Twilight

CHAPTER 16

JAKE MUNCHED ON SOME FRUIT AND THOUGHT longingly of a steak. He sighed when he realized he was also thinking longingly of rations.

When do we go back to Zeratul? he asked.

...We do not.

What? What do you mean?

He will either come to us now, or else we depart. We have pushed him as far as we can.

Jake bit his lower lip. I went too far, huh?

So I thought, at first. But perhaps it is what he needed. Zeratul carries more than one burden of guilt, of bringing tremendous harm to those he only sought to protect. Compassion is necessary, yes. But we do not have the luxury of days or months for him to heal from this. He must decide to join us, or we must press on.

Press on to where?

She was silent within him. Her stalwart spirit was close to despair. It rattled Jake and upset him more than he would have thought, and he was desperate to comfort her. More than just his life was at stake here, and Zamara had always been rock-solid.

He's not the only dark templar, Zamara.

We cannot go to Shakuras. He is the only dark templar I know of who is not on that world.

But... well... the protoss are on a lot of different worlds, aren 't they?

The protoss of Aiur are not the protoss who were banished from Aiur. The dark templar, to the best of my knowledge, stayed together. I knew of only two sources. One is closed to me by technology; the other has closed himself to me by choice.

Then we just go. We go somewhere that sounds logical and we eliminate places one by one.

Humor that was painful and sad moved through him. Jacob, there are quite literally hundreds of worlds. And each world is wide.

"Needle in a haystack," Jake muttered. "I understand."

She sent back a thought of utter bafflement until he explained the reference. Jake finished the fruit and tossed the rind and core into the little pool. He buried his face in his hands for a moment.

"Even if it is a needle in a haystack," he muttered, "we can't give up. We'll just keep trying, and trying, and if we fall down, we'll get back up."

"That," came a thought that was not Zamara's, "is the lesson of the humans."

Startled, Jake looked up. He saw nothing. He got to his feet, looking around. The mental voice belonged to Zeratul, but where was he?

And then, right where Jake was staring, something shifted. A ripple, a blur, then again nothing. And then there, over in the shadow of the large tree, there was a darker shadow, and then there was Zeratul.

Jake realized with a start that he had seen this before—he knew what to look for. His mind went back to the memories Zamara had shared with him: "The fugitives need to be able to cover themselves. To... hide," Adun had said.

And Raszagal's promise: "We will put our knowledge toward keeping ourselves safe. To merging with the shadows, unseen." And later, "We have studied hard, as I told you we would. Now we can bend light to hide ourselves."

"Adun toridas, "Jake whispered. Zeratul nodded.

"We learn, we dark templar. It is what has kept us alive," he said quietly. "We learned much when we were on Aiur, and we never forgot who we were. We learned from Adun that shadow and light are illusions, and how to clothe ourselves in them so that others see what we wish them to see. We learned from the cold darkness of the very Void itself knowledge and skills that we have mastered, skills that enabled us to work against the zerg in a way that other protoss could not. We learned from the zerg and their queen the price of trust too lightly given."

He stepped forward. Jake found him an imposing figure, dark and green and powerful in a way that the Aiur protoss, straight, gleaming, and sunlit beings that they were, were not. But there was nothing to fear from Zeratul. He knew that. There never had been, not even in the moments of his blackest despair or his hottest rage. And now there was a calmness about Zeratul that eased the tension in Jake's chest as the protoss drew within three feet of him.

Zeratul bowed. Deeply. Jake blinked. The gesture wasn't meant for Zamara—it was meant for him.

"From the humans, I have learned that it is possible to be willing to die for others. Others who are not friends, as might be expected,nor even of one's own race. James Raynor was willing to die to protect Shakuras from the zerg. He knew he would be stranded on the deadly side of the gate, and yet he willingly undertook that risk. And you stand here, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, bearing Zamara. You do not even know her secret, yet I have touched your mind, and if it came to it, you, too, would give your very life for it."

He shook his head, and two emotions brushed Jake: hope.. .and shame.

"You were correct. I do not serve my people by retreating to this pleasant place, to nurse my wounds and indulge my guilt. To brood helps nothing and may indeed invite harm to the very people I have sworn to protect. I must not give up, not even in the face of utter despair. Not even against odds so dreadful I tremble to think of them, or beings so powerful and alien to me that I am but an insect to be squashed. As you said, I must just keep trying, and trying, and if I fall down—why then, I get back up. I am not proud that it took a human to teach me such an important lesson. But I am glad that at least I am not too old to have learned it."

Jake didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. But a smile stretched his face, and hope rekindled inside him.

"Humans are a remarkable race, though still young," Zamara said. "I, too, have learned from Jacob. And it has become important to me that he survive."

