The Approaching Storm

Chapter 9

The simple but soaring melody from his youth rolled out across the attentive assembly, silencing the children and causing sadains and suubatars alike to turn their dozy ears in the direction of the central compound. It floated free and strong across the lake and among the reeds, to finally lose itself in the vastness of the northern prairie. None of the watchful Yiwa understood any of the words, but the strength of the young human's voice and the ardor with which he sang more than succeeded in conveying his loneliness. Even this was unnecessary. While the human's song was utterly different from their own edgier harmonies, like so much music it succeeded in reaching across the boundary between species.

It took Anakin a moment to realize that he had finished. Blinking, he scrutinized his diverse audience. Then the whistling began, and the hissing, and the coordinated knuckle cracking. He ought to have been pleased. Instead, he hurried to resume his place alongside his Master; head down, face flushed, trying and failing to hide his discomfiture. Someone was patting him approvingly on the back. It was Bulgan, bent and contorted, his face alight with pleasure.

"Good sounds, Master Anakin, good sounds!" He put one hand to an aural opening. "You please every Alwari."

"Was it all right?" Anakin asked hesitantly of the man seated next to him. To his surprise, he saw that his Master was eyeing him with uncommon approval.

"Just when I think I have you figured out, Anakin, you un leash another surprise on me. I had no idea you could sing like that."

"Neither did I, really," the Padawan replied shyly. "I man aged to find some inspiration in an old memory."

"Sometimes that's the best source." Obi-Wan started to rise. It was his turn. "Something else interesting you yourself might not have noticed. When you sing, your voice drops considerably."

"I did notice that, Master." Anakin smiled and shrugged dif fidently. "I guess it's still changing."

He watched while his teacher strode confidently to the cen ter of the sands. What was Obi-Wan Kenobi going to do to reveal to the Yiwa his inner self? Anakin was as curious as any spectator. He had never seen Obi-Wan sing or dance, paint or sculpt. In point of fact, he felt, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight, was something of a dry personality. This in no way limited his skill as a teacher, Anakin knew.

Obi-Wan spent a moment mentally reviewing his knowledge of the local vernacular, making certain he could handle the Yiwa dialect. Then he folded his hands in front of him, cleared his throat, and began to speak. That was all. No acrobatic leaps a la the buoyant Padawan Barriss. No full- throated euphonious declamation of emotion like Anakin. He just-spoke.

But it was music nonetheless.

Like Barriss's gymnastic performance with the lightsaber, it was all new to Anakin. At first he, and many of the Yiwa, were restless, expecting something more expansive, more grandiose of gesture. If all the Jedi was going to do was talk, they might as well be doing something else. And in fact, some in the crowd did indeed start to drift away. But as Obi-Wan continued to declaim, his voice rising and falling in a sturdy, mellifluous tone that was somehow as entrancing as it was steady, they came back, reclaimed their places, and watched, and listened, as if the voice itself was as mesmerizing as the most powerful hypnotic drug.

Obi-Wan wove a tale that, like all great stories, began simply enough. Unpromisingly, even. But as details began to emerge, as profound truths could be discerned through the lens of adventure, it became impossible for anyone to leave. Try as they might, Yiwa young and old could not tear themselves away from the tale the Jedi told.

There was a hero, of course. And a heroine. And where both are present, there invariably arises a love story poignant and true. Greater issues than the feelings of the two lovers were at stake. The fate of millions lay in the balance, their very lives and the lives of their children dependent on the making of correct decisions, on choosing to fight for truth and justice. There was sacrifice and war, betrayal and revelation, greed and revenge, and in the end, as the fate of the two lovers hung suspended like a small weight from a thread, redemption. Beyond that, the humble storyteller could not see, could not say, a confession that provoked cries of unsatisfied frustration from his audience.

With a soft smile, Obi-Wan asked if they really wanted to hear how it all turned out. The chorus of concurrence that followed woke half the beasts in the corrals. Even Mazong, Anakin noted, had been sucked into the tale, and required closure.

Raising his hands, Obi-Wan requested and received a silence so complete that the small furry scratchers on the far side of the lake could be heard rubbing their abdomens against the rocks there. In a voice deliberately hushed, he resumed the story, his voice never rising but the words coming faster and faster, until his audience, leaning forward the better to hear and not miss a single word, threatened to collapse en masse onto the sand.

