Chapter
21

A pale pink sun was just rising under clear skies and Luke was struggling to patch a breached container of coolant when the rancors came loping across the flats. The group had been working for less than fifteen minutes, and Luke sensed that they needed to leave soon. Gethzerion’s stormtroopers would be here in another half hour.

Chewbacca bellowed in greeting, and Threepio shouted, “Oh, thank goodness we found you!” He turned to Chewie and Artoo. “See, I told you they would be all right. His Highness King Solo would never allow himself to get blown up!” His head swiveled back around. “So, what are you doing out here?”

“We had to bail out of the ship before it got shot down,” Luke said. “But we broke open a canister of coolant. I put some steel tape on it, but I’m waiting for the adhesive to dry. We’re glad you showed up.”

“I’m the one who found you,” Threepio bragged. “Thanks to my superior AA-one Verbobrain, I was able to crack that Imperial code!” Artoo squealed derisively, and Threepio added, “With Artoo’s help, of course. We were just on the way to the city to warn you!”

Han grunted, sat down on the barrel. “Warn us of what, Mr. Verbobrain?”

“Gethzerion!” Threepio said. “She planned to set some kind of trap for you!”

“Yeah, we sort of figured that out on our own,” Han said, “when she sprung it.”

“But there’s more,” Threepio said. “Show them the latest message, Artoo.”

Artoo squealed, leaned forward on the rancor and focused his holo cams. Two images appeared on the mud flats standing side by side: Gethzerion and a young officer wearing the slate gray uniform that identified him as one of Zsinj’s generals.

Gethzerion said, “General Melvar, you may inform Zsinj that we have captured General Han Solo, and we of the sisterhood await the shuttle he promised in trade.” The old witch stood silently, hands folded over her stomach. General Melvar calmly regarded her with a thrill-killer’s glimmering eyes, scratched his jaw with a platinum fingernail shaped like a claw. Such cuticle implants were costly and painful, and those who wore them often cut themselves accidentally. General Melvar had the thin white facial scars to prove it.

“Warlord Zsinj has reconsidered his offer,” Melvar smiled coldly. “He wishes to express his sorrow at having had to bomb the ship that left your compound, but now that Solo’s Millennium Falcon has been destroyed, matters have changed. It was Solo’s ship that we destroyed?”

Gethzerion nodded. Her eyes were half-closed, secretive.

“Who was on it?” Melvar asked, his voice threatening.

“Stormtroopers,” Gethzerion lied. “They saw that we were repairing the ship and tried to fly it before the repairs were completed. If you had not killed them, I would have.”

“I suspected as much,” Melvar smiled triumphantly. “Although I must admit that I had rather hoped you were aboard.” He took a deep breath. “So, you have General Solo, and you wish for a shuttle.”

Gethzerion nodded stiffly, her dark hood hiding her eyes.

“You realize that now that Solo’s ship has been annihilated,” Melvar said, “your bargaining position has weakened. Therefore, Warlord Zsinj wishes to make a counterproposal to your ratty band.”

“As I fully expected,” Gethzerion answered. At this, the general averted his eyes, tried to hide his annoyance at being anticipated. She continued, “After all, it is well known even on our remote world that Warlord Zsinj never keeps his word when doing so might inconvenience him. I rather expected that he might scoff at releasing the Nightsisters from Dathomir. So tell me, what lesser bauble does he offer?”

“Warlord Zsinj offers to retrieve General Solo from your sisterhood in thirty-six hours. He will be coming personally to collect the general. In return he will refrain from destroying your planet.”

“So, he offers us nothing?” Gethzerion asked.

“He offers you your lives,” Melvar grinned. “You should be grateful to receive even that.”

“You do not understand the Nightsisters,” Gethzerion scoffed. “We don’t value our own lives. So you see, he offers us nothing of value.”

“Nevertheless,” Melvar said, “we demand that you release Han Solo to us at once. Extinction is such a permanent condition. Take a few moments to decide.”

“And you may tell Zsinj that we of the Nightsisters have an offer of our own: tell Zsinj that in return for our release from this world, our sisterhood will serve him.”

Melvar’s eyes brightened with interest. “How can he be sure of your devotion?”

“We will bring him our daughters and our granddaughters—all our females under the age of ten. He may keep them where he will, as his hostages. If we displease him, he may kill our children.”

“Only a moment ago you admitted that life held no value for you,” Melvar argued. “If this is true, then wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that you would sacrifice your own children to gain your freedom?”

Gethzerion’s voice grew rough with emotion. She said softly, “No mother could be so evil. Tell Zsinj to consider our offer, as we must consider his.”

