Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [143]
“The lesson is this: that when they fashioned the universe—and ultimately the Yuuzhan Vong—the gods dispensed with all inequities by ensuring that the qualities of one creation would always balance the qualities of another. Where a poisonous tree takes root, adjacent to it stands a tree that provides the antidote for the poison. Where there are deserts, there are oases of water. And where the waters are vast, there emerge islands of sand and stone. This is the way of the gods—ensuring balance at every turn. I held this thought in mind when, in the depths of the eighth cortex, I heard a voice utter …”
“The rainbow bridge will appear and disappear,” Onimi recited from the center of the hall. “And the gods will make it seem that they are the authors of a great conflict. When the eclipse of the sun will then be, the divine omen will be seen in plain sight. Quite otherwise will one interpret it, for when a menacing stranger appears at the portal, look close at hand for the amphistaff that will send the stranger on its way.”
“A revelation, I told myself.” Shimrra took over. “Clearly from Yun-Harla. So I ordered the temple priests to beseech the goddess for help—to sacrifice to her, and to treat her as if she were Supreme Overlord of the universe. And our supplications have not gone unnoticed, for she has provided us with the solution to the test the gods have placed at our portal.”
Nom Anor could barely keep his features from mirroring his inner state of confoundment. He wasn’t the only person in the Hall of Confluence who knew that the eighth cortex was nothing more than a pretense—empty as the gravitic yield of a dovin basal. So what was Shimrra doing, conjuring revelations from nonexistent protocols? Obviously he had concocted the riddle and its resolution, but to what end?
Once more, the elite had to wait, while a more powerful quake shook the Citadel, causing yorik coral dust to rain from the vaulted ceiling, high overhead.
“The solution has only just been delivered to Yuuzhan’tar,” Shimrra said. “Delivered in the form of a stricken space vessel and its crew of afflicted slayers and a dying shaper. On a remote and insignificant world known as Caluula, the vessel and its passengers fell prey to a virulent chemical agent created by our enemy and released in the hope of destroying all things Yuuzhan Vong—from myself down to the simplest of our creations.
“The chemical agent might have done just that, had it not been for the acuity of the shaper, the unconventional actions of his valorous crew of warriors, and the perceptiveness of your Supreme Overlord, who ordered that the vessel be kept from setting down on Yuuzhan’tar, or coming in contact with any other vessels.
“Now witness the beauty of cosmic balance at work! Tchurokk Yun’tchilat!—Witness the will of the gods! For this ill-omened world that lights our night sky, this living world encountered by our forces so many years ago, drifting at the very rim of this galaxy, must, too, have been fashioned by Yun-Yuuzhan and be linked to us in prophecy. Linked, and therefore vulnerable to the deadly contagion fashioned by our enemy, and sanctioned by the gods!”
Once more Shimrra gesticulated with the Scepter of Power. “The crippled vessel is the amphistaff we will hurl to drive the stranger from our gate! The ship that shall be our salvation, and our means of transcending the test the gods have seen fit to engineer!”
Nom Anor was beginning to feel like a gnullith: inflated by Shimrra one moment, only to be deflated the next. A toxic chemical agent capable of poisoning Zonama Sekot? Anyone familiar with Commander Zho Krazhmir’s reconnaissance mission to the living world knew that Krazhmir had attempted and failed to poison Zonama Sekot. And if a Yuuzhan Vong-created