When he delivered the final surprise, there were shouts of joy and much appreciative laughter from the onlookers, followed by intense discussions of the tale just told. Ignoring these, Obi-Wan walked quietly back to his place and took his seat. So overcome were the Yiwa by the telling that they forgot to hiss or whistle or crack a single knuckle in appreciation. It didn't matter. There was no need for applause. Obi-Wan's saga had passed beyond the need for simple approval into the realm of complete acceptance.

"You enchanted everyone entirely, Master." Anakin hardly knew what to say. "Myself included."

Picking at the sand by his feet, the Jedi shrugged disarmingly. "Such is the power of story, my young Padawan."

Anakin considered this carefully, as he was learning to do with everything Obi-Wan Kenobi said. "You kept everyone in complete suspense. Suspension might be a better description. I never saw the happy ending coming and didn't expect it. Do all your stories have happy endings?"

Flicking a few grains of sand aside, Obi-Wan looked up at him sharply enough to give his apprentice an unexpected start. "Only time will tell that, Anakin Skywalker. In storytelling, nothing is a given, the astonishing becomes commonplace, and one learns to expect the unexpected. But when people of understanding and goodwill come together, a happy ending is usually assured."

The Padawan frowned uncertainly. "I was speaking of story- telling, Master. Not reality."

"One is but a reflection of the other, and sometimes it's difficult to tell which is the original and which the mirror image. There is much to be learned from stories that can't be taught by history." Obi-Wan smiled. "It's like making a cake. Much lies in the choosing of ingredients before the baking has even begun." Before Anakin could comment again, Obi-Wan had turned back to the center of the gathering. "We'll talk more about it later, if you like. For now, we need to show courtesy by giving our colleague Luminara the same kind of close attention as the Yiwa."

Unsatisfied but understanding, Anakin turned away from his Master to where Luminara had taken center stage. It wasn't much of a stage, he knew. The lighting was bad, the floor un even, and one would flatter the audience by calling it unsophisticated, but she approached it as if it were the finest theater on Coruscant. She had spoken several times of feeling the chill carried by the wind that swept over the prairie, and so wore her long robes. Yiwa who had been astounded at Barriss's acrobatics, softened by Anakin's singing, and held spellbound by Obi-Wan's storytelling now waited and watched expectantly to see what the last of the visitors would do.

Luminara closed her eyes for a very long moment. Then she opened them and, kneeling, picked up a handful of sand. Straightening, she let it trickle out from between her fingers. Caught by the wind, the tiny grains formed a glittering whitish arc as they spilled from her hand. When she had emptied her palm, she slapped her hands gently together to brush away any remaining grains.

Some of the Yiwa began to stir. This polite acknowledgment of their environs was something the smallest children of the clan could do for themselves. There was merit in the recognition, but little in the way of enlightenment. Surely there was more to come!

There was. Kneeling again, Luminara picked up a second handful of sand, let it trickle from between her fingers. A few muted growls rose from the crowd. A concerned Barriss saw that Anakin was feeling the same confusion and uncertainty as herself. Nearby, Mazong frowned in disapproval. If anything, his advisers were even more discomfited. Only Obi-Wan appeared unwor-ried. That in itself, she knew, was significant of nothing. He always looked that way.

She found herself leaning forward and squinting. There was something different, something odd, about the dribble of sand spilling from her Master's fingers. It took her a moment to figure out what it was. When she did, despite what she knew of her Master's capabilities, her mouth opened slightly.

The sand was falling against the wind.

It was just ordinary beach sand, drawn from the shores of the nearby lake, but in the delicate yet strong fingers of the Jedi, it became something magical. The light from the surrounding glow-poles caught the falling grains, turning mica to mirrors and quartz into polished gems. When the last particles had fallen from Lumi-nara's fingers, they reversed direction. A few hushed cries of "Raja!" rose, from the crowd as sand began to fall-upward.

Resembling a fragmented coil of wire, the column of grains began to wind itself around the Jedi, enclosing her in a slowly ascending spiral of sand. Like a serpent being born full grown, another column lifted itself from the ground to entwine her a second time. As the sparkling sand spirals rotated in opposite directions, they splintered into smaller and smaller threads, until Luminara was shrouded in multiple strings composed of shattered, water-worn specks. It was as if she were engulfed by thirty threadlike pillars of dancing diamonds.

