Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 20_ The Final Prophecy - J. Gregory Keyes [19]
Though she had created the cloak for herself long before, there had never been any reason great enough to risk using it.
Now there was. A cryptic message, a meeting place, a possibility.
She passed from Shimrra’s fortress compound easily enough. Even a hunter could not have managed that, but the cloak of Nuun she wore was better than the usual sort. It hid her very thoughts, it disguised her mass as a movement of air.
She moved on rougher ground now, down a slope and then up to the platform where a shrine to Yun-Harla, the Trickster goddess, overlooked a vast pit that had once been sky-reaching buildings. Dark waters filled it now, and the burring cries of p’hiili rose in shrill chorus with the bass cooing of large-wattled ngom. Like the lim tree in her hortium, they were re-created creatures from the homeworld.
A single figure awaited her in the shrine, beneath a statue of Yun-Yuuzhan that had been made from the skulls and long bones of the conquered. It, too, carried a message from Yuuzhan Vong history—like the creatures of the pool, it proclaimed, This world is ours now.
The one waiting was male, lean, his hair knotted in a patterned scarf. All but three fingers had been cut from each hand. Nen Yim stood watching him for long moments. His eyes held a contained and fierce intelligence.
Priest, she thought. What could you want with me?
She stood on the vua’sa’s spine. Death seemed near. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t a priest, alone, in the dark.
She moved out of his sight and removed the cloak, then walked back to the shrine.
This time his gaze found her instantly. His body remained still.
“You’ve come at a strange time to perform your ablutions,” the priest said.
“I come when I am called,” Nen Yim answered.
“So must we all,” the priest answered. “I am Harrar.”
Nen Yim’s spine prickled. She knew that name. So not just any priest. A very important one.
“I am called Nen Yim, Honored One,” she replied.
“You are a master. Our ranks are equivalent, so we may dispense with honorifics. My time is short, and I suspect yours is shorter still.”
Nen Yim nodded.
“There are rumors of you, shaper,” he said. “You labor alone, under heavy guard in the Supreme Overlord’s compound. It is said you are most favored by the gods, and yet so few know you exist at all. Even a whisper is too loud a tone to speak of you in. It is said that some have died who could not keep that whisper in.”
“And yet you know of me.”
“I know when and whom to whisper to.” He smiled thinly. “You, apparently, do not.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean your attempts to contact the Quorealist underground have been clumsy.”
“I do not even know who or what the Quorealists are,” Nen Yim asserted.
“Quoreal was the Supreme Overlord before Shimrra. Many do not think the gods chose Shimrra to take his place, they believe that Shimrra dishonorably murdered him. Quoreal’s old followers are understandably a reticent group, but they still exist.”
“These are new facts to me, if facts they are.”
The priest shrugged one shoulder. “It does not matter who you thought you were trying to contact. The point is that if you persist, Shimrra will discover you, and I doubt that anyone is so favored by the gods as to survive that.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “What I wish to know is this: Why is Lord Shimrra’s most favored shaper trying to contact the pitiful remnants of his political enemies?”
“I know nothing of these politics,” Nen Yim replied. “Shimrra is the Supreme Overlord. I owe allegiance to none other. I desire allegiance to none other.”
Harrar cocked his head. “Come now. Why else contact us?”
“Us?”
Harrar’s fierce grin expanded a bit. “Of course. Clumsy you may have been, but you have succeeded. Shimrra has enemies. You have found them. What do you want from us?”
“I