Zeratul nodded, then squared his shoulders. "I have heard you speak of your death, Zamara," he said. "And you and Jake now know of the burdens I carry that caused me to shirk my duties to the protoss people. I am ready to shoulder those burdens again. We began with a story. I would hear more of it. But before you speak of Ulrezaj, let me tell you what I know of him."

Jake listened attentively, for he realized that even he didn't know everything that Zamara did about Ulrezaj. Zeratul told him about the first time he and Ulrezaj had met. Under Zeratul's command, a handful of ships had landed on Aiur, investigating a rumor that three particularly powerful individuals survived in stasis cells.

"And of course, once we reached orbit, we realized how many were still alive on Aiur itself. That revelation, and my agreement to stay silent about it, is yet another burden of guilt I carry," Zeratul said heavily as the story unfolded. "We three—Selendis, Artanis, and I—decided that it was wiser to not plant false hope. We assumed, given how the zerg were rampaging across the surface of Aiur, that by the time a rescue mission of sufficient strength could be mounted, there would be no one left on Aiur to save."

Jake nodded slowly. "I remember that the protoss themselves were surprised when the targeted slaughter just stopped," he said. He felt pity for Zeratul. The guy had a lot to handle.

The dark templar prelate continued. "Ulrezaj and his followers attacked, destroying two of the three stasis cells and the templar within them. He was physically a dark templar then, one of the deadliest in our history. I know not how he learned to merge with more than one other, nor how he continues to exist. The dark archons are powerful weapons, but until Ulrezaj, they were finite beings. He must have some source of energy to replenish himself, and to continue to bring more dark templar into his madness."

"Maybe it was something he learned from the chambers," Jake offered. "Some long-forgotten xel'naga technology. If he was on Aiur's moon, maybe he'd already begun exploring the caverns."

"That is a likely theory. But how he learned this does not matter. What matters is that Zamara knows something he wishes kept hidden. And I believe that it is time she shares this with us."

Jake was barely breathing. Finally, he was going to learn what Darius and Kendra and Teresa and all his other friends had died for. What Ulrezaj was willing to kill for; what he, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, might still die for.

Zamara was silent for a time, then began to speak, her mental voice soft but intense. "We know already that the xel'naga shaped and altered us, encouraging certain aspects of our development. And we know that the zerg were also... experiments of the xel'naga. Atleast," she amended, "those are the terms we have always used before. In all the memories I bear, I have learned the truth of the situation—a truth that has been shared with only a select handful throughout our long history."

Puzzle master that he was, few things excited Jake more than a mystery, and he knew from the tenor of Zamara's thoughts that he was on to a humdinger of one. Zeratul as well leaned forward

eagerly, giving his catlike protoss curiosity free reign now that he had broken the shackles of his self-imposed guilt.

"We thought we and the zerg were experiments—perhaps trial and error. We thought that we were flawed in some way, and that is why we were abandoned. But the truth is, the xel'naga were simply done with us. They needed a second species.. .the zerg. This was no trial-and-error experimentation. The xel'naga knew exactly what they were doing. They had done this uncountable times before, throughout millennia so numerous our minds can barely stretch to comprehend it. They were not inventing us; they were preparing us."

"Preparing us for what?"

"For themselves."

Jake frowned. "I don't get it."

"Nothing lasts forever, Jacob. Not even the xel'naga. At least— not in that incarnation."

Zeratul's eyes widened. "Hosts," he said. "They were preparing host bodies!"

"Less crude than that, my old friend. The xel'naga have a cyclical lifestyle. Their lives are almost unfathomably long as we reckon such things, but they are finite beings. When the time comes that their existence is to end, they seek out two other species. Over time, they manipulate and alter these species so that they, separately, form two halves of a whole. They seek purity—purity of form, purity of essence. This time, they chose the protoss and the zerg."

Jake ran a trembling hand through his hair. "They.. .are going to destroy you?"

"No. Not destroy. Simply place two aspects of their essences into our people and the zerg. And again, over time so vast that we can barely grasp it, we would change and evolve.. .and come together again, naturally, harmoniously, and the xel'naga would be reborn."

Gooseflesh prickled Jake's arms as he listened, despite the balminess of the day. "The chambers," he breathed. "That's where they worked on the protoss."

"They were not entirely selfless protectors, as was first thought before the Aeon of Strife, certainly," Zamara said. Beside Jake, Zeratul sat still and silent, listening, absorbing. "But neither were they monsters. They wanted us to become great and glorious. They would not suddenly descend, to possess our bodies; rather we would evolve so that we...became them."

