Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (38 page)

A vicious, brutal race; their soup teems with cruel intent. It is thin, sour soup, too acid in its flavor, but his will do. Now. Here.

This moment.

It will do, indeed.

- -pain/pleasure–pleasure/pain-A macabre dance, when one is the victim: an embrace, wholly inescapable, with alien hands clamped to one’s skull and the eyes fixed and bestial, dilated in the darkness.

And then prehensile proboscii are extruded from fleshy cheek-pockets beside my nose, to linger coyly, languid and loverlike, at his nostrils— until, no longer patient, they thrust themselves within.

Unloverlike.

To punch through to the brain beyond, seeking the soup of his life.

It is my dance, and so I lead. To me it is neither macabre nor lacking in grace, but is instead ineffably beautiful; the means by which I survive.

He dances, does the Weequay, like all the others dance, attempting to escape as I give him leave to try, for the dance must be quickened so the soup is sweeter. But even dancing, he is trapped, wholly unable to break free. And he knows, is afraid; whimpers and hisses and rattles within his throat. Makes no further sound with his mouth, in his throat, but only with - - and in—his eyes. Screaming. Knowing.

Dying. And all of it done in silence.

- -heat-In Mos Eisley, incandescent, purely immolation. But not so hot to me as to scald my skin, or bake my bones; the heat is of the soup, of the essence, of the body, regardless of entity.

He sags. Is done. Is discarded near the kitchens, where he is sure to be found.

Proboscii quiver as, sated, they coil themselves, unbidden, back into cheek-pockets. Upon my lips is a trace of sugared sweetness. He has eaten before the dance, some folly of appetite, a childish desire for plundered food. But none made by another’s hands can surpass the sweetest flavor of what the brain excretes.

I shoot the cuffs beneath my sleeves, smooth my jacket into neatness.

There will be, in Jabba’s palace, a surfeit of soup. “A nzati” they will whisper. “Anzat, of the Anzati.”

It was a personal thing, this story, to begin, innocent of intent beyond a wholly discriminating appetite. A need for soup it was—without it I expire—but also a need for his soup, his soup specifically, the soup of all soups: the essence of a humanoid who knows fear but absolves himself of it; who faces it, defeats it, does not laugh in its face so much as prove himself fragile in flesh but strong in spirit. And who, by overcoming it, manufactures the soup of all soups, sweet and hot and pure.

Han Solo’s soup.

A professional thing, this story, of betrayal and perfidy.

Jabba wanted him caught. The Hutt cared little for soup; if he knew of it, he never said. Likely, with his sources, his resources, he did know; but it mattered not in the least. He knew I was inviolable, because I am I, and best. And for the best, the best.

Han Solo’s soup-Mine, when captured. Mine to take, to drink.

Mine to sip, to savor: hot, and sweet, and pure.

Until Jabba stole it from me. Until I was betrayed.

By Fett. By Calrissian. By Jabba the Hutt himself, goading all of them. Buying all of them.

Buying me, as well. Promising singularity to the best of the’ best, forever and ever, amen: Dannik Jerriko, assassin’s assassin.

For this, Jabba will die. And the others as well: three in Mos Eisley; more yet, like the Weequay, in Jabba’s palace.

Han Solo, also. And his woman, royal-bred. And the boy of worthless pedigree, yet who promises, unaccountably, to be strong in what was Kenobi’s power.

It is a power I have known as long as I have lived, and that longer than most; we Anzati know many of the secrets of the multiplicity of universes, of galaxies, of worlds. Such power as the boy’s will be, of Kenobi’s, is Vader’s power also, and the Emperor’s.

But twisted in the latter, by them, none of it now of Kenobi, of those who wereJedi Knights. Will they twist the boy’s as well?

Perhaps. No one alive has withstood the Emperor, or Darth Vader.

Or Jabba the Hutt.

But none of them know me, save Jabba. They only know of me, of my kind, the lurid tales told. And it is this I will use: ignorance, and rumor.

Let them say what they will. This time, I will use it. Its power is pervasive.

