It took Anakin a moment to realize that he had finished. Blinking, he scrutinized his diverse audience. Then the whistling began, and the hissing, and the coordinated knuckle cracking. He ought to have been pleased. Instead, he hurried to resume his place alongside his Master; head down, face flushed, trying and failing to hide his discomfiture. Someone was patting him approvingly on the back. It was Bulgan, bent and contorted, his face alight with pleasure.
"Good sounds, Master Anakin, good sounds!" He put one hand to an aural opening. "You please every Alwari."
"Was it all right?" Anakin asked hesitantly of the man seated next to him. To his surprise, he saw that his Master was eyeing him with uncommon approval.
"Just when I think I have you figured out, Anakin, you un leash another surprise on me. I had no idea you could sing like that."
"Neither did I, really," the Padawan replied shyly. "I man aged to find some inspiration in an old memory."
"Sometimes that's the best source." Obi-Wan started to rise. It was his turn. "Something else interesting you yourself might not have noticed. When you sing, your voice drops considerably."
"I did notice that, Master." Anakin smiled and shrugged dif fidently. "I guess it's still changing."
He watched while his teacher strode confidently to the cen ter of the sands. What was Obi-Wan Kenobi going to do to reveal to the Yiwa his inner self? Anakin was as curious as any spectator. He had never seen Obi-Wan sing or dance, paint or sculpt. In point of fact, he felt, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight, was something of a dry personality. This in no way limited his skill as a teacher, Anakin knew.
Obi-Wan spent a moment mentally reviewing his knowledge of the local vernacular, making certain he could handle the Yiwa dialect. Then he folded his hands in front of him, cleared his throat, and began to speak. That was all. No acrobatic leaps a la the buoyant Padawan Barriss. No full- throated euphonious declamation of emotion like Anakin. He just-spoke.
But it was music nonetheless.
Like Barriss's gymnastic performance with the lightsaber, it was all new to Anakin. At first he, and many of the Yiwa, were restless, expecting something more expansive, more grandiose of gesture. If all the Jedi was going to do was talk, they might as well be doing something else. And in fact, some in the crowd did indeed start to drift away. But as Obi-Wan continued to declaim, his voice rising and falling in a sturdy, mellifluous tone that was somehow as entrancing as it was steady, they came back, reclaimed their places, and watched, and listened, as if the voice itself was as mesmerizing as the most powerful hypnotic drug.
Obi-Wan wove a tale that, like all great stories, began simply enough. Unpromisingly, even. But as details began to emerge, as profound truths could be discerned through the lens of adventure, it became impossible for anyone to leave. Try as they might, Yiwa young and old could not tear themselves away from the tale the Jedi told.
There was a hero, of course. And a heroine. And where both are present, there invariably arises a love story poignant and true. Greater issues than the feelings of the two lovers were at stake. The fate of millions lay in the balance, their very lives and the lives of their children dependent on the making of correct decisions, on choosing to fight for truth and justice. There was sacrifice and war, betrayal and revelation, greed and revenge, and in the end, as the fate of the two lovers hung suspended like a small weight from a thread, redemption. Beyond that, the humble storyteller could not see, could not say, a confession that provoked cries of unsatisfied frustration from his audience.
With a soft smile, Obi-Wan asked if they really wanted to hear how it all turned out. The chorus of concurrence that followed woke half the beasts in the corrals. Even Mazong, Anakin noted, had been sucked into the tale, and required closure.
Raising his hands, Obi-Wan requested and received a silence so complete that the small furry scratchers on the far side of the lake could be heard rubbing their abdomens against the rocks there. In a voice deliberately hushed, he resumed the story, his voice never rising but the words coming faster and faster, until his audience, leaning forward the better to hear and not miss a single word, threatened to collapse en masse onto the sand.
When he delivered the final surprise, there were shouts of joy and much appreciative laughter from the onlookers, followed by intense discussions of the tale just told. Ignoring these, Obi-Wan walked quietly back to his place and took his seat. So overcome were the Yiwa by the telling that they forgot to hiss or whistle or crack a single knuckle in appreciation. It didn't matter. There was no need for applause. Obi-Wan's saga had passed beyond the need for simple approval into the realm of complete acceptance.
"You enchanted everyone entirely, Master." Anakin hardly knew what to say. "Myself included."
Picking at the sand by his feet, the Jedi shrugged disarmingly. "Such is the power of story, my young Padawan."
Anakin considered this carefully, as he was learning to do with everything Obi-Wan Kenobi said. "You kept everyone in complete suspense. Suspension might be a better description. I never saw the happy ending coming and didn't expect it. Do all your stories have happy endings?"
Flicking a few grains of sand aside, Obi-Wan looked up at him sharply enough to give his apprentice an unexpected start. "Only time will tell that, Anakin Skywalker. In storytelling, nothing is a given, the astonishing becomes commonplace, and one learns to expect the unexpected. But when people of understanding and goodwill come together, a happy ending is usually assured."
The Padawan frowned uncertainly. "I was speaking of story- telling, Master. Not reality."
"One is but a reflection of the other, and sometimes it's difficult to tell which is the original and which the mirror image. There is much to be learned from stories that can't be taught by history." Obi-Wan smiled. "It's like making a cake. Much lies in the choosing of ingredients before the baking has even begun." Before Anakin could comment again, Obi-Wan had turned back to the center of the gathering. "We'll talk more about it later, if you like. For now, we need to show courtesy by giving our colleague Luminara the same kind of close attention as the Yiwa."
Unsatisfied but understanding, Anakin turned away from his Master to where Luminara had taken center stage. It wasn't much of a stage, he knew. The lighting was bad, the floor un even, and one would flatter the audience by calling it unsophisticated, but she approached it as if it were the finest theater on Coruscant. She had spoken several times of feeling the chill carried by the wind that swept over the prairie, and so wore her long robes. Yiwa who had been astounded at Barriss's acrobatics, softened by Anakin's singing, and held spellbound by Obi-Wan's storytelling now waited and watched expectantly to see what the last of the visitors would do.
Luminara closed her eyes for a very long moment. Then she opened them and, kneeling, picked up a handful of sand. Straightening, she let it trickle out from between her fingers. Caught by the wind, the tiny grains formed a glittering whitish arc as they spilled from her hand. When she had emptied her palm, she slapped her hands gently together to brush away any remaining grains.