Twilight

CHAPTER 11

"I REMEMBER THAT BLOOD DROP," JAKE murmured softly. He'd seen Zamara's broken body and, moved by some deep-seated desire to show compassion even to the dead, he'd reached to touch that hand. The blood drop had stayed as perfectly formed as if it had been made out of a dark purple gemstone, then suddenly lost cohesion and spread across his palm—wet and fresh as if it had just been shed.

Zeratul saw both versions of the same incident then—Zamara's and Jake's, as both recalled the union. Jake censored nothing—not his panic, not his pain, not his wonder, not his pettiness. Zeratul was definitely paying close attention now.

"It is a marvel," he said finally. "That you were able to decipher the clues Zamara had left. Few would have thought that way. Few even among my people, let alone yours."

Jake shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. "All that matters is that I did."

"And that you continue to cooperate, even though what Zamara has done has cost the lives of many dear to you. And may in the end claim your own life."

"Yeah, well, the odds of that not happening will go up if you will just listen to what Zamara has to say."

Zeratul narrowed his eyes, and Jake suddenly held his breath. Had he really said that? He meant it, of course, but he wasn't usually so... blunt. That was more like something Rosemary would say. But despite the beauty of this environment, and all those negative ions Zamara assured him were charging the air, he was getting sicker and he knew it. The headaches were almost constant now, a dull, throbbing ache that shortened his temper and sharpened his tongue when they were not hot spikes of agony that made any movement other than clutching his head and whimpering impossible. Even so, he desperately hoped he hadn't blown everything with his comment.

Suddenly Zeratul laughed. It was a dry, yet warm and embracing sound that calmed him and somehow even made the headache more bearable.

"Indeed, you remind me of Raynor. He was a friend to our people, as you are." His eyes suddenly gleamed brighter, and Jake sensed thatthrough the dark templar's heavy mantle of guilt and grief, there was yet a spark that could perhaps be fanned into a flame. "He thought of me as a storyteller of sorts. A riddler, a teacher who taught by asking questions and coaxing forth. I...have not felt like riddling, telling stories, or teaching, for some time now. The two of you have shared with me a profound story of the nobility of our people, and that of an entirely different species. Although I sense there is more to it than what you have shared, Zamara. Such as the identity of the ones who hunted you."

Jake felt Zamara smile. "Indeed there is. Although I sense you have something to say before I continue."

Zeratul nodded. "I should reciprocate with a story that is known only to the dark templar. A story of a hero. Only one, and yet more than one."

Riddles indeed. Was Zeratul finally going to tell them what had happened—why his outlook was so bleak?

Zeratul did not quite flinch, but the brightness in his eyes subsided for a moment. Of course, he had read Jake's thoughts.

"Nay. I would never call myself a hero, human. Not a villain, not quite, for I have ever acted for what I thought was best. But I am no hero. Nor would you think me one if—well." He turned his face to the soft, cooling spray of the waterfall and was silent for a moment.

"I will tell you of the Anakh Su'n—the Twilight Deliverer."

Jake felt unease for a moment. There was so very much at stake. He didn't want to hear some dark templar folktale, he wanted to do something. Zamara, despite her own driving needs, sent him calm. Zeratul does not indulge in idle chatter. If he wishes to tell this story, you may rest assured there is a very good reason.

Zeratul's eyes crinkled slightly. He definitely had not forgotten humor. Zamara is right, impatient youngling.

The rebuke had no sting. Jake found himself grinning a little despite the direness of the situation and settled back on the grass to listen.

"Zamara has the memories of the Discord. When the dark templar were rounded up like beasts, forced into an ancient ship, and expelled from the only world we had ever known. One among the protoss defended us. Adun. He disobeyed the Conclave's orders to have us executed, and instead tried to teach us to find new mental abilities and ways to control them, for our own protection. Ways that did not involve linking in the Khala, which we chose not to follow. His disobedience was discovered, but even then, he chose to do what he could to protect us. The Conclave would not consider integrating us into their society, but Adun mitigated their orders from death to banishment."

