Dreams Made Flesh

Rating: NC-17
Category: AU; SW rewritten as Dark Fantasy/Gothic Romance with Celtic themes.
Pairing: Q/f
Time frame: Approx. 10 years before Phantom Menace.
Spoilers: Very minor, mainly relating to the Tales of the Jedi graphic novels.
Disclaimer: The Star Wars characters and universe are owned by George Lucas/Lucasfilm Ltd. Absolutely no money is made from this site. Non-Star Wars characters are copyright Nightsister. Written and published on QJEB: between January and May 2000.

- 0 -
Preludes and Nocturnes.

The dream had not been unpleasant, but it had concerned him.

Three women: one young and blushing, barely in the first flush of womanhood; a second in the full flower of maturity, glowing and fertile; the last, old but wise-eyed, with a wiry strength underlying the frailty of age. They opened the circle they formed and showed to him a fourth: delicately built, her wild, fiery hair loosely plaited, gold-flecked eyes ablaze, the smooth skin of her pale face marked with arcane sigils which could not mar her fine, ethereal features, her figure hugged by dark green velvet entwined with interlacing lines of gold embroidery.

His hands reached out to her but he had to struggle to approach. As happens often in dreams, she appeared to be retreating from him even as he grasped for her. But then, as dream logic will have it, he had been lying with her on a simple bed in a Spartan room of which the only decoration was her beauty. And her passion was his pleasure. And he knew that he had loved her many times, for he was old, much older than he had been then, and he had felt that he was at the end of his life and would die from his love for her. And then she had been standing on a rocky outcrop on a windswept hillside covered with thorn bushes, a full, heavy moon illuminating her as the wild breeze had whipped tendrils of her hair into flaming sprites. Despite his desire, he had been unable to stop himself falling away from her. She had seemed to say that she would be waiting for him there but he had awoken then and hadn't been sure of anything but his longing.

"And what means this dream, do you think?" his master had asked.

"That this women was being shown to me. That she and I are connected. That this was a mirror to the future." He still wished that were so, almost more than he dared to admit to himself, let alone had admitted to Yoda that day. He hadn't intended to say that, his mouth had uttered the words unbidden. As an apprenticed Jedi he had known full well that dreams did not always provide enlightenment, that they could bewilder and mystify. And he had known that his skills in the Force had lain elsewhere than in sensing the future through vision work. But he felt as though it was the Force that had made him say that.

"Then foolish you are, boy," his master had chastised. "Sent to tempt you, this dream is. A succubus, this woman is. A siren. Lead you into darkness, she will. Distract you from your trials she will, if you dwell on her. A knight you will be soon, Qui-Gon. Diversions such as these, your duties and obligations, will not allow. To put this dream out of your mind, you are. Speak of it again, never."

And he had passed the trials then. And he had become a knight. And he had never spoken of the dream again. But he had not put it out of his mind. For he had had that same dream twice more that month, the third time on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, a week after he had been knighted into the Jedi order.

The dream, or ones very like it, had recurred over the past twenty-five years or more, periodically illuminating his sleep and constantly haunting his few quiet moments alone with his thoughts. In the last, not quite two years ago, he had thought that the woman in green, the succubus - if that was what she truly was, he had thought that she had told him he was very close to her now and that he would find her soon. At times, as now, his musings on these dreams, on this dream woman, would distract him from his meditations. But he thrust his thoughts down into the closed, twilight place in his soul where they might be safe - and he might be safe from them - and prepared to go before the Council to receive his latest orders.

- 1 -
The Wreckage of the Dark.

"We have chosen you for a perilous mission, Master Jinn, but we put great faith in you. The absolute secrecy of what we are about to reveal to you must be maintained. Do you understand this?"

Qui-Gon gave his assent with an almost imperceptible nod to Mace Windu. Only eleven members formed the circle today and although it was not unknown for Council members to have duties elsewhere, Qui-Gon sensed the absence of Sifa Xiu weighing heavily on those present.

Windu leant forward, his chin resting on his hand. "And you, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Do you understand the necessity of discretion?"

"Yes, sir." The young apprenticed Jedi, not yet quite fully grown to manhood, stood firm under Windu's piercing gaze.

The speaker for the Council continued. "Three cycles ago a mining transport travelling close to wild space beyond the outer rim was alerted by a signal of unknown origin and came across a small craft travelling along a path that meant it must have come from close to the very edge of the galaxy. They secured this device and it was handed over to our scientists here on Coruscant. It consisted of little more than a basic power unit and the plaque which you can see here."

Qui-Gon studied the image on the data pad handed to him, an image which reproduced a simple etching; a star map, the orbits of a planetary system, one planet enlarged to show a landmass and a specific location on that landmass, enigmatic symbols or writing which he took to be names or locations, and a stylised image of a humanoid being.

"Our astronomers were able to identify the planetary system shown here. Assuming that the planetary body indicated is the homeworld of the beings who sent this device out, this gives us great cause for concern. Further, Master Yaddle was able to confirm from the forbidden holocrons in the Library's Secretum that our scientists were correct in their assumptions about the source of the technology which powered the device."

Qui-Gon disliked this beating about the bush and just wished Windu would get to the point. It was not impatience so much as the murmur of a green velvet gown and the shadow of a woman he desired but had never met that was lulling him into distraction. Why was he so plagued by her memory at this moment? What did this torment signify, now, at this juncture in time? He forced his focus back on to the other occupants of the Chamber.

Mace's declaration continued...

"This device was powered by crystals based on Sith alchemy."

...fully commanding Qui-Gon's interest again...

"This device originated from Khar Delba, one of Sith worlds colonised by the fallen Jedi over four thousand years ago, one of the worlds decimated during the fall of the Sith Empire."

Qui-Gon discerned Obi-Wan's sense of growing disquiet. The Sith were the monsters of Jedi legend, their Dark Lords whispered figures of dread. The Master calmed his emotions, sent the stillness out to his Padawan. He voiced the thought that he knew Obi-Wan was conceiving too. "Are we assuming, then, that a Sith race still exists on these worlds?"

"The sublight speed of this device and the distance it had travelled from its origin indicate that it had been in space for more than twenty-seven years. Somebody was alive on that world then and they wanted us to know that they were there. We believe this was sent to establish communication. But we cannot ascertain as to what purpose." Windu sat back in his chair, he gestured towards Yoda.

Qui-Gon looked to his old Master. "Has any attempt been made to return contact?"

"Proceed with caution, the Council felt. Dead for millennia the Sith Empire may have been, gone the Dark Side is not. Learnt that, Exar Kun did on Korriban. Revered Master Sifa Xiu went. Observe only, he intended. Returned, he has not. Word from him, we have not received. Go there, you shall. Appraise, you should. Report back, you must."

Qui-Gon contemplated the pressing absence in the Chamber. If Xiu, ranked amongst the most experienced and Force-strong of the Jedi, had been lost then the danger could not be underestimated. Qui-Gon bit back his questions, pushed away his doubts about Obi-Wan's, and his own, preparedness to walk into the maw of the Darkness and merely nodded. "Yes, Master Yoda."

"Dangerous this mission is, Qui-Gon. Protect Obi-Wan you must. Lost Xanatos to the Dark Side, you did. You will be more wary this time. A great ally caution can be."

His failure with Xanatos was not what Qui-Gon wanted to be reminded of right now, but he accepted Yoda's need to goad him. He must use it to strengthen his resolve. "But why me? And alone? If Xiu was lost then maybe the Council should consider going in in greater force."

Windu leaned forward again. His voice was hushed. "The Council does not wish this information to become available outside the inner circle of the Order. We can risk no more unexplainable absences on the Council. We trust your abilities, Master Jinn. Your particular experience will serve you and your Padawan well. You are prepared to accept this mission?"

No, he wasn't. "I am, Master Windu," was what he said.

"An armed Republic cruiser and a space-to-surface transport have been prepared for your journey, but the captain and pilot have orders not to land themselves and to leave the vicinity of the Sith worlds should they suspect that any problem has occurred." Windu drew Qui-Gon's attention to Xiu's empty place with a faint hand gesture. "Your seat on the Council awaits your return. May the Force be with you."

And with that, his path into the future had been chosen for him.

- 2 -
They Move in Dark, Old Places of the World.

The journey out to wild space had taken several days and Qui-Gon had had no desire to worry his Padawan unduly with speculation about how they might deal with the Dark Side if - or rather when, that much he felt certain - they encountered it. So he had forced a sturdy pace through a long series of training exercises, both physical and mental, which exhausted the boy but would also, he hoped, steel him for what might be ahead. He could judge that Obi-Wan was unsettled, even without the Force bond between them, but the boy had learnt enough by now not to cross-examine his Master. It was clear to both of them that when it came to the Sith, truth could certainly hold great power and the question of whether or not to share it didn't need to be raised.

Nonetheless, now they were at their destination, at the Sith world of Khar Delba, it was quite obvious to Qui-Gon that his apprentice might burst if he wasn't allowed one or two questions. "What is it, Obi-Wan?"

"I was wondering Master? About what Master Windu said? You will be on the Council."

Qui-Gon, deliberately, hadn't been thinking about that. "That depends, Obi-Wan. The Council have not sensed Sifa Xiu's translocation to the Force. We may still find him alive. Or..." He paused. How much of the truth should the master reveal? "Or we may not return either. But we must concentrate on the moment, Padawan." Qui-Gon pointed through the transport's window. "People have seen us land and are coming here to meet us. It's time to go."

They stepped out into a bleakly beautiful landscape in which gaunt rocks emerged from carpets of mossy green and amethyst grey vegetation lit by spots of misty purple blooms. In which thorn bushes gave birth to sun yellow flowers. In which scudding, platinum clouds hung low over granite uplands. A damp, sharp breeze carried a stinging chill and tawny feathered raptors hovered statically before a low sun weakly filtering through the pewter sky.

Qui-Gon placed his hand on his Padawan's shoulder. "Be wary. There is an odd feeling about this place." The reflection of a place glimpsed in a dream wasn't the whole of it. The moment he had left the ship, he had begun to feel something disquieting surrounding the Force - an absence of a connection, a dampening field of some kind? No, he felt something, something like the Force but very unlike the Force. The Dark Side? He'd always imagined the Dark to be something vile and penetrating, its tendrils probing at the mind and violating with its cold embrace. But what he felt here was something capricious and wild, joyful and free and almost lustful, but at the same time it was keen, sharp, possessive, ready to chastise. He felt that it wanted to toy with him, to test his limits, to embrace him and then discard him, only to return to him again when it felt like it. A break in the clouds drew his eye to a moon, already luminous in the late afternoon sky. If this was the Dark temptation then it was no wonder some Jedi couldn't resist. He'd have to be careful with Obi-Wan. But, no. His instincts told him what he was feeling was not the Dark Side at all. Perhaps it was some trick of the Dark. Something still gnawed at his senses, he felt he was falling out of control, powerless and at this planet's mercy.

Too late to dwell on these issues now. Emissaries approached to greet them. "Come," was all the messenger said to them and they fell in step behind him as he started the up-hill return to the fortress above them and the town that lay beyond.

They proceeded into the castle. "Keep your wits about you, Obi-Wan. I sense no immediate danger from these people but something is dampening the Force."

The place looked primitive but possessed heating and lighting and showed other signs of a technology, not as advanced as the Republic perhaps, but it indicated a high level of civilisation.

They were led towards a great high-vaulted hall, the stone grey and cold, the tapestries warm and bright. A host awaited them.

The moment Qui-Gon stepped into the room time stopped.

All motion, all sound stopped. His heart, his breath, his thoughts, stopped.

There was only the woman, the siren, singing to him across an ocean of stone, the eyes, the hair, the lips, the inked symbols on her cheekbones, the folds of verdant velvet and the thread of gold needlework. All as in his dream. But here, real. Her eyes sought his and as he fell into her gaze it seemed that he fell into the well of forever.

A second passed.

The world turned.

The present replaced infinity.

Not allowing himself to be more than momentarily distracted - he could deal with this thing later - Qui-Gon took in the rest of the group. A small crowd of sombre suited men and women. Some of the people in the rear of the entourage, dressed in gathered pleats of fabric which fell to the knee, held in place by belts bedecked with honed metal swords, looked as though they belonged more to a barbarian hoard than a room full of dignitaries. The richly dressed elder statesmen at the centre of the group stepped forward.

"I am Ringan, chieftain of Clan Solus. Welcome, strangers from the far suns."

Qui-Gon gave a small nod of acknowledgement. "I am Qui-Gon Jinn, ambassador for the Republic worlds. This is my apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi."

The woman in green stood to one side and slightly behind the chieftain. When Qui-Gon looked at her again, looked without seeming to look, her eyes were cast downwards, the lids half hiding the irises, but her face showed a slight flush and her intake of breath was sharp. He dared to believe that she had recognised him too.

"Tongue is not good," this clan chief was saying.

Tongue is not good. What did that mean?

"This is my Princess Seer, the Lady Caer Ibhormheith."

Whatever she was called it was a mouthful of syllables. That would make a great start to an intimate moment when he mangled her name.

"Lady Ibhormheith used her craft to take your tongue from the mind of the one who came before."

Language, he was talking about language. They didn't know Republic basic. "We are here to find that man, the - ah - one who came before."

The chief made a show of remorse. "Oh, sorry, he didn't live long. He was ill. An accident."

Master Xiu was dead then. Illness or accident? Which was it? Perhaps there was some disease here that they had no immunity against. "But how?" he asked.

"Later, later." The chief waved his hand. "Welcome these men, Lady."

She stepped forward. "Clan Chief Solus..." - she paused a moment - "I..." - she hesitated, looked towards Qui-Gon, took a deep, sighing intake of breath - "You must leave here at once. This place holds great danger for you." For a second, he was mesmerised by the rolling cadences of some obscure language. But a warning, he thought. This warranted a re-evaluation of the situation.

Before Qui-Gon could say anything, Ringan pulled his Princess Seer's arm sharply. He let forth a harsh torrent in his own tongue, then pushed her away in the direction of the door. He turned to Qui-Gon. "Hah, soothsayers." The man sneered. "Take no notice. They make predictions which never come true. I told her to take her dire prophecy elsewhere."

The Lady lifted the front of her skirts ever so slightly with both hands. She fixed Qui-Gon's gaze. It wasn't love in saw in her eyes but consternation. Her knuckles were white where she grasped the fabric of her dress. "You will lose your lives here if you stay." She turned and raised a hand to point at Ringan, her wrist encircled by silver filigree. "And you, you will lose something of even greater value."

She gathered the train of her skirts up with one hand and left the room, showing a pair of shapely feet shod in black leather boots. Qui-Gon let his eyes follow her as she practically flew through the door. He wanted to follow those feet out of the room, be someplace else where he could unlace those boots, where he could run his hand...

"Master?"

He had to pull himself together. People were noticing. Obi-Wan was noticing. Thankfully, the clan head at least had misconstrued his interest in the Princess Seer's ankles. "Women, huh? Annoying, eh? She has her use, but..." Ringan waved his hand as his words drifted off.

Qui-Gon took advantage of the silence. "We came here because our people found the message you had sent out into space. We came here to return the contact." Ringan looked at him, a puzzled expression contorting his austere features. None of the others present seemed to be taking any notice and were talking amongst themselves, some loudly.

Ringan made a gesture towards his mouth. "Gossip," he said, "Ignore them." He invited over one of the barbarically dressed men - a tall, red-haired man with grisly scars on his face and hands. "This is my war chief, Mharais. He has knowledge of your tongue. He'll discuss with you later. There is food."

Qui-Gon encouraged Obi-Wan to eat some of the proffered food, though the boy was looking slightly pale.

"Next day, we'll show you what happened to your friend." The war chief poured a glass of thick, dark gold liquid and handed it to Qui-Gon... "I'll bring Lady Caer Ibhormheith." ...he took a polite sip of the drink... "She uses the tongue well" ...and choked, the burning potent liquid and the thought of that woman doing things well with her tongue almost making him lose control.

Mharais laughed heartily. "Our liquor's too strong for priests, eh?" Qui-Gon let the comment lie. So, the man thought he was a priest, perhaps it was safer to leave it that way.

"You go up now, it's night." Ringan pointed at the ceiling. For a moment Qui-Gon thought the man wanted them to return to space till the next day - that might not be a bad idea, then they could get the hell out of here, let the Council know there was a bunch of deranged barbarians and mentally unbalanced soothsayers on the Sith worlds and close this part of the galaxy off forever. But, no, Ringan directed an aide to show them upstairs.

Once they had been shown to the room, Qui-Gon looked around carefully, searching for surveillance devices. Obi-Wan slumped straight down on one of the beds.

"Obi-Wan, is something wrong?"

"I feel strange. I can't think. My hands feel weird." The boy spoke in a hoarse whisper.

Qui-Gon's concerns about Sith influence returned to the surface of his thoughts. The Dark Side. It was present. Somehow it was affecting them. Blocking the Force. Draining it from them. He tested his Force bond with Obi-Wan, trying to reassure the boy, calm him, but it was weak. He sent a Force push across the room but it didn't disturb a jug on the cabinet by the window. Not a tremor. This might be serious. This was serious.

The woman in green - she had a name now, he must start thinking of her as Caer Ibhormheith - had warned him of death.

Qui-Gon paced the room. What was she, the perfect woman of his dreams come to deliver him or an over-emotional soothsayer who incanted dire warnings to all and sundry and then stormed off in a huff when nobody would listen to her? This wasn't how he had imagined the dream coming to pass at all. And the image of her ankles, her tongue licking his... He forced himself not to go there. What was he doing, obsessively dwelling on her when he should be figuring a way out of this problem. This was unlike him. Things were not going at all well.

"Come on, Obi-Wan, wake up." The boy had drifted into a deep, still slumber, barely breathing. Qui-Gon opened the door to the room. "We're getting away from here." He shook the boy, hard. "Wake up. Now." He dragged Obi-Wan to his feet and guided him out into the corridor.

A sound! He started to turn. Some presence, there, in the shadow. His hand moved towards his sabre.

A blow to the temple felled him then, his senses vibrating impotently.

"I don't think so." Mharais's voice was a rasp.

Qui-Gon felt a sharp jab in his neck. I've let the Dark Side take me unawares, he thought, as consciousness fled.

- 3 -
The Same God Which Abandon'd Her Has in Turn Abandon'd Me.

Perception slowly returned. His body ached, his forehead throbbed. He was sitting - no, he was strapped - in a wooden chair, his wrists bound, his light sabre gone. Qui-Gon was gratified to note that Obi-Wan was there too, though the boy was not yet conscious. They were in some sort of scullery or washroom, bare stone, polished tiles, a great steel sink. It was not yet day, but a fragile sun was beginning to make itself felt in the pre-dawn sky. Through the window he could barely glimpse the compact city below, its towers and turrets and steep tenements ashen in the thin light. He yearned to be on the stormy moor beyond, feeling the cold drizzle on his face and neck.

"Now, ah, let me tell you something. Then you can tell me secrets." Qui-Gon recognised Mharais's rough inflection of the basic speech. The man was leaning in towards his ear from behind.

"What..." But Mharais was not going to let him speak; the warlord pulled a wooden bar firmly across the Jedi's throat choking off the words and pulling his head hard back against the warlord's chest. Qui-Gon refused to meet the eyes staring down at him.

"These worlds are ours now. We won't let the slave masters take them back. Thinking they could send priests to trick us... Pah."

"I don't..." Mharais increased the pressure on the bar, half-throttling him.

"Just listen." The warlord loosened his grip and let Qui-Gon slump forward again. He moved to the Jedi's side. As Qui-Gon gasped air into his lungs, his torturer cracked the rod, a long wooden staff, against his ribs. The air was knocked out of him again.

Mharais proceeded to tell him how the people of Khar Delba, though they called this planet Cair-deil Talamh - their language must be some kind of decayed corruption of the old Republic tongue - or any other of their several worlds, having once survived the ravages of the Ancient Evil and the slave masters, were not going to submit themselves again. Ever. And he proceeded to tell Qui-Gon what exactly he was going to do to him if he didn't reveal exactly when the slave masters were returning. And what they planned.

"Your turn, priest." Mharais smirked and Qui-Gon sensed from his body language that he was preparing for another blow. This battle-scarred man obviously liked inflicting pain. Just as Mharais was about to strike, Qui-Gon altered his position, changing his centre of gravity, and allowed the chair to topple backwards. He may have avoided another crushing blow from the staff, but the impact with the stone floor jarred his entire body. Mharais roared, his anger spilling over into sadistic glee.

What could he tell this man. Nothing he would want to believe. That message had been a trap then? A ploy to lure them here and torture them for information?

As Mharais dragged the chair upright and pulled it round to face the table against the far wall, Qui-Gon kept up a barrage of questions, attempt to play with the man's mind. "Why did you send a message?" "Why are you so afraid of an answer?" "What is it you fear?" "Why can't you face the fact that the evil is in yourself?" Each question earnt him a blow from the brute's bare fists or wooden stave in reply.

Realisation dawned. "You didn't send the message, did you? Somebody else here did."

Mharais began tying Qui-Gon's arms to the table, stretching the large, imposing hands out flat.

"Your Ancient Evil, your slave masters are the Sith, their Dark Lords. They are extinct. They have been extinct here for nearly four millennia. They are no danger to you any more."

"Shut up." This obviously wasn't what Mharais wanted to hear. "You cannot live on Cair-deil Talamh. Speak before it kills you."

Mharais slammed the end of his staff down across the back of Qui-Gon's hands, the rough wood taking much of the skin off the knuckles. "Now speak." But he said nothing.

"We are going to take you outside and let the people watch you die. Then they will know that the slave masters have no more power over us."

The torturer pulled the smallest finger on Qui-Gon's hand back hard. "Speak!" As the bone snapped, the Jedi in him bore the pain as best as he could without the aid of the Force. He felt his barriers, barriers borne of long years of service to the Jedi Order and to the Republic, begin to crumble as Mharais repeated the action on the next digit. Such a small part of him, such sharp shards of pain. By the time the warlord broke the third finger, Qui-Gon had found a safer place deep within himself to slide into.

He'd never been anything but a Jedi. Never had a chance to be anything but a Jedi. To do anything in any other way than as a Jedi. Yes, he had thought thoughts of the dream Ibhormheith not entirely suited to a Jedi, but he had never indulged the emotions, the feelings, the passions. He wasn't cold, he wasn't celibate, but he hadn't laughed with someone or played with someone or just been with someone because he cherished them above anything else. He hadn't visited new places just because it took his fancy. Or done something simply for the sake of doing it. He hadn't made a home. Or taken a wife. Or raised children.

"Let's see how your lad likes it, eh?" Reality began to impede on Qui-Gon's reverie, demanding his attention. He couldn't see Obi-Wan but he heard the blow land and he heard the stifled moan.

This man was inept, no expert in the arts of torture. And his tools were only common household implements. Clearly these people were not habitually cruel torturers. But that didn't mean they couldn't inflict pain. And with his link to the Force becoming increasingly fragile and remote it was all Qui-Gon could do to hold back the pain and despair. Yet hold it back he must. Reason was now the only thing he could use to end this. He looked at his hands, bloodied and darkened by bruises. He could not let Obi-Wan take the punishment. The words did not come easily through the pain but he trusted himself to his instincts.

"If you keep killing us when we come in ones or twos, more and more of us will be sent."

"We're not killing you, you're already dying."

"The Republic has the power to pacify whole planets."

"You can't scare us. We won't submit to slave masters. We'd rather die."

"We are not slave masters. Slavery is outlawed in the Republic. The Dark Jedi that enslaved you are no more."

Mharais's sneer told Qui-Gon that the warlord did not believe him.

"Let us go back to the Republic and we can see to it that these worlds are left alone." Qui-Gon's attempted mind trick was useless. The other man curled his lip in disgust and spoke to the adjunct manning the door before turning back to leer at the captive Jedi.

"You expect trust? Well, convince Lord Ringan." Mharais sniggered. "But know that he's quite mad."

Mharais was wiping his hands when Ringan stopped in the doorway. "Ah, this one is talking," the warlord gestured towards Qui-Gon. "Doesn't like it when we hurt his lad."

Ringan smiled weakly and entered the room.

To Qui-Gon's horror, the clan chief had brought his Princess Seer with him. The haze of pain was the only thing protecting him from his emotions at that moment, but the beloved object of his dreams obviously had no such defence.

Ibhormheith's gasp was audible when she saw him there. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a cry. She staggered, her knees buckling. With her other hand she steadied herself against the door frame.

Trembling, a single tear began to flow down over the markings on her cheek.

Her eyes met his and held, full of sorrow and pain, empathy and - yes - even passion. It felt to Qui-Gon that their exchange of looks communicated much across the space of the room, across the ache of silence between them, without the aid of a Force bond, with the aid of nothing but a shared dream and a shared longing.

It gave him hope.

It gave him strength.

It inflicted a fresh pain all of its own.

As his sense of the present returned, he heard her speak his name for the first time - no, it shouldn't be like this. He heard Obi-Wan whisper - he could not make out the words. He heard Ringan's voice raised against Ibhormheith. The madman's eyes fixed on Qui-Gon as he spoke, using the common tongue for the Jedi's benefit as well. "You want him, don't you? You think you can love him, don't you?" Ringan slapped the prophetess hard across the face, hard enough that she reeled back against the wall, hard enough that her sobs were silenced. "Slut. I'll have you sent to Tir-nam-bean." He grasped her viciously around the wrist and wrenched her towards the waiting adjunct. "Take the whore to her room and lock her in."

"Don't..." Qui-Gon tried to say it. Had he said it? He couldn't hear himself say it. He made the connection. Tir-nam-bean. Korriban. The world which contained the tombs of the Dark Lords.

The adjunct took Ibhormheith's elbow but she resisted his attempt to lead her away from this scene of torment. She looked to Qui-Gon. Pledging something - something unknown - with her tear-rimmed eyes. She was half-pushed, half-dragged away from his sight.

"And you..." the clan chief looked at the Jedi as though they were something abject. "You're finished, wretches." Ringan turned away from them. Mharais struck a final, cruel blow and Qui-Gon returned to the protection of his subconscious.

- 4 -
Alone Down the Hall of Collapsing Columns.

Eventually her trembling stopped and her tears subsided and she was able to rouse herself from the trance of misery she had fallen into. Why had she shown such weakness? Her face still stung. Why had she let that hated man hit her? She didn't see herself as some weak, pathetic female, she was an adept of the Baobhan-sith Cloister. She had certain powers, certain advantages over mere men, mere mortals. Why hadn't she used them to help this man Qui-Gon Jinn, the man she had been waiting for, the man whose life the destiny said was linked to hers. But she knew in her heart that the trauma of seeing his torment had shocked her deeply. It hit her pride hard to admit it, but she was afraid. Afraid he would die, in pain, alone. Afraid it would all go wrong, afraid she didn't have the strength to accept her fate, afraid she would betray the Cloister, but most of all afraid of Ringan, the maniacal man who now threatened her life and the life of the man chosen for her. She didn't want to play the dutiful daughter to his stern patriarch any longer. He had never shown any paternal love to her even when she was sent to him as his foster-child at the age of nine. She was his trained mystic, his tame ban-fhaidh, to be wheeled out on state occasions and when protocol demanded it. He wasn't interested in the meanderings of the future, only gaining more power. And he didn't respect the matriarchy. He had already disowned his own daughter so the younger son could inherit. She supposed she had known all along that she was only an ornament here in a show-piece castle, but she had never fully admitted it to herself until now. The arrival of a man whose face she knew only from dreams, from some simple room in some unfamiliar place, was the catalyst that was changing everything.

Jinn. The name meant so much to her now; it flowed through her mind reaching down into her soul. He had such a powerful presence. Such a large man. Oh, he was large, so tall, such hands... She touched her lips softly with the tips of her fingers, pressed harder into the soft flesh. Slid one hand inside her bodice, running a nail around the nipple. Drew up her skirt and her petticoat with the other, sliding a finger between the warm folds of flesh. But her sex was as a stone. She'd done this so many times, thinking of the man that had visited her during her slumbers. Now the dreadful thought of his pain and his anguish and his bruises down in the kitchens below impinged on her pleasure. And though his suffering in itself excited her in some strange way, she couldn't do this now. Not now he was a physical presence in this world and not just a dreamed figment of time future.

She had fallen in love in absence, but now the absence had fallen away. She had waited, just as she had dreamt she had told him she would, though he had always fled from her on that dream plane. Well, now he had come to her. So she hadn't imagined it would happen like this, but she hadn't expected a mythical hero to come riding out of the sunset either - that sort of thing was for incurable romantics and her life thus far had turned her into something of a sceptic when it came to hearts and flowers. She just hadn't fancied it would be altogether so fraught.

Well, there was nothing more to be fantasised about now. The absence was filled. She felt more sure of herself than she ever had. She did believe in the destiny, didn't she? Of course she did. But being told that a fate would be offered to you and actually taking the steps necessary to accepting it were aeons apart. Well, now she was accepting it. All her dreams of this man, the lover who had finally come to her from the far suns, all her passions, her lusts, her desires, fuelled her impulse. She might have no authority in this place, but if she couldn't draw on the energies of her own virtue she could certainly call on the forces swirling in the aether just beyond the curtain that contained this world. She'd make sure the destiny was fulfilled even if it destroyed her.

Swearing her maid to silence, she could trust the woman to get word to the Cloister about what was happening here should anything untoward befall her before she could carry her plan forward, Caer Ibhormheith unfettered the lock that could never hope to hold even a novice Baobhan-sith and slipped her way out of the fortress and into the streets. She had dressed in her walking suit, but had left off her coat, hoping that she would be able to hide her intentions if anyone had caught her in her escape. But now as she made her way into the Academy in the cold morning haar, she shivered under the fine linen.

The scientist she sought was the nearest thing she had to a mother, though in the ranks of the Cloister that title simply meant a woman was of child bearing age and Etain was now a matriarch. She felt the scholar study her carefully. "They have come, then, more visitors from the far suns." The older woman assumed the purpose of her visit. "But you are afraid they are dying like the other." She had not come here to seek Etain's advice, she merely wanted someone else from the Cloister to be aware of her intentions.

"You knew they would came, Etain, when you sent the probe. That was why I was conceived."

"You have seen it too, Ibhormheith, the threads in the tapestry of time have sung to you too. I know you intend to take on the role of the bellatrix, to take the road that leads to the far suns, to live apart from us." Etain reached out to her, to barely touch her hair. "You don't have to do it if it isn't what you truly want."

She kept her silence, she didn't want to, couldn't, walk away now.

"Take this, then." Etain handed her a red velvet pouch smelling of aromatic flowers and pungent herbs. "It's a spell to protect and strengthen love. Keep it next to your heart."

Ibhormheith still felt Etain's kiss on her cheek as she tucked the charm inside her corset and set off back to the fortress. What she had to do next would be the hardest part of this whole journey.

- 5 -
Did I Dream You Dreamed About Me?

Qui-Gon felt his wits were returning at last. Light seeped under his eyelids. It was still the morning from the angle of the sun. Or maybe he'd been out for more than a day. He had been chained to a pillar in a granite courtyard, his arms twisted behind him, his wrists cuffed. Obi-Wan was a few yards from him, looking worn but defiant, chaffing at the chains. Their lightsabres were laid out in front of them, tauntingly out of reach.

"Don't struggle, Obi-Wan. Conserve your energy."

Qui-Gon flexed his hands, testing the injuries. One was stiff, he felt lacerations cracking; the other had little movement, sharp pains stabbing from the fingers up into the forearm. He felt along the hem of his sleeve for the miniature thermal blade. There. But he couldn't grasp it firmly enough through the agony and the stiffness in his hands. Without access to the Force he had no power to absorb the pain or speed the healing process, and no power to loose the chains. He felt himself wince at his exertions, despite directing all his energies into maintaining his self-restraint.

"What did he do to you, Master?" There was an anxiety in Obi-Wan's voice that the boy couldn't hide.

"I will heal, Obi-Wan. Gather your own strength, you will need it."

"Is this the Dark Side, Master? Are we going to die here without the Force? Has it been taken away for ever?"

Qui-Gon could sense that his young apprentice was only a fraction away from panic. He couldn't lie to the boy but he would have to give him some chance of hope. "There is a great power here, Padawan, one that I do not understand. It has supplanted the Force but I am not sure that it is the Dark Side. Your abilities as a Jedi do not lie in your Force powers alone, Obi-Wan. Your training has armed you with strengths that any man could acquire. Rely on those. Use those. Look for the opening and it will come. We must find our own way back to the Force."

Qui-Gon breathed through the concern he felt for Obi-Wan, through the myriad pains Mharais had inflicted on him, through the yearning hunger for Caer Ibhormheith buried deep in his heart and soul, through the fear that without the Force he was nothing. He had taken for granted all the small gifts his Force sensitivity had bequeathed on him. Was there a man under the mask of the Jedi Master? He wanted to reassure himself that all would be well, that the Force would return to him, that he would feel its secure embrace again when they were away from this place of Darkness. But was he, deep within himself, so sure of that? Or had a seed which could never die been sown within him now?

A sharp pain bit his arm, another his chest. He heard Obi-Wan squeal.

Several of the assorted rabble of barbarians and townsfolk who had come to see the defenceless Jedi put on display had started throwing stones at them. There was much laughter, followed by a noisy commotion and raised voices.

Qui-Gon was agitated to see Ibhormheith at the centre of it remonstrating with the torturer Mharais. He'd despaired of ever seeing her again, but he was worried for her safety. Especially when she drew a knife from inside her jacket. Curiously though, she simply came towards the pillars and walked the outline of a circle around them, tracing its circumference with her knife and speaking almost silently to herself in the breathy consonants of her native tongue. Standing in the centre of her circle she held her arms wide and he thought he saw, for just a moment, a ball of pale green light radiate out from her hands and come to rest in a hemi-sphere around them.

Then she came and stood in front of him, her back towards him, her stance daring any of the crowd to throw another stone.

Her presence was a guiding star in the darkness.

"I have made this a sacred space," she whispered. "I have told them that they must let you go or the future will be bleak for us all. That is true. I've seen it"

"But they aren't going to, are they?"

She merely shrugged. "Mharais has sworn to burn me, he accuses me of practicing black arts. Ringan has given him the authority."

"You don't need to risk your life for me, Lady. A Jedi is ready to accept death when it comes."

"Neither of us is destined to die today. But I think you know that, don't you."

"Do I?"

"From your dreams." Her voice was faint, barely audible.

Her hair was braided with thin ribbons and small polished stones, tiny feathers and seed pods, a piece of twig. It made her seem earthy, unkempt and natural, despite the refined garments of bronze linen which she wore.

Mharais came towards them, but stopped just short of the circle Ibhormheith had drawn. He raised a rifle, a projectile weapon, towards Obi-Wan. He scoffed at her. "You can't save them both."

Ibhormheith never flinched. "But can you kill only one" - she stared Mharais down - "when the other might live to take revenge upon you and all your family." Qui-Gon knew it was an empty threat, but he respected the courage and the ferocity of spirit he knew it must take to do this. Mharais backed away muttering.

"This is very brave and very daring of you, Lady, but what do you plan to do next?"

"Wait."

"Wait? For what?"

"For the wind to change and the clouds to form and the rains to fall."

"Ah."

"I have called on the elemental spirits of the air and water for assistance."

"And they obey you?"

"No. But I did ask nicely."

And she laughed then. She was, for all the tension of this moment, only teasing him.

The white curve of her neck was veiled by a fall of hair.

"Lady?"

"You don't have to call me that. The title is only honorary."

"Caer Ibhormheith"

And she laughed again at the way he said her name, but lightly, uncritically. "You could just call me Iva."

"Iva?"

"Yes, Qui-Gon Jinn?"

"Just Qui-Gon will do."

"Yes, Qui-Gon?"

"Sifa Xiu. The man who came here before. Do you know how he died?"

There was a silence. The curve of her ear enclosed its soft pink flesh like a shell.

"He died because he came to Cair-deil Talamh. As you are dying because you came here. This world, all the homeworlds perhaps, are poison."

The light refracted into golden glints in her red-brown hair.

"When the Ancient Evil fled, the homeworlds were scorched with toxins. Our ancestors were slaves, they survived hidden deep in the mines where they had been forced to work. Maybe we adapted to the poison, maybe the Ancient Ones and their slave masters made us immune. But many died and the children were born deformed. The mothers of the Baobhan-sith chose the strongest lines to produce children. Over the centuries we became stronger but there are still some born who cannot survive this place. We, we can live here now, but you, you will die if you stay here, as Sifa Xiu died, cut off from the source of your virtue."

Her head was tilted slightly to one side as she spoke and the plane of her cheek, slashed by the dark lines of the tattoo, was enticing.

The moment was interrupted by Obi-Wan's cough. "Master."

"Sh, Padawan. Have patience. Bide your time."

He turned his attention back to Ibhormheith. "And these Ancient Ones?"

"There are no records from that time. What we have are myths, stories handed down by world of mouth. They were the evil that ruled the worlds before the fall of twilight."

She looked so fragile to him that he felt she might be crushed if he were to embrace her and would shatter.

"I believe they must be what we call the Sith. Five-thousand years ago Jedi knights who had fallen to the Dark Side conquered these worlds and enslaved the Sith, becoming their Dark Lords."

"And you think we are the descendants of these Sith?"

Her waist was narrow, emphasised by the folds of fabric over her hips.

"No. That was a possibility, but no. You are human, the Sith were not."

"Then I do not believe you Jedi are the slave masters."

"We're not."

"But the Ancient Evil, it is your Dark Side?"

"Yes."

He heard her laugh softly and she shook her head.

"You don't agree?"

"Our stories are better, I think. You equate evil with darkness, but light cannot exist without darkness. You can't have day without night. They both work to complete the endless cycle."

"It is to the Dark Side that weak men turn when they fall into the clutches of evil."

The fabric of her skirts murmured as she shifted her weight onto her other foot, her hips moving artfully.

"But evil can thrive in the light. As here." She spread her arm across the scene before them.

He knew that he would have a hard time winning any philosophical debate with her.

"It is your terminology that is flawed." She glanced back over her shoulder for a moment - her smile was difficult to read, enigmatic. He found it enthralling.

She shivered as a wind gusted through the courtyard.

"You're cold. Stand closer, I can warm you."

He craved her proximity. She stepped backwards until she was close enough for him to smell the perfume of her hair. She hardly touched him. He was drowning in her closeness. In the impulse to touch her, to embrace her.

Qui-Gon was aware of Obi-Wan's apprehensive, questioning glance at him, but he didn't want anything to interrupt this shared moment with Ibhormheith which felt, despite the situation, so intimate.

"I dreamed of you, Iva."

"Yes." It was a small word, yet it encompassed many meanings. "I dreamed of you too, Qui-Gon."

Her head barely reached his shoulder. She wasn't really so small, she just appeared so next to him.

"The dreams are part of the destiny. A gift, an invitation to ensnare us into accepting our fate."

"What fate?"

"It is written in the mirror book that the night and the day will be united when the bellatrix walks amongst the far suns with the champion of peace. When the shadow of evil falls across the heavens, he will become the spirit that fills her empty vessel and they will prepare the way for the children of the dusk."

"And this means..."

She shrugged. She laughed. "Anything. Nothing. It's just words written in some musty old book."

She seemed very young, like a conspiratorial child telling secrets it shouldn't know.

"But you think it refers to you? To me?"

"We can choose to accept the destiny. Or we can choose not to accept the destiny. It is not predestined. The future is not immutable. We can make our own destiny."

Some old remembered words came back to him then. The moment seemed to demand that he give them voice.

"Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits - and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire."

He noticed that her breathing was noticeably quickening. She was almost panting.

He lowered his head and, barely touching his lips to the woven tresses, kissed her hair.

The moment was broken.

Mharais, losing all patience at the situation, had begun to line up a rather desultory looking group from out of the ranks of the observers into something resembling a firing squad.

Ibhormheith motioned to a bank of violet clouds speeding towards them on a weather front which bisected the sky.

"It is time," she said and stepped away from him. "Remember not to inhale too deeply when the flowers fall."

- 6 -
I Am Born of a Thousand Storms and Grey With Rushing Rains.

There was no time for Qui-Gon to worry about the meaning of falling flowers. A gale was rising, an execution squad was forming and Caer Ibhormheith was acting out a mystical rite. He noticed with curious adoration how her eyes focused on an alternative plane of consciousness as she lifted her face to the heavens. As the wind whipped her skirts and hair into frothing waves, he felt awe at the sight of her holy ecstasy. Dark purple-tinged clouds rushed vertiginously towards the fortress.

Ibhormheith lowered her hands to her face, breathed on elaborate bracelets at her wrists.

And his world fell asunder.

The Jedi Master in him watched in dread as metal filaments flowed like honey over the pale skin of her hands...

An abyss opened up in his mind and he tottered on the edge of a precipice of delirium.

...across the backs, across the palms, between the fingers, till her hands were clothed in silver filigree ornamented with cloudy green crystals and fine chains.

The remnants of his composure crumbled away.

Sith amulets.

His love had Sith amulets.

His love used Sith amulets.

She raised her hands up to the sky, hands that wielded alchemical devices that amplified the Dark Force, hands that drew the roiling clouds towards them.

She stood, then, one hand reaching to the sky, one pointing at the ground, her body acting as a conductor throwing a stream of simmering blue-white light into the heavens. Shapes took form in that lucent river, faces peered out in mischief and perverse bodies danced lasciviously. One sprite peeled away from the flow, flew towards his face, its malevolent smile revealing pointed teeth, then darted away.

It was all happening so quickly, it was taking forever.

The clouds burst apart. The rain fell as flowers. A heady fragrance began to fill the air. Flowers! He had to focus, put the terror that her Sith magic raised out of his thoughts. "Obi-Wan! Take a deep breath and hold it." But the curled purple-black petals of the flowers were falling fast now and Obi-Wan was open-mouthed in wonder. His eyes were becoming unfocused, the pupils dark pits.

Obi-Wan succumbed. The torturer Mharais, his press-ganged firing squad succumbed. The people who had merely come to see the spectacle of death, all succumbed.

Ibhormheith, limned by a ghostly silver light, turned and he looked at her in horrified distraction as she reached down for his lightsabre. He wanted to scream at her. To tell her, to demand of her, not to touch it, but he sensed the odour of intoxication in the air and dare not do so for fear that all would then be lost, just as his senses would be lost if he took a breath, if he gave in to the flowers. She picked the weapon up, he felt the anticipation of some awful loss, the dark Sith metal that enclosed her hands contaminating the one possession that he would be most lost without.

She examined the device for a moment, black flowers pooling at her feet. She ran her fingers along its length, gripped it firmly, mouthed some words of magic over it, raised it to her face, exhaled on it. Her breath seemed alive with sparkling silver motes of dust. She shook the sabre hard, as though she were about to fling it away. The blade sputtered with light, cycled through a spectrum of colours from the purple-black of the flowers, through darkest petrol blue, until finally settling into the green of peridots.

What was she? A lover, a demon? A saviour, a Sith? He was being torn between opposing poles. He felt alien, taboo emotions rising up in him. Anger. Hate. Fear.

Peace, he intoned. Honour. Strength. The catechism placated the emotions, but did not hearten him. He lusted for a Sith witch. He was losing himself to the Darkness.

Ibhormheith moved then. She did not hurry, rather she seemed to flow. As if time had slowed. As if there were all the moments of endless time in that one moment.

She moved behind him and with the blade of light cut the chains that bound him. It was not the release he desired, not the release from the torment of lust, not the release from the Dark, but she had freed him from his captivity. He stumbled forward, testing his strength for the escape that must come next.

She had already moved to free Obi-Wan, the boy was tumbling forward, all reflexes numbed, unused. Qui-Gon moved quickly, caught his apprentice before he hit the ground.

The people around them seemed oblivious now, preoccupied with their own unimaginable thoughts, distracted by things only they could see. Obi-Wan, too, had a mad, wild-eyed look about him. Mesmerised by the heady perfume and the confusion of the moment.

A few large drops of rain fell, the vanguard of a deluge.

Ibhormheith took a slight breath. "The rain will wash away the odour. They won't bother us, but others will soon be alerted by this."

The rain was getting heavy now. She held out his sabre, still lit, heavy drops of water hissing into steam on the blade. He snatched it away from her, roughly, his brewing anger reflecting the maelstrom of the tempest. It felt as though she had violated it. Violated him. And that was what she had done, hadn't she? Violated his heart and his mind. Succubus, Yoda had called her. Had his Master been right then? Wasn't that what a succubus did?

Shouts of confusion and barked commands interrupted his irritated thoughts and he began to haul Obi-Wan towards the gate.

"The other weapon," he called back to Ibhormheith and she ran after him pausing only to scoop up the indicated sabre. They made it out onto the hillside before any pursuers emerged from the fortress. They struggled towards the transport hampered by heavy rain being stirred into ice-cold horizontal sheets by the gusting wind, Qui-Gon slowed by Obi-Wan's dead weight, Ibhormheith by the waterlogged skirt ensnaring her ankles.

The once reassuring weight of the laser sword recently returned to Qui-Gon's hip was now a thorn in his side. His resistance was a thin crust, broken by the animosity he projected towards this woman, this enchantress. For her profane use of his sabre, for invading his dreams, for colonising his heart. She was a Sith-spawned she-devil hypnotising him with those deep, luminous hazel eyes. He was bewitched by a woman born of the Dark Side.

He focused on the Code. No emotion, no passion. Only peace, only serenity. He was in agony, he was in ecstasy. He was in agony.

The rain was being driven into his eyes. His senses were being stripped away by the storm.

He heard her cry out behind him, before he heard the shot. A projectile sang wide past his shoulder. Barely looking back, he saw that Ringan himself was pursuing them, aiming for another shot. They were almost at the transport now.

"Etain." Ibhormheith was calling to another woman, hurrying towards her across the slope. She dashed towards her shouting words unknown to him, unheard by him over the discord of the rain and the wind and the gunshots. The older woman threw a coat over Ibhormheith's shoulders and pushed her towards the transport.

They were there now, at the vehicle that represented safety and escape.

Qui-Gon gave the code for the transport to admit them and hefted his listless Padawan inside, dumping him unceremoniously on the floor before turning back to the opening. He hesitated. He could just go, go now. Be free of this delusion. Be free of this phantasm. But he had dedicated his life to the Living Force. He couldn't endanger this woman further. She had given her all to aid him. Whatever his current feelings, whatever his current condition, he had to protect her life. And whether he abandoned her or whether he emancipated her, he knew she would be the entire cause of his demise.

Her eyes flickered across his face. She saw his doubt, read his emotions. He noted the signs of empathy in her reaction, his feelings of ambivalence towards her had frozen her. She couldn't enter, he realised, unless he accepted her for what she was, unless he invited her. She glanced back over her shoulder, half turning away. A third gunshot rang out, ricocheting off the transport. Slowly, horribly slowly, Ibhormheith turned back towards him.

He took in the sight before him. For one terrible, long, moment he saw the woman who had enchanted him and cursed him reaching out with her heart for his help as she held out Obi-Wan's lightsabre, saw the man who had had him tortured reaching out with rage for his death as he held out the gun.

