Part 12 (1/2)

”How, how did you do that?” Isolder asked, the hair p.r.i.c.kling on the back of his arms. Until that moment, Isolder had never felt like wors.h.i.+ping anyone or anything.

”I told you,” Luke said, ”the Force is my ally.”

”But you were dead!” Isolder said. ”I saw it on my scopes! You weren't breathing, and your skin was cold.”

”A Jedi trance,” Luke said. ”The Jedi Masters all learn how to stop their hearts, drop their body temperature. I needed to fool Zsinj's soldiers.”

Luke scanned the desert, as if getting his bearings, gazed up into the night. Isolder followed his line of sight. Far above he could make out the wars.h.i.+ps?pinp.r.i.c.k flashes of blaster fire, tiny s.h.i.+ps bursting into flames like distant stars gone nova.

”When I was a boy on Tatooine,” Luke said, ”I used to love to stay up at night with my binoculars and watch the big s.p.a.ce freighters fly into port. The first time I ever watched a s.p.a.ce battle was from my uncle Owen's moisture farm. At the time, I knew that men were struggling for their lives, but I didn't know it was Leia's s.h.i.+p or that I would become caught up in that struggle myself. But I remember the thrill it gave me, and how I yearned to be up there, in the battle.”

Isolder looked up, felt that gnawing desire. Part of him wondered how Astarta and his troops were faring in the battle, and he wished that he could be up there in the fighter, protecting the s.h.i.+p. Overhead, the huge red saucer shape of the Song of War suddenly accelerated away, blurred into hyperdrive.

”You feel the pull, too, the bloodl.u.s.t, the call of the hunt,” Luke said, pulling off his flight suit. Beneath it, he was dressed in flowing robes the red color of desert sandstone. ”That's the dark side of the Force whispering to you, calling you.” Isolder stepped back, fearing that Skywalker had somehow learned to read his mind, but Luke continued, ”Tell me, who do you hunt?”

”Han Solo,” Isolder said angrily.

Luke nodded thoughtfully. ”Are you sure?” Luke asked. ”You have hunted other men before. I feel it. What was the man's name? What was his crime?”

Isolder didn't speak a moment, and Luke walked around him, watching Isolder carefully, looking through him.

”Harravan,” Isolder said. ”Captain Harravan.”

”And what did he take from you?” Luke said.

”My brother. He killed my older brother.” Isolder felt lightheaded, dazed, to be so interviewed by a man he had thought dead only moments before.

”Yes, Harravan,” Luke said. ”You loved your brother very much. I can hear you, as children, trying to fall asleep in the same large room. Your brother sang to you at night, making you feel safe when you were frightened.”

Isolder felt confused, and tears stung his eyes.

”So tell me,” Luke said, ”how your brother died.”

”Shot,” Isolder said. ”Harravan shot him in the head with a blaster.”

”I see,” Luke said. ”You must forgive him. Your anger burns in you, a black spot on your heart. You must forgive him and serve the light side of the Force.”

”Harravan's dead,” Isolder said. ”Why should I bother to forgive him?”

”Because now it is happening again,” Luke said. ”Once again, someone has taken a person that you love away from you. Han, Harravan. Leia, your brother. Your rage, your hurt from one ill deed long past colors your feelings now. If you do not forgive them, the dark side of the Force will forever rule your destiny.”

”What does it matter?” Isolder asked. ”I'm not like you. I don't have any power. I will never learn how to float through the air or raise myself from the dead.”

”You have power,” Luke answered. ”You must learn to serve the light within you, no matter how dim it may seem.”

”I watched you on the s.h.i.+p,” Isolder said, thinking back to Luke's behavior on their journey out. Luke had seemed inquisitive, but kept himself aloof. ”You don't talk like this to everyone.”

Luke gazed at him in the moonlight, and double shadows played over Luke's face. Isolder wondered if Luke was trying to convert him because Isolder was the Chume'da, the consort to the woman who would become queen. ”I talk like this to you,” Luke said, ”because the Force has brought us together, because you are trying to serve the light side now. Why else would you risk your life, come here to Dathomir with me to save Leia?

Vengeance? I think not.”

”You are wrong about that, Jedi. I didn't come to save Leia, I came to steal her away from Han Solo.”