Jake nodded. This much he knew—this much he had actually seen through the memories of Vetraas.

"Yet even as we were leaving, violence broke out. It was Adun, again, who saved us. He called upon both light and dark powers to protect us, so that we might survive. He gave his life to save us."

"That's not the spin the Aiur protoss put on it," Jake said. "They saw it quite the opposite way—that Adun died to protect the sanctity of the Khala, where the protoss could link and find unity and strength. What's the phrase—"

"En taro Adun," Zamara replied.

"We dark templar also revere him in such a way. Except we say Adun toridas.. .commonly interpreted as 'May Adun give you sanctuary,' but literally and more bluntly, 'Adun hide you.'"

Jake thought about what Vetraas had seen, and rather agreed that the dark templar had the right of it. Adun had died protecting them.

"But did he die?" he blurted. "I mean—he vanished, certainly, and they couldn't sense him in the Khala. But no one is sure exactly what happened to him."

Zeratul was nodding. "That he was gone, is certain. But there was no body to give closure. No corpse to bear down the Road of Remembrance, to ritually bathe and sit with, and finally bury. Adun simply disappeared."

Jake stared at Zeratul. "You don't seem all that surprised. What do you think did happen to him then?"

Zamara remained silent, but Zeratul answered. "We believe he did not die. We believe he simply crossed to another plane of existence."

"Like Zamara."

"I am not Adun," Zamara demurred.

"No," Zeratul agreed. "But you have managed to live on in a fashion, through this terran."

"I could not have done this on my own. I used the energies of the temple to delay death until my memories could be transferred to another."

Zeratul gazed deep into Jake's eyes, seeing and speaking to both the human and the protoss who saw out of them. "True. It was a unique coinciding of need and opportunity. But you cannot argue that such another incarnation is impossible. You yourself, Zamara, are proof of that. Your spirit lives on...in another body. More than just your knowledge and memories are in Jacob's brain. You are."

Jake's stomach clenched at what Zeratul was implying. Somehow, once he'd gotten over the initial shock, the fact that he carried a protoss sentience in his head hadn't seemed all that weird. Jake was always the rational man. He understood that there were things like mental energies that could be scientifically explained. He hadn't used words like "soul" and "reincarnation." Now he wondered if he should. Despite all he had seen and experienced, with his own eyes or through the memories Zamara shared with him, he wasn't sure if he was ready to accept the ideas that Zeratul was tantalizingly putting forth.

"I had not thought of it in that fashion," Zamara said slowly. "It is intriguing. You are suggesting that something similar happened with Adun?"

"You survived, after a fashion, by using extremely powerful energies from a xel'naga temple. You were able to put your essence into Jacob. Adun was the first to wield both the mental energies traditional to the Aiur protoss, and the darker energies of the Void that we have wielded for over a thousand years. It is not illogical to assume that, for want of a better word, both you and Adun tapped into energies that had consequences far greater than anticipated."

The glowing eyes half closed and Zeratul tilted his head in amusement. "Although for us, the story of the Anakh Su'n, the Twilight Deliverer, is a bit more mystical than something so prosaic. We saw him ascend before our very eyes—sacrificing this existence to achieve another, higher spiritual plane. A prophecy slowly began to take shape around this remarkable incident. We believed Adun was waiting until a similarly great need arose to return to us—to all of us, Aiur protoss and dark templar alike. Did he not use both powers? Did he not die protecting us—not because we were different, but because we were the same as those who would have seen us dead or cast out?"

Zeratul's eyes flashed as he spoke, and Jake saw he was sitting up straighter. He remembered the image Zamara had given him of the prelate, before the disappointment of actually meeting him. Zeratul had seemed to him powerful, controlled and yet passionate, an inspiring presence. For the first time since Jake had met him, Zeratul seemed like that protoss.

