Star Wars - I, Jedi Part 11

Tionne looked up, her face wet with tears. "It was more horrible than you could imagine."

The Jedi simulacrum bobbed its head. "But are the tears for your fallen comrade, or for you?"

"What'?" Shock rode through her voice. She swiped at her tears and pointed a finger at the hologram, then caught sight of me in the corner of her eye. My presence cut off whatever she would have said to him.

Instead of replying, she bowed her head toward me and s.h.i.+vered. "How could anyone do that to Gantoris?"

I nodded toward Bodo Baas, then knelt by Tionne's side. I gathered her into my arms and held her, letting her tears stain my emerald tunic. She clung to me fiercely at first, burying her head against my neck. I stroked her hair and resisted the im-pulse to kiss the crown of her head.

"Take it easy, Tionne. What happened to Gantoris was hid-eous, but it's not going to happen to anyone else."

Bodo Baas' inhuman gaze caught and held my own. "You speak of certainties, Jedi, where there are many unknowns."

I quoted back a piece of the Jedi Code. "There is no igno-rance, there is knowledge."

"Yes," the gatekeeper hissed. "Do you have a question for me?"

"One moment." I eased my hands down onto Tionne's shoul-ders and pulled back away from her a bit. "Can you help me with the Holocron? You know more about it than I do."

She sniffed and wiped tears away with delicately long fingers.

"How can you be so calm after what you have seen?"

For just a second I wasn't holding her in my arms, but hold-ing my father's lifeless body. "The past prepares us for the present. I hate to say it, but I've seen other bodies that were just as horrible. What I saw in Gantoris' room was awful. It scares me, too, but I'm doing my best to keep things under control."

Tionne sniffed again and sat back against the cold stone wall of the small room. She folded her arms across her chest and stared forward at the base of the pedestal on which the Holocron rested. "You must think me weak."

"Not at all."

"Don't lie. You had to rescue me last night, and now you find me here, like this." She looked at me accusingly. "How you keep your contempt for me hidden I don't know."

"You can believe it's hidden, or you can believe it doesn't exist." I forced myself to remain calm. "The second choice is right."

She reached out to me and I took her hand in mine. Tionne closed her eyes and I could feel her consciousness drifting toward me. The touch of her mind was but a faint whisper of what I'd felt from Luke, yet she managed to infuse herself into my surface thoughts. I consciously left them open to her, and beneath them hardened the layer that was Keiran Halcyon. Even though I tried to keep her away from plunging deeper, she managed to twist down through my thoughts about her and stabbed deep into my heart.

She jerked back sharply, breaking our contact, and stared at me with wild wide eyes. "You've been hurt, very hurt." I shrugged. 'Tve survived."

"But there is so much of you that is hidden." She blinked at me. "Master Skywalker has told us his father was Darth Vader. What secrets could you have that would be more dangerous than that to share?"

"Not more dangerous, just boring. They would distract you and training here is hard enough without distractions."

Tionne smiled and it felt good to see animation return to her face. "They might distract others, but not me. I plan to sing of the exploits of the Jedi, so I need to know about Keiran Hal-cyon."

Before I could deny I was worth knowing about, Bodo Baas spoke. "Keiran Halcyon was a famed Corellian Jedi. He suc-cessfully put an end to the Selonian Afarathu sect and its ma-rauding within the Corellian system."

As he spoke, the klolocron presented an image of a man built more solidly than I was. but who wore the same sort of moustache and goatee I had chosen to grow. His long, dark hair had been gathered back into a loose tail and the lightsaber he held had a silver blade.

A smile unconsciously rose to my lips. Luke said Keiran Hal-cyon was the name of one of my ancestors. The Afarathu prob-lem had taken place four centuries back and had all but been forgotten until Imperial officials used the spectre of it to incite xenophobia among the human populations in the Corellian sys-tem. Fortunately for the Selonians, they had not been warlike for so long, few of us saw them as a true threat.

Tionne's eyes sparkled with absolute delight. "Is that your secret'? Are you this Keiran Halcyon come back to us?"

"1 don't think even carbonite freezing would have preserved me that long." I laughed gently. "I was named for him. I have a lot to live up to."

"Well, we can learn all about him, if you want. I can even compose a ballad about him."

I winced. "Might put some of the others off, though I would love to learn more about him. Actually, what I had hoped to study through the Holocron was any information it had about this world and the Ma.s.sa.s.si. Will you help me with that?"

