Part 15 (1/2)
Vestara immediately felt guilty. ”There's no disloyalty to you, Lady Rhea. Ahri and I have been best friends since we were Tyros.”
”I thought as much,” Lady Rhea said. ”That's why Xal picked him.”
Vestara's brow shot up. ”I thought it was because Ahri is ...well, Kes.h.i.+ri.”
”And Xal is ... not?” Lady Rhea smiled. ”That's part of the reason, I'm sure. It never hurts to draw the eye away from one's weaknesses-as you well know.”
Lady Rhea ran a finger along the carefully applied eye swirls that Vestara painted on every morning to draw attention away from the small scar at the corner of her mouth.
”But the truth is, Master Xal was hoping that Ahri's relations.h.i.+p with you might be of benefit.”
”Me?” Vestara gasped. ”Because of s.h.i.+p?” Vestara gasped. ”Because of s.h.i.+p?”
”Because you are my my apprentice,” Lady Rhea said. ”I'm sure Xal was hoping that your friends.h.i.+p with Ahri might give him some apprentice,” Lady Rhea said. ”I'm sure Xal was hoping that your friends.h.i.+p with Ahri might give him some insight insight into my thinking on occasion.” into my thinking on occasion.”
Vestara's heart rose into her throat. ”Lady Rhea, I never- never-”
”I know, Vestara,” she said. ”And I'm sure that's why Xal is so disappointed with your friend.”
Vestara's heart sank. The last thing she wanted was to make Ahri's life difficult, but she wasn't going to betray her own Master to make him look good.
But that was exactly what Lady Rhea seemed to have in mind. ”I don't know how close you two are,” she said. ”But it wouldn't hurt to let Ahri make some progress.”
Vestara's eyes went wide. ”You mean ...” She knew what Lady Rhea meant, but she couldn't quite bring herself to say it aloud-not when it meant betraying her best friend. ”You mean you want me to use Ahri?”
”I mean mean Xal will be coming for you,” Lady Rhea replied, growing exasperated. ”It might be nice if you had a friend who would give you a little warning.” Xal will be coming for you,” Lady Rhea replied, growing exasperated. ”It might be nice if you had a friend who would give you a little warning.”
”Oh.” Vestara paused, realizing that Lady Rhea was suggesting exactly what she had thought ...and that her only real choice was to take the advice or die. ”When you put it like that ...”
Lady Rhea nodded. ”Exactly.” She released Vestara's shoulder and pointed up the slope. ”Now let's go get s.h.i.+p.”
Expecting Xal's parang to come flying out of the jungle at any moment, Vestara led the way up the cliff to where she sensed Ahri waiting. To her delight, when she found him, he was not lurking in ambush, nor was he standing out in the open acting as bait. He was crouching at the base of the outcropping, hiding between two boulders and watching the entrance of a volcanic cave that seemed barely large enough for s.h.i.+p to enter.
Although Vestara and Lady Rhea were using the Force to approach in complete silence, his head swung toward them when they were still twenty paces away, and the look of relief on his gorgeous face was enough to eliminate all thoughts of ambush from Vestara's mind. She used the Force to spring across the last dozen meters to his side, then crouched beside the boulders where he was hiding. ”What is it?” she whispered.
Ahri shrugged. ”Master Xal wanted to bring s.h.i.+p out alone,” he said. ”He told me to stay out here and let him know when I saw you.” Vestara frowned. ”Did ”Did you?” you?”
Ahri shook his head. ”I can't even feel him,” he said. ”You ”You try.” try.”
Vestara frowned, but reached out in the Force and was immediately overwhelmed by the same dark longing she had experienced as they approached the system. There was something something inside the cave, hungry and lonely and powerful, but it wasn't Xal. Nor was it s.h.i.+p. inside the cave, hungry and lonely and powerful, but it wasn't Xal. Nor was it s.h.i.+p.
She turned to Ahri. ”That's ... not good.”
”Tell me about it,” he said. ”What do you want to do?”
”I don't know.” Vestara looked down the hill, then reached out to Lady Rhea and poured confident feelings into the Force. ”Follow orders?”
Ahri nodded. ”When in doubt ...”
A moment later, Lady Rhea came striding up the slope, looking far less concerned about the situation than Vestara suspected she truly was. She stopped in front of the cave mouth and peered into the darkness, then spoke without turning to look at Ahri or Vestara.
”I suppose Master Xal is in there?”
”As far as I know,” Ahri answered. ”He went in about five minutes ago.”
”s.h.i.+p?”
Ahri shrugged. ”We heard something, but ...”
”Never a.s.sume,” Lady Rhea finished. She extend a hand toward Ahri, using the Force to float the glow rod out of its loop on his equipment belt. ”Don't you know it's bad form to lose your Master, Apprentice Raas?”
Ahri shot Vestara a nervous glance, then, when she gave him a rea.s.suring smile, said, ”I was only following his instructions, Lady Rhea.”
