Coruscant: Jedi Temple-- Council Chamber-- Nick's Mind

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...To reform from those thousand pieces into a yet another memory.

A very old one.

The sound of metal slicing through air caught his attention just in time, though it was more instinct than alertness that saved his neck from being severed from his shoulders. Nick parried the blow with his own weapon and felt his body get jarred by the heavy impact as broadsword met scrimitar. His assailant gave him scant time to catch his breath, however, as he was forced to backpedal over blood soaked ground, avoiding the fallen bodies of his comrades while fighting off aggressive blows. Metal clashed against metal time and again as fought a defensive battle. After what felt like a small eternity, the other paused and Nick took a step backwards, panting to catch his breath and rubbing his shoulder where the chain mail had just barely prevented his arm from being hacked off. This was certaintly an unexpected developement! he thought tiredly. Where was Master Poof?

"Something wrong, *Padawan*?"

"You make a very unorthodox Saracen, Master Mundi," Nick panted, sweat pouring off his skin. He'd forgotten just how just how heavy and cumbersome it was to fight in 13th Century armor.

The Cerean inclined his head, the faint trace of dislike in his eyes belying otherwise expressionless features. "As you would make unacceptable Jedi, de Brabant." He used the curved blade to gesture at the battle going on around them. "A Jedi does not fear, and yet you feared greatly here."

Scowling, the Crusader retorted, "Nearly everyone I knew for the past two years died in this battle. I fully expected to die as well."

"But you didn't."

"No. Though for the next Twelfth Month I wished I had." God, himself, could attest to that! Prison life had been the worst experience he had ever endured--- the worst during his mortal years anyway.

A satisfied smirk that immediately told Nick to be wary, "Yes. Let's explore that."

Nick blinked at yet another scenery change. This time he was not surprised, but that didn't stop the cold ice from settling into his stomach as he felt the heavy weight of the chains around his limbs. They held him fast to a stone wall section comprising one quarter of a smelly, dark cell carpeted with rotting straw. In the next chamber, he could hear the wracking coughs of those who would not... *had* not made it through the season. Once strong men reduced to little more than human skeletons and moaning at night like the wraiths of the dead they would soon become. Limited food, less light, sparse medicine for festering sores, hours upon days upon months of endless... waiting. Waiting for *anything*--- anything at all to relieve the relentless boredom and suffering. Only the most hardy of mind and body survived to be ransomed from the Enemy. He had been very lucky to be one of those few.

Or not so lucky--- depending on how you looked on it.

Ki-Adi-Mundi was still beside him. "Terrible way to treat a nobleman, these barbarians. How *angry* it must have made you."

"It was no worse than we treated the captives from their side," Nick grimaced. Which was true. In fact, he had seen the captives of the 'Christians' treated far worse, but that had not made bearing his confinement any easier. It had been many long centuries before LaCroix had been able to talk him into visiting the Middle Eastern regions. Even as a comparably self-assured vampire he had been uneasy there and had preferred to remain in first Europe--- and after its discovery and the settling in of what he thought of as 'culture'-- North America. Fortunately, Janette had never liked being terribly far removed from her favored Paris, so LaCroix had not uprooted them to that arid portion of the world very often. "I bore it. I had no choice. I survived."

Mundi was forestalled from saying more when Council member Master Yarael Poof chose to make himself known by appearing to reach out and touch the heavy irons that held Nick captive. "Survived--- but with a heightened fear of Death," he commented sadly.