"She must go with you, Jedi." The other woman was pleading with him, pressing a bag into Ibhormheith's arms. "They will burn her if she stays. She has been your salvation, now you must be hers. It is a fair exchange."

Though torn by conflicting emotions, Qui-Gon, his mind strangely remote from his body, watched his own hand stretch out towards the woman who had been with him for so long in his dreams. It was like a dream, this whole circumstance was a dream.

"Do you wish it?" Ibhormheith asked him. "Do you wish it?"

"Yes," he snapped and grabbed her wrist, his grip powerful despite the pain of his hands. He hauled her into the transport and, such was his chaos, that he threw her across the cabin, knocking the breath out of her and leaving her sprawling on the floor.

"Don't think I'm doing this for your destiny, Princess," he cautioned her as he secured the hatch of the transport. He strode across the cabin, his imposing frame dominating the confined space, one arm flung wide, his impaired fingers pointing towards Obi-Wan. "Look after my apprentice," he commanded as he flung his sodden robe in one swift movement onto a seat. Storming into the cockpit, he directed his anger as much at himself as at her.

- 7 -
And If He Left Off Dreaming About You, Where Do You Suppose You'd Be?

Caer Ibhormheith stared at Qui-Gon, wide-eyed, open mouthed, unable, unwilling to breath, as he left the cabin. She had a sense of the power the man could wield. She let her bag fall down beside her on the floor and let her coat slip from her shoulders. She sat up stiffly against the bulkhead, head reeling more from Qui-Gon's violent wave of anger towards her, than the impact she had sustained when he had thrown her like that. Well, she'd be damned to hell and dedicate her life to the Ancient Evil before she let him dominate her like that in private. She wasn't going to let him domineer her either, ordering her to look after the lad. Like some servant. But even while her mind said these things to her, her heart told her that she would do anything this man asked of her. It curdled her blood. In that moment, she both despised him and desired him.

She sidled up the wall till she was upright, not sure that she could stand without support. Her knees trembled, but did not give way. She teetered forward, peeling off her wet jacket and laid it next to the rough brown cloak Qui-Gon had left there. The fine shimmer of the green-brown linen reminded her of a lichen growing on coarse, uneven stone. She bundled the cloak up into her arms and held it to her face, inhaling the smell of masculinity, the sweet tang of leather and sweat, mingled with the dampness of the wool. What was it, exactly, that she wished for? His approval? She wasn't getting that.

What was making him so mad at her? Obi-Wan? She hadn't even taken his apprentice into account. He obviously cared deeply about the lad. She hadn't even asked if was all right, back there, in the courtyard. No, it was the magic, wasn't it? Men were intimidated by the magic. Her use of the craft alienated them. Drove them away. She might be able to cast a love spell, but she couldn't win love for herself.

Oh, Goddess. Her mind was turning to romantic, lovelorn mush. She turned her attention to Obi-Wan.

The boy was flat on his back on the floor holding one of the almost black blossoms up to the light. She knelt down next to him. "Look at the pretty flower." He brought it close to his face. He inhaled deeply. "Smells wonderful. Here." He held out his other hand, his fist grasped a handful of flowers.

She prised the narcotic blooms out of his hands. "You don't need any more of that." She scrunched the flowers and reached over to put them in her bag.

"Aw..." Obi-Wan whined in displeasure.

She braced herself and levered the boy into a sitting position, his dead-weight causing him to loll against her awkwardly. "Sit up properly." It was like handling a mewling baby. "Take this cloak off, it's soaked."

Obi-Wan was difficult to handle, flailing his arms at the wrong angle and gibbering some nonsense list about things that could fly. "Ow." She had got his arms out of his robe but his elbow had managed to make contact with her chin. She bent down behind him and, gripping him under the arms, barely managed to get the wiry youth to his feet.

He pulled at the fabric of her blouse, attracted to the embroidered knot-work there. "That's pretty, what's that?" He managed to grab a handful of her breast as well.

She slapped him away firmly. Adolescent boys were always the worst. She propped him against the edge of a seat as the transport took off.

The shudder threw Obi-Wan off balance and he fell sideways on to the seat. "I want some sherbet," he wailed.

Ibhormheith looked at the boy and wrinkled her nose. She bent to retrieve her bag and sat down opposite him. Fine destiny this was turning out to be, she thought, and though she was laughing, tears ran down her face.

She forced herself to regain some composure by sifting through the contents of the bag Etain had handed to her. Her craft tools, some crystals, an assortment of herbs and oils, a bundle of candles, her green dress, her Baobhan-sith ritual gown, underwear. Not much for a new life. She smiled to herself. But enough.

The ship bucked as it left the atmosphere, jerking Obi-Wan out of the hypnotic state he had fallen into. "I want some sherbet," he yelled again, more insistently.

She pulled a feathered ribbon from her hair and held it up to him. "Here, take this." She dangled it in front of him as though she were teasing a playful kitten. He grabbed it from her, "Oh, look at the pretty birdie," and was instantly transfixed on it.

She took her bag and moved over to sit on one of a bank of seats on the opposite side of the cabin. If she could just deflect Qui-Gon's current antipathy towards her... There were no mirrors that she could see around the interior of the ship. So she looked at her face, reflected darkly, in her scrying stone.

Her fingers traced the lines of her tattoos. She mussed up her hair some more, twining some loose tendrils around her face. But perhaps this man, this man of immense presence, liked his women all sweet and feminine and immaculately groomed. Perhaps she should comb out her hair and powder over her Baobhan-sith markings. She looked like she hadn't slept for a couple of nights. Which, given her disturbed state since this man had arrived on Cair-deil Talamh and counting the full moon esbat she had celebrated the night before that, she hadn't. But why bother? She didn't even know Qui-Gon cared much for women. She sensed his attraction to her but maybe his Order were like the aesthetic monks on Ruadh who practised celibacy and self-flagellation. That would hardly be fun. Not that she wasn't odd herself, originating, as she now knew, from the abyss of the evil Sith Lords. She was separated from her old life, exiled, cast adrift on a sea of stars, a refugee.

And of all the possible futures that sped off from this moment in time, the worst would be to lose Qui-Gon Jinn here, before she took a step down any of the avenues of time on offer to her. For then she would be nothing.

- 8 -
There Is No Crime Though Somewhere There's a Clue.

Qui-Gon meditated. He had got them off-planet as fast as possible and sent a pre-arranged rendezvous signal to their Republic cruiser but now he had to take stock. So he meditated and as he meditated he sensed a spark of the Force at the core of his being, mourning his loss, calling him back. He felt confident that he was not lost to it forever. A temporary effect then, caused by the planet or some agent it contained; this fact gave him sustenance. He used his returning abilities to sense the physical damage he had sustained on Cair-deil Talamh. Not serious, though he would need to do something about his hand. It was his mental state that concerned him. That, and the state of his heart.

He couldn't deny the reality of the Sith technology that Ibhormheith possessed, but he could belive it was only a tool wielded by hands that otherwise cared. He had to accept that she might be tainted by her mastery of Sith alchemy, by her being born in the Sith worlds. But he had to accept that he might have been tainted too by this place. Once touched by the Darkness was it possible to destroy the seed that it planted? The entire history of the Jedi Order was littered by stories of those who had not been able to - Exar Kun, Freedon Nadd, Ulic Qel-Droma, his own failure, Xanatos, one he had accepted now, but had not forgotten. Had he himself, back then, been tainted by the Dark Side? No. Tainted by despair, yes. But not the darkness. And it was not Iva's fault that she had been brought to life in a damned world, born into the Dark Side, or rather - and he recalled his conversation with her in the granite courtyard - born into the presence of evil. She had goodness in her, that much was obvious by her actions. He would have to sow the seed of Light in her in the hope that it would take root and flourish. He could have hope that they would be Dark and Light in complement. The thought warmed him.

He turned away from the controls and went to stand, arms folded, in the entrance to the cabin. Had this woman trapped him, this woman sitting here with tear stained face, this woman whose hands - hands that had so recently been swathed in Sith amulets - whose hands were toying with a skein of amber beads, had she ensnared him in her web? No. How could somebody who looked so despondent and bedraggled be the instigator of some Dark plan to lure him away from the Force? If there was a conspiracy, she was as much its victim as he.

He approached her warily, unsure of what had passed between them before, of the effect of his loss of control. "Iva. How is Obi-Wan?" His Padawan's crossed-eyes were staring intently at his fingers as he made shapes a couple of inches from his face.

"Drunk on the aroma of violets." She didn't look up. "He had a whole handful of the flowers. He'll get over it. In several hours."

He sat down near her on the bay of seats. He wanted to be close to her. He didn't want to be too close to her.

He could only fumble as he opened the medkit. He felt inadequate, fragile. She winced sharply as he straightened the broken fingers. Winced in such a way, her own hands spasmically convulsing into fists, tears brimming in her eyes, that it confirmed his suspicion that she felt some empathic bond. But her breathing was even as she taped the splint to his fingers for him. The touch of her hands was cool and light against his tortured flesh.

He gazed at her then, examined her face for the first time. "What?" she said, puzzled. "What?" She laughed, embarrassed. "What?"

"I've seen you in my dreams, and I've seen you across a room, and I've looked at the back of your neck as we talked in the courtyard. But I've yet to look at your face. I just want to see who you are."

She looked down, blushed. "Don't," he said, lifting her face up, one finger supporting her chin, lightly.

And what he saw now was what he had seen before, like, but unlike, his dream reflection of her. What he had thought of as flawless skin was freckled. The tattoos stood out sharply on her cheeks. An orb containing a five-pointed star. An orb flanked by crescent moons. The mouth was perfect, yes, her lips full and beckoning, but when she smiled he could see her teeth were slightly crooked, the eye teeth rather too prominently pointed. And she bit her lower lip in an habitual way that could turn out to be very, very endearing or very, very irritating.

Well, who was he to seek out perfection in anyone? She was as perfect a thing as he had ever laid eyes on. He wanted her for his lover. His heart yearned for it. But it wasn't permissible. Not for a Jedi. And yet the force of desire burned again in his soul, urging him on to do this thing.

With a sudden undamming of his control he reached forward, cupping her radiant face in his rugged hands. She inclined her head, leaning into his unmaimed hand, her eyelids fluttered, half-closed, and then he kissed her claret, bee-stung lips. It seemed to startle her for a moment but she was quick to respond to the kiss, opening her lips in expectation.

He ended the moment prematurely, pulled away from her reluctantly. He was confused. He was shocked at himself. Disconcerted. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have presumed... I should have asked." He had to explain his reluctance. It wasn't her, it was him. "The code... For a Jedi, passion is discouraged." He looked away. "And Obi-Wan is there..."

But Obi-Wan was oblivious, staring out the cabin window, enraptured by a star-filled vista of space, tracing strange unique constellations on the glass with a wet fingertip.

Ibhormheith reached her hand behind Qui-Gon's neck, tangling her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. "Then we have a problem," she said as she leant forward to continue the kiss, ending it, breathlessly, at her own discretion. She sat back and looked him in the eye, laying claim to his life as she did so. "Passion is a gift from the Goddess. For the Baobhan-sith sex is a sacred act."

He let go of his restraint then. He kissed her again, gently, longingly. Becoming deliberate. Harsh.

"Open your eyes when you kiss me," she said, it was a command not a request. "Look at me." He couldn't, didn't want to, disobey her. Her tongue, moist, warm, found its way between his lips. He met the smoky topaz of her eyes, they held all the power and promise of raw female sexuality.

He was sinking into a dark undine pool of femininity.

Their kiss was deep, open, passionate. And soon he held her close, so close against him. His arms encircled her, he moved his hand up her arm, inside her blouse, tracing the outline of her breast above her underclothing. She shivered deliciously in reply. She mirrored his movements and her fingers found their way inside the layers of his tunics, running over his chest. The sharp tenderness he felt as her hand pressed against his bruised ribs only served to heighten the level of his arousal. She slid her hand down towards his stomach, searching the outlines of his form.

He reached inside her bodice, seeking the nipple. As his hand found it, he hardly had time to register his surprise and wonder that it was perforated by a metal ring, before she twisted in delight and whimpered in anticipation through their kiss.

"Do that some more," she whispered as he thumbed the ring and caressed her breast. And she raised one leg up onto the seat beside them, her knees parting invitingly. He slid his other hand up under her skirts, ran his fingers across of the silk of her stocking, over the lace garter and on to the smooth flesh. His hand did not meet the further layers of diaphanous material expected and his feelings intensified, she was full of surprises, she wore nothing underneath her petticoats. He felt for the pleasure centre of her being nestled between her legs, it didn't shock him that she wore metal rings there too.

She responded to his touch by pressing herself down on his hand, causing a shrill ache which quickened him. Her hand was on his chest, her nails digging into the soft flesh of the aureola. He slid a finger inside her, felt the wetness there. She was overflowing. He was overflowing. They were each desperate to take the other at that moment, regardless of circumstance, with no thought for reality.

A terrible screeching filled the cabin.

Ibhormheith jerked away from him, falling in a tumble of limbs and disordered clothing. He leapt to his feet, lightsabre in hand. He took comfort from the fact that his reflexes were still working, albeit sluggishly, even as he railed against the barriers and interruptions that were preventing the release of the pressures and passions that this woman wrought in him. His fingers were still slick from her sweet nectar as he awkwardly gripped the hilt to stop it slipping from his damaged hands. He had marked his sword with her spoor, he couldn't very well hold her violation of it against her now.

The scream had come from Obi-Wan. The boy was trembling and clutching his head, feet drawn up on the seat, chin on his knees, staring in terror. Guilt rose up in Qui-Gon. He shouldn't have given in to his desire. This was the payback. He had terrified the boy. But no, Obi-Wan was fifteen, well beyond the age when he should know full well what was going on.

"B..b..bird." Obi-Wan stammered. A bird?

"A bad trip." Ibhormheith said behind him. "He just needs to come down from the intoxication of the flowers."

But Obi-Wan simply covered his eyes with one hand and pointed out the window with the other.

Following his direction, Ibhormheith and Qui-Gon saw at the same time that matching speed beside them was a ship which did indeed have something of an avian look about it. Blue-black, it was, outlined in interweaving silver knots which camouflaged it against the backdrop of space.

She put her hand on his arm, the way a lover might. "It is the Stellar Sweeper," she murmured. "The Baobhan-sith mothership."

- 9 -
The Trilling Wire In the Blood.

Qui-Gon studied the Baobhan-sith ship. "These are your people, Iva," he turned back to her. "What do you suggest we do?"

But she didn't answer his question, only indicated the place where they had been so carried away with so much lust only a few moments ago. "This thing that happened here..."

He put a hand on her shoulder, stroked her neck with his thumb. "There will not be a problem, Caer Ibhormheith." And he said her whole name perfectly.

"We should go with them."

"Where?"

She pointed to the pale-silver rocky moon he knew by the name of Khar Shian. "To Cair-deach Sithien."

As he stepped out on to a Sith world for the second time in so few days, he realised that he was risking the fragile link with the Force that he had felt reforming upon leaving Cair-deil Talamh. He could only hope that Obi-Wan, still stupefied from the fall of black flowers, would be safe in the transport. Out here, the recently re-acquired, and still tenuous, link with the Force was being torn away. He felt its resistance as a virile power trying to maintain its upper hand against the fay energy of this place. This place that promised something beyond the Force, even as it separated him from the Force. For a moment he saw clearly that it was not the Dark Side which had taken him, but a creative drive suffused with female sexual energy, irresistible in its verve and unpredictability. Was there some gender play going on here? He found it hard to understand the sexual angle of this mystery. To a Jedi, sex was a bodily function to be fed like hunger or thirst, anything more, anything passionate or amatory, was believed to impinge upon the vigour and the invincibility of the connection to the Force. But Ibhormheith exuded erotic potential, he had sensed it in his dreams. In the flesh, she wore her sexuality palpably, like a cloak.

Because of that, he would follow her, devoutly, wherever she led him.

They crossed a sandstone square, passed between slim silver columns, mounted quartzite stairs and entered the cool marble hall of the Cloister.

The flux of energy in this place was strong, amplified. Qui-Gon felt it seeping into his skin, lighting up his nerves, flowing through his bloodstream, taking every cell of his being into its embrace. He thought that he could be taken no further, that the end had come, but after the haze of confusion passed, it was as though a new light flooded his eyes. As though this place existed on a different level of existence.

"You must speak with the Matriarch." Ibhormheith led him towards the place where a woman, stooped and wrinkled with extreme age, waited. "This is the man, blessed mother. The Jedi Master. Qui-Gon Jinn."

The elderly woman nodded to him.

"You will accept the destiny Ibhormheith has offered you, Jedi?"

As she spoke, the Matriarch seemed to use two voices, the words flowing in basic and indigenous tongues at one and the same time. Some form of telepathy, perhaps. But although he understood the words, he was unsure how to answer. He still had doubts. "It might be difficult."

"You have a choice in this, Qui-Gon Jinn. The Jedi have a choice in this." But what could this cloistered woman know about the choices of the Jedi? He said nothing, let her continue. "You may leave Caer Ibhormheith here, return to your world and face the shadow of evil alone." He saw her acknowledgement of his hesitant glance at the younger woman. "She will be safe here."

He knew it would be easier to accept this suggestion, leave Ibhormheith behind. It was unlikely the Council would readily accept his association with her. But the harder route was the more desirable. Whether the Force had led him here to her or not, and he would like to believe it had, he could make no other choice.

"No," he said. "I will do this. Follow this destiny if I can."

"It will be a hard road to travel. This alignment with us. This union with our daughter, Caer Ibhormheith."

This woman was giving him every chance to back out. The words she used were precise, he must be careful. He grasped for any hidden, deeper meanings. "A union? This is a marriage then." The thought of such a troth tempted the man in him, even as it terrified the Jedi.

The Matriarch laughed at him. "Your naivete will be your downfall, Jedi. No. Not a marriage. Simply a joining, an alliance between our people and yours. But you will be required to give of your life force to the Baobhan-sith, as the destiny says. To fill the vessel with your spirit."

They were running a breeding programme, Ibhormheith had said as much, their survival after the fall of the Sith Empire had depended on it. It was his genetic material they wanted. They wanted him to impregnate her? "A child?" he asked.

The crone laughed again. "That may be. That may be." She shook her head. "Many interpretations are possible." She opened her hands to him. "You wish to proceed?"

He was in a realm of enchantment.

He could not refuse.

The Matriarch held out to Ibhormheith a scalpel of intricate silver design mounted with a translucent crystalline blade. "This is your destiny. Do it now."

Ibhormheith took the knife in one hand, taking Qui-Gon's arm in the other, pushing back the sleeve of his tunic. She rested his wrist on her palm, her fingers curved around his hand. Quickly, she slit a vein with the scalpel, holding him firm as he reflexed away from the stab of pain. She lifted his arm. She bent her head over his wrist. Her hair fell forward shrouding her face. Her soft lips enclosed the wound, her tongue lapping at his skin, her mouth suckling at the flow of blood.

Feelings raged in him. Passions previously unknown, divine emotions he could not name. But he did not try to resist them, to flail against them. He gave in to their arousal and took pleasure in their fruition and lost himself to satisfaction as they climaxed within him.

The perverse embrace ended. Ibhormheith raised her head, licking a bead of his blood from her lips. She let his wrist fall. He didn't want her to ever let him go.

There was a look of mystical joy on her face as she sliced into the flesh of her own wrist. She stood on tiptoe, her delicate frame endeavouring to match his height, and whispered in his ear. "I give you the dark kiss." Her breath fluttered against his skin like gossamer wings. She held out her hand to him. "Take me." Blood welled there and trickled down her arm.

He grasped her hand resolutely in both of his, lifted it to his mouth. Something inside of him tried to make him hesitate but he couldn't. He wanted this. His lips enclosed the wound. The skin of her arm tasted of blood and salt, of incense and secret herbs, of the seductive perfume of heaven-sent flowers. He drank of her, imbibing the metallic tang of her life-giving fluid. Her blood was a fire coursing in his veins, a conflagration burning in his heart, suffusing his spirit, his thoughts. He swayed with giddiness. She pulled her hand away.

But it was not over. Not yet.

The Matriarch placed a drop of dark viscous liquid on the wound at his wrist. "I mark you with the seal of the Baobhan-sith. The Sisterhood welcomes you, Jedi, as the embodiment of the sun, source of all life and lord of the wild hunt." She held his arm steady. The fluid burned with cold fire as it seeped into the wound. He watched, bemused, as it flowed under his skin, forming a circular device of exotic symbols interlocking with a five-pointed star like that on Ibhormheith's face.

The crone inscribed Ibhormheith in a similar manner, naming her as the essence of the moon who took the sun as consort, divine son and champion. He looked carefully at the woman he had every intention of taking as his lover. It may not be a marriage that was taking place here, but he felt a conviction that he had somehow been given to her, dedicated to her, as a priest might be to a goddess.

The Matriarch spoke again. "Go now," she said. "Times past and future are pressing in against us. Time present is demanding your presence."

As they left Cair-deach Sithien, Qui-Gon looked at the mark on his wrist. He couldn't claim to understand the intrigues of the Baobhan-sith but he felt he had begun to understand the workings of his own heart.

- 10 -
It's an Illusion of Life.

Meeting their appointment with the cruiser proffered no further difficulties, but circumstances inside the transport before arrival at the rendezvous went rather less smoothly. Qui-Gon felt an intense compulsion to think things through, to talk things through with Ibhormheith. There was a need to clear the air, clear his mind, set some ground rules, before embarking on any further physical intimacies with this woman. His Jedi reason and that familiar state of stoicism he cultivated so well were beginning to reassert themselves. He couldn't deny that there were some major problems brewing but he didn't want any more surprises and he needed to know what this - this relationship, this destiny - meant to the both of them.

But upon leaving Cair-deach Sithien, Obi-Wan entered a talkative phase of his drugged state and attempted to regale Qui-Gon with a series of ludicrous jokes, not to mention a few of questionable taste. Jokes a Jedi apprentice had no right knowing, or at least letting his Master know he knew. He looked at Ibhormheith, unsure as to what his reaction to Obi-Wan's libertine behaviour should be in front of her. She rolled her eyes in disdain towards the boy, but was clearly struggling to repress her laughter. She clamped a hand over her mouth but small, strangled giggles emerged. After all the stresses of the past few days, Qui-Gon found himself laughing too. The shared moment of mirth seemed so natural, so right. This was something he might have known more of had he not been a Jedi. It was something he might yet know more of if he could overcome the obstacles ahead, not least that this relationship he so desired would most likely be deemed a forbidden love.

Obi-Wan only seemed to take their laughter as welcome attention. He developed a look of smug, self-satisfaction as though it were his jokes that were the source of their amusement and not his own absurd behaviour. "Ooh, the bloofer lady," he whooped, gaping at Ibhormheith. "I want to play with the bloofer lady. I want to play with the flowers. The fairies. Where are the fairies?"

"Padawan!" Qui-Gon knew he was going to have to be stern with his temporarily wayward apprentice.

"She's got fairies. I saw them. Can I give her a kiss?"

"Obi-Wan, calm down." Qui-Gon regretted the fact that his Force powers were still so weakened. He would just have to try remonstrating with the boy, remind him of his situation. "Take a deep breath, Padawan, control yourself."

"You kissed her." Obi-Wan mumbled, disgruntled. Ibhormheith giggled again. He gave her a stern stare as well. She pulled a serious face, but he could still see the sparkle in her eyes.

This could be setting up an altogether different problem for the future. Qui-Gon didn't need reminding again of what might happen if resentment between Master and Apprentice was allowed to go unchecked. He could not, would not, allow Obi-Wan to go the way of Xanatos. And with a third party, a young attractive female party, in the relationship... Well, he was going to have to handle this very carefully indeed.

"You have to help me here, Iva." He could only hope to appeal to her better judgement. In reply, she screwed the top off of a small vial she took from her bag and handed it too him. It contained a smoothly aromatic oil. "Let Obi-Wan smell this. It should calm him down." It did, enough at least to allow Qui-Gon to deal with the functions of docking with the cruiser with no additional distractions.

In the operations room on board the cruiser, the pilot looked at Ibhormheith. Looked quizzically at Qui-Gon. "This is very irregular, sir. We have precise instructions not to return with any artefacts or samples. The captain won't countenance this."

"The captain will have to accept it. This woman is not some artefact. She has saved our lives and endangered her own. There was no other choice." And Qui-Gon knew that he lied and knew he would lie again to keep Ibhormheith with him. Whatever it cost him. "Tell the captain we wish to start back for Coruscant at once. And if you could bring us something to eat; it has been a while."

He set Obi-Wan, now quite limp but still babbling incoherently, down on a chair. He took a blood sample from the boy's finger. "I don't feel well," the boy moaned.

Qui-Gon only half-glanced at Ibhormheith. "I want to perform some tests, Iva." He pierced his own skin, watched the blood well up into the needle. "I'd like to test your blood, too." He felt wary, tasted the salt and the spice of her still lingering in his mouth. Perhaps he had already taken enough of her. But she held her finger out to him, her gaze even, calm. She didn't flinch.

He leant over the console. The readings were clear. His and Obi-Wan's midi-chlorian counts were at their usual levels but the energy read-out suggested the symbionts were not operating at the normal activity rate. That would explain the lethargy and loss of Force powers he had experienced. The readings on Ibhormheith's sample were perplexing in the extreme. A midi-chlorian count of zero. Not just low, but zero. Such a thing should not be possible. Only something inorganic could exhibit such properties. Or something dead. Had the Sith worlds been so poisoned, then, that only some mutant, yet human looking, life form remained? But how could that be? Otherwise her blood sample seemed perfectly ordinary for a human. The genome pattern was normal. She looked at him, she was frowning, picking up on his confusion. This was not something he could readily deal with now. She shrugged. He realised that this wasn't a semaphore for disinterest, but signalled the lack of understanding. It was the signpost of a cultural gulf between them.

The pilot returned with food. Qui-Gon made a decision. "Take some of this" - he indicated the simple meal - "and show Iva to the stateroom." He took her arm above the elbow, he wanted the contact to promise something he couldn't say. "I must look after Obi-Wan." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I'll come to you later." And as a final reassuring touch he bent his head down to the level of her face and laid a tender kiss on her cheek.

- 11 -
We Sleep in Satin Nights Throwing Energy in Silver Curves.

Caer Ibhormheith gazed at the vista of deep hyperspace, as alien and as coldly beautiful an environment as she had ever seen, as she was ever likely to see. She had taken the final step and gone down the road she had only ever dreamed of walking before. And now she had taken that step, a step that meant she walked alone amongst the far suns - as the destiny for her claimed, she was not so sure she should have.

What had she done except offer enticements to a good and honest man, a man of pure heart, a man who had dedicated his life to the service of his people, a man sworn to protect and bring peace to others? She had lured this man into a pattern of fate that could only end with his death and her grief.

How could something that felt so right, also feel so wrong?

She willed him, this Jedi, this man Qui-Gon Jinn, to come to her. She willed him to stay away. Either way she won, either way she lost...

He came to her.

He came and stood behind her, she saw his reflection next to hers in the window, his body - so strong and so alluring - beside hers - so slight and so pale.

He put an arm around her shoulders. "I've given Obi-Wan a sedative. He should sleep for a few hours."

She wanted more contact than that, urgently, but she bided her time.

"You're not hungry?"

She hadn't touched the food. Even words lodged unspoken in her throat. No, she thought, I'm too afraid to eat. I'm too homesick to eat. I'm in love - too, too desperately in love - to eat.

She couldn't resist the magnetic pull of his attraction much longer. She watched as her reflection, fractured by the stars, inclined its head back against his arm, saw it nestling there against the rough fabric of his tunic. "I have no home now, Qui-Gon." It was all she could say. All she had to say at that moment.

She saw his image, saw him, put his hand over the place where his heart lay. Heard his image, heard him, tell her she would always have a home there. He turned her around to face him. His hand behind her head, his fingers burrowing in her hair, he cupped her face against the self-same spot. "This will be your home now, Iva." She heard his heart beating, engulfing her. He held here there for a long time, his strong arms surrounding her, enclosing her, possessing her.

And when she thought nothing more was going to happen, he forced her head up, bent and kissed her. Kissed her hard and hungrily on the mouth.

She wrapped her arms more firmly around his body. He winced in pain. She looked up at him, "This is Mharais's work." She looked into his face. Touched her fingertips to the bruise on his temple. "Let me look after you now." She felt shy, unsure of herself. "Take these off." She pulled at his tunics. His hands were unsteady, still marked by the torture he had endured. She unclasped his belt, eased the clothing from his shoulders.

As she soothed his anguished flesh, with the energy of her own hands as much as with the healing salve, she examined him, his body, carefully. It was unlike any she had known before. Only her ritual-partner had been anywhere near this desirable and they'd never crossed the boundary of the ritual circle, never gone beyond the raising of energy for sexual magick, to experiment with any erotic pleasures just for the sake of it.

She touched the abrasions and welts with a delicate caress of her lips. "Not so bad, just a few bumps and scrapes." She traced the reminder of an old injury to his nose with her finger. "But then you've seen a few wars before, perhaps." She ran her palm down a healed scar on his shoulder, kissed the smooth seam of the skin. "I might have been with you in a dream that night, Qui-Gon." A fond memory resurfaced.

"I know, Iva," he replied, undoing a button at the neck of her blouse. She loosed the tie holding back his hair, dishevelling his locks with her fingers. She breathed in the scent of his hair, burying her face in its length.

They fell on each other then with a savagery born of long expectation of this moment. They had a surfeit of passion to extinguish.

She pushed him back, tearing herself away from his kiss.

"Wait," she said. She didn't feel ready for this, they still hadn't talked about this, but she couldn't stop it now it had started, the time for talking was lost. Her body wasn't obeying her. It took up where her lover had left off and continued to unbutton her blouse, undo her skirt, let the clothing fall to the floor. He pulled her by the wrist down onto the bed abruptly, perhaps a little too abruptly. But she only threw herself into his desire all the more, the barriers built by years filled with pent-up longing shattering at last.

There was nothing between him and her nakedness now but the boned bodice and gathered skirts of her petticoats. He pulled one breast free from its constraint, its ring catching, pulling hard on the nipple. She felt herself give way to the ache of her carnality. Her nails bit into the muscle of his upper arm. He grasped her harder, wrestling against the resisting fabric. "What's this?" he asked her, finding the love spell Etain had given her. Her voice was lost, she couldn't reply. He inhaled its pungent odour. She took the spell away from him and tossed it across the room. She felt his arousal stiffen and grow beneath her.

She wanted to see him naked, she had never been with anyone so powerfully built. Would loving him hurt her? The prospect was bitter-sweet. He gripped her around the hips but she fought against the pressure of his touch. She ripped at the fabric of the remaining clothes that still contained his sex, freeing him for her delight.

He impressed himself upon her. She wanted to explore all the myriad possibilities that the vista of his body opened up. But they were both so frantic, mauling at each other in a raging heat born of anticiation and hitherto unrequited dreams.

He gathered her petticoats up and crushed them around her waist. He hands reached down between her legs. He prised her apart, slid himself into her. She gasped as she felt herself stretch to accommodate him. His hand was on her buttock, rocking her eagerly into the rhythm of his thrusts. She shifted herself so that her hood ring was caught between her hidden nexus of nerves and the hard pubic bone of his hips. She felt herself entering a trance state as the waves of ecstasy washed over her.

Somewhere someone was screaming. It was her, screaming with the pleasure and the pain and the abandon of it all.

He rolled her over, still conjoined to her, his hard body pressing her down into the bed, his hand gagging her mouth. "Sh," he rasped, "you'll wake the dead." His fingers pushed into her mouth, she welcomed him there as she had welcomed him elsewhere, sucking hard on his flesh.

He thrust harder. She felt like she was being impaled, fragments of his being stabbing up towards her heart, piercing her soul.

"I'm going to come," he moaned. And he did. Flooding her with incandescent fire.

Both sated at last, they lay, their bodies still locked together, in a tangle of moist limbs, mired in their crumpled clothing. She was shocked at the ferocity with which their lusts had overtaken them. It had all happened in such a blur that she hadn't had time to practice any of the arts of lovemaking she knew as a Baobhan-sith, still it had been intense and deeply satisfying. But she felt awkward about asking if it had been so for him, men could be very sensitive. She shifted a cramped limb, emitting a sharp breath at the pain the movement caused. He shifted with her. "I'm sorry, I've hurt you," he murmured, concerned. But then he laughed. "You shouldn't have made me wait so long." She thumped him, on the shoulder, not quite as softly as perhaps she should, ribbing him back.

She lay back lethargically in his arms and let him look at her, smiling. They were both smiling.

"You smell so wonderful, Iva," he said to her, nuzzling her hair.

"Not sweaty?" she replied and giggled softly.

"Yes," he laughed back, "but also of sex and flowers and of your Cloister. I don't want you to lose that smell..." He hesitated. "but would you like to take a shower with me?" It had been some time since she'd bathed. "That would be nice, Qui-Gon" she said.

He stroked her skin softly as they sloughed off their remaining clothes, removed footwear they'd forgotten in their haste. She pulled the ribbons and pins from her tangled hair and worked the plaits free, letting the tresses fall around her shoulders, feathers and small sprigs of herb shaking out into the bed.

They might call this the stateroom, she thought, but whoever designed this ship didn't allocate much space to the bathroom provisions. Not that she minded being cramped against the walls of the smooth white shower cubicle by her lover's body as the water flowed over them. His arms reached around her, holding her hips, pressing her against him, as they kissed away the liquid streaming down each other's face.

Qui-Gon turned the water down to a trickle, the rivulets stroking their bodies. He lifted her up, her legs sliding around his, wrapping around his hips. He kissed the skin of her neck, licked her roughly along the line of her jugular vein. He bit down, nipping her with his teeth, biting and sucking as she gasped and oohed her delight. She pushed herself, willed herself, closer to him, yet closer.

Their position did not seem physically possible, the strength of his honed muscles bearing her weight, her hands levered against the slick walls, the cool water causing the needles of excitement to escalate. She felt the firm touch of his mind, his magic lifting her. It excited her, he excited her. She clung to him desperately as he stepped out of the cubicle still holding her, lowered her to the floor, let her fall back slowly. Then her legs were around his shoulders, his head between her thighs, her hands reaching down into his hair, wrapping it around her fists. His tongue found her, licked her to arousal and all the while his hands played with her hard, oh so sensitive nipples. He sent a tide of bliss through her very core, the waves breaking over her body and engulfing her mind.

She shouted out her pleasure. The surge of juissance that hit her was a catharsis, sweeping away the tiredness and the terrors of the last few days.

Her spasms of delight subsided as he untangled himself from her, his hand running up the curves of her stomach, her breasts, her shoulders. They sprawled there, on the wet floor, water pooling around them, uncomfortable but unwilling to move. He stroked her ear. "Can you get up?" he whispered. "No," she sighed.

Still wet, he lifted her up and carried her back to the bed. He dried her gently, exploring every part of her. She felt so alive, every part of her was tingling.

Finally, they lay back, holding each other close, her head resting in the hollow made by his shoulder and his neck. She felt that it had been made for her.

"What's it like being a Jedi?" she asked.

"Hard," he replied, "What's it like being a Baobhan-sith?"

"Easy," she teased.

They talked then for a while, quietly, about their lives, about their childhood, about their skills, about her magic and about his connection to the living Force. She recalled for him the time when she had been eight and told him how happy she had been when she'd been a novice at the Cloister, collecting herbs, learning spellcraft, practicing candle magic. "I'm that happy now, Qui-Gon," she told him as she took his hand between both of hers and kissed each finger delicately.

She felt him stir. She had rekindled the blaze in him.

"Again," she laughingly exclaimed. "Again," he replied, "for ever and always, Iva. For always and ever."

They were gentler with each other now. They roused each other with softness. Their hands found yet new pleasures. Their closeness was now so real. Their intimacy was complete.

Then as she sat astride him, enclosing him inside herself for the second time, she knew that each of his thrusts took him further away from the Sith worlds, but further and further into the destiny of her darkness. He closed his eyes as he was precipitated into a sweet release and she watched as he died a little. Her bliss was disfigured by the memory of a time future when he would give his spirit into her keeping and venture out to meet the death of his corporeal form. As his contractions reached a crescendo she felt tears of joy and sorrow rise in her eyes. They had feasted on each other till their passions were annihilated and their bodies could take no more, but their journey had only just begun.

As she lay in Qui-Gon's arms, Ibhormheith ached. She ached in the sweet rapture of post-coital haze. She ached in the fear that in his world she would have to fight to keep him beside her. She ached in the knowledge that together they would walk toward tragedy. But most of all she ached for the love that would carry them there. The love that was their dream made flesh.

- 12 -
We Are Hostage To Our Heart's Desire.

Iva watched as Qui-Gon slept. Her body still flared from the passion they had shared. She could still feel her the tender folds of her emotional centre distending almost agonizingly to accommodate the extent of his desire. Still feel the hot flow of his lust pulsating, erupting deep inside her. She could feel the hungry ardour in her heart, the tantalising arousal in her loins. It wasn't just the dream, it wasn't just the destiny. It was him. He'd opened a door into her psyche and pushed himself through. The sheer physicality, the potent masculinity, of his presence had penetrated her to the core. He was entirely unlike anything she had imagined him to be from her dream.

She smoothed the long flow of his hair. Wanting him. Wanting him again. But not wanting to disturb his tranquility.

She knew the future would bring tragedy, but did not know when. Or how. She was afraid that their allotted time would be short. Or painful. Love could be a compensation, but only if it could be requited. And she did not yet know if that were possible, within the confines of his life as a Jedi, within the constraints of her alienness.

It was her gift to see the future, to visualise the convoluted tapestry that time wove with the threads of their lives. But the gift could be bitter and the sights she saw might bring grief. Especially were she to look on her own path into the future. But temptation beckoned and look she did.

Sometimes the threads were clear. One path that could be taken or denied. Here, the strands that ran off from this moment were tangled, all but impossible to read.

But the one thing she saw clearly was death. Wherever she looked she saw death, painful death, in the now and in the then. If this man sleeping beside her, a man she ached to call her lover, was prepared to stand as her champion in the present time, and if he were to give up his life willingly for the destiny in the future time, then everything might go to plan. But that path was faint. Brighter, stronger by far, was the shorter path that led to her suffering and his sacrifice. That future, that oppressive, catastrophic future, would be here in the blink of an eye.

If there were to be anything between them, if indeed anything remained after the early burst of passion, after they had extinguished the lusts that had ensnared them, then they would have to somehow pass that future by.

***

Qui-Gon woke with his head in Iva's lap. Her cool hand stroking his brow.

"How long have I been sleeping?"

"Not for long. Is it all right that I am here?"

"Yes." He was astonished that she felt the need to ask. "Yes, of course." He felt along the borders of his self, sensed what had been happening within his body and his soul, sensed the healing process, the quiet return of the Living Force to his mind. How could he explain this to Iva? She had no concept of what any of this meant. He was so close to her now, but she was still so very far away. "What were you doing while I slept? Couldn't you sleep?"

"Contemplating time." She was so enigmatic, but her unease was evident.

"Come here." He pulled her close to him, held her tightly. She curled up in his arms, her curves fitting comfortably against his muscular strength. They lay together for some minutes in silence, Qui-Gon unwilling to disturb her pensive reticence. He could enfold her twice over in his arms but he just wanted to sink into her Cimmerian depths.

She snuggled closer. He felt a bond between them, tentative but tenacious.

"You're concerned about something?"

"The future." She fell quiet. He sensed her struggling to find the words, any words. "I don't like what I see."

"And what do you see?"

"I cannot say." She looked down, her lashes swept a curve across her eyes as her lids fell. "Death. Despair. Light swords raised in anger. Hatred." She looked up, her tongue flicked across her lips. "What will happen to me?"

"On Couruscant?"

"Yes, on Couruscant."

"I have promised you a place, Iva. I'll keep that promise."

"Will that be enough?"

"I'll have to make sure it is enough."

"But there you will be bound by the protocols of your own people. The duties of the Jedi."

"Rules can be broken, Iva. Protocols, duties, bent, changed."

"I can't ask that."

He couldn't answer. He only kissed her.

Not quite willing at first, still preoccupied with morbid thoughts, she twisted her head away, burrowing her face into his bearded cheek, cutting herself off from him, lost in a reverie. He nudged her back to reality, nuzzled her ear, his tongue tracking its curves, finding its depths. She pulled away and he found her mouth again, bruising her lips with his firm kiss, pushing his tongue between her teeth, tasting her saliva.

He rolled her onto her back, easily covering her body with his, his weight pressing her down luxuriously. He bit at her lips, her eyes bored into his. Looking down into his soul. Wanting more. Wanting it never to end. He laid kisses on her eyelids, her cheeks. Lapped at the alabaster flesh of her neck, at the mark he had already left there. His erection grew hard between their bodies.

He raised himself up onto his knees, his hands pinning her shoulders to the bed, her legs confined tightly between his. She squirmed and wriggled, giggling. She disconcerted him. "This isn't a game," he growled. Her mood changes were intoxicating. "Isn't it?" she teased in reply. He looked down at her, but couldn't chastise her.

Her life was inscribed on her body, sigils and mystic words in occult script running across her shoulders and down her arms, the fresh tattoo on her wrist, the rings piercing the delicate nuggets of flesh of her breasts and groin.

He traced the marks, played with the metal. Her back arched in delight, her hips raised, inviting. He took a nipple in his mouth, fondling the ring with his tongue. The dark raspberry skin of the aureole wrinkled and tightened, the nipple hardening. "That's lovely," she hummed. He sucked hard, the metal jangling against his teeth. Her body was quivering with a frisson of pre-orgasmic excitement.

He shivered with delectation as she took the weight of his erection in her hand, the slightness of her fine fingers barely enclosing him. Pulsed with anticipation as she stroked, squeezed, back and forth along its length.

"I want to feel you inside me," she whispered. "Ravish me."

He released her legs, she spread them wide, offering him free access there.

Still holding him tightly, tormentingly tightly, she guided him in between the moist lips, spreading herself apart with her fingers, barely encompassing the tip of his shaft. Her thumb played with the bead of her ring, he watched her arousal shadow her face as she pleasured herself. "Let me," he insisted and slid his hand in beside hers, increasing the pace of her strokes.

He pulled her hand away, drove himself into her, sunk into her depths, buried himself to the root. They both exhaled audibly, took sharp intakes of breath together. They acted as one body, joined and united in bliss. She gasped at his quickening thrusts, his length withdrawing and penetrating with each oscillation of his hips. Her hands grasped his shoulders, her nails raking his back. Leaning on one arm for support, to amplify his thrusts, he massaged the mound of her pudendum with the other hand. Both their bodies were slick with sweat. Their breaths giving rise to a tonal abstract threnody.

And finally when it seemed like the pleasure would become pain, the ecstasy of climax took them both.

After their tremors subsided, he rolled away from her, lay on his back next to her, took her hand, twined his fingers in hers, waited for their breathlessness to subside.

After what was only minutes, but seemed to him like soporific hours spent basking in her aura, she stirred. Rolled on to her side and smiled at him. "That was, um..." - she licked her lips - "yummy."

He touched her face. "I love you, Iva," he said. But he felt only guilt.

He left the bed in which they had consummated their relationship then, and retrieved his clothes. "I must check on Obi-Wan," he told her. "Stay there for a while if you want. Come and find me when your ready."

Obi-Wan was unsettled in his sleep but there was little that could be done about that. The boy should wake soon and then perhaps he could deal with any after effects he might be having after his intoxication and their encounter with the darkness. Qui-Gon looked down on his apprentice for a few moments. He had had his original doubts, but now he had grown fond of his apprentice. There was no doubt Obi-Wan was becoming a capable student and would someday become a great Jedi. He knew he had a duty of extreme care not to damage the relationship. How would Iva's presence affect him, affect the Padawan-Master bond? A pressing problem but not the only one. What about his own soul's possession by the dark? By Iva? His continuing encounter, love affair even, with the woman from the Sith world? How could he explain his dreams to Obi-Wan? His actions to Yoda and the Council?

And Iva had seen something, some terrible end, she was not willing to talk about in any detail. He had become infected with her sense of foreboding. Qui-Gon took his own advice, the advice he often gave to his Padawan, and concentrated on the present moment. It didn't solve the problems but it did give time for his turbulent emotions to quieten.

- 13 -
To Each His Own Anger.

Obi-Wan woke and wished he hadn't. His head pounded, his skull felt as though it had been shattered and the light seeping through the archway to the crew quarters stung his eyes. His mouth felt dry, so very dry, furry.

Had he been injured? He recalled his terror at losing his connection to the Force, though thankfully he now sensed its strength again. He recalled being bound, recalled a man inflicting pain on Qui-Gon, recalled hearing the stifled cries of pain. His own jaw was stiff, yes, the man had hit him too. But even more confused and confusing memories flooded back into his mind. Flowers. Rain. The bloofer lady. The sort of creature which haunted the places of the dead and lured children to their graves with promises of sweetmeats and sweet stories and not-so-sweet kisses. His Master flirting with this woman.

No, no, that can't have been right. Qui-Gon had been talking with her, yes, talking. Planning their escape. But he thought he'd seen Qui-Gon kissing her.

Surely not. She had been some sort of demon, this woman, a Sith. But he had seen her and his Master kissing.

Obi-Wan's face coloured, he'd tried kissing her too. She must have been a witch, bewitched them both. He had been babbling too, that much he was certain, though he couldn't recall what he might have said. For a few moments he couldn't swallow, couldn't catch his breath. It was going to be embarrassing, facing his Master, but face him he had to.

He forced himself to sit up despite the ringing pain in his temples and the nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach. He managed to find his clothes and get himself dressed, but for the most part kept his eyes screwed up to protect against the bright, too bright, ship's lighting. Standing wasn't the greatest feeling in the world. Walking was worse. He'd have to apologise for his loss of control, for whatever else it was he had done. He'd probably be made to meditate for a month. Or seven. He limped his way along the wall and out of the crew quarters in search of his Master.

He found Qui-Gon in the salon pod and all the words of embarrassed apology he had composed in his mind fled.

The witch woman was there too - what was it she was called? Ivor-something or other? Evil, more like! - she was sitting with his Master.

They were sitting together, heads bent forward over a data pad, his hand covering hers as it lay on his knee. A hologram of the Republic worlds hovered in the air before them. Both were in a state of dishabille. The witch sat with one bare foot up on the chair, her free hand clasping the knee. Qui-Gon was wearing only his undershirt and trousers and his hair was loose, falling across his face. The silver peppering his dark strands mingling, contrasting with the gold glints in her red-brown as their heads almost touched.

Obi-Wan had never seen his Master like that before. Dishevelled, decadent.

Now Qui-Gon was looking at him. But he didn't attempt to move away from -her-. Or even hide his association. Obi-Wan tried to speak, coughed, not knowing what to say, but his Master only looked away, across the room.