The holograms flickered off, and Han stood up, looked around. “So,” Han said, “what do you think Zsinj has planned? Aerial bombardments, what?”

Leia refrained from answering. “He said he’d destroy the planet—not just the Nightsisters or their city.” She breathed deeply. “Could he be working on something big?”

“Like another Death Star?” Luke asked. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t know about this,” Han said. “Gethzerion’s playing Zsinj for a sucker—telling him that she’s taken me hostage, destroyed my ship. Obviously, she’ll do just about anything to get off this rock.”

“And Zsinj sounds like he’s willing to do just about anything to get you,” Leia said.

“Yeah,” Han agreed. “The really scary thing is, that if we could just introduce Gethzerion and Zsinj, they have so many personality traits in common that I think they’d really hit it off.”

Leia looked at Han, frowning in concentration. “I don’t get it. Zsinj sure seems to want you bad, Han. Coming here personally? He’s going to an awful lot of trouble to extort the Nightsisters. What has he got against you?”

Han scratched his jaw uncomfortably. From atop the rancor, Chewbacca roared, encouraging Han to continue. Somehow Luke knew it would be bad.

“Well, you know after I destroyed his Super Star Destroyer, I sort of—well, called him personally on holo vid, and, uh, gloated.”

“Gloated?” Leia asked. “What do you mean, gloated?”

“I, uh, don’t remember the exact words, but I personally took credit for blowing up his ship and said something like, ‘Kiss my Wookiee!’ ”

Chewbacca broke into deep laughter and nodded vigorously.

“Let me get this straight,” Isolder asked. “You said ‘Kiss my Wookiee!’ to the most powerful warlord in the galaxy?”

“All right! All right!” Han said, sitting down on the generator. “I’m sorry! You don’t have to rub it in. I admit that I screwed up! I, I just did it in the heat of the moment.”

Isolder slapped Han’s back. “Ah, my friend, you’re even dumber than I thought—heck, maybe you’re dumber than anybody thought—but I wish I’d been there!” Luke felt rather surprised at the way Isolder had called Han his “friend.”

“Yeah,” Leia said. “Me, too. You could have sold tickets to that.”

Han looked up into Isolder’s eyes. “Really? Oh, you should have seen the look on Zsinj’s face—you know, he’s got little fat red cheeks, and the spittle was dripping out of his mouth, nose hairs twitching! It was great! Do you know he really is a genius? He can curse fluently in nearly sixty languages. Now I have heard some obscenities in my time, but this man has a special talent.”

“Oh yeah,” Isolder smiled. “You know he’s going to put your head on a platter, don’t you? And considering Zsinj’s reputation, he might even eat it.”

“Yeah, well,” Han said, “it keeps life interesting.”

“We can worry about Zsinj later,” Luke said. “Right now, we had better get these parts back to the Falcon. Let’s not get caught out here in the open. When Gethzerion finds out that we made it off the ship alive, she’ll be right on our tails.” Luke looked at the barrel of coolant, feeling uncomfortable. Even with the patch, they’d lost half the barrel, and he knew that they needed every drop to make a safe jump.

Leia patted Luke’s back reassuringly. “We’ll have to make do.”

He nodded, agreeing only because that was all he could do. They had the rancors quickly load the generators and barrels of coolant into sacks woven from whuffa hide, and then the rancors slung them on their backs. The monsters didn’t even seem to notice the load, and in ten minutes they made it off the mud flats and into the shelter of the foothills.

After a day and a night without sleep, the whole party was exhausted, but the rancors were rested, so they rode until near sunset, then made camp. Yet Luke could not rest. He walked off into the forest and paced. It was early evening. He stood on a hill looking out over the plains, and when he blinked his eyes the plains seemed dark, frozen, void of life. Eternal night, a voice whispered in him. Eternal night is coming. He wondered if the visions were symbolic, a representation of his own impending death.

He stretched out his senses, felt the stirrings in the Force. Already, the army of Nightsisters was over halfway to the clan at Singing Mountain. Gethzerion had her landspeeder, and a trip that took three days for her army would take her only an hour. She and the rest of her clan could spend those three days laying strategy.

Often, Luke had found that in the past he could imagine a battle as it might go, rehearse it in his mind. When he did so, the Force would guide him, give him insights he might not otherwise have had. But this time it was different. His skirmish beneath the towers had taught him little about the Nightsisters’ capabilities. He wished that Yoda or Ben would appear to counsel him, yet the only image that came to his mind was Yoda on the holo tape, Repulsed by the witches.

