Prelude to Eternity - Chapter Two

"We aren't leaving," Lowie told him.

"You aren't leaving," the guard repeated with a nod.

"We never even came by here."

"You never even came by here."

"You don't need to concern yourself with us."

"I don't need to concern myself with you."

Lowie nodded, the grin on his face a blunt testimony to the enjoyment he'd gotten out of manipulating the other's mind. "Glad to hear that!" he proclaimed cheerfully. "Thanks for your time!" He swiveled the upper part of his body around and motioned for the two other boys to follow him.

Xicanti shook his head in wonderment as he walked past the guard. "You make it look so easy," he commented. "Can anyone do it?"

Lowie nodded. "If they're Force sensitive, yeah. Even you could. First you've gotta get someone to teach you how to use the Force, though. You've proved that you already understand a bit of it, but there's much more to it than being able to see through illusions and talking to people telepathically."

Jacen nodded enthusiastically and added, "You also get a light saber!"

Lowie rolled his eyes at the younger boy. "You're obsessed with that thing!" he grumbled. "Try thinking about something else for a few hours."

Jacen gave the little Wookiee a pained expression. "But everyone needs an obsession!" he protested. "Mine might as well be a really neat stick of glowing light. It's better than those spices people use as drugs, or masterbating, or telling bad jokes! You probably have one too!"

"I do not," Lowie replied prissily.

"Do too!"

"Do not!"

The two boys argued for the rest of fifteen minutes, effectively cutting Xicanti out of the conversation. By the time they reached a turbo lift, Jacen had called out the inevitable, "Dee two!", as was his custom, ending the argument with a perplexed look from his hairy friend.

The transport was one of those set aside for civilian use; conveniently, it was empty. Most of the respectable citizens of Coruscant avoided going out into the streets at such a late hour.

"Which level is this place on?" Jacen asked, his tone incredibly perky for three in the morning.

"612," the Xicanti replied. "Down in the slums."

Lowie nodded as though he knew exactly what Xicanti was talking about, although Xicanti suspected that he was, once more, just trying to look smart. "I think my Dad's been down there before. He's been almost everywhere on the planet.

" "My Dad's been down to the really lower levels!" Jacen piped up. "He said it was really dirty down there. It's where the cannibals live, you know. He almost got eaten by one! Or so he told me. Sometimes I don't know whether or not to believe his stories. They get kinda... weird. Sometimes."

"That's for sure!" Lowie snorted. "Uncle Han once told me that he overpowered a group of hostile nerfherders with bombs who were trying to kill him. Is it just me, or is there something not quite right about that story?"

True to form, Jacen replied, "It's just you!"

Once again, Lowie and Jacen began talking amongst themselves, this time about strange things their respective fathers had done and whether or not they believed them. Despite himself, Xicanti had to fight to repress feelings of jealousy. I wish I had a father, he thought sadly. He then realized that he did, in fact have one of those odd parental units. Too bad he was evil. And even if he hadn't been evil, I never would have really known him. According to Luke, he died when I was just four. I wonder how things would have turned out if he'd lived? Maybe I wouldn't have become a thief. Maybe I'd be a Lord, or a Jedi, or something like that! The idea of becoming someone like that appealed to the young thief, and he spent the rest of his time in the lift thinking it over.

That time was quite substantial. Coruscant had several hundred levels to it, with the first being the only one with access to the sky. All of the landing sights, most of the parks and many of the city-planet's numerous palaces were located on that level. Due to the violence that had occurred on Coruscant during the Rebellion, many of the latter were ruined beyond repair, their graceful columns shattered, their inner sanctums ransacked.

It took around an hour for the turbo-lift to reach level 612. Although the lifts worked quickly during the day, Coruscant Control metered out their power supply after midnight, thereby slowing down their operations. As the turbo-lift screeched to a halt, Lowie cheerfully announced, "Well, we're here!" The door of the transport slid open

. Jacen whistled. "And what a nice place here is!" he proclaimed, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Level 612 was deep into the slums, and not exactly a happy place to visit. There was garbage everywhere, and plenty of rats to boot. Xicanti was surprised to discover that he'd missed this place. The Palace is good for some people, he thought to himself, but not me. This is where I belong! Whether or not it was a good place to belong didn't matter. It was home.

Lowie surveyed the streets with obvious disdain . "Where to now?" he asked the young thief.

