She closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was a drop of her blood trickle down her hand and hang, poised to fall, from the tip of her finger.
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.