Yoda had been a greater Jedi Master than Luke ever hoped to be, yet the witches had withstood him and others like him. Luke felt unsure of his power. The Force. Where did it really come from? Yoda had said that life created it, that it was energy. But could Luke use it in good conscience? If he was drawing energy from other living things, sucking them as if he were some leech bleeding them dry, how could he really justify what he did?

And there was a further matter. In his battles with Darth Vader and the Emperor, Luke felt he had never truly tested his powers to the limits. Vader had sought only to turn him, had kept Luke alive. Yet Luke had no illusions that Gethzerion would be so lenient.

“What’s going on here, Ben?” Luke whispered, staring back into the deep green jungle. The dying sunlight flashed on the leaves. “Is this some kind of test, or what? Are you trying to find out if I’m ready to stand alone? Do you think I don’t need your help? What’s going on here?”

Yet Ben did not answer. An evening breeze rustled through the tops of the trees so that leaf shadows danced over the ground. Luke looked up at the setting sun, found himself surprised. The forest carried the scent of leaf mold and some type of fruit in the upper branches of the trees. The evening was warm and perfect, the sun shining on him. Overhead, oblivious to the Nightsisters or Zsinj, lizards jumped among the upper foliage of the forest. In spite of everything, Luke realized, Dathomir really was a beautiful world. If the map in Augwynne’s war room was correct, humans seemed to have explored perhaps only one-hundredth of the livable surface of the planet. And for most of the creatures here, and on millions of planets elsewhere in the galaxy, Gethzerion’s schemes mattered less than the scattering of a handful of sand in the desert.

As Luke wandered into the forest, Isolder sat and listened to Han talking to his droid. Leia soon fell asleep, but Isolder woke a bit later, noticed Teneniel sitting by the fire, outside the circle of light, watching the stars. He went and sat by her.

“Sometimes at night when I’m out in the desert,” Teneniel said softly, “and there are no clouds, no trees to obstruct my view, I lie awake at night and look at the stars, wondering who lives there, what the people are like.”

Isolder studied the points of light above them. In his pirating days he had worked this part of the galaxy, and he had a gift for astrogation. By noting a couple of major stars, he was able to picture where he was in space. “I’ve often done the same,” he said. “Except that between my history books and lessons in diplomacy and a little travel, I’ve learned a great deal. Pick a star,” he waved at the stars. “I’ll tell you about it.”

“That one,” Teneniel said, pointing at the brightest one on the horizon.

“That’s not a star,” Isolder said. “That’s just a planet.”

“I know,” Teneniel smiled at him, “but I had to test you. All right, there are six stars up there right next to each other that form a circle,” she said, pointing directly above them. “The brightest one is blue. Tell me about it.”

Isolder studied the star a moment. “That’s the Cedre system, and it’s only about three light-years from here. There is no life around that star, for it’s too young, too hot. Pick another star—a yellow one, or an orange.”

“What about the dim star to its left? That one?”

Isolder considered. “That one is really two stars, a double system called Fere, or Feree, and it’s pretty far away. Two hundred years ago, the people there had a very great culture, and they built some of the better starships in the galaxy—small luxury cruisers. I have an uncle who collects antique starships, and he has a restored Fere.”

“Don’t they build ships anymore?”

“No, during some wars a lot of people were moving around, checking out new worlds to hide on. Someone accidentally carried a plague to Fere and wiped out the planet. Still, if you had a powerful enough telescope, you could view the people there as they once were. The Fere were very tall, with soft skin a rich ivory, and six delicate fingers on each hand.”

“How could I see them, if they are all dead?” Teneniel asked, disbelieving.

“Because with a telescope, you would be seeing light that reflected off their world hundreds of years ago. Since the light is just reaching us, you would be looking into their past.”

“Oh,” Teneniel said. “Do you have such a telescope?”

“No,” Isolder laughed. “We don’t make them that well.”

“What about the dim star beneath it?” Teneniel asked.

“That’s Orelon, and I know that star very well,” Isolder said. “It’s big, and it’s bright, and from here it is the only visible star from my home cluster, Hapes. There are really sixty-three stars very close to each other in that cluster, and my mother rules over them.”

Teneniel remained quiet for a long time, thoughtful. “Your mother rules sixty-three stars?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“Yes,” Isolder said.

“Does she have soldiers? Warriors and starships?”

“Billions of warriors, thousands of starships,” Isolder said. She drew a deep breath, and Isolder realized that his answer must have frightened her.

“Why did you never tell me this?” she asked. “I did not know I had captured the son of such a powerful woman.”

