Shadow Hunters (29 page)

Rosemary needed no more handholding. She was using tools fashioned from crystals as if she had been born with them in her smal hands, and her face was knotted in concentration. It was a delicate task, and while Rosemary could be a blunt instrument, she could also be surprisingly deft. Now that Zamara had given her an understanding of the physical aspect of the xel’naga and protoss technology, that knowledge, together with an intuitive grasp of how a human would choose to target something he didn’t quite understand, made her an effective partner. Zamara’s powerful inteligence was now freed up to the more esoteric task of … awakening the gate.

Jake watched as Zamara directed her psionic energies into the crystals that seemed to lie at the very heart of xel’naga technology, almost caling to them softly. Again he was reminded of how alive the wals of the temple had felt beneath his fingers the closer to the green center he went. He did not think he would ever understand xel’naga technology.

Jake turned his consciousness away from the project and toward the immediate situation. He knew that neither Zamara nor Rosemary could rush, but at the same time, he was painfuly aware that time would soon be running out.

It ran out faster than he expected.

It was the sudden stilness that first alerted him that something was wrong. His physical eyes were on the task before him—Zamara’s task—but even she paused and lifted Jake’s head for a long, searching moment. The zerg, who hitherto had seemed as ceaseless and undefeatable as the incoming tide, suddenly stiled as one.

Jake÷Zamara sensed that the pro-toss were puzzled, but seized the opportunity to make fresh new inroads, and the Dominion ceased its battling not one whit. The zerg simply stood there, frozen in place, letting themselves be shot to pieces or vaporized.

What the … ?

And then the first scout saw it. The image sped throughout the protoss via the Khala at the speed of a single thought. Jake’s mind al but seized up at it, and even Zamara reeled.

It was enormous. It was darkness visible, like Satan’s hel from Milton’s
Paradise
Lost,
a swirling blackness that yet was somehow radiant. It glowed and crackled, and even in a simple mental picture Jake instinctively knew that the power the thing exuded and controled would obliterate every living being gathered at the warp gate.

Ulrezaj.
Here.

Somehow Jake had thought the abomination safely far away, mentaly controling and enslaving the Forged—he understood that term now—and having them be his Xava’kai, making them do his dirty, obscene work for him. Ulrezaj had been a threat, yes, if he had sent assassins to kil Zamara for what she knew. But for some reason Jake had never thought the monster within striking range, had never thought of him as a real and present danger like Valerian or Ethan or the zerg.

Now Rosemary, too, had stopped. Her blue eyes were wide, and for the first time since Jake had known her she looked scared. He didn’t blame her. He was terrified.

He could see the monster with his own eyes now, a huge swirl of glowing darkness on the horizon like a cancer.

Something brushed Jake’s thoughts, a tiny, almost pathetic breeze of hope amidst this flood of despair and inevitability.

“We are coming, Jacob. Not al of us are his Hands.”

“Alzadar!” he cried. The news rippled throughout the protoss and indeed, a few seconds later, six smal protoss ships appeared in the skies. Their appearance seemed to rouse the zerg from their paralysis. Perhaps Ethan sensed that this new threat was the greatest, or perhaps he knew that Ulrezaj, unlike himself or Valerian, had come to kil rather than capture. Regardless, the zerg turned as one and began to move to attack Ulrezaj. So did the Dominion vessels.

The giant dark archon, comprised of not merely two powerful dark templar but seven, rebuffed their efforts as if the attacking zerg and Dominion ships were mere flies. The air shivered as if a heat wave pulsed through it and fuly a dozen mutalisks went down, surrounded by the dark energy consuming them. Another blast of dark psionic energy rippled forth on the earth, and zerg fel over like dominos tipped by a careless hand. The Forged themselves were not engaging their former master in battle; they were simply trying to make it to the warp gate. Ulrezaj, however, was not inclined to let them escape so easily. Jake was rocked by pain as he helplessly watched two of Alzadar’s tiny ships be destroyed before they could safely land behind the front line of the battle—two ships filed to capacity and beyond with the Forged, who had resisted the power of a dreadful drug and their own deep-seated pain and fears to folow Alzadar and come to help save what remained of their people.

Inside him, he felt Zamara stir unhappily.
Every time a protoss dies, his or her
memories become my own. Each thread is a glorious part of a complex
tapestry. It is sometimes difficult to manage … so many at one time from one
place.

Jake was humbled—by the preserver, by the protoss, by everything around him.

Damn it, they weren’t going to die here! He felt Zamara return to her task at hand, although he knew that she and indeed al of them now thought it a futile gesture. As futile a gesture as what Adun had attempted, trying to shelter the dark templar, to teach them skils they could never possibly—

Adun.

Jake felt a shiver run down his spine.
Zamara … you said you showed me these
things for a reason. Adun’s story—it was to show that the protoss are really one
people, and that their split was due to fear and ignorance.

Yes. I am taking you to Shakuras, the world that the dark templar settled after
they were expelled from Aiur so callously. You needed to understand the
division, and the attempt to heal it.

No, more than that. Don’t you see? We can fight this dark archon after all! We
can do what the dark templar did!

He thought of the psionic storms unleashed by the dark templar, the raging, out-of-control energies that had whirled across Aiur’s surface so long ago, attracted by mental energy and destroying everything in their wake.

Jacob—the powers the dark templar wielded are not known to traditional
protoss. Those Who Endure are not dark templar.