"Ah, Obi-Wan, welcome back. There is some food here."

The thought of food brought the taste of bile to his throat. He continued to stare at the pair of them, not quite believing what he was seeing. His mind reaching for another explanation.

"Are you feeling all right now, Padawan?" Obi-Wan sensed his Master's concern but couldn't respond, the confusion pressed around him.

He saw the dark crimson welt on the witch's neck. He knew what that meant. He hadn't actually had much experience with sex yet, but he had fooled around enough. Enough to know that his Master had definitely been fooling around with this woman. What other marks had Qui-Gon left on her body? The thought, the images it brought into his mind, appalled him. He'd never even imagined Qui-Gon was interested in that stuff. His Master was a Jedi. His Master was old. It was unthinkable. It was disgusting.

Qui-Gon pushed his hair behind his ear, an unfamiliar gesture.

"What's wrong, Obi-Wan?"

The reply came out stammered, garbled, nonsensical. Thoughts, alien unwanted thoughts, were tearing, out of control, around his mind. He had never considered before that maybe his Master was interested in sex, that maybe women found Qui-Gon handsome and desirable. Maybe this woman did. With his tall powerful build, his clear blue eyes, his commanding demeanour and his gentle mannerisms. Obi-Wan looked at the witch. Why did -she- have to like those things?

She laughed. "Perhaps the flowers have fried his brain."

Qui-Gon gave her a withering glance that only made her smile all the more. She was too smug by far. Why did his Master have to like her? Obi-Wan looked at the tattoos that marred her face and shivered. He stared, stared at her mouth, at the teeth, teeth that were just a little too sharp. Horrible, he thought. They reminded him, those teeth, of the ones he imagined he had glimpsed - no, the ones he had glimpsed, it had happened, it had - in the mouths of the fairies she had called up on the Sith world.

"Why is she here?" He spat the words out without thinking. Ignoring the rule that forbade the apprentice to cross-examine the Master.

"Iva saved your life, Obi-Wan. She would have lost hers had she stayed behind. Perhaps you should thank her."

It was not seemly for a Jedi to be jealous, he knew that, but it didn't stop the feelings rushing in on a tide of loathing. He felt the river stone Qui-Gon had given him on his birthday two years ago. At least that still felt warm and comforting. But within himself, he could only manage to feel unhappily disconnected, his singular bond with his Master riven.

"Not likely," he grumbled half under his breath, but wanting to be heard. He turned and stomped out of the room, succeeding only in making his head ache all the more.

He felt Qui-Gon come after him as he sloped down the corridor to the lift.

"Padawan." His Master's voice was gentle, tinged with worry. But something else. Annoyance? "Wait."

No, he wasn't going to stop. Not now. He felt betrayed. He felt he was going to vomit. Qui-Gon would just have to make him stop. Let him try!

"Obi-Wan Kenobi." This time his Master's words were Force directed right into the core of his brain. "Turn around. Face me."

Wearily he turned, his eyes cast down, not willing to look at his Master, not willing to listen to the anticipated words of reprimand. But Qui-Gon only placed his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder, the lightness of the touch belying the solidity of the flesh. He tried to shrug the hand away, Qui-Gon only continued to hold him, firmly but kindly.

"Don't do this, Obi-Wan." His Master's voice was level, but anxious. Anxious, Obi-Wan sensed, only for me, not for himself or for Iva. But what did that matter now? "The perfume of the flowers is a potent drug, Obi-Wan. At the very least, your head must ache. Don't make yourself feel worse by behaving in this way."

What his Master said was right, but still... Still he did not look up.

"She's... She's so..." He knew what words he wanted to say, but his chagrin held him back.

"She's what, Obi-Wan?" He didn't want Qui-Gon to push him into saying what he thought. But he suspected the intention was only to clear the air between them. He didn't want that. He just wanted the woman to go away.

"Evil. Hideous. Cruel. She's a devil." There, he thought, he'd said it. Now what?

Qui-Gon only smiled. "Because she comes from the Sith worlds? Her people were captives, slaves. They did not ask to be so condemned. Iva did not ask to be born there. It was her fate, but don't condemn her for it. Even a humble seam of coal can harbour a diamond in its heart."

The words made sense, but still Obi-Wan could not look up.

"Do you think this is wrong, Obi-Wan? That Iva is here?"

Yes, he thought, but his Master did not give him an opportunity to speak. It was not the Padawan's place to speak.

"She is not your enemy. If you cannot trust her, if you cannot like her, you must at least accept her presence. The Force demands it."

The Force, how could the Force demand he accept a Sith witch? Obi-Wan looked up at last into his Master's eyes, expecting something... What? Something alien? To see evil there too? But, no. They were the same eyes he had always known. Blue. Familiar. Reassuring. Unmarred by darkness.

"She is not here to displace you, Obi-Wan. With time you will see that." The words hit home. He should have known all along that Qui-Gon had recognised the real reason for his animosity towards this woman.

"Yes, Master." He just wanted to bury his head in Qui-Gon's solid chest, be held in those stalwart arms, but he knew such desires should not be admitted to. He was no longer a child. He had to learn to be a man, a Jedi, and inter such feelings. "I will try, Master."

"Only try, Padawan? Master Yoda would not be pleased to hear you say such a thing." Qui-Gon fixed him with a serious gaze that Obi-Wan could not read or understand. His Master was often so difficult to comprehend - even when things were straightforward. He'd make sure he got his Master back all to himself, he thought. He would do something about it later. The captain, she'd help him. He'd speak to her. Later.

"But, come on. Let's fix that headache of yours, Obi-Wan. And then I think perhaps a session of meditation is in order." Qui-Gon laughed quietly, slightly. "For both of us."

- 14 -
Dream Now, And Find You're Not Dreaming At All.

Iva hadn't seemed to mind when Qui-Gon had told her that he planned to focus more of his attention on Obi-Wan during their return journey than on her, giving him the space to restore and sustain his relationship with his Padawan. She seemed to trust that he would return to her at intervals, spend the sleep periods entangled in delicious intercourse with her. He felt manipulated but willing, like a comet orbiting her sun, endlessly cycling away only to return, unable to ever fully escape the attraction of her gravity.

He wondered why he had told her he loved her. What alien thing inside of himself had taken command of him, of his voice. It was not just her. Not just this brush with the darkness. It had happened to him before: words coming from nowhere, thoughts given voice before reason could intervene. He felt the same as he always had, to himself, and despite Obi-Wan's initial reaction, the boy seemed to trust him as much as ever. Was he breaking that trust without knowing it? Could he keep the separate promises he had made to each of them? Or would the undertaking tear him apart?

He looked at the mark the Baobhan-sith had left on his wrist. What manner of change had he undergone at their hands? It had felt like a death of sorts.

And a re-birth.

Iva had infected him. But he had infected her too. He was at a loss to know what to do next. His head and his heart were at odds.

He had hoped for more than a Jedi had the right to hope for. It was not unknown for Jedi to enter into contracts of marriage, culturally ordained or family arranged marriages. Admittedly, some, mostly the younger knights, had affairs. He had had a few of his own. But they were short lived, quickly ended at mutual agreement. A Jedi could not expect a lover to wait, never knowing the dangers they faced, never knowing when they might see their love again, never knowing if they would ever return. It wasn't fair on either partner. He wanted to offer Iva more. Let her offer him more.

He could give up the Jedi life but, whatever else he was, he would be a Jedi for life. Whatever else had contaminated him, the thing that connected him to the Force was still in his blood. Not yet fifty, he still expected a full career ahead of him, a place on the Council. Indeed, it had been offered to him even though he had his doubts about taking it. Who knew how long a relationship would last? And yet he wanted to look on Iva every day, for the rest of his days. To spend with her whatever time this future, this future Iva would not yet speak of, this destiny, this destiny he did not yet fully understand, dictated he had remaining.

But present in his mind was the troubling thought that these days spent returning to Coruscant, to the Jedi Temple, were only an interlude. That his doubts were a prescient admonition of problems to come.

She was who she was, he couldn't change her. But if she were to survive in that place, she could not stay as she was. And that would surely undermine the whole foundation of his love for her.

And still he could not resist her pull.

He found her in the formal dining room. Dancing. Her sinuous rhythms mesmerising. Lulling a wordless song. Its resonance arousing. She looked so depraved in her soft ivory petticoats, her bare feet, her unbuttoned blouse, with the alabaster skin of her breasts welling up over the constraining fabric of her bodice. She stopped when he entered, guiltily, as though she shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have been seen in such a dissolute state. Which perhaps she shouldn't. But she was quick to return his rapacious gaze.

He despised the control she wielded over him at the same time as the sensations she ignited in his body inspired him. Yes, he had promised her things he might not be permitted, might not be able, to deliver, yet deliver them he must. The imperative in him was strong.

He sat down, beckoned her to him. He looked up into her eyes.

"Do you understand that I don't know how to handle this thing? I do not know how to proceed on Coruscant."

"The destiny confuses you."

"No."

"It does me." Her face was sad, grave.

"But..."

"But how can I confess to such a thing? It's true. What I expect and what I see are never the same."

"No, Iva." He reached for her hands. "It is these emotions which I do not understand." He pulled her down onto his knees. "The way you make me feel."

"The destiny, any such destiny, demands a great sacrifice. These feelings are a compensation."

"Not for a Jedi."

She shrugged. Looked across the room, through the transparency of the screen separating them the great gulf between the stars, looked into the void.

"Accept them or not. It makes no difference to the destiny." She turned her head. Looked across the gulf between them. "Only to me."

He yearned to kiss her. "I still don't understand." He was loathe to testify to this woman, to anyone, about his emotions. It would expose him to her, make him even more vulnerable to her whims. To his desires.

"Perhaps you never shall." She kissed him. "I have never felt these things before either."

He frowned at her.

"Do you really think that because we see sex as sacred, we give and take love freely?" She seemed genuinely hurt.

"No." He stroked her face. "But I did not think this strange journey was as bewildering to you as it was to me." He thought she might cry, but she merely blinked away the moisture kindling her eyes, so very slowly. Her pupils were large, clear and deep dappled pools. "I'm sorry," he said and kissed her finally, willingly.

Her cupidity brought him understanding. "You want me to give you a child," he proposed.

"One day. Maybe. When you are ready to give me your soul."

"I have nothing else to offer you. I have nothing except myself."

"Not yet," she cautioned. "For now I only desire to feel the touch of your hand from time to time and to listen to the sound of your breathing in the dark as you sleep." She spoke the very words he had wanted to say to her but daren't.

"I can't promise that there will be even that."

"Then we will have failed."

"But we can fight for it."

She slid her legs either side of his, kneeling over him as he sat. "There is always the magic," she said and kissed him again, deeper than before.

There was no going back.

Her lips shimmered with green fire. Bringing his body alive with now familiar sensations. He felt the erotic rush in his bloodstream and let it overwhelm him.

Only time future beckoned.

He craved the intersection of his flesh with hers. She answered his desire with a touch, loosening his clothing and freeing his will.

There was no longer a barrier.

He twined her hair into a rope and lifted it away from her shoulders, exposing her neck for his kiss. The intoxicating heavy scent of her art lay on her skin, rousing him, arousing him. He let her overwhelm his body with her musk.

Only obstacles to be overcome.

The touch of her lips against his skin was her invitation, was his seduction. She fired him with a heat born of her own desire. He entered unequivocally into the sexual matrix of their bodies.

There would be no more denial.

He sank into sensuality with her, with a new insight. It was as though a veil was being torn away from his perception. She was opening up before him, becoming more human to him.

Only the destiny.

He could hear the sweet thunder of her heartbeat as she rocked her hips against his. That heartbeat bound him to her with precise and even strokes. It was the rhythm that gave reason to his passion.

There would be no death.

The fervour with which she engulfed him was a rapture he did not wish to end. He melted into her. Becoming a roaring gushing waterfall into the lake of her tenderness.

For his soul would live on.

And when he had reached fulfilment in her body, he pulled her head down against his chest, held it there with his hands entangling her hair. "And there is always the Force," he promised her. It was the apotheosis of their carnal instincts.

After that he made sure he spent some time with her each day, preparing her for the future. Attempting to teach her about the life she was beginning, the place she was going, the culture she was entering, but she was an unusual, and at times recalcitrant, pupil. She seemed fascinated by minor facts, ignored other, more important, ones. She seemed bored by the process at one moment, agog at some trivial detail the next. She did not show the least interest in hyperspace travel at all until she leapt to the conclusion that it might be what she named as the quintessential ethereal element. It was, she insisted, the element that united the other four, the cosmic aspect of the life force or spirit, virtue she called it. Not unlike the Force, he thought. She confounded him with her insights, sometimes it seemed as though they spoke the same language using different words. But afterwards she prowled the ship from length to breadth pushing her hands and face against the outer hull. She wandered off for half a sleep period, later sliding into bed beside him, spooning herself against his back, complaining that she could find nowhere on the ship to ground herself, laughing that he was the only thing that earthed her.

The next day she asked him if it was all right if she performed a ritual. He wasn't sure if it was her way of asking him to participate, but he didn't feel ready for that and said nothing. Perhaps that would come later, if they ever managed to establish something approximating a committed relationship. Instead he turned off the fire sensor in the state room so she could burn incense and watched her in a trance-like state through the haze of fragrant smoke.

He left her to her rite and found himself a place to meditate. His periods of contemplation were now spent trying to discern the darkness inside himself. But how could he eradicate what he could not find? The Living Force was strong in him, tainted yet strengthened by the verve he had acquired through his union with Iva. Just as his physical body was. He could convincingly explain it to himself, but knew the Council would not see it his way. He could only hope a path might emerge unbidden if he calmed his mind enough.

But his meditation did not go uninterrupted.

"Master Jedi. I must speak with you." It was the Captain, uneasy in her approach towards him, but resolute in her gaze. He had been keeping a discrete distance from her, now she eyed him suspiciously. "I know that technically you outrank me but your ill-advised action in forcing me to disobey a direct order give me reason to believe that your judgement is impaired."

The officer's words marked the end of the idyll.

"I am sorry. I have informed the Senate office and the Jedi Council of your actions in bringing this woman on board. My orders are clear."

And the beginning of the nightmare.

"We are to deliver her to the high security research compound at the southern pole as soon as we reach Coruscant. She is to be prepared for interrogation and examination."

- 15 -
The Wall is Pierced and the Will Assaulted.

Qui-Gon contained his anger, but felt his trepidation giving way to resentment and, worse, resignation. However, this was not the time or place for forbearance. He could not just go along with this thing. And it would seem strange if he did not contact the Council directly now. It might, at least, buy them time. He activated the com channel.

"I must speak with the Council. Patch me through."

He'd hoped to have more time, time to prepare himself, time to prepare Iva, time to prepare his reasons for his actions. Or were they just excuses? And now the damage had been done, he wasn't sure what could be salvaged.

Yoda received his call.

"Ah, Master Jinn. Pleased you have returned, I am. Await your report, the council does. But disturbs me, this complication does. True is it, Qui-Gon? With a creature from the Sith world, you have returned, yes?"

"Not a Sith. A human. A woman of some standing on her world."

"One with the dark side is she, ah?"

"No. I do not believe so."

"Hold things back from me you cannot, Qui-Gon. Hiding something you are."

"Master Yoda, I..."

"Access to the Force has she? Sensitive to the Dark Side she is, yes?"

"She has certain skills. But not the Force, something else. Her midi-chlorian count is zero yet she has abilities not unlike our own."

"The work of the Dark Side, this undoubtedly is. Conceals itself from us well, it does. Take this being to the research compound for examination, you will. Contained this dark creature must be. By experiments, much could be learnt from her, um. Analyse her we should. Investigate, yes. Prepared, our scientists are. Then nullified she must be."

Qui-Gon felt his blood crystallise, souring in his veins. How could Yoda countenance such a thing? Did he speak for the Council? For the Jedi? It was not possible. The Jedi did not do such things. The Republic outlawed such things. It went against everything he stood for, everything he believed in, the reason he was a Jedi.

It was hard, but he contained the rising tide of his ire and alarm at Yoda's statements. He'd give his own life before letting this proposed atrocity take place. He could let nothing happen to Iva now, his life was too bound up with hers. But it would not do to let Yoda read his true feelings.

"This woman is a sentient being. She saved our lives on Khar Delba. I have promised her our protection."

"Foolish that was, Master Jinn. Tricky, the Dark Side is. A disturbance I sense in you."

"Sifa Xiu is one with the Force because the Sith worlds have some ability to disable the midi-chlorians. It affected Obi-Wan and myself. But the effects were short lived once we had left orbit. The people inhabiting these planets have adapted to life without the midi-chlorians, how I cannot say, but there may be much to learn from this mystery. This woman can help us understand it. But not by doing her harm."

"You admit this creature is a Sith then?"

"No, I do not believe..."

"Believe in her you do, Qui-Gon. Sense it, I can. Returned with you she did because you desired it. Tempted by the dark side are you?"

How was he to explain this enigma to Yoda, whose devotion to the Force verged on stubbornness?

"With respect Master..."

"Respect you do not, Qui-Gon."

Yoda's pause was deliberate. Taunting Qui-Gon to speak. Silence was the better option.

"Outside the Republic the Sith worlds are. Then extrinsic this Sith creature is. No midi-chlorians, you say. Then dead she must be. Legally and medically, she has no rights. Taken to the research compound, she must be."

"Master Yoda, this is not right. I cannot approve of this course of action..."

"Insist on this refusal no longer, Master Jinn. Touched by the Darkness you have been. Believe this now, I do. Deliver her to the research scientists. Meet with you, Plo Koon will. Return to the temple to cleanse yourself, you must."

"Master Yoda..."

But Yoda only cut Qui-Gon off with a curt "Order it, I do." And then cut communications.

Obi-Wan showed little reaction to Yoda's commands. None of the expected astonishment of such unjust orders coming from one of the most highest placed and respected of the Jedi. Nor even, and this Qui-Gon feared more from his apprentice, a spark of glee that Iva would be gone from their lives. The boy was hiding his feelings well. But for what reason? It was hard to read the emotions in the room, dominated as they were by Iva's.

She was clearly agitated and was pacing the room nervously. He couldn't blame her, it was her the Jedi were planning on maiming in the quest for knowledge of use in the eternal war against the Dark Side. But her jitteriness didn't make deciding on a course of action any easier for him.

"Sit down, Iva."

"What are you going to do?"

She was exhibiting all the signs of distress. Biting her lip. Knotting her fingers. Her eyes had a distant, wild look to them. Fear, he saw. But also a fermenting tempest of fury.

"Calm down."

He reached for her arm...

"I need you to calm down."

...but she only backed away from him.

"No. Answer me. What are you going to do?"

She was almost shouting now, her voice betraying her dismay. She was on the very edge of a terrible loss of control. Obi-Wan was looking away, embarrassed by such a show of emotion.

"Talk to them. They cannot insist on this once you are before them."

"No. No. You call us dark, but what evil does your world contain if it even proposes this thing?"

She flung herself at him. Ferociously, with great impetus, unbalancing him for a second. He staggered back.

"You're going to hand me over to them. Aren't you?"

It was true. He was considering it. It would at least leave him free to negotiate. Still seen to be aligned with the Light Side.

She screwed her delicate hands into fists and flailed at his chest. Her size was no indication of her strength, she could easily raise bruises with those blows. She might appear to have all the lightness and delicacy of a summer breeze, but she had a power and a determination which could be her salvation if she only chose to use them well, to discipline and direct them.

Her untamed emotions roused him, her loss of control infected him. He seized her hands roughly, forcing her arms down against her sides.

"I'm not your enemy, Iva. I'm on your side."

He kissed her harshly, bruising her mouth and drawing blood from her lip.

She sobbed and tore herself from his grasp.

"How can you?"

She threw herself against the wall, the thud audible.

"I hate your world. I hate you all. I hate you."

Qui-Gon could feel her wrath and her terror and her spite as a physical presence in the room. He was perplexed by her turmoil. He sensed Obi-Wan's bewilderment and horror.

"No, Iva. No. I just think that..."

"Think. You think? You think they'll let you talk them out of this..."

She was huddled against the wall. He took a step towards her.

"What have you seen?"

He held out his hand to her.

"Iva. What have you seen?"

She stared into the space between her hands, held close together, palms facing, before her. A bead of light took form there, expanded into a spark, grew into a stream flowing from one to the other.

And she threw herself at him again, reaching up to hold his head between both her hands, surrounding it with her incandescent enchanted sphere, pulling it down, breathing into his face. Her breath was like a sharp hoar frost, striking his face with icy shards, stinging his vision. Her hands were the source of dark flames and burning pain.

In place of the salon pod he saw a room filled with medical equipment, Iva the victim of a vivisectionist's trade, already bloodied, penetrated by surgical devices, the light fading from her eyes.

And then he saw himself, drenched in guilt and grief. Standing ready to fight, his sword raised in anger and hatred, redemption coming too late. Too late for either of them. His own life was rushing away from him.

Rushing back to the present.

To her voice.

"They'll stop you. They'll destroy you. They'll kill you."

She turned away from him. Shards of ebony glass were falling from her hands.

She fell forward onto her knees, her upper body across the table, her head pressed onto her arms, and wept an ocean of hot tears.

"I don't want you to die like that. I don't want to die like that."

He picked her up and held her close, her face pressed in against his chest.

"I won't let them do this, Iva," he whispered to her.

As her sobs slowly subsided, he resolved to do what he must do.

"Obi-Wan. I have a job for you. This cruiser is in the diplomatic service. It must have legal records. I want you to search for anything on the requirements for entry of planets or peoples into the Republic."

The boy nodded, though he wore a sullen look. Words would have to be exchanged later. But first he had to do something about this excitable and hysterical woman. She might have learnt how to gather herbs and light candles and blend oils, but now she would have to learn how to control her emotions.

He had gone so far for her already, travelled into the darkness and out again into the light, let her take of his blood and taken of hers, given himself over into the abandon of passion with her, entered into a deep glorious union with her body, her mind and her soul. She rendered him powerless and the outpouring of her emotions had left him drained. Her emotional outbursts may be cathartic for her, but to him they were an alien thing. Her spontaneous reactions were the antithesis of his Jedi-honed equanimity.

- 16 -
The Best In Us, The Beast In Us... This Lust.

Iva was limp in Qui-Gon's arms as he carried her back to the stateroom.

He dropped her on to the bed. "Lie still. Don't make a sound." He held her there by Force.

He was going to have to teach her a lesson. Teach her that control and patience and calmness in the face of great emotion was possible. That she could hold anything within the boundaries of her physical form without screeching or crying or yelling. Later, if they were to have a later together, he would have to teach her to control her strength. Direct it in more appropriate ways, without doing harm to herself.

He wrenched the scarf from her head, throwing the hair that it had secured into disarray. With it, he blindfolded her, knotting it tightly around her eyes.

She was compliant, speechless.

He grabbed a handful of her hair, held her head close to his, heard her ragged breaths.

"Never behave like that again," he hissed into her ear. "You can contain it. You can contain anything."

Her whole body trembled. Whether in fear or anticipation he could not tell.

He lifted her up further from the bed, jerked her out of her clothes, his hands roughly stroking the smooth skin beneath, his fingers pressing into her soft curves, indenting her flesh.

He ran his tongue along the inside of her leg, up her tremoring thigh. Kissed the mound of her sex, licked her stomach, her breasts, the hollow between her collar bones. She began to ululate a series of throaty vowels.

"Be silent. Or I'll have to muzzle you."

He wanted none of the energy he was creating in her being dissipated through unrestrained sounds or unbridled movements. He wanted her to feel it all, to feel it contained, and let it out only on command.

He stroked the marble skin of her neck. She trembled. He felt her swallow. She made no more sound. His hand tightened about her neck.

If her vision of the future which they walked towards was correct, could cause so much pain, maybe he should just end it for her, for both of them, here and now. Choke off the air, snap the vertebrae. No more misery, no more pain, no more cause for thoughts of revenge.

"Please," she said quietly, reticently.

Did she sense his thoughts?

"Please."

Was she pleading for her life, or pleading for death. Or simply inviting him to take the next step towards the supreme fulfillment of sex.

"Be quiet." He kissed her mouth hungrily. Her death was not something he could countenance. It was not within his capacity to give such a grievous gift.

He sat her up, balanced her precariously, on the very edge of the bed, spread her legs, her knees, wide, positioned her hands either side of her hips to balance her. He knelt between her thighs, spread the rosy petals of her sex apart. He didn't touch the ring that encircled the association of nerves, she was too aroused already and he wanted to prolong her suspense. He explored her depths with his fingers, then his tongue.

She was saturated and receptive.

He penetrated what little protection her rationality gave to her senses.

He loosed the scarf so she could see him at last, see what he did to her, what he could make her do, what she made him do.

"Let it go now," he instructed her.

Her spasms began, her whole body - suffused with energy, electrified - vibrating in the anguish of delight. He drew her power into himself, fed on her intensity. Her climax tipped him over into the oblivion of his own orgasm.

Consumed, he let her fall back.

"I'll cherish you," he promised. "I'll never let them take you."

"Sh." She raised a finger to her lips. He felt the nail of her thumb cut into the flesh of his wrist. He winced. "Listen to the blood singing in your veins," she snarled.

Then she offered her cupped hands up to him, inviting him to look. He took them in both his own, gazed into their depths. The air seemed to stir. A dark pool shimmered there in the hollow of her palms. He felt himself sinking into it.

The dark pool was strewn with flowers, white, red, purple, floating, billowing. He fell into the blackness, the cloying smell of honey engulfed his senses.

He opened his eyes at last, saw through violet glass, saw twin suns beating down onto an arid plain, a creature of shadow, a child who must be protected.

"What is this?" he seemed to ask.

"Your nemesis." He heard her voice, gentle now, echoing from an eternity away.

He saw himself falling, slain by a fiery demon, his aching heart pierced.

He surfaced. Gulped for air like a drowning man. The agony burning in his chest. He was still looking into her hands. Nestled in the crater they made was a luminous white flower, a drop of blood held in its calyx.

He opened his eyes on to reality, gazed into those of his beloved.

"This will happen?"

"The future has already changed." It wasn't a answer.

She let herself fall back onto the pillows. She said no more.

He laid back down beside her.

"Next time I will be gentle."

"I hope not." She spoke so softly he hardly heard. He was lost to sleep.

***

Qui-Gon woke with a start. Iva was lying peacefully against his side, she shifted at his sudden movement, frowning in her slumber.

But in his dream she had been lost in a vast black void, caged by a prison of bones, bleached white by an aeon of exposure to the elements. She had called to him in her terror, but there was no direction on that featureless desolate plain and all paths only led him away from her. He could see her but he couldn't reach her. And the void was extinguishing the flame of her life.

Something baneful was about to begin.

The cruiser shuddered as it came out of hyperspace. The time had come.

He stroked her face.

"Wake up, Iva."

Traced his finger around the blue-black inkwork on her cheek.

"We must go."

She stirred, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, stretched.

They washed and dressed in silence. As he put on the layers of his clothing and tied back his hair, he realised how free he had felt the past few days, how much the apparel of the Jedi now represented restraint. He was aware of how rough he had been with her before. But they had no time now to renew trust. There was only time for him to become the Jedi again. Even if that hurt her, if he had to become remote from her.

She wore her green dress, her hair pinned up into a skewered pleat. She looked so beautiful and pristine - like a dream, a dream he was no longer allowed to have. A dream that would no longer haunt his nights, but would stalk his remaining days.

He spoke firmly. As he might to a novice in the training halls.

"Follow me. Don't speak without being invited to. Don't ever interrupt. And do everything I tell you to."

He hesitated before leaving the state room. Turned back. She was right behind him. He touched her lightly on the arm, leant close.

"For your own safety," he whispered.

He kissed her brow then, chastely, turned abruptly and strode out into the corridor. He felt her precious presence behind him, following, heard the sweep of her skirts across the floor. It felt like an ending, a farewell.

It felt like a new dawn.

- 17 -
The Private Dreamscreens Melt Away, The Screaming Starts Today.

The cruiser was speeding them towards ruin. The vast, eternal, infernal, cityscape of Coruscant beckoned, rushing up to meet them, to crush them. Qui-Gon heard Iva behind him, gasping at the vista of the artificial which the city planet made in the forward viewscreen.

The pilot turned at the sound of their entry, seemed about to speak, hesitated.

Obi-Wan turned away, looking abashed, as Qui-Gon tried to catch his attention.

"But it's all city." Iva shook her head in confusion. "Where is the wild land? The earth? The life?"

He had warned her, but she had failed to absorb the reality of his words. "It is not the most undisturbed of planets, true, but the Republic voted to make a sacrifice here."

"It is a desecration." She looked petulant, but Qui-Gon sympathised with how she felt. He felt the same, many of the Jedi did. But the situation had been accepted long ages ago. Perhaps, after all, the Republic had been wrong and it would take an outsider, a woman who revered nature to make them aware of that.

The ship was aimed towards the southern pole, bleak and eerie in its exquisite whiteness. The buildings here were as blanched as the ice.

The atmosphere was taut, charged with the ambience of tension.

Qui-Gon played his hand. "Captain, I would respectfully suggest that you alter course now. The Lady Caer Ibhormheith wishes to approach the Senate with a request for the Taleach peoples to be acceded entry into the Republic."

"I cannot do that, sir."

"Do you wish to be guilty of a violation of life rights, a breach of protocol..."

"Sir, my orders are clear."

"Obi-Wan, do you have the information I requested? Please enlighten the captain as to the precedents here."

The boys face fell. "I... I'm sorry..." He looked distraught. "I can't... You're not..." He looked to the Captain for reassurance. She nodded.

What was this? Betrayal. Qui-Gon was shocked, nauseous. He almost cried out with the hurt this move inflicted.

"Padawan?" He inflected the word with sombre import but inside he was devastated, could barely stop his self-restraint from shattering. Was this how it was to be, then?

Obi-Wan's eyes flicked across his Master's face, guilt and sorrow written in them, flicked away.

"This action goes against every moral imperative the Republic was founded on." He looked directly at Obi-Wan. "Against the Code."

He was helpless. Hopeless. Duty-bound, obligated, not to use force, not to use the Force, against his own people. And he cared so deeply for Obi-Wan he could not act against him. He reached out, felt for Iva's hand. Took it in his own, held it firmly, sending out what little reassurance he could. He was the only thing standing between her and destruction.

Thankfully, she remained silent.

The pilot looked towards them, hesitant. Turned to his superior. "Captain, is this necessary?" His conscience must have pricked him. "Before we all do something which might later be considered rash..."

A flash of hostility crossed the captain's face. She seemed about to bark another order.

It was Obi-Wan who reacted first. Grasped the side of the pilot's neck and pinched. The man slumped forward, insensible.

The last hope Qui-Gon had for his Padawan's loyalty faded. What was Obi-Wan's intent? Had the boy been confounded, estranged so much by his obsession with Iva? He sensed the seething jealousy his apprentice felt. And the boy was resisting the bond. Did he genuinely believe his Master had turned to the Dark Side? Qui-Gon's despondency at this turn of events was numbing him. What had he initiated? Did he have to lose so much to gain so much?

But time had run out for him. The cruiser was about to set down.

The landing platform at this latitude was barely five metres above the surface. Here was one of the scarce few places on the whole of Coruscant where the primal land mass was visible. An icy waste penetrated by bleak ice-scoured rocks. As they came into land, made contact with the platform, the desolate bleached whiteness was intimidating. The sky was dull, the light subdued, the colours etiolated, imbued with suffering. The ravaged beauty heightened Qui-Gon's disquiet.

Plo Koon stood with two Republic guards. His face, masked by its metallic protective shields, was unreadable. Two more men, med-techs dressed in surgical fatigues, stood apart, alongside Grocelind, the under-secretary for the Bureau for Medico-Political Affairs, a man Qui-Gon knew only by a reputation that was not flattering. The man's immaculately pressed clothing and smoothly groomed cold grey hair only instilled a sense of creeping unease. His deeply lined face spoke of degeneracy rather than time.

There was nowhere to go but out.

And so they walked through silence, out of the cruiser, out into the bone-chilling, frost-bitten air, heated by the landing platform but still bitter. Iva hugged her grey wool coat around herself. Qui-Gon shivered under his thick robe, unwilling to use his Jedi skills to warm himself, to elide the cold, wanting to feel what Iva felt. He wanted to share his body heat with her, but he dared not.

She looked up into the sky, winter-dark though it was only late afternoon, confusion and wonder written on her face.

"There is more than one moon." She exhaled slowly, her breath condensing into clouds. Qui-Gon looked at her, trying to read her mystification. There was a curl of smoky blackness in those vapours that troubled him. He could sense she was holding much in. Did this undermine her goddess creed? Was it a paradox for her religious ideology? But no, he had to keep his focus elsewhere and not ponder such issues at this time. She would have to defend her own beliefs.

And her mood quickly changed once again.

As Koon approached Obi-Wan, laid a gnarly hand on the boy's shoulder, spoke metallic words of thanks through his mask, she gaped at the alien Jedi, a look almost of disgust passed across her features.

Still Obi-Wan avoided his Master's bond, refused to meet his Master's gaze, instead looking coolly at Koon.

"I am glad that with your help, Obi-Wan, we were able to contain this potential security breach."

As Obi-Wan shrugged and grunted in sullen reply, Iva stepped behind Qui-Gon and grasped his arm. "A demon," she whispered. Her voice sounded husky with a frisson of awe and terror.

Plo Koon turned towards Qui-Gon. "It would be for the best Master Jinn if you acted quickly to staunch these dark rumours before they take hold further." The Kel Dor paused. Although his features were shielded, Qui-Gon got the impression, learnt from years of comradeship with this Jedi, that Koon narrowed his eyes. "Your reputation is at stake."

"And who spreads these rumours, Master Koon?"

His ally's head inclined subtly, almost imperceptibly, towards the high ranking bureaucrat.

"The members of the Security Committee are concerned. Master Yoda has confided in them. They have authorised under-secretary Grocelind to oversee the interrogation."

Qui-Gon felt Iva tremble, felt how she was unsettled at the sight of the non-human. The first she had ever laid eyes on. He had told her, of course, that there were a myriad of different life forms in the galaxy, but it had been another one of those things she had not seemed to concern herself over. Now she was seeing one at first hand, one so very non-human in appearance, one whose alienness was exacerbated by the protective metal mask he wore and the external protuberances on his head, her anxious response was unavoidable.

But her curiosity won out. She gave up the protection Qui-Gon afforded her, reached a hand out towards Koon's face, towards his extrasensory organs. It was the alien Jedi who recoiled from her touch.

Qui-Gon pulled her back.

"That is not polite, Iva. This is not a demon." He held her arm, smiled. "This is Jedi Master Plo Koon. A trusted colleague. A very old and dear friend. His kind are adapted to life on a world with a very different atmosphere to this." He nodded towards Koon. "This is Lady Caer Ibhormheith of Cair-deil Talamh."

Koon bore down on her. "This is the woman from the Sith world?" He gave all the appearance of being as astonished at her aspect as she at his. He paused. Examining her with his shrouded eyes and inhuman senses. "I discern a void around her."

"That is only the absence of midi-chlorians perhaps. I believe her to be guileless." He could offer so little defence for her. No defence would be adequate. She had already been condemned it seemed.

Plo Koon turned the debate aside. "Master Jinn, Yoda is extremely concerned. I trust we can resolve this misunderstanding."

Qui-Gon held Iva close beside him. "I too, Master Koon. Lady Ibhormheith wishes to approach the Senate in order to make representations on behalf of the Taleach peoples."

"That will not be possible at this time, Master Jinn. The secrecy surrounding these events must be maintained. Quarantine has been ordered. We must be discreet and defer to the Security Committee in this. They have given jurisdiction to the medico-political division."

"I do not believe this course of action is justified." Qui-Gon turned towards Obi-Wan, moved to bring his Padawan into the deliberation. "I have sought the guidance of the Living Force in this as in all things." But his Padawan would still not meet his eyes.

For a brief moment, silence reigned.

And then Koon stepped purposefully towards Iva, his boot heels ringing on the platform. "Those are your personal affects?" He didn't wait for a reply. Reached out towards the bag she held clutched half inside her coat. "Hand them to me."

He was using a mind command. Iva struggled against the control he was exerting over her. Qui-Gon could feel the quiver of a growing electrical charge about her.

"No. You may not touch my tools. No one may touch a Baobhan-sith's tools." She had to force the words out. "They contain the harvest of my virtue. You would spoil their potency." She seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"What misplaced belief is this?" Grocelind sneered. "This irrational behaviour is unwarranted. Woman, hand over those artefacts to the Jedi now."

Qui-Gon put himself between his lover and the disdainful bureaucrat. He could feel the build-up of emotion in her, feel that she was about to take some action which might speed them further into danger. He recognised now the subtle changes in her breathing which foreshadowed her magic.

"Iva, let me take your bag." He didn't want her casting any of her spells here, now. He extended his hand behind him. "I will keep it safe for you."

He felt the hairs on his arm quiver in the energy of her aura. She passed the bag to him. Her trust in him fixed.

But Koon was adamant. "I have been given the authority by the Security Committee to seize any artefacts or tools originating on the Sith worlds for archival in the Jedi Secretum."

Qui-Gon placed his hand on his sabre, signalling his intent, ready to draw. "I will protect her, Master Koon. I will fight for her."

"Don't do this old friend." The metallic voice betrayed grief and contrition.

"This chatter is wasting time." He heard Grocelind address the med-techs off to his left. "Take her."

One of the med-tech raised a restraint rifle...

The scream escaped Qui-Gon's throat before he had a chance to react.

...aimed it towards Iva...

"No!" he cried. He stepped towards the med-tech. Too late.

...shot off a bolt.

"Move!" He turned, willing Iva away from the danger. She turned towards him. Stepped backwards. The bolt's trajectory only angled in, seeking the heat signature of its target, smacked into the side of her neck.

Qui-Gon twisted in his stride, reaching for her too late. Her head jolted back as if she had been stung. Her hands jerked as they clutched towards her neck. At the dull, metal rivet embedded there. He was close enough to her now to see the wires that were burrowing through her flesh, worming under the skin, a burning glow emanated from the veins of her forehead. Her torment was plain. She fell to the ground, convulsing, her head rebounding with a sickening crack from the metallic surface of the platform.

His cry reverberated out over the icy desert, fading out into the crisp air.

He fell to his knees beside her, tried to steady her, hold her, prevent her from doing further damage to herself, but the convulsions were too strong.

Grocelind stepped forward...

He could hear Obi-Wan shouting. "You said you only wanted to ask her questions. You said you wouldn't hurt her." There was bafflement and bitterness in his voice.

...holding out a remote device...

Plo Koon attempted to pull Qui-Gon to his feet. "Leave her now. It is out of our sphere of duty. Let these men do their jobs."

...activated the controls...

Iva's body stiffened, her back arching in a paroxysm of agony. A guttural moan escaped her lips. The convulsions subsided as the power lights cycled on the implant buried in her neck but her limbs remained palsied. Her hands twitched ineffectually.

...motioned to the med-techs. "Prep her for interrogation."

This was the moment on which the future turned. To obey his training, side with the Jedi, have Plo Koon stand testimony to his fidelity to the Light Side of the Force. And what? Allow Iva to be taken into the future she had seen, that she had showed him. And where would that leave him? It would take him back to the Temple, to home, with an apparent semblance of his sanity, his allegiances intact. But could he live with the guilt, with his own disgust at himself?

Or would he rather protect Iva, protect her destiny, his destiny, as he had sworn? Even though it might mark him as a fallen Jedi. To have turned to the Dark Side.

But no. There was no time for reasoned analysis. His devotion to the Living Force, to his heart and to his lover, dictated his actions.

The med-techs approached. Fury was not an emotion he welcomed, but as its unfamiliar sensations surged through him he felt his feelings justified.

"No." He was resolute.

He was propelled into the future of his own making.

Brute force would suffice here rather than Jedi skill. He flexed his hands, tested his healing fingers for strength. It was sufficient for what he intended. He struck the first man in the face, his fist connecting with bone. He felt the crack, the nose exploding in a spray of blood and pulp. The man fell back insensible.

He turned. A second blow took the second man to the solar plexus. Doubling him over in pain.

He had no time to admire the elegance and simplicity of his defence. The men were down but not damaged beyond repair.

He faced Plo Koon. Light sword drawn, raised, blade ignited. "How can you support this atrocity?" It was time for accusation. Koon drew his sabre in reply. Both stood ready for the fight.

Neither dared to strike.

Qui-Gon's challenge to his comrade's honour was plain. "What have the Jedi become, what have you become, if you support this thing?"

Obi-Wan was running. Running away. Running back across the landing platform towards the cruiser. And Qui-Gon could hear his sobs, could feel his Padawan's tears coursing down his cheeks as he ran.

The Republic guards drew their blasters but Koon motioned for them to hold off.

"An edict will be issued for your arrest, pending further investigation by the Council." Koon made it clear this was not an idle threat. "If you insist on this course of action, old friend, I cannot help you."

But Qui-Gon only bent to pick Iva up. Her body stiff, epileptic, awkward in his arms. He was standing in the limbo between the cruiser and the research station. On the edge of the high security compound. The gusting roar of the wind blowing lonely across the ice field was an echo of his isolation. There was nowhere to go. No way out.

- 18 -
Hold Me and I'll Hold You, My Hungry Dream, My Only Saviour.

"Master!" Qui-Gon heard his Padawan's yell. Heard the boy thumping at the lock on the transport, still docked with the cruiser. Felt the tide of guilt and bewilderment over doing the wrong thing, that things had turned against him, had not worked out as he imagined. And recognised, behind the searing turmoil, the surge of Obi-Wan's resolve.

Qui-Gon still faced Plo Koon. Unable, unwilling to move. He was going to have to repudiate his friend, disobey his training, reject the Code, disown the framework of the only way of life he knew. For what? For love? For a woman? To save one living being was reason enough for him. Whatever else the Jedi Order represented, that surely was at the core of its reason for existence, his standing as a knight. However personal his own motives may be.

Obi-Wan called to him again. He turned. The boy had the door to the transport open. He didn't know what Obi-Wan intended. It would be highly dangerous undocking the transport on the landing platform, even had the cruiser's crew been willing. But Obi-Wan's change of heart, the resurgence of his fidelity to his master, was the only viable choice he was being offered.

Qui-Gon stared into the metal lozenges that stood in for Plo Koon's eyes. Relayed his remorse and his frustration at what was transpiring. And turned away.

Koon's voice trailed him as he bore Iva to the transport. "You cannot run, old friend." No, the Kel Dor was wrong. "There's nowhere to go." There was always somewhere. "Qui-Gon..." There was always, only, the Force.

As Qui-Gon climbed aboard the transport he could hear the rattle of the breath in Iva's throat. A trace of blood gurgled from between her ashen lips. He let her fall across a bank of seats. Her skin was sepulchral-hued. He was at a loss to know what to do next. At a loss to know how to help her. At a loss to comprehend the dichotomy they found themselves in.

She raised a shaky hand. Slowly. Her face contorting with the effort it took. He thought he saw something in her countenance, beneath her appearance of beauty. A monstrous visage. Skin the blue of cyanotic flesh. Teeth razored to hypodermic points. The welcome face of death. It were as though the surface of this reality were scoured away, revealing a raw, red, weeping wound. Involuntarily, he shivered. He glimpsed his own hand, clawed. The veins stood out, indigo against preternaturally white flesh, the nails sharpened to pointed talons. Fleeting. His hand, yet not his hand. The glacial chill of trepidation penetrated his mind.

He shook his head to dislodge the vision. He looked across the flight deck, to where Obi-Wan sat. The boy, the cabin, looked just as it always had. Yet something, another plane, another reality, simmered beneath this one. He looked back at Iva. A thing he didn't recognise, yet knew and loved. He reached out with his force sense. But he could feel nothing, no abomination, no evil, no demise of love, no death. Only her pain. It was, perhaps then, only the pain he saw.

She was trying to speak. He bent closer. Her words were a forced whisper. "Union."

"Sh. Relax." He supported her head, tried to ease her suffering.

She placed her trembling hand on his chest, the fingers beneath the hollow junction of his collar bones. "You and I. One with the Baobhan-sith." He knew she struggled to speak for a reason. "Remember." Why? What importance did it have now? Or was the restraint device causing her brain, her reasoning to misfire? Her eyes showed almost all whites.

He had, whether he liked it or not - whether he still believed himself arrayed with the Force or not, and he did, whatever else was said against him - he had formed a forbidden alignment with her, with the Baobhan-sith. The alien imprint on his wrist would be taken as proof. He was prepared to sacrifice everything he knew for her. She was the night to his day, she balanced him.

The consummation of his relationship with Iva, with the woman from his dreams, already meant he had disobeyed the Council, broken the Code and been marked as a rogue Jedi. But he knew in his heart, and knew that it was all that mattered, that he had not rejected the Living Force. He felt sure the Living Force drew him into the eternal balance of light and dark, of male and female, of night and day.

All he had to do now was save her, save himself and convince the Jedi Council of their fealty to the Light Side. No easy task.

But first they had to move. And fast.

Did Obi-Wan have a plan, or were his reflexes working on automatic? The boy's instincts were usually good. Hopefully, his thinking wasn't still too confounded by his jealousy. He didn't know what to say to his charge. Best say nothing for the present. He could hear the boy mumbling to himself, cursing the controls of the ship. He stood up. Iva would have to wait. Moved towards the cockpit. If he couldn't get her some help soon, there might be nothing left to save.

He gripped Obi-Wan's shoulder as reassuringly as he could. "Let me take the controls."

Obi-Wan moved aside, unspeaking. Watched, worried. It was a dangerous manoeuvre. But it could be done.

Qui-Gon sat frozen for a moment, equivocal about what to do. He thought to contact the crew of the cruiser, warn them of his impending action. But they would already know, or suspect. Grocelind did. The bureaucrat was already running for the gate of the compound. Qui-Gon fired the engines at the same moment as he initiated undocking. The transport tore at the docking clamps with an abrasive discharge of sound. The ship remained stationary, the grinding sound building in the air around them; steam, leaping unbound from the boiling ice, billowing forward across the view screen. And then the transport broke free from the cruiser with an explosion. The quaking subsided but the angle of their trajectory was too shallow. They skimmed the edge of the docking platform, the ship shuddering violently as something unseen tore loose. The platform tilted vertiginously. And then they were away. The ship sluggish but responding to the controls.

As they left the complex of buildings at the medical research compound behind, Qui-Gon could see Plo Koon standing, stationary on the landing platform, legs apart to brace himself against the rocking aftershock, staring after them. But they were already too far away for him to receive any sense of his seasoned ally's thoughts or feelings. He turned to Obi-Wan. "Take the controls. Maintain a north-east heading. I must make sure Iva is safe."

The boy wavered. "We can't get far in this. What are we going to do?" he asked.

"Run."

"Run where?"

"To the Machin embassy, Obi-Wan. To request asylum."

***

Grocelind sat in the private secure office that had been provided for him in the medical research compound to contact the security committee. Well, the committee could wait. He had another, more pressing, call to make.

