Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [69]
“Just in case it is him,” Leia said, “try not to hit the jet pack.”
“He has returned! Yu’shaa has returned!”
The gathering was small, numbering no more than two hundred Shamed Ones, but word of the Prophet’s return was spreading through the underbelly of Yuuzhan’tar, and given enough time the audience would swell to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.
Nom Anor gazed down from what had once been the elevated rail of a magnetically levitated transport, to what had been a broad boulevard of nightclubs and restaurants, where his followers stood with faces raised in renewed hope and expectation.
For a moment—and just that—it felt good to be back.
From his residence he had retrieved the ooglith cloaker that disguised him as Yu’shaa. He had told his servants that he was not to be disturbed, and, attired in the garb of an ordinary worker, he had let himself out through a secret passage and wound his way through the sacred precinct, past the Temple of the Modeler and the Place of the Dead, through the districts of Vistu and Bluudon, shaking spies perhaps only imagined, then on along well-trodden paths that led down below the verdant surface growth, down into the deep canyons that had once harbored Coruscant’s poor and disenfranchised and, with the arrival of the Yuuzhan Vong, had become the realm of the Shamed, where outsiders were met with suspicion, and anyone not Shamed had to tread carefully, for fear of never surfacing again.
At certain crossings he had uttered passcodes that had opened the way to even lower levels, not merely populated by Shamed Ones, but also ruled by them. He recalled having spied Onimi on a path much like the ones he was forced to follow; Onimi, doing Shimrra’s bidding, who had unwittingly led Nom Anor to the knowledge that the ultimate repository of the shapers’ arts, the so-called eighth cortex, was empty. Now he, too, was doing Shimrra’s bidding and, like Onimi, had become Shimrra’s puppet and pet, tasked with safeguarding secrets.
Long before Nom Anor had been able to seek out his former confederates he had been recognized, and Shamed Ones in filthy frocks and tattered robeskins had flocked to his side, in awe of Yu’shaa’s unannounced reappearance.
“The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated,” he had tried to tell them.
Only to hear someone respond: “The Prophet has defeated Shimrra! He has defeated death!”
“No, you miscomprehend,” he had said. “I was never taken by Shimrra.”
“The Prophet evaded Shimrra. He has been waiting only for the right moment to reappear among us!”
His carefully conceived plans went further downhill from there.
By the time he had reached what was the broad boulevard—now grown over with shrubs and saplings—a small crowd had already formed. No one seemed to care that Shimrra had expressly forbidden such gatherings, under penalty of dishonorable death.
“He has returned! Yu’shaa has returned!”
Nom Anor scanned the crowd. Below the elevated track, pushing their way forward, came Kunra, Idrish, and V’tel. A Shamed warrior, Kunra had been Yu’shaa’s bodyguard and chief disciple, and the only one who knew of Nom Anor’s visit to Zonama Sekot.
“We knew you would return,” Kunra said when he and the others had climbed to the top of the rail. “You promised that you would elevate us once you had regained your status, and you have been escalated beyond the rank you held. You’re in a position to help us beyond our boldest imaginings. Guise or not, you are indeed the Prophet.”
Nom Anor recalled his words to Kunra and the late Niiriit. Indeed, he had vowed to restore the honor of the Shamed Ones.
If they only knew how he had betrayed them.
“Yes, I promised to lift you,” he said to Kunra. “But we must wait a while longer. This time I come only to warn you. Shimrra knows what you’re planning to do at the sacrifice, and you must trust me when I tell you that he will respond wrathfully.”
Kunra spread his arms and raised them