"I firmly believe that while Adun wanted to keep us safe, he also wanted to keep the Aiur protoss from committing an atrocity from which they could never recover. To have slaughtered all of us—the stain of such a thing could not have been removed. We could never be a united people, with so vast a river of blood flowing between us. It was to help them as much as us that he summoned the powers he did and made his sacrifice."

Jake boggled at the depth of compassion it took for Zeratul—and by implication, all the dark templar—to see the incident in such a light.

"Those who had such talents meditated on the prophecy. They were given visions, signs to look for, for the return of Adun. How he would return we did not know. But return he would, once these signs had come to pass."

"And.. .you think he has?" Jake asked. At the same time as his lips formed the words—old habits died hard, and he found himself still speaking to the protoss rather than just thinking at them— Zamara asked, "What are the signs?"

Zeratul chuckled. "Ah. So many questions. I think I have said enough. Zamara has told a story—a poignant and powerful one." Heinclined his head respectfully. "I have told a story, a myth of my people that is not quite so fictional as it might seem to be at first. I think it is time that you, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, told a story."

"Uh..." He was no raconteur. These two beings had lived much, much longer than he had, and had seen far more. They knew far more. What could he possibly say to interest them? Zamara already knew him practically down to the cells of the marrow of his bones. "I...really don't have a story. I'm just a digger in the dirt, honestly." Jake shrugged, slightly embarrassed.

"How did you come to find our friend Zamara, Jacob?" Zeratul asked. He had turned his full attention on Jake, and that intense regard was unsettling. "You are far away from the worlds of your people for one who is a mere digger in the dirt. Zamara crafted a puzzle that most protoss might not have been able to decipher, let alone terrans. How is it you were there to solve that puzzle? I am intrigued."

Jake knew that this was a key moment. He knew he was being analyzed by one of the shrewdest minds he had ever stumbled across. The members of the nominating committee for the Flinders Petrie Award for Archaeological Distinction had nothing on this guy. He suspected Valerian might—the young Heir Apparent was extremely intelligent and very canny—but even then, Jake would put his money on the dark templar prelate. Zamara's respect for him rivaled that which she had felt toward Adun and Tassadar.

He and Zamara had to get this guy on their side. Had to convince him to lend his aid, to get back in the game, to stop sitting here on this out-of-the-way planet nursing his pain. Zamara had hooked him, by playing to that most protoss of traits, a deep curiosity and a desire to know. It was up to Jake to reel him in, as it were, though it was nothing so manipulative as that. Zeratul might be persuaded to help Zamara. But Jake realized the dark templar also needed to be persuaded to help Jake. And therefore, Jake needed to be worthy inthose glowing eyes that had seen so much.

"Okay, then. I'll tell you about how I got to Nemaka and found Zamara. It's pretty boring," he warned.

"That is for me to determine," Zeratul replied, reinforcing Jake's supposition that this was about a thousand times more important than any interview he'd ever had. Even the one with Valerian.

Jake sighed. Here goes nothing, he thought to Zamara, and began.

He spoke briefly about his career as an archaeologist under first the Confederacy and then the Dominion, letting a little pride creep into his thoughts and voice as he mentioned his work on Pegasus. "Unfortunately funding ran out before I could find anything to prove my theories that there was something more to the place besides what was immediately apparent, but it was those theories that started attracting attention—both good and bad. Lots of people started calling me a crackpot, but it was my work there and my publication of those theories that attracted the attention of Valerian Mengsk."

"Mengsk?" He had Zeratul's attention now, for sure.

"Yes. Emperor Arcturus's son. He sent me an invitation to work for him while I was on Gelgaris. Full funding, state-of-the-art equipment, and a promise of a great intellectual challenge—a very nice offer."

"I see," said Zeratul. "So the heir to the Terran Dominion plucks you out of obscurity with no warning. How very boring this story is." Sarcasm, it seemed, was something terrans and protoss both understood.

