Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [36]
Rhinann was turning these thoughts over pleasantly in his head when an idea occurred to him that was so chilling he very nearly swooned. What if it was all a setup? What if the M’haelian boy had been planted where Jax Pavan would notice him, find him, bring him home?
What if Kajin Savaros was a mole?
Breathing gustily enough to rattle his nose tusks, the Elomin turned back to his workstation and connected to the HoloNet. It would cost an extravagant amount, but he would make certain that when he reached the Westport, there would be a ship to take him away from Coruscant at a moment’s notice.
He made his travel plans hurriedly, while in the back of his mind considering ways he could accelerate his search for the bota.
seven
Jax started Kaj’s training the next day with a series of meditations geared toward getting the boy in touch with his own center. He recognized the great difficulty of what he’d set himself up to do. He had trained as a Jedi since the age of two; spent years in meditation and study of Jedi history, Jedi philosophy, Jedi strategy. He had spent months and months in combat training, which consisted largely of learning the defensive forms from Shii-Cho to Juyo. He had spent countless hours on mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual control.
There was obviously no way to teach Kaj all of that in the compressed amount of time they might have. And there was no way to teach it at all without using the Force.
He had to find a solution to that problem somehow, but at the moment, as he watched Kaj sit cross-legged, attempting to master his breathing and control his heart rate, he could think of none.
“The Jedi have a code that we live by,” Jax said now, his voice soft, calming. He sat opposite Kaj on a woven mat in his room in a meditative posture, head up, eyes closed, hands lying open on his knees.
“There is no emotion; there is peace.
“There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
“There is no passion; there is serenity.
“There is no death; there is the Force.”
He felt the boy stir and remembered his first real meditation on the Jedi mantra. He had been about six and the words—which he had heard over and over again for four years—had suddenly struck him and resonated … and raised no end of questions.
“Ask,” Jax said.
“There is no death?”
“What do you know of the Force?” Jax asked in return. “What have you heard or been told?”
Kaj looked uncertain. “I know only that it moves through me—sometimes like a quiet stream; sometimes like a raging river. I’ve heard only that its power can be channeled.”
Jax listened carefully to the words the boy used to describe that which he possessed but barely understood. “The streams and rivers flow into a great ocean. That ocean is the Force. It is the end of all journeys.”
There was a moment of silence in which Kaj digested what Jax had said, and in which Jax kicked himself several times for the simplistic metaphor. He’d been trying to follow Kaj’s lead.
“I’m from a farming family,” the boy said. “I understand what water means. How it permeates everything, how its presence gives life and its absence brings death. Is that what the Force is like?”
“You tell me,” Jax said. “Is that what it’s like for you?”
Again, the boy paused for thought. “Yes … and no. I mean, sometimes it’s like that if I just sort of … swim in it, I guess. But when I try so hard not to let it out, then it’s like water behind a dam—building up, building up, wanting to be let out. And that’s when it gets away from me. Then I think it’s more like fire. It burns.”
Jax pondered that. He’d never experienced the Force that way himself, nor had he ever heard anyone describe experiencing the Force that way. He wondered if the dichotomous images were partly