Few in the higher echelons of the Republic knew what transpired here. Few knew that the Jedi were venturing out to the old Sith worlds. But those few that did know were powerful and ruthless souls. His failure, his loss of the Sith knowledge the woman was thought to hold, would not go unpunished.

What he did next would determine his whole future. His very life was at stake. He had his escape route, he could officially retire from Republic service and disappear quite easily if he chose. He'd drifted into this additional line of work but he wasn't going to leave himself vulnerable and unprepared for contingencies. "This line of work, hah." He sneered at himself. It wasn't work. It was espionage. Black operations. He couldn't delude himself that the Krath, this secret organisation he was allied with, weren't intent on undermining the Republic. What information he had gleaned about the proposed cout d'etat, suggested it was still some years off. He knew he was expendable in the long term. There were plenty of corrupt politicians and public servants waiting in line behind him. Ready to take his place. His contact in the Krath, a man whose name or face had never been revealed to him, had made no secret of that. In fact, Grocelind had been taunted frequently about knowing far too much of the genesis of the man the Krath were grooming to wrest power from the Senate.

And that made Grocelind cautious. Very cautious. Running might be the most logical move.

Alternatively he could face his contact and hope he could ride out the storm. It wasn't his fault the Jedi, this Qui-Gon Jinn, was so intractable and wouldn't give up the woman. And how was he to have guessed the Kenobi youth would undergo a change of heart and help her to escape? The Krath was not a forgiving organisation. But Grocelind knew his high position in the Senate support service, in the security division, meant that if anything happened to him or he vanished without trace, questions would be asked. That at least provided him some protection from retribution.

He much preferred the second option. If he could get through the next few minutes, the confrontation and the admission of failure, there was less of his comfortable, so very comfortable, life to forfeit.

His contact was quick to respond to his call. As usual the enigmatic man was shrouded by a black cloak, his voice barbed and magnetic, like syrup flowing across scabrous metal. He was not happy with Grocelind's report. But he seemed unusually magnanimous.

"The cyber-genetics project must remain your priority, Grocelind." There was a pause as the anonymous dark voice fell silent. When it continued, there was a cruel sense of portent in its utterance. "The time has come to give further responsibility to my assiduous protege in the Senate. This assignment is perfect for Palpatine. His aura of impartiality hides his ambition well, this will work to our advantage. But be discreet. Tell him only the minimum he needs to know. It would not be wise to reveal our plans to him for a while yet. I do not want him to suspect the depth of our involvement in his life." The obscure face, already hidden in the umbra of its hooded cloak, seemed to darken even further. "Do not falter again, Grocelind."

The threat sent a shudder down Grocelind's spine, but he nodded his assent.

The Krath contact continued, a hint of glee in his voice now. "Let's see how the Senator from Naboo handles this Sith woman and her temptations."

The corrupt laughter echoed in Grocelind's ears even after the transmission had ended. He needed space. He needed a distraction. He decided to look over the progress of the covert cloning installation before returning north.

- 19 -
It Is Their Tragedy As Well As Their Privilege.

Qui-Gon felt his love for Iva was sublime but it was clothed in danger. It had brought him to a crisis. He was heading for a crash. A literal, imminent crash.

He looked at the instruments reporting on the current status of the transport, at the wildly fluctuating readouts, in despair and closed his eyes, relying on the Force. It would have to be a hard landing, the ship had taken damage on their retreat from the medical research compound and was responding inadequately to the controls.

"Brace yourself," Qui-Gon called back to Obi-Wan. "Make sure Iva is secure." He had checked on her a few moments ago, but there was little change in her condition. He couldn't judge the damage the implant might be doing. It continued to blink its incessant cycle of lights.

The transport skidded across the landing platform in front of the Machin embassy, slamming to a halt bare fractions before it hit the building. People were shouting. Running. Or staring, open mouthed, shocked into immobility.

Iva was in his arms and he was running now. The transport abandoned behind him. Obi-Wan rushing to follow him through the grandiose ornate doors, glowing vibrant red in imitation of the setting sun. Across the unadorned hall, its cool whiteness receding into invisibility, the dark wood of the austere reception desk was a solid spot against the bare walls. He felt unbalanced, his vision jittery. He stopped short of the desk. Nearly sank to his knees with the awkward weight of his tormented lover in his arms. Kept his composure intact.

"I am Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn."

The receptionist, a man whose severe appearance perfectly reflected the architecture of the embassy, stood up...

"We need help here."

...came around the front of the desk. Arms out. Warding them away.

"I wish to speak with Ambassador Zhou-Shan Ling."

"Guard!"

An armed officer emerged from a hidden recess.

"We request political asylum."

An attache approached them, signalling the guard away, reassuring the receptionist. The traditionally dressed woman, dark hair elaborately arranged, smiled. She bowed low, arms crossed, hands tucked inside her sleeves.

"Come this way, Master Jedi."

"This woman needs a medic, fast."

"Yes, sir." The attache spoke briefly to the receptionist. Bowed again. "Follow me."

She led them to a waiting area, comfortable and crowded with furniture and ornamentation in comparison with the entry hall.

Qui-Gon laid Iva on a couch. The grave glitter of pain in her eyes sent a shudder of anguish and dread through his own body. His sense of apprehension and despair grew all the more as he saw how the sweat gleamed like ghostly beads on her brow. The bolt in her neck scintillated, gaudy and lethal. He massaged his fingers. What his tormentors on Cair-deil Talamh had done was nothing compared to this abomination. If only Obi-Wan had not betrayed them. Yet he could not blame Obi-Wan, his own culpability was also plain.

There was a sudden flurry of noise as the attache returned with the medical attendant and then left again, shouting for a underling. The medic made a cursory examination of the device that was causing Iva such distress.

"This is a neurone implant. Very hazardous. Very painful." The man looked so young. "It has usurped control of the emotion, motor control and pain centres of the brain. These devices can render the victim immobile, compliant." He shook his head in a movement of despondency. "They have been banned in most Republic systems."

"Can you remove it?"

"It's risky. Without the control mechanism. I can't simply remove it and leave the tendrils inside her. I don't know what damage it is doing. I'll have to try and deactivate it." The medic set about making connections from the implant to his medical droid. He looked up at the Qui-Gon's proximity, saw the Jedi's unstrung concern. "This may take some time."

While the medic fiddled, Qui-Gon forced his attention on to his Padawan. He was anxious that he might have permanently damaged his bond with the boy. Obi-Wan's trust in him had been broken, not yet reconfirmed, fragile yet despite the boy's redemptive change of heart that had allowed their brief respite from capture. He was still silent, appeared sullen, his eyes downcast.

"Look at me Obi-Wan." The boy looked up, bashful. "Not everything is as straightforward as it appears on the surface, Padawan. Do you understand that now?"

"Yes, Master. I think so. I'm sorry, I didn't intend harm."

"What you did was not the act of a conscientious apprentice. But don't concern yourself about that now, Padawan, it is past. We have a problem in the present." He fixed his gaze to the boy's, as master to pupil. "I'm going to need your full support."

"For what, Master?"

"In persuading the Council that I have not gone over to the Dark Side. In persuading the Council to accept my relationship with Iva." Qui-Gon paused for a moment. Considered. "I need to know how you feel about these things, Obi-Wan."

The boy looked perplexed, uncomfortable. "I don't know," he murmured. "I want to trust you. I do trust you. But I..." He looked like he were struggling with his innermost thoughts. Qui-Gon sensed a very strong wave of emotion in him, partially shielded, repressed. Obi-Wan was fighting hard to control his raging, proscribed feelings. "I wanted things back the way they were."

"I know, Obi-Wan. But things have changed now. We cannot go back. We must keep our focus on the present."

"Master?"

"Yes, Padawan."

"I won't let you down again. Whatever happens. I swear..."

"Thank you, Obi-Wan."

"...But what will the Council do? Will they..."

Obi-Wan couldn't say it, but Qui-Gon knew it. Expulsion. Disgrace. Exile. He would have a hard time persuading the Council that his obligation to the Order was not compromised by this thing, these actions. It wasn't the first time he had traversed the constrictions of duty to the Unifying Force. Gone beyond his orders, acted in the moment of initiative and trust in the Living Force. But this was probably his greatest act of rebellion, his strongest moment of self-indulgence.

Master and apprentice stood in silence before the window. The horizon, punctured by roofs that scrapped the sky, was splashed by the pink, orange, red of sunset, scarred by the opaque black of cirrus clouds. Qui-Gon saw how much older Obi-Wan looked. He had grown, had matured, so quickly. The beginnings of wisdom were starting to mark his face, experience was already shaping his features. He would have to start treating him as an adult. As a man.

"Sir." The medic called to him. "It's done. It's out."

With a sudden sucking noise the implant fell away from Iva's neck. A final sharp convulsion racked her body, contorting her limbs, snapping her head backwards on the crux of her spine. A intense keening escaped her lips and she fell limp.

Qui-Gon moved quickly and dropped to his knees beside where she lay. Her breathing was an orchestra of panting moans. He laid his hand on her forehead. It was cool. He realised he was sobbing. With relief or sorrow he could not tell.

The medic handed him the bolt that had transfigured her. Traces of her blood stained its edges. "You might wish to retain this as evidence should you wish to bring a legal action against Medico-Political Affairs."

Qui-Gon held Iva against the warmth and strength of his body, felt the faint pulse of her heart flicker against his chest. The aspect of dreadful trauma was abating from her face and a slight blush was returning to her skin. Slowly, her gasps for breath abated and her breathing slowed to match his own. He held her in silence and in the circle of their bodies it was as though the horror he had witnessed had never been.

"Can you sit up?" he whispered to her. She pulled herself up, swung her legs off the couch, but still clung to him. He took the proffered glass from the medic. "Take this, it will help the shock." He steadied her as she drank.

"I'm all right," she said. "But my head hurts." Her voice was hushed. "I should never have come with you. I've endangered you." Her hands clasped his tightly.

"It's my fault. I should have been more cautious."

"This place is far more terrible and far more dangerous than I imagined. I don't belong." She let her head loll forward. A lock of her hair camouflaged a teardrop as it fell.

"No, Iva, that's not true." He touched his brow to hers. "This is my world. I want it to be yours. It is not always this way." He desperately wanted to offer her some comfort, some respite from the terrors that Coruscant had laid on her.

The attache drew him back from his intimate moment with Iva. "Sir, Zhou-Shan Ling is here."

"Ambassador." Qui-Gon stood and bowed to the elder statesman.

It had been several years since he had set foot in the Machin embassy. And several more since he had spoken with this man. He had long put aside all thoughts of his homeworld. It was no longer his culture, no longer a part of him. Perhaps that had been another mistake the Jedi had made in their long history. Cutting their acolytes off from their roots. Separating them from their homelands. But even a change in policy in his lifetime wouldn't change his own past, who he was in the now.

Ling motioned him to sit, the waxed threads of his thin moustaches quivering in the breeze from an open window. "There is no need for formality here, Qui-Gon Jinn." The ambassador sat down himself in a facing chair. "How can I be of assistance to the Jedi?"

"I do not approach you as a Jedi, Ambassador. This is Lady Caer Ibhormheith, she is a refugee from a world outside the Republic. I would like to request political asylum for her."

"That could be arranged. However, the procedures are lengthy. I take it this is something of an emergency."

"That is true. The Security Division of the Senate have shown an interest in her."

"Your father was a well respected man, Qui-Gon. Out of regard for your family I will not pry into what it is you or this woman have done to cross swords with the Security Division. There is little I can do to speed things up, but I will do what I can."

Qui-Gon handed Iva's bag, all she possessed in this new world, to Ling. "Keep this safe for her, then." She looked at him sharply, questioningly. "It'll be safe," he told her. He knew that was true. He knew Ling would not break a promise made on blood ties.

By the door, the attache spoke into her comlink. She moved to the Ambassador's side and he stood up at her approach. She whispered to him curtly.

"Bad news, I am afraid, Master Jinn. The Jedi Council are aware of what transpires. Their representative is here with papers demanding your extradition from Machin territory. You must leave the Embassy. It is too delicate a situation for us to become embroiled in. I do not know what more we can do here. They have given me an hour to persuade you to leave voluntarily."

An hour.

What could he do in an hour?

All this. It was something different, something other. He put up a block against the whirl of emotion, the motion of the consequences of his flight. He needed to seek the guidance of the Force, to search for the pathway out of this dilemma. He closed his eyes for a moment, let his attention to the moment fade, concentrated on the flow of the Force through the room, coalescing himself, his thoughts, with its eternal energies, searching his own psyche for its intent for him. Although it was not his gift to exploit, he must know what the future held. Not the future Iva saw, not the destiny she believed him to be a part of, but the future held within himself, held within the Force. The future that had always been and always would be. He had to be sure of what he did, he had to be certain of his actions, he had to know.

He had always known. Since he had first been visited in his dreams. He opened his eyes.

Qui-Gon looked at Iva, her face pale, her auburn hair a tangled mess. She looked back at him, and the passion he felt in his soul was intense. He felt a singular weight settling on his heart and knew what he must do. Union. The Baobhan-sith had laid claim to him. Now he had to lay claim to their adept.

He held out his arm to her. She took it and he helped her to stand. He touched Ling's elbow lightly with his free hand, turned him aside, a simulation of privacy. "Marry us."

"What?" The old man looked amused.

"If you marry us, she can take my citizenship, true?"

"True, Master Jinn. But..."

"Then marry us."

"But there has been no arrangement. No matchmaker. Your family..."

Was this man going to deny them even this modicum of protection? He had not seen his family for many years. Not since his father's death.

"But it can be done, yes? Without the formality."

"It can be arranged, yes." Ling looked in the space between Iva and Qui-Gon as though searching for a physical, a visible connection between them. He smiled, close lipped. His eyes crinkling along deep laughter lines. "Do you love her?"

"Love? That has nothing to do with it." But it did. "Yes." He'd loved her, loved the dream of her, the thought of her for twenty-seven years. "Yes, I love her."

"Master!" Obi-Wan had drawn near, realised what was being discussed. "You can't. The Code... The Council..."

"Curse the Council." Was everyone going to question this? Impede this?

"It's not the Jedi way..." But Obi-Wan was silenced by his master's look.

He looked down at his inamorata. "With your permission, Iva." She still looked worn and fragile. She bit her lip. He thought she was going to say no. He feared she was going to say no.

"I can't deny the destiny."

He took that as her assent. He felt that this course might splinter the very strange and fragile bridge they had built between them, between their very different lives, but he could see no other way to protect her. He both feared and desired the thing he was about to commit to, but it was a road his feet had already, unbidden, taken.

- 20 -
Lonely As They Breathe As One, She Sees Him, Sees Him With Her Open Eyes.

They waited and the wait was filled with silent apprehension, the Jedi practiced in their patience, each lost in their own thoughts, Iva's eyes half closed to ward off the aura of unease. The waiting pained her. Even the silence seemed to deepen as the seconds ticked away. She wanted it over. To fade. Just as, out there, beyond the window, the last rays of the sun faded and night fell.

It couldn't really hurt, could it? This union, this marriage. An alignment with the Jedi was her destiny, what she had left her home and her sisterhood for. It was her duty, her obligation, her agenda. Qui-Gon was merely reciprocating the Baobhan-sith's ownership of him through the blood rite. And he did it to protect her. By doing this he was offering her the only protection available to him, but he was binding himself to her body and soul. And despite herself, her conviction that his feelings for her were as strong as hers for him, despite the lust that burned between them, the bond that had arisen from their shared dreams, she wasn't sure of his motivation.

It would complicate things for him. Obi-Wan saw it. He had warned Qui-Gon against it. A union with her would take him further away from the Jedi. From the very alignment she sought. He was only a man, one man, not the whole. And he could no longer, it seemed, represent the whole. Her place in his life, the place she thought would bring her to her apotheosis, took them both in an undreamt of, unwished for direction.

Obi-Wan. He was a significant intrusion into her plans, but perhaps she had let her obsession with Qui-Gon blind her to the wider picture. Perhaps she had not recognised the younger Jedi's role in this thing, perhaps he was the key that could restore the Jedi's trust in his Master, restore her entry into the world of the Jedi through Qui-Gon. She would have to make an ally of Obi-Wan, if she could.

She breathed deeply, seeing the blackness flow out of her on the exhalation of her breath, her inhalation drawing in the first sparking rays of silver moonlight. She had no idea what this alliance stood for, was unprepared for the foreign conventions of this arrangement. She tried to relax. Tell herself this was only a handfasting. But it was doing no good and wasting her energy. For a year and a day, for as long as love lived. Those were troths she could have given to Qui-Gon on Cair-deil Talamh. She pulled her feet up onto the seat, hugged her knees to her chest tightly. She could even have promised to be bound to him even when they passed into the summer lands. But her ways were not his ways. She had little understanding still of what his ways entailed. The codes he lived by. What he believed. On his death, he had told her, he would become one with the Force. No, he wouldn't. Not if she had anything to do with it. Not if she could cast a spell strong enough to overwhelm the Force.

She got up and moved to the window. Pressed her aching forehead against the cool plasglass, seeking relief. It afforded her none. She let her eyelids fall. Better not to see the jagged cupolas and serpentine steeples of Coruscant. A virulently beautiful city, but one disfigured by the rape of nature it represented. She felt she were casting herself adrift from gravity, from reality. She felt like a ghost, wandering the aether, haunting this distant world where she had no place. No place but in her Jedi's heart. If she were to throw herself from this window, she felt that she would float upwards into the vault of the heavens, so insubstantial was her form.

The sky was filling with light, not from the stars, but from the glow of windows, the warning lamps of hovering platforms and the lights of vehicles that occupied the air. A suddenly remembered winter's midnight sky on Cair-deil Talamh, clear and dark and forlorn, with only the stars for company, suffused her with regret. She had the unsettling sensation that her love was now tainted with sorrow. Sorrow for the paths that now could not be taken. For the perils that could not now be avoided.

She felt Qui-Gon come to stand beside her. Sensed the comforting form of his body overwhelming hers. Felt the powerful strength of his arm as he slipped it around her waist.

She wanted his passion, his intensity, his quiet fortitude, his sexual arousal. And most importantly of all she wanted his love. She wanted his love for her to overcome everything. She wanted him for her own state of happiness. Rapacious. Greedy. Selfish. Yes, she could be accused of all those things. Her possession of him endangered him, but still she wanted him.

"I will save you," he whispered.

She sought the threads of the future, the flow of time that could tell her what might be. Of where each choice she might make, might lead. And all could see was that each mirrored the other. She and Qui-Gon. The Baobhan-sith and the Jedi. Coruscant and Cair-deil Talamh. The Light and the Dark. They were the same. Part of the same universe, the same system. The Republic trapped her, but it could not contain her. And however much this city world contrived to tear her away from Qui-Gon, she believed he would free her. She envisioned the strong flow of the time line into her own future.

"Everything is ready," he said to her, but did not make a move.

Flowers, she thought, there should be flowers. But there was only the apparition of black leaves on a mildewed bough, ashen snowflakes falling onto waxy, faded petals.

She panicked then, thinking that though he might save her, they might never have another intimate moment together. That they had shared ­ and exhausted ­ their passion and would afterwards be separate pawns in a power struggle greater than either of them.

As though in response to her thoughts, Qui-Gon held her tightly against him for a moment before relinquishing his hold on her. He leant and kissed the mark on her neck where the implant had violated her. "We have a few moments," he murmured. "Come with me."

He led Iva out of the room, onto a broad balcony that curved away around the circumference of the embassy, its pavement lit by blocks of mellow light that seeped through the slatted paper screens at the windows. He walked her towards a solitary darkened section leading off from an unoccupied room, pulled her eagerly into a shadowy recess in the wall, kissed her so roughly she couldn't tell if it was from lust or fear of losing her. Those lips, those precious lips she desired so much, devoured her breath, her life. His hands, his strong hands that spoke of hard years of toil, urgently sought her body, caressed her curves through the soft fabric of her green dress. His desperation fired her. She responded with strokes of her own, arousing him quickly as she slid her hands inside his clothing, teasing his nipples, pulling at the fastening of his trousers, reaching for his sex.

"Not yet," Qui-Gon moaned, his voice throaty with stimulation. He maneuvered her away from him. He traced the neckline of her dress, unloosed the top buttons, ran his fingers around the curve of her bust where her boned corset pushed her breasts up, almost revealing the nipples with their beaded rings. He turned her around and impelled her towards the balustrade, pushing her forward so she was leaning low on the parapet. The view, the height was startling, dizzying. It took her breath away and sharpened her sexual excitement. He stroked her breasts, her erect nipples bursting from the confines of her bodice, pushing himself hard against her from behind. She gasped in unison with the motion of his hands. Then he stepped back from her and he lifted her full skirts and petticoats, gathering them up across her arched back, so he could massage her buttocks. She squirmed with pleasure, feeling the exultation low in her abdomen, her juice beginning to seep between her thighs. Her knuckles blanched as she gripped, arms outstretched, the stone barrier for dear life.

Iva panted as he spread her legs apart, the pressure of his fingers on her clitoris making her frantic with longing to take him inside herself. He obliged her, his swollen erection nudging at the lips of her vagina, plunging deep inside her. It felt so huge, his trusts so powerful, that she was impelled against the carved stonework at the edge of the balcony, threatening to propel her over into the empty sky. Only his stalwart hands, at her breasts again, held her back from freefall. If a stray flying vehicle should pass now their lovemaking would be on full view. She could feel her face flush as the thought excited her further.

Qui-Gon's momentum, slow at first, gained speed, rising in force, almost lifting her off her feet. She was almost on the point of screaming in delectation as he moved his hand up her body, onto her neck, forcing her chin up, tilting her head back, fearful perhaps that she might attract attention from within the Embassy. She throbbed, burnt, her enforced silence making her spasm wildly. Qui-Gon moaned, whispering her name and words of endearment in soft counterpoint to the frenzy of his body. When she thought his thrusts couldn't get any harder, he pulled her backwards plunging even deeper into her. He pulsed inside her, his climax shattering both their spirits with ecstasy.

She couldn't see her lover's face behind her, but she could imagine the penetrating blue of his eyes half shielded by their lids, lowered in the thrill of his orgasm. His lips parted in rapture. His hair escaping from the confines of its queue.

"Stay there," he told her as he withdrew from her, knelt down behind her. He probed her with his tongue, licking her clean, biting and sucking at her swollen tissues. Overwhelmed by bliss, she was carried away for a second time before he let her go.

They sat together, half leaning against the balustrade, half against each other, in an effortless embrace. Passion had segued into languor. Her hips ached.

"You wouldn't have fallen," he remarked. "There's a antigrav mesh around all the buildings."

"Master?" Obi-Wan's apprehensive voice drifted to them from the open window of the room in which he waited.

"We should go now," Qui-Gon told her, buttoning her dress for her. He stood up, straightening his tunics, turned to go back inside. As she shook the creases out of her skirt, she knew she couldn't do anything but follow. She would follow him into death if that was where he led her.

And so it was in the garden sanctuary of the Machin Embassy, a recreation of that world represented there in miniature, where they would complete the first orbit of their destiny, troth themselves to vows they had already sworn in dreams, to a covenant they had already sealed in blood. Iva looked around the garden, green, lush, punctuated by boulders and trickling water, rendered unnatural by the arched ceiling and the broad windows overlooking the city. There were no flowers to be seen.

But there were flowers. A single stem of precious blooms, ivory white traced with a dawn-tinted flush, curling upwards from a crackled china flask, adroitly situated slightly to one side of a low altar. The sight of the flowers sparked her desire. Desire grew in her again. Overwhelmed all her doubts, all her fears.

Iva smiled at Qui-Gon and took his hand. His eyes glowed with a corrosive light which etched her heart with powerful spells of love. And in the tranquillity of the grove before the shrine, the space between them seemed to shrink as ardour surged through them.

There were no promises made or given. Only the sharing of thin, pale, warm wine from tiny cups to seal the pact. And the exchange of looks which passed between lovers. All she needed was already contained within her heart. All this ceremony gave her was an assurance of her safety. The documentary corroboration of a pact they had already made.

If it was enough.

It would have to be enough.

And thus they left the embassy with no more and no less than they had had before, except a small chip of coded data which may be a frivolous token of tradition but which afforded her her only promise of protection.

- 21 -
We Stand In a Different Light.

Qui-Gon had never liked to stand on ceremony and was glad when the formality of the marriage was over and he had the requisite data conformation of Iva's citizenship in his possession. He was now itching to embark upon the battle ahead. Dealing with the consequences of conflict was something he was much more comfortable with. He hastened his companions to the entrance hall, took his leave hurriedly from Zhou-Shan Ling. "Thank you Ambassador. We will be back when we are able for Iva's possessions."

Ling bowed low, a sign of great courtesy. "I await your return with pleasure, Qui-Gon Jinn. Lady Ibhormheith. Obi-Wan Kenobi." He dipped his head to each in turn and watched them as they left.

The scent of misfortune suffused the air.

Plo Koon awaited them at the entrance of the Embassy, just beyond the door that sealed the diplomatic territorial boundary that marked the building as part of the Machin homeworld. Koon turned his unfathomable masked face towards Qui-Gon. "I'm sorry it has come to this, Master Jinn. Master Windu has come for you on behalf of the Council."

Mace Windu, his warm-skinned, strong features immobile, unreadable, moved forward. "Qui-Gon, thank you for not making this difficult." Windu did not smile, but Qui-Gon accepted the familiar use of his name as indicating room for negotiation. It offered something a little more concrete than hope.

He held Iva tightly, protectively against his side. He took comfort from her proximity knowing it might end sooner than he wished.

Beyond the Jedi, a pair of officers, their royal blue uniforms sporting the insignia of the Coruscant Security Detachment, waited, perhaps to apprehend them should they attempt escape again. The three groups stood apart, isolated by circumstances, underneath the indigo sky, the black velvet glove of night wheeling overhead.

Koon held out a portable memory bank. "These are papers calling for this woman's detention and for your removal to the Jedi Temple pending investigation into your conduct on Khar Delba. Your only viable option is to comply."

Mace held out his hand, the palm facing the Kel Dor. "Wait a moment, Master Koon, the paperwork can wait." He turned back to Qui-Gon. "You should not have brought this woman here, Master Jinn."

"I had no choice."

"This is not the place to discuss the choices you have already made." Mace's manner indicated that he saw no point in Qui-Gon continuing to protest at this time. "I trust that we can carry out these orders without further irregularity. It is not too late to go back on your rash actions and hand over the Sith artifacts. We can make allowances for the fact that you have been destabilised by your journey into the heart of Darkness."

Qui-Gon ignored the question of Iva's magical apparatus and personal effects. He ignored the slight against him, the implication that he had become a rogue Jedi. He only urged Iva forward slightly, but still gripped her firmly. "The question over Lady Caer Ibhormheith's status has been resolved." His hand rested on the back of her waist, wishing he could touch her skin to skin.

Mace looked grave. "You are too familiar with this woman, Qui-Gon. You are not yourself." His disapproval showed. "This course of action is dangerous."

"Lady Ibhormheith has taken Machin citizenship." Qui-Gon handed over the datachip containing their contract of union.

"How, exactly?" Mace's stance remained placid as he took the chip...

"By marriage."

...but his face hardened as he studied the readout. "This is unacceptable..." He turned, took the memory bank from Plo Koon, deliberated over it for a little while. "True this now gives her rights under Republic Law. Nevertheless, she remains a security risk." He looked up and stared harshly at Qui-Gon. "You have only complicated your own situation here. I must continue to insist on your return to the Temple immediately." He motioned to the Coruscant guards. "You must allow us to isolate this woman. Temporarily at least. Until we reach a resolution of her status. If you do not comply, we must use force against you. Your life, as well as hers, hangs in the balance."

Qui-Gon sighed. He hovered on the verge of refusing to accept the inevitable. Their separation. He pulled Iva into his chest, crushing her against his body, buried his face in her hair, drinking in the smell of her, branding the smell of her into his mind. He held her away from him, then, looking deep into her face, committing the beauties of her visage to memory. He could sense her realisation too of what was about to transpire, tears welled up in her eyes. Her lips formed a single word. No. Neither of them wanted this but it had been rendered certain.

Mace's face seemed to soften slightly, his stance betraying the fragment of an emotion. "Qui-Gon, trust me. Help me to help you." He glanced briefly at Iva. "To help you both. I will personally vouch for her safety. Senator Palpatine of Naboo has agreed to oversee her containment. I will personally see to it that he gives her protection under the law. As a sectorial representative of the provincial worlds rest assured that he will respect her rights and will understand the problems her world faces. The officers there will take her directly to his chambers."

Iva slid her hand into Qui-Gon's. "I will go with them." She stroked his palm with her curled fingers. "If it's the only way to assure your safety," she said softly. "I want you to be safe."

"Take this then." He pressed a gold and jade talisman on a fine chain into her hand. "As a token of love." He whispered as he bent to kiss her mouth. "Let the Force guide you." He lifted her hand to his face and held it against his cheek. "I'll be with you again soon." He closed his eyes briefly, imprinting the pleasure of her touch upon his mind. She pressed her palm earnestly and tenderly to his lips.

They kissed again so longingly the ground repelled Iva's feet as Qui-Gon drew her closer to him. They broke their embrace reluctantly only on Mace Windu's reproach.

Iva stepped away from Qui-Gon then, stood proud and defiant, her fist curled tightly around his gift to her, the Baobhan-sith symbols on her face standing out against the pale skin made luminous in the moonlight. Though her eyes glistened with the swelling of teardrops, her beauty was grave and dignified.

The guards were deferential towards Iva but still they were taking her away from him. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was going out of his life forever, receding into nightmare. He stretched out his hand to touch her one more time, but she was already out of reach, and he felt he was falling away from her just as he had in his dreams. She looked back at him, melancholy, but with devotion and with her trust in him clear on her face.

Qui-Gon forced aside his thoughts of her, his longing for her at that moment, repressed the growing pain of the imminent loss. He had other matters he must concern himself with. "And what of Obi-Wan?" he asked. His voice almost faltered.

"Obi-Wan clearly only acted in what he believed to be your best interests." Mace turned to the young man. "Obi-Wan, no action will be taken against you. You are free to go but I would ask you to report to Master Koon on your return to the Temple."

But the apprentice stood his ground next to his Master and looked defiantly at Mace. "I'll stay with Qui-Gon, sir. He hasn't done anything wrong."

Qui-Gon looked sternly at his Padawan. What he had done before, his betrayal? Could he turn yet again? No, he must put his trust in the young man now. "Obi-Wan, I will be fine. Go with Iva. I am entrusting you with her life. My responsibilities are yours for now." He gripped Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Be strong and trust the Living Force."

Mace shook his head. "Do not draw your apprentice into this further, Qui-Gon. You do not have to involve Obi-Wan in this. Do not mar his career as well."

But both the errant Jedi ignored their superior's urgings. The Padawan ducked his head in obedience. "Yes, Master." His voice was firm, his shoulders set. Qui-Gon smiled at him as he turned to leave.

Obi-Wan quickly followed the route that Iva had taken with the guards, past the wreckage of the transport, to the edge of the platform where the security vehicle was being prepared for departure.

Qui-Gon, flanked by Mace Windu and Plo Koon, looked back as he walked further away still from Iva, looked back as he boarded the Jedi's air car even though she was now out of sight. He swore he would bring about her freedom soon, even at the cost of his own.

***

Grocelind stared at Palpatine through the comscreen. He despised these elected representatives, coming and going from the Senate and thinking they knew more than he, thinking they could dictate how he carried out his work, he, a career bureaucrat. But he knew this Senator was special, a singular project of the Krath. He had to keep Palpatine sweet. He smiled a welcome to the man. "Good news, I hope?"

"Rest assured, I have her." The Senator smiled back. Neither man's smile was sincere enough to reach the eyes. "She was delivered to the safe house a few minutes ago."

"And how long can you keep her lost in the system?"

"Not long, a day, perhaps two. I have had to make assurances about her safety to the Jedi. I do not wish to make enemies in that camp. But long enough, I think, to scare her witless." Palpatine smiled again, his eyes lighting up lasciviously this time. "After that it should be easy to win her over. However, there is a slight complication."

"Yes?" Grocelind replied curtly. He was irritable to end the call, there was a danger of interception, he was keen to get back to his mistress.

"The Kenobi boy is with her."

"Never mind him." Grocelind was dismissive. "When you have the master's trust, the apprentice will follow. Will you find it difficult to deal with him as well?"

"No, oh no, not at all. He is young and malleable. I can manage him. I shall enjoy it." Palpatine gave him a contemptuous look. "You are in my debt now, Grocelind. I trust you will be as happy to return the favour as I was to give it." And with that, the senator closed the link without any formality.

That annoyed Grocelind. Who did Palpatine think he was? One thing was for sure, the man was perfect for a partnership in the Krath.

- 22 -
Ricocheting Down the Corridor of Laughter and Tears.

Obi-Wan sighed. He was tired of Iva's chatter and constant stream of questions. About the buildings. About the obliteration of nature. About where they got their light and food and water from. About where they kept the animals and the plants. He tuned out her voice, denied its reality. How did Qui-Gon put up with it? He had to admit he didn't entirely understand what Qui-Gon had in mind, what his plan might be to get out of this mess. Maybe he didn't have one. The thought that Qui-Gon might be out of his depth unnerved him, that was why he'd tried to get him help. Except it had turned out to be the wrong sort of help. It had only made things worse and got his master even more entangled with Iva. Well, that was past and done with, nothing he could do about that now. Right at this moment, he was out on the same limb as Qui-Gon and stuck with caretaking his latest project to boot.

Obi-Wan thought about how Qui-Gon's unpredictable behaviour had often confounded his attempts to preempt or predict his actions in the past. Yes, as a Padawan learner he knew he was supposed to observe and learn, but sometimes he despised of ever understanding his master's motives. Perhaps that was the point - that he would learn to be critical and improve on Qui-Gon's plans and possibly his errors of judgement. Was Iva an error of judgement? Certainly, Qui-Gon had a propensity for coming to the aid of lost causes and hopeless cases, for respecting the sanctity of life, however pathetic and doomed. His duty to the Living Force was how he would defend it if challenged. This time Obi-Wan fully believed Qui-Gon had overstepped the mark, outdone even himself with his liaison with Iva. Still he wasn't going to let his master down by not protecting her. That way was the way of disobedience, that way lay a madness even he couldn't pursue. He would do all he could to make sure she didn't come to harm, but he sure wasn't going to listen attentively to her babble as Qui-Gon would. Or, for that matter, whisper sweet nothings in her ear for him.

He was brought to attention by a heavy scrapping sound. Iva was pulling a heavy wooden chair of a now out-moded baroque design across the floor. What was she up to this time?

They had been instructed by the Republic guards to wait in a small room that might once have been comfortably and fashionably furnished but now darker patches on the floor indicated that several items had been removed and a layer of fine dust over everything told of a singular lack of recent occupation. Obi-Wan had a feeling that something here was not altogether right.

Iva had dragged the chair underneath the window and had climbed up on it. Well, of course, Obi-Wan thought, she would want to see out wouldn't she ­ especially when the sliver of a window was placed high up in a high-ceilinged room and she could not even glimpse the cityscape with its conglomeration of many windowed soaring buildings and its jagged applique of rooftops. But she was still too short to get any sort of view.

"Get down," he instructed and she demurred, climbing off the chair to let him take her place. She even smiled at him as he brushed past her. He ignored her as pointedly as he could.

Obi-Wan stretched his arms up to the sill and pulled himself high enough up to see, bracing himself against the wall with the toecaps of his boots. He didn't really recognise any of the buildings he could see. They were pretty low down in Coruscant terms, uncomfortably close for his liking to the dark underbelly of the city with its street gangs, professional thieves and assorted low-life. As the city had grown higher over the years, so the detritus of society had settled to the bottom, claiming it for its own.

They had been here a couple of hours already, hours passed in an uncomfortable avoidance of each other's personal space. He wondered how much longer they should wait before doing anything. Would Qui-Gon urge patience, caution, or take the initiative and force events along? In any case, Obi-Wan didn't relish spending the whole night here. There was nowhere to sleep anyway except the pair of uncomfortable looking chairs. That was alright for a Jedi, but what about Iva? Back where she came from she was some sort of princess, she'd expect comfort wouldn't she?

" What can you see? Where are we?" She interrupted his thoughts. Questions, she had so many questions.

"On Coruscant."

"I know we're on Coruscant. Where on Coruscant?"

"The city." He couldn't admit to her that he wasn't too sure where they were exactly. It had been night and they had been incarcerated in a security vehicle when they had been brought here. They were supposed to be in Senator Palpatine's quarters, but he couldn't imagine a senator living or working in a place like this. They might be a long way off the beaten track for all he knew, though the journey here hadn't taken that long. No, he had no idea really where they were. He dropped back down onto the chair and shrugged.

Iva groaned. "This is stupid. Qui-Gon would not want..."

"Don't tell me what Qui-Gon would or wouldn't want." Obi-Wan snapped, shouted at her. All the pent-up fears and angst and jealousy and guilt were pouring out of him now as anger. Anger he didn't need, anger which Iva didn't need directed at her either. But he couldn't stop now he had started. "You've made him want things he shouldn't want. You got him into trouble. Whore!" he screamed at her.

Iva stepped back. Shocked. He knew his response was irrational. Too blatant.

" I hate you. You..." He struggled to find a suitable word, pouted unattractively. "bitch." He thought of a few far nastier words too late as he jumped down from the chair. "You bewitched Qui-Gon. I don't want to be near you." He crossed the room and slouched against the wall beside the door.

Malice was brewing between them. Mutual distrust was amenable to negotiation, hatred was only destructive. But it was becoming too personal now. There was no room left to take a step back.

Iva turned to him slowly. A sneer clouded her face. "And is it common for an apprentice to betray his master?"

But after she had said it, he only burst into a flood of tears, and she looked mortified.

She kept her distance from him, but her attitude softened. She looked down at her hands, clasped in front of her. "I did not know that all this would happen. Perhaps Qui-Gon and I sowed the seeds of destiny carelessly. " What was this she was saying? Obi-Wan listened to her, really listened, for the first time. He sniffed back his tears as she continued. "I was afraid to read my own path through the tangle of time. Treason was your error Obi-Wan, blindness was mine. I did not see your disloyalty in this because I did not seek to look."

"I don't want to lose Qui-Gon." He was unable to stop crying, despite his best efforts. He felt weak and stupid. "I love him," he blurted out. He wiped his nose across the sleeve of his robe. "I mean like a father," he added defensively. And he ran to Iva, threw his arms around her neck and began sobbing relentlessly on her breast like a small child.

She struggled to shove him away. "Well, just because Qui-Gon married me, that doesn't make me your mother. Pull yourself together."

He returned her outraged glare. How could she be so cynical? But he knew it was a crust she was erecting over her own concern and longing for Qui-Gon.

"Look." She swept her hand through the charged air between them. He noticed, alarmed, how the amulets at her wrists had grown to encase her hands with a tracery of metal strands. Feathers, soft and downy, the colour of basalt, fell from her palms and slowly drifted to the floor. She studied the patterns they made in the air as they fell.

"You will play a greater role in the coming age than your Master. You will become a great Jedi. You will not know love but you will know great sorrow. You have been chosen to serve and protect the children of the dusk."

"I don't understand."

"One day you will, Obi-Wan." She looked so sad. "One day you will." Her voice sounded so remote. Her presence in the room seemed to diminish.

He picked up a feather. How had she done that? He turned it over between his fingers, examined it. It seemed real enough. Some sort of trick, he supposed, a sleight of hand. But then he had seen her make flowers rain from the sky, hadn't he? He put it in an inner pocket of his tunic to consider later.

They both retreated to opposite corners of the room to sit out the wait. Obi-Wan continued his meditations but after not too much time Iva grew restless again and moved to the door, leant against it, listening.

"What are you doing?"

She raised a finger to her lips. Poised perfectly still for several long seconds. "I can't hear anything. There's no movement outside."

Obi-Wan pondered on what Qui-Gon would do in this situation. He would be bold. Obi-Wan marched straight up to the door, pushed Iva out of the way, and thumbed the lock. No response. He felt the blood rush to his face. "We're locked in," he blustered.

"There's a surprise," she said, one hand on her hip, all her weight on one leg so that she leant slightly to one side. She looked at him and laughed. He returned her stare and laughed too. "Truce?" she suggested.

"Truce," he agreed. For now, he added under his breath.

This time it was her turn to push him out of the way as she studied the lock. She seemed to be looking into its depths, beyond its surface. She closed her eyes, concentrating, and mouthed some words he couldn't understand. She twisted her hand, two fingers bent, two straight, before the lock. A spark of exotic energy leapt across the gap. The lock smoked, the smell of ozone permeated the air. The door sprang open. "There," she said.

"I could have used the Force," he countered. She merely gestured for him to go first.

The corridor outside was divided off from the way they had come when they had been led to this room by a second door. This one more secure, impervious to Obi-Wan's Force, Iva's magic and brute strength alike. Obi-Wan could have cut through it with his laser sword, but the guards had insisted he hand it over to them, together with his comlink and other equipment, as a gesture of good faith. Good faith it may have been, but it left him pretty much defenseless.

"Let's try this way." Iva was already heading off down the corridor in the opposite direction.

Obi-Wan quickly caught her up and overtook her. He walked briskly and didn't much care if she couldn't keep up in all her finery and trailing skirts. But though she remained behind him she matched his pace. She must have more stamina than you would have thought to look at her.

Soon they were forced to descend still further, down a narrow curving staircase to an even lower floor. Though the stairs appeared to descend, it felt to Obi-Wan that they climbed steeply upwards, his muscles howled to him that they were climbing. Everything felt topsy-turvy. Perhaps it was the lack of food that disturbed him, made him light-headed. He used his connection to the Force to quell his hunger.

The corridor they emerged into had been abandoned long ago, the dust and stale smell bore witness to that. The illumination here did not function, the hall was lit by the angry glare of red emergency lights. They progressed more cautiously now, slowing their pace and checking the dark niches of the passageway as they went. Each shadow threatened to harbour some evil, some monstrosity. But there was only more dust and small piles of rust where screws had fallen from their fixtures. The ominous silence was punctuated by creaks and rattles. Iva muttered something about maybe expecting to find mice and the creatures being ominous by their absence. They passed but a single door in the whole length of the corridor and that looked long unused, a heap of rags piled up in front of it.

The passage ended blind, they could find no sign of hidden doors or sound of hollow walls, and they had to retrace their steps to that foreboding solitary door. Obi-Wan kicked at the rags to clear the entranceway, his foot making contact with something hard and brittle that crumbled on impact. Hollow eyes stared up at him, a toothy fleshless grin. He fell back in alarm, scrabbling to get away from the yellowed corpse. He let himself down by screaming like a girl. Iva giggled uncontrollably. His embarrassment faded as he questioned whether she was laughing at him or whether she might not be getting hysterical. Abruptly she silenced her laughter and he joined her in looking at the body. She kicked at it gingerly with her toe, flakes of parched flesh falling away from the bones. It was pretty much ossified, mummified by the dry air. She spoke some words in her native tongue.

"What did you say?" Obi-Wan's curiosity got the better of him.

"A guardian spell," she said, "for us. Just in case."

"In case what?" he asked facetiously. She just gave him a sideways glance which said what do you think? But Obi-Wan knew they'd need more than a spell to help them if they got into trouble here.

The door opened easily, though they had to step carefully around the cadaver to pass through it. They entered a small antechamber with an archway that led onto a larger room. The sensation of being watched, like an inflection in the Force, put Obi-Wan on alert. He wished he had his sabre. He wished he had any weapon. He looked quizzically at Iva as she pulled a small dagger from beneath the front of her dress. She waved it at him, its horn handle and strange markings glowing in the murk of the chamber.

"For cutting herbs," she informed him. "But it might help."

They had to sweep thick cobwebs away from the arch before they could progress further. They clung stubbornly to the skin and clothing and felt uncomfortably clammy to the touch. Obi-Wan smiled when Iva made a expression of disgust which he couldn't have bettered.

Inside the room, he had the uncanny feeling that the floor squelched, sucking at the soles of his boots, though it looked solid enough. Iva must feel it too, he noticed, she had gathered up her skirts and bunched them up in one hand so they no longer brushed the floor.

At the far end of the room was a screened off alcove. Obi-Wan scanned the walls for another exit, Iva approached the screen. There were signs of recent occupation around it. Dishes of unfinished meals. Discarded, soiled clothing. Shackles with chains bolted to the wall. Obi-Wan looked over Iva's shoulder. Someone had been kept prisoner here, he noted. The wretched soul outside? No, he, if it was a he, had been dead too long. Iva peered through the screen.

Obi-Wan was forewarned by a rustling sound. He tuned in along the flow of the Force. But before he could sense anything, there was an almighty crash of a forceful object slamming up against the screen. Iva jumped, screaming, her hands clutched to her chest, her knife clattering to the floor uselessly. The screen toppled. Obi-Wan couldn't move. Everything was in slow motion, as if he were in a holorecording. A shadowed face could be made out in the darkness. A frightful thing with decaying teeth in a terribly twisted face rushed at them from the gloom, a predatory growl issuing from its throat.

- 23 -
All the Towers of Ivory are Crumbling, And the Swallows Have Sharpened Their Beaks.

The terrible thing rushed past Iva's ear, she felt the change in air pressure like the wings of a raptor beating commandingly in flight. She felt locks of its disheveled crow's nest hair brush against her cheek. An aura of corruption emanated from it, corruption of the flesh and corruption of the soul.

It swatted Obi-Wan across the side of the face with a fearsome whack from its dirt besmirched hand, knocking him to the floor, as it passed by him. He lay still, unmoving, and Iva watched the creature vanish into the wall. She blinked. Not understanding what she saw. It had seemed to sink and melt into solid matter. A ghost, a shade. Something fey. Something insubstantial.

She looked, bewildered, from the wall where the thing had disappeared to Obi-Wan's motionless form. No, it was substantial enough, Obi-Wan's stupor was evidence of its physical presence. A shiver shook her body in the eerie silence. She looked at the alcove from which it had emerged, a faint glow of light seeped across the floor, there was a door there then. She looked back at the wall. Not sorcery, some technology she had no knowledge of. Obi-Wan would know. She needed more information, even her grasp of the language felt incomplete.

She darted then, her sensibilities restored, to Obi-Wan's inert form. He groaned. She shook him gently. He seemed to be merely dazed but was resisting coming around, so she harangued him until he revived.

"Oh, are you still here," he groaned.

She resisted the temptation to respond to his barb and pointed to the wall. "It went through there."

"Your joking." He tutted. "Through the wall? No."

"Yes, through the wall." She got up and walked over to the space where the creature had vanished. She ran the palms of her hands across the surface. "It feels odd. Come and see."

Obi-Wan groaned again as he stood up, but joined her in her investigation. "It's clammy..." He curled his lip in disgust.

"What is it?"