Xicanti motioned down one of the closer streets. "This way. It's not far to the cellar from here. You guys'll be able to go back to the Palace soon." He started to walk off in the direction he had pointed out, then stopped as a thought came to him. "You'll use the Force to disguise yourselves, right?" he asked the Wookiee. "I mean, Rettar might get kinda upset if a Wookiee walks into his cellar. And you," he glanced over at Jacen, "aren't half dirty enough to pass for a thief. Lowie'll have to give you some illusionary dirt or somethin'. I'll just role in some of this stuff here to get back the dirt your Mom made me wash off. I don't think anyone'll care if I get my clothes all grimy." He grinned. "In fact, I think Rettar prefers it! Us thieves have to look the part, you know!"

While Lowie used the Force to put an illusion over himself and Jacen, the young thief headed down a nearby alley and searched for a pile of dirt. It smelled almost exactly like the boy had imagined the pile of Wookiee droppings Chewie had told him about would have. "Weird," he muttered to himself. "Why didn't I ever notice it before?" This particular pile had been lying at the back of the alley for as long as he could remember. Still, smelly or not, the job had to be done. Xicanti took a deep breath and plunged into the grime. It wasn't that hard to get dirty; probably a side effect of the old cadaver someone had dumped in it long ago. In less than a minute, Xicanti was ready to rejoin his companions.

Jacen took a step back as the older boy approached. "Did you have to get so thorough?" he asked, putting a hand over his nose. "You smell worse than Chewie's mom Cerrie did before she died! And that was pretty bad!"

Xicanti nodded. "Yup. This is how I smelled before your mother forced me to take a bath." He leaned down to the street and picked up a dead rat. As he rubbed it through his long red hair, still stuck up in the near-hopeless mat Leia hadn't even tried to get out, he added, "It's a good thing she didn't decide to give me a haircut. Old Rettar'd really start to wonder where I'd been then."

The three then began their walk. It seemed like forever to Xicanti, although it was but a matter of minutes. Is this what it always feels like to come home? he wondered as he stood before the door to the cellar. Perhaps, he answered his own question. He had always found that he himself generally gave out the best answers to such queries.

The cellar from which Rettar ran his modest den wasn't really a cellar at all. It was the dirty lower level of an equally dirty house in the slums. It was home to about twenty young thieves, all either orphans like Xicanti and Xepher or the children of the various whores who lived nearby.

It was difficult for the boy to open the door to the house in which he had spent the fifteen years of his life. No matter what anyone'll tell you, coming home isn't easy, Xicanti thought over-dramatically as he stepped in to the only home he'd ever known.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten the thieves Rettar always set to watch the door in case of intruders. The moment he was through the door, the six other boys had him down on the ground with a knife dangerously close to his neck. "Get offa me you useless lugs! It's me! Don't you remember?" he shouted, pressing the back of his neck to the floor to avoid inadvertently skewering himself on the knife as he talked.

One of the dirtier thieves leaned closer, examining the boy's face. His skin had been turned an odd gray color by the dirt covering it; his hair was a dusty ash blond. "Why, so it is!" he exclaimed. He quickly got up, kicked a few younger boys to convince them to do likewise. "Get offa him you bastards!" he shouted angrily. "This ain't some intruder, it's Xicanti!"

Trust has never been a common thing among the thieves of Coruscant. Each of the others had to have a good look at Xicanti's face to make sure he was whom the gray one had identified him as. They seemed satisfied, though, and got off of him as quickly as they could manage.

The dirtier boy came forward again with a laugh. "You're back!" he exclaimed, giving Xicanti a brotherly embrace. "Rettar'll wanna know that right away! It's pretty much all he's been rambling about for the past two weeks." He leaped over a few sleeping boys to a flight of rickety stairs in the far corner of the room and began to shout all manner of disagreeable things up them.

As the thief was doing this, Xicanti started to explain things to Lowie and Jacen. "The one shoutin' up the stairs is Halcar," he told them. "He's sortta like a hero to the younger ones, since he's the oldest an' all. And the dirtiest. Rettar calls 'im Gray, since that's the color he turned once he got good an' dirty. He calls us all by either whatever color we happen to turn or by what we bring 'im lots of, never bothering with names. It doesn't matter 'ow stupid the name is, either. I'm Red, Xepher was Gold the one over there is Green, that little one beside him is Brown, the one sleeping by the broken chair's Orangie, an' the rest are just whatever their parents called 'em 'fore they died. Rettar only bothers with some sortta house name for his best thieves." Xicanti was rather proud of having earned his house name, (although the way it had come to be his still plagued him at night), and it showed in the way he spoke of it. He had always enjoyed boasting of what a good thief he was.

