

“It is evil’s way, Serat, Kuwann-ri, to tell us what things are, what they mean. It is good’s way to know it, without counsel, without reference to the world as you see it through your twisted eyes. You have told me that today the victory goes to you; such is your description. Your only weapon is compulsion, and you can only compel your victim through agreement. What if I do not agree? For I do not.

“Good wins by doing good. There is no reference in that to evil. Evil can only win if it convinces the good not to do good. Good is the only actor, the only principle. Evil is good’s failure to be itself. One might even say there is no evil at all, but only the question of whether the good is being true to itself or not. For the good consists in a thing be