"Gladly." Her hair s.h.i.+mmered with green highlights as she nodded. "It would be my pleasure and will be a way to repay you for saving me in the grotto."

"You don't need to repay me for that." Extending my right hand, I gave her left shoulder a squeeze. "And I want you to know I don't think you are weak. Your nature is to be far more emotionally open and receptive than I am. This is why you have clearer access to the Force than I do. It may make it difficult for you to concentrate sometimes, but it is easier to learn to con-centrate than it is to learn to open up."

"I would hate to think you are right, Keiran, because I would hate to think you could not open up your emotions." Her friendly smile warmed me.

"You have friends here with whom you can be open. You can trust us as we trust you."

"I know." I gave her a brave smile, but I also knew I could not share my true ident.i.ty with her or anyone else. Luke Skywalker, in suggesting I adopt another name, was right to think I might be a distraction to the others. He also had an-other purpose-one rooted in his understanding of fighter pi-lots and Corellians. By having me be someone else, he made it unnecessary for me to be the legend I had become. As much as I had seen my self-conception insulating me from the Force, Luke had seen it even more and had taken steps to solve the problem before I even realized I had it.

I nodded to Tionne. "Believe me, when I can open up, you'll be the first to know. If there is to be a ballad of this Keiran Halcyon, I want you to compose and sing it."

"Gladly, Keiran." She lifted her head toward Bodo Baas. "Now let's see what we can find out about this world and our predecessors here. This planet has as many secrets as you do, if not more, and I have the feeling puzzling them out will provide a basis for a very important ballad."

The tragedy of Gantoris' death did bring the remaining apprentices together. No one did so much as whisper anything bad about Gantoris, but we all tried to be nicer and more supportive of each other. Any victory for one-size mattered not-became a victory for all. We became not so much a team as a union of equals, united in our quests to become Jedi Knights.

As part of my investigation, I suggested that Jedi Knights needed to be very observant. Toward this end I organized scout-ing missions throughout the surrounding area. We started with data collected by a Rebel scout, a Sull.u.s.tan named Dr'uun Unnh, back when he surveyed the moon as the Rebels prepared to use it as their headquarters. Using his information, we surveyed the immediate area, taking detailed notes on the flora, fauna, natural outcroppings of stone and various Ma.s.sa.s.si-made structures.

Right from the start Luke made a decision not to tell the other students about the dark man or his dream. I agreed with the decision primarily because panic would only help a creature of the dark side. To fight panic, Luke had us practice calming and concentration techniques, and worked on having us feel the Force more fully. He took great pains to praise us for our suc-cesses. In providing us such feedback, we all felt we were mak-ing great progress, even though our actual gains were hard to measure.

My progress in certain areas almost seemed negative. While others were able to levitate rocks while standing on their hands, or braid branches of Ma.s.sa.s.si trees together through the Force, I had no strength and no endurance when it came to telekine-sis. Unfortunately for me this inability also manifested itself in my failure to levitate myself or make the sort of prodigious leap that carried Luke clear of Gantoris' blade in their duel.

Worse yet, Tionne discovered that this lack seemed to be a hallmark of the Halcyon line. As a result we were known for stubbornly standing our ground in various dangerous situations. A couple of times this had resulted in a rally of the forces on our side, driving the enemy back and defeating them. Most of the time, however, it meant a Halcyon bravely volunteered to act as the rear guard and valiantly trade his life for those of his comrades.

Tionne thought this idea made for great ballad material. Knowing that some very powerful individual with a taste for apprentices was out there, I found the stories of my family tradition a little more ominous.

But, in keeping with Halcyon tradition, I didn't let that stop me in my search for whoever had killed Gantoris. After a hard morning of trying to move pebbles the length of my shadow, and succeeding only as noon approached, I grabbed some field rations and water, then prepared to head out on a survey of the Blueleaf Temple. Unnh's survey notes reported some weird anomalies there-weird enough that General Jan Dodonna had ordered the Temple sealed and placed off limits to all per-sonnel.

I had intended on going alone, but Kam Solusar and Brakiss joined me at the last moment. "It's probably still sealed up tight, guys. Could be very boring."

Kam smiled and pointed to the lightsaber clipped to my belt. "I have the distinct feeling you are planning to reopen the Tem-ple."

"Not really what I had in mind, but if circ.u.mstances de-manded." I shrugged easily. "C'mon, let's go."

I started us off at a fairly good clip, then slowed my pace a bit as Brakiss struggled to keep up. Being as tall as he was, the orchid roots were giving him trouble. Kam, though middle-aged, was in better shape than Brakiss, but he, too, seemed to prefer a more leisurely pace.