She began to twirl, spinning slowly at first, balancing on one foot while the other pushed off and provided thrust. As she pirouetted, the glittering sand spirals responded, half turning with her, the other half rotating in the opposite direction. Though all was accomplished in complete silence, Barriss thought she heard music.

Faster and faster Luminara whirled, racing the rising sand. Centrifugal force threw the hem of her robes away from her legs. The spinning sands backed off accordingly. As she accelerated, her robes rose higher and higher.

A collective gasp erupted from the assembly. A blur of robes and sand, Luminara Unduli rose slightly from the ground. She continued to spin, her feet rising, until she was no more than a hand-length off the ground. Still rotating, she tilted forward, and began to spin and rotate simultaneously, holding her place in the air. It was as unique a demonstration of control over the Force as Barriss had ever seen, and certainly the most breathtaking.

Following her movements, the sand spirals rotated with her, until they formed a near-solid globe of shining, sparkling particles around the almost hidden body. There came a soft puff of air; the sound of a cloud exhaling. Luminara landed on her feet, hands outstretched, feet spread shoulder-width apart. The curtaining sphere of sand that had formed around her fell to the ground. Lowering her arms, she bowed her head once before walking back to rejoin her friends. As she resumed her seat, Obi-Wan inclined slightly in her direction.

"Okay, I'm impressed. How do you feel?"

"Dizzy." Smiling softly, Luminara blinked several times. Otherwise, she betrayed nothing of what she was feeling internally.

"Please, Master-what is the secret of the rotating trick?" Barriss very much wanted to know.

Turning her head slightly to face the eager Padawan, Lumi- nara spoke through closely set lips. "The trick, my dear, is not to throw up. At least, not until one is well offstage."

There was no applause. No whistling, no hissing, no celebra tory cracking of joints. In ones and twos, alone and in family groups, the clan Yiwa simply rose from their seats and melted away, returning to their collapsible homes and ceremonial fires. A number of armed males headed for their guard posts, to take up the nocturnal watch for shanhs and other predators that might try to prey on the slumbering herds. Sooner than expected, only the visitors were left, together with Mazong and his advisers.

"The clan has hosted many recitals by many guests," the chieftain of the Yiwa began, "but never in living memory have any been so diverse, so unexpected, and so remarkable."

"I didn't get a chance to show off my juggling," Bulgan muttered disappointedly. Kyakhta jabbed him in the ribs.

Mazong ignored the aside, pretending not to have heard it. "You have more than fulfilled your end of the bargain." His gaze fastened on Luminara. "I would give much to know how you did that."

"So would I," Anakin put in intently. "It would be useful in a fight."

Turning toward their host, Luminara launched into a discus sion of the Force: what it was, how the Jedi made use of it, and the nature of its essence-dark as well as good. When she was finished, Mazong and his advisers nodded solemnly.

"You traffic in dangerous matters," he declared somberly.

"As with so much that holds great promise, there is always some danger," she replied. "Such as this proposed agreement between the Unity of the town folk and the Alwari clans. But when it is treated with respect, the Force is ultimately a power for good. The same can be true of this concordance that we hope to achieve."

Mazong conferred with his advisers. The two elders appeared to have lightened up considerably, Barriss decided. As the chieftain finally turned back to his guests, she drew her clothing tighter around her. Though the winds of Ansion tended to diminish along with the daylight, they did not always cease entirely, and she was cold.

"We concur." He gestured magnanimously at Kyakhta and Bulgan. "We will give your guides such directions as will enable you to find the Borokii soonest. Clanless these two may be, but they raise themselves high by their choice of employers."

"How long until we reach their outlying factions?" Obi-Wan inquired.

"That cannot be foretold." As Mazong stood, his guests rose with him. "The Borokii are also Alwari. They may be encamped, as are the Yiwa. But if they are on the move, you will still have some tracking to do. We can only point you in the direction of their last known campsite." He smiled reassuringly. "Do not despair. With our directions you will find them far sooner than if you continued searching on your own."

"We thank you for your kindness, and for your hospitality," Luminara told him.

He responded with a gesture she did not know. "You have more than repaid us. Indeed, we are shamed by our suspicions."