"Wait a minute." He closed his eyes, concentration on his face. "Some sort of force projection. But it's odd. I wonder" He pushed his hand firmly against the wall and his fingertips sunk in to the first knuckle. He withdrew them sharply, his eyes flying open. "I don't like this," he complained, backing away. "I wish Qui-Gon were here."

At the mention of his name Iva's hand drifted involuntarily to her throat and she clasped the charm that Qui-Gon had given her. She had managed to extract from Obi-Wan the meaning of the symbol. Double happiness. She would settle for a single dose just now. "Have we been abandoned?"

"No. Don't be silly." Obi-Wan voice was flat but even she could feel the insecurity behind his words.

She resolved to be decisive. She took a step forward. "I'm going through."

"No." Obi-Wan gripped her arm and pulled her back. "It might still be there, waiting for us on the other side. Let's see where it came from first."

There was a door within the screened alcove. Unlocked. It gave entry onto a vast room which had both the interlopers gasping in amazement. A treasure house, the shadows crammed with a fortune in art of many kinds. Statuary. Carvings. Paintings. Trinkets. Archaic primitive finds from a hundred distant worlds.

"What is all this?" Iva span around, amazed at the glory of it all. She looked up at the ceiling, glanced around the walls.

"An art depository," Obi-Wan suggested, sounding less impressed than she. "Perhaps we're in one of the museums."

She had never seen so many strange and wondrous things gathered together in any one place before. She ran her hand along the edge of a cool white statue, luminous in the dark, abstract but curved like a female form.

"Be careful," Obi-Wan warned. "We don't know what else might be in here." The ends of the room ran off into smoky distance, the windows opaque with grime, the lights of the city at night diffused and refracted into halos. But she had already found a musty pile of ancient parchment texts which she was leafing through, holding them up to catch the faint glow of light.

"Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan. Come and look." She was amazed at what she found. She would never have expected to find such a book here. She laughed in wonder.

Obi-Wan came rushing. "What is it?" He seemed flustered, feverish.

"Look." She pushed the book into his hands. He looked at it bewildered.

"I can't read this." His voice was becoming a complaining whine. "It's gobbledygook." He handed the book back to her. "Nobody uses print anymore."

"It's fairy tales," she told him. "For children. From Cair-deil Talamh. What's it doing here?"

"I don't know." He had taken on that petulant childish quality again. She reminded herself to tread carefully with him. She doubted they could be friends.

"It's very old, but we still tell these stories to children now. Look," she turned over a few pages and pointed to an illustration of a beautiful white, long-necked bird menacing an ugly, goat-featured ogre with thin dewlaps adorning his face. "This is the story of an evil monster who murdered seven wives before his new bride killed him and became a swan."

"That's not a very nice story for children." Obi-Wan snatched the book from her. Flipped through it nonchalantly, uncaring for the fragility of its age. The loose title page fluttered to the floor.

"Careful," Iva admonished, bending to retrieve it. "That's odd. This writing is not old at all." She scanned it quickly. "You can read this." She passed it over to him. A brief note, written in cursive script, ran along the margin. "Found on Yavin IV. Study it well." it read. It was stamped with an ornate mark which might have been an 8 or a B or even an elaborate S. "Does it mean anything to you, Obi-Wan?"

"No. Well, there was once supposed to have been a Jedi library on Yavin IV ­ but that's an old myth. There were temples there though." He looked at her intently. "Sith temples. Built by one of your people."

More stories about the Sith. Was he trying to scare her? Scare her off? "Not my people." She folded her arms indignantly. But before she had a chance to admonish him further, his head spun round, his eyes alert. She listened, she could hear nothing. No, a scratching. Like rats.

Obi-Wan set off between a twin row of massive vases. She followed him quickly. She wasn't going to let him out of her sight in this place. The air felt preternatural to her, it almost had her gasping for breath. As he reached the end of the column of urns, one toppled. Obi-Wan twisted out of the arc of its fall, but he tripped awkwardly on a plinth just behind him. There was a flurry of cloth and it seemed that a small figure darted away through the shadows.

"Wait," she called, but the figure was gone. Where? She stepped between the plinths to look. She wasn't even sure she had seen anything. The light could have been playing tricks on her. Behind the urns there was a heavy curtain. Perhaps a draft from some unseen opening. There must be another way out of here. They weren't getting anywhere like this.

Startled, she jumped at another sound behind her. Whirled round. "Oh, Obi-Wan," she huffed.

"What's going on?" His eyes looked glazed. Fretful.

"Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I felt something. Something impenetrable. Something bad. I don't know. I'm afraid it might have been the dark side. I've never felt anything like it before. Well, perhaps when..." He stopped abruptly, cutting his words short. "We have to get out of here. Perhaps we should go back."

"To what? How much longer does the night last?" She was uncomfortable with the fact that she didn't know anything at all about this place.

"A couple of hours, three at most." Obi-Wan criss-crossed between the abandoned artworks to the window. Cleared a space in the grime. "We could wait here. Till there's more light." He hunkered down on the floor, instantly falling into a meditative sleep.

Iva knelt on the wide sill to peer out through the perforation he had made in the grime, striving to see the stars. The night was still and ravishing, no clouds marred the sky.

Her heart was melancholy and her attention abstracted. Her mind wheeled with the heavens. But she had to learn the pathway through the stars to the summerland in case she should die here and never find her way out. Like those other shades that were trapped in this place.

There were so many choices but so few freedoms for her - a stranger here, an alien. Qui-Gon had demonstrated his belief in the destiny, she had to fulfill it now. The contours of his face were already a memory that she had engraved into her mind as a deposit for the future. When they would be parted, when she would be alone, in grief. As she studied constellations which she had never seen before, she fantasised the strong low tones of her lover's voice and sighed for him, sending her thoughts to him, wherever he was, and willed him to hear them.

And behind her, a pair of sickly eyes peered out of the gloom, boring into her back.

- 24 -
But Now the Sun Shines Cold and All the Sky is Grey, The Stars Are Dimmed By Clouds and Tears And All I Wish is Gone Away.

Qui-Gon's morning had been punctuated by petty interruptions which were beginning to aggravate him. Mace had insisted he stay in a private secure room in the medical wing of the Temple. So far seven different medical droids had been sent in to perform seven sets of different tests. They didn't even have the confidence in him to allow him contact with living beings. Too afraid of his contamination by the dark, he supposed. But it deepened his irritability. He hadn't slept, and he felt restless, confined, vexed at the enforced inactivity.

All the previous night he had had an uneasy feeling he hadn't been able to pinpoint specifically and he would have put it down to heartsickness if in the small hours he hadn't had an overriding premonition of disaster which sparked a vision of some dark oily evil sliding across the room to claw at his throat. But he saw, as though he were looking down from a great height into the room, that it was not his throat but Obi-Wan's it reached for. The omnipresent feeling of danger wouldn't leave him. What or who threatened his Padawan? Was it Iva herself? Now he was apart from her he was beginning to doubt her. There was something that felt strange about her. He had believed it to be due to the absence of midi-chlorians, to the peculiar power she wielded that was opposite and compliment to the Force, but was there something more? Could she after all be a creature of the dark side? Was he now beginning to regret his actions?

Doubts, yes, he had doubts. But regrets? No, he had none. He had never known such passion in all his born days, such exquisite pain, such aching pleasure was enlightenment to him. And he felt urged on as never before by the Living Force. It wasn't Iva that threatened Obi-Wan but something else that threatened them both, that threatened them all. He knew with a sudden dawning realisation that he had allowed them both to walk into danger unforewarned. And there was nothing he could do to help them. He'd already been formally notified by Mace that he was stripped of rank and suspended from all duties pending the outcome of the investigation, as of last night he wasn't even officially permitted to act as Obi-Wan's master. If they decided he had turned, become a fallen Jedi, he would at best be facing a court martial. He wanted to enjoy the quiet placid acceptance of the moment that was the Jedi way, but felt it beyond him now, excluded as he was, rendered alien and other within the closest thing to family he had ever experienced.

After the omens of danger he had felt, he had been afraid to sleep, afraid of what he might dream. He hadn't wanted to sleep without Iva curled around him anyway, could no longer sleep without the weight and the warmth of her head on his chest. Instead he had meditated, meditated on the planes of her face. His love for her still burnt strong. Each time he thought of her, he loved her all the more and his passion for her grew. But as he contemplated his love he thought of how others might see her, her beliefs, her clairvoyance, the strange markings on her face. She was an unknown quantity upsetting the balance of the Force.

And would they find signs of infection in him? He felt that he had been infected, if lust and passion and love could be considered infective agents. Would the tests find traces of that, he wondered. He examined his face in the small mirror above the bed. It wasn't a bad face, a little rugged perhaps, ill-used. But Iva must like it, she was always touching it, kissing it. He saw nothing different there, save perhaps the deepening of a few lines, a few grey hairs. Age was beginning to creep up on him. Iva could only claim half his years, but it didn't seem to concern her. And if she didn't mind, then neither did he.

Someone else was coming, he could hear their footsteps in the hall outside, not a droid this time then. He quickly resumed the form of his favourite moving meditation exercise, he didn't want them to think he was brooding. Or lax in his discipline. He recognised the firm footfalls of Plo Koon and smiled. Even though Koon had overseen the attempt to take Iva, he didn't hold his old friend culpable. What was done, was done. And Koon wasn't responsible for the security committee. Qui-Gon relished the contact with a like mind, not one constrained by the strict protocols of the Council.

As the Kel Dor stepped into the room, Qui-Gon came straight to the point. "Is there any word from Obi-Wan?"

A rasp issued from Koon's antiox mask, a rasp which anyone who didn't know him might not recognise as a chuckle. "Not yet, Qui-Gon. Is that impatience I sense in you?"

"Don't tempt me, Plo." Qui-Gon fell back into the familiar banter they had always shared at rest in the Temple. But there was a serious edge to his voice. "I sense that Obi-Wan is in some danger."

"And your woman."

"And Iva."

"Jorus C'Baoth is liaising with Senator Palpatine. I shall see if he has any news." Plo Koon ceased speaking and stood as though waiting for Qui-Gon to break the silence first.

"What are you here for, Plo? Is this an official visit?"

"Personal." He paused again. Qui-Gon could sense he was about to broach a sensitive subject. "Your seat on the Council is forfeit, Qui-Gon."

"Always one for speaking the obvious." He almost laughed. "That's the least of my worries. "

"They have offered it to me."

"Congratulations." He couldn't but feel pleased for the Kel Dor. Knew it would be a source of modest satisfaction to any Jedi. Any Jedi but himself, he thought wryly. "Will you accept?"

"I wanted to seek your counsel first, Qui-Gon. It is not too late for you to repent. Sort this mess out, old friend, and accept. The Council would reinstate you."

"I have no desire for that career, Plo. The Council sits in its high chamber atop the temple and makes decisions that affect the lives of people to whom they remain remote and faceless. I would rather share the experiences and lives of those we seek to aid. I cannot refuse this imperative. The Living Force..." He broke off his argument. Koon had heard all this from him before. "I cannot join the same Council that ordered Iva's destruction," he added, knowing it would seal his decision.

But Koon had yet another revelation for him. "I can't be sure, Qui-Gon, but I don't think it was the Council's decision behind that order. My order to oversee her apprehension came from Yoda alone."

"You're certain?"

"As certain as I can be."

"This is unlike Yoda." Qui-Gon did not want to believe the old Jedi capable of such intrigue. He would have to think about this seriously. If C'Baoth was involved... But why would Yoda conspire with that man? "There must be something else going on."

"I'll see what I can find out." Koon would relish the challenge. His mind powers were formidable. "I'll return when I have spoken with Master C'Baoth," he promised as he took his leave.

C'Baoth had caused a scandal four years ago after declaring himself a Jedi Master, assuming a title that was normally only given after the years of service involved in training a Padawan. He'd got away with it, but there were some who still distrusted him, his arrogance. Was he up to something now, Qui-Gon wondered? With Yoda? With Palpatine?

Much to his impatience, he had little time to think things through before a further interruption. He had expected Yoda to make an appearance, he had been stealing himself for that confrontation. But it was Mace who graced him with his presence.

"Master Koon has spoken with you?"

"Yes." Qui-Gon did not want to give Mace any leverage. The man could be formidably severe when it suited the moment.

"We are all concerned about you, Jinn." Perhaps this wasn't going to be one of his infamous dour exchanges then.

"I'm not lost to the Dark Side then?"

Mace gave a wave of his hand, dismissively. "That is not in question."

Why all the tests then, Qui-Gon wondered. But he didn't get a chance to bring the subject up.

"This union you have entered into. It may be accepted by the state, but the Jedi Council cannot acquiesce in it."

"What is done is done."

"Yes, Qui-Gon, but this marriage is against the code."

"There are always exceptions."

"Yoda will not permit the Council to allow an exception in this case." Mace looked back at him. Both men knowing the other would not give ground. "Why did you bring her back with you? I do not believe you would let emotion or passion rule you."

"The Living Force ordained it."

"Can you be sure of that?"

"I have known of it for many years. With respect Mace, I believe it was foretold."

"You speak of this dream that Yoda has alluded to. You know that he questions it. He is of the opinion that it came from the dark side."

"Yoda is obdurate. That is why I have not shared my feelings about these dreams with him further."

"There have been many more?"

Qui-Gon nodded. He didn't feel he had to expand further. He felt he were being put on the defensive. Quite deliberately. This was just another test.

Mace pondered this a moment. "It was unwise of you to keep this a secret so long. The Council would not have chosen you for this assignment had we known."

"And if, as I believe, it was my destiny to go to Cair-deil Talamh" Mace looked at him sharply. "To Khar Delba," he added quickly, before continuing. "then perhaps more Jedi would have died in vain. As Master Xiu did."

"No, I cannot believe that." Mace turned his thoughts inward, his hands steepled beneath his chin. Qui-Gon waited, he felt serene at last, justified, whatever Mace felt. Finally, his compatriot continued. "This will not help your case with Yoda, Qui-Gon."

"Yoda is only one of twelve."

Mace smiled at that. "You think Master Koon will accept the seat, then? He may not be able to sway the Council for you. Will you not reconsider your position? Send this woman away. Put this all behind you."

Qui-Gon shook his head. No, he couldn't do that.

"It's true, Yoda is a traditionalist. He will have no truck with radicals, and that is what you believe you have become now, isn't it, a radical?"

"The Order will die if it does not change."

"I can't, I won't believe that." This time it was Mace who shook his head. He stood up to leave. "I will speak with the Council again. Not all of them are against you. Yoda may not have as much support as he likes to believe. You will be required to address the Council tomorrow. A final decision will not be made yet. But if you continue to refuse a compromise, I cannot help you further."

Qui-Gon fanned the small glimmer of hope that Mace's words had offered him into the confidence that he might after all win something out of all this ­ even if it was only his reputation. He would still have a major battle on his hands to win them round, but he could at least spend the rest of this day and the night ahead preparing a case. But his anxieties for Iva and Obi-Wan were still his overriding concern. Even though there was nothing more he could do for now except trust that Plo Koon would come up with something, the worry continued to gnaw at his mind.

He paced the room, eventually stopping at the window. He squinted up at the sun and prayed that Iva could see it too.

- 25 -
Before He Came I Felt Him Drawing Near, As He Neared I Felt the Ancient Fear.

It was only with the coming of the dawn that Iva was able to shake off the conviction that she was observed. She still didn't dare to move out of the rhombus of faint light from the window that surrounded her. The place felt unseelie, she had no word for it in the Republic tongue, perhaps this was the same feeling that Qui-Gon would ascribe to the presence of the Dark Side. Her heart wrenched for her lover, she wanted to share this with him, gather his knowledge. She could not think about him without a yawning gulf of frightening sadness and the potent expectation of renewed intercourse opening up before her, and ever present was a gnawing void of nausea in her stomach. It was a strange affinity they shared, she and the Jedi, diametric yet symmetrical. She had to believe the strength of their wills would prevail. The only thing that drove her on was reunion. So she contented herself for a while to sit in the rising sun, watching its brightening orb progress along the arc it traced in the sky.

She contemplated the book of fairy tales she had found. The last time she'd read one of these stories she'd been, what, eight. Shortly before she had left the Baobhan-sith Cloister to be sent as Princess Seer to Ringan's court. She'd loved the cloister on Cair-deach Sithien, loved playing in the gardens and fields as she learnt to identify herbs, loved mucking about with oils and incense as she learnt to craft spells, loved watching candle flames flicker as she recited words from the shadow book. That last year there she'd loved exploring the threads of future time which spread out like a great river delta in front of her. Oh, she'd loved that with a vengeance. She could have stayed eight forever. But she could never be eight again. She almost wept for her lost innocence, but told herself that any further tears she shed would be for the bittersweet joy of love.

The stories were more gruesome than the versions she recalled. Recent writers, then, had bowdlerised the texts. The language was from her people's remote past, though not too distant to comprehend. The book was old, very old, a thousand years. Perhaps more. It was hard to tell. How had it turned up here? In a treasure trove of abandoned art in a forgotten building on Coruscant, the heart of the Republic, a place, a world, a civilisation she had not heard of until mere days ago. The Jedi claimed not to know of her people on Cair-deil Talamh, Qui-Gon surprised to find them there. Had some of the people left the home worlds long years before, taking their belongings with them, this book amongst their assets? Perhaps others besides the Baobhan-sith had sent probes out amongst the far suns ages ago, attracted the attention of some anonymous collector. Had beings from the Republic covertly visited Cair-deil Talamh before? She told herself it wasn't necessarily a Sith who had brought the book into the Republic's territories, but was there a deeper link between her people and the slave masters, the Ancient Evil. How could she resolve this mystery? Not by sitting here.

Obi-Wan shifted around in his sleep, but didn't rouse. He lay slumped on the floor, his breathing an almost snore, his adolescent limbs awkwardly arranged in his slumber. Iva considered kicking him awake, but thought better of it. She thought on how he might even look attractive one day, soon, when he had grown a little more into his features. He adored his Master, it was so obvious, he thought that she had threatened that affinity and she could not come between them further. Why was no relationship ever straightforward?

She stared at the book, at her hands, without really seeing them. It seemed all so remote and unimportant. But it wasn't unimportant was it? She was important enough to warrant investigation, enough to warrant destruction. She had a mission, but someone or some organisation wanted something she possessed. Her tools? Not those, the Jedi had tried to claim those, to lock them away with other dark artifacts. Her power then. Or was it her very self they wanted, her physical form. She turned her hands over, studied them. She thought them only ordinary hands, though she was proud that her fingers were slender and the nails perfect ovals, they could look so graceful when she weaved her magic.

She had none of these midi-chlorians Qui-Gon spoke of. That made her different. Enough to tear apart to find the difference? Did her cells harbour some unknown secret - the thing that gave her the power she understood to come from the Goddess, from the energy that composed the universe? She had plenty of secrets, she thought wryly. It frightened her to think these people, the ones who wanted her, might be privy to them? Qui-Gon didn't know them. Which meant the Jedi didn't know them. At least if they did then not widely. Did this Yoda know? Was that why he had given the order for her destruction? And if he did, what danger was Qui-Gon now in?

She sought to quell her unease, if not find an answer, by prowling the spaces between the works of art in this storehouse of a room. She had explored less than a third perhaps when she turned a corner between two stacks of boxes and came face to face with last night's mad creature.

She froze.

Its eyes flared as it spied her.

Her teeth clenched, her jaw tightened, she was unable to tear her eyes away from its loathsome face.

It came towards her.

No sound escaped her lips though she wanted to scream out. She wasn't drawing breath. Her heart palpitated in her throat. Her stomach tensed. She couldn't run. She couldn't move. She couldn't think.

It smiled horribly, lopsidedly, its teeth yellowed and its skin pitted. It touched one icy finger to the pentagram on her cheek, its watery eyes herding her into insanity. "My pretty," it said, its voice hoarse as though unused.

She screamed then, and her scream reverberated between the art. It didn't seem to ever end.

Obi-Wan found her and shook her until she quietened. "Where is it?" she yelled at him, wriggling out of his grasp to go looking. But the thing had fled, slipped between the dust and the shadows, and disappeared again.

She touched her cheek, her skin felt frostbitten. Not from the creature's coldness of touch so much, as from the core of its inhumanity.

"It comes and goes with ease," Obi-Wan said, ignoring her distress. "There must be more hidden passages."

He apologised then, sheepishly, for his tardy awakening. She shrugged, perhaps he saw it as his failing as a Jedi but she didn't care. He walked away from her.

"Come on," he called back. "Let's get moving."

He led the way back to the force wall. Iva could see the shimmer, the insubstantiality in it now, unreal but convincing enough to the casual glance. Obi-Wan stepped through. She took a careful breath, her throat still raw from her scream, and followed him. She anticipated resistance, thought that it might feel like passing through viscous liquid, but only a slight chill passed through her.

***

"What do you mean, they spent the night in the relic cache?" Grocelind was apoplectic. "You let them wander around at will? Both of them? What possessed you?"

Palpatine smirked. He loved to see this man lose control, but what he really wanted was to see him groveling. That would come. Just give him time. "Just softening them up." His voice oozed with hostility he had no mind to hide.

"But what if they find anything?" Grocelind's face was tinged with a crimson flush.

"I hope they do." Palpatine knew the seeds of terror had already been sown. That little secret down there, the skeleton in his family closet, was seeing to that. "The woman won't be sure of anything when she comes out of the safe house, not even the Jedi. The boy will believe he has failed his Master. She'll be glad of my protection." And glad of my bed, he hoped.

"This was never part of the arrangement. It was only her tissue we needed." The under-secretary fumbled with his papers, covering his perturbation. "I must speak with my superior. I need confirmation that this can continue."

Now, Palpatine knew, he had him. "And I must ask, Grocelind. Who exactly do you have to confirm this with? Not politico-medical affairs surely? Nor the security division. I thought you had autonomy there."

The last vestiges of Grocelind's self-control broke, his face puce with anger. "Don't toy with me, Senator." The bureaucrat's voice seethed with panic. "I will get back to you with further instruction."

Palpatine took a long draught of his wine, afterwards holding up the crystal glass to the light, drinking in the refracted beams. It was probably time to bring in the young Jedi and the Sith witch anyway. Before awkward questions started being asked. Even C'Baoth couldn't dissemble the facts to the Jedi for long. If he could just possess a Jedi like Qui-Gon Jinn, his power would be compounded. Patience, he reminded himself, that will come.

He instructed his aide to call in his personal bodyguard and settled back in his chair to plan out his next moves.

***

Obi-Wan found himself in a space little bigger than a store room, but one containing equipment for data storage and processing. Where the other had been a vast store of great value, this was a room of vast knowledge. Whether it had an equivalent value or not he did not know, but his suspicions that something untoward, something dark, was going on were compounded again. Who installed this, this equipment? The security committee? Or Palpatine? How far did his involvement go? The Senator might not be involved at all. He might be just another victim.

Obi-Wan had already started scanning through the main screen displays before Iva crossed the barrier behind him.

"What is all that?" she asked him.

"Wait," he snapped back, not welcoming the interruption. He opened what he took to be the main file. A cybergenetics project. He wasn't sure what that could entail. It didn't sound wholesome. A lot of information about exogenesis and the augmentation of cells with biosiliconium. Cybernetics, perhaps. He wished his familiarity with the subject was deeper, he couldn't understand the half of it. He ran through several screen displays, concentrating hard to record them in his mind's eye so he could relay the details to Qui-Gon later.

Several screens later, he ventured into a data base of genetic records. Several names he recognised, Palpatine's was among them, but one leapt out at him. Iva's. They had a record on Iva already. But she'd been here less than a day. He turned to look back at her.

"Have you found something?"

"Something, yes." He opened the file on her. "This is you."

"Me?" She looked at him puzzled.

"Your DNA. A record of your genetic material," he explained.

"My essence?"

"I suppose."

"How did it get here?"

Obi-Wan cross-referenced the file coding. "It's the sample Qui-Gon took when you left Khar Delba." He watched the chill of cold emotions cross her face. He felt it too.

She said it before he could. "Why would Qui-Gon let them have this?" She looked at him, tremulous.

"He wouldn't give it to them. He wouldn't." He said it to reassure himself. "Someone else could have taken this off the cruiser's data bank."

She didn't look entirely confident. "Why is it here?"

"I don't know. I'm not a geneticist." He paged through the coded listing. "There are markers. I don't know what for."

Before he had a chance to delve further, a presence, rippling along the flux of the Force, moving towards them, alerted him. He jumped to his feet. "We have to get out of here." He made a dash for the wall projection, grabbing Iva's wrist as he brushed past her. He felt an eldritch tingle from the amulet she wore, but there wasn't the time to ponder the significance of its dark bite.

Dragging her behind him, he ran into the outer room and headed towards the corridor. No, that was the direction from which he sensed the approaching danger. And he didn't yet know if there was a way out through the art room. Better to make a stand here than in the maze through there. They just might be able to make it out into the corridor.

Three security guards entered the room, blaster rifles raised.

Iva backed away, eyes darting for a place of refuge, her hand raised to draw a sign in the air. But there was no safety here.

Obi-Wan, bereft of his light sword, wished he had the physical capabilities of his Master and were able take out the men with his fists. He had neither the requisite skill nor Qui-Gon's weight. He gathered the Force, reeling its power into him and then flung it out along the length of his arm. The Force push repelled the first man, throwing him clear across the room, his blaster flying out of his hands. Obi-Wan threw himself forward, knocking the second man off-balance as he passed him, sliding across the floor, grasping for the gun. But before he could reach it, the last guard had already marched forward and seized Iva by the arm, holding her in front of him.

"Stop, or I'll shoot her," he threatened, his blaster raised towards her head.

Obi-Wan skidded to a halt, fighting to retain his balance. A last stand here wouldn't do anybody any good.

Iva still held the book of ancient tales, clasped tightly to her chest. The third guard pulled it from her hands. "I hope you weren't thinking of stealing this," he said. "Theft is a prosecutable offence in the Republic."

"And is the pilfering of antiquities from ancient cultures permitted then?" She looked defiant, her chin raised, her eyes sparkling.

"Don't get funny with me, lady." He slid the book inside his jacket.

The guard on the floor picked himself up, straightening his tunic. He was an officer, clearly embarrassed to have been overcome by a youth in front of his men. "You're to come with us," he barked at Obi-Wan, the grudge apparent in his stance. "Don't try anything else."

- 26 -
The Ghosts of My Life Grow Wilder Than Before.

Iva was exhausted. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep, find nameless respite from the days torments and exhaustions. After the discoveries of the morning, she and Obi-Wan had been marched back down the same dank passage, up the same winding stair, along the same corridor, past the room where they had first been held, and left again in a barely furnished interrogation room best described as a cell.

Of all the meaningless questions that followed, Iva found Obi-Wan's, after their inquisitors had left, to be the most awkward to answer.

"Why didn't you use those bracelets on the guards?" he taunted, nodding at her wrists.

Her hands grasped the jewelery defensively. "They are not weapons," she told him, seeing the lack of belief in his eyes. She did not want to reveal herself unnecessarily, expose her talents to eyes which could not see her true worth. "I am sworn to harm none." That was the truth. Though like the Jedi she supposed there was nothing wrong in defending herself.

At her insistence, Obi-Wan let her be, but only after he had warned her intently that his suspicions had been aroused further about the Security Committee's continued involvement in the machinations of some mysterious scheme, the insignia on the guard's uniforms corroborated it, he said.

But she didn't want to worry about that now, although she did not want to face another day without knowing Qui-Gon's fate, she could not face another night without sleep.

***

"There has been no sighting or word of them at Palpatine's apartments, though he owns several other properties on Coruscant yet to be checked." Plo Koon's report echoed in Qui-Gon's tortuous slumber. Iva's voice reverberated around the void of his sleep, lilting words he did not understand but which kindled his ardour. He called to her again and again. "Where are you?"

She came, descending like an angel, from the blackness into blackness. Time slowed and she moved with precise grace. Time sped and she changed her pose with a snap. The material that clothed her so diaphanous it flowed around her like water, her hair streaming out within the folds of blue-green cloth like red-brown seaweed in the tidal flow. He wanted to drown in her. Her arms outstretched, circled, for balance, like a dancer poised on points. One leg straight, its twin bent, turned out, the foot nestled in against the opposing knee. Her body formed a symbol. "What does it mean?" he asked her.

She kissed him, a vampire's kiss upon the throat, greedy for blood. He was lost in a whirl of love and time had vanished. He wanted her to take more. He wanted her to take it all.

"Come with me," she said to him.

And he reached up to her, his vision blurred by the material that shrouded her. The sound of beating wings suffused the air.

He turned over in his sleep.

Like a sprite she flew down into the room where he slept and carried him away in her arms. She was naked beneath the veiling fabric, the billowing gauze like wings arising from her arms in an unfelt updraft. She whispered to him, questions couched in words he could not understand. He answered her, not knowing how or what he spoke. She conducted him through a strange and barren land under a gibbous moon and showed him wonders and mysteries.

She let him fall at last, spiraling to the unseen landscape below. She was there ahead of him, caught him before he hit the ground. She carried him on into the moist earth. She was one with him in the cold, still grave, waiting for rebirth.

He awoke with an erection, rolled over, expectant, but Iva wasn't there. He jolted to full awareness. His body intolerant of the enforced separation from her, so ready for her, that the pressure threatened his rationality. Her absence threatened his sanity. His excitation craved release. He sought solace in the shower. He was so aroused that the pressure in his loins was discharged at the barest touch, the merest thought of her.

But it would take more than physical relief to undam the pressure in his soul.

***

As Iva dreamed, she dreamed with lucid intent. It was her penance to search for consolation in the dreamscape. She reached in, cold, so cold. She willed herself forward, on into the darkness, on into the barrier holding this world from what was beyond.

She walked on hot coals. Through a forest of petrified trees and smoke and pain under a livid sky. And still she was cold.

"I'm here." She called out, confident of her strength. "Come and get me."

A bird, black and bony, with torn feathers, flew at her. "What is your name?"

A second came to bother her. "Who let you in?"

A third worried at her hair. "Why are you here?"

And more came to join the crowd. "Where are you going?"

"Questions. Enough questions." She batted them away with her arms. "I want answers." They were silent.

"So," she said, obstinately. "Where is my husband?"

"Don't you know?" One of the crows flew at her face. Another perched on her shoulder and pecked at her ear. "What are you reading?" Yet another knocked the book out of her hand.

She picked it up. The book of Taleach fairy tales. "Where did this come from?"

"Don't you know?" A bird hovered in front of her face. A second joined it. "She knows nothing," it said. They were gone.

"Wait. Come back. Show me the way."

"Too many questions?" A hand, large and strong, grasped her shoulder. She turned. Qui-Gon stood beside her, pale and insubstantial; he seemed younger, his dream self, than she remembered. "You called me, Iva."

"I found this." She showed him the book. "Where he dwells." She pointed. To a wreck of a being, perhaps a man, the guardian of a thousand ancient art works, hunched under the charred, skeletal remains of an ancient tree. The man wept.

Iva took Qui-Gon's hand and together they walked over to where the man was sitting. Tears glistened on his ravaged cheek. Amongst the tears, sorrow was written on the relic of his face.

He turned to them as they approached, pulling his tattered robe across his mouth.

"This is the place of the Dark Lords," he screeched. The sorrow turned to anger... "Beware, they are hungry." ...and back to sorrow. His limp gaze focused weakly on Qui-Gon. "They will eat your pretty baby all up."

Iva reached down to touch the man gently. He crumbled into dust.

She walked with Qui-Gon through the broken land for a time, silent. Then she opened the book and read aloud as they walked. And as she read the land was remade around them. Grass grew. Leaf buds opened. An owl hooted. Cair-deil Talamh was created anew as the land she had grown up in.

And on the border between dream and sleep, she parted from her lover with regret that the dreamland was not their's to colonise.

***

Obi-Wan was standing outside the cell, his back to the closed door. And he had no idea how he had got there. A barely familiar, cloying smell was all about him. A figure, composed of shadow, stood across the corridor from him. Facing him.

He couldn't move. He couldn't lift his feet from the floor. The shadow had moved. No, it was still there. Shadow within shadow.

He felt like hours were fleeing in seconds. His life passing away.

The shadow, the ghost, flew at him like a dervish. Hit him with a force that slammed him back against the door. And then it was gone.

He smelt the blood, before he realised it was his, before he felt it seeping - hot and viscous - onto his stomach, before it trickled through his pubic hair, into his groin, down his thighs. Black and putrid, like the leaked semen of some demon lover.

Obi-Wan looked down, felt the pain, and fell forward. And fell. And fell. And thought that he must stay awake. Just stay awake.

Obi-Wan surfaced from the nightmare, sweating, the sheets swathing his limbs. It was only a dream, he thought. Iva was sitting by the window. He called her name. She turned her head. Her eyes were star-spangled orbs. All the blackness of space was there, lit by a myriad sparking points of distant fire. Mesmerised as he was by those eyes, even as he was drawn into their depths, a movement from the corner of his eye pulled his attention away from them. And he screamed. The homunculus standing by the arm of the chair... and screamed ...its face twisted in a rictus grin... and screamed ...its eyes pinning him with a lascivious glare... and screamed ...bent forward to kiss Iva with its ruined mouth... and screamed himself into oblivion.

Out of oblivion.

"Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, wake up." Iva was shaking him. "You're having a nightmare. Wake up."

"What?" He rubbed the dust of sleep from his eyes.

The ripples in the Force were strong, something was breaking in to his thoughts, tearing at the fabric of the world.

The floor tremoured. Dust fell from the cracks between the stones. Light forced its way between the blocks. This was not another dream. This was reality. He couldn't shut it out.

The wall opened.

- 27 -
Obscure As We Are, There's Only a Hair's Breadth Between Us.

Qui-Gon knew it wasn't dreams or the premonitions of cataclysm that overwhelmed him, but the knowledge that he had brought Iva to the brink of peril. He remembered her words on Cair-deil Talamh, evil can thrive in the light. The Living Force prompted him that the darkness had established itself in the heart of the Republic. Perhaps even here, in the heart of the Temple. But he knew he could not speak of this before the Council.

The motion before them today was his loyalty. The worry, the unspoken concern that would be in all their minds, was that he had embraced the Dark Side. He couldn't shake the suspicion that he had, and didn't know it. Whatever he had gained from his journey into darkness, some part of him, he felt, had been amputated on Cair-deil Talamh. He had been dead, buried in a dark place, lost to the Force. Perhaps he should have accepted his death then. Instead he had gone on living, reborn into the destiny Iva had chosen for him. He had accepted a role in that destiny freely, even though he could only guess at its, at her, intent for him. He had embraced the changes that had wrought in him, welcomed the new sensations it had brought. How did others see the change?

He still felt like himself. But who was that really? He had been taken from his family, his culture, before he had even formed his own identity, before he knew who he was. Everything about him had been shaped by the Jedi, by its Code. If not for that he might have known the bliss and sweet contentment of love long before this. Here he was, nearing fifty, and unsure as to who he really wanted to be. But if the Jedi did practice a form of benign brain-washing, and he had been complicit in that, not least with Xanatos, he wasn't the one to whom it was given to fight for change. His priority was to fight for Iva's freedom. But gnawing at his mind was the notion that the Light and the Dark could never be truly separated. In her. And, now, in him.

And that was why he was here, standing alone amongst the circle of twelve.

***

Obi-Wan peered down the gloomy tunnel revealed behind the wall. "Do you think we should go in?" he asked.

"Well, yes." Iva sighed with exasperation. "That was why it opened. It's an invitation."

He looked at her dubiously.

"Whatever it was we ran into down there before," she continued, "wants us to go. I don't think it's the danger we took it for. At least not the most significant one."

***

"Fallen then, he has not?" Yoda fixed Mace Windu with his penetrative stare.

Mace returned Yoda's gaze coolly. "I do not believe so, Master Yoda, nonetheless I have concerns."

"Allied with these Baobhan-sith he is now, yes."

Qui-Gon had given his report on the visit to Khar Delba, told them everything - almost everything. Some things, he thought wryly, were not for the Council's ears. Now the Council discussed him, his actions, as though he were not there. Yet he bided his time with abundant patience. Waiting for the moment to press his case.

"His loyalties are not in doubt." A murmur of agreement with Mace's words rippled round the chamber.

"Unclear her loyalties are." Yoda still did not refer to Iva by name.

Oppo Rancis, his regal tones emanating from his mass of hair, addressed Qui-Gon directly. "You are sure of the Lady's loyalties, Jinn?"

All he lived for, all he loved, was held hostage by those he had always thought were on the same side as he. "I am in no doubt. The concept of the Force is novel to her. But there is only honourable intent in her heart." He placed a suggestion in their midst. "But perhaps you should ask Lady Ibhormheith. I cannot answer for her."

***

The creature was waiting for them in the murk. What was it? Obi-Wan could only sense its lunacy, mangled thoughts fragmented by unchecked emotion. Obi-Wan stepped towards it, ready to attack. But with movements like lightening, it had him, holding him by his throat against the wall. He soon ceased struggling, it wasn't worth the effort. He was reminded of his dream. His body relaxed, his mind remained alert.

Iva approached without trepidation. He admired her calm, she showed no signs of panic, a little apprehension maybe, but she was controlling that. Perhaps she wasn't so useless after all.

She raised herself to her full height, her chin at a haughty angle. "You have something to tell us?" She was defying it.

"He is coming for you," it said.

"Who is?"

"Brother mine."

"Who is your brother?"

"Like that we are." It held up its other hand, two fingers crossed one over the other.

"Friends? Conspirators? You and your brother?"

"No, not my brother, my father."

Iva shook her head in irritation. "Who is your father?"

"The Krath. Me." It thumped its chest proudly with the fingertips of its splayed hand.

***

"Elusive the dark side is, through illusion it hides itself, masters the mind, it does." Yoda was in full condemnatory flow. "Comes from a place of darkness, she does..."

Qui-Gon clung to the memory of Iva's eyes, pure and unsullied by evil intent. "The complexities of the force cannot be reduced to a battle between the light and the dark," he asserted.

But Yoda wasn't listening. "...Darkness there is in her, then. "

"You let her take hold of your heart?" Mace tested his motives.

"It was the will of the Force."

"Said she has no place in the Force, you did." Yoda's voice was deepening with import.

Qui-Gon remained resolute. "Meeting her was the will of the Force." He would insist on it, regardless.

Yoda's grumble resonated around the chamber. Mace motioned him to silence. Addressed Qui-Gon again. "You were aware of the regulations, the need to request dispensation for marriage. Yet, you went ahead with such a binding step with no thought for the consequences."

"The circumstances were confining."

"Neglected your Jedi duties and obligations, you did." Yoda would not be silenced.

Qui-Gon turned on his revered master. "And what of my duties and obligations to all living beings? Lady Ibhormheith has a right to life and liberty, the ethical imperatives of the law." He pulled the neurone implant from its place of concealment in his sleeve. "We are a moral and spiritual order. When did we condone the use of such implements of torture?"

A fireball of protests echoed round the walls.

"Neutralised, the Sith must be. Or destroyed." There was a touch of vehemence in Yoda's tone which disrupted the even flow of the Force in the chamber, alarming the Council members.

***

"Who is Krath? You're Krath? I don't understand you." Iva stepped closer to the creature. "Let Obi-Wan go, he can help you."

It looked at the boy in disgust. "No. He's Jedi. Enemy."

"Then I am your enemy too. I am aligned with the Jedi."

"No. You're Sith lady."

"I am not a Sith." A trace of fury entered Iva's voice. Obi-Wan could sense her offense at the continued allusion. Was it disavowal?

The creature was adamant. "He said you were."

"Who?"

"Brother mine, my father."

"Which of them? Both of them?"

"Twins," it smiled, almost preening itself. "One and the same."

***

Qui-Gon continued his denunciation of Yoda's claims. "Iva is not a Sith. Nor is she aligned with the Sith. There have been no Sith on Khar Delba or any other of their worlds for five thousand years. Only the descendents of human slaves. Since when have we condemned without investigation?"

"Proof I was given. Authorisation I did not need."

"Proof? Of what?" Qui-Gon was taken aback. The meaning of it eluded him.

"Of her descent from the fallen Jedi. Of her dark allegiance."

Plo Koon leapt to his feet. "Where is this proof? I demand to see it."

"Return to your seat, Master Koon." Mace attempted to regain control. "You are new to the Council. We are aware of your friendship with Qui-Gon but this is not an acceptable way to conduct business."

But Koon remained standing. Exchanged a furtive glance with Qui-Gon. "I have met this woman, Master Windu. As have you. She is not of the Dark Side. As you well know."

A hush fell over the chamber.

Finally, Mace broke the silence. "Master Yoda was given full autonomy in this, a full Council decision was not required. Under the circumstances I propose his carte blanche be rescinded. Master Yoda? You accept this?"

Yoda murmured his assent.

***

"A clone." Obi-Wan struggled to get the words out. "It's a clone."

Iva looked, questioningly. "A what?"

He rolled his eyes, pointed at his throat.

Iva thumped the appalling creature a hard blow on the upper arm. "Let him go."

The grip on Obi-Wan's neck relaxed and he darted out of reach of the thing. Deformed it may be, weak it was not.

Iva looked at him, waiting. "He's a clone. I think. A genetic duplicate of the original - whoever that is. Cloning was banned, too many of the attempts ended up physically or psychologically damaged. I didn't know there were any left alive. But it must be one of the early experiments."

***

It was Mace Windu's place to challenge Yoda. "We must see the evidence."

"Shown to me only, it was."

"What form did it take?"

"Data documents, verifiable."

"Even verifiable data documents can be altered. Who gave you access to this evidence?"

"Master C'Baoth."

"Since when have we accorded C'Baoth our full trust. You believed it? You acted upon it without question?"

"Imperative it is we protect ourselves, all our members," Yoda looked towards Qui-Gon, "...from the dark side."

"You possess the noblest qualities, Master Yoda." Yaddle interrupted the superior council members' debate in her best diplomatic manner, her voice placating. "But you acted rashly. We should reopen the evidence."

"Correct you are as usual, Master Yaddle." Yoda accepted her rebuke and her compliment with unfamiliar humility. "Hasty, I may have been. Flawed, this evidence could be. Ascertain its veracity we must."

Yaddle continued, taking in her fellow members of the Council. "Qui-Gon and Plo Koon defend Lady Ibhormheith's character. We should see her for ourselves."

The Council pronounced its agreement.

Qui-Gon, though he wondered at Iva's reaction to the Council and their's to her, could not hope for more. The only problem was her current whereabouts. He turned to Mace. "You guaranteed the safety of Lady Ibhormheith and Obi-Wan. Master Koon informs me they never arrived at Senator Palpatine's apartments."

Mace looked toward the Kel Dor. Back at Qui-Gon. "The Senator has been held up with affairs of state for most of the last two days. He regrets the confusion. I have assurances he is looking into it with utmost urgency and will do everything he can to find them. The guards that accompanied them are being traced. He will inform us as soon as they are located."

Significant nods passed between Yaddle, Mace and Yoda.

Mace turned to Qui-Gon. "You will excuse us now Master Jinn, the Council has more pressing concerns to discuss at this time. A decision on your status in the order is deferred pending further investigation of Yoda's findings. Meanwhile, you are free to return to your own quarters, but please do not leave the Temple. We will send word as soon as we have any." He was dismissed, and if his career wasn't intact, he had at least won a reprieve for himself and Iva.

***

Iva kept up her barrage of queries, even though her expression said she only grasped obliquely at the meaning of the answers. "This Krath? He's the man that made you?"

The creature, the failed experiment, looked at her intently from under sloping brows. "Many Krath."

"You have many fathers," she shook her head, as if trying to shuffle her thoughts into a semblance of order. "...no, makers?"

"Wait." Obi-Wan recalled his lessons in Jedi history, skimming through his mental notes. "The Krath practiced Sith alchemy, on Teta, during the Great Sith War. But that was a long time ago. Nearly four thousand years."

"These Sith are everywhere." Iva crossed her arms indignantly. "I don't know why you people hound me."

Obi-Wan wished she would shut up, this news concerned him greatly. He had to get to Qui-Gon and share it with him.

"The Krath, here, now." The clone started shuffling away. "Must go."

"Wait." Obi-Wan wanted to know more, needed to know more.

"No, no." The creature turned back to look at him. "Told the Jedi too much. Kill him for it, the Krath will." It smiled at Iva. "Coming for you, pretty lady. And then..." It made a gesture, obviously chilling in its intent, its fingers poked towards its throat, a sound, a stifled glottal hum, then pointed at Obi-Wan. "...for the boy."

Neither Obi-Wan nor Iva moved. Obi-Wan could feel the dark force rising. The creature raised its arm towards the wall, rills of blue-tinged light shot from its fingers. "I'm augmented too," they heard it say as it ducked into the smoking hole in the ferrocrete.

- 28 -
A Legacy Of Tears That Never Quite Dried.

Obi-Wan crept silently after the creature, keeping to the wall and using the Force to sense anything in his path that might make a noise or draw attention to him. He was glad he'd told Iva to wait behind, he hoped she would do as she was told.

He didn't have to follow far. He heard a voice ahead, the words indistinct but clearly berating the creature. He swallowed hard. Felt the surge of adrenaline. Curbed his excitement. Perhaps he was about to find something out, something of great import. This was the bit he enjoyed most about being a Jedi, though he knew Qui-Gon would chastise him for it. It had got him into trouble on occasion before, his curiosity, his spying.

He crept forward, his eyes adjusting now to the gloom. Saw the creature ahead. Another man with it. Even as he questioned who it was, recognition struck him.

He stepped back with a sharp intake of breath. The bureaucrat from the Security Compound. Grocelind. He'd known it. He'd warned Iva. The Security Committee were still after her. Perhaps they, with Grocelind running the show, were involved with the Krath. With the Dark Side, he thought, a shiver running up his spine. He'd gone with Qui-Gon all the way to the Sith worlds and here was the Dark Side with a foothold in the Republic. And he was the one who'd discovered it. He told himself he shouldn't be so thrilled, to have found this thing out, but it flushed him with excitement. He had to stay calm, focussed. Be ready to answer all Qui-Gon's questions. He concentrated on Grocelind's words. But he could only make out snatches. He wished he could get closer, but he didn't dare risk discovery.

His ears pricked alert as he caught mention of Yoda's name. Something to do with C'Baoth, he strained but couldn't hear more. Was Yoda in league with C'Baoth? Or been compromised by him? He strained harder to listen. The words Republic, Palpatine emerged from the whispers. Was the Senator behind it? Or a victim of the same conspiracy? The creature had taken to answering Grocelind back. It was insidious? Was that what it said? Whatever else was meant by it, Obi-Wan felt sure there was a corrupting influence at work in the Republic, an influence which had cast its shadow over the Jedi order.

He could learn no more here. Grocelind was already frog-marching the creature away. He quickly ran back to where he had left Iva, unconcerned now about any noise he might make.

But she was gone.

Damn her, why did she have to go wandering off? But perhaps, he thought, chastising himself, she had been discovered and taken somewhere. Not that he cared about her, he told himself, he just wanted to keep his pledge to Qui-Gon to look after her.

He rushed back into the interrogation room.

