Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [85]
Rapuung appeared, floating facing him, looking like a reptilian water monster. Beyond him Anakin saw the tube opening extruding from a stone surface that bent to envelop them in a cavern of indeterminate size. Anakin found gravity’s direction and started following the surface up, trailing one hand on it. At the same time he stretched out with the Force, sensing water drumming slowly through stone, searching for the sounding boards, the hollow places where air held court.
Anakin thought he’d been happy to leave the tube. Pulling himself onto damp stone, yanking the gnullith from his mouth, was infinitely better. He sat there, gasping and wet, as Vua Rapuung climbed out of the water behind him.
“I hope this was worth it,” Rapuung growled.
“It will be.”
“Heal your weapon so we can leave this skulking pit.”
“I’ll start in a moment,” Anakin said. “But first, Vua Rapuung, tell me something. Do you really believe that the marks of your shame were inflicted upon you by a shaper? That she did this to you for rejecting her love?”
“Who have you been talking to?”
“The other Shamed Ones talk. They saw me with you.”
Rapuung’s face contorted as if he had swallowed the foulest thing in the world, but his head chopped affirmatively.
“Our love was forbidden. We both knew it. For a time neither of us cared. We believed that Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q’aah had taken pity on us, dared the wrath of Yun-Yuuzhan, and given us a special dispensation. Such things have happened before, no matter what ignorant things you may have heard.” His lip curled. “It did not happen with us. We were wrong.”
“And you broke it off.”
“Yes. Love is a madness. When my sanity began to return, I knew that I could not violate the will of the gods. I told her so.”
“And she didn’t like that.”
Rapuung snorted. “She blasphemed. She said there were no gods, that belief in them was superstition, that we are free to do whatever we dare so long as we are strong.” His eyes turned away from Anakin. “Despite her heresy, I would never have told anyone her words. She did not believe that. She feared I would denounce her, or that one day our forbidden trysting would come to the attention of her superiors. She is ambitious, Mezhan Kwaad. She is spiteful. She made me appear Shamed because she knew no one would credit my words then, that anything I said would be taken as the ravings of a lunatic.”
“Why didn’t she just kill you?” Anakin asked. “Give you some poison or fatal disease?”
“She is more cruel than that,” Rapuung snarled. “She would never give me the release of death when she could debase me instead.”
Rapuung’s eyes focused on the lambent. “What else did the other Shamed Ones say? They called me insane, yes?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“I am not.”
Anakin measured his words out carefully. “I don’t care if you are,” he said. “I don’t care about your revenge any more than you care about Tahiri. But I need to know how far you will go. You say you’re reconciled to me using my lightsaber.”
“I have said so.”
“I’m going to rebuild it, as I told you. What I didn’t mention is that I’m going to rebuild it using this.” He held up the lambent.
The Yuuzhan Vong’s eyes widened. “You would graft a living servant to your machine?”
“A lightsaber isn’t exactly a machine.”
“It isn’t alive.”
“In a way it is,” Anakin said.
“In a way dung is the same as food, at the molecular level, perhaps. Speak plainly.”
“To do that, I have to tell you about the Force, and you have to listen.”
“The Force is what you Jeedai kill with,” Rapuung said.
“It’s much more than that.”
“Why do you wish to explain this to me?”
“Because when I use my lightsaber, I don’t want any surprises from you like I got when I lit the fire. I want to have