What about the Forged? The Sundrop—sure it was used to keep the Tal’darim
docile, but it also cut them off from the Khala, remember? It changed their
personalities. Altered them. What if—what if that was what Ulrezaj was going
for? What if he was actively manipulating them to make them of better use to
him in those experiments? Preparing them somehow?

… Such a thing had not occurred to me. I will converse with Alzadar. If he will
let me probe his mind…

Jake waited, fidgeting. A few seconds later Zamara was again in his thoughts.

Your theory is correct. Alzadar’s brain chemistry has been altered—

permanently or not, we do not know. I also spoke with some of the others who
are still actively addicted to the Sundrop. Their chemistry is even more greatly
altered.

He fanned their hatred and fear of the dark templar … and all the time he was
trying to turn the Forged into them,
Jake said.

So it would seem. But they are untrained and undisciplined, and the psionic
storms that so devastated Aiur in Adun’s time were uncontrolled.

Maybe—the storms would go right to that thing out there?
Jake asked.
Directed
or not?

Yes. Yes, it could work—but there is one more thing you need to know if you are
to teach the Forged and Those Who Endure to do such a thing.

We don’t have time!

We do. We must.

And before he fuly understood what was happening, Zamara was unfolding yet another memory in his mind while she and Rosemary worked desperately to repair the warp gate.

It was wrong. Jake knew it, Adun knew it, the templar knew it. And yet wrong
as it was, it was still better than watching dark templar corpses stiffening in the
green light filtered through the canopy. At least the dark templar were still
alive to be exiled.

Anger and a great sense of hurt rolled off the assembled Conclave in waves.

Mixed with it was a partial sense of satisfaction and relief—at least the heretics
would no longer endanger the protoss people with their refusal to link with the
Khala. Jake watched grimly as dozens—hundreds—of the banished protoss
moved slowly up the ramp of the curving, luminous vessel that was the last ship
left behind when the Wanderers from Afar departed this world. It had taken the
protoss centuries to even get inside the xel’naga ship, and it still held mysteries.

The ship had been the template for much protoss technology, and it was a
testament to how strongly the Conclave believed they were right that they
would surrender such a prize in order to be rid of the dark templar.

Raszagal was boarding now. She lifted her robes so as not to stumble, her head
held high, as always. He saw her pride, even now, although as she was not and
would never be in the Khala, he could not feel it.

Raszagal, I am so sorry,
Jake sent, for her and her alone.

She turned to regard him.
Do not be. You did what you could. This, we know.

And then—

“Adun! We expressly forbade you to attend!”

Jake felt his friend’s thoughts, as calm as those of Kortanul were agitated.

Adun mounted the platform on which the Conclave members stood and
sketched a brief bow. “I know, Judicator. And yet again, I respectfully disobey.

These people trusted me. It is my duty to see them off safely.”

“Duty! What does a templar who deliberately deceives the Conclave know of
duty? You pollute the word!”

The little line of refugees had come to a halt. Every one of the dark templar
was looking at Kortanul and Adun. Tension was in their bodies and their eyes.

The templar guards began to move forward, and Jake sent a thought to halt
them.

“Please move aside, Kortanul,” Adun said gently. “I ask to escort them onto
the ship, and to see them safely launched. Nothing more.”

“You ask too much!” Jake could hardly believe it, but the judicator, a full head
shorter and much less powerful than Adun, actually shoved the high templar off
the platform. Adun executed a graceful turn as he fell, landing smoothly. An
uproar went up from the other Conclave at Kortanul’s actions and their
thoughts washed over Jake. Whatever Adun had done, painful and wrong as it
was, the Conclave knew he believed it to be right, just as the Conclave believed
their decree of banishment to be right. Lost in his outrage, Kortanul had gone
too far for even the Conclave.

“Touch him not!” Raszagal’s youthful broadcast thoughts slammed into Jake.

She was stronger than even he had thought, and he had not thought he
underestimated her. “He has shown nothing but the best of what we can
achieve! He—”

Kortanul, twisted with zealotry so violent that the rest of the Conclave recoiled
from it, whirled on Raszagal. Jake saw the girl stumble and fall to her knees. At
the same moment, pain from several of the Conclave washed through him as
the more adept dark templar responded. Jake sent the order to fall back and
protect Adun and the Conclave. As his templar guards fell back, the Conclave
members, now convinced that their own lives as well as the protoss as a race
were in danger, began to attack. Jake saw several dark templar fall and he saw
the panic begin to spread through them. Their untrained mental powers were
no match for the combined might of the Conclave. But they were still a very
real danger. If in their defense, one or more lost control again, it would surely
create a psionic storm.

Adun said nothing, merely rushed forward, arms spread out, head thrown back,
eyes closed. A radiant blue glow emanated from his wrists, and then moved to
encase his entire body. Such Jake had seen before; such, he had even done. But
what happened next—

The glow expanded like smoke, moving forward to encompass the now-panicky
line of dark templar who, until the outbreak of violence, had been walking
toward the ship. Now they were running full out, and the cloud of blue settled
down upon them and embraced them.

What was he doing? How was he doing it? Jake tentatively inclined his
thoughts to Adun’s and was sent reeling backward. Not from an overt attack,
but from the very power—and the very unfamiliarity—of what his friend was
somehow managing to do.

Jake sensed the energies that were familiar to him through centuries of
focusing his powerful mind. And there was something else, something strange—

familiar yet completely alien to him.

“Both … he’s using both types of energies—the familiar energy of the templar and the … shadow-stuff of the dark templar!”

“Precisely.”

“But—if a protoss had already used the dark templar energy—why is it so feared and shunned and—”