Relief washed over him. There she was, kneeling on the floor offering up some spell or prayer to her pagan goddess. She certainly chose her moments, Obi-Wan thought, but he couldn't deny her her indulgences, maybe it comforted her. She had told him things about his future but he wasn't sure if they weren't just the ramblings of a fortune teller. Perhaps her power was like the Force, plenty of Jedi could perceive aspects of the future, he just couldn't understand her worship of it as a living entity, a person.

Before he could come to any conclusions, his thoughts, and her devotions, were interrupted by the arrival of a guard. "We're moving you, get ready," the man snapped.

Iva took her time, rising slowly from the floor where she knelt, fiddling excessively in gathering up her coat and folding it over her arm. She looked out the corner of her eye at Obi-Wan, smiling slightly, as if she were up to something. He thought she might be doing it to tease the guard, though he couldn't imagine why. Some feminine ploy, perhaps?

Suddenly, she started weeping. "I can't stand this anymore. I want to go home," she wailed like a tiny child separated from its parent. The guard looked away, fazed by the show of female emotion. Obi-Wan got the distinct feeling that the tears she shed were crocodile tears, but the wave of emotion emanating from her felt real enough. He didn't know how to respond. He patted her on the shoulder.

Finally, she composed herself, indicated her readiness to go. Obi-Wan couldn't read her expression. She seemed almost gleeful.

This time the guard showed them to a small holding room near the building's entrance. "Don't make yourselves comfortable," he warned, "the aircar will be ready shortly."

Passing through the larger outer office Obi-Wan had noticed his sword and comlink lying on a cluttered desk, as though forgotten amongst the other litter of business. He glanced through the windowed door panel, calculating the Force required to call the sabre into his hand.

Iva followed his gaze. "Can you reach it?" she asked.

"Of course." He didn't understand her mood changes. "What was that about?" he asked.

"I'll provide a distraction. Give you an opportunity to escape."

"How?"

"They want me for something. I can throw them into disarray. Make them think they are losing me. You can use their panic to get away."

"I can't leave you."

"Yes. You can. Take this opportunity. Run. Get to Qui-Gon. Make amends with him. Make it right between you. And tell him, tell him from me, the next move is his. Tell him also..." She paused. "Tell him, I am in his heart."

What did she have in mind? Her determination worried him. "You have to come too." He'd promised Qui-Gon.

"I'll be too slow. I'll hold you back."

"I can't let you do this."

"One of us has to get word out. It's me they want. They'll kill you." She mimicked the creature's gesture of death. "Remember."

He couldn't think of an argument to dissuade her. He hesitated. She had him at a disadvantage. It should be him, a Jedi, who formulated the plan. "It's too dangerous," he began lamely.

"I have to stay," she went on. "I might find out more. I must find out more. I have to know what they want from me. Why I am important to them."

"It's too dangerous," he told her again. "The risk isn't worth it." She dismissed his words with a wave of her hand.

He felt torn between duty and opportunity.

Iva pulled a roll of paper from her cleavage. She handed it to him. "Give these to Qui-Gon." It was pages from the book she had found, the one recently annotated, the other the monstrous illustration. They were scarcely evidence of a conspiracy but he took them anyway.

"We don't have much time." She was urging him to accept this thing she proposed. Something he didn't want to do because in his heart a still, small voice prompted him to abandon her to her fate. So he could restore Qui-Gon to the Jedi. So he could have his Master all to himself again.

She read his hesitation well. "I can survive this," she said, bearing down on him, forcing him towards the wall. "I will survive this." Each step she took towards him, was one step he backed away.

He'd almost forgotten how pointed her teeth were. Reminding him of some primal threat. Each word she uttered revealed them to him.

"Bear in mind, Obi-Wan, that Qui-Gon is mine now. His corporeal form belongs to the Baobhan-sith. His soul belongs to me. Take his wisdom and take his learning, but do not encroach on what is mine."

Each word she uttered chilled him and enthralled him. Maybe it was just his noticing those teeth again, maybe they really did extend and sharpen infinitesimally.

She gripped his chin, pushed his head back, studied his neck, laughed. "Be strong, Obi-Wan."

Yes, her teeth did seem to elongate. He feared she was going to tear out his throat with those teeth. If she had, he would have welcomed it, but she let him go, pulled up her sleeve, raised her arm to her mouth. And bit at the flesh of her own wrist.

The points of those teeth easily pierced the skin. She almost seemed to be enjoying it. Obi-Wan became suddenly more afraid of her. In awe of her. Her eyes looked up at him through her lashes as her head bent over her wrist. He could see her throat undulate as she swallowed. She was drinking her own blood. He moved away from her.

The vision of terror that she had become suddenly softened. She was only a woman, a pale, slight woman, bleeding heavily from a gash on her arm.

"Run, Obi-Wan - and don't stop. Get out of here. Tell Qui-Gon what you have discovered. Do it for me."

She sank back onto a chair. Her arm stiff at the elbow, the blood flowing down her fingers in gushing waves to pool on the floor.

A droplet stained the hem of her dress, the scarab green darkening to beetle black.

Obi-Wan beat on the door, shouted for all he was worth. "Help, help her. She's bleeding. She's bleeding to death."

The guard answered his cries. And suddenly there was a great furore. The guard was shouting for help now, another came running, the third making a frantic call on his comlink. The guards were already distracted, trying to staunch the flow of her blood. Obi-Wan took his chance and darted through the open door. He pulled his lightsabre to him as he ran through the outer office, forget the comlink he thought, he'd have to manage without that, and Force sped down the corridor towards a set of double doors leading onto open air.

Just as the guard had said there was an aircar waiting. He tossed the driver out of her seat before the woman could react and he was away. He calmed his breathing and concentrated on his driving, quickly nosing the car into the busy lane of a traffic stream and searching for clues as to the best direction to take to the Jedi Temple.

But under his excitement, he couldn't stop himself wondering whether he hadn't after all made the wrong choice. The image from his nightmare, the image of that thing molesting Iva, wouldn't dislodge itself from his thoughts.

- 29 -
The Waste In the Fever and Heat, How I Wish You Were Here With Me Now.

Obi-Wan slipped through the Temple halls with his hood pulled low over his face. He knew no one was openly staring at him, but these were Jedi and he knew full well they took everything in as they saw without seeming to look.

His only intent now was to get to Qui-Gon, tell him all that had transpired. He did not want to have to explain himself to others first, others who might not regard Iva's life as valuable. Somehow, after what he'd seen, after what he'd seen her do, he felt protective of her, of her power. He didn't understand it and he couldn't explain it. It was the equal of the Force. It could overwhelm the Force.

He still couldn't trust her, but he knew it wasn't the Dark Side at work in her. That aspect of the Force he felt certain had been present in the art room. And in the passage behind the wall when the clone had a hold of him. He recognised it for what it was because he had felt an inkling of the same thing when Qui-Gon had fought Xanatos.

He didn't know where Qui-Gon was, and he didn't want to test the bond for fear of alerting someone else of his presence, he only knew that he had to get to his master's quarters before drawing attention to himself.

***

"She's attempted to harm herself." The security officer wasn't sure how Palpatine would take the news. The senator's reaction surprised him, the smile was transparent. The officer had been expecting a dressing down.

"Badly?" Palpatine asked.

"Some loss of blood. We caught it in time."

"I'll send a medical team. In case."

"Just before, she seemed distraught."

"Good. This is excellent news."

"But, sir..." This time the officer could not expect a favourable reaction. "Kenobi escaped." He cringed in advance of a verbal onslaught.

"Did he indeed?" Palpatine's voice betrayed no anger, but an opaque light seemed to fall on the room in which the guard sat. "That was very remiss of you." The officer felt his chest constricting. "Never mind." Palpatine seemed to fall deep into thought.

The feeling abated, the officer breathed again. "Orders, sir," he snapped, regaining composure quickly. He waited, discomfort suppressed, as Palpatine's holo image remained silent.

Finally, the politician spoke. "Don't move her. Yet. When the medic has seen her, sedate her and take her to my winter residence. Find my brother and take him there too. Send one of your men ahead to prepare the upper rooms. I have Senate business to attend to. I'll be there in two hours."

***

Qui-Gon looked down, away from Plo Koon's face, rendered vacant by his mask. Plo here was with him. And Mace, although it was always hard to tell through that man's thick shell. If Yaddle was on his side, then Oppo Rancis would probably follow. It wasn't much, but it gave him a core to build his hopes on. That if was a stumbling block though. Despite Yaddle often carrying Yoda's vote with her's, on occasion she only spoke against him to tease him and voted with him when it came time to the count.

Yoda continued to be a problem. Qui-Gon couldn't understand what motivated the elder Jedi. Distrust of Iva, animosity even, was understandable. But this destructive malevolence he directed at her was perplexing.

He turned his thoughts away from the Council into the silence of inner space, staring over the bowls of fragrant green o-cha he was sharing with Plo.

The Kel Dor slurped at his drink, taking the liquid in through the retractable feeder in his breathing mask, drawing Qui-Gon back to the moment. For a being so implacably mannered, it was ironic that his atmospheric protection gave him all the refinement of an uncouth freighter pilot.

Qui-Gon jumped at a sudden sharp noise at the door.

"Enter," he called, even as he berated himself for his lack of mindfulness. Obi-Wan fell into the room in a tumble and hastily closed the door behind him.

Qui-Gon stood up abruptly, looked at his Padawan in alarm. "Obi-Wan," he huddled him into the centre of the room. "What are you doing here?" Questions gushed out of him. "Where is Iva? What has happened?"

"She's hurt."

Shock flooded Qui-Gon's mind. There was something Obi-Wan was not saying. "Dying?" He didn't want to ask but had to know.

"No." Obi-Wan didn't sound certain. "Well, I couldn't tell. Her life-force, it's hard to sense."

Qui-Gon turned to the wall, slamming his open palm against it. Dropped his head so his forehead rested against the smooth surface. "I know," he said sadly.

Plo Koon stood too. Placed his hand on Jinn's arm. "Be still. Let the boy compose himself."

Qui-Gon stepped back, motioning Obi-Wan to sit, but the apprentice paced nervously.

It all came out in a rush then. The deserted building, the treasure house, the genetic records, the creature, cloning, Grocelind, the Krath, Iva's role in his escape - Qui-Gon and Plo were staring at him astounded, intrigued, startled by his tale. "She was bleeding out," he blurted finally, breathlessly.

"A little blood can look like a lot, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon sensed how much his apprentice needed the reassurance. So, for that matter, did he. What was Iva, that she would do, could do, such a thing? What power did she possess? Was she really a dead thing, with only the semblance of life, a void in the Force around her? She spoke passionately of the cycle of life, death and rebirth, of the reincarnation of an eternal spirit. Perhaps then she was an undying soul, careless of a physical body she could slip on and off with ease. Didn't Jedi lore tell him that he was not a being of crude matter, but of light.

"Master?" Obi-Wan's agitated flood of words had dried. He was diffident now.

"Yes, Padawan."

"Iva. She's..." The boy seemed unsure of what to say next.

Qui-Gon felt a shiver of unease.

"She's very determined, very brave, I sensed it."

A glimmer of a smile crossed Qui-Gon's face briefly. "Yes," he said thoughtfully. He already knew. But even as he spoke he sensed something else Obi-Wan was desperate to say. "Tell me."

Obi-Wan's eyes were directed towards Plo Koon. "It's alright, Padawan," Qui-Gon encouraged.

"There was an inflection in the Force, Master."

"An inflection?" The low tones of Jorus C'Baoth interrupted the revelation. All three Jedi looked to the doorway where he stood, stroking at his beard, trimmed to a fine point. The man had a gift for Force-enhanced stealth, he'd obviously employed it now while their guard was down to enter the room without betraying his presence.

"N..nothing, it might have been nothing, it was dark, I was scared," Obi-Wan stammered. Qui-Gon noted his apprentice's reticence to say anything in front of C'Baoth with satisfaction. Obi-Wan could be discrete when he needed to, even though he showed an apparent weakness to a superior knight.

"What are you creeping about for C'Baoth?" Plo confronted the self-appointed Jedi Master on Qui-Gon's behalf. "Can't you knock like any decent person." Plo turned his head away, whispered to Qui-Gon, words in his native tongue that he knew his friend would understand and C'Baoth would not, urging caution.

"But I'm here to offer my services." C'Baoth spread his hands wide in a gesture of meekness. "I have information which may be of help."

"Why come to us?" Plo asked aggressively. "Why not go directly to the Council?"

C'Baoth only turned to Obi-Wan. "I am glad to see you safe. Senator Palpatine has been searching for you."

Plo bristled with irritation at such an obvious snub.

Qui-Gon felt the bud of distrust, in C'Baoth and in Palpatine, blossom. "What does the Senator have to say?" He kept his feelings, his concerns for Iva's well-being, closed off.

"Palpatine regrets this misunderstanding. He realised too late that Obi-Wan and the..." C'Baoth paused, "...girl..." - the tone he used to say the word made it sound dangerous and abject, "...had been snatched from under his very nose. He now believes under-secretary Grocelind to be responsible. The Senator suspects Grocelind has been involved in a conspiracy for some time."

Obi-Wan shot Qui-Gon a meaningful glance.

C'Baoth, seeming, or pretending, not to notice, continued speaking. "Grocelind has made himself leader of this group he calls the Krath, he is corrupt but he holds no real power, some minor political sway only. Palpatine believes his support amongst the minor bureaucrat's will crumble quickly now his plot is uncovered."

"How do you know this?" Qui-Gon sensed, but couldn't put his finger on, a flaw in the man's assertions.

"You should know I cannot reveal that, Master Jinn." C'Baoth was infamous for the inroads he had made into the confidences of high political office. As Palpatine's Jedi advisor, he was particularly close to the Senate. "I have my sources but cannot compromise them. Needless to say they are well placed in the Republic hierarchy. I act for them."

"Nonetheless, you must give us some grounds for these allegations, C'Baoth." Plo sounded resolute.

"Palpatine has uncovered evidence of Grocelind's involvement in some illegal operations at the southern pole. There is some suggestion he is planning to move against the Republic with unknown allies outside the Senate. But now his coup d'etat has been uncovered he is preparing to make his escape even as we speak." C'Baoth handed Plo a data document. "This is the requisition order for a long range transport ship to be made ready for departure from the research compound this evening."

Plo handed it on to Qui-Gon. "True, it is signed by Grocelind," he said.

C'Baoth indicated his readiness to leave with a sharp bow of the head towards Obi-Wan. "Now we know where you were held, Senator Palpatine can secure the release of Lady Ibhormheith." He nodded to Qui-Gon. "I'm sure she will be back with you shortly." He stamped out into the corridor.

"I didn't tell him where we were," Obi-Wan blurted as soon as the door closed onto C'Baoth's back.

Plo motioned him to silence. All three waited a good few minutes before resuming their conversation.

When Plo spoke, it was to hearten the boy. "They can get the co-ordinates from the car's on-board router, young Obi-Wan."

"Still, I don't trust him," Qui-Gon began. "I have to get to Iva first." He had given his word not to leave the Temple, but what was one more misdemeanor in a catalogue of misconduct. He felt a surge of consolation, an urging to patience, from Plo. Turned to his friend. "What is it?"

Plo shook his head. "We must think this through. Mace has already requested that Yoda sever all ties with C'Baoth. Yoda should never have taken council from him. Nevertheless, we have no reason to distrust what he says about Grocelind. Obi-Wan has confirmed it." He turned directly to the apprentice. "This inflection? You sensed the Dark Side?"

Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes. Not strong. But something..."

This only compounded Qui-Gon's urgent drive to action. "I'm not leaving Iva in Palpatine's hands any longer."

"Don't jump to conclusions, Qui-Gon." Plo was conciliatory. "We can't be sure either way about Palpatine. He has gathered much support and respect in the Senate and amongst the provincial worlds. And C'Baoth is conceited, yes, but he is still a Jedi and Palpatine's trusted advisor."

"Master, there are also these." Obi-Wan handed the pages from the fairy tales to Qui-Gon. "They were from a book. Iva said it was from her world, from several hundred years ago. It was with all the other artifacts we found."

The pages were a puzzle. Qui-Gon ran several possible scenarios through his mind, but none seemed even barely reassuring. The illustration undoubtedly depicted one of the Sith race, albeit simplified into a picture to scare children with. Some memory persisted, then, of those ancient alchemists, on the Taleach homeworlds. And the annotation indicated that someone here in the Republic knew of the existence of a post-Sith culture on those worlds. Knowledge which pre-existed the discovery of the probe that had led the Jedi, that had led him, there. It pointed, indeed, to a conspiracy. A conspiracy which sought to possess Iva. But who conspired? And to what dire purpose?

He passed the papers to Plo. "What do you make of them?"

"Shouldn't we go to the Council with this." Obi-Wan looked at them both.

"There is not time. We need to get to the pole soon. The Council will take too long debating it." Plo seemed to stare at Obi-Wan. "Anyway, I'm on the Council now."

Obi-Wan stared back. His mouth formed a soundless oh.

Qui-Gon had other thoughts, he stood and ushered his apprentice to the door. "Can you find the building again, Obi-Wan? I want to get Iva first."

"Yes." It had all happened in such a rush and the traffic had been distracting but he had paid particular attention to detail, to direction, to the outlines of the buildings, to familiar landmarks. "Yes, I know I can."

Plo interceded in their exchange, reminding them of duty. "Qui-Gon, be realistic. They may already have moved her. And if what C'Baoth and your Padawan learner say is true the threat to the Republic could be great. We have to apprehend Grocelind. He could be the key."

Qui-Gon almost protested, but could not. It was true. Time was already slipping away as they debated. "You are right, Plo," he sighed. "I will have to trust Palpatine with Iva's life for the time being."

"But master, she's in danger. I sense it."

"I feel it too Obi-Wan, but we must let her make her own choices now. We cannot constrain her." Qui-Gon wanted only to run to her, find her, save her, but other obligations wouldn't allow it. He'd thought about this hard over the last two nights.

Iva was her own person, he had to give her her own freedom. He couldn't protect her forever, the Jedi Order made requirements on him inimical to domesticity with her. He couldn't cosset her away somewhere safe, if such a place existed, to take out when he felt like it, to visit when his commitments permitted. His heart told him to put Iva first, but he had to accept the guidance of Plo Koon. He directed his rationality to overrule all emotion, all love, in this matter. Iva would have to wait. She was an important element in the equation of his life but he couldn't let her interfere in his service to the Republic. He had to trust she could defend herself until he could get to her, or she could get to him. He desired her return to him, but accepted it was in the hands of fate now. He trusted in the fulfillment of the destiny. He'd done all he could. He couldn't force the pace, he had to let it run its course.

But still, leaving her in danger, in the hands of evil men, whatever magical powers she possessed that she hadn't yet made him privy to, it troubled him.

But he acceded to Plo Koon. Let him take charge now.

"Let's go," the Councilor urged. "I'll inform Mace once we're under way."

***

So, she'd harmed herself had she, the Sith witch. Palpatine's dark inner voice sang to him. Oh, how ready, how receptive she would be. The anticipation was blissful.

But the Jedi were ever the hindrance to his plans. C'Baoth had already informed him the Council were wanting to see her. He'd have to act quickly if he was to complete his little ploy. He didn't want to arouse their suspicion, especially now that the Kenobi boy was loose. In all probability he had already bragged all to that hulking Jedi master of his. He was clever, that Kenobi, but he wouldn't convince anyone of course, not even Jinn. The evidence was flimsy at best. Palpatine was confident he had covered his tracks well enough. He'd seen to it that Grocelind would take the fall. If all was going according to plan, by now C'Baoth had played his part in that too. They'd never link him, a respected Senator, to that despicable little bureaucrat.

It was not something, however, which he was going to let spoil his appetite.

- 30 -
Two Worlds and In Between.

"I don't need this," Iva decreed, rising to her feet unsteadily. She pushed the medic away. "I don't wish to be kept here any longer." She felt she had been mauled enough already for one lifetime.

"You've lost a lot of blood." The woman held a transfusion pack in her hands. Was readying it for use.

"I don't need much to survive," Iva whispered, a smile between sweetness and resentment on her lips. She snatched the blood from the medic and flung it across the room, globules staining her hand as she let it go, an arc of fluid jetting onto the guard's uniform. The man looked down, angered.

The medic gasped.

Iva raised her hand, licked at her blood-stained fingers absently, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, studied the wound on her wrist intently. Within moments she seemed to come awake at last, felt the colour return instantly to her pallid cheeks. She stared at the medic who stared back at her aghast.

The guard moved quickly then. Picked up an object from the medic's kit and approached Iva.

She belt a dull blow to the shoulder.

For a moment of frozen time she wondered what had happened. Looked uncomprehendingly at the hypodermic piercing her arm.

Then her awareness of existence faded out.

***

Palpatine prepared himself for his meeting with the Lady Ibhormheith. He took his time over it, readying himself to impress. He could certainly impress the ladies when he tried.

He didn't like to think of himself as a vain man. His looks were not his primary ally in his rise to the top. Vision was. And subterfuge was.

Law. Stability. Progress. That was the order of things in his political vision. And that would be the order he oversaw in the future. A human vision. To be carried out by humans. For humans. Using subterfuge where necessary. It was a deft skill in his hands.

He had always known there was something different about himself, as long as he had had awareness of self. And as long as he had known it, he had embraced it. A powerful seed grew within him. He had cherished it, trained it until it had matured into skills he did not find in others, only perhaps in those of the Jedi Order. But he had hidden his skill well.

Oh, he knew how proficient he was at hiding his talents, his true thoughts. Now his arts surpassed even those of the Jedi themselves. He knew it because he'd practiced his deceit on C'Baoth for some time now, very successfully in fact. The Jedi had such a limited vision. He knew his own to be superior by far.

And now, he would use his expertise to turn the woman from Khar Delba. His one desire was to bend her to his will without her knowledge of the violation.

It didn't matter whether she accepted a place in his bed voluntarily or not. Either way, she would end up there.

And either way, he could use her to get to Jinn.

***

Iva woke, uncertain for a moment who she was, not knowing where she was. It was a different room she saw, a different environment, a different building even. She was in a sumptuous suite, lying on a comfortable bed of fine linens, with flowers, blowsy, odorous blooms not to her taste, on a marquetry dresser. Someone had covered her with her coat. She was alone. She got up, still woozy from artificial sleep, cross at herself for allowing them to do that to her.

She washed in the marbled bathroom. Her eyes, looking back at her from the mirror, betrayed a terrible loneliness, emptier than any she had ever conceived of. She gave up rearranging her hair, without a comb it was beyond help.

There wasn't much to explore, a locked door, a large room, minimally but expensively furnished. There were no clues at the window. She could be a hundred miles away, or just around the corner, or still in the same building, another wing, another floor, with a different view.

It wouldn't be long till evening.

Not another night, she couldn't bear another solitary night.

Escape seemed futile.

The door slid open, she jumped expectantly. Then shrank back against the bed.

The presence of the man who entered overwhelmed and sickened her. His wiry hair swept back in sharp waves from a widow's peak, his pointed weasel face, his insincere smile, these things repulsed her.

He held a hand out towards her. "Lady Ibhormeith. I'm Senator Palpatine. I'm so glad to have found you at last. I hope you're rested."

She sensed he had seduction on his mind. She refused to grace him with a reply.

"Come with me."

His invitation was not welcome, but Iva picked up her coat. Slipped it on.

"You don't need that," he said.

But she did. For reassurance. For protection. He would laugh at her. But the green and the grey, the colours of the hollow hills, held power for her.

"I regret that this misunderstanding has taken place." He showed her to an adjacent dining room, laid out with a luscious repast. Tiny vegetables prettily arranged, petite bowls of succulent sauces, small birds roasted to a golden hue. The smell was provocative. "Please join me."

It didn't interest her, his food.

"They mistake you for a Sith, my dear. It is not a error I will make."

His body was too close to hers. He disgusted her, couldn't he see it on her face? If he could, it didn't bother him. And that was worse.

"The Sith do interest me though."

She broke her silence, curious. "Really. They seem to interest everyone around here but me."

"They were a great race. Of great antiquity and great learning. You have much to thank them for." She snorted at that, but he continued on with his lecture. "You know, of course, the Jedi drove them to extinction."

"Good," she retorted. But his words, if she believed them, disturbed her. What the Sith had done to her people could not be avenged, and genocide could never be countenanced. But she would be damned if she were going to be seen to agree with this man easily. "They were slavers. They enslaved my ancestors." The anger possessed her.

The dark side beckoned and she didn't know how to resist it.

"Not the Sith." Palpatine pressed even closer in towards her. "It was a great opportunity for your people. To serve a great empire. An empire ruled by Jedi." He spoke with ominous emphasis. "Knights of great vision, outcast and abandoned by the Order." His voice softened, lowered to a conspiratorial hush. "Much like your husband I dare say."

She sneered, her lip curling in disagreement. She felt only disgust and distrust. Strong emotions this man wanted to ferment in her.

Palpatine shifted his body away from hers, abandoning his invasion of her personal space. He smiled. "But it is the remnants of their society which interest me."

She raised her eyebrows at him. Did that include her, she wondered.

"For some years now I have been funding exploration into the Deep Core. The object is to chart safe hyperspace routes of course, but I have another reason to promote this project." He indicated the objects, antiquities and ancient relics adorning the room. "I am a connoisseur of the arts."

Palpatine reached over and took Iva's hand in his, she felt tiny hairs rise on her neck as he placed his other hand across it, enclosing it within his brazen flesh. She could sense the exudation of his inherent, tempting charisma, the charm that came with the affluence of wealth and power. Looking about her she could see it inscribed in his apartments, in the rich hangings, the small adornments. She could see it in his attire, the fine braid, the heavy fabric, the generosity of material. He reminded her of Ringan, now so distant on Cair-deil Talamh. This man would use her, just as her foster-father had, if she let him.

He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it. She felt she had been dishonoured. She held back her response for fear of his retaliation and for fear she would learn no more of his plans for her.

He insisted she sit at the table. Took the chair next to hers. He poured wine. Passed a plate of delicacies.

He ate.

She fasted.

His appetite was prodigious. He refilled his glass.

He eyed her from time to time as he dined. She fought to keep her face expressionless. To maintain an unassuming silence. To ground her emotions as Qui-Gon had tried to teach her.

But she knew that her fear and her anger were the only things that could protect her.

"I am a very hungry man. Hungry with ambition." Palpatine laughed. She didn't like the sound. He pointed a knife at her plate. "You haven't touched your food." He stabbed again, towards the glass. "Or your wine."

"I am not a thirsty woman," she rejoined.

"There is no choice. Food and drink are the necessities of life."

"There is always a choice." She displayed her ravaged wrist. "There is always death."

"You talk just like a Jedi." His voice betrayed his abhorrence of that group.

"No. I talk like a Baobhan-sith."

"Are they all like you?" He leant forward, his elbow on the table, his chin resting on his hand, inching again into her personal space. "You are a very beautiful woman."

"And you are a very ugly man." She sank against the back of her chair, its legs scraping on the floor as her feet sought leverage. "Your soul is besmirched by avarice."

His sexual overtures were becoming an annoyance. Maybe that was what he wanted.

But what did Palpatine want her for? As a simple conquest to discard when he was done with her? Or did he want her for his concubine? His entourage?

Certainly he had much to offer a woman in her position. Possessions, gifts, wealth, security, safety. But she didn't need - or want - those things. She didn't want to be a possession, a trinket - to be exploited and exhibited. That experience was not one she wished to repeat.

True, Qui-Gon could offer her nothing except love and companionship - and probably not a great deal of that. Hardship, worry, yes, but she would willingly subject herself to that in return for the tenderness of his caress. She had fallen deeply, passionately, in love with her Jedi, but she had also grown fond of him. She knew that, now she was apart from him. The desire, the lust, had always been strong, even before they had met in the flesh, and its consummation had been transcendent. But now there was something more, something deeper. Commitment.

And she prayed - even as she prayed for his safety, his life - for their reunion.

"Your thinking about him, aren't you? About Qui-Gon Jinn."

"Funny that," she replied. "He's always on my mind."

"This contract, then. It is not a marriage of convenience?"

"It is convenient to me." Her fingertips turned pale as she gripped the edge of the table.

Palpatine laughed again. An unctuous sound to her ears. "He is a handsome man, a very handsome man. I'm sure it suits you well. For now. But he is perhaps a little old for you. I, on the other hand..."

"You? Age kind of rules you out of the running as well, doesn't it senator?" She wanted to get up and run, but he had numbed her, this odious man, with his advances, cowed her into immobility.

"Oh, but I don't expect you to love me. Perhaps with time, maybe. You will, however, make a fine addition to my household." He smiled. He covered her hand as it lay on the table. He leant towards her.

She knew he was going to kiss her.

She wanted it over with.

She didn't want it at all.

- 31 -
The Light... The Light Is Taking Me To Pieces.

Obi-Wan took the controls of the aircar while Qui-Gon and Plo Koon practiced a battle meditation. Qui-Gon wasn't sure it was necessary, but Plo had insisted on it. Readiness was paramount, he had said, ever one to be prepared for all contingencies.

Qui-Gon put on the appearance of ebullience, but it merely masked his misery, it did not diminish it. Adventure is growth, he had instructed Obi-Wan, and surprise marked the awareness of limits. But he had experienced too much adventure, and too many surprises, of late. He didn't rail at it, rather he felt it was beginning to define him.

The research compound was not a place, he realised when they arrived, that he wished to make a habit of visiting. Bad memories had never besieged him before, now he could not shake the image of Iva, shot and falling, from his mind.

The building was quiet, only a skeleton staff in place, most nodding deferentially at the sight of the Jedi, a few flying into a panic and going quickly to ground, locking themselves in their offices or labs. Qui-Gon noted their features for future identification.

Plo accosted a woman, dressed in lab assistants coveralls. "Where is Grocelind?"

"I don't work with him," she replied defensively. "He oversees the work at a lab through there." She indicated a high security corridor. "I don't have clearance." She hurried away in the opposite direction.

The installation they entered was silent, deserted. Yet haunted by the souls of half-alive carcasses, embryonic faces staring sightlessly out, distorted through the transparisteel of the cylinders in which they grew.

Qui-Gon moved between the tanks with caution, not for fear of discovery, but with the wariness of guarded deference towards the project being undertaken here. For all his abhorrence of this work, he could not regard these abominations as soulless hunks of meat. He sensed their formless thoughts with cold antipathy. But still they thought.

His awareness of his surroundings, spread ahead of him by his force-assisted senses, took in a presence elsewhere. It alerted him to danger.

Something was amiss. A sound. At the far end of the lab. Another. From their entry point.

Heedful of jeopardy, Qui-Gon sent a force-bond alert to Obi-Wan. The three Jedi closed ranks.

A whirl of sound engulfed them.

They were surrounded by upgraded lab droids, modified with purloined weapons parts from assassin droids by the looks of it, property in all likelihood seized by the security division from pirates and renegades.

Qui-Gon and Plo were old hands at facing battle together, they fell comfortably into defensive postures, side by side, turned slightly away from each other, their combat bond alert. Qui-Gon turned his head towards Obi-Wan, barely nodded in acknowledgement of the Padawan-master bond, bringing him into the circle of the Force. Obi-Wan fell easily into position behind them, alert to attacks from their rear.

The atmosphere was taut. For a scant few seconds, neither side moved, the Jedi waiting for the droids to take action first. The air was silent except for the static hum of crystals vibrating laser blades to vibrant life. The trio stood firm, alert.

Qui-Gon concentrated all his senses on the space around him, aware but not distracted by his colleagues activity, knew they were doing the same. Trust. It was the only way in battle.

They were encircled but not trapped. At any time a force assisted leap could take them over the heads of the squat droids.

And then the still moment passed.

Anticipation, channeled through the matrix of the Force, took over.

Droid blasters erupted. Lasers swirled and twisted in the air.

The Jedi became the calm centre of a storm of lightening bolts shot forth by the looming droids, then reflected back to their source. Each movement made in foresight of the next energy bolt. Its speed. Its direction. The precise angle required for defensive destruction of the droids.

Then no more shots were fired. The blur of light swords ceased, their hum extinguished.

The crisp smell of ozone permeated the air.

The droids lay scattered.

The fluid movements of the Jedi flowed to a halt as sword hilts were returned to belts.

***

Grocelind scrabbled with his holocom. Come on, answer, he thought. He was running out of time. A reply normally came instantaneously. He had to speak to his Krath superior. Let him know of the danger of discovery.

Finally he got a response. The man was hidden by his cowl as usual.

"You have to help me," Grocelind screamed, panic had set him on the very edge of madness. "They are here. Jedi knights."

"There's nothing I can do now."

Grocelind could see the Krath leader turn to another figure, barely visible in the holoprojection. Could tell he instructed the smaller man in some detail. Grocelind sweated, his emotions verging on hysterical, his time almost at an end. "You need to get me out of here. They'll go after Palpatine next."

"I know that, you fool. Palpatine has a good cover. If you say anything to the Jedi, I will personally see to it that your family suffers. All your family."

Grocelind took the point. He was being sacrificed. He had one last card to play. "I have the witch's genome analysed. I'm ready to extract the codes which will augment Force sensitivity."

"She kindly gave us enough blood for our needs of her own volition. We don't require her at all now. Palpatine has the woman at his winter residence. My ward will see to it that she doesn't survive the night." He spoke again to his unseen accomplice. "Take as many remote detonators as you need. At this moment Palpatine is carried away by his rapacity - do make sure he is clear before you blow the place."

"Yes, master." Grocelind heard the accomplice for the first time. A young man's voice. But one already skilled in malfeasance. His replacement in the Krath's favour perhaps.

"Please. In the Republic's name. I need..."

"It's too late. For you. Your project is at an end now."

Before he cut the connection, the Krath leader made an obscure gesture towards Grocelind, his fingers curled, wiping through the air before his face.

Grocelind felt suddenly disorientated. Could not for a moment remember where he sat. Or what the urgent deed that nagged at him was.

He remembered then the Jedi were coming for him.

But it was too late. He had been left to face his fate alone.

***

When the Jedi entered the office, Grocelind was motionless. Like a droid himself, deactivated, awaiting further instruction.

He barely looked up at their entry.

It didn't take much for Plo Koon to loosen the man's tongue, make him reveal all he knew.

It was a cyber-genetics project, Grocelind told them. Cybernetic gene splicing. They were producing illegal clone material, artificially enhanced for intelligence operations against unforeseen attack from outside the Republic.

Grocelind's voice was flat. As though reading from a script he did not believe to be true.

Plo pushed the bureaucrat harder. Nudging deeper into the man's mind, probing him for further revelations.

For a move against the Senate, Grocelind finally admitted. His eyes were dull, empty of life.

"There are blocks in his mind," Plo complained. "Not of his own making. What he knows may not be the whole story, all he believes may not be true. I do not know what we are to give credence to."

"But they are clones out there?" Qui-Gon pointed to the lab.

Grocelind rallied. "Oh, yes. They are cloned." He seemed almost proud of the achievement. "But their cells have been augmented using bio-siliconium. They have been spawned with the intent of creating Force capability. Access to Force power without the midi-chlorians as intermediaries." He lapsed back into torpor.

Plo touched the bureaucrat's forehead. "His mind is almost gone. I don't think he can tell us any more." But as Plo ceased speaking, Grocelind resumed in a monotonous tone.

"A waste. It's all been a waste. What we have been attempting here, evolved for free on the Sith worlds. The witch is the end result of five thousand years of evolution. Her cells will give us the next generation of clones. Her mutated DNA is the key that will unlock the future of the Force."

"You are wrong," Qui-Gon snapped. But no, he thought, Grocelind might be right. Iva did hold the key. Just not in the way Grocelind imagined.

Thoughts of his beloved tormented him. He had to have her back. He was driven now by an inner need to destroy everything that had taken her away from him. A need he suddenly couldn't hold back.

As Qui-Gon strode quickly out into the lab, he formulated his own objections against the intent that spurred him into action. How could he, as a Jedi, destroy them? These clones? He didn't hesitate in answering his own argument. He felt the flickering in the Force ­ they were not dark, but some dark thing had done this.

The true Jedi did not intend to kill, only to defeat evil. There was evil to be defeated here.

With quick slashes of his light sword, Qui-Gon hacked at the clone cylinders, destroying the equipment and the beings inside as one. His emotions seethed like the fluid in the tanks as it spilled out over the floor of the lab. Even with the lab in ruins he did not stop. He did not stop until Plo Koon took the sabre from his hands and shut off its power.

Plo did not say a word. Only handed Qui-Gon back his sword and turned to leave with Grocelind.

Qui-Gon sank to his knees amongst the bodies of the clones and could truly believe that the shimmering pools of liquid that gathered there on the floor were bitter tears that he had shed.

"Master?"

Obi-Wan's voice brought him to his senses.

"Are you all right?" Obi-Wan asked, concerned.

Yes, Qui-Gon thought, now I am. Violence had proved cathartic. He would have to take care not to let that feeling take hold of him again. He got up, insensible to the discomfort of his Padawan. "We must leave."

As Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan emerged from the building, Plo looked back at them, checking they were following.

With sudden burst of motivation given reign by Plo's distraction, Grocelind broke away and rushed to the edge of the landing platform, throwing himself off onto the ice below.

"No." Qui-Gon screamed as he rushed to the brink. He wanted to see this man made to answer for his crimes before the Senate.

He looked down onto the body and the bloodstained ice, resigned. A moment's thought of retribution swept away. What was done was done.

But Grocelind managed to haul himself to his feet, injured but still whole it seemed, and limped off across the ice away from them. Obi-Wan made to jump after him. Qui-Gon held onto his Padawan's arm, holding him back. "Leave him, Obi-Wan. There's nowhere he can go."

But Grocelind had one last verbal blow to land. He turned back and looked up at them. Shouted up at them.

An utterance which caused Qui-Gon's heart to miss a beat.

"She's at Palpatine's winter residence. But you'll be too late, Jedi. She'll be dead by the time you get to her. The building is marked for destruction."

Qui-Gon turned away in turmoil.

Obi-Wan and Plo Koon watched as the ice cracked around Grocelind's feet.

The bureaucrat screamed as he fell into the crevasse that opened up.

A scream that didn't end.

A scream that faded out into utter stillness.

Plo turned his face towards Obi-Wan. "That gets rid of any awkward questions," he said knowingly.

They walked back to the air car in silence.

- 32 -
And In a Dream I'm a Different Me.

Palpatine pushed his body in towards Iva's, his lips pursed for a kiss. She twisted her face away, the angle of her neck unwelcoming. "I always get what I want," he emphasised. His moist mouth made contact with her cheek. She stood up abruptly, pushing the chair away. He stood too. Menacingly slowly it seemed to her, though it was all happening so quickly, too fast for action. His hand was on her arm then. A light grip, but one which threatened to become violent.

It would be easier not to resist.

No, she thought. This is stupid. Don't give in to him. Fight him.

Palpatine was controlling her in some way. Rendering her weak and helpless in the face of his advances. She couldn't sense anything, but knew she wasn't herself. When Plo Koon had tried to force her to act against her own volition she had sensed it, counteracted it. This, whatever it was Palpatine was doing, was far more dangerous. She had to draw on all her resources just to build a defence for her free will.

"I am willing to respect your marriage," he told her. "However, the Jedi are unlikely to accept it. They will see to it that it is annulled."

"No."

"Why hasn't Jinn come for you, then? Why has he abandoned you? You helped Kenobi to escape. I would have thought Jinn would have come running. If he really loved you."

Palpatine sought to sow seeds of doubt in her mind. She was afraid that her expression would let him know he succeeded. She was afraid that Qui-Gon acquiesced to the will of his order. Even the merest notion of losing all contact with him brought her close to misery.

The senator continued his attack on her besieged emotional defences. "Why persist in this union with a man who is numbered amongst your enemies?" His grip on her arm tightened. "You and I, on the other hand, have much more in common. A common interest, you could say."

"And what is that?" As she spoke, she tried to pull away from him. His hold on her only increased. She began to squirm. His grasp was bruising to her flesh.

"The Korriban worlds. The tombs of the Sith Lords." She struggled to be free of him. He pulled her towards him, so she was facing him. He had tight hold of both her arms now. Her spine arched backwards so repellent was he to her. "They must be brimming with Sith artifacts. The archaeological value alone could be astronomical."

"And that is all you want? More antiques."

"No. There are other things." His voice was hollow. The sound of a blizzard.

She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"There is power in the tombs. We could share it. All of us."

"All of us?"

"You. Me. Jinn. You could persuade him."

"You want to possess a Jedi?"

"Possess is perhaps too strong a word. Come to an agreement with might be a more delicate way of putting it."

"What can Qui-Gon do for you?" She had to know.

Palpatine looked at her and she could almost believe he was wistful. "He is one of their greatest knights. But already, even before you, my dear, he was at odds with the Council. The Jedi Council is as stagnant as the Senate. It is time for a new order. Jinn could find himself at the centre of such an enterprise."

"But why choose Qui-Gon? He is a compassionate man."

"Because there is a darkness in his heart."

Iva shook her head. "No."

"Yes." He looked at her pointedly. "You are in his heart."

Iva laughed. How little this man really knew of her and Qui-Gon Jinn. Of the fate of the Baobhan-sith and the Jedi. The only thing the Jedi lacked was wholeness in the eternal union of masculine and feminine. "I shan't help you." She resumed her struggles. Palpatine's hold on her would not be easily broken. "Nor will Qui-Gon. I want to leave now."

"Leave." Palpatine's look suddenly turned vicious. "Oh no, my dear. I haven't finished with you yet." He grasped her wrist and grappled her arm behind her back. "Give yourself to me and I will see that Jinn is given some safe position in my service where you and he can be together. Where I can come to you when I so desire. Or..."

There was always an or, Iva sighed to herself, some implied threat.

Palpatine continued his advance. "Or I will use my position in the Senate to see to it that he is sent to some dangerous planet in some backwater sector of the galaxy. Believe me, there are some very nasty places out there. You'll be lucky to see him again. Alive, at least."

Her chest heaved with shock. Could Palpatine really force her into that position? She didn't want to even consider it, but she didn't doubt it.

"The Republic has grown weak. The Senate is corrupt. My Jedi advisor has tried but the Council refuses to take unilateral action to restore direction. We need those artifacts for the defence of all that we cherish, in the name of law and order. The Jedi have jealously guarded the location of Korriban. But now I have you. You will take me there."

She wasn't sure she wouldn't. She wasn't sure that this man couldn't make her do anything he wanted given time. But she was sure of one other thing. She was sure she would stand up to him until her body and her free will gave out. She was not afraid of him.

And she was not afraid to die.

"Everyone is corruptible," he continued. "I just have to find their price. Yours? Not money or power or fine things, oh no. You are so easy. Nothing more than your husband's safety."

"It won't work." She was grasping at hollow air now.

Palpatine's breath was searing her face. "Everybody has their weakness," he said. "Jinn, for example. He makes himself vulnerable by caring too much for the individual. For every single living being he meets. It's the only reason he cares about you." Iva turned her face away from Palpatine, but he only scoffed. "Do you think he would have noticed you otherwise?"

And there, she realised, was Palpatine's weakness. He imagined everyone thought like him, did not question his own arrogant assumptions. There were paths through this life which he had never conceived of. She shook, as if from a sudden draught of extreme cold, as he forced her body into closer proximity to his.

He seized her hair with his free hand and compelled her to look at him. "What if I balanced your life against an entire world's worth? Do you think he would trade with me then, to save millions of souls?" Palpatine loosed his grip on her hair. "Make it easier on everyone." She could see how he relished her pain and her fear. "Give in." His hand strayed towards her breast. She tensed. "Relax," he said. "I' m going to enjoy this. You may as well too."

Iva had to think fast. Even as she wrestled against Palpatine's threatened assault on her body, she wrestled with the decision to transform herself, to reveal herself. She had it in her to prevent this going any further, but her aggressor then would know the truth and extent of her power. Would know her in her most dangerous form. It was a necessity rendered all the more urgent by the weaknesses of this sweet maiden's body that she wore. She twisted until her joints sang with pain and slipped, finally, out of his grasp.

He laughed. He was toying with her. And enjoying it.

"I won't let you get away with this," she screamed.

"Do give me a little credit, my dear. Who will believe you? I am here to rescue you. If you say anything, I will deny it. I can bring on a dozen witnesses who will discredit you."

She gripped the stem of her wine glass. Lifted it from the table. She thought to throw it in his face, but hesitated. Almost took a sip. It was tempting. To be drugged. But no. She looked instead into the glass, at the corona of light curling around the surface of the wine. There was nothing to read there.

The answer was already with her.

Transformation.

I can't do it, she told herself. I can't give my secrets away to this man.

I must, she thought. I can't give my body up to him.

And she hoped that Qui-Gon Jinn would never see the face she was about to put on. A face no mortal man could love.

***

The clone was nameless, but he thought. He knew he was only a reject, but he possessed an intelligence he had never been credited with. Watch, wait, he thought. Wait. Watch. This was important. Find out what the boy here was doing.

The boy. Like Kenobi. But an alien boy. A boy with horns. A devil boy. What was he up to?

The creature peered through the crack left in the door as it stood slightly ajar. Watched as the little devil slipped out the window through which he had entered the apartment. He lumbered into the room to see what the boy had been doing.

Bombs, he recognised. Explosion, danger, he thought.

Brother nearby with Sith lady. Danger for them.

Danger for himself. Have to do something. Think of something fast.

***

Palpatine didn't notice the change in Iva's breathing. In her demeanour.

She invited the Sith metal of her amulets to glove her hands. Welcomed its cool embrace. Drew on the power it amplified in her. A chill of fire sparkled up and down her arms. The breath of a goddess, the emblem of a terrible sorcery.

She held her hands out to Palpatine. "Is this what you desire?"

He looked eager, as though he were a young lover seeing her naked for the first time.

Iva called on the cailleach bheur. Give me your hag face, she beseeched.

She would become the thing men hated and feared. The crone.

Night stole into the room. A dark night, a moonless sky. It filled the corners of the air with a blackened radiance. Stars lit the heavenly sphere that filled that space. A winter's chill frosted the air. Two realities changed place, the façade of Iva's beauty stripped away.

Palpatine's hands shook as realisation dawned. Abject fright clutched at his heart. He couldn't tear his eyes from the changes taking place.

There was a smile on Iva's face, but it was not the face of the frail woman Palpatine had taken for the truth. It was the visage of the grave. A death mask. A thing of harsh beauty and destruction.

She circled him, gliding through the air as though there was nothing, no gravity, no magnetism, that could hold her to this plane. She was white skinned, blue lipped, the eyes hooded and dark, the teeth sharply elongated, the nose perforated by a single nostril. The phantasmal flesh of her face stood out against her matted hair, the colour of scorched clay.

Palpatine fell to his knees. His voice, forced out through quivering chords, sounded like the cry of rooks. "I am your servant, madam."