"One never need apologize for caution." Obi-Wan stretched. A Jedi could go without sleep for an amazing length of time- but would not by choice. He was tired. They all were.

Anakin in particular could not get the Jedi Luminara's presentation out of his head. It kept him preoccupied as he prepared for sleep and awake well into the morning hours. He thought he had seen or read everything that could be done with the Force. Once again, he had been shown the error of his assumptions. He could not imagine the amount of study and control it took to realize such a feat. The complexity of it, the skill needed to simultaneously control one's body as well as thousands of individual grains of sand, was quite beyond him.

For now, he thought as he lay on his back in the visitors' house. Though aware of his present limitations, his confidence in his abilities was boundless. It was the same confidence that had allowed him to survive a difficult childhood, had gained him the skills necessary to master the intricacies of droid repair that had made him so valuable to that winged reprobate Watto, and had permitted him to participate in the liberation of Naboo from the subjugation of the Trade Federation. It was the same confidence that would one day enable him to achieve anything he wished. Whatever that might be.

There was no celebration when they departed the following morning. No chorus of young Yiwa lined up to serenade them on their way. No line of mounted clanfolk escorted them northward, banners flying and horns tootling. The visitors were simply given the requisite directions and sent on their way.

As they trotted off on their well-rested suubatars, Luminara asked Bulgan about this absence of a departure ceremony. The one-eyed Alwari gestured diffidently.

"The life of a nomad is a full one, though not so hard as in the old days. There is little time for frivolities. There are animals to care for, young to instruct, houses to be erected or broken down for travel, elders to see to, food and water to be distributed to Alwari and animal alike. That's why rites like last night's are so important. Diversion is necessary, and respected, but only when there is time for it." He rode on in silence for a bit, then added, "You certainly left the Yiwa with a favorable impression of the Jedi Order." A long-fingered hand waved at the other mounted suubatar. "All of you did."

"We enjoyed it ourselves," she told him. "It's not often we're asked to reveal that side of our personas. Most of the time we find ourselves explaining Republic policy, or defending it, or preparing to do both. Believe me," she added forcefully, "few in the galaxy would better understand or sympathize with what you just said about the life of a nomad than would a Jedi."

The guide nodded gravely, then brightened. "But like the Alwari, you also know how to have fun!" When she failed to respond, he added hopefully, "Don't you?"

She sighed, shifting her position high atop the loping suubatar. "Sometimes I wonder. There are times when the words fun and Jedi seem to be mutually exclusive." Remembering something, she smiled. "Though I do remember a joke Master Mace Windu once played on Master Ki-Adi-Mundi. It had to do with three Padawans and the number of available eyeballs in the room…"

She proceeded to relate the tale to the interested Bulgan, who listened attentively. When she finished, he could only gesture helplessly, his face showing the strain of trying to comprehend the unfathomable.

"I'm sorry, Master Luminara, but I find nothing amusing in your story. I think maybe Jedi humor is as mysterious as Jedi strength." He was very earnest. "Perhaps one has to know the Force to understand the humor."

"I wouldn't think so." She rode on in silence for a while, then sniffed slightly. "Well, I thought it was funny."

They continued to make excellent time. Everyone's spirits had been raised by the encounter with the stolid but ultimately cooperative Yiwa, and they now had something in the way of a specific destination. At least, Barriss reflected as she relaxed in the saddle of her suubatar, they weren't galloping aimlessly over open prairie in the hope of accidentally bumping into the migrating overclan. Mazong's directions had been quite specific, though they still had to take into account his admonition that the Borokii might be on the move. She wondered how their habits and rituals would compare to those of the Yiwa. Within the numerous clans of the Alwari, Kyakhta had told her, there existed much differentiation.

They were traveling steadily north when their guides unex pectedly called a halt. Sitting up in her saddle, Barriss scanned their surroundings. The horizon was the same in every direction and had been for several days. Endless grassland, waving fields of native grains only rarely interrupted by clumps of small trees, an occasional depression holding water or mud, and the isolated hillock. Not a building of any kind, nor anything higher than a suubatar standing up on its rear and middle legs. So it was with interest she wondered why Kyakhta and Bulgan had brought them to a stop-and why they appeared more than a little apprehensive.

"What is it?" Luminara and Obi-Wan trotted forward to query their escorts. Attentive inspection of the four horizons left them no more enlightened as to the reason for the halt than it did their equally confused Padawans. "Why have we stopped here?"