“I told you that my mother was a queen, and you knew that when I chose a wife, she would be queen.”

“But—I thought she was the queen of a clan village,” Teneniel gasped. She lay back on the grass and held her hands up to her head for a moment, as if dizzy. Isolder decided to give her time, let her become accustomed to life on his grand terms. “So,” Teneniel said thoughtfully, “when you leave Dathomir, if I look up at that star, I will know where you are?”

“Yes,” Isolder said.

“And when you are on your home world, will you ever look up in the sky at night and see my sun, and think about me?” Her voice was choked, desolate.

“From Hapes, we cannot see your sun. It’s too dim. Hapes has seven moons, and they drown out the light from stars this dim,” Isolder said, wondering at her tone of voice.

He turned to the side, studied Teneniel’s face in the starlight. As with most Hapans, his night vision was poor; the light of seven moons and a brilliant sun made night vision unnecessary, so over the millennia his people had gradually lost the ability to see well in the dark. Still, he could make out her silhouette, the tight lines of her face, the curve of her breast. “I don’t understand you,” Isolder said. “What do you think I am to you? You say that I am your slave. You say that your people kidnap men to be husbands, and the fact that you own me gives you some kind of status in your clan, if I understand correctly.”

“I would never force you to do anything against your will,” Teneniel said. “I … I couldn’t. As I have said, if some other woman captured you, perhaps you would not be so lucky.” Isolder recalled Teneniel’s enigmatic smile as she had first approached him, shyly walking around him, singing softly, yet watching him intently, copper eyes never flicking away. He had smiled in return, thinking only to be cordial, and then as he reached out to take the cord she offered, it had entangled him. Now he understood. She had given him every opportunity to escape, and he had let her catch him.

As far as mating rituals went, this one was not particularly complex, but the players on both sides had to understand the rules.

“I see,” Isolder sighed. “What if you and I did not like each other? What if the marriage didn’t work? Then what would you do?”

“Then I could sell you. If you preferred another woman, then an honorable master would try to sell you to her, setting whatever price seemed reasonable given the purchaser’s wealth and circumstances. Or, if there was no one you liked in our clan, you could arrange to be captured by someone outside the clan—or you could run away up into the mountains, to let me know you were not satisfied, and if I thought it could still work out, I would hunt you down again. There are many things you could do.”

Isolder considered. Though it sounded barbaric on the surface, the witches’ way of mating sounded no less onerous than most other systems. As on his own world, the women dominated, but the men here had recourse. He tried to imagine this world as it had been for thousands of years—small human bands battling the rancors without weapons. Given such an alternative, marrying a witch, gaining her protection even if only to become a slave, would have been a great boon.

And now Teneniel was giving him his freedom. She would let him run away, try to make it off this planet, and she wanted only one thing in return: to be remembered, to be thought of fondly.

Given the grasping nature of his aunts, the avarice of his mother, he wondered how many women on his own world would have been so generous, so understanding. She had a beauty to her that he had seldom seen matched.

Isolder got up on his elbows, crouched over Teneniel, and kissed her softly on the cheek, knowing that he was kissing her good-bye. He found that her face was wet. She’d been crying. “If I ever make it back to Hapes,” he said, “I’ll remember you. I know where you are, and sometimes I will look toward Dathomir, and I’ll wonder if you are looking across the heavens at me.”

An hour later, Luke woke the others, and they mounted the rancors and rode hard, driving the rancors mercilessly through the forests, over mountains and through deep canyons. Late in the night, they halted again deep in the woods just fourteen kilometers from Singing Mountain. The rancors were too exhausted to move any farther. Luke could feel a sense of urgency, wanted to hurry, but the rancors were too tired and the whole camp was exhausted.

“We’ll rest here for a bit,” Luke said, and as one the group sloughed off their mounts, and lay on the ground with blankets. Both of the droids had already powered down for the night.

Luke ate some meager rations in near silence without a fire, and the rancors stood heaving from exhaustion in the shadows, sleepy-eyed. They weren’t recovering well from their exertions, so Teneniel filled a water skin, and as the others in the party slept, the monsters bowed down to her and let her sponge their faces with a wet rag. Luke wondered at their behavior, then realized that since the rancors had no sweat glands, the rigors of the trip left them suffering from the heat. He went to Teneniel.

“Here,” he said. “Use the Force to help them. It can cool their bodies.” He touched the first rancor, let the Force wash over the creature. It sighed contentedly, touched him with a great muddy claw, as if to pet him.

Teneniel shook her head in frustration. “I still don’t see how you do it,” she said. “It seems to me that it would be so much easier with a spell.”