She grasped him by the throat. Lifted him from the ground. As though she were enacting a hanging and her arm were the noose. Her voice when it came was not the rasp Palpatine anticipated. It was a soft touch of silk, a cool dewdrop. "I could drain you dry," she soothed. "Suck every drop of blood from your body and leave you an empty husk." She would do it for every woman he had twisted to his will as he had tried to twist her. For every man. But I won't, she thought. That would be too good for him. Let him build his future, his vision. Others would destroy it more cruelly than she could. "But I'm not going to," she said. She let him drop back to the floor. "I am a benevolent spirit." She had been careful not to mark him, she did not want to bind him to her.

She spat on him in lieu of violent revenge.

"Do not threaten me again."

And she was no longer there.

She had left the room without a trace. Only a lingering scent of roses and ashes remained.

***

Palpatine slammed his fist down on the table, upsetting the dregs of the wine, its crimson stain visible evidence of his anger and his passion. "Our paths will cross again, my dear. I promise you that," he screamed after her though she was long gone.

He took several deep breaths to regain his composure, straightened his attire, patted his hair back into place.

He would possess what secret powers she held, if it took him half a lifetime to turn her and her Jedi husband. So much did he want the dark demon he had glimpsed inside her, so enamoured he was of the dark forces the amulets imbued her with, that he would kill half the citizens of the Republic to do it.

But enough of this maudlin introspection, he thought. If the witch wouldn't coming with him willingly, she could stay here and be damned. It was time to put his alibi into action. Though as he left by his concealed escape route, his thoughts turned again to her demonic splendour.

He wanted her.

He would have her.

One day he would dispense with Jinn and then he would have her.

- 33 -
Someone Take These Dreams Away, That Point Me To Another Day.

It was Qui-Gon's fervent wish to get away from the pole and the research compound, from the desecration of life, from the place of Grocelind's death, as fast as possible. And taking the controls of the aircar, he made sure he got it.

Though he could not get away from Grocelind's words of doom.

He drove fast, following Obi-Wan's cursory instructions from the directional read-out, trusting his instincts to lead him to Iva safely through the heavy traffic flow. He hadn't come this far, brought her all this way from her home, just to lose her now.

***

It was over. At least, part of it was.

Iva let her cailleach form slip from her spirit. Took refreshment in the lithesome body she was accustomed to. She stretched the ache out of her limbs and back. It hurt sometimes, such transformations, it weakened her. She wanted to rest, but feared that time was not in her favour. Still, she sat in the quiet alcove she had found, relaxed a little and waited for youthful stamina to return. Her heart felt torn and her body unclean.

Even without Palpatine's threat to discredit her, how could she bear witness to what had transpired between them? How could she tell of his harassment of her without revealing the mechanism of her to escape? True enough, in recompense, he could not speak of what she had become without revealing his true nature too. They had reached a stalemate, she and the loathsome senator from Naboo. But she had inadvertently allowed him to bond her to a secret taboo between them.

In liberating herself, she had compromised her self.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it here she thought and since she felt sufficiently recovered, she stirred herself and hurried away from the place of defilement, following the corridor to its end, but not certain of the direction. Reaching a turning which could take her either left or right, she closed her eyes and wished. Yanking her skirts clear of the floor, she turned left, determined to find the exit, sure that she could find the exit, though once she got there she had no notion of what she could do. Flag down a passing aircar perhaps? Not a very likely outcome.

But someone already approached her. The creature, the clone she and Obi-Wan had discovered amongst the treasures. Were they all Palpatine's, she wondered now, was he the possessor of the book of fairy tales, and was this creature his? She sighed, not sure anymore of its trustworthiness if it too was here in this place with Palpatine. She was too weary, though, and too miserable to act in avoidance of it and she let it waylay her. She let it seize her by the wrist and the waist and hurry her away from the tenuous safety she sought, away from escape, further into the maze of endangerment.

It pulled her down a flight of stairs. She stumbled, her boot heel catching in the hem of her dress, but the creature only yanked her harder, more forcefully. "Danger, hurry," it yelled at her. She cursed it under her breath, in words of her own tongue. In reply it pulled her into a large room, pillars along either side framing ornate statuary, the far wall consisting of one huge window that gave the illusion of a vast opening straight out into the city air.

"No more time," it mumbled, hustling her into a central alcove framing a doorway, the door long removed. Inside was a store cupboard, the shelves bare of all but the detritus of time.

There was no point in screaming, there was no one to hear her. But her protesting struggles increased, her verbal abuse of the creature in her own tongue intensified. It wasn't letting her go. Her mind screamed to her in protest, but she could do nothing to help herself. The creature positioned her against the frame, held her tight against its body, the smell of its moldering clothes and rancid flesh choking her. She shut her eyes, to keep the sight of it away from her. She struggled against its detestable embrace, the terror of a violation more awful than the one she had just avoided with Palpatine reared up in her mind. She felt too weak to call up her cailleach shadow again so soon. The creature had her arms pinned to her side, no opportunity open to raise the energy required for retaliation. For any sort of magic.

"Hold still, my pretty," it said.

A light flooded her eyes behind the closed lids. Burning its outline onto her retinas. She felt a shockwave, oscillating under her feet, through the very air. The creature stopped her toppling.

A noise, like that of a crystal sky shattering, deafened her, nullifying all her thoughts. Awareness, of the end of all things, of the finality of death, reverberated around her skull.

A moment of lucidity forced her eyes open, the room was falling apart, ceiling became floor, floor became empty space. The world, everything, tilted and her vision swam. She was thrown back with a terrible force, her body crushed between the bare shelves and the creature's hulking weight.

The sound of splintering bones detonated in her ears.

***

"That's it," Obi-Wan yelled, pointing to an ornate elongated pyramid. "Palpatine's apartments are on the fortieth to forty-fifth floors."

Qui-Gon was standing up to jump from the vehicle even before it had come to a halt on the private parking platform of the residence, but he was thrown back into the seat, spread-eagled by the first shock of the explosion.

Plo Koon turned to Obi-Wan. Barked instructions at him. "Let the Temple know where we are. What has happened. Tell them to send an investigation unit here immediately."

As aftershocks rocked the building and sent vibrations through the car, Qui-Gon struggled back to his feet, to retain balance, scanning the fabric of the building for signs of the source of the explosion, for the extent of the damage.

The car shuddered and almost tipped as he leapt from it. Smoke was gushing from the entrance and from the upper windows several floors above. He hardly hesitated to enter the burning building, the floor looked intact enough. But Plo came running up behind him, shouting his name. "Qui-Gon. Remember your training. Be disciplined. There could be more bombs. Qui-Gon." But Plo's remonstrations were in vain.

"I'm going in," Qui-Gon called back. "Obi-Wan, stay with the car. Be ready, we may need to get out of here fast."

"Then I'm coming with you." Plo followed him. "Someone's got to stop you letting your carnal feelings taking control of you." At any other time it might have been a joke.

The smoke was clearing but the warm glow of flames replaced it.

"Iva," Qui-Gon called as he ran without further thought on into the building. No one could have heard him.

The smoke had activated the alarms. And now the flames activated the sprinklers drenching them from above. He didn't stop. He didn't slow in his advance. Through force of will, through strength of love, he willed Iva to be alive. Unharmed.

- 34 -
Further Away Still From The Cold Cities With Their Wounds and Blue Tears...

As he ran through the charred, damp corridor, Qui-Gon searched for Iva's presence in the matrix of the force. And found her. Her existence was marked by a small dark void, an arcane candle flame burning darkly, coldly, in the day, flaring out blackly in the light, absorbing the light.

Did it mean she was dying? Or already dead? It gnawed at him as it had gnawed at him during the long dark hours of the past few nights.

Or did it mean her life force was a dark, cold, strange thing?

***

"What?" Palpatine was suddenly and explicably apoplectic with rage.

"There has been an explosion at your winter residence, Senator." Mace Windu repeated the words gently, taken aback at the force of Palpatine's reaction.

Palpatine seethed. All his carefully crafted machinations were suddenly at an impasse. It was that accursed Grocelind and his Krath cohorts. The bureaucrat had had it in for him all along. Now he had stolen the Sith witch from his grasp. And probably his ill-starred brother too - though good riddance to him.

Now hold on a moment, he told himself, he didn't know anyone had perished yet. But there would almost certainly be a lot of damage...

"My collection, my art, it's priceless, irreplaceable." He spat the words out, a cold chill settling in the pit of his stomach. But he immediately drew back from his emotional outburst, Windu's manner betrayed distaste that anyone could put their possessions foremost in a situation such as this. "I'm sorry, that was heartless of me. Forgive me, the shock..." Palpatine knew he was lucky to have got out of the building before it went up. Though was it luck? He'd have to think about that one further. But later. He couldn't give it away to the Jedi that he had been there earlier in the day. And Mace was already informing him of the details.

"A team of Jedi are already on the scene and securing the premises, Senator. The security division will be sending in a squad to investigate the cause."

Palpatine would have to perform the next step carefully. At least now he wouldn't have his alibi questioned.

"As I was about to inform you, Master Windu, before you came to me with this unfortunate news. After the escape of apprentice Kenobi, I was having the Lady Ibhormheith taken to my winter residence. I was just about to set off on my way there to meet with her on her arrival." To confirm the Jedi's prejudices about politicians, Palpatine let Windu think him self-obsessed. "I do hope the bomb was not aimed at me," he continued. "I have had a very lucky escape, it seems."

Palpatine played his next card vigilantly, put on the mask of impromptu agitation. He leant forward, instantly more compassionate. "You don't think the Lady was a victim, do you?"

***

There had been an explosion above them, Iva realised. She had been running towards non-existent safety. Guilt occupied her mind. The creature had only been trying to save her after all.

It had saved her.

And she had battled against its supposed defilement of her.

She fought against the inert weight of its body, sensed no heartbeat, no breath sounds, no life. She pushed the empty shell off of her. Looked at it sadly, lying on the shattered floor beside her. It was quite dead. Limp. It didn't look injured by the explosion. As though it had just given up its spirit willingly and died at peace, in acceptance of its sacrifice. She wailed, a sound intent on sending a soul on its way into the afterlife.

She took a tunic fastener from the creature's remains, wove it quickly into a thin plait in her hair. She didn't think this thing, this organism of artifice, he, would be given any other memorial. It was the only gift she could give him for saving her life.

She felt battered, a bit bruised, but she was miraculously intact, her dress not even torn. Why was she unmarked and the creature dead? It was corruption incarnate. As inhuman a thing as anything could be. And yet it was a casualty of the evil as much as she. She felt kindred to it.

It had been bred and found wanting.

She had been bred and passed acceptance.

All the same, one day she'd end up like this creature, giving up her life so another could live, because she came uninvited into this world, because she followed her heart. It felt as though all her certainties were unraveling, time dissolving and reforming before her. But always the same future was on offer. Destiny and death.

She crawled to the edge of the ruined floor, of the precipice that now led down into the bowels of the building. She didn't feel capable of choosing where she would go from here. She hauled herself onto her feet unsteadily, ferrocrete crumbling away, a chunk falling to doom, threatening to take her with it.

What had she learnt from this? From any of this sojourn on Coruscant? Only that men of power were as duplicitous here as they were on Cair-deil Talamh. Only that the Jedi lacked the facility to find their own pathways into the twilight. Only that the Baobhan-sith stood alone in their determination to unite the night and the day.

She waited for illumination.

She waited for obscurity.

Qui-Gon Jinn was the only one who could bring her both.

She waited with new found patience.

***

As if in a dream, Qui-Gon was running. And going nowhere. Plo Koon was somewhere behind him, but out of sight. Everything looked the same, each corridor, each door. This was wrong.

Qui-Gon called on the Force to calm his panic. Now was not the time for frenzied action. He closed his eyes, breathed slowly, deeply. He slowed his pace to a resolute walk. Felt ahead of him in the Force. Accepted its guidance for directions back to Iva.

He came to her at last.

She was standing, framed in a doorway, across the chasm of a ruined floor dropping away at her feet, shreds of stonework clinging to the edges of the walls. The lines of worry on Qui-Gon's face softened when he saw her, his eyes crinkling, replacing the frown. She didn't look hurt, appeared calm even.

"Iva. Don't move." He called to her, urgently. "Are you alright?"

"Oh?" She looked up briefly. Her glance rapidly descending back to her feet. Her foothold on the treacherous surface uncertain.

"Come here my love." He held out his hands to her.

She was frozen, immobile. A path to safety in his arms unavailable to her. How could she cross that remnant of a floor? As light as she was, even her delicacy threatened to send the rest of it tumbling away.

Qui-Gon slowed his breathing, subdued his emotions, quieted his mind. Necessary steps in the mastery of the Force which the next step required. "Come to me," he said to Iva, quiet and determined.

"How?" He saw her lips form the question soundlessly. But she was already obeying his command. Her feet taking the first steps back into his arms.

He drew on the essence of the Force, channelled it out towards her, holding her in the intangible air, balancing her on inconsequential shards on stonework. She felt it, looked at him, the fear fleeing her eyes, confident in his support of her, his love of her.

She came to him. She wobbled only slightly at the last minute, never losing balance, but falling dexterously into his arms at the last.

He wanted it all to end there. Oh, how he wanted it all to end there in that supreme moment of bliss. Reunited with the woman he loved. With her compliant in his arms, her head on his chest, his chin resting on her head, safe at last.

No, there was no safety.

The future offered them no safety.

His way of life offered them no safety.

He wanted to stay frozen in that moment. But it could not be.

He reluctantly broke their embrace, turned her around and led her away from the ruined room, down the corridor that led them back out into the world, toward the destiny which would not be tamed. He had to locate Plo Koon. And they had to get out of here. The place was now a danger zone.

Iva ran on ahead of him. "Stay close," he warned, "there is still danger here and the building may be unstable."

"I have to find something," she insisted. She ducked into a nearby room, rifling through papers, searching through drawers and furniture.

He followed her in. "What are you looking for?"

"The book."

"What book?"

"The story book."

"Forget the book. It's unimportant." She seemed wrong somehow. "I need to know you are alright."

She looked at him. "I'm tired. Cold." She bit her lip. His heart lurched. "I'm ravenous." She looked at him hungrily.

The imperative was on him. Her pheromones too strong to resist. He felt himself sink again into the uninvited contemplation of love.

Somewhere Plo Koon was calling him.

Iva darted back out into the corridor.

The meliferous smell of her held him still. She noticed his hesitation and ran back to him, her hands reaching for his head, her fingers tearing his hair from its fastener, her feet raised on the tips of her toes, her body arcing upwards so her lips could meet his. Her eyes and her hands sang to him, songs of pleasure on his body.

He broke the kiss, held her away from him, his pleasure would have to wait. First, he had to know the answers to the doubts that plagued him. "Iva, tell me about the blood."

"The blood?" She looked surprised, alarmed, guilty.

"When we shared blood." He showed her his wrist.

"Oh!" The look of alarm on her face abated. She smiled, relieved.

What else had she thought he referred to? Something else had ensued here. She had given no sign, but he had taken its meaning. Intentional or not, she was tainted. She could hide it, but she would never be free of it. It disturbed him. It released him from the constraints of his conscience. It liberated him.

"The blood is the life force." She licked her lips. Oh, so seductively. "We shared in each others virtue, mingled our bloodlines, became one."

"Like sex?"

"Yes," she said, "like that."

Why did an answer only bring other questions?

The air was filled with dust and ash, his heart was filled with heat and smoke.

She sank down onto her knees at his feet. Threw her arms about his legs. Pressed her face against his thighs. "I'm only yours now," she breathed, her voice fiery with desire.

He spurred himself to calm, to ease the passion. The urgings of his flesh grew, he was defenceless.

He could feel her cold breath on his skin, through the fabric of his clothes. His erection grew.

The lust was too much for either of them, all the seas of their restraint could not contain it.

As Qui-Gon looked down at Iva, kneeling at his feet, he wanted to take her head in his hands, force her face upwards to pleasure him. She was responsive to his unspoken desires, reaching under his tunic to unclasp his fly, take him in her mouth, her throat welcoming to his length.

Her hands tightened their grip on his muscular thighs. Her tongue worked such magic. She gyrated with delectation as his hand stroked her neck. He grasped her hair as she sated him.

His body was quivering with rapture as she released him and his legs unsteady as he pulled her onto her feet. She wiped his silver trail from her lips with her finger and sucked it clean, looking at him all the while.

Her irises were contracted to thin brown rings around the black pools of her pupils. Then they were kissing again, he bit at her lower lip till she writhed in delight.

Plo's voice was close. His laugh was ironic as he saw them in their embrace. "What are you doing? There's no time for that."

Qui-Gon pulled away from Iva just enough not to reveal the evidence of exactly how far they had gone. The emergency lighting still strobed, hiding their amour, illuminating their intimacy. "You go ahead. Tell Obi-Wan to get the car ready. We'll be just behind you."

Plo grumbled as he turned to leave. Qui-Gon smiled. Iva touched her lips. He moved her hand away from her mouth and slid his fingers inside it, drenching them with her saliva as she sucked on them.

Her skirts rustled as she lifted them up, exposing her legs and her hips, inviting him in.

He slipped his fingers from her mouth and spread her fluid over the length of them. He pushed his hand between her thighs and sank two fingers into her to the knuckles, his thumb pushed the unforgiving metal of her hood ring into the nub of her clitoris. She moaned demonstratively and thrust herself against his hand.

Her body folded up in ecstasy.

Qui-Gon didn't notice the tears that stained her face, didn't notice that she wept, until the spasms of her pleasure subsided and the wracks of her sobs remained.

He wiped the tears from her cheeks and she laughed. "I thought I would never see you again," she said.

He realised that he was weeping too.

"It's not that easy to get rid of a Jedi," he said as they took their leave of the ruined building.

Plo was leaning on the aircar smugly, his arms crossed in a parody of impatience. "About time," he said, but he held out his arm to help Iva into the car.

They returned to the Temple in mute quietness, Plo at the wheel, Obi-Wan slouched in the seat beside him.

Qui-Gon enclosed Iva in his robe, pulled her tight in against his side and wrapped her in brown folds of coarse wool. She snuggled in against him desperately, one arm inside his tunics, her hand cool and comforting against his skin. He never wanted to let her out of his sight again.

He took note of Obi-Wan's derogatory stare. The boy's feelings were transparent. You've only been back with her five minutes, that look said, and you're already at it again like rabbits. His apprentice still wrestled with adolescent feelings, distaste, embarrassment and ambivalence towards his elders' sexual feelings. It couldn't be helped, Qui-Gon knew, it wasn't unusual in a boy his age, though it was still something that had to be dealt with in a Jedi. Just as the Council's objections would have to be dealt with.

But it was true, wasn't it, Obi-Wan's unspoken accusations? He had thought that being back in the Jedi fold would rid him of this persistent burning desire. It hadn't. It wasn't that she wouldn't let hold of him. It was him. He wouldn't let go of it. Couldn't let go of it.

Qui-Gon rested his cheek on Iva's head and closed his eyes against the onslaught of the world.

- 35 -
By Sheltering the Darkness, the Light Might Be Preserved.

Mace Windu was waiting for them on their arrival at the Jedi Temple. His stance was stern, but that didn't always mean harsh words would be spilled. As leader of the Council he had honed his body language to a sharp refinement which kept everyone in line. Underneath his discipline he was an altruistic man.

As they walked across the foyer, Iva and Obi-Wan just ahead of them, Plo and Qui-Gon exchanged a glance, a last moment of friendship before the onslaught of protocol. "Mace doesn't want Iva around the Temple, I think," Plo teased.

"On the contrary, he thinks that now she has three Jedi following her around like wookiee cubs," Qui-Gon taunted his friend in returned.

"And soon she will have half the Temple at her feet," the Kel Dor rejoined. He paused, dramatically. "And how will you feel then, Qui-Gon?"

Qui-Gon didn't know how he would feel then, but he doubted the situation would be allowed to arise. He was acutely aware that Iva was little more than a lost soul cast adrift in his life. Without him, she was unwanted, nothing. It mattered little that Mace acknowledged her presence with a nod. It was to Qui-Gon that he spoke.

"You should know better, Master Jinn, than to undertake such premature action, and against orders, while you are still under investigation." Mace turned to Plo. "And you Master Koon, now you are a Council member you must desist from behaving as though you were still a field operative. Such unilateral procedures were justified in this case, but it must not occur again. Do you understand?"

Both men nodded. Not chastened, but rigorously obedient as training dictated.

Mace knew as much but tacitly kept his thoughts on the matter brief. "I trust you do not have any more unscheduled activities on your agenda." It was an order, not a question.

"The leader of this potential insurrection unfortunately perished in an escape attempt," Plo reported, ignoring a sudden pointed look from Obi-Wan.

"Do you suspect there are more active agents still at large?"

"Maybe, Master Windu, but without leadership they will scatter or reveal themselves eventually."

"This will be investigated thoroughly - any scientists or administrators implicated in this plot will be dealt with under the law." Mace directed his gaze at Obi-Wan. "You, apprentice Kenobi. This being whom you took to be a clone. Who was he? Did you recognise him?"

"No Master, his face was marred."

"No matter, the operation has ceased. There will be no more clones."

Qui-Gon doubted the veracity of this assumption. "The tendrils of this cabal may go higher."

"I doubt it, Master Jinn. Grocelind's associates have all been quick to distance themselves from him. We have no evidence to think that the conspiracy poses any further threat. Nevertheless, it is not your concern now, the Council will follow this up." Mace indicated Iva. "You should occupy yourself with your own affairs before you present the Lady to the Council in the morning."

Iva looked as though she were about to speak, but thought better of it. She glanced towards Qui-Gon, he shook his head. Mace would not relish her discussion of the matter at this point. But even as Qui-Gon framed some words to speak on her behalf, Plo had interjected and he lost the chance.

"Senator Palpatine should be asked about the explosion at his winter residence."

"That is already in hand." Mace shrugged the suggestion aside. "He is deeply shocked that this should have occurred and has expressed concern over Lady Ibhormheith's safety."

"I'll bet he has," Iva whispered under her breath, but Qui-Gon nudged her into silence.

Mace paused a moment as though he were taking stock of deeper matters. "Now this Krath you speak of," he continued. "I must know more. Master Yoda has been taken ill. Poisoned."

Qui-Gon started. "Is he..." His Master had alienated him of late, but he still felt deep concern.

"There was no physical harm from the drug, but it made him compliant. It explains his uncharacteristic animosity and disruptiveness of late. He suffered a physical collapse as a consequence of fighting its effects."

"Is it possible to see him?" Qui-Gon felt that his dispute with the Master over Iva might be resolved now.

"He is seeing no one at present. He is recovering but mortified that someone could take such an advantage of him."

"But how could this happen?" Plo asked. "How could anyone get a drug past Master Yoda's defences."

"We don't yet know. We have evidence, of course, that the Sith once used potions to amplify dark side feelings, but the agent used here was rather different. Perhaps Grocelind, with a rudimentary knowledge of Krath alchemy, introduced it. C'Baoth may be implicated but we have no proof, he will be given occupation elsewhere in due course which will keep him away from the Temple."

Mace turned and started away down the main hall. "Qui-Gon, take the Lady to your quarters tonight, but please do not let her wander around. We do not need any more distractions at this time. Master Koon, the Council awaits your report."

Plo acquiesced and followed, leaving Qui-Gon to wonder just how much he really understood about what was occurring and just how much might be accomplished now.

***

Iva stood hesitantly in the doorway to Qui-Gon's quarters and shifted her weight from foot to foot as she waited for his invitation. It felt so awkward, this situation. This was his place of sanctuary, his only home, but she was about to invade it, possess it, as she had already invaded and possessed his heart. And now he felt uncomfortable in it. He didn't know how to behave with her. How to just be with her in his own space. He felt gauche, inapt, ill-suited to entertaining a lover. He cast her a side-long glance, but her eyes were cast down, not shyly, he thought, but doubtfully. She looked as unsure as he felt.

She looked up at him at that moment, longingly, hungrily, as though anticipating some signal from him.

"You can come in and sit down," he bade and she obeyed, concentrating intently on her bracelets as she sat, turning them round and round on her wrist.

Obi-Wan, seemingly oblivious to the discomfort of the moment, babbled as he helped himself to some food from the larder. "What will they do with you, the Council?" he asked bluntly, his mouth full of a dry cereal ration.

"Probably nothing, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon was too preoccupied to concern himself with his Padawan's anxieties.

"Will they expel you from the order?"

Trust Obi-Wan to blurt it out like that, Qui-Gon thought. "It's possible. But unlikely." He knew the boy was really asking about what would happen to his apprenticeship. "If they did, your case would be considered separately. Another master would be approached to complete your training." His words did not seem to console the Padawan.

Iva looked up at them both. Focused on Obi-Wan. "The Council will keep Qui-Gon close. They will not wish to provide the Dark Side with an opportunity to try and claim him for their own."

Qui-Gon was not surprised at her astuteness. "Iva is right, Obi-Wan. It is unlikely they will want to risk such an event." He smiled, although he normally shunned such thoughts, there were some benefits to being held in high esteem. But he wished to end this conversation and this train of thought.

He sent Obi-Wan off to the Machin embassy to collect Iva's belongings. It was late, but the night shift would be obliging and Obi-Wan would not wish to sleep, and would cramp Qui-Gon's style if left to his own devices. Master and apprentice both knew it was to get him out of the way but the Padawan acquiesced readily in the charade for proprieties sake. It was a good sign after Obi-Wan's sullen glances on the journey back to the Temple, he even smiled briefly at Iva as he left. Perhaps it was only the thought of his Master's physical intimacy that disturbed the boy. At the moment it disturbed Qui-Gon too.

He admitted to himself that he didn't know what to do next. They never taught a Jedi how to woo a woman. Not that he and Iva weren't well past the wooing stage, he thought ironically. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to comfort her. To let her know that he loved her, heart and soul. But he was aware that his promises might be so many empty husks. He sensed her reticence to break into his pensive thoughts and knew that it was this place. Did she suspect he couldn't give in to passion within the confines of the Temple? He believed that might be true. He wondered how he could cross that barrier.

Both broke the silence at once.

"I..."

"Do you..."

Both lapsed back into muteness.

He sat down next to her. But didn't make contact with her. "I don't know how this works?" he confessed.

"No?" Her voice cracked. It wrenched at his emotions.

"It's not something I've ever done before."

He touched the charm he had given her, still around her neck. "This means everything," he said. "But I'm not used to this. To having you here." His words trailed off, he could not say what he meant. He made it sound like he didn't want her, that she was imposing, when it was only that he did not know how to express his feelings.

He watched her chest rise with each breath she took.

He took her hand. He needed her to guide him along the precarious paths of love. Tenderness was not his forte.

"Hold me," she said. "Just hold me."

And he did. She felt soft and compliant in his arms.

"I'm afraid for you." He heard her voice as though from a great distance, she spoke so lightly.

"Why?"

"Palpatine said certain things."

Qui-Gon let her go, held her away from him at arms length. "You saw Senator Palpatine?" He pinned her with his eyes.

"Yes." She looked startled by his reaction.

"He was at his apartments?"

"Yes."

"And you said nothing to Mace?"

"Nobody asked me," she said defensively. "Nobody seems interested in what I might have witnessed."

It was true then, Qui-Gon thought. She was even now becoming invisible. "Tell me," he said, but he was already afraid that his own response might be inadequate.

"He wants to know the location of the Sith tombs. He wants Sith artifacts for his collection. And he wants you."

"Me?"

"To help him build a grand political vision that he has."

"Do you realise what you are saying? Palpatine has his faults, he is a politician. But he's beyond reproach in issues of government."

She looked away, half closed her eyes. "He said no one would listen to me. He said no one would believe me."

"I believe you, Iva. But..."

She looked back at him. "But nothing. He wanted me." Her voice was raised, on the edge of frenzy.

"What?"

"They had data on me. Obi-Wan found it. Did you give it to them?"

"No. No, Iva. I would never do that." These revelations and this accusation worried at him. "Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?"

"He tried. I wouldn't let him. He is evil. You have to do something about him."

"I can't. What evidence do we have?"

"The book."

"The book?"

"Obi-Wan had the pages."

"Yes, but they prove nothing. In all likelihood, the book found its way into the Republic during an uprising by fallen Jedi, knights who modeled themselves after the Sith, over a millennia ago. But we can't even be sure of that. The book only proves that someone possibly knew of your people at some time, but nothing else. Not that Palpatine is implicated in anything."

"He said he would deny any involvement. You take his word over mine." Her countenance was darkening.

"No. I just want to make sure where we stand."

"Are you on their side? Are you with them?"

"Them?"

"Those who had the book. Those who wanted me analysed."

"No. Don't worry about them now. They have been neutralised."

"Have they?"

"Yes." Was he so sure of that? He had to make her think he was sure.

"What about the Jedi?"

"The Jedi had nothing to do with this. Believe me, I am one of them. You have to trust me."

"I hope you are right. We will need them."

He didn't know what to say. If Yoda could be compromised, then any Jedi could. But he couldn't believe that anyone could carry out a plot to corrupt the Jedi Order. Or to overthrow the political mandate. But still, the sense of foreboding was acute. Iva took his silence at face value.

"Is there some question about that? Don't you trust them? Or don't you trust me? Don't you believe me when I tell you Palpatine is malign."

"Yes. Yes, I trust you. But we must be careful how we approach this. The Jedi have become intertwined with government and politics. That is why I do not wish to join the Council. It is not wise to push this now, so soon after Yoda's poisoning. Even if it's true, if Palpatine is interested in the location of Sith worlds, in Sith artifacts, it's not necessarily anything the Council can act on. It is a dangerous interest, but not a crime in itself." Iva frowned, but he continued with his declamation. "He's interested in you, that's understandable. Men of power invariably want to possess beautiful exotic women." From her look as he spoke, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. His words brought a ghastly paleness to her skin and she fell into a deliberate sulk. He continued, hoping to gloss over his faux pas. "He's interested in the Jedi? In me? Politically? No, I can't believe that. You must have been mistaken."

That was wrong too. Even as he said it, he knew it would make her lose control again.

"Oh, right." She was bitter, tearful and careless with her anger. "What makes you think you know what is in men's hearts better than I," she shouted. "I have seen enough men of dishonour on Cair-deil Talamh to know evil when I see it."

He stood up, barking back at her. "It only proves Palpatine guilty of vaulting ambition and depraved sexual proclivities. To the republic these are not grave crimes in themselves, they do not merit investigation by the Jedi or anyone else. He has already apologised to the Council for his error, they accept he is as bewildered as they about how it happened."

"And that's enough for you, is it? I had to expose my soul to him to stop him molesting me and you all take his word as sacrosanct."

"What?" He didn't understand what she was implying. What she was holding back.

"Nothing," she snapped and lapsed into an angry silence.

"You used magic on him? Cast a spell over him?" He didn't understand why that made him so angry.

"No," she screamed back, "on myself."

"On yourself?" He couldn't follow this. He couldn't follow her. She danced from point to point, there seemed no logic to her argument. Her fury raged out of all proportion to the quarrel.

"To give me strength to fight him off."

"You must be careful what you show to people."

"There wasn't any choice. Would you rather I had given in to his advances." She looked at him with horror. "If you had been there, you would have seen."

If he had been there... That was his failure. He had left her alone. She could fight for herself, she had the power and the fortitude, but he held it against her. Why? Was he so afraid of what she was? Was he afraid that others would see her for what she was and look at him with suspicion in their eyes? "If I had been there I could have protected you."

"Oh, so it's alright for you to use your Force arts, but I shouldn't use mine, is that it?"

"No." No, that wasn't what he had meant. It was all wrong. He realised how he must appear to her. Looming over her, oppressing her with harsh words. He didn't mean to intimidate her, he couldn't help his size. He backed off from her. "You must be careful what you say about this."

"Why? Why must I be the one to hide?" She still seethed. This angry exchange had to stop but he didn't know how to end it. How to let it go. How to let it lie.

"Because Palpatine is a politician, because he can manipulate power. Yes, he is a immoral man, and you are right to distrust him, men like him can destroy people easily. But I don't think he is suspect in his intentions towards the Republic."

"You make a grave error when you make excuses for him."

Iva's eyes burned into him. Was it a sign of defensiveness or some other glimpse of the future she had seen? He could not even tell if the fire he sensed in her was from her angry exchanges with him, or if it presaged a longing look of burning desire.

"You might at least take your coat off," he grappled to pull her arms from the sleeves. She resisted and wrapped her arms tighter around her body. "You look like you're not intending to stay long," he snapped at her.

She countered by pulling her coat off and throwing it at him belligerently. He was aroused at the look of malice and lust on her face, but caught the garment deftly, only to toss it aside.

"We mustn't do this. It's not right." He took her hand, interlaced his fingers through hers, lifted it to his mouth, kissed it. "I'm sorry. Let's try again." She rebelled and fought back against his pleas for reconciliation even as she acceded to his advances. "We only have each other to love," he pressed on. "Forget Palpatine. We can wait. One day, if what you surmise is true, he will make a mistake." He held her tightly, wanted to smother her, her lips were so close to his neck that his skin tingled. "If we let this come between us, we'll have let him win. We must bide our time."

But the ominous associations of what Iva had revealed about Palpatine lingered in Qui-Gon's mind. He pushed them to the back, into the dark recess he kept for such distractions.

He touched her cheek gently. Ran his fingers down the line of her neck. Traced her collarbone and the cleft between her breasts.

Her eyes were wide, open to him, waiting for him to fall into them. Fall he did, into her arms.

Their caresses at first were brutal as they ripped at each others clothes, but as the flame of wrath gave way to the incandescence of love they were suddenly affectionate and tender in direct proportion to their previous violent emotions.

Qui-Gon took advantage in the curbing of their baser desire and took Iva into the shower room and washed the remnants of the past ordeals off of her body before he allowed the resumption of their foreplay.

He let her sit on the edge of the bed and knelt behind her as he combed the tangles out of her wet hair for her, easing each knot apart carefully, gently, running each strand between his fingers lovingly.

The job complete, he let his hands slide down the damp skin of her shoulders and back, massaging and soothing her muscles into relaxing malleability, urging her body on to receptivity, smoothing out the snags in her mind.

He pulled her back until her head was resting on his thighs and he looked down at her. "Iva." Her name was a flame to his candle. She smiled up at him, her arm reached out for him, her fingers snaked into his hair as it fell forwards over his face. She pulled him down towards her, straining up until their lips met.

He twisted out from under her and lifted her up onto the pillows. Ran his hands up the length of her torso and enclosed her breasts. She gripped his shoulders and pulled him down towards her.

Her nipples were dark and ripe as berries, he enclosed each in turn in mouth, tasting her with his tongue. A sigh escaped her lips. He sucked at her hard, the nipple elongating at the urgings of his tongue. Her sigh became a cry for mercy as he massaged her other breast with his hand.

Her body began to undulate and he reached down to probe between her legs. "Please, please," she breathed.

He released his mouth from her breast. Looked deep into her eyes. "Please what?" he asked, his voice deep with his own arousal.

"Please more," she said almost soundlessly.

She sank even lower into the pillows, her hips raised to him, revealing her enticing depths, shimmeringly damp and ready for him.

As he slipped inside her, she moaned again. His thrusts into her were gentle, but her nails raked at the skin of his back as she pulled him closer, deeper into her. The pounding rhythm of their bodies oscillated them both over the horizon of pleasure into a transport of heavenly bliss.

Afterwards, as they lay together, Qui-Gon talked of all the things they might do and try if they had a lifetime together. Iva fell asleep in his arms to the reassuring whispers of his promises and his dreams.

- 36 -
Wipe the Sleep From Your Eyes and Embrace the Light.

The next morning Qui-Gon didn't dare to wake Iva early, but contented himself with looking at her as she slumbered.

In the pre-dawn light she looked wan, sickly, desiccated. Her beauty compromised, gone. What had he seen in her before? In that sight of the slate blue creature of death. Was the thing he had glimpsed on their escape from the pole reasserting itself? Whatever the truth, he couldn't stop loving her now. For he had come to know that there were more worlds than this one of flesh and blood to give credence to.

He knew also that she could never flourish in the Temple, the Jedi aura seemed to suck her beauty, her verve, to suck her dry. He had to get her away from here, away to somewhere she could draw on the cosmic energies that fed her.

She stirred in her sleep, opened her eyes to meet his looking back at her. When she smiled all trace of the succubus fled her face. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her cheek, her lips. She giggled shyly. "I can't get enough of you," he laughed.

"Good, because I think you're stuck with me." She teased, but her look suddenly turned serious. "Unless your Council sends me away."

"We'll have to ensure they don't." He looked at her, trying to convince her without words that she would have to share his determination and obstinacy without expression of emotion, without betraying her emotions. He knew it would be hard for her, and he knew it was not her way. He could not control her, he could not prompt her, he could only be there for her. "Just answer them as best you can, be truthful with them. And don't lose hope."

He kissed her again. He wanted to stay in her embrace for a while but there was little time. "We have to get ready," he told her.

Qui-Gon watched as she dressed in her Baobhan-sith gown, its colour the echo of a midnight sky filled with a silver tracery of knotted lines, a negative reflection of the tattooed skin of her bare arms. The amulet on her right wrist twisted around her forearm at her touch, she slid a crystal and silver wand into the spirals along her inner arm, the crystal at its tip cradled in her palm. It pulsed momentarily with light as she clasped it. He couldn't but think it had the look of a weapon about it, a technology not so very different from that in his laser sword.

Her hair was swept back from her face in a chestnut halo and woven into a single plait that hung down the centre of her back. She covered it with a gauzy black veil held in place by a diadem topped with a crescent moon. She wore her amber beads coiled around her left wrist and palm below the Sith bracelet and they shone like her eyes.

He wasn't sure an appearance before the Council dressed like that was advisable but she insisted she address them as one of the sisterhood, as a representative of the Taleach people. The look of her made him quiver. He couldn't speak as they walked to the Council chamber. Knowing that Yoda would not be present only added to his disturbance.

They stood together as they waited in the forecourt. Holding each close, his robe wrapped around her, enfolding her. "You'll be fine," he told her. "I'll be with you." They waited like that as the minutes ticked by, her head snuggled against his chest, his hands on her head and her back, her arms wrapped around his waist, their bodies closely pressed together, each breath taken in unison.

She wriggled eventually. "Your hair is tickling my nose," she laughed. He pulled away but she kept a tight hold on him. "No, it's nice," she said.

They waited for their call to battle.

***

The rarefied atmosphere of the Council chamber did Iva no justice. She knew it well enough. It dwarfed her, this potent space, rendered her, as it did all supplicants, insignificant before the might of the Jedi Order, designed as it was to diminish even as it offered up the symbolic equality of the circle.

They frightened her, too, these people. Strange sights enough had already met her foreign eyes, yet more alien faces there were here for her amazement. She turned, unsure of which direction she should face, which unfamiliar form least disoriented her sensibilities. She did not know where to look. Even those she had already met, seemed strange. Mace too stern. Plo still too incomprehensible.

"Be still." Qui-Gon whispered to her, drawing her spirit towards his calm centre. She relished it, his presence and his stability. But she took a step towards Yaddle, so much in appearance like a guardian spirit of the forests to her eyes. She smiled at the diminutive librarian who smiled back in a modest way that almost had Iva believing she had found another ally amongst the Jedi. But she knew this to be a premature assumption.

"I am Master Yaddle. The Jedi owe you a debt of gratitude for saving the lives of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi." Yaddle spoke before the formalities of the interview had begun. Mace's head shot round.

Iva shrugged. "I did what I had to do."

"Nevertheless, I thank you." Mace coughed loudly, Yaddle taking the point and lapsing into silence. But she smiled again at Iva.

Mace's eyes bored into Iva. She didn't turn. "Look at me, young lady," he demanded. She turned.

The councilor at his left leant in towards Mace. "She speaks like a Jedi." Iva looked back at Qui-Gon, frowned. Oppo Rancis, he informed her quietly.

Iva said nothing. Palpatine had said much the same. Her mind lost concentration at the reminder of that man. She wished she could reveal his machinations but concurred with Qui-Gon's exhortations to wait.

Mace drew her back from her thoughts. "And what do you aspire to, Lady Ibhormheith? Here on Couruscant?"

She was at a loss to understand the question. "I aspire to nothing here. I am not a Jedi, nor do I wish to be like one. I am a ban-fhaidh of the Baobhan-sith Cloister on Cair-deach Sithien."

Mace looked at her curiously now. "Would you care to explain that to us?"

She laughed as though it should be obvious. "We practice the magical arts. We keep the records of the bloodlines. We walk in the dreamscape." She half turned and cast her eyes around the circle, judging their receptivity. She found little comfort in their faces. "I am a prophetess. I read the threads in the tapestry of time." Her shoulders were set.

"And your power? What is the source of your power?"

Ah, here was the crux. They wanted her to blacken herself. She would give them nothing but the truth. "I draw my power from the web of energy that encloses the cosmos, its magical force."

"You think you are better than the Jedi?" Rancis countered.

She smiled. Shook her head.

"Well?" Mace was intent on putting her on the spot.

"Not better. Different."

Mace looked past her, as though he was done with her. "Master Jinn. How much have you told Lady Ibhormheith about our ways?"

"Only as much as she needed to know for her own safety."

"And how safe are we from her? How safe is this power she speaks of? It does not sit well with our awareness of the Force."

"Iva's people have been without the guidance of the Force for almost five millennia." Qui-Gon's defence of her was from the heart. "They have never known our ways, never known the paths we followed, and they have forged their own. Perhaps the Taleach people were transmuted by the war which scorched the planets. Perhaps the Force found a way of reuniting them with its energies in the absence of symbiosis with the midi-chlorians. Perhaps their access is more direct than ours. But perhaps also we should welcome it."

"This is a sacrilege." A maimed, battle hardened Jedi, Evan Piell Iva was informed, was bristling.

"Indeed." Mace concurred. "That could be read as blasphemy, Master Jinn."

"Is it any reason to condemn a person?" Qui-Gon challenged.

Another spoke behind them. "Her safety should not be our concern. We know nothing of what became of the Sith Empire after the great war. Are we not to assume that all life there is tainted by the power of the dark side? If Master Yoda were here, he would tell us so."

This was too much for Iva. "We are not your Sith." She took offence. "We are an abandoned people, you abandoned us. We forged our own survival long ago. Yes, our breeding programme left us alien to you, would you rather we had all died?" She looked at Mace defiantly. He was the one who tested her. He was the one she would stand up to. "No, we are not your Sith. Perhaps you had better look a little closer to home, a little closer to your own hearts for your enemy."

"She is so emotional." Oppo seemed fascinated and repelled by her outburst.

"And what is wrong with that?" she shot back. "You are the ones who court failure by denying your emotions, your passions."

Qui-Gon laid his hand on the back of Iva's waist, aware of the disapproval it gained from some quarters of the circle but eager to champion her cause. "Lady Ibhormheith has stood up to the dark forces that conspire against us here on Coruscant. She has stood up to the evil, shown great ferocity of spirit and more than a little valiancy. Yet she acts without violence. As for her emotions..."

"There is no emotion," Piell intoned.

"As for her emotions, Master Piell, she treasures those, they are her strength."

"There is no passion..." Piell continued in his recitation of the Code.

Plo indicated permission to speak and Mace nodded at him. "How can we judge her by our own standards?" he asked. "Her resources are unlike ours, that is the truth. She has her own codes. Perhaps we should respect them."

"Lady Ibhormheith has much to learn of our ways, Master Koon." But Mace was obviously considering the balance of the debate carefully. "If she is to reside amongst us as a citizen of the Republic, she must accept our customs."

"Why is it I who must change?" Iva's voice was taking on a defensive tone.

Qui-Gon dreaded such defiance. She could not stand up to them, he feared that they would reject her for that alone. He doubted even he could ever accommodate her ways entirely.

Yaddle interjected for the first time in the inquisition proper. "She reveres the feminine, I think. Something we have negated for too long."

"Nonsense." Piell was dismissive.

"In this, it is we who are unbalanced," Yaddle countered. "Look at us." She spread her hand around the circle.

"Irrelevant." Piell maintained his antagonistic air. "Look at her. Look at what she does to Master Jinn." He snorted. "She oozes sexuality. It is an abomination."

Yaddle leant provocatively in towards him. "Perhaps sexuality, if you accepted it Master Piell, could be used to channel the Force."

"Sex is sacred." Iva spoke quietly but all eyes turned to her. She felt Qui-Gon's discomfort too, but she continued with her affirmation. "Sex is a powerful energy, it is raw controlled emotion that can be utilised for magic."

"Superstition." Piell would not be persuaded.

"Superstition only obscures the facts," Iva said to them all. "It merely veils the truth."

They were not accustomed to being contradicted, rarely faced by a person of a mindset so in opposition to their own. They whispered amongst themselves for a moment.

Finally, Mace spoke again. "And what might your truth be, Lady Ibhormheith? What are your ultimate intentions."

"I seek alignment between the Jedi order and the Baobhan-sith cloister."

"With Qui-Gon Jinn here, I suppose." Piell almost smirked.

Mace indicated he should be silent.

Iva lowered her eyes. "He is my consort and my champion," she whispered.

"And what do you believe would be accomplished by that?" Mace probed further into the matter. An avenue of debate she both feared and relished.

"The meeting of the polarities. The restoration of wholeness."

"Polarity? Polarity between what?"

"The tree of the world has two halves. One burns, the other is in green. Without the polarity of night and day, winter and summer, land and people, female and male we could not exist. The polarity gives rise to power, in us and between us. The fundamental difference between these principles allows change to occur." She was preaching, she realised, they would not listen. Only Yaddle seemed interested, leaning forward to catch every word.

"We do not need change," one of their number proclaimed.

Iva looked down, spoke to no one directly, but spoke clearly to all who would listen. "But you do. A shadow is about to overcome you all."

"Some prophesy, no doubt," Piell proclaimed. "Some vision of our future. Tell us."

"Yes, tell us, please," Yaddle invited in a more placatory manner.

There would be deaths, Iva had seen it all, its entirety, before. She had seen all their deaths as she had seen Qui-Gon's, though she had not understood it until now. She knew they would not accept her words. "There is a jihad coming, the purging of the Force, the genocide of the countless races you have sworn to protect."

"How can you be sure of this vision?" Mace looked doubtful.

"Are you sure of your own prophesies?"

"Perhaps she could give us a reading of o-cha leaves." Piell was playing her for a fool.

Iva turned on him. "I will not prophesy to order. I will not prophesy on your whim."

"This is hardly objective." Qui-Gon interjected. "Iva came here as an emissary of the Baobhan-sith cloister. As a representative of the Taleach people. Not to be tested by us."

Mace inclined his head. "Quite true, Master Jinn. But you seek approval of your relationship with her, do you not? And what about this alignment of which she speaks? Is this your desire too?"

"I only seek your approval of what has already been ordained."

Rancis shook his head somberly. "I sense that she has too much emotion for union with a Jedi."

"Then I can no longer be counted amongst your number."

"Wait, this is premature." Mace's measured tones drowned out the murmurs of discord. "Nobody here wishes to see Qui-Gon leave us. We are already agreed on that. We cannot ratify this union but an accommodation must be found."

