Then Luke was on his feet, the saber now shining bright blue in his hand. His roll had taken him behind Vader. He stood between the Dark Lord and the Princess. Vader regarded him silently.
"Leia?" No answer. He glanced backward. "Princess?"
A thin, sorrowful voice. "Don't worry about me, Luke."
Vader appeared to inhale deeply. "No, Skywalker," he rumbled, "don't worry about her. Worry about yourself."
Luke felt a wild sense of elation as he brandished his father's weapon. "I'm not worried about anything, Vader. Not now. I have no more worries and only one concern." His voice held an unaccustomed hint of conviction. "I'm going to kill you, Darth Vader."
That humorless laugh again. "What a high opinion you hold of yourself, Skywalker."
"I'm... I'm Ben Kenobi," Luke whispered in an odd way.
For just a moment Vader seemed shaken. "Ben Kenobi's dead. I killed him myself. You are simple Luke Skywalker, an ex-farm boy from Tatooine. You are no master of the Force and the equal of Ben Kenobi you will never be."
"Ben Kenobi is with me, Vader," Luke snarled, gaining confidence every second, "and the Force is with me, too."
"You do have something of the Force about you, boy," Vader admitted. "A master of it you are not, however. That dooms you. Only a master could do... this."
The Dark Lord lunged and Luke spun well clear. At the same time, Vader was staring not at Luke, but at the ground. A small fragment of the fallen ceiling rose, shot straight for Luke's head. Seeing it coming, he reacted as Kenobi had taught him... without thinking.
A much smaller stone lifted and intersected the path of the charging rock. The two met. Though Vader's missile was by far the larger, it was deflected just enough by Luke's rock to send it shooting past his shoulder harmlessly.
Panting, he stared challengingly back at Vader. "Good, boy," the Dark Lord confessed, "very good. But my stone was the heavier. My powers are the stronger."
"Not strong enough, Vader," Luke insisted as he lunged forward. His thoughts were of Kenobi, of the techniques of saber and Force the old Jedi knight had laboriously taught him. He tried to let the Force guide his arm.
Vader parried, blocked, parried again, and found himself being forced backward by the aggressiveness and skill of Luke's demonic attack. The breath mask tilted back for a second. A section of heavy bas-relief on one of the supporting pillars was loosened, fell away.
At the last instant Luke sensed it, jumped backward. The huge carved panel shattered between them. Both men rested uneasily as the dust settled. Luke gulped for air, while Vader showed less aplomb and increasing tension.
"You are good, Skywalker," he declared. "Very good indeed, for a child. But the end will be the same." He raised his saber and came charging over the broken panel.
Now it was the Dark Lord who initiated the assault. Luke found himself forced steadily backward as Vader threw an unceasing blizzard of stone shards and saber cuts at him. It was impossible to counter them all.
Somehow Luke did so.
They were circling in the center of the temple floor now. Lying on her side, the Princess tried to turn and watch. The pain of her wounds rose about her like a steel wall. Around her thoughts the wall closed, and in response her eyes closed and she slumped back to the cold, cold stone.
Again the two enemies paused, only now it was Vader who was panting heavily. "Kenobi... trained you... well," the Dark Lord admitted admiringly. Some of his usual insouciance had been drained by the steady fighting. "And you have some... natural ability of your own. You have proven a challenge. I enjoy... a challenge."
Still unhurt, Luke whispered defiantly, "Too much of... a challenge for... you!"
"No," Vader assured him, "no. You overestimate yourself, child." The Dark Lord drew himself up to his full, awesome height. "I have finished playing with you."
Swinging his saber until it was no more than a blue blur in the dank air of the temple, he leaped straight up into the air. It was more than a jump, less than levitation. Out of the blue circle of energy he flung the saber.
Instinctively-he had no time to think-Luke parried. The Force inherent in the thrown saber knocked Luke's out of his hand. Both weapons flew off to the right and lay, still gleaming, still activated, on the ground, near a dark circular opening that gaped black in the floor.
As Vader drifted slowly back to the floor he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, made a fist, and seemed to convulse like a man retching. A ball of pure white energy the size of his fist materialized in front of Vader's hands and moved down toward the wide-eyed Luke.
Something made Luke realize he could never reach his saber before the white glove touched him. He threw up both hands and looked away. So he didn't see what happened.
His hands seemed to blur. The white glove struck them, bounced back, and contacted Vader gently as the latter touched the ground. There was a soft crack as of an explosion far in the distance. Vader was knocked head over heels and the glove vanished.
But when the white energy ball had touched Luke's hands, the power inherent in the kinetite, or restrained energy globe, had thrown him to the ground. Had he resisted it unsuccessfully it would have thrown him across the chamber and through the temple wall.
Now he lay on his belly while Vader rolled slowly onto his side, shaking his head in disbelief. His eyes refocused, to see a shaken but otherwise unharmed Luke crawling slowly toward his lightsaber.
"Not... possible!" Vader muttered, starting to crawl toward his own weapon. The left side of his body armor was dented inward as if by a giant's fist, where the kinetite had struck. "Such power... in a child. Not possible!"
