"Actually, he died shortly thereafter, before he could ever return home. He and I had joked about his going off to the Clone Wars, for it was said that a Corellian Jedi who leaves the system does so at his own peril." My grandfather's eyes clouded over. "Nejaa promised his wife and me that the Clone Wars would not kill him. He was right, but still suffered the fate of those Corellian Jedi who go away.
"A friend of his, a Caamasi Jedi named Ylenic It'kla, came here, bringing Nejaa's effects home. He apologized for not bringing Nejaa's body, but the bodies of Jedi Masters fade away upon death. He also didn't have Nejaa's lightsaber. He said the Galactic Museum had asked for it for their Jedi collection." He smiled slightly. "I suppose it is still there."
"There, in that box, are all the things Ylenic It'kla brought back here after Nejaa's death."
I nodded slowly, the light bobbing up and down over the packing case's dark bulk. "How did Nejaa die?"
"I don't know the details. The Caamasi asked that I not in-quire. What he did tell me was that a great man, a hero of the Clone Wars, selected them for a very special and honorable mission. They went with him and the three of them vanquished most deadly foes, but Nejaa was mortally wounded. All the Jedi healing techniques could not save him and he died." "Then you married his wife and adopted his son."
Still, from what I could see in the glowrod light, the clothes had all been laundered, leading me to suspect the Caamasi Jedi had taken great pains to care for his friend's effects.
The other figure I found easy to recognize was a Caamasi. Golden down covered him except around the eyes, where pur-ple fur formed a mask around his eyes that spread tendrils up and back to stripe his skull. The Caamasi's large, dark eyes seemed full of inquisitiveness, not the sadness marking the Caamasi I'd seen; but then I'd only seen Caamasi rarely and this shot had been taken before they'd almost all been wiped out. The two of them-my grandfather and his friend-looked weary in some shots, but that was to be expected of people fighting a war. That they also looked content spoke a lot about their commitment to keeping the galaxy safe.
Bail Organa appeared in one picture with Nejaa and the Caamasi. Other individuals joined them in group and individual shots, but I didn't positively identify any of the others. The old-style clothes, the youthful faces, could easily have become countless senators and leaders whose aged faces I would have easily recognized. Some struck me as very familiar-annoyingly so-but without someone to tell me who they were or images to use for comparison, I was stuck not knowing.
Master Skywalker had once said that Jedi do not dream, so when I found myself on a bright, arid world, with my lightsaber unlit but held in my right hand, I wondered at how I had gotten where I was. I saw the emerald sleeves of my Corellian Jedi tunic, and even that did not seem out of place, though the material was finer than that of the clothes I'd been given on Yavin 4. It wasn't until I looked over to my right and saw Ylenic It'kla, resplendent in his purple cloak, and, beyond him, the Jedi General in his brown and khaki desert-born robes, that I realized I wasn't me.
The three of us, spread out sufficiently to give ourselves room to fight, stood in a dusty bowl-shaped depression beneath a duracrete dome. A dozen three-meter-tall pillars scattered around its circumference held the dome aloft, allowing the light from the outside to illuminate the arena. Makeshift tents and storage sheds occupied a quarter of the arena in the direction we were facing. Emerging from the central pavilion, three fig-ures came out to stand opposite us. Each of them bore a light-saber. Their leader, the taller, blond man facing the general, took a step closer to us than his comrades. The red-haired woman aligned herself with Ylenic, while the Anzati, with his proboscises just beginning to peek from the cheek pouches that hid them, lined up to oppose me.
The general-his name eluded me though I knew I recog-nized something about him-spoke very precisely. "You are meddling with things you cannot control; things that nearly de-stroyed the Jedi millennia ago. We have come to ask you to abandon your evil and return to the light."
The leader laughed slowly, his voice low and laden with con-tempt. "The weak always fear the strong growing up to replace them."
"And the foolish always see themselves as strong." The words came from my throat and I could feel my lips forming them. It almost even sounded like something I'd say, though more formal-more archaic and precise-than I would have liked.
Ylenic's voice came gentle yet strong. "Fear marks the wrong path. We offer you freedom from your fear."
Their leader thumbed his lightsaber to life. "And we offer you freedom as well."
