Part 14 (2/2)

it would be most vexing if they were too late, after all the trouble they had been through. No doubt Master Luke might well be upset.

It would be a great inconvenience to everyone if it turned out Captain Calrissian was doomed to mortal peril.

* * They stood under the red five-sided canopy near the south wall, and low, haunting music played from some hidden source. A single red candle stood on a low five-sided table at the exact center of the canopy, and burned with a strange blue flame. Lando stood on the east side of the low table, and Karia on the west.

Luke stood, watching, just outside the canopy, on its north side, with the length of the great room at his back.

He did not like this. He did not like it one little bit. But he had sworn an oath, and he saw no way out. He watched as the wedding ceremony began.

Karia lifted her hands, and offered them, palm down, to Lando, one hand on either side of the candle. Lando placed his hands over hers, close enough to the candle that the blue flame cast its light on his skin.

”Left hand in right, right hand in left,” she began. ”East to west, west to east. Sunrise facing sunset as dusk faces dawn,” Karia said. Life, shorter than a moment. Life, longer than memory. Each side touching each. Two shall be one, and one shall be all.” She nodded to him, indicating that he should repeat the words.

”Left hand in right, right hand in left,” Lando said.

”East to west, west to east,” he said, speaking the words slowly and carefully. ”Sunrise facing sunset, as dusk faces dawn. Life, shorter than a moment. Life, longer than memory. Each side touching each. Two shall be one, and one shall be all.”

She nodded, and moved her left hand away from his right. She reached down onto the table, and picked up an instrument with an elaborately carved handle, resembling a ceremonial dagger. But this dagger had no blade. Instead, it had a ten-centimeter needle, its point so sharp it was hard to see. She stuck the needle's point into the candle's flame, which flared from bright blue to glowing, ruddy red.

Her right hand was still under Lando's left. Now she turned Lando's left hand over so that it was palm up. She held Lando's forefinger between her thumb and forefinger, raised the needle dagger andThere was a sudden, violent pounding at the door, so loud that both Karia and Lando jerked back in surprise. The door annunciator bonged loudly, over and over, and the pounding on the door redoubled.

”Hold it!” Luke said, his hand suddenly close to his lightsaber.

Whatever that was at the door might provide a way to stall. He reached out with his Force power and found that he could not sense a living mind there. A droid then, of some sort.

Whatever. It didn't matter. It might be nothing more than the grocer's droid demanding that Karia pay her bill, but Luke didn't care.

It bought him time, and he was going to use it. ”The ceremony stops!”

he said. ”I don't know who or what that is at the door, but the ceremony stops until we find out. Neither of you move.” Karia seemed about to protest, but Luke could see her eyes move toward his lightsaber.

She nodded agreement andkept silent. Lando nodded as well. ”Go,” he said.

Luke turned around and hurried toward the door. He unclipped his lightsaber, just to be on the safe side. He threw back the bolt and pulled the door open-and was astonished to find Threepio rus.h.i.+ng into the house.

”Threepio! What in s.p.a.ce are you”Stop! Stop! Stop!” Threepio cried out as he burst into the room. He stepped inside, paused a moment as he looked around, and then spotted Lando and Karia under the canopy.

He hurried toward them, gesticulating frantically. Luke followed behind the droid, utterly baffled.

”Go no further, Captain Calrissian!” Threepio shouted.

”Stop! Stop!”

”What are you talking about?” Lando said. ”Threepio, this is no time for you to barge in. When you made that racket at the door, I thought you were going to be someone important. Now get out of here.”

”But you must stop, I tell you!” Threepio turned toward Luke. ”Master Luke, please tell me. Have they gotten to the ceremony of the blood kiss yet?”

”No. They were just about to do it”' Luke said.

”Then thank heavens I am in time. You must stop, Captain Calrissian. The woman is a life-witch!”

”She's a what?” Lando asked.

”A life-witch!” Threepio said, pointed at Karia. ”The honorific 'Ver' before her last name signifies that she is a life-witch.”

”That is a term that I do not like to hear,” said Karia.

”We call ourselves life-bearers, for that is truly what we do.” She looked at Lando. ”But did you not know? Were you not aware? How could you seek me out and not know?”

”What's a life-witch?” Lando asked. ”And are you one?”

”I am a life-bearer,” Karia said.

”Call it by whatever name you wish,” said the droid, in tones that were even more frantic than usual. ”But it is true. True! We checked the records before we came over here, Artoo and I. He'd be in here showing them to you, but he's having trouble getting up the steps.”

Threepio turned toward Karia. ”Go ahead,” he said. ”Tell them.

We have the records. Tell them how many times you have been married.”

”It is my gift, the gift of the life-bearers,” Karia said, ignoring Threepio and addressing Lando with an unnerving calm. ”We are found only here, on this world, born now and again by random chance. Even here we are rare. Ours is a special gift and skill. By linking close, we can keep the old, the sick, the dying, alive for a time. The blood kiss bonds my body chemistry to my husband's. I can link to his life essence, and so sustain him. The sick and the dying are relieved of pain, and can live, for a time, in vigor and health. That is the Support I spoke of.

But we cannot provide Support forever. We can hold back pain, and forestall death, but only for a time. Then we must withdraw Support, or die ourselves. And a life force that has come to rely on Support cannot long survive on its own. It dies.

”You mean after five years of Supporting me-”

”I would withdraw Support and you would die,” Karia said. ”I thought that you knew this.” She shrugged. ”You would not be the first young and healthy man to exchange a long and uncertain life for a short one of comfort and security. And no, before you can ask, no, I could not marry without providing Support. We must have a time of recovery between husbands, but our life forces are likewise shaped by what we do. A life-bearer who does not provide Support for a time will soon sicken and die.”

Lando opened his mouth and shut it again.

”Your friend Chantu Solk was a more typical case. When he came to me, he had but a few months to live, months of pain and failing health.

I gave him three years of health and comfort and companions.h.i.+p, and in return I became his their, taking on his wealth only when he had no further use for it. Does that not seem a fair exchange?”

Lando looked back and forth from Karia to Threepio and back to Karia before he found his voice again and managed to gasp out a single, strangled question. ”How many husband?” he asked.

She drew herself up to her full height, folded her arms, and spoke with a calm, low dignity. ”I shall conceal nothing” she said. ”The life-bearer can bear no children of her own. We are sterile. But our compensation is long life, and time enough to do our work. I have had the honor to survive forty-nine husbands thus far.”

Forty-nine husbands?” Lando repeated in horrified astonishment.

Luke looked at Karia, amared. How old was this woman?

Was she a woman, a human, at all?

Karia Ver Seryan turned to Lando and smiled. ”But all this I thought you knew. In my eyes, and heart, nothing has changed. I shall have you if you shall have me. All that remains is the kiss of joining, the touch of my blood mingled with yours. Yes, there have been forty-nine. But should you still wish to undergo the ceremony, and the marriage, it shall be your happy death” five years from today, that will bring it to an even fifty.

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