Nom Anor turned the message this way and that in his mind, and saw it sharp in every angle. It was hard to wrap his thoughts around it without feeling the cut, so pregnant with the possibility of betrayal it seemed.
“Who sent you, Loiin Sool?” he asked the messenger, softly. The messenger was a Shamed One, his shoulders and face a mass of poorly healed scar tissue. His eyes were concealed by a constricted uruun cloth, placed there before he’d begun his descent into the dark, dank places of Nom Anor’s domain. The domain of the Prophet.
A wave of his hand, and Loiin Sool would never see anything again.
“I come on behalf of the shaper Nen Yim,” Sool answered. “I know little more than that. I was taken from my work detail, given the message, and sent to find you.”
Nom Anor nodded. Sool had been checked for implants, of course, though no test short of thorough dissection was certain. Was someone looking at him now, from some hidden pore in the messenger’s skin?
If so, they saw not Nom Anor but the Prophet Yu’shaa, his face hidden behind a grotesque ooglith masquer that showed only one spectacularly Shamed, eyes festering with inflammation and lesions rendering the visage almost unrecognizable as Yuuzhan Vong in origin.
His surroundings would tell them little more. Yuuzhan’tar was a warren of rusting holes like this one.
“Why does the shaper not come to me herself?”
“She may not leave Lord Shimrra’s compound, I am told. She takes great risk even in sending this message.”
That was undoubtedly true. What little Nom Anor knew of Nen Yim suggested that her role was one that Shimrra was not eager to have widely known. He had lent her for a time to Tsavong Lah, but since her return from that liaison, she had been little seen or heard from. Indeed, Nom Anor had wondered if she had been quietly disposed of.
And perhaps she had. There was no knowing whether this message actually came from her. Since he’d lost Ngaaluh, his spy in Shimrra’s court, much was uncertain.
“Why does she seek me out?” Nom Anor asked.
“She heard of your prophecy of the new world. Her studies lead her to believe it is a true one. She desires to see this world for herself.”
“So you have already said. Why does she seek my aid?”
“Who else could give it? Shimrra and his minions are corrupt. They have done everything they can to deny the existence of our redeemer. He and the elite will do much more, because they know that if the truth is known, they will be seen as the false leaders they are. And you, my lord, will be seen as the true Prophet.”
“What does a shaper care for that?” Nom Anor wondered aloud.
“Nen Yim seeks only truth,” Sool said.
“You’ve already told me you do not know her,” Nom Anor pointed out. “How can you speak for her or pretend to understand her motivations?”
“This is the message, Prophet,” Sool answered. “I only repeat it.”
A vague chanting had gone up among Nom Anor’s acolytes. He began to wish he had received Sool in private rather than in front of thirty or so followers.
A firm voice cut above the rest: “Praised be the Prophet. He has indeed prophesied truly. The planet of our salvation, our deliverance, is now in our very grasp. And Lord Shimrra’s own shaper knows it is true! Our destiny has become a force stronger than gravity.”
“Do not be hasty, Kunra,” another voice said. “This may be nothing more than a trap, a deception to lure the Prophet into their grasp.”
“If so, they must fail,” Kunra said. He turned to Nom Anor. “You are the Prophet, are you not? Did you not see this, as well? Did you not see yourself walking through the forests of the new world, preparing it for us?”
“I saw it,” Nom Anor agreed. He had little choice. He had added that little embellishment a few days before. But what was Kunra up to? Kunra had been with him since the beginning of this whole farce. He knew who Nom Anor really was—that the “prophet” and his planet were equally fabulous.
“Then the time has come to rise against Shimrra.”
“No,” Nom Anor slipped out. “Do not presume to interpret my prophecy when I still sit here among you. The time is not yet come.”
“But we have found the planet,” Kunra said. “Let me go, Great One. I will liberate the shaper from Shimrra. I will quest with her for the new world. If there is betrayal, our cause will suffer little. If this is truth—”
“Truth must be practical,” Nom Anor said. “We would have to flow rivers of Shamed blood to liberate this shaper, and still she does not know the location of the planet.”
“I don’t understand,” Kunra said. “Do you fear your own prophecy?”
“Quiet,” Nom Anor said, his mind whirling furiously. Zonama Sekot was, indeed, important—if only because Shimrra feared it so much. He knew, too, that the shaper had been given what remained of the Sekotan ship to study, and it would seem she had discovered something quite important. This message suggested one of two possibilities. Either she was telling the truth, and she needed help from outside the system to escape Shimrra and find the planet, or—more likely—they thought Nom Anor knew where the planet was. They couldn’t know that he had learned of the planet by eavesdropping on Shimrra and Ekh’m Val, that what he had learned there was all he knew.
Well, not quite all. He had heard rumors that the Jedi had found the world.
Which struck him suddenly as a very fortuitous piece of information.
“The prophecy is indeed nearing fulfillment,” Nom Anor told his followers. “But something remains. A piece is missing. When I set foot upon the new world, I shall not be alone. Jeedai will be with me.”
A collective gasp went up at that. Even Kunra seemed disconcerted.
“Great One—”
“The time has come,” Nom Anor said, solemnly. “As Vua Rapuung fought with Anakin Solo, so shall I and the Jeedai free this shaper and find our world.”
Cheers, of course.
Let the Jedi do the work and take the risk of freeing Nen Yim. If they failed, they would be blamed, rather than him. If they succeeded—then perhaps he would indeed bring his own prophecy to fruition. At the moment, he had little to lose.