Even as Iva felt Qui-Gon accept Mace's words with relief, she shivered beside him. Another presence loomed, one without form or substance, a premonition of times to come. She felt the air oscillate. She was trying desperately to control herself, to control her emotions, but something else was happening. Her realisation of future time brought it upon her. She staggered, stepped back, touched her forehead.

"The shadow." She pointed to the far window. "The shadow is already falling." She couldn't contain it, because it was containing her. "The air is burning." There was an oppressive cloud in the room with them. Qui-Gon supported her, holding her arm, one hand on the curve of her waist. A dark form coiled across the floor - could the others not see it? A slick oily dark crept across the floor of the chamber, inching towards her, reaching out for her ankle.

She barely noticed that Plo Koon shied away too.

She saw a child. What child? Her's? The one she might some day bear if Qui-Gon consented? No, it was another. The first offspring of the twilight. The child creates itself, she realised. Why was it so hard to see? The room was spinning, her head was spinning. She stumbled, knees buckling and would have collapsed to the floor had Qui-Gon not been holding her.

"What do you see?" Qui-Gon asked her gently.

"A child," she said. "That is all. Just a child."

Mace sighed. "And who is this child?"

"I cannot say." She couldn't. She would have to try and understand it first. To search the knotted paths of time diligently. To determine who this vision was meant for. If anyone.

"It is not wise to hold things back from us."

"To know the future is not always wise. To speak of the future changes it. There are things that belong only to time future. Secrets which might be used to deflect the paths of others. Don't you understand? You must understand - you are men and women of insight."

She had set off a firecracker string of anxious whispers amongst the Jedi. The first echo of a storm that would consume the galaxy.

One voice emerged strong from the hubbub. "These are tautologies. Nonsense. Are we to believe an outsider's word?"

"No, speak the truth she does." Yoda stamped into the council chamber, leaning hard on his gimer stick, surprising them all with his presence and his words.

Mace stood to acknowledge him. "You should be resting, Master Yoda."

At the mention of his name, Iva sank closer in towards Qui-Gon's body, unsure of her reactions, unsure of how she should respond to the Jedi who had ordered her persecution. She felt distaste. But she also felt bewilderment that he, like Yaddle, could so resemble an noble spirit from her own world. She did not know whether to cringe or honour him.

"Rest I don't need, Master Windu. To see this woman, I do." He waved his stick towards Iva.

Qui-Gon held on to her reassuringly, firmly.

Yoda shuffled towards her. "Not so much to look at, is she?" He peered up at her out of wise ancient eyes. "No. No." He shook his head. "Do better you could, Qui-Gon, if you want to take a wife."

Iva thought better of responding to the challenge. For a challenge it most definitely was. She was not so hot-headed as to fall for such inflammatory taunts. No matter what Qui-Gon said, this was a test she faced. She wouldn't give Yoda undue cause to fail her. For Qui-Gon's sake at least. But she did smile. Somehow she saw humour in the moment.

"Have her then, if you must," Yoda said when he got no other response and he took his seat in the circle.

"I concur." Mace addressed the council, a summing up signaled in the resonance of his speech. "We have few options but go along with this now. But be warned that it makes things very complicated for you, Master Jinn. Do not think that your standing in the Order remains unchanged. We will discuss your future in private later."

***

Yoda followed Iva and Qui-Gon from the chamber. "A word, Qui-Gon. Apologise, I must."

Qui-Gon turned back and acknowledged Yoda. "No apology is necessary, Master. I hope you are recovered from your illness."

"An illness, it was not. Deliberate, it was. Sorry that I succumbed, I am."

Qui-Gon could not respond. He tried to read Yoda's intent, but it was well shielded.

"Tried to turn us against her, they did. Succeed, they did. Wrong, I was. Even the greatest Jedi make mistakes, yes. But trust her, I do not." Yoda paused, as though considering the moment. "Dreams of your future, I have too, Qui-Gon."

"Yes?"

"Never asked, did you, eh? Wouldn't talk, no. Want to know now, do you? Now you have your dream." He pointed again at Iva. "Take you away from us, she will. From the Force, yes."

Qui-Gon kept his breathing calm, quelled his trepidation. "I know." He was very aware of Iva standing silently behind him. Her presence tempted him, even here.

"Accept this, you do?"

"There are still many choices which can be made. Time is a forked path."

"Speak like her, you do."

"When the time comes, I will trust in the living Force."

"So sure you are that this is right?

"Yes, my Master."

"Allow this union to continue the Council does. But like it I do not. Discrete you must be. Keep her away from you, you should. Send her to your family, eh."

"I'll consider it, Master."

"No, no. You won't. Know you too well, I do." Yoda started to leave, but turned back.

"And Qui-Gon..."

"Yes, Master Yoda?"

"Do not slip into her ways, eh."

"I understand, Master. Kenobi's training will come first."

"The Force will come first, yes. Always first, it must be." Yoda looked up at Qui-Gon, musingly. "Lost you will be when you deny this, yes." He walked away sadly. "Want to lose you, I do not."

The words hung in the air long after he was gone.

As Qui-Gon and Iva stood together, alone again in the forecourt, but apart, Iva half turned. "Is it over?" she asked, despondency creeping into the edges of her voice.

Did she mean her testing before the Council, or their affair?

"No," he told her. "Not yet." The answer was the same in either case. But despite Yoda's dread of his loss, despite his own disquiet, his heart felt light as he took the hand of the woman whose destiny he had trothed himself to.

- 37 -
Imagination Takes the Shadows Away.

Despite being told to wait in the outer office, Qui-Gon moved behind the senatorial aide as she knocked and opened the door to Palpatine's inner sanctum.

"Sir, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn is here to see you. Is it inconvenient?"

Palpatine smiled at his assistant. She was young and beautiful, Qui-Gon noticed, as were all the staff he surrounded himself with. Like a wall, he thought, a wall which must be a continual pleasure for the Senator to look out on. Did he treat them all as he had treated Iva? The thought turned Qui-Gon's stomach. He met Palpatine's eyes. It was an uneasy gaze, there was artfully veiled ill will on either side.

"No." The Senator spoke flatly. "Show him right in."

The aide stepped aside to allow Qui-Gon access but Palpatine fell back almost immediately into his work, to looking down at his datapad, intent on appearing preoccupied when the Jedi entered. It did not make Qui-Gon uncomfortable, members of the Order were skilled in infinite patience, but he knew Palpatine would consider it a demonstration of his intended dominance of this encounter.

It was an affectation Qui-Gon was willing to make allowances for, providing as it did the opportunity to consider his own position. The room was well proportioned, but he knew he had the advantage of size and could dominate its space. He recognised from the neatness of the layout and the order of the desk that it also afforded little chance for what he wished to do. Nevertheless, he moved further into the room and away from the window.

After his rapprochement with the Council he had considered the damage he could do to Palpatine. As he had said to Iva, there was scant possibility for political reprisal, corruption and scandal had become the way of life for politicians of late. And after all that had happened he could not take the situation into his own hands and exact a violent retaliation upon the man. Not, at least, without sacrificing his career and his freedom once and for all. He had thought he was tied by circumstances until Iva opened up a path for him. He still wasn't sure it was right. Revenge was not a route encouraged by the Jedi and this felt so very much like vengeance. But he also felt that retribution for his greed and for his crass behaviour was all that Palpatine deserved.

"I was glad to hear Lady Ibhormheith is safe." Palpatine spoke without looking up. Qui-Gon could not read the insincerity in the eyes, but he heard it in the words.

"Are you, Senator?" He determined not to pander to the man, though he did not wish to alert him to the danger he now wielded in his hand.

Palpatine looked up at that. "There has been some misunderstanding here, Master Jedi." A heavy glass carafe and drinking glass sat near his right hand. "I don't know what the woman has told you but I mean her no harm. Perhaps we can reach some understanding here."

"The woman is my wife, Senator." Qui-Gon kept his emotions level. It was not Iva's honour he was here to avenge, it was Palpatine's potential for evil he was here to avert. But let the Senator think otherwise.

"You seek revenge for something that exists only in a woman's mind," Palpatine was saying, almost as if he knew his thoughts.

Qui-Gon ignored the slur to Iva's honesty. It was Palpatine's manner alone that interested him. Could it be possible that this man had Force powers no one had yet recognised? Qui-Gon sensed nothing, but shrouded his thoughts more carefully.

He felt for the small object hidden in the hem of his sleeve, the instrument of justice from Cair-deach Sithien. A dark weapon with which to punish a dark soul. It is a fragment of a magic mirror, Iva had told him as she handed him the small vial which contained it, the mirror having been shattered during a ceremony on the night of a dark moon close to mid-winter. As he had looked at the sliver of black glass, its sharp edges scintillating the light, she had explained that it could be implanted in a wicked person's eye to turn their vision to ice and afford them the future sight of the consequences of all their evil thoughts. He had not stopped to contemplate how such a thing might be possible, he had only asked how it could be administered. A member of the sisterhood would do it while the person slept, Iva had said, smiling secretively. That hadn't been a method he could engineer, he would have to find another. The Force would have to guide him. And guide the shard of magic to its target.

"Revenge is not the Jedi way," he replied calmly to Palpatine's jibe. "I did not come here to threaten you. Only to warn you. I am sworn to defend and protect, and I will defend Iva's honour and protect her people, whether the Jedi Order wills it or not. Iva's honesty is plain, yours is not." He slipped his hands into his sleeves, an innocent enough action. "Be careful whom you seek to manipulate in future, Senator. I will be watching you."

"I mean no disrespect, sincerely." Palpatine's voice was tempting and thick.

"Sincerity is not something that sits well on you, Senator." Qui-Gon knew what his next move would be. "I know that you try and hide the darkness in your soul, but the darkness has a way of staining everything around it and it will not stay hidden forever." He slid the vial from its hiding place and deftly removed the stopper. "Do not venture out to the Sith worlds," he continued. "Korriban is not for you." He let the mirror fragment fall into his palm, then slipped the vial back into his sleeve. "I will see that Iva alerts the Baobhan-sith to your intent there. Do not underestimate their power." He grasped the glass shard firmly between thumb and forefinger.

Palpatine spread his hands wide in a gesture of supplication. "You misunderstand me, Master Jinn. I simply let my love of fine objects sway me. I am contrite, to be sure."

Qui-Gon was not convinced. But he did not betray his doubt. Palpatine must be lulled into believing he had the upper hand. "Your contrition is enough for me, Senator," he acceded. But even as he spoke, he let a sudden surge of the Force take the glass at Palpatine's elbow and shatter it into a thousand fragments. A few he directed towards the Senator's eyes. In the same instant, he aimed a burst of force energy which imploded the window of the office. Knife-edged facets of plexglass scattered across the floor.

Palpatine reeled back clutching at his face.

Qui-Gon quickly flung open door to the office. "There has been another attempt on the Senator's life," he cried, alerting the staff.

He quickly darted back to the Senator's side. "Let me see." He pulled Palpatine's hands away from his face. Blood flowed from a dozen small cuts, the eyeballs were oozing clear fluid.

"My eyes." Palpatine moaned.

Qui-Gon prised the lids of the more damaged eye apart. The mirror shard sank easily into the orb. Palpatine cried out again in pain, clutching again at his face. "Don't touch me, you fool," he shouted. "Get me medical assistance. Now."

The aide reappeared. "What happened?" she gasped, her eyes taking in the devastation.

"Snipers." Qui-Gon pointed to the neat slice which had been taken from the window. "I'll check if they left any trace." He ducked past her, leaving her open-mouthed in shock.

"Help me," Palpatine groaned again.

A secretary, carrying a medical kit, rushed in.

In the ensuing commotion, Qui-Gon slipped away silently, his work here done. He couldn't be sure of the consequences of his actions, but Palpatine would be foolish to accuse him or Iva now. He couldn't be sure either of the effectiveness of Iva's remedy. Only time would tell if Palpatine's ambitions had been severed from the influence of the Darkside.

- 38 -
It's a Question Of Not Letting What We've Built Up Crumble To Dust.

Qui-Gon had been gone too long for Iva's liking.

If it had been anywhere but to see Palpatine she would have amused herself easily, but knowing he had gone to confront the Senator at her own urging, and with a weapon of her own making in his hand, didn't ease her wildly beating imagination. She didn't know how to stay calm. Every time she attempted a visualisation, Palpatine's detestable features intruded. She had the feeling, but no insight, that whatever Qui-Gon did, whether he succeeded in the task he undertook or not, Palpatine would exact a terrible price from them both in the future. That could well be true, for all she knew he would be the cause of Qui-Gon's demise. But it didn't give her any intuition into what had happened in the here and now with Palpatine and she couldn't read his future. That odious man was one of the few people whose threads led only to blank areas of the tapestry. She did know that what Qui-Gon did was dangerous, not just to his person but to his soul.

She couldn't share her concerns with Obi-Wan and she didn't want to ask his advice. When he had returned from the training halls after a morning's workout he had stuffed his face with biscuits and announced he was going to his room.

And so eventually, after an afternoon of prowling round the small rooms that comprised Qui-Gon's quarters, she prepared herself for a purification ritual. She was about to take a bath when Qui-Gon returned. He had a look about him that made her uneasy. She didn't ask what had transpired, he would tell her in his own time.

"I'm going to take a bath." She tried to sound as matter of fact as possible. "You can join me if you wish."

She laced the water with salt and flowers and leaves. She lit charcoal and added to the steam that suffused the room with fragrant clouds of incense. She had set candles burning around the narrow bath and undressed slowly, hoping all the while that Qui-Gon would take her up on her suggestion. He didn't and she fought the temptation to go back and see what he was doing. To find out what could be more appealing than her.

She stepped into the aromatic water and lay back, her body prickling with the heat, her nostrils tingling with the scent of lavender and copal.

Qui-Gon came in then and looked at her wonderingly. "What is all this for?" he asked. She felt that it was something strange to him. It was.

"For purification," she said. "To cleanse the remnants of evil from my body." She squeezed a sponge and the water poured in rivulets across her breasts. "Get in," she suggested. "It can purify you too."

He laughed as though he didn't feel the need for such cleansing, but he undressed anyway. She admired the strength and form of his body, the definition of the muscles, the sheen of the skin and the length of the limbs. She smiled at the sight of the arousal that was taking form in his manhood. She shifted forwards and he sank into the silky waters behind her, supporting her body with his, wrapping his legs around her, enfolding her in his arms.

"I did what had to be done," he murmured in her ear. "But you'd best stay clear of Palpatine for a while." He cupped his hand against her face. She took hold of his arm, the arm that lay against her body, in both her hands and held it tightly. "You have to tell me more about the destiny," he told her. She could not see his face, she only felt the rise and fall of his chest beneath her. She longed to touch his cheek, feel the roughness of his beard under her hand, run her fingers across the bow of his lips. "I will accept your destiny," he said. "I have accepted your destiny, but I have to know what it entails. There can be no secrets between us."

"It's really hard to say. Things are not always clear. There will be children born within the next generation or two who will unite the light and dark."

"Our child? Your breeding programme?"

"Yes." She gripped his arm, she was afraid to let him go. "But there will be others."

"How many?"

"At least one other. Maybe more. But you must know..."

"Know what?"

"That the child cannot be born without a soul."

"I don't understand."

She thought for a moment, better to tell him everything she understood. "The fulfillment of the destiny is a rebirth. When you die, you must give your spirit into my keeping, into the keeping of the Baobhan-sith." It pained her, this thought.

"But when I die I become one with the Force."

"The child must have your soul." She knew that although he believed in her, believed in the destiny, somewhere deep inside he doubted her words. He thought they were just a creed of the faith she held. Perhaps, she thought, they were. Was her truth, her doctrine, any more valid than his?

But when he spoke, his voice mirrored her pain. "Your destiny is my death, then."

"Yes."

He touched her cheek, his damp fingers rough to her skin. "I am prepared for death. But..."

"But?" she echoed.

"When will this happen? I must know. How long do we have?"

She sensed his doubt. "Time flows at its own speed. It may overtake us before we know it is here. But we will know when." She thought hard about what she had seen, the options open to them. The fleeting question that she should not even reveal them passed. "There is another choice."

"What choice?"

"Other choices can always be made. Nothing is predestined. We're always free to choose."

"We cannot stop the cycle of light and dark." His voice was strong, assertive. "It's too late, it always has been, always will be, too late."

Why did he say such a thing? She wondered if he might see more than she did. "No. If we do not choose to fulfill the destiny, it will fall to others. The destiny will lead to death and pain, but it will liberate the future. Nevertheless, we have free will."

"Yes. But if I have the opportunity to choose a course which will lead to freedom for many, how can I deny it?"

There was no answer to that but acceptance. She only told him what he had already known, he had known it all before, in his heart if not in his mind. The dreams had seen to that. Their happiness and their sadness were fused, they could not have one without the other. There was nothing else to say. Qui-Gon kissed Iva's hair and they lay together, peacefully, till the water cooled.

As he helped her from the bath Qui-Gon's hand brushed against the curve of Iva's hip. As he dried her, he caressed her breast. A fire ignited inside her.

"Purify me," she said.

"How?"

She grasped his wrist. "Fill me with your lifeseed."

When he kissed her, she tasted nothing but the musk of his body. She saw nothing but the embracing blue of his eyes. She felt wild and distracted, her mind disarranged.

His fingers entangled in her hair, curled its coppery strands meditatively as he stared into her eyes. As he fixed her with a look of fond affection.

"But how can this purify you?"

"It just does."

"There's something else," he said.

She feared what he would ask her next.

"There is another being that dwells within you." His voice was hesitant, as though he feared the answer too.

"Only the goddess," she responded.

"How does it work?"

"I cannot say." She guessed that he had seen something of her inner self, a glimpse of the Iva that existed in that other world, and that he didn't care. "I can show you if you want."

"Show me."

She arranged her crystals into the outline of a circle on the floor, marking the quarter points, and had him kneel in the centre. She knelt facing him. She spoke lilting poetic words. Words which were neither endearment nor passion, but magic. Her spell was designed to bind herself to him. Her spell held him fast. A radiant glow formed in the air between them. She could feel the crackle of its energy on her face as it grew to encompass them both. She could see the air shimmer in the heat haze between them. It was his fire, his passion, devouring them both. Their minds unlocked from their bodies. They were themselves, they were each separate but joined, one with the other, they were looking down at themselves, each saw themself as the other saw them, they were one with the spirit of the universe. She was the cool bare earth. He was the purging fire. She, the assuaging water. He, the air that swept the ashes away on the scourging wind.

The vision that came then was meant for Qui-Gon's eyes.

A lifetime's training and a lifetime's denial were swept away. This was what the Baobhan-sith had accomplished with the ritual of the blood and the pentagram, they had prepared him for union, they had prepared him for death, they had prepared him for the life beyond death. They had prepared him for magic. He knew, as he had always known, what the future would bring.

Thoughts of death added an incipient delight to the incandescence that raged between them. As if this were the last moment they would share together. As if it were the first.

Iva's hands moved slowly but eagerly to find the soft flesh of Qui-Gon's sex. It hardened in her fingers, pulsed and thickened. But he pushed her hands away. He thrust her onto her back and eased her legs apart, pushing his hand against her, his fingers inside her. Their eyes locked, she saw desperation and love mingled in equal measure. His fingers quickened their pace and the expectation grew in her. She felt it build to a crescendo, held back its climax, wanting to protract the moment for her own pleasure. But her rapture was its own mistress and it would not be controlled. It was the supreme moment of bliss, the acceptance of all emotion, the expression of the feminine cycle of life. The circle of electric fluid was around them. Iva felt her face, her whole being, shine as she drew down the moon. She felt a shiver cross the surface of her body as she changed, became one with the maiden. And they both knew that nothing would touch them again until he was ready to give himself up to the goddess in her, to give himself over to death. Life would end, like the melting of ice in simmering water, life would go on, in union with the whole.

Qui-Gon rolled her over, made her kneel on all fours there on the hard, cold floor and took her from behind. She complied with no resistance. He speared her to the core, but the feeling that was almost pain soon became a spreading warmth that transfused her. When she felt that she couldn't hold out any longer, he withdrew from her and turned her over onto her back.

"I need you," he said, "I want you," and "I love you."

Her hands reached up and pulled him down. His body was heavy on hers. She felt like a once wild animal, broken and tamed, his to command. She raised her hips from the floor as he entered her again, exquisite sensations spreading through the pit of her stomach. She lay beneath his bulk eagerly gyrating as he pounded into her deeply. A tornado was building between them. The candle flames guttered and died, plunging them into a darkness alleviated only for a myriad golden motes spiraling in the whirlwind. A star was taking form. Iva called out Qui-Gon's name, begging him not to stop, to never stop. The pulsating fulfillment of their union overtook her.

Her transport subsided as his began.

The feelings amplified between them and his whole body reverberated with the force of their emotions. He thrust harder, ruthlessly pinning her to the floor until she could no longer breath. It was the absolute liberation as his life force flooded her being. The power and intensity of it left them both consumed. They embraced and kissed hungrily in the afterglow of their love, their trust, their lust.

Iva reached over and sprinkled some more grains of incense on the charcoal. The smoke made her heady with joy. She completed her incantation, the energy raised from their sexual union cementing the ritual. She ended it with a single phrase of her own. "Mo luaidh." My beloved.

Iva took both of Qui-Gon's hands in hers, laid her head on his chest, over the place where his heart would one day be pierced by a crueler shaft than love's fierce arrow. "You're my only home," she pledged.

They clung to each other then, each to the other's dear life, each becoming the other, sworn to a circle of male and female, light and dark, sun and moon. And after, forever afterwards, it was as though a chain bound their hearts together, a bond that would never be severed, not even in death.

- 39 -
Where the Wind's Own Forget-Me-Nots Blow.

As Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan arrived at the cluster of main Senate buildings, the apprentice looked brighter than he had for days and seemed eager to be back under orders again. He gave the impression to Qui-Gon that he was thrilled too about their being summoned to the Chancellor's office for an appointment with vice-chancellor Valorum.

Qui-Gon smiled. "Be calm, my Padawan. There may not be good news about our next assignment."

Obi-Wan's face fell and in response Qui-Gon tenderly gripped his shoulder. "Don't lose heart, Obi-Wan. I just expect I will be sidelined for a while somewhere inauspicious. It won't affect your training." Qui-Gon thought of all the times already that Obi-Wan had got himself into scrapes. "And I'm sure you will find plenty of trouble coming your way. Just remember not to lose sight of the Force."

Qui-Gon envied Obi-Wan his simple excitement. He himself was still entranced from his most recent lovemaking with Iva, his imminent arrival at the centre of Republic power paled in comparison. She coloured his life now in a way that had changed his outlook forever. It was to be expected, but he found its repercussions were not always predictable. As he ushered Obi-Wan forward, he realised his bond to his apprentice felt even stronger, not weakened as he had feared. As he pondered these inconsistencies, Mace intercepted their arrival.

"I understand that Senator Palpatine has been the victim of another attempt on his life." Mace looked almost cagey, as though he suspected Qui-Gon's involvement and conspired in it. It wouldn't have surprised Qui-Gon if that were true. "It seems you continue to develop your talent for being in the wrong place at the right time, Master Jinn."

"I would that were so, Master Windu," he replied, raising an eyebrow at Obi-Wan's questioning look. "It was politic to pay respects to the Senator for offering protection to Lady Ibhormheith."

"Indeed." Mace smiled knowingly. "But it does seem that someone continues to bear a grudge against Palpatine. Yet you found no trace of the sniper."

"None." Qui-Gon's tone was equally knowing. "I would conclude that the Senator has an enemy with a personal grudge who sought to use the aftermath of the Krath activity as a smokescreen for their own agenda."

"It seems so, Master Jinn. It was fortunate that Senator Palpatine was not badly injured."

"No?"

"His office has released a statement that his injuries were minor and he returned to work almost immediately."

Qui-Gon nodded. "That is good to hear." Much as he wished otherwise, with the Senator's skin virtually intact, there was less chance of one small shard of magical black glass being prevented from doing its work.

Mace turned aside, lowered his voice. "I don't want to know what occurred between you and Palpatine, Qui-Gon, we will not speak of it again." He returned his voice to a normal level. "The vice-chancellor's office has requested you for an assignment, not a very challenging one I admit, but your recent conduct has tied our hands I'm afraid. However, I think it will solve both our problems. Finis Valorum is interested in offering Iva a position, I believe."

They continued the walk down the length of the corridor to their destination. Qui-Gon kept his hopes and his relief quietly to himself.

***

Palpatine was irascible. Since the incident at his office with Qui-Gon he had been pained by a burning cold dagger that felt as though it penetrated his eye even to the very core of his brain. The medics had told him there was no lasting damage, a few minor lacerations to the face and some abrasion of the cornea but no more. It didn't explain the dreadful sensation that his eye was a frozen orb of ice. He had the ominous feeling it would dog him all his days. A permanent reminder, as if he needed one, of the threat that Qui-Gon Jinn and his Sith witch posed to him. To his future plans for domination. C'Baoth had already been taken away from him, his leverage in the Temple torn away like so many dead leaves in a gale.

He wanted to scream with the frostbitten agony in his head, tear his eye from the socket and crush it. But he knew that that would not end his agony. There was no end to that. Save perhaps magic. He had seen what the witch could do, had seen her transform, had seen the powerful demon that she could become. He wanted the secret of that transformation, that powerful magic, more than he wanted the glacial suffering to cease.

"What is it this time?" he snapped at his aide when she interrupted his introspection to inform him of a call. But as he saw the expression of fear on her face, more sharply etched than any look he had seen before, he took a sharp intake of breath and apologised.

"Who is it?" All afternoon he had been plagued by callers asking after his health. An inconvenience he could have done without.

"He wouldn't give his name, sir. Shall I inquire again?" An edge of terror stalked her voice. Do I seem that much of an ogre, Palpatine wondered. He made a mental note to work harder at his usual fawning masquerade.

"No. Never mind. Put it straight through," he told her.

But it was not just another caller offering sympathy. The man did not seem concerned with his injuries at all. He was so old, so very old, Palpatine thought, examining the image before him closely. The portion of the face not overcast by his hood, was deeply wrinkled. Even the voice was frail.

"Ah, Senator Palpatine. So good to meet you at last. Our mutual friend Grocelind has met with an unfortunate accident, I believe."

Palpatine smiled, the ball of ice lodged in his skull almost forgotten for the moment. He was face to face with his mysterious benefactor, the person who had sponsored his rise in the Senate and manipulated him from the wings unseen. "I don't think I have had the pleasure," the Senator intoned diplomatically, and waited to see what this man's approach would be.

"You may have heard rumours about the Dark Lords of the Sith, Senator. I am the current bearer of that title. But you could also say I was your father."

"My father was..." But the caller motioned Palpatine to silence.

"There's something you need to know about yourself."

"What?" Palpatine's interest was piqued. Shadows played on the face of the dark lord, deep in the folds of his hood. The Senator knew he gave himself away, revealed his impatience to know the truth of that which he had wondered about for so long.

"Your mother underwent fertility treatment. You know this, of course. I must admit now though that it was a rather unconventional treatment. Shall we say your conception was a little more assisted than is usual in these circumstances."

"How?" He knew there had been something. Now he was getting the answers he had always sought.

"The DNA was from my own cells, augmented."

Palpatine knew it was true that he was different, stronger of mind, more powerful of spirit than most. "Augmented?" he asked, desperate now to know the truth.

"It took many attempts to succeed. I had so many children, but all ended up like your brother, worse. Until you." The man paused.

Palpatine had never cared for his brother, kept him, yes, but loved him, no. If truth be known, he had locked him away all these years because he was ashamed of him. Their mother had had radical fertility treatment, they had been conceived in a bacta dish, but something went wrong with the early cell division in one embryo. His brother had been the unfortunate result. But now, Palpatine was being told rather more.

"We used a novel technique," the dark lord went on. "My researchers found a way of placing biosiliconium constructs in the cells themselves. The effect is the same as that in individuals who claim high midi-chlorian counts. In fact, it has proved better than the midi-chlorians. The Jedi can no longer claim sole access to the Force."

"Then..."

"Yes, Senator. Those skills you have been working at for so long are Force powers. You are already strong. It is time to come over to the Dark Side. It is time to join me."

"Join you? In what?"

"In rebuilding the Sith. The Krath cabal was a mere decoy. The Jedi's exposure of the cloning project is a setback only. Grocelind's death is no loss."

"My brother is dead as well, by the way."

"An unfortunate casualty. But you do not need to pretend to mourn in front of me, Senator. We both know it was his stupidity in saving the woman from Khar Delba that was his downfall."

Palpatine's thoughts of revenge resurfaced along with the chill in his eye socket. "She will pay..."

"Forget her for now. Her cells are useless. Whatever power she uses to draw energy for her alchemy is of no use to us at present. Your designs on this woman are irrelevant now."

"She and Jinn..."

"Shut up." The dark lord strained his head forward, the hood falling back to reveal haggard features, the flesh grey and sagging, deeply scored by brutal lines, the eyes milky and opaque. "My dabblings with the Sith alchemy have weakened me. This progeria saps my life. I need someone to take on my mantle." Palpatine gasped, it was his own face he saw, acutely aged. He would never let such a fate overcome him. The dark lord laughed cruelly, made it obvious that he read Palpatine's mind and knew the hope was absurd. "Well, do you accept my proposition?"

"Yes." Palpatine could hardly get the word out, so desirous was he of the choice on offer. "Yes."

"Then forget your petty manipulations of the Jedi, I will send you a much better gift. I am sending my ward to you. You will find his enthusiasm most inspiring. Study the papers he will bring to you well. I will be back in touch soon."

Palpatine sat back, a smirk on his face. He was still angry. No matter, he knew how to channel it into personal growth. What this dark lord had told him explained more than he had ever dreamt of. It all made sense of course, the order of his life was now plain. His unnatural affinity to the Force would drive him to yet new heights. Now he knew it for certain, there was so much more he could aim for.

The Jedi, the Jedi would die, all of them.

The Order held so much power, power they did nothing with. C'Baoth was right in that at least. The Jedi could chose to rule and rejected it in favour of subservience. Palpatine despised them so for that. Such a waste. Such a weakness. It would prove to be their fatal flaw. Their downfall.

A sharp cold pain stabbed through his temple. He massaged his brow but the discomfort would not leave him. All the more reason to destroy the Jedi fools and their followers. Despite what the dark lord had said, Qui-Gon Jinn would have been a useful instrument of such dark justice. Well, Palpatine was determined to have no regrets. If he couldn't have the rogue Jedi and his Sith witch now, then he would wait. And if he couldn't turn them at a later date, then he would destroy them both.

And begin anew with a younger generation.

Palpatine rubbed at his eye. He could put up with that now. The way of the dark side beckoned so seductively. He would build a new Sith order, starting this very day. C'Baoth's dreams of the rule of Jedi law were nothing compared to this new scheme. The Senator dreamed of his dominion, it would be a reign of blood administered with an iron fist.

- 40 -
The Birds of Leaving Call To Us, Yet Here We Stand Endowed With the Fear of Flight.

"Master Gallia." Mace kept his opening concise. For all his best intentions, he was rather nervous about speaking with Adi. It wasn't the woman herself, she was calm and detached, rather it was the nature of the discussion that unsettled him.

Adi smiled delightedly at receiving his call. "Mace, it's nice to hear from you. How are you? How are things on Coruscant? At the Temple?"

"If I'm to be honest, Adi, not entirely on an even keel. We have had to deal with a number of irritating and needless problems here. Not unrelated, I might add."

"Oh?" Adi did not press him, he was glad of that.

"And I find I have need of your diplomacy."

"Oh."

"One of our number has been somewhat reckless of late, I'm afraid to say. Knowing the situation where you are is escalating, the Chancellor's office has agreed to send another Knight as you requested. The Council believed it would be appropriate to get this Jedi away from Coruscant for a while." Adi fixed him with a stern gaze, and he realised the implication. "Not that that was any reason for your tour of duty there. Your diplomatic skills are highly regarded in such situations."

"You're rambling, Mace. You don't wish me to know who it is?"

"No, not at all. It's just... It is Master Jinn."

"I see."

"It won't be a problem? His apprentice is being sent with him. And a woman, Caer Ibhormheith, under the agency of cultural affairs. I'm not sure what they intend her exact role to be."

"No, it won't be a problem Mace. Qui-Gon and I are over that little altercation now. But what has he done this time to deserve such censure? This job doesn't demand a Jedi Master of his calibre."

"There has been a degree of trouble with the dark side. Nothing serious, some bureaucrats and scientists falling into corrupt ways. Unexpected activity on the old Sith worlds."

"That's hardly what I'd describe as 'nothing serious,' Mace. Qui-Gon was involved? I don't believe it. I thought you were considering him for a position on the Council. I know he's outspoken and critical, but he wouldn't..."

"He didn't. Not exactly. He, um, returned from the Sith world of Khar Delba with a native of that planet. She is the cause of the trouble, or at least she was caught up in it. And of course Qui-Gon got rather caught up in it too. It is this woman who will be acting for cultural affairs."

Adi sighed, rather sadly Mace thought. "Another pet project of his?"

"Worse. He married her."

Mace was amused to see that Adi almost spluttered. "I didn't think he was the marrying type. At least, that's what he told me."

"He seems to have changed his mind, Adi. Are you all right with that?"

"It doesn't matter to me. It might matter to her."

"That's what I really want to talk to you about. The Council has gone along with Qui-Gon in this, but Master Yoda seems to believe she is a danger to the Force in some way. He is concerned she will take Qui-Gon away from us. I want you to watch her closely. Watch them both. Learn what you can about her."

Adi shook her head, as if about to refuse. "I'm no spy, Mace. This doesn't seem right."

"Don't think of it as spying, Adi. Think of it as looking out for Qui-Gon's well-being. Ibhormheith seems innocuous enough, a little strange maybe. There is an absence in the Force around her, you may find it a little disconcerting at first. But I am hoping that ultimately we can prove Master Yoda wrong in this."

"I hope you're right, Mace." Adi looked away. "I hope you're right."

***

Obi-Wan's enthusiasm was almost catching. Even though he had rushed off to spend his last night on Coruscant with friends, and who could blame him - the way these wars went it could become a protracted period of time away, his exuberance still clung to the air.

And it made Qui-Gon feel that he was keen to be on the move too. It didn't matter that they were only accompanying a unit of peace keepers to the outlying rim world of Almania, a planet trapped in a vicious cycle of civil war. It was more important that Iva's position was assured. The Republic was willing to accept her as a diplomat for the Taleach people, but Qui-Gon had only agreed to put their proposition to her. He didn't like it, and he didn't think she would either. But Valorum was willing to offer her a posting as a socio-religious advisor to the cultural affairs division. It would mean she could go to Almania with them. Qui-Gon suspected Mace had had something to do with this little scheme. As leader of the Council he appeared ruthless, but he had a soft spot in that hard heart of his.

Since Qui-Gon had got back from the Chancellor's Office, though, Iva had seemed tired and melancholy. She was circling the room fretfully and he feared another row was brewing. He wanted to get her away from the Temple; it was unbalancing her. He wanted to make her forget the world and all its cares. The news that Valorum was offering her a position of her own choosing did not seem to rally her. Although she said she wanted to plead the case for her people to the Senate, she rejected the diplomat option. She didn't want to remain on Coruscant and Qui-Gon concurred. He would not urge her to take up either post, the choice had to be hers, though for selfish reasons he preferred the second option. Although it may endanger her, it seemed no more perilous than her staying on Coruscant. She would at least be near him, even if she wasn't with him day to day. He had told Iva he had to accept the mission, that he had to go where the Jedi and the Republic sent him, but that it didn't matter because she could come too. But she only said she would think about it. What possible drawback could there be to think about?

"You don't have long to think," he told her, "Obi-Wan and I are leaving in the morning."

"I'll be in the way," she said. "I'm not a politician."

He laughed. But when he spoke there was determination in his voice and a hint of persuasion. "No, you won't," he said, in answer to the first. "You'll learn," he said, in answer to the second.

Iva looked back, and snorted. "You have too much faith in me."

"And why not?" he countered. "I've seen what you can do."

She smiled modestly as she sat down finally and he knelt at her feet.

Slowly Qui-Gon unlaced her boots, thinking of all the things he had planned to do with her that evening on Cair-deil Talamh when they had first met outside the dreamscape, sliding them from her feet one after the other. He ran his hand up the inside of her calf, stroked the back of her knee, along her thigh. Languidly, he removed her stockings, caressing the skin of her legs all the while. When her legs were bare, he bent over and kissed her feet. He knelt back and lifted them so they rested on his legs. They looked so small and pale against the rougher brown of his trousers. He shrugged out of his robe and let it fall behind him to the floor. Lifting one delicate foot to his mouth he kissed her toes, each in turn, and heard her sigh with pleasure. He looked at her as he kissed her feet again, and saw that her head was tilted back in enjoyment, a smile playing on her lips, her eyes closed in bliss. He lowered her foot.

"Oh, don't stop," she complained lightly.

He reached up to finger the buttons running down the front of her dress, his fingers slipping between the edges of the fabric to brush the skin between her breasts. He rose up onto his knees and held her around the waist, laying his head on her lap. She tangled her fingers in his hair. "I so much want to be with you," she said.

"And you will be." He tightened his grip on her. "And you always will be."

The spontaneous, irresistible urge to throw himself at her was still riding him, but he also craved intimacy with her, craved the shared harmony of their bodies. His passion was undiminished, he just wanted to initiate and direct a more balanced blend of lovemaking. He pulled her down from the chair onto the floor beside him. "Iva," he said and repeated her name again. The sound of it was an encouragement to him. It filled him with serenity almost as much as it aroused him.

He let her lay with her head on his robe, her hair spread out in disarray around her face. He leant beside her, raised on one elbow and looked down at her. He moved a curl of hair out of her eyes and tickled her cheek with her. She giggled and wriggled aside. He simply pulled her closer in towards him. "Don't move," he instructed. He unbuckled his belt and dropped it to one side. His waistband followed, his tunics falling open to reveal the musculature of his chest. Iva reached up and stroked his body. "I like this," she murmured.

"What? This?" he replied, letting the tunics slide to the floor.

"Oh, yes," she said as she ran her hand up his arm, across his shoulder and down, gently brushing against a nipple.

He let her continue to fondle him as he loosened each button on her dress one by one. "Sit up now, please." She extricated her arms from the sleeves as she did so, her dress pooling around her hips. He untied the ribbon at the waist of her petticoat, freeing it too. As he did so, she unsnagged the hooks at the front of her corset and let it fall away from her body. Her breasts swayed as she crawled out of the pile of her clothes and tugged at his boots. She laughed and he had to help her when her tugging proved futile. Divesting themselves of what remained of their clothes, they embraced and kissed deeply, skin to skin, mouth to mouth. They made love at first with desultory languor, exploring each others bodies, forging comfortable pathways in the corpus of love. Every kiss, every caress, every touch, was yet another level of bliss which they could instigate. Soon both of them were crying out with the pleasure of it, each demanding more from the other, and they could hold back fulfillment no longer. They both drew back for a moment, Iva's breathing shallow and erratic, Qui-Gon's deep and slow.

Light from the setting sun speared the window and dappled the clothing strewn on the floor around them. It highlighted the curves and lines of their bodies with a red-gold warmth. Qui-Gon thought that Iva's hair looked as crimson as blood in the sunset light. He leant forward and fastened his mouth to hers, his tongue slipping between her lips to meet the barrier of her teeth. The barrier relented and soon their tongues met roughly. His hand snaked down across her belly to probe between her thighs. She made small noises somewhere between a lament and sighs of pleasure. She pressed the flat of her hand firmly against his buttocks, ran it down the back of his thigh. Her cries grew more intense.

But suddenly she pushed Qui-Gon onto his back and straddled him to sit across his chest. She pushed his hair back behind his ear and lowered her head to whisper to him. "Lie still. Let me do all the work." He shivered, deliciously, as she ran her tongue around the curve of its flesh and nibbled at the lobe. When she drew away, she raised herself up and shimmied down his body. He gasped in anticipation. She licked her finger and ran it up the length of his swelling flesh. She eased herself into a better position and reached down to spread herself wide for him, offering him room for entry. She slid herself down onto him, the pressure opening her up further. He almost sobbed as she began to shift gently up and down on him. He grasped her buttocks, quickening her movements as the build-up of sensations escalated. They oscillated in unison as burning wave after burning wave of pleasure crashed over them, drenching them in delicious heat, pulsing flesh embedded deep within pulsing flesh.

Gasping in the aftershocks of love, Qui-Gon pulled Iva down onto his chest, held her close as her breath came in shudders. Still on the floor, they snuggled together in the nest of their clothes. The bed was only an arm's reach away, but it was too far and neither thought to move. As the heat of their bodies dissipated, it was all Qui-Gon could do to pull his robe over the both of them.

He knew that everything that had happened to him since setting foot on the Sith worlds was part of the unknown balance of life, but through it he had found a part of himself he had never known existed. He had lost and he had won. Lost the thing he did not desire, to submit himself to the will and the duty of the Council. Won the thing he did desire, to submit himself to the destiny and the passion of the Baobhan-sith.

Every unknown moment for now on would be an adventure. A challenge. A mystery. No one, not even a seer, could truly fathom what the future would bring.

END
Acknowledgements:

The title of this story comes from a track by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry (of Dead Can Dance) on This Mortal Coil's It'll End In Tears.

The chapter titles refer to:

[0] Sandman, Neil Gaiman.
[1] A painting by Rene Magritte.
[2] A poem by William Ashbless in The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.
[3] Nick Cave, Well of Misery on From Her To Eternity.
[4] Hugo Williams, Rhetorical Questions, in the poetry collection Billy's Rain.
[5] Tim Buckley, Song To The Siren, performed by the Cocteau Twins for This Mortal Coil.
[6] Lettice D'O Walters, All Is Spirit And Part Of Me, in the collection The Years At The Spring illustrated by Harry Clarke.
[7] Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.
[8] Frame caption from Villanelle, a comic strip by Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman (reprinted in chapter five of Bryan Talbot's Heart of Empire: The Legacy of Luther Arkwright).
[9] Burnt Norton, The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.
[10] The Cardinal Sin by Dead Can Dance on Spleen and Ideal.
[11] The title track on Peter Murphy's Cascade.
[12] Sodium Light Baby by The The on the album Dusk (10 songs for the lost, lonely and lustful).
[13] A painting by Paul Eluard.
[14] Dream Now by All About Eve on Scarlet and Other Stories.
[15] The notes accompanying the title track on the album Easter by Patti Smith.
[16] That's All You Wanted by Throwing Muses on the album University.
[17] Essence on The March Violets album The Botanic Verses.
[18] Hang On Me by The Wolfgang Press on the Bird Wood Cage album.
[19] The True History of the World, the writings of the character Lucian de Terre, in Brian Stableford's The Werewolves of London.
[20] Open Eyes on the album Suspira by Miranda Sex Garden.
[21] The Ultravox track We Stand Alone on Rage In Eden.
[22] The journal writings of Sylvia Plath.
[23] The Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds song Straight To You off of Henry's Dream.
[24] The Cure song To Wish Impossible Things on the album Wish.
[25] Morning Glory from This Mortal Coil's Filigree and Shadow.
[26] Ghosts on Tin Drum by Japan.
[27] Glass Candle Grenades by the Cocteau Twins on the album Head Over Heels.
[28] A line from the short story The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter in the collection of the same name.
[29] In a Lonely Place by New Order off the album Substance.
[30] Lucretia My Reflection on Floodland by The Sisters of Mercy.
[31] Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
[32] Just Like You Imagined, Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile.
[33] Dead Souls by Joy Division on the album Substance.
[34] Enki Bilal's graphic novel The Woman Trap.
[35] An inscription on a mosque in the novel The Sleeper in the Sands by Tom Holland.
[36] Ulysses by Dead Can Dance on The Serpent's Egg.
[37] The Xymox (aka Clan of Xymox) track Imagination on Twist of Shadows.
[38] A Question of Lust by Depeche Mode on Black Celebration.
[39] This Mortal Coil's Another Day taken from It'll End In Tears.
[40] Severance on The Serpent's Egg by Dead Can Dance.

Notes:

• I don't actually know where the Sith worlds are supposed to be in relation to the Republic but I've placed them in the area marked Wild Space on the map in The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime.
• Khar Delba is the location of the Sith Alchemist Naga Sadow's decoy fortress in Tales of the Jedi: The Golden Age of the Sith.
• Korriban is explored in Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith which relates Exar Kun's journey to the tombs and his fall to the Dark Side.
• Khar Shian, Khar Delba's moon, is the location of Naga Sadow's actual fortress in Tales of the Jedi: The Golden Age of the Sith.
• Xanatos, Qui-Gon's second Padawan, is introduced in The Dark Rival, the second book in the Jedi Apprentice series.
• The Krath is a secret society which practices Sith magic based in the Empress Teta System in Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith and The Sith War.
• The Jedi library on Yavin IV is mentioned in Star Wars: The Lost City of the Jedi; Naga Sadow's building of the temples is from Tales of the Jedi: The Fall of the Sith Empire.
• Jorus C'Baoth is revealed as Palpatine's pre-Empire personal Jedi advisor in the novel Dark Force Rising, the second volume of the post-RotJ trilogy which began with Heir To The Empire and ended with The Last Command. He appears again in Episode 1 Adventures: Search For the Lost Jedi.
• The term "bloofer lady" which Obi-Wan uses comes from Dracula by Bram Stoker; it is a term used by the children to refer to the undead Lucy.
• The poetry Qui-Gon quotes in chapter 5 is Quatrain LXXII of The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam.

Gaelic guide:

• Caer = kair with a broad k and a long diphthong (i.e. the ai as the i in high).
• Ibhormheith = ivorveth, the first v broad, the second slender, with the stress on the first syllable.
• Mharais = varish.
• Cair-deil Talamh = kardjel talu; it translates as friendly/soil.
• In tir-nam-bean, bean = pan with a soft p. It means the land of women.
• Baobhan-sith = baavan shee or simply ban shee. [Unlike the regular banshee who makes a lot of noise in anticipation of a death, the baobhan-sith is a kind of vampire from the myths of the Scottish Highlands who drains the blood of a mortal man as she dances with him. It can mean 'fairy woman', but is generally accepted as being a very dangerous and evil succubus. In Scottish Gaelic a baobh is a wicked woman and a sith is a fairy - literally the people of the (fairy) mounds. I don't know if Lucas is aware of the Gaelic connection with this usage of the word sith, but the coincidence was the inspiration for this story.]
• A ban-fhaidh (pronounced paunai with a soft p) is a prophetess who possesses the ability to search the woven pathways of the future.
• The t in Etain should be pronounced close to the sound of a d.
• Cair-deach Sithien = kardjak she-en. Roughly it means related/fairy mound.
• In the Highlands of Scotland, the cailleach bheur (pronounced cal'yach vare) is the blue-faced hag who personifies winter.
• Mo luaidh (my beloved) is pronounced mo lu-oi with the emphasis on the u which is pronounced as in rude, oi as a diphthong.