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By Root 1939 0

’tar to do but await word of the outcome—even for a prefect who had already contributed some of his own blood to ensure victory and who wasn’t inclined to fraternize with the commoners gathered in prayer at the various temples. Instead, Nom Anor had opted for an afternoon nap. But he had barely shut his eyes when his cushioned sleeping pallet began to shake, with such increasing force that it was bucking across the room when he was finally tipped from it and sent sprawling onto the floor.

Overhead, cracks and fissures were spreading across the domed ceiling and down into the walls. Yorik coral dust swirled in the light and rained down on the vurruk carpets, and from elsewhere in the prefectory came screams of pain and panic. A rumble built deep underground and rolled like a wave underfoot, sending objects near and far crashing.

Dodging an overturned sclipune—a chest of keepsakes—then a toppling lambent stand, Nom Anor crawled frantically for the ledgelike balcony that overlooked the Place of Hierarchy. Everything outside was in motion, shuddering and crumbling, and the quality of the afternoon light was changing, as if fading to twilight. Groups of workers were rushing from the portals of the structures that surrounded the quadrangle. In a deranged herd they ran, stumbling and staggering, for the tree-lined paths that wound through the public space.

Kneeling, Nom Anor shielded his eyes and gazed toward the sun. But it wasn’t Yuuzhan’tar’s primary that had everyone in a panic. It was the crescent of planet that took up an enormous portion of the lower sky. Even as he watched, the green arc thinned as it advanced visibly on the star. It was impossible to judge the planet’s distance or true size, but it was twice as large as the shining orb it seemed intent on driving from the sky.

And it suddenly struck Nom Anor that the rainbow bridge had vanished!

Clasping his hands on the balcony balustrade, he hauled himself to his feet. Across the quadrangle the facade of a structure collapsed, burying hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong under jagged chunks of yorik coral. Then a harsh and terrible wind blew in, uprooting trees and toppling statues. The wind filled the air with so much grit that the permacrete bones of many a New Republic building and spacescraper were laid bare.

A roar raced through the sky, and a crevice split the ground, running diagonally through the quadrangle. Benches, shrubs, and a throng of hapless workers plummeted into the yawning opening. Swarms of sacbees liberated from their hives spiraled into the crazed sky. Thousands of birds were already on the wing—but not flying so much as being blown to wherever the howling wind was taking them and everything it had ripped from the surface.

Nom Anor planted his feet wide and stared into the sky while the gale tugged at his tunic and tore tears from his eyes.

Was this real, or a product of his feverish brain?

Below the balcony—in arrant defiance of the daytime curfew Shimrra had imposed on them—a band of Shamed Ones were down on their knees, raising their hideous faces and rail-thin arms in celebration of the newly arrived planet that was literally shaking Yuuzhan’tar to pieces.

Weakly, fatalistically, Nom Anor accepted the truth.

Zonama Sekot had not only returned to known space; it had made Yuuzhan’tar its destination and target!

An updraft carried the voices of the Shamed Ones to Nom Anor’s ears: “The prophecy has come to pass! Our salvation is at hand!”

He hung his head in defeat. Everything he had predicted was coming true.

The balcony groaned and the front edge tipped downward. Carefully, Nom Anor began to back toward his work chamber. He had just reached the threshold when someone threw a forearm lock on his throat, and he felt the point of a coufee press against his temple. His assailant dragged him backward into the room and whispered harshly in his right ear.

“Tell me what you know of this, or die this instant!”

Nom Anor recognized the voice of Drathul. “A weapon of the heretics,” he rasped, his own hands tight on the high prefect’s forearm.

The knife