Luke had neither the strength nor the desire to argue. He saw only the saber, felt only its smooth handle fitting compactly into his palm.
But by then Vader had reached his own weapon. With a supreme effort he tottered to his feet, turned to face Luke. Holding his father's saber over his head, Luke rose, rushed at the Dark Lord and threw himself on the towering black figure.
There was a blinding flash of light as he made contact with Vader's saber beam and slid on through with the blow. His saber continued downward, pierced the stone floor. Luke's hand struck a rock and jarred his saber loose.
He hit the ground hard, then rolled onto his back to see what had happened. What he saw was Vader staring at the floor. His right arm lay there, still gripping the glowing saber. There was less blood than Luke would have expected. He tried to rise, failed. He no longer retained the strength to climb to his knees, let alone to regain his feet.
So he lay there completely exhausted. Slowly, in uneven, unsteady steps, the Dark Lord tottered to his severed arm. Amazingly, he bent down and lifted the amputated limb, detached the saber from it. Holding it in his left, he turned to face Luke. It was useless, he thought, as Vader raised the saber over his head with his one remaining hand. The Dark Lord, Lord of the Sith, Master of the Dark Side of the Force, was invincible. It was over.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, turning his head to where the Princess lay crumpled on the temple floor. "I'm sorry, Leia. I loved you." He looked back up and found he hadn't the strength for a last curse. The saber soared above and behind Vader's head. The Dark Lord staggered drunkenly forward. He stumbled a couple of steps to the left.
And disappeared.
A dissonant, inhuman howling marked the descent of the Dark Lord down the black circle to Luke's right. Frowning painfully, hardly daring to believe, Luke crawled slowly over to the rim of the black circle, peered in and down.
He could not see the bottom of the pit, nor any sign of Darth Vader.
"He's gone," he mumbled, dazed, hardly daring to believe it. "Gone down to where he belongs, I hope." He looked across the floor as he struggled to sit up, balancing himself on one arm. "Leia, I did it! He's gone, Leia." And yet... there remained a stirring, a faint tremor in the Force, so light he could barely sense it, like a bad aftertaste in the mouth. But it was there... Vader was alive!
Yet
Vader was no threat to them. That was enough for him now. He was sobbing as he dragged his exhausted body across the floor. "Leia, Leia!" Reaching her, he extended a questing palm, touched her forehead. She opened her eye and looked back at him. His tears fell uncontrollably as he probed gingerly at the terrible scars Vader's saber had left on her body, her face.
"Luke?" she breathed, barely audible. She smiled at him, painfully. Taking her hand in his own, he slumped to the ground at her side.
At the top of the rubble blocking the temple entrance, Halla stopped to peer behind her. She saw the two figures lying hand in hand in the middle of the temple floor. Of the Dark Lord of the Sith there was no sign. She'd seen him fall down the sacrificial well of Pomojema's worshipers. She was free to go.
Her gaze turned downward, to stare into the glowing abyssal crimson of the Kaiburr crystal, then moved out to peer into the fog and mist of Mimban.
The personnel carrier they'd arrived in waited out there. Hidden in it lay Kee, felled forever by a blow from Darth Vader. Luke's two 'droids sat motionless and deactivated nearby.
"Damn," she murmured to herself. "Aw, damn!"
Then she was scrambling down the pile of broken stone... back into the temple.
"Luke!" She propped the limp form up, stared into the somnolent face. "Luke boy? Come on, you're frightening old Halla."
Eyes opened, turned to squint at her. "Halla?"
She licked her lips, looked skyward, then placed the crystal in his lap, shoving it at him as if it were burning her. "Here. I can't do much with it. I'm a faker, a charlatan of the Force, not a master. So I could do bigger and better parlor tricks... I'd waste it, and the Empire would find me soon anyway."
Luke moved his gaze from her down to the pulsing silicate in his lap. "The crystal magnifies the Force." He chuckled, choked. "What good is that now?"
"I don't know!" she shouted angrily. "You wanted it, well there it is, dammit. What more do you want of me? What more can I do?" She shook both hands at him, furious at her own helplessness.
"Nothing, Halla." He smiled gently at her. "There's nothing more to be done, I guess." He reached down, fondled the crystal. "It feels warm... good."
"You're crazy," she snorted. "It's a cold hunk of rock."
"No... it's warm," he insisted. "Funny kind of warmth."
Unconscious, he fell back, both hands still clamped tightly around the crystal.
Halla stood, turned away. "Stupid old woman," she cursed herself. "Stupid, selfish old woman. I should have helped them when it might have done some good. I should have-" She hesitated, frowned uneasily. Was it growing lighter in the shadowed temple? She turned, and her eyes bulged.
Luke's motionless form was enveloped in a rich, red bath of light. In his hands the crystal shone with a brilliance unnatural. Nor was the light still. It shifted, fluttered, ran over him like a live thing. It sought out every extremity, each finger and follicle, like the St. Elmo's fire of old on the rigging of a sailing ship.
After several long, rapturous moments the radiant envelope shrank, sucked up by the crystal which resumed its normal coloring.
