Star Wars: Brave Misdeeds

Chapter 20

"Hatred does something no lofty virtue can achieve...it eliminates prejudice, allowing you to hate everyone, including your allies."          —Hakon Sharif <Reign>

A commotion outside the Viper's Nest guildhall was highly unusual for so quiet a city as Kor Bha'lir, especially in the early morning. Inside the spacious front chamber, Lomm Ka'Sol paused in the middle of a sentence and turned to the entrance. Sitting across from her, Memcha focused her acute Twi'lek hearing in the same direction of the ruckus. Only moments before, the two women were sharing a light breakfast and discussing guild affairs. As the stuffed Ahrisa grew cold in its plate, the senior guild officers stood up, expecting trouble; and yet, there were no alarm klaxons to signify the city was under attack.

Dismissing the breakfast on the table, the Zabrak moved away from her chair and took a vibrolance from the wall above her council chair. With a flourish, she spun the melee weapon in her hands to test the grip and then slowly made her way toward the entrance. Their conversation disrupted by the noise, Memcha followed and paused only to cue the two restless narglatch at her side. Crouching low to the ground, Falling Snow, a large brown and black narglatch went left at the elevator shaft. Kash, his twin, went right in a practiced ploy meant to disarm an intruder with a surprise attack from two flanks.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come back another time," Weolo's high-pitched voice could be heard from outside. "No, no, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying. Eimi, do you comprehend what he's saying? What sort of gibberish is that?"

"Not gibberish, Weolo. Socorran." Lomm stepped onto the front veranda to find the Mon Calamari and Eimi detaining a diminutive figure. He was dressed in red robes and various strips of woolen cloth and carried a fishing pole over his shoulder. The brown-skinned stranger was as much out of place on Talus as a Spinecap Flapper Queen among Corellian Butterflies.

"A Socorran Bronwen? Here?" Memcha said incredulously. With but a subtle hand gesture, she called off the patrolling narglatch. Obedient to the Master Creature Handler, both creatures promptly settled to the polished floors just inside the shadow of the guildhall entrance.

"A Bronwen?" Weolo inquired, his gills expanding rapidly with frustration, as the Mon Calamari detested anything he did not know or could not understand.

"Yes," Lomm replied, "An Ibhaan'I shaman from Socorro?"

"I take it one of you can translate this nonsense?" the physician demanded.

"His name is Pann'l Ouk and he is asking to speak our leader for he has a matter of grave interest to discuss." Lomm bowed deeply to the shaman and held the position of reverence, acknowledging her role as guildmaster and saying, "Khasaani'I."

The Bronwen's face brightened immediately with recognition, and his hand went immediately to his satchel. Sprinkling the Zabrak with a bit of Socorran sand dust, he recited a brief prayer of blessing over her. Then, with formalities aside, he excitedly began conversing with her in his native Socorran.

"A zealot?" Weolo asked. "Uh oh," he remarked when her faced darkened with concern, "what's he said now?"

"He speaks of a great evil living within our midst."

Straining to grasp the lyrical language, Weolo glanced from Lomm to Memcha and then to the shaman, frustration evidenced by his narrowed eyes. "Soelle? That last bit was about Soelle, wasn't it? That where I found him, looking about by her house."

Lomm did not answer, her face remaining drawn with restrained ire. "Socorro is my adopted homeworld. Memcha, you were born there. What is this Kedem'qdin'I of which he speaks?"