Jacen appeared confused. "If you don't use names, how do you tell each other apart?" he asked. "And how did you and this Xepher person get names?"

"Oh, us thieves use names," Xicanti replied nonchalantly. "It's just Rettar who has a problem with 'em. We don't get them from each other, though. We get to choose them ourselves. Mine comes from a city in a kid's book. I was stealing some stuff from a rich guy's house one time when I heard the owner reading to his daughter. He mentioned a place called Xicanti City. I thought it sounded like a good thing to call myself, so I chose it for my name. Only I cut out the whole city part of it."

There was no more time for idle conversation after that. Rettar Smrokes, thoroughly drunken den master, came stumbling down the stairs in response to Gray's call. "Who'd ya say's here, Grey?" he mumbled, hardly bothering with the thick brogue he usually adopted around his thieves. "And why's it worth wakin' me up for?"

"It's Xicanti, Rettar!" Grey exclaimed, grabbing his den master's arm and yanking him towards the door. "You know, Red? He's back! An' I think he brought new recruits!"

Rettar perked up immediately. "Me Red be back, ye say?" he asked, some sign of recognition creeping into his voice. "And new ones? Where exactly be these new ones and Red?" Grey pointed in the direction of the three friends.

Rettar hurried towards them. "Red, me boy!" he cried jovially. "Ye be back! An' with new ones! Pulled off a grand robbery, I dunna doubt!" He rubbed his grubby hands together, a look of pure joy playing across his face. "Now, let us have a look at the goods, will ye?"

Xicanti shook his head. "Sorry, Rettar," he replied, slightly uncertainly. "No goods this time. Or new ones. Just a couple of friends who wanted to make me get home all right."

Rettar became noticeably less enthusiastic about Xicanti's return after hearing this news. He looked up at the young thief in a confused manner, then asked quietly, "Ye mean, ye disappear fer two weeks with none o' the whores or thieves hearin' squat 'bout ye, then have the nerve to come back here wi'out nothin' fer me to collect from you?" His tone was becoming dangerous.

"Nothin'." Xicanti spread his hands helplessly. "I'm real sorry 'bout it, Rettar. But there wasn't really anything to steal where I was."

"And where was that?" Rettar demanded. "With Argorian again? He was tryin' to take me Prince o' Thieves again, was 'e? I'll throttle the bastard next time I see 'im!" He was definitely angry now, so Xicanti decided he would have to phrase his answer carefully.

I can't tell him about finding my family, he thought, and he won't believe I've been at The Hero's Conquest all this time, 'cause Sharstas would a sent word. And tellin' him I've been with Argorian'll only make 'im madder. The only thing I can really do is not tell him anything. "I-I can't really tell you that," he mumbled. "It's not real important, though. It was just a dirty ol' place, nothin' special."

Rettar didn't like this one bit. Xicanti could tell by the look on his face. I'm in deep shit, he realized with a gulp.

Rettar's face spread out in a slow grin, a grin which Xicanti had seen only twice before. Both times had been when Rettar was poised to make a death lunge. "So, my Red," he murmured. "Ye, my best thief - nay, me Prince o' Thieves - returns to me after a hiatus o' two weeks with nothing to show o' it but a bunch of dirt o'er your body?" Xicanti nodded helplessly. "Well, then. I do true be sorry, me Prince-" suddenly, dangerously, he shifted from the brogue to the rarely used clipped speech Xicanti had heard but once "-but it looks like we couldn't possibly accept you back with us, now doesn't it?"

Although he'd realized he'd be in a fair bit of trouble upon his return, Xicanti had not been prepared for such a turn of events. He had simply assumed that he would walk back into the cellar and take up where he had left off as Rettar's top thief. The fact that he had been jilted upset him so much that he didn't even notice Rettar give Green and Brown the thieves' signal to attack. It was not until he heard Lowie and Jacen shout out that he realized he was being shunned, and not until a split second before the board came smashing down upon his own head how complete that shunning would be.