Jake continued, warming to the tale. He described his encounter with Valerian, the youth's passion and curiosity about ancient civilizations, the promise of a glorious and comfortable excavation. "It was only later that I found out that I wasn't Valerian's first choice. There had been other teams there already. Seems there was a hollow area in the temple, a chamber, that Valerian desperately wanted to get into. None of the other teams had figured it out. I did.. .but I started down that path by sheer luck, by quite literally falling on my ass.

Zeratul blinked.. .and then laughed with more warmth than Jake had yet seen from him. Jake grinned crookedly and chuckled slightly himself.

"Happy accidents have been responsible for more glorious discoveries than you can imagine, Jacob," Zamara told him. "And you achieved more than.. .falling on your ass."

Jake nodded. "That's how I found the doorway. Completely by accident. Fell through two tunnels and landed right at the door." Jake sobered slightly, remembering. "I saw the writing in blood. That's when I knew I was on to something. I realized that while I might not be the first to know about the chamber and try to break into it, I was the first to get a real crack at solving this puzzle."

"Zamara did not make it easy," Zeratul said.

"Indeed I did not. I assumed that only a protoss who was profoundly knowledgeable and spiritual would comprehend the message I had left. And yet, even though he could not read it, Jacob was able to open the door."

"I figured out that in the end, it wasn't about thinking like a human, or even like a protoss, that would get me anywhere. It was about thinking on a grander, more universal scale. And when I saw the spiral in the fossil, it came to me. Rosemary and I went through, found the wrecked ship and...Zamara."

He fell silent. "So...I guess that's it."

"What of the female?"

"Rosemary? She went through the gate before we did. She went with the other protoss to Shakuras. When we tried to get through, we found that we were redirected. Zamara guessed you might be here, and so here we are."

Zeratul's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps the female is responsible for your being unable to reach Shakuras."

"No," said Zamara. Jake was grateful, and surprised, at the rapidity with which Zamara came to Rosemary's defense. Then again, she had always maintained that the assassin would be useful to them, and she had been right. Still, he appreciated it. "Rosemary Dahl is not a traitor. Not all terran females are like Sarah Kerrigan, Zeratul. I would think you would know that. The dark templar have ever deemed females the equal to males. Was not your own leader a female? Matriarch Raszagal?"

"Raszagal!" Jake stared at Zeratul. "I know her! I mean...I saw her. In the memories. She was a rather lively girl. She's your leader? That's—"

The words died in his throat at Zeratul's reaction to Zamara's words. He had gone very, very still, and then suddenly leaped to his feet.

"Do not mention her name to me!" he cried. Jake gasped with pain at the power of the mental voice. At that instant, perhaps triggered by Zeratul's inexplicable outburst, perhaps just a horrible coincidence, Jake's world went white with agony and went away for a moment. Every muscle in his body tensed and when at last the torment began to fade, he gulped in air and found he was damp not with spray from the waterfall, but with cold sweat. He also found himself being supported by a pair of strong, sinewy arms that ended in hands with two fingers and two thumbs.

"This, then, is what you suffer from your joining with Zamara," Zeratul said. There was no pity in his mental voice, just an assessment of the facts. Jake started to nod, but that seemed to invite the pain to return, so he spoke instead.

"Yeah. Sometimes it's like this; most of the time it's just a dull ache." Jake was proud his voice didn't shake.

Zeratul released him. Jake could tell he was still angry for whatever reason, but Jake's episode had distracted him somewhat. Still not thinking clearly in the aftermath of the pain, Jake said, "Like I said, I know Raszagal. I'm sure she's an excellent leader."

Zeratul turned away, and this time, Jake saw him wince. "What is it?"

Zamara knew, but she remained oddly silent.

"Raszagal... was an excellent leader," Zeratul replied. The heaviness and pain that laced the mental words was almost physical.

"Was?" Jake said, picking up on the past tense. "I'm sorry.... What happened to her?"

Zeratul did not answer. At last, he turned to face Jake and straightened, slowly.

"I killed her."