We crossed the river separating the Great Temple from the Blueleaf Temple by walking along the trunk of a Ma.s.sa.s.si tree that had been uprooted by the river. The river itself was actu-ally shallow enough at a nearby ford that I usually just splashed my way across when running, but Brakiss didn't really look like he wanted to get his feet wet. Kam and I kidded him, asking him if he wanted us to use our lightsabers to cut him some steps and level off the b.u.mpy parts of the tree, but he just blushed and told us to walk on.

The Great Temple dwarfed the Blueleaf Temple, but the lat-ter building had a great deal of elegance to its construction. It rose only half as high as the Great Temple, but proportionally had a bigger footprint. A lot of brush and scrub shrubs had grown up around it, but not enough to stop us from getting to it.

Brakiss led the way around to the eastern side of the struc-ture. "The Sull.u.s.tan's survey said the main entrance faced east so the orange light from the gas giant could fill the lower cham-ber in the evening."

We reached the entrance and could see where the Rebels had indeed sealed the doorway with large stone blocks. Clearly they had intended no one ever be able to get into it again. And just as clearly, the Imperial survey team that studied Yavin 4 after the Rebels abandoned it was just as determined to get in. They'd melted a hole straight through the plug to do so.

Kam ignited his lightsaber and swept some cobwebs from the hole. "The webs aren't as thick as might be expected. Gantoris may have been in here and the spiders just busy since."

I unhooked a glowrod from my belt and handed it to him.

"a.s.suming you want to go first."

"Sure." Kam snapped it on, then ducked his head and worked his way in.

Being smaller and somewhat thinner, I slipped sideways through the hole pretty easily after him. Brakiss brought up the rear and joined us, brus.h.i.+ng dust from his robe's shoulders.

The green light from Kam's lightsaber and the glowrod's golden beam didn't penetrate very far. We found ourselves on a landing with stairs before us going down. Stretching out to fill the foundation of the Temple was one huge chamber with little alcoves built into the walls. We could only dimly see the ones closest to our position, but they looked smaller and slightly more cramped than the rooms we had in the Great Temple.

To either side of us, stairs doubled back up to the next level. I took the glowrod from Kam and played the light over the stairs going down and the two sets heading up. "Dust looks fairly undisturbed. If Gantoris came in here, he was floating himself along, and I don't think he was quite that good."

"Maybe this landing is just as far as he got." Brakiss shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he didn't dare go any further."

"I don't believe that." Kam pointed with his lightsaber toward the stairs going up. "Shall we?"

Brakiss smiled. "This is what we came for, after all."

Kam led the way. Our footfalls echoed dryly through the Temple and my flesh began to crawl as we ascended. From having read Unnh's survey report, we knew what to expect, and the antic.i.p.ation had me a little scared. Knowing there was evil afoot and heading toward the reason General Dodonna had ordered the place sealed, I felt we were courting disaster.

Proving I was a true Halcyon, however, I had no intention of retreating.

The stairs came out onto another landing that served as a foyer for the Temple's Grand Audience Chamber. The sharply sloped outer walls came together high above the chamber floor to form the ceiling. Three towers set equidistant down the chamber's midline came to a point well below the roof's apex, vet somehow seemed to be holding the roof aloft nonetheless.

~Fhe conical tower nearest us and its companion at the far end of the chamber were covered in rings of odd runes and sigils that I couldn't identify, much less read. Window-slits in the west wall let sunlight paint golden bars down the length of the floor, providing a warm glow for the room.

As warm as that glow was, however, it did little to dispel the chill I felt coming from the Temple's main and most disturbing feature.

The third tower-also a tall, narrow cone-had been shaped entirely out of a blue crystal. I would have almost called it sapphire, because it did glow with its own internal light, but the light did not s.h.i.+ft as we moved closer. Instead it seemed more to flow as if it were a liquid bubbling up and around inside the crystal, swirling in some great cycle.

"The Sull.u.s.tan said the stone feels oily, and you can feel the tingle of energy pulsing off it." Brakiss rubbed his hands to-gether. "Care to confirm the veracity of that report?" I s.h.i.+vered. "Not me. Not yet."

Kam extinguished the blade on his lightsaber and clipped it back to his belt. "I'11 take a pa.s.s. You probably ought not to touch it either."

Brakiss frowned. "You're no fun."

