Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [59]
As he imagined his mother standing there before him, everything else faded away: the expectant Mazong, the onlooking Yiwa, his companions, even Master Obi-Wan. Only she remained, and himself. The two of them, trading stanzas, singing back and forth to each other as they had when he was a child. He sang with increasing strength and confidence, his voice rising above the steady breeze that swept fitfully through the camp.
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 unleash another surprise on me. I had no idea you could sing like that.”
“Neither did I, really,” the Padawan replied shyly. “I managed 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 diffidently. “I guess it’s still changing.”
He watched while his teacher strode confidently to the center 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 à 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