In the palace, which once was a monastery—pure in its existence until polluted first by raiders and later by Jabba himself—there are many for me to peruse, consider, pursue—even to stalk as the stories claim, a manner heretofore disdained but now apropos—and a plethora of races, of species, of soup. From myriad nations, a plenitude of planets. But here nothing matters save the master all of them serve; they are as nothing to him, to me, and as nothing they shall die.

Except to make a point.

Jabba, be afraid. Even you may die.

And the essence of your soup, one may hope, may pray, shall be as rich in its substance as is your flesh in corpulence.

I have been what I am: perfectionist in my work. All have died.

All. None left to tell the tale.

But now the tale is necessary, and the telling of it. The Weequay, dead of unknown means, will cause consternation, but no certainty. There is a need now for “error”; for what they will take as error. A being left alive. To describe, in infinite horror, of inescapable terror, what monster it was who nearly took its life.

Thus it is time for me to depart the closet of rumor we Anzati too often inhabit.

There are levels of fear as there is a pecking order of entities within Jabba’s palace. To strike at the Hutt I must strike first at the others, beings whose presence serves much, or very little, but nonetheless the absence thereof makes itself felt in all the small and large ways, the mild annoyances or the doubt, the anger, the abrupt concern for one’s safety. I know all of the levels, as I know how to use them.

First, those in Mos Eisley, already reported as dead; but Jabba will assume it is of no consequence–or small consequence—until convinced otherwise.

Next, the Weequay. Jabba will not miss him. But others will.

And once enough of them die, enough of the small people, even the elect might be led into true fear.

A female, now. The dancing girl with head-tails, the Twi’lek, is already dead, thrown down as appetizer to Jabba’s hungry rancor, but there are other females.

And so I seek one out.

She is what many entities, Jabba among them, consider beautiful: lush, plump in flesh, a bounty of breasts, the ponderous movements of a body in motion.

Hands waving, six breasts swinging, buttocks never still. But she is stilled, at last, when the revels, ended, devolve into stupor. The woman, an Askajian rothey who bear multiple young at one whelping leaves the audience chamber to seek her rest through the remains of the night until the unyielding sun of Tatooine stands high overhead once again.

But rest she will not have. Sleep she will not know.

And it is in the servants’ quarter, where one assumes one is safe, that I pursue the assignation.

As she walks from the audience chamber, the high, proud step fades into weariness, into scuffing and graceless relief that she may at last seek her bed. She is dulled by the hour, and careless; that she should take care never suggests itself to her, for this is Jabba’s palace, protected by all the dregs of the uncounted universes.

And so it is nothing to me to allow her to walk past me, unseeing, and into the antechamber, unknowing, intent upon release; and so it is as nothing that I follow, step behind her, whisper an endearment in her native tongue.

She whirls, multiple breasts wobbling. There is delight at first in her eyes; was she then expecting someone?.

But it is I, not he, not she, not it; delight shapechanges to fear.

In her tongue I say she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen; that I have lusted for her, watching from the shadows, the closets of Jabba’s palace, wishing she might so much as glance in my direction. But she has not, and I am bereft, and weak, and cowardly, and only now brave enough, male enough to come forward, to swear to her the truth, to abase myself before her so she will know, must know, how it is with me, a male who sees and desires a female, and such a female as she…

Almost, she believes. Twin spots of ruddy color glow in fleshy cheeks.

Beneath my hands her shoulders lift.

Her mouth parts as I slip my hands from shoulders to neck, from neck to the bones of her jaw, hidden beneath heavy flesh. And then I clamp her skull in the Anzat’s embrace and allow her to see the truth of what I am. Legend come to life.

A whimper. Then rigid, paralyzing fear as I uncoil proboscii.

They are discriminating and slower to rouse than usual; their diet has always been soup of the highest sort, and I have profaned them of late with soup’ of the lower order, from entities who have no courage.

But they rouse, extrude. And the woman whimpers again, trapped by her horror, my hands, by the knowledge.

Pleasure/pain-Pain
pleasure— No. Not this time. Patience is required, and control.p>

- —pleasure? - - Later: Later.

A caress only, the faintest breath of proboscii beneath her nostrils. In my hands she trembles-A step. A presence. A voice, flatly mechanical, inquiring as to my presence, to my intent.

As she whimpers again, I turn. I permit him to see as I permitted her.

There is regret that after so many centuries I must allow the truth to be known, the methods, the means to be comprehended, but it is necessary.