Zamara floundered. "It is even less invasive than that. Forgive me.... The concept is difficult to explain or even for minds that are as limited as ours to grasp. And since I cannot link with either of you in the Khala, I cannot fully share my understanding of it exactly. What I can say is this; it is a cycle that is as natural to them as breathing is to you, Jacob, or as gathering nutrients is to us, Zeratul. It has existed for so long and has shaped so much of the cosmos that it is, perhaps, as natural and right a thing, universally, as life and death, the spin of planets, and the formation and cessation of stars. I do not know that I can say it is wrong."

"You are more forgiving than I," said Zeratul, shock and anger simmering beneath his calm surface. "I cannot help but wonder if I, too, have glimpsed some part of this—this directed evolution in progress. This, then, is your secret?"

"Partially. But as I say, I do not think the rebirth of the xel'naga will be harmful to us. It is not how it was intended."

"If it is so much a part of the order of the cosmos then," said Zeratul, "why should we be concerned?"

"What I have told you is the way things had always unfolded before," said Zamara. "Had it been permitted to continue uninterrupted, I am not even sure the protoss as we are now would have been harmed. But this time, something went very wrong. The xel'naga were eliminated before they had completed their preparations by their own creations—the zerg. Their careful plans— eons in the unfolding—were thrown into turmoil. Zeratul.. .you have seen what has arisen in the vacuum."

Zeratul nodded slowly. "Although I freely admit that I was bowed down with the weight of my guilt, that is not the sole reason why I have not returned to Shakuras. It is because I glimpsed something at once so perplexing and so abhorrent that my mind reeled from it. I came here to try to make sense of something utterly senseless.. .but now I believe that I can grasp some of it."

Zeratul spoke then, in his calm mental voice, of investigating protoss power signatures emanating from a dark moon. "It was shortly after Raszagal's death," he said. "We had no records of a protoss settlement in that quadrant. What we found..."

Jake wished he could simply link up with Zeratul's mind the way he could with Zamara's, but it was not possible. Zeratul was his own self, not entwined with Jake's mind as Zamara was, and he realized how cumbersome simple speaking could be. Though even if he could connect so intimately with Zeratul, Jake got the impression that the prelate would rather keep this particular story as unemotional and distant as possible.

Which, of course, was even more unsettling.

"We were surprised to discover a terran settlement, with a protoss pylon powering rather makeshift stasis cells. Our horror and revulsion increased when we realized that there were protoss held captive inside some of these cells, and zerg in yet others. All, zerg and protoss alike, were deep in cryo-hibernation. But the most shocking revelation was that someone was experimenting on our people and the zerg." He looked at Jake levelly. "They were experimenting with their DNA.. .splicing together zerg and protoss genes to create hybrids so foul and revolting that even now, I can barely speak of it calmly."

Indeed, Zeratul's body was trembling perceptibly. Not with fear —with outrage. Jake didn't blame him one damn bit. His mind went back to the images of the desiccated bodies in the chambers beneathAiur, the ones he'd seen with his own eyes, and the ones Temlaa had seen. And then he thought of the mysterious, inky-black vats and the horrible feeling he'd gotten from them—a feeling so intense Zamara had had to erect a barrier to protect him.

His stomach churned. "Those.. .whatever they were.. .that's the new xel'naga? A genetic combination of protoss and zerg?"

"No," Zamara answered swiftly, and Jake closed his eyes in relief. "No. Those—things—are truly abominations. There is nothing in them of the natural cycle of the xel'naga. I grieve for the protoss who were so violated. The xel'naga are implacable in their way, but not to that extreme. What you saw, Zeratul, and what perhaps we also beheld in the caverns is something else entirely. Something very wrong, something that should not be."

Zeratul as well seemed somewhat relieved, though still trembling slightly with outrage at what he'd witnessed. "There was a human coordinating this. Or at least something that appeared human. It claimed to have existed for millennia, and gone by many names. The only clue I have of his true identity is the name he chose to reveal to me—Samir Duran."

It meant nothing to Jake, but it clearly did to Zamara. "Duran... that was the name of Sarah Kerrigan's consort."

"Wait, whoa, I thought Ethan was her consort?" Jake asked, confused.

"He left Kerrigan," Zeratul responded. "Duran claimed to be superior to her, a servant of a far greater power."

Jake tried to take this all in. Somehow, according to xel'naga physiology, zerg and protoss were to be combined. But the hybrid that Zeratul had seen wasn't that.

That meant it had to be someone else. And that meant...

"Someone has got the arrogance—or the stupidity—to try to mess with the xel'naga," Jake breathed. "And if they succeed—"

"The xel'naga will not be reborn. Instead, a monstrous and powerful perversion of both protoss and zerg will be set loose upon the universe, and all that we know and cherish will fall in their wake."