Part 31 (1/2)
”You would rather murder someone than risk losing my allegiance?” Isolder found his nostrils flaring. ”Did you also hope that by doing this you could further distance me from my aunts?”
The queen mother's eyes narrowed. ”Oh, your aunts have committed their shares of murders. They're every bit as dangerous as you believe. But Leia is a pacifist. I couldn't let you marry a pacifist. She would be too weak to rule. Don't you see? If Hapes had had a stronger military presence before the rise of the Empire?as I always advocated?we never would have fallen to the Empire. Mealymouthed pacifists and diplomats nearly ruined our realm.”
”And the Lady Elliar,” Isolder said with wonder in his voice, ”she was a pacifist. Did you kill her, too?”
Ta'a Chume pulled the veil back over her face, turned away. ”I will not be interrogated in this fas.h.i.+on. I'm leaving.”
A note of wonder and horror came to Isolder's voice. ”And my brother?was he too weak to rule? Is that it? Have you never intended to let anyone but you choose your successor?”
Ta'a Chume spun around. ”Keep your a.s.sumptions to yourself!” she said vehemently. ”Don't ponder things that you can't possibly understand. You are, after all, only a male.”
”I understand murder!” Isolder shouted, nostrils flaring. ”I understand infanticide!” But Ta'a Chume began picking her way through the crowd, heading for the door.
Teneniel took his elbow and said softly, ”Let me reason with her. Ta'a Chume,” she said softly, and Ta'a Chume stopped as if Teneniel had yanked her with an invisible cord. ”I'm going to marry your son, and someday I'll rule your worlds in your place.” Ta'a Chume turned, and her eyes seemed to be burning lights as she glared through her lavender veil.
Teneniel continued. ”Let me a.s.sure you that I am not a pacifist. In the past two days alone, I have killed several people, and if you ever try to harm me or mine, I will force you to confess publicly all of your crimes, and then I will execute you. I a.s.sure you, I find you to be that contemptible!”
Ta'a Chume's four bodyguards had been standing against the wall. Teneniel could not know it, but threatening the queen mother was grounds for immediate execution. The queen's guards went for their blasters, and Teneniel waved her hand. The blasters crumpled and clattered to the floor. One guard rushed forward, and Teneniel waved her hand and struck her from a distance with an invisible fist. The guard's jaw cracked with a sickening thud, and she fell backward, stunned.
Ta'a Chume watched the brief battle from the corner of her eye.
”Reconsider, Mother,” Isolder said. ”You once told me that you didn't want to risk the chance that our ancestors would be ruled by an oligarchy of spoon benders and readers of auras. But if I take Teneniel as my wife, there is a good chance that your grandchildren will be those spoon benders.”
Ta'a Chume hesitated. Looked at Teneniel for a long moment. ”Perhaps,”
Ta'a Chume said with conviction, ”I was hasty in my judgment. I suspect that Teneniel Djo, princess of Dathomir, will make an adequate queen mother. Make sure you dress her in something appropriate before you bring her home.”
She turned to leave, and Isolder said to her back, ”One more thing, Mother. We are going to join the New Republic. Now!”
Ta'a Chume hesitated, nodded her head in consent, and stormed from the room.
The next morning, Luke stood on the parapet of the war room in the early sun, watching the shuttles rise in the distance, carrying the last of the refugees from the prison.
Augwynne came and stood behind him, watching the tiny s.h.i.+ps leave. ”Are you sure you won't go with them?” Luke said. ”This will still be a dangerous sector.”
”No,” Augwynne answered. ”Dathomir is our home. And we have nothing here that anyone would want?except you. We have something you want. I can feel that about you. What do you desire?”
”A wreck, out in the desert,” Luke answered. ”Once it was a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, called the Chu'unthor, and the Jedi trained there. I'd like to come back someday and salvage it, see if any of its records are intact.”
”Ah, yes. Our ancestors once fought a great battle there with the Jai.”
”And you won,” Luke said.
”No,” Augwynne said, leaning her back against the stone wall of the fortress and folding her arms. ”We didn't. In the end, both sides sat down and talked, negotiated a settlement.”
Luke laughed. ”So you got the s.h.i.+p, but it sat in the desert for three hundred years and rotted? What did you gain?”
”I don't know,” Augwynne said. ”Only Mother Rell was there, and her mind is nearly gone.”
”Mother Rell?” Luke asked, and an odd sense of peace stole through him.
Augwynne looked at him questioningly, and Luke hurried through the hall, down to Rell's room. The old crone sat on her cus.h.i.+on on the stone box as before, wisps of silver hair s.h.i.+ning in the candle lights. She looked up at him vacantly.
”Mother Rell, it's me, Luke Skywalker,” Luke said, and the old crone peered at him through rheumy eyes.
”What?” she asked. ”Are the Nightsisters all dead? You killed them?”
”Yes,” Luke answered.
”Then our world is ended, and a new one begun, as Yoda foretold.” Luke found he was shaking with excitement. ”I suppose you have come for the records?”
”Yes,” Luke answered.
”We wanted them, you know,” Rell said. ”But the Jai would not give us the technology to read them. They said that the teachings were too powerful, and as long as there were Nightsisters on our world, we could not have them. Yoda promised that someday you would share them with our children.”
She feebly got up from her seat, turned to the stone box and pulled off the cus.h.i.+on, tried to open it.