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."