The human hung his head. It was true... after he had healed sufficiently to ride a horse and the assignment as courier back to France had been offered, he had accepted it with an inordinate amount of relief. Oh, he and his new companions still had their skirmishes to deal with as they made their way northwards. But he had carefully hidden how the thought of fighting and possibly being taken again had made him feel physically ill. And what had made his cowardice sting all the more deeply was his companions' high praises for his combat skill. Their 'Golden Lion' they had named him. Utterly ferocious in battle. Unfortunately, the truth was his ferocity had come not from self-assured bravery, but from an utter desperation not to be taken captive again. At Paris he had availed himself of every opportunity to get quietly drunk, knowing that soon he would be seeing his beloved family again. The thought had made his insides quail. Whereas his fellow knights may have been fooled by his outward demeanor, he had been positive his dear mother and sister would take one look at him and see the truth of his failure in a single glance. He had been halfway to a state of befuddled oblivion to escape such thoughts, when Janette had caught his eye--- and what had thought of as his private hell had taken on whole new dimensions. In trying to escape captivity, he had impulsively thrown himself into new chains that were harder and faster than any smithy's iron shackles. Insidiously seductive chains too: he had never gloried in being held by the Moslems. He *had* gloried in being a child of the powerful LaCroix-- even when he had cursed at him.

He felt the scenery change again and stiffened.

Purgatory. The Waiting Room. Limbo? Nick wasn't sure what to call the desolate landscape, with its barren sands and large lake. Twice before he had come here as his body had died. Once after LaCroix drained him in Paris; once during a criminal investigation when he had allowed a machine to induce a death-like state. He looked about, but Master Poof was gone again, leaving him with Mundi standing a bit away with...

{{ Nat! }}

The transparent spectre of the mortal woman he had loved more than any other reached out for him with grieving eyes.

"Nat!" He ran forward to hug her. An invisible wall flung him back. He landed with a grunt on the lukewarm sand and quickly twisted around to see what he had run into. There was nothing except Master Mundi who had one hand held palm outwards with a slight smile on his lips. Nick tried again to embrace his love, but was again stopped by an invisible wall erected just three feet from his desire. "Damn you, let me pass!"

"Why should I? So you can kill her again?"

Nick's eyes pleaded with the Cerean. He clenched his fists in agitation. "I didn't mean to-- I..."

"You didn't mean to kill? How noble of you. How *considerate*."

"I love her!" He felt his temper start to flare and squelched it. He didn't want to fight Mundi. He just wanted to hold Natalie and apologize to her for having taken too much of her blood.

"This human was murdered by you--- and you say that you 'love her'?" Mundi went on conversationaly, his words making the Terran flinch. "A strange way of showing love."

"We loved each other. Natalie was convi--"

"So now you blame your 'loved one' as well as abandon her to this place."

"What?"

"Your inability to let her go keeps her trapped in your mind. In this place. Oh.. but didn't you know that?" Mundi smiled cruely, "You'll hold her slave and starving for your apologies while you dither in your own feelings," he went on ignoring his opponents mounting rage.

"You lie!" Nick growled out around his descended fangs, totally oblivious to their presence or the fact that his eyes now held the glitter of amber. {{ Natalie was in heaven with the angels! She *had* to be! }} "Damn you!" he swore.

Unhooking his lightsaber from his belt, Mundi casually switched it on. "I thought *you* were the one caught in that state? But it doesn't matter--- this shade is only a dream figment of yours after all"---his energy blade arched through the image of the woman, dispelling it like sunlight on morning mist.

With a roar of fury and grief Nick was upon him, broadsword out of its scabbard and swinging at Mundi's tall forehead. The Jedi Knight parried two such strikes, breaking the medieval weapon in two on the third one. Nick didn't even pause as he abandoned the sword in favor of tackling his opponent outright. A few agile twists and turns and he had the Cerean's head firmly in his grasp, red eyes glaring, fangs grazing the warm neck of his enemy, throat purring in triumph as his head reared back in preparation to---

"NYAH!"

Startled by the declarative sound, Nick let go of Mundi and stumbled backwards, the evidence of the vampire retreating along with his anger. Standing on the plain sands, the short, furry spectre of Inav Ayar in his padawan clothing was staring up at him, eyes moist with tears, his whole body glowing an astral blue. "What?" He barely had time to register the Cerean's own look of surprise before his senses went dull then blanked out entirely.
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End of Part 10