The Anzati, taller than me, darker, entirely humanoid save for the proboscises uncurling in his excitement, ignited his blue blade and closed with me. Nikkos Tyris-his name came easily to me-held his lightsaber in a guard I'd not seen before. He had his left hand on the hilt fairly close to the shimmering blade, but the blade itself extended out and down from the lower edge of his hand toward the ground. His right hand rode the lightsaber's pommel. Holding the blade out away from his body, with his right hand at the level of his chin, he could waggle the blade back and forth in a triangle of coverage that would ward him well. This triangle style-the thought suddenly came to me like a long lost memory-favored a man who was quick, and would combine sweeping strikes at my legs with a flick of the wrist cut that would open me from groin to chin.
I knew fear, but the person I was in the dream shunted it away. I held my silvery blade in a simple guard, though I tilted the blade forward, pointing it at his throat. We circled, then he struck. His blade flicked out for my right leg. I swept my blade down to block low right, sparks flying as our blades crashed into each other. He bounced his blade up and over mine, and brought it across in a slash meant to decapitate me.
I caught the acrid stink as some of my hair melted beneath the lightsaber's lethal caress, but I ducked the blow by a safe margin. Rotating my wrists, I swept my blade back low, through where his legs should have been, but he leaped up and away from my strike. He flipped backward through the air, displaying great ability with levitation, and landed easily four meters away from me.
His dark eyes blazed for a moment, then an invisible fist smashed into my chest, knocking me backward. He freed his right hand from his azure blade, and flicked fingers at me with the most casual of gestures. A fist-sized stone shot at me from the ground, clipping me on the left shoulder. Pain shot through my arm, leaving it numb. He laughed and hurled another stone toward me. I deflected it with my lightsaber and smiled, then another rock slammed into the left side of my head.
I went down hard, raising a small cloud of dust when I hit the ground. My lightsaber bounced out of my grasp and I didn't see where it landed. I shook my head to try to clear it, but pain and a faint ringing made that difficult.
I could feel blood coating the left side of my face and swiped at it with the left sleeve of my tunic. I heard the crunch of gravel beneath his boots as Tyris approached. Drawing myself up into a crouch, I glanced to my right and finally saw my lightsaber lying there, two meters away. I wanted to call it to my hand, but I knew it would never come. I could dive for it, but his lightsaber would pin me to the ground before I ever got there.
"So, it is true, what they have said about the Halcyon line. You are wingclipped mynocks." An evil smile spread across Tyris's face as he brought his lightsaber around to display for me the tool of my destruction. "You are a line of weakness." I smiled, knowing what I had to do. "We have our strengths." "Do you?" He whisked the blade back around to his left, preparatory to sweeping it through me. "Better summon one swiftly."
In the second of life he left me, I caught a vision of him standing above me and my dead comrades. Our slain bodies faded away, but his mocking laughter did not. I knew with a certainty as clear and hard as transparisteel that if I did not deal with Tyris, my friends and our mission here would be de-stroyed. I couldn't let that happen, so I acted.
I launched myself toward my lightsaber, my right hand reach-ing for it. My body twisted in the air as I flew. I landed on my back, skidding the last centimeters to where my hand closed on the blade's hilt. Even as I tightened my grip, even as I started to bring the blade around in a parry, I knew I would be too late. So did Tyris.
He stabbed his blade down through my chest. The azure blade melted flesh and boiled blood as it went, reducing my heart to sweet smoke and steam. On further it stabbed, explod-ing arteries and burning through my spine. The lower part of my body went numb, though I barely noticed because of the wave of agony surging up through me and into my brain. It threatened to overwhelm me, letting darkness nibble into my sight. I was dying and I knew it and regrets poured in with the pain.
But I was not dead yet.
I was a Halcyon. I was a Jedi.
Jedi do not know pain.
In an instant all physical agony ceased as effectively as if I'd flicked a switch and turned all my pain receptors off. All I was left with was an incredible clarity of mind and a singleness of purpose. I'd dedicated my life to the service of others, to the service of the Force. I would not go out without my duty being fulfilled. I concentrated and employed the greatest Halcyon gift against my enemy.
I sucked the energy out of the Anzati's lightsaber and forced myself to smile as I did so. I tasted blood in my mouth, but that fact elicited no panic. It was inconsequential. More telling was the look of surprise on Tyris' face as his blue blade flickered once, then twice, then went out. I'd drained it of every last joule and let him read in my eyes that he should suddenly be very afraid.
