FIFTEEN

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 scouting missions throughout the surrounding area. We started with data collected by a Rebel scout, a Sullustan 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 Massassimade 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 successes. In providing us such feedback, we all felt we were making 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 Massassi trees together through the Force, I had no strength and no endurance when it came to telekinesis. 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 personnel.

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 Temple.”

“Not really what I had in mind, but if circumstances demanded.” 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 Massassi tree that had been uprooted by the river. The river itself was actually 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 bumpy parts of the tree, but he just blushed and told us to walk on.

The Great Temple dwarfed the Blueleaf Temple, but the latter 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 structure. “The Sullustan’s survey said the main entrance faced east so the orange light from the gas giant could fill the lower chamber 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 had 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. “Assuming 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, brushing 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 anticipation 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, yet somehow seemed to be holding the roof aloft nonetheless. The corneal 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 shift 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 Sullustan said the stone feels oily, and you can feel the tingle of energy pulsing off it.” Brakiss nibbed his hands together. “Care to confirm the veracity of that report?”

I shivered. “Not me. Not yet.”

Kam extinguished the blade on his lightsaber and clipped it back to his belt. “I’ll take a pass. 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 human, 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 eyes.

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

Kam’s head snapped around to look 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 vanished. “I could have sworn I saw him.”

Brakiss shrugged. “Trick of the light.” His voice came weightlessly, 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 having 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 possibility 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 creatures lacking in sophisticated technology could build such a monument and have it stand the test of time. Unnh’s commentary 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 repulsorlift technology.”

“Moreover,” Kam offered, “they could have used the Force. As massive as those blocks are, do you think it would be impossible 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 Massassi sapling and broke himself 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?”

“Certainly he could, but it would take him forever.”

“I 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. Wouldn’t have mattered if he was using the dark side, he would have done a good thing.”

I reached out and grabbed the back of Brakiss’ neck. “Wait just one minute. What you’re saying is that the ends justify the means for attaining them, and that’s just plain wrong. It’s as wrong as anything because it allows you to rationalize away any behavior as good. Sure, let’s murder this criminal because we know he’s killed folks in the past, or probably will kill them in the future. Or let’s destroy this planet because we know, someday, it will slam into that planet. So what if folks on the planet we destroy die—they would have died anyway, and with our way the folks on the other world are saved.”

Brakiss spun and nearly slashed my face with his stick. Fortunately for me I’d had forewarning about the arc of his arm and ducked beneath it. A momentary mask of anger slipped over his face, but it almost immediately dissolved into shock and remorse. “Keiran, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Brakiss. No blood, no report.”

Kam came around and draped an arm rather heavily over Brakiss’ shoulders. “What Keiran’s telling you is right, kid. People start telling themselves they’re amassing power for this goal or that, and they convince themselves that it’s a good thing. Then when they get enough they find circumstances have changed. They find they need more power or they need to wield this power in ways they didn’t expect before. An opponent who won’t listen to reason becomes a bug to be squashed instead of a friend who just needs to be convinced. Power comes to poison those who hoard it. They assume others want their power, will resort to any means to get it, and that frees folks up to retaliate in any way they can.”

I nodded. “And there’s no good that comes from evil. Your example of someone using dark-side power to destroy the Death Star is fine until you ask why he would do that. Is it for his own good, and that of his people? If so, how will he deal with the next threat to them? If he hears of another Death Star and knows someone like the Caamasi are building it, does he destroy them?”

Kam frowned. “Bad example. Everyone knows the Caamasi were committed pacifists.”

“I know, Kam, but someone could rationalize them as evil and go after them.” I opened my hands. “Face it, someone did go after them and nearly wiped out the whole lot of them. I even heard there was a big Caamasi refugee group on Alderaan when it was destroyed. If someone could have seen the Caamasi as a threat, they could have seen anyone as a threat. A child. Anyone.”

Brakiss furrowed his brows. “I hear what you are saying and I want to believe you. Part of me says, though, that you can’t argue an absolute case that no good can come from wielding dark-side powers. There has to be a time when that could happen.”

“That’s theory, Brakiss, but we’ve got to deal with the practical realities of manipulating the Force.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to entertain the idea that I could remain uncorrupted by dealing with evil for what I see as a good purpose. That’s setting the first foot on a very steep and slippery slope. Maybe, with the help of Master Skywalker, it would be possible to get back to the top, but someone will pay a fearful price during my descent, and I don’t want to inflict that on anyone. Neither should you.”