Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [129]
Almost, she believes. Twin spots of ruddy color glow in fleshy cheeks. Beneath my hands her shoulders lift. Her mouth parts as I slip my hands from shoulders to neck, from neck to the bones of her jaw, hidden beneath heavy flesh. And then I clamp her skull in the Anzat’s embrace and allow her to see the truth of what I am. Legend come to life.
A whimper. Then rigid, paralyzing fear as I uncoil proboscii. They are discriminating and slower to rouse than usual; their diet has always been soup of the highest sort, and I have profaned them of late with soup of the lower order, from entities who have no courage.
But they rouse, extrude. And the woman whimpers again, trapped by her horror, my hands, by the knowledge.
—pleasure/pain—
—pain/pleasure—
No. Not this time. Patience is required, and control.
—pleasure?—
Later. Later.
A caress only, the faintest breath of proboscii beneath her nostrils. In my hands she trembles—
A step. A presence. A voice, flatly mechanical, inquiring as to my presence, to my intent.
As she whimpers again, I turn. I permit him to see as I permitted her. There is regret that after so many centuries I must allow the truth to be known, the methods, the means to be comprehended, but it is necessary.
I had meant for her to live. The purpose was for her to see me, to know me, to cry of near-assault. But now he is here as well, armored male in helmet that is also breathing mask; he will do. She will do. They may both tell a tale of terror.
Anzat, of the Anzati … loose in Jabba’s Palace.
For time out of mind, I have been what does not exist, save for imagination. I am folklore. Mythos. Legend. A figment, a fragment, a fleeting dream called nightmare. All one and the same, if known by different labels … but the truth is harsher yet, and far more frightening.
But blighted truth, twisted truth, honesty unknown, can serve a purpose. It has served the Anzati for time out of mind, and me. It serves me still.
It serves me now.
Ah, but the promise of soup, of satiation—
Why wait? I hunger now. For the soup, and victory. The knowledge that I have done what no one else has done.
Jabba’s soup: the excrescence of what he is, what he has become; what he has made of himself. Soup that no one has spilled before, to drink of its strength.
To devour the life of the Hutt while the hulking husk putrefies.
But not so soon, never so soon. He presents a challenge, does Jabba. A wily Hutt well cognizant of how to ward his life. To bring fear into his soul—and set the soup to boiling—will take time. Effort. And the unveiling of my truth.
But I am hungry now, and for more than Jabba’s soup. For Jabba’s fear.
Hear of me, O Jabba, and know yourself afraid.
I am of the day, but equally of the night; I take my rest when I choose, not because any biological rhythm insists upon it. And so I am free to wander as I will, throughout the labyrinthine corridors of what once was monastery and now is Jabba’s lair. And it is as I wander that I am certain, at once, there are those within the palace who were not here before.
Abruptly: —soup—
I have known its like before. But this essence, this essence—
—soup—
Oh, it is powerful, overwhelming … I stop where I am in the shadows, transfixed by the awareness, the preternatural knowledge of such soup as I could wish for before all others—
—soup—
Proboscii, denied the sort of soup they prefer for too long, twitch frenziedly within cheek-pockets. They know. I know.
Han Solo. Han Solo, vividly alive; and others nearby, others of similar soup …
How many? Solo, another, another.
—soup—
Through the corridors to the kitchens. Where I find a body, though