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What need have I of shadows when the daylight itself will do, and the heedless, headlong haste of a man fleeing it?

—three more steps—

Humanoid. I can smell him—taste him, there, just there; measured in all the ways we measure: a tint, a hue, a whisper, a kiss … a soupçon, if you will, of minor excrescence, the steam off body-boiled soup, undetectable to all humanoid races save my own.

—two more—

He is not a fool, not completely; fools die long before meeting those such as I, which saves us some little trouble. Better by far to let life handle the screening process. By the time folk come to Tatooine, the true fools are already dead. Those who have survived to come have some small measure of wit, talent, ability, of significant physical prowess—and a greater portion of Luck.

An intangible, is Luck; an attribute one can neither buy, steal, nor manufacture. But it is finite, and wholly fickle. Only you never know it.

Only I know it. I am Dannik Jerriko, and I am the Eater of Luck.

—one more step—

—YES—

He is good. He is fast. But I am better, and faster.

An image only; I am too lost, too hungry: the black-blind glaze of shock in his eyes, naked and obscene to those who understand; but he does not understand, he comprehends nothing. He knows neither who nor what I am, only that I am—and someone who has clapped hands across his ears and grasped his skull to hold it face-to-face in an avid embrace.

—hot, sweet soup—

He would fight, given leave, extended invitation. And I give leave, extend invitation—outright terror curdles the soup—briefly, oh so briefly, to make him think he is better than I; that Chance is his confidant and Luck remains his lover. It isn’t fear I want, nor cowardice, but courage. The blatant willingness to step off the edge with a life at risk, your life, trusting skill and Luck and Chance to spread the safety net.

He is good, is fast, is willing to step off the edge; and so he does step: leaping, lunging, lurching … but no one is better or faster than I, and I have unraveled the net. Chance and Luck, thus mated, are dismissed in my presence: I am after all Anzati.

It is simply and quickly done with the manifest efficiency of my kind: prehensile proboscii uncoiled from cheek pockets, first inserted, then insinuated through nostrils into brain. It paralyzes instantly.

I eat his Luck. I drink his soup. I let the body fall.

They will not know when they find him; they never know at first. That comes later, after, and only if someone cares enough to run a scan on him. I knit my own nightmare, make my own mythos. A quick, clean kill; no fuss, no muss.

But assassins by trade have no friends, and no one to care enough. This is why I kill the killers.

Exterminator. Terminator. Assassin’s assassin.

Soup is soup is soup, but sweeter from the container sitting longest on the shelf.

—oh—it is sweet—

But sweet—like Luck, like Chance—is finite. Always. And so the cycle begins, ends, begins again, and ends; but there is always another beginning.

I am Anzat, of the Anzati. You know me now as Dannik Jerriko, but I have many names.

You knew them all as children, forgot them as adults. Legend is fiction, myth unreal; it is easier to set aside childish things in the false illumination of adulthood, because the fears of childhood are always formed of truths. Some truths are harder than others. Some folktales far more frightening.

Let there be no fear. Fear is not what I crave, neither what I desire. It is corrosive to the palate, like vinegar in place of wine.

Let there be courage, not cowardice; let there be arrogance aplenty. Self-confidence, not self-doubt; security in one’s skills. And the willingness, the restlessness, the boundless physicality of the only constant: the testing of one’s limitations. Assumption of risk, not reticence. The challenge of Chance.

Make me no predictions. Write me no prophecy. Permit me to take what is best of you, what is best in you.

Let me liberate it. In me you will live forever.

It is not that I want