Then he stopped, lowered his hands, and said to her in a no tably different tone of voice than he had used before, "But you're still my prisoner, Padawan." When she slumped, he grinned, showing fine Ansionian teeth. "For about another minute."

"You mean?…" His intent became clear when he walked over to her with a spring in his step that had been absent previ ously and bent to pass the desealer across her ankle bonds. They dissolved promptly, allowing her to stand. Her feet and legs numb from lack of use, she would have fallen had he not caught her in his strong arms.

At which point the door clicked and Kyakhta entered the room.

To say that the senior Alwari was startled by the sight that greeted his bulging eyes was an understatement worthy of a senior tax collector. The sight of the Jedi Padawan unbound was disquieting enough. The sight of her slumped slightly in his partner's arms was a spectacle that constituted an irresolvable conundrum. If Bulgan did not with his first utterance say exactly the right thing, Kyakhta was ready to bolt back outside and lock them both back in.

Fortunately, the heretofore guileless Bulgan was now in a cerebral position to do so.

"She fixed me," he informed his companion simply and straightforwardly, tapping the side of his head. "Fixed me here. She can fix you, too."

"No promises," Barriss warned them both.

"Fix what?" Kyakhta had already taken a wary step backward. "I not broken. What do you mean, fix me?"

"Up here." Once more, the mentally mended Bulgan touched hand to head. "I have no more pain in my mind. I know you suffer from the same syndrome, my good friend. Let her work her Jedi healing on you."

Another step back. The door was within reach. Easy to dart back out into the hallway, slam the barrier shut, and seal the lock. But-what had happened to Bulgan in his absence? Kyakhta wondered. He hadn't been gone very long. Only a few minutes, and now his good, honest, dumb companion in mutual exile and disgrace was talking like an infernal city councilor! No, he corrected himself. Not like a councilor.

Like a true Alwari nomad: independent, confident, and free.

Three fingers hovered in the vicinity of the door. The Jedi made no move to stop him, though he sensed she might have done so. "What this nonsense about 'Jedi healing'?"

"She worked it on me. Fixed my head, my mind. It doesn't hurt anymore, Kyakhta! I can think clearly again. My thoughts haven't been this free since I was a child and was thrown from that suubatar." His voice lowered. "That was the same throw, the bad dismount, that broke my back and stole my eye-and damaged my mind."

"But I…" Kyakhta was at a loss for words. In the face of the evidence, in the face of his friend's face, he was forced to accept a seemingly inconceivable reality.

There was another reality that would have to be faced, and quickly. Unbound hands outstretched, the Jedi was advancing slowly toward him.

"Let me help you, Kyakhta. I give you the same promise I made to Bulgan. Whether I can help you or not, I am still your prisoner."

That was true, Kyakhta realized. Dissolved bonds notwith standing, he and his friend were still the ones in control here. Only they knew the way out of the building in which the cell was located. Only they could get her past the outer guards and security checkpoints. Of course, a Jedi Knight would probably make short work of such minor obstacles, but a Padawan still in training. .

Unarguably, she had worked a marvel with Bulgan. Could she take away the similar pain that had afflicted him all his adult life; remove the regular, pounding waves of agony that daily stabbed through his brain? Wasn't it worth, if nothing else, a try?

"Go ahead," he told her, adding by way of warning, "if this a trick, the bossban may not receive you undamaged."

Paying no attention to the threat, she reached out and up to put her hands on the sides of his head and draw it toward her. Her fingers were cool against his skull, he realized, and there were too many of them, but otherwise her touch was inoffensive. Calming, even.

Several moments later, he was blinking back at her with the same awed realization that had not long before nearly overcome his companion. Unlike Bulgan, he did not throw his arms wildly in the air and dance small circles. Instead, he bowed. As performed by an Ansionian, it was a particularly graceful and supple gesture.

"I owe you my sanity, Padawan. For had you not interceded, I see surely now that the pain I have been living with would have led all too soon to utter madness, and eventually to death." Turning from her, he embraced his old companion-in- despair, long arms wrapping around Bulgan's broad shoulders, maned and bald head bobbing together in ardent, mutual exultation.

The joyous sight of the two Ansionians she had been able to heal did Barriss's heart good-but it was not getting her out of this place, or restoring her to her friends. "My name is Barriss Offee, my Master is the Jedi Luminara Unduli, and the sooner we find them, the better it will be for me and the safer, I suspect, it will be for you. For surely your employer will not be pleased to learn of the unexpected turn you have done him."

"Bossban Soergg!" Bulgan exclaimed. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he looked askance at his companion. But Kyakhta was not upset at the unforced revelation.

"It doesn't matter now, Bulgan. I've just finished relaying news of our success to his headquarters. Someone else will have to inform him of this change in plans. We've cast our lot in with this female. Now she is going to have to deliver us from Soergg, instead of us delivering her to him." He eyed the Jedi expectantly. "Can you do that? We throw ourselves under your protection, without which we two who stand now clanless before you will surely be food for marauding shanhs before tomorrow's first light."

"Get me out of here in one piece," she assured them with a grim smile, "and I can promise you the gratitude of two Jedi Knights and a fellow Padawan-in addition to my own personal indebtedness." She started purposefully for the open doorway. "That's enough reassurance for almost anyone in the galaxy."

"Strange," Bulgan murmured as he followed his companion and their former captive toward the exit, "how clear thinking im proves one's outlook on life. For the first time in a long, long while I begin to see myself as a person again, instead of a lowly source of jokes and cruel humor."

"I never saw you that way, my friend," Kyakhta called softly back to him as they quietly mounted the spiral staircase.

"Yes, you did," Bulgan shot back, "but I don't blame you for it. It wasn't your fault. It was all in the mind."

"Most cheap invective is." Feeling slightly naked without her service belt, Barriss followed Kyakhta upward. "Where is my gear?"