Luke sat up so abruptly that Halla was unable to repress a short screech. He blinked once, looked at her. Hesitantly, as though she were about to greet a ghost, she edged toward him.
"Luke boy?" she husked querulously.
"Halla. What happened? I..." His head turned, his eyes coming to rest on the silent pit which had swallowed Darth Vader. "I remember that. I also remember... Halla, I died."
"You must have found it boring," she replied without smiling. "It was the crystal... something in the crystal. The Force..."
"Don't remember," he insisted, shaking his head dully. Then he reached down and touched the Princess' shoulder. "Leia?"
"You were holding the crystal," Halla explained slowly. "In both hands. Remember the old legends... how the temple priests could heal?"
"I don't understand," Luke murmured. But he hefted the crystal again in both hands, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate and relax at the same time. The glow from the crystal intensified.
"I understand," came a voice out of Luke's body that might or might not have been Luke's.
The crimson glow emerged from the crystal again. It started up Luke's arms, only to halt at the elbows. Holding the crystal with one hand, he opened his eyes. Like a man sleepwalking he reached down. One fingertip touched the Princess' face, traced the scar left by Vader's saber. As he traced it with the red glow, the scar vanished. Halla could see the skin moving, folding, healing behind it.
Slowly, wordlessly, as a rapt Halla watched, Luke proceeded to trace each of the wounds Vader had inflicted on the Princess. When he finished the final one, he placed his open palm first for a lingering moment over her heart, then her forehead. Then he sat back. The glow from the crystal subsided to normal.
Several more minutes passed. Uninjured, her beauty restored, Leia Organa slowly sat up. Both hands went to her head.
"Are you all right, Leia?" he asked solicitously.
She winced, stared at him. "Luke, I have the most awful headache."
"Headache," he echoed. He turned, smiled at Halla. "She has a headache."
Halla grinned back at him, chuckled, then was roaring with relieved laughter. Luke joined in, his embarrassed, happy laughing interrupted only by an occasional cough. The crystal had repaired his injured insides, but he was still oxygen-weak.
The Princess looked suddenly uncertain. She glanced down at herself. Events returned with a rush as she felt of her leg, her face.
"They're gone," she murmured in disbelief. "Healed. How?"
Luke turned serious. "It was the crystal, Leia. It healed me, healed you, and I wasn't even aware it was doing so. Everything that Halla surmised about it is true. It does use the Force. The crystal healed you, Leia... not me."
"Now, Luke boy," Halla admonished him, "you were the agent the crystal worked through. Without you, wouldn't be nothin' but rock."
"Luke, we..." Leia stopped, stared around nervously. "What about...?"
Luke reassured her. "Down there." He indicated the pit. "I never heard him hit bottom. Vader's finished, Leia." Yet... even as he said it, there was that peculiar tingling in the Force again, like a smell of sulfur.
She shattered that unwholesome train of thought. "What about Threepio, and Artoo?"
"They're all right," Halla responded. "Leastwise, they looked fine to me when I was just now, uh, checking out the crawler to make sure it hadn't been booby-trapped by your Dark Lord. They're turned off, but no damage that I can see."
Luke sighed with relief, put an arm around Leia. She didn't move to shrug it off.
"Here," he said, handing the crystal to Halla. She eyed him uncertainly, then took it, held it with reverence. "You might as well keep it for awhile, since you're coming with us."
"With you?" Halla looked wary. "What do you want with a tired, old woman? What good would I do you?"
"A world of good," Luke assured her. "A universe of good. We'll get you safely off Mimban with us. Then, if you still don't feel like joining the cause of a bunch of 'outlaws,' you don't have to." He thought wistfully. "I know another man, a smuggler and a pirate, who once thought the same way as you."
"Don't compare me with any smugglers, and don't rush me," she instructed him crossly. "I might be persuaded... the Force knows what you want with me, though. But where am I going with you?"
Luke looked down at Leia, smiled. She leaned into his side and smiled in return. "We're going to Circarpous IV," he informed her. "We're late for a very important date." He turned to look at her. "With an underground movement. We'll make an idealistic revolutionary out of you yet, Halla."
"Not likely!" she snorted. But she didn't object further as she followed them outside the temple of Pomojema.
Back on the crawler, Luke adjusted the necessary switches. Artoo came back on first, followed by a startled Threepio.
"Oh, sir! Where is he? We couldn't escape him. He
knew all the proper code words and commands. I tried to warn you, sir, but we couldn't-" He stopped, stared at them. "Why are you all smiling?" Artoo beeped in exasperation. For a 'droid whose specialty was communicating, See Threepio could be mighty slow on the uptake.
"I beg your pardon, sir," the tall, slim 'droid continued politely, "but have I missed something important?"
"Artoo, start us up. We're getting out of here." The little Detoo unit plugged into the crawler's ignition. Immediately, the engine responded. Halla swung the massive machine around, plunged into the surrounding jungle mists and cries of Mimban.
"Why," the faint, receding voice of a certain 'droid could be heard to say, "do I have the impression that everyone is laughing at me...?"
Splinter in the Mind's Eye Page 20
