She looked around, the pain receding in the face of the glories that met her eyes. This.. .cavern?.. .was filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of khaydarin crystals. Each one was singing, adding its own tune to the exquisite harmony that wrapped around her almost like a physical thing. They glowed blue, purple, and green, and she felt bathed in that light. Perhaps that was what was healing her and creating some sort of protective barrier against the lack of atmosphere, that, or the powerful residual life force that still thrummed throughout the now-abandoned chrysalis. There was definitely energy here; and Jake, with the memories of every protoss who had ever lived, thought she just might be able to put that energy to good use.
A hand on her lacerated abdomen, she moved carefully around the chambers, looking for an exit. There was none. In a way, that was good, if the plan that was starting to form in her mind was to be successful. But in a way, it was not, for success hinged on someone knowing what she knew—someone finding her.
The pain was returning, and she felt fresh wetness beneath her hand. She still lived, but not for long. Not in this broken body.
Jake threaded her way through the crystals, leaving drops of dark purple fluid as she went. Finally she reached a relatively flat wall and trailed her hand over it. A flash of memory—Temlaa and Savassan, touching the crystals in a precise order—the ara'dor, the perfect ratio. The ratio of the shell, of the hand, found again and again on all worlds the protoss had discovered. Such a pattern had opened doors that were otherwise hidden. Would it likewise permit her to create a door where none existed before?
Jake winced at the pain, but grimly pressed her clean hand to the wall. She could sense the energies in it still, feel it almost physically tingling on her skin. One to one point six, each print touching the other, making a beautiful but invisible spiral on the door. Then she drew the lines of the "door" she hoped to create, again measuring as best she could estimate, tracing a rectangular outline. She lifted her hand and waited.
The chrysalis and the creature it had sheltered had been of the xel'naga. And somehow, it remembered. Somehow, it recognized this timeless ratio. Before Jake's eyes, the spiral created by her hand, hitherto invisible, began to glow. There was a sudden brilliant flash of light, and then Jake realized she was peering into the dark depths of a corridor.
"Please," she whispered, to whom she did not know—the chrysalis, the souls of those whose memories she bore, the unknown protoss who would one day find this corridor. Jake looked around and found a small crystal she could conveniently break off. Holding the glowing source of purple-green illumination, she moved forward, following the corridor until it ended. She repeated the process on this wall. Again the spiral glowed and flared, and again a doorway she had created with nothing but the energies of this place and her own knowledge of the ara'dor's importance to the xel'naga opened for her. She stepped into the corner and turned around. How to close the door? Or rather, cause it to manifest again? On a hunch, she traced the ara'dor in the empty space and stepped back. Sure enough, the wall reappeared. She needed to leave a message, but also had to be cryptic. After all, there was a possibility that an enemy could find this place.
Jake turned to the wall opposite the doorway, dipped a long finger in her own blood, and began to write.
My brothers or sisters who have come this far—within, a secretlies preserved. To enter, think as the Wanderers from Afar would. Think of perfection.
She stumbled and blinked. Away from the energies of the heart of the temple, her wound was worsening. Fear shot through her that she might already have lingered too long. She opened the door, closed it again behind her, then hurried back as best she could to the innermost chamber.
She almost fell before she reached it. Faintness washed over her, gray and soothing; she fought it back determinedly. Not yet. Not just yet.
The energies from the hatchling from a similar chrysalis had turned Bhekar Ro, a harsh world, into a verdant field for kilometers around. Perhaps what was left here would do what Jake wanted it to do. And more than any other protoss, a preserver understood how to use one's thoughts.
She wasn't even able to reach the ship. She would have to do it here. Her body made the decision for her, her legs buckling as she fell hard. One hand reached out to grasp the nearest crystal, pulling its power and that of the temple itself into her.
Life energy was as real as any other kind. She knew that. And now she deliberately pulled it out of her poor violated body, shaping it into a cord, willing herself to live long enough to stop time in this place of deep, deep power. She twined the glowing, golden cord that was her life around the crystal. When the time came, if all went as she hoped it would, the cord would be found and held by another— another to whom she could pass on the vital information she bore.
Despite the emotions pumping through her system, the legacy of the primal protoss who had raged and slaughtered one another in millennia past, Jake calmed her thoughts and concentrated on the khaydarin crystal. It was warm where her hand rested on it, and she felt a slight tingling emanating from it.
I have done all that I could. I can only hope it will be enough.
She closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was a drop of her blood trickle down her hand and hang, poised to fall, from the tip of her finger.
CHAPTER 11
"I REMEMBER THAT BLOOD DROP," JAKE murmured softly. He'd seen Zamara's broken body and, moved by some deep-seated desire to show compassion even to the dead, he'd reached to touch that hand. The blood drop had stayed as perfectly formed as if it had been made out of a dark purple gemstone, then suddenly lost cohesion and spread across his palm—wet and fresh as if it had just been shed.
Zeratul saw both versions of the same incident then—Zamara's and Jake's, as both recalled the union. Jake censored nothing—not his panic, not his pain, not his wonder, not his pettiness. Zeratul was definitely paying close attention now.
"It is a marvel," he said finally. "That you were able to decipher the clues Zamara had left. Few would have thought that way. Few even among my people, let alone yours."
Jake shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. "All that matters is that I did."
"And that you continue to cooperate, even though what Zamara has done has cost the lives of many dear to you. And may in the end claim your own life."
"Yeah, well, the odds of that not happening will go up if you will just listen to what Zamara has to say."
Zeratul narrowed his eyes, and Jake suddenly held his breath. Had he really said that? He meant it, of course, but he wasn't usually so... blunt. That was more like something Rosemary would say. But despite the beauty of this environment, and all those negative ions Zamara assured him were charging the air, he was getting sicker and he knew it. The headaches were almost constant now, a dull, throbbing ache that shortened his temper and sharpened his tongue when they were not hot spikes of agony that made any movement other than clutching his head and whimpering impossible. Even so, he desperately hoped he hadn't blown everything with his comment.
Suddenly Zeratul laughed. It was a dry, yet warm and embracing sound that calmed him and somehow even made the headache more bearable.
"Indeed, you remind me of Raynor. He was a friend to our people, as you are." His eyes suddenly gleamed brighter, and Jake sensed thatthrough the dark templar's heavy mantle of guilt and grief, there was yet a spark that could perhaps be fanned into a flame. "He thought of me as a storyteller of sorts. A riddler, a teacher who taught by asking questions and coaxing forth. I...have not felt like riddling, telling stories, or teaching, for some time now. The two of you have shared with me a profound story of the nobility of our people, and that of an entirely different species. Although I sense there is more to it than what you have shared, Zamara. Such as the identity of the ones who hunted you."