“If saying some words helps you concentrate,” Luke said, “then I don’t see that it would do any harm. But the Force cannot be bound by words, encapsulated in words.”

“I’m sorry—for what I did back at the prison,” Teneniel said. “I almost killed them. I … suddenly, when I was angry, it seemed that nothing you had said made sense. I only wanted to kill them, put an end to their evil, yet your rules prevented me.”

“They wanted you to try to kill them. They wanted you to give in to hate.”

“I know,” Teneniel said, “but in that moment, I couldn’t see how the light side of the Force was stronger than the dark.”

“I’ve never said it was stronger,” Luke answered. “If it is power that you want, it may be that both sides serve equally well. But look at the Nightsisters—look at what the dark side offers: fear instead of love, aggression instead of peace, dominion in place of service, and instead of contentment, consuming appetite.

“If you crave easy power, then the dark side of the Force offers what you desire—at the expense of all else that you value.”

Luke touched each of the rancors in turn, cooling them. Teneniel put her arms around Luke’s chest, hugged him from behind, her cheek nuzzling his shoulder.

“And what if I crave love more than anything else?” Teneniel asked. “Will the light side of the Force lead me to it?”

It was hard not to understand her question, but Luke was tempted to feign confusion. Luke found her attractive, but to profess love … would be misleading. “I don’t know,” Luke said honestly. “I believe it could.”

“Before you came,” Teneniel said, “I saw you and Isolder in a vision. I’d been lonely for so long, living in the wilderness, and I only wanted to find a husband, rejoin my clan. For many days I worked at casting the seer’s spells, and then I saw you in my dreams. I think perhaps you are my destiny.”

Luke took her clasped hands in his, held them. “I don’t believe in destiny. I think we forge our own path in life through the choices we make. Look, I have something I have to say, but I haven’t said it because I don’t want to hurt you: I feel like we hardly know each other. I think, that we need to just calm down.”

“You mean I need to calm down,” Teneniel whispered. “Among my people we choose our husbands quickly, often in the flashing of an eye. When I saw you, I knew in a moment that I wanted you. I haven’t changed my mind. But you act as if love must come tentatively.”

“I’m not sure it comes tentatively,” Luke said. “It’s just that sometimes it grows, but usually it dies a quick death.”

“So?” Teneniel said. “If our love dies a quick death, what have we lost?”

“I can’t do that,” Luke answered. “Love is more than a mere curiosity or a momentary excitement. I don’t think that two people can know it’s real until they’ve spent time together, until they have a history together. But I have a duty to fulfill. I’m going to finish my Jedi training, and after I leave this planet, the truth is that I’ll probably never see you again. You and I won’t ever have much of a history.”

Luke wanted to say more, wanted to tell her that someday he hoped to meet a girl like her, but over in the deeper shadows under the trees, Han stirred in his sleep, raised a hand in the air, and said loudly, “No! No!” Then he pulled a hide to cover his head and rolled over.

Luke thought it strange. He’d never seen Han talk in his sleep before. Then Luke felt it, a disturbance in the Force, as if something invisible had moved under the canopy of the trees with them. He could feel it floating nearby, and wondered if some kind of animal lurked in the shadows. He turned to look up, and a pressure encircled his head, as if a dark helmet had been placed upon it. A chill ran down his spine, and he fought to remain calm, invisible. He recognized that it was some sort of probe.

“What’s going on? What is it?” Teneniel asked, and Luke waved his hand, gestured for her to remain silent. He held still for several minutes, fighting for control, drawing upon the Force. Then the feeling faded.

Teneniel gasped, as if she’d suddenly been struck by cold water. She tried to cover her head with her hands, then looked up at the night sky and laughed. “Gethzerion, you’ll never learn anything of value from me!”

Gethzerion’s brittle voice rang through Luke’s ears, filling the woods, coming from everywhere and nowhere. “But I already have,” Gethzerion said. “I’ve learned that Han Solo is alive, and that he dreams with hope of repairing his ship. I must confess, I am glad he was able to salvage his precious generators. Believe me, I want as much as you do for him to get that ship running smoothly.”

Luke reached out with the Force, tried to touch Gethzerion’s mind. He saw a brief image of Imperial walkers marching in the darkness, and then Gethzerion recoiled, hiding herself.

“Get the saddles back on the rancors,” Luke said, feeling grateful that he had been able to heal the beasts of their discomfort, even if only for a few moments. “We’ve got to leave now. Gethzerion has been marching her troops through the night so that she can attack your clan at dawn.”