"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."
CHAPTER 17
THEY WERE DIRE WORDS, EXTREME WORDS, BUT Jake felt they barely scratched the surface. Zeratul had been almost motionless, save for his furious trembling. Now he unfolded himself from his squatting position so quickly it startled Jake.
"We have lingered here long enough. We have told the stories that need telling. It is time for action. We do not know who or what is behind these events; but we know that Ulrezaj and Samir Duran are involved to some degree." He turned his glowing eyes to Jake, speaking to both him and Zamara. "Our prophecy states that the Twilight Deliverer's reappearance heralds a great crisis. A time when things that seem to be in opposition must join together if we are to triumph. We saw it in Adun—the first to use the energies of both Aiur protoss and dark templar to protect the dark templar and save the Aiur protoss from making a tragic error from which they could never recover. We saw it in Tassadar, when he began to listen to me and what I had to teach. No teacher has ever been prouder of his pupil than I of him. And he taught me much as well. Things that until recently, I have forgotten."
A hint of Zeratul's shame brushed Jake again, but there was no self-pity, just acknowledgment, acceptance, and the resolve to move forward.
"I thought the prophecy fulfilled when Tassadar brought us together—when we joined to fight the zerg and do what we could to save our people. He sacrificed himself to destroy the Overmind. And yet, this crisis that faces us now is even more atrocious, more abhorrent, than losing our homeworld. It could mean losing...everything."
His eyes glowed brightly. "I think perhaps the Anakh Su'n has yet one more manifestation before all is said and done. But first, we must take care of you—both of you. There is a place, one of the first settled by the dark templar soon after we were exiled from Aiur. Though we have spent many hundreds of years exploring the Void since we found Ehlna, we have not forgotten it. It is a place of lore and knowledge. Indeed, our term for it, 'Alys'aril,' means Sanctuary of Wisdom."
Zeratul hesitated. "I once considered traveling there myself, on pilgrimage. It is instilled in us that we should do so, as we have no preservers to keep the memories for us."
"I remember, you once spoke of such a method of preserving knowledge among your people, but you did not tell me where," Zamara replied. "That is why I sought you out."
Zeratul nodded. "You have a crystal? From the chambers that lie beneath the surface of Aiur?"
"Yes," Jake answered. "Zamara seemed to think a crystal from there would give us a better chance of success in downloading her knowledge."