Luke laughed softly, as if Isolder were some schoolboy who did not know himself. It was a peculiarly disconcerting sound. ”Have it your way, then. But you will come with me, won't you, to rescue Leia?”

Isolder gestured to the desert, spreading his arms. ”Where do we look?

She could be anywhere?a thousand kilometers from here.”

Luke nodded toward the mountains. ”Over there, about a hundred and twenty kilometers.” He smiled secretively. ”I warn you, the trip will not be easy. Once you choose to walk in the light, your path will lead you places you do not want to go. Already the forces of darkness gather against us.”

Isolder studied the Jedi, heart hammering. He wasn't used to thinking of the world in terms of forces of darkness, forces of light. He wasn't even sure he believed such forces existed. Yet here was a Jedi no older than himself who had floated from the sky like thistledown, who seemed to read his thoughts, and who professed to know Isolder better than he knew himself.

Luke looked off to the horizon. His droid was floating down on a parachute, a couple of kilometers off. ”Are you coming?”

Isolder had acted almost without thought until now, but suddenly he felt frightened, more than he would have believed possible. His knees threatened to lock, and he found his face burning with shame. Something frightened him, and he knew what it was. Luke wasn't just asking Isolder to follow him to the mountains. Luke was asking him to follow his teachings, his example. And in the process, Luke promised that Isolder would inherit detractors, enemies, in the same way that all Jedi did.

Isolder considered for only a moment. ”Let me get some things out of my s.h.i.+p. I'll be right with you.”

Rummaging through Storm, gathering a spare blaster, Isolder found that he became calmer. All of the Jedi's spooky talk really meant nothing, he realized. Perhaps there were no forces of darkness lurking out there.

Following Luke around in the mountains really meant nothing. It didn't mean that Isolder himself would necessarily have to learn the ways of the Force. Luke could very well be deluded, a harmless crank. But he floated from the sky. ”I'm ready,” Isolder said.

During the first part of their journey, the country was incredibly rugged?gullies washed through ground split by crevices. The bones of huge herbivores littered the crevices, creatures with long hind legs, stubby tails, flat triangular heads and tiny front legs. The skeletons showed that the beasts had been large, perhaps four meters from nose to tail.

Often the bones had dry, gray scales lying about them. Yet they found no living beasts. Instead, it seemed almost as if the creatures had died out in the recent past, within the last hundred years.

Little grew in this blasted desert. Short, twisted, leathery trees.

Stubby patches of purple gra.s.s as pliant as hair.

Luke made light of the journey, sometimes jumping ten meters into a crevice where Isolder had to climb tediously down. Isolder soon found himself drenched with sweat, but the Jedi did not sweat much, did not pant, showed no sign of being remotely human. Instead, the Jedi's face was locked in concentration. It took the better part of the night to reach the droid, and Luke would not leave without it, showing uncommon devotion to the small lump of circuitry and gears.

So they made their way toward the mountains following a tedious route that the droid could navigate, until they reached a desert hardpan that ran over rolling hills.

There was no sign of water, and the sun began to rise over the desert, casting an ethereal blue glow. Luke said, ”We'd better find some shelter for the day?back there.” He pointed to one of the last cracks, went and pushed Artoo over, then jumped in.

Isolder followed them down into the crevice, rested on his haunches in the sandy soil and drank half of his water. Luke took a small sip, sat and closed his eyes.

”You had better get some sleep,” Luke said. ”It's going to be a long day, and a long walk tonight.” With that, the Jedi seemed to fall asleep, breathing deep, evenly.

Isolder cast an angry glance at him. Isolder had been wakened in the early morning from his sleep cycle, and as far as he was concerned, it was only midday. He had always had difficulty changing his sleep schedule, so he sat with his arms folded, trying to feign sleep, or at least show some portion of control worthy of a Jedi's disciple.

Nearly half an hour later, just as the sun was breaking over the desert, Isolder heard the earthquake. It started as a distant rumble moving down from the mountains, growing louder and louder. The earth began to shake, and chunks of dirt broke from the sides of the crevice. The droid Artoo whistled and beeped in alarm, and Luke jumped to his feet.

”What is it, Artoo?” he asked, and Isolder shouted, ”Earthquake!”