With the energy I'd pulled in I plucked him from the ground in a giant invisible fist. He screamed, I think; at least his mouth worked as if he was screaming. I made the fist convulse once and I felt no resistance as his bones shattered. I let him hang limp in the air for a moment, then hurled him back through the tents to slam him against the dome and a support. I felt a jolt through the Force and saw a blue flash of light, but by then my energy reserves had faded.
As did I. I felt spiky red torments racing in to fill my con-sciousness, but I slipped out of my fleshy prison before they could shackle me to this spot forever.
And no one knew why it had been carried out. For as long as anyone could remember, the Caamasi had been very pacifistic and the very soul of moderation and mediation. While a few Caamasi ventured forth as Jedi-obviously including my grand-father's friend, Ylenic It'kla-most who left Caamas did so as traders or scholars, negotiators and diplomats. So beloved were they that various languages adapted the word Caamasi to mean "friend from afar" or "stranger to be trusted."
Factions within the Empire certainly did what they could to help the surviving Caamasi after the immolation of their world. A number of colonies like Morymento had been created, and those who were inclined to see conspiracies everywhere even went so far as to suggest Alderaan had been destroyed because it was home to one of the larger Caamasi refugee communities. I didn't know if that was true or not, but I could recall my mother collecting up old clothes for shipment to Caamasi camps elsewhere in the galaxy. With the defeat of the Empire, the charity continued and even swelled, which meant, with a semi-annual shipment of supplies just having arrived on Kerilt, the Caamasi colony became a ripe target for plunder.
"My markings are common among the Kla, the maternal clan into which I was born. It is fairly easy for me to transfer a merehis to another member of the Kla clan or to my father's clan, the A clan."
My head came up. "My grandfather knew a Caamasi named Ylenic It'kla."
"My mother's brother. We share the maternal line. I knew him well and we were very proud of his being a Jedi." Elegos' face took on a very happy expression. "You must understand, we Caamasi discovered something special about the Jedi. While only three or four generations of separation could all but block the transfer of memnii between Caamasi, when one of us came to know a Jedi and form a bond with him, we could transfer to him a rnernnis. This is nothing short of a miracle, and when my uncle became a Jedi, the Kla clan's pride swelled incredibly. It is through a rnernnis my uncle gave to me that I recognized you. You have Nejaa's eyes, his scent and his sense."
"Your uncle was Ylenic? Where is he? Can he tell me more about Nejaa?"
Elegos blinked his eyes rapidly and covered his face with his hands for a second. I started to get out of my chair, but he held a hand out to stop me, then composed himself. "Forgive me. My uncle was not on Caamas when our world was immolated. He was visiting a friend on Alderaan and convinced that friend to provide a safe haven for other Caamasi survivors. He and others of our leaders who had survived decided that we also had to spread out, and to mix our clans in all these new settle-ments. While Alderaan might be the largest settlement, it would not be the only one."
I felt my blood run cold. "He died on Alderaan."
Elegos nodded slowly. "He had eluded the Emperor's Jedi hunters for years, but he could not elude a world's destruction."
"As my uncle often said, `There are attempts, and there are accomplishments. Histories only praise one.'"
"The Caamasi have a gift in which significant memories be-come treasured and, in special circumstances, can be shared. We discovered, as a people, that we could share them among ourselves, yet with non-Caamasi species, they could only be communicated to the Jedi. I think it is their connection to the Force that allows this, and any of us who have come to truly know a Jedi are privileged to be able to share these memnii with the Jedi."
He twisted back and caught my right hand in his left, drag-ging me forward. "I have come to know this man under a vari-ety of identities, one of them being Keiran Halcyon; the grandson of Nejaa Halcyon. Nejaa is the Halcyon Jedi you ac-cuse of being a murderer and the Caamasi who was with him that day was my uncle. My uncle passed to me the merehis of what happened here, sharing with me the memory of his friend's death. This is the point of view I have of those events, and I would share it with you in hopes you would understand the other point of view."
Even if I had intended to edit and modify it, I doubt I could have. Since what I was seeing came through Caamasi eyes, and was wrapped up in Caamasi kinesthetics and senses, any changes I had made would have been patently human and obvi-ously artificial. Moreover, the intensity and volume of sensory input overwhelmed me. I saw and heard, tasted, touched and smelled-boy, did I smell things-so much that I couldn't cate-gorize it. The merehis was like a holovid presentation so com-plex that only by watching it again and again could I begin to grapple with all of the elements.