She gave him a sly smile. ”I'm sure you were.” Lady Rhea activated Ahri's glow rod, then tossed it into the cave. Vestara caught a brief glimpse of something large and gray dangling from the ceiling-or perhaps it was a lot of somethings, all of them long and writhing, with suction cups on the undersides and yellow barbed hooks at the ends.
The glow rod bounced across the floor and rolled in a slow circle, casting a disk of pale blue light across the porous walls. A writhing, man-sized mummy was briefly illuminated, wrapped in purple silk and hanging on the back wall, then the light slid past and came to rest on the dark gullet of a long black tunnel descending into the heart of the mountain.
Lady Rhea pointed a finger at the glow rod, calmly using the Force to roll it back across the floor until the disk of light came to rest on the purple coc.o.o.n hanging from the back wall. Vestara was not at all surprised to see the outline of Master Xal's sharp-featured face in the silk, a small bubble over his mouth popping in and out as he struggled to breathe.
”Well,” Lady Rhea said, ”I don't think s.h.i.+p did that.” that.” She motioned Vestara and Ahri toward the cave mouth. Vestara swallowed hard, then turned to Ahri. ”He's She motioned Vestara and Ahri toward the cave mouth. Vestara swallowed hard, then turned to Ahri. ”He's your your Master,” she said. Master,” she said.
Ahri nodded. ”Lucky me,” he replied. ”If this doesn't go well-”
”Yeah,” Vestara promised. ”I'll just kill you.”
Ahri slipped out of his hiding place, then ignited his lightsaber and dived into the cave. When the gray tentacle-things hanging from the roof did not immediately drop down to ensnare him, he came up slas.h.i.+ng at Master Xal's coc.o.o.n.
Vestara did not see what happened next, exactly, because she was diving into the cave after Ahri. She rolled across the lumpy floor, then came up on Xal's other side, bringing her red, Lignan-powered blade down along his flank.
Freed from the wall if not his coc.o.o.n, Xal pitched forward and would have slammed into the floor had he not used the Force to break his fall. Paying him no more attention, Vestara pivoted around to face the gray tentacles she had seen earlier.
They were no longer dangling from the ceiling. In fact, they were nowhere to be seen at all, though there was a definite slurping sound coming from the direction of the dark tunnel the glow rod had revealed earlier. Vestara quickly used the Force to swing the beam around toward the pa.s.sage ...and found herself looking at an attractive, svelte woman. Her eyes were gray, and her shoulder-length hair was the color of honey.
Vestara was still struggling to comprehend what she was seeing when Ahri sprang up in front of her, his lightsaber flas.h.i.+ng at the woman's shoulder. There came the distinctive sizzle of a superheated blade slas.h.i.+ng through flesh and bone, then the acrid tang of scorched flesh.
Suddenly Ahri was slamming into the cavern wall behind Vestara, his lightsaber no longer burning. His head struck with a sickening thud. Vestara watched in horror as he dropped twitching to the floor, then ignited her own blade and leapt to the attack.
In the next instant she found herself hanging in the darkness, holding a deactivated lightsaber and staring into a pair of large gray eyes as cold and lifeless as pearls. Suddenly Vestara had another foolish notion as to the reason s.h.i.+p might have led them here-one that frightened her far more than all the others. Perhaps s.h.i.+p had brought them here not to destroy the Tribe, but to free free the Destructors. the Destructors.
The woman lowered her hand, sending Vestara cras.h.i.+ng to the floor of the cavern.
”My apologies,” she said. ”I wasn't sure you were real.”
IF TIME HAD AN EXISTENCE BEYOND THE BODY, LUKE COULD NOT FIND it. Now that he was rising out of his physical being, he saw that moments and years were the same. A heartbeat lasted a week, a lifetime flashed by in an instant. But it. Now that he was rising out of his physical being, he saw that moments and years were the same. A heartbeat lasted a week, a lifetime flashed by in an instant. But Luke Skywalker Luke Skywalker remained, a manifestation of Force energy that embodied his essence in both mind and form. And that essence was now more real and tangible than the flesh-and-blood husk he had left floating among the purple-tinged bodies in the makes.h.i.+ft meditation chamber. remained, a manifestation of Force energy that embodied his essence in both mind and form. And that essence was now more real and tangible than the flesh-and-blood husk he had left floating among the purple-tinged bodies in the makes.h.i.+ft meditation chamber.
”Five ...” The skull-faced Givin's raspy voice came to Luke from somewhere behind and below. ”There is no life, there is only the Force.” ”There is no life, there is only the Force.”
It was a perversion of the Jedi Code, but Luke dutifully repeated the phrase as he exhaled, allowing himself to accept it-even to believe it. He did not think that the ”Mind Walkers,” which was how the station inhabitants referred to themselves, meant the phrase as a mockery or an insult. They were simply expressing the truth of the universe as they saw it, and he knew enough about meditation to realize that the precise phrasing of a mantra was the code that unlocked the door to a particular realm of the mind.