I had meant for her to live. The purpose was for her to see me, to know me, to cry of near-assault. But. now he is here as well, armored male in helmet that is also breathing mask; he will do. She will do. They may both tell a tale of terror.

Anzat, of the Anzati… loose in Jabba’s Palace.

For time out of mind, I have been what does not exist, save for imagination. I am folklore. Mythos. Legend.

A figment, a fragment, a fleeting dream called nightmare. All one and the same, if known by different labels… but the truth is harsher yet, and far more frightening.

But blighted truth, twisted truth, honesty unknown, can serve a purpose.

It has served the Anzati for time out of mind, and me. It serves me still.

It serves me now.

Ah, but the promise of soup, of satiation-Why wait? I hunger now.

For the soup, and victory.

The knowledge that I have done what no one else has done.

Jabba’s soup: the excrescence of what he is, what he has become; what he has made of himself. Soup that no one has spilled before, to drink of its strength.

To devour the life of the Hutt while the hulking husk putrefies.

But not so soon, never so soon. He presents a challenge, does Jabba. A wily Hutt well cognizant of how to ward his life. To bring fear into his soul—and set the soup to boiling—will take time.

Effort. And the unveiling of my truth.

But I am hungry now, and for more than Jabba’s soup. For Jabba’s fear.

Hear of me, O Jabba, and know yourself afraid.

I am of the day, but equally of the night; I take my rest when I choose, not because any biological rhythm insists upon it. And so I am free to wander as I will, throughout the labyrinthine corridors of what once was monastery and now is Jabba’s lair. And it is as I wander that I am certain, at once, there are those within the palace who were not here before.

Abruptly: - - soup-I have known its like before. But this essence, this essence - - soup—Oh, it is powerful, overwhelming… I stop where I am in the shadows, transfixed by the awareness, the preternatural knowledge of such soup as I could wish for before all others–soup-Proboscii, denied the sort of soup they prefer for too long, twitch frenziedly within cheek-pockets. They know. I know.

Han Solo. Han Solo, vividly alive; and others nearby, others of similar soup…

How many? Solo, another, another.

- -soup-Through the corridors to the kitchens. Where I find a body, though living still; a small, insignificant being of thin and immature soup, but he will do, will do; in my need there is only the soup, anyone’s soup at all.

There is no time, no time-I clutch him. Turn him. Catch him up in the embrace.

He struggles briefly, too briefly. Proboscii plunge into nostrils, through to the brain.

There is so little soup, and all of it weak.

But it will do. For the moment.

He is discarded quickly, abruptly, proboscii tearing free. I let him fall in a sprawl, ungainly and lacking dignity, against a broken box nearly large enough for his body.

There is blood on the boy’s face. I have left evidence of the means, the method.

There is no time.

It will suffice. It will serve.

Anzat, of the Anzati… loose in Jabba’s palace.

- -soup-Ah, but it is ecstasy, or will be.

Who?

Along the corridors, shadow-cloaked, prowls an Anzat, but shedding habitual wariness in the quest for fact, for truth-Oh, rejoice!

- -it is here, is here; all of it, here… Solo’s, another’s.

Another’s.

I catch myself up short at the corner, on the cusp of Jabba’s audience chamber. For it is there, all of it there: Solo, thawed from carbonite, his soup wild and reckless, tinged with that, with panic: he is blind, blind and untrusting, but all his instincts are to fight, to fight-Another’s. Wild and free and boiling.

Frightened as well, that she-she? - - - will not be able to get him free despite precautions, despite plans: Chewbacca, Lando, Han; always Han, foremostm Calrissian Then he is the third.

Solo. The woman. Calrissian.

Betrayer.

Rejoice… oh, rejoice!

But Solo overwhelms them all with his presence, his soup; and in the doing overwhelms me. Proboscii extrude, quivering.

- -soup-She has unmasked, the woman. Unhelmed so he knows her, so he will not be afraid.

No. Let him be afraid, so he might overcome it. And in the fear, in the overcoming of it, the pushing through to awareness and competency and the wild, crazed courage, he becomes what I want, what I need-Han Solo’s soup-Oh, let it be mine!

I will take all of them. One by one.