I found myself in Ylenic It'kla's flesh, with his fellow Jedi on either side of him. My grandfather he classified as Spicewood- he knew his name, of course, but the Caamasi's acute sense of smell led him to store identity information with scent being more important than name. The other Jedi he identified as Desertwind. I heard Desertwind warn the dark Jedi we faced, and all of our replies, the same as in my dream. Then the battle was joined, blades flashing, barking, sparking and hissing.
Moving into combat in the Caamasi's body felt thoroughly alien. His gangling limbs and deceptively slender muscles con-tained incredible power and grace. His feet shuffled through the dust, always keeping us in balance, with our legs ready to propel me forward in a strike. I watched my foe come in, watched her flick her blade this way and that, probing my de-fenses. I could tell she had some skill, but how much remained a mystery, and a hint of fear trickled through me as she at-tacked.
Pain exploded on my left flank as the red-haired woman-
Dustrose-raked the tip of her blue lightsaber across my flesh. I caught the stink of burned down and it almost overrode the pain. I spun away with impossible quickness, turning a full cir-cle and bringing my red-gold blade around to bat her blade aside.
She was good, but I knew I was better.
My Caamasi muscles tensed, then brought the blade back up in a rising slash that slipped beneath her guard and opened her from hip to shoulder. Dustrose reeled back, then flopped to the ground. An explosion of blue energy instantly consumed her body, knocking me back and down.
Through the link with the Saarai-kaar I felt a jolt of grief at Dustrose's death, but it was as nothing as I looked to the left. I saw Spicewood on the ground, his lightsaber beyond his reach. I knew that if I could concentrate, if I could push past the pain, I could move his lightsaber back into his hand. It would only take a moment, and the Anzati Nightsweat's gloating clearly appeared to give me that moment.
Then Spicewood dove for his blade and Nightsweat stabbed down. I could almost feel the blade burning its way through my friend, severing the ties his life had to his body. I would have expected him to die instantly, but he managed a smile. The azure blade fixing him to the ground sputtered and died and in an instant I knew what he had done, how he had employed the rarest of all Jedi gifts, and what a terrible price he had paid for it.
Nightsweat rose into the air, then convulsed and seemed to implode. I saw the body fly back through the tents built beneath the duracrete dome. Nightsweat exploded, as did the dark Jedi Desertwind had slain. Their mortal bodies no longer able to contain the dark-side energy, it flashed out in a blue fireball that shattered the duracrete dome. I rushed to Spicewood, pull-ing him clear as the dome began to collapse. I felt Desertwind supporting the dome around me, then he let it go as we got clear.
I knelt in the dirt, cradling my friend's head in my lap. Desertwind stood by my side, resting a hand on my shoulder. "I think he knew Tyris was a good enough swordsman to get one or the other of us. Nejaa knew he could not defeat him with a lightsaber, so he found another means to protect us."
I caressed my grandfather's face, wiping away the blood from the cut on his head and the corner of his mouth. "To have survived so much to die here. It is sad."
"But to die in the defense of all that is good, it must be celebrated and remembered."
I nodded. "It will be a sadder day when such nobility is for-gotten."
"Or feared."
"Worse yet, yes." I smiled, breathing deep of Spicewood's scent, then was aware of the lessening of his weight upon my thighs. I looked down and saw him fade away, his burned clothes collapsing, his lightsaber settling into the dust. Beyond his boots, a last section of the dome groaned and sagged in, with a couple of the tiles that had been set into it exploding into fragments. I picked one up and ran my thumb over it, feeling the strange glyphs incised into it.
I began to shiver and Desertwind supported me. "You've been hurt, my friend. We have to get you away from here. In a place of evil like this. there can be no healing." "I can make it back to Yumfla."
"Go~d, and then to CoreIlia." Desertwind helped me up.
"Ncjaa's family will know he died a hero."
"No. You'll want time alone-or more time alone-and Elegos has learned of the Alderaanian ritual of leaving grave goods in the Graveyard. Ooryl and I are going to head to Ker-ilt, pick up Elegos' daughter, Releqy, and take them to where they can leave things for Ylenic It'kla."
I nodded. "I'11 have to make that trip, too, at some point.
Leave something for Ylenic in my grandfather's name."