"Listen." Both Alwari were leaning slightly forward in their seats, obviously straining to hear-what?

Luminara and her companions went quiet. Only the muted munching of the suubatars nibbling the tops off the ripe wild grains, the constant rustle of wind through the grasses, and the occasional querulous hooting of a kilk stalking soft-shelled arthropods broke the silence.

Then she heard it. Faint initially, like a first cousin to the wind itself. It strengthened slowly, a soft ripping sound approaching from the north, from the direction they were headed. It intensified until it became an audible buzzing, still muted but rising ominously in the distance. Peering hard in the direction of the ascending susurration, Luminara thought she could make out the first hints of a low, dark cloud.

The suubatars began to stir uneasily, throwing back their sharp-ridged skulls and pawing at the ground with middle and forefeet. She struggled to control her mount. At the same time, Kyakhta's eyes bulged with realization.

"Kyren!" he exclaimed fearfully.

"Quickly, my friends!" Bulgan was suddenly standing upright in his saddle, looking frantically in all directions. "We have to find shelter!"

"Shelter?" Obi-Wan held his seat, but began searching their immediate surroundings nonetheless. "Out here?"

"From what?" Barriss wanted to know. By now she, too, saw and heard the onrushing blur. "What's a kyren?"

Without suspending his search, Bulgan edged his steed closer to her own. "A flying creature that travels the plains of Ansion, migrating from region to region as it follows the seasons." He gestured downward. "When the grasses in one area mature and the heads of each stalk are ripe with seed, the kyren resumes its flight, eating until it is sated. Then it settles down to rest, and to breed. When the young are fledged, they take flight anew in search of further nourishment."

She blinked in the direction of the diffuse shadow on the horizon. "That can't be all one creature coming toward us."

"It's not," Bulgan disclosed apprehensively. "There are many more than one."

"I don't see why it matters." Anakin had moved forward to join the conversation. "What have we to fear from a flock of seed eaters? They are just seed eaters, aren't they?" he thought to add.

A strange expression came over the guide's face; strange even for a pop-eyed, long-maned, single-nostriled Ansionian. "Seed is their preferred food, yes. But once they have taken flight, they are unable, or unwilling, or simply disinterested in changing course. Nor will they fly higher to pass over anything unexpected in their path." He swallowed hard. "Rocks they will smash themselves into. Trees they will cut down. Living things like hootles, or suubatars, or cicien, they will eat their way through. Unless those creatures can somehow find a place to hide, or manage to get out of the way."

"Hootles or suubatars?" Barriss asked softly. "Or-people?" Somehow she wasn't surprised when Bulgan nodded solemnly.

Anakin's hand strayed to his belt. "We have lightsabers, and other weapons. Can't we stand and defend ourselves from these things? How big are they, anyway?"

Raising his long-fingered hands, Bulgan placed them on ei ther side of his head. "This is the average of their wingspan."

"That's all?" Anakin frowned. "Then I don't see why you and Kyakhta are so concerned."

"How many of them are there?" Barriss asked. "In the average flock?"

Lowering his hands, the guide looked back at her. "No one knows. No one has ever been able to stay in one place long enough to count an average flock." He gestured toward the now rapidly darkening northern horizon. "I think this flock may be a little larger than average."

"Take a guess." The fingers of Anakin's right hand continued to hover in the vicinity of his lightsaber. "How many of these things are we likely to be facing?"

Turning in his saddle, Bulgan considered the horizon anew. "Not a conspicuously great number. But enough to pose a seri ous danger if we don't find cover quickly. No more than one or two hundred million, I would say."

Anakin's hand moved away from his lightsaber. " 'Hundred million'? 'One or two'?" The only shelter in sight was a trio of wolgiyn trees standing forlorn and isolated off to their right. They did not cast much of a shadow.

"This way!" Pointing forward and to his left, Kyakhta urged his mount in that same direction. The two Jedi Knights followed, with the Padawans bringing up the rear.

Barriss tried her best to conceal her unease. Instead of fleeing, they were riding straight into the oncoming adumbration. On a collision course, kyren flock and speeding travelers drew rapidly toward one another. Though she had never seen a kyren in her life, she trusted that Kyakhta had seen something more substantial than a mirage, and more solid than faint hope.