"Touching that thing will not be fun." I walked closer to it, being careful not to step into the circular pit surrounding it. The nearer I drew to it, the colder I felt. The energy pulsing out of it was not palpably evil, but I could sense a host of negative emotions like despair and anger. Worse yet, as I stared into the translucent stone's depths, I saw ghostly images drifting past. Some seemed utterly unfamiliar: gangling creatures with clawed hands and feet. Others were more familiar, often hu-man, with their faces destroyed by damage or just contorted in agony. Even so, I thought I recognized some of them. A few comrades who had fallen along the way, more enemies I had slain.

Then Gantoris' face appeared and stared at me with dead eves.

I jerked back and pointed. "Do you see it? Do you see Gantoris?"

Kam's head snapped around to took at me, his eyes slowly focusing. "I didn't see him. I saw . . . others."

The hint of a smile played over Brakiss' face as he turned toward us. "I really didn't see much of anything."

I glanced back at the stone and Gantoris' image had van-ished. "I could have sworn I saw him."

Brakiss shrugged. "Trick of the light." His voice came weight-lessly, scourging me with a hint of scorn.

I fixed him with an emerald stare. "You still want to touch it..?"

He shook his head. "No, that's okay."

Kam wore a grim expression. "I don't know what this thing is or why it is, but I do know I'm not comfortable here." He jerked a thumb at the lightbars on the floor. "And the way the sunlight moved between when we started looking and now, we were staring into that thing for a good fifteen minutes." I shook my head. "Not possible."

"Very possible. Very odd." Kam frowned heavily. "I'm all for leaving."

Brakiss agreed. "No sign Gantoris was ever here."

"Right. Let's go, then."

It wouldn't really do to suggest that three grown men, Jedi apprentices all and two of them armed with lightsabers, fled from an uninhabited temple. I prefer to think of it as our hav-ing moved quickly to upset the plans of anyone preparing to ambush us. The fact that we didn't know of anyone else being on the world save our friends still didn't preclude that possibil-ity and I thought our caution quite admirable.

As we retreated from it, Brakiss took one long look back at the Blueleaf Temple. "It's rather amazing, I think, that crea-tures lacking in sophisticated technology could build such a monument and have it stand the test of time. Unnh's commen-tary suggests these ruins were all millennia old."

"The Old Republic was well established by that time." I held a branch back, opening the way to the trail that had brought us to the temple.

"For all we know they could have used lasers to quarry the rock and carve it, then slid it into place with re-pulsorlift technology."

"Moreover," Kam offered, "they could have used the Force. As ma.s.sive as those blocks are, do you think it would be impos-sible for Master Skywalker to move them?"

"Impossible for him to move them, no, not at all." I heard doubt in Brakiss' voice. "I don't know that I believe Master Skywalker could create a temple like that, however."

I laughed. "Have you forgotten, 'size matters not?'"

"I haven't forgotten it at all, but that's not my point." Brakiss snapped a dead branch from a Ma.s.sa.s.si sapling and broke him-self off a forty-centimeter length of it. "Master Skywalker might have the power, but he's a farm boy from some desiccated, silicon ball. He would be incapable of creating such a work of vision and elegance."

As Brakiss spoke he waved the stick through the air. Kam and I exchanged secret smiles behind his back, then Kam cleared his voice. "So you don't think Master Skywalker could learn to create something like that?" e 'Certainly he could, but it would take him forever."

"[ see." I narrowed my eyes. "And the crystal cone, could he create one of those?"

Brakiss' shoulders twitched through a shrug. "I don't know, but I would love to try. I think that crystal was incredible. I'd hesitate to call it a work of art because it was unsettling." He turned around, his eyes ablaze. "Imagine having the power to be able to create such a thing."

"Wouldn't want it." Kam shook his head. "I didn't like the crystal at all."

"Yes, but imagine the power to make something like it, something you would like. Using the Force to create a work that would endure for so long." Brakiss laughed aloud and spun as if dancing to some music neither Kam nor I could hear. "It would be fantastic."

I gave him a hard cold look, but he didn't notice. "The lure of that sort of power can be seductive, but it's not easy to come by."

"Unless you resort to the dark side." Kam hunched his shoulders forward.

"I know what it is like, and as exhilarating as it can be, it leaves you hollow. Better to work for the true Force than settle for its shadow."

"Yes, but think of what you can do with that power." Brakiss thrust his stick up toward the sky. "A Jedi Master with enough power could have reached up from here and have torn the heart out of the Death Star.