“And what is that?”
“I don’t know everything, Ben, I’m just an apprentice,” she snapped.
“Vestara,” he said quietly, “don’t you get tired of this? All the plotting, all the scheming, all the backstabbing? Wouldn’t it be nice to just … trust somebody? To completely let go of your suspicions?”
She lifted her eyes to him again, and there was sorrow in their dark brown depths. “It sounds lovely, Ben. But that’s not my world.”
It could be.
The words were on Ben’s lips, and he might have uttered them, had not Luke begun to stir. He turned his attention back to his father, checking the drip and making sure the transition back to his body would be an easy one.
And it was at that moment that Dyon bellowed, bolted upright, and sprang for the door.
“Vestara!” Ben cried. “Stop him!”
But the Sith girl actually took a step backward and permitted the Force-user to pass. Ben stared at her, anguished and infuriated, unable to leave his father until Luke had fully returned. Vestara turned back to Ben and folded her arms.
Luke’s blue eyes snapped open and fixed on Ben’s face. “What happened?”
“Dyon just bolted,” Ben snarled. “And Vestara let him go.”
Dyon couldn’t believe it. Not-Vestara had kept her word, letting him pass freely, and perhaps stopping Not-Ben from coming after her. He hoped that no harm would befall her for helping him. He reached out into the Force, limited as his ability to do so was, and cried out to the being who had called him here.
I come, I come! he cried silently.
He edged carefully behind the Jade Shadow and turned to regard the plants crowding the bank. He had no weapon; but through them was the only way to get to Abeloth. He took a deep breath, his heart racing, and stepped forward.
The plants did nothing. He laughed, shakily, in relief. He took another step, then another, moving confidently now. They neither helped nor hindered him, behaving like ordinary plants on other worlds.
Dyon took it as a sign, and his spirits continued to lift. Upon reaching the top of the bank he looked over the beach, at the dozen or so frigates there, then up at the volcano. He sensed her there, waiting for him, and tears stung his eyes. Dyon knew he would have to be very careful. He could not allow his enemies to follow him. He believed Not-Vestara about the Not-Sith supporting Abeloth, but even so, he would not put his mistress in danger. It was possible the Not-Jedi might come out and see him.
Slowly, although he ached to break into a run, he cleared another rise and half walked, half slid down the other side.
“You what?” Luke was sitting up now, anger in his blue eyes.
“I let him go,” Vestara said. “I convinced him that I was on his and Abeloth’s side. He was aching to go to her, and he knew where to find her. While I was assuring him that the Sith were his and Abeloth’s dear friends and supporters, I planted a tracking device on him.” She fished in the pocket of her robe, held out a small piece of equipment, and wagged it at them, smiling a little. “And it’s working beautifully. Did you get any insight Beyond Shadows?”
Ben let out a small laugh that sounded like a yelp. “You might have told us, you know.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d trust me.”
“I don’t,” Luke said, “but right now, it really is the only lead we have. We lost Faal. The spirits in the Lake of Apparitions—apparently some old enemies had a grudge to settle. She fell into the water and they dragged her down.”
Vestara shrugged again. “I never much cared for her anyway. I dare say she had accumulated quite a lot of old enemies with grudges.”
“That’s probably true of every Sith,” Luke said. He turned to Ben. “I think we may have an edge we can use against Abeloth, though. She … seems to have a particular interest in me. I’m not sure why.”
“In Jedi, or in you in particular?” Ben asked.
“Me in particular. She—have you felt any kind of a feminine presence on the ship, Ben?”
His son nodded. “Yeah … I thought it was Mom. This being her ship and all, and you and I the only ones on it for a long time. I kind of felt she was looking after us.”
“I did, too,” Luke said. “But I saw Mom in the Lake. And she said it wasn’t her.”
Ben gasped and drew back slightly. He didn’t need confirmation on who it actually was. “That’s … really creepy, Dad.”
“I know,” Luke said, and grimaced slightly. “But the good news is, we can use that against her.”
“She did seem particularly interested in you,” Vestara said. They both turned to look at her.
Ben let out an exasperated sound. “Again, Ves, why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t think it was personal. I just thought she was gravitating toward power.” Her voice was sincere, almost apologetic. “I am sorry. I should have said something earlier.”
“Well, at least we know it’s not our imaginations,” Luke said. “Come on. Let’s meet up with Taalon and the others and follow where Vestara’s hound is leading us.”
She was there, waiting for him. She stood outside the entrance to her cave, between the two large boulders on either side. Her dress clung to her tall, strongly muscled form, blown back against her by a gentle wind. It toyed with her thick dark hair, and as she turned to him, smiling widely, her gray eyes were alight with joy.
“Dyon,” she said. “You’ve found me. You’ve come home.”
He stood for a moment, trembling from the exertion, sweat gleaming on his brow, drinking her in.
He loved her. He felt her need of him, her wanting, her yearning—not passionate, but as sweet as it was intense. It was like a vine entwining about him, pulling him toward her. He was unable to resist it, but then, he did not try. He felt seen and known and cherished. Like a lost child who finally has found his way back to a loving mother, Dyon stumbled toward Abeloth.
Peace radiated through him as she caught his hands with her own. Peace, and certainty. She looked up at him, only a little way, for she was tall, and her gray eyes crinkled in a smile.
“I’ve been so alone,” Dyon whispered.
“I know,” she said, touching his cheek gently. “All that you have known, all that you have learned—these beings do not understand who we are, what we are. You have brothers and sisters, Dyon. Scattered everywhere. Once you were with me, here in the Maw. Once, you were all with me. Now you are apart, but one by one, you are all awakening. And once awake, you can hear my call, and come to me.”
“I come,” Dyon whispered. “This is where I belong. All my life, I’ve searched for a purpose.”
“And now you know that purpose,” Abeloth agreed, closing what little space remained between them with a step. Only a few centimeters separated them now. They were so close he could feel and smell her breath, sweet as flowers, caressing his face. “To serve me. To be with me. Part of me. I need you, Dyon. I need you very much.”
“I want to be with you, with my brothers and sisters,” Dyon said. “I want to understand.”
“You will,” she assured him. “You will be with them … with me. As long as I live. And I,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his cheeks with her strong, warm hands, “will live forever.”
And that was when the torment started.
He stood frozen in place as securely as if his feet had rooted there. He couldn’t move, couldn’t pull back, couldn’t cry out in pain or in warning, for now he suddenly realized that this being was not what he had thought, was not what she—was it even a she?—had pretended to be. The smile, so loving, grew cruel. It spread across her face, widening like a crack in the ground, the lips growing hideously full in that dreadful smile. Her eyes turned from gray to silver to white and grew smaller, seeming to recede into the suddenly black depths of her eye sockets like something falling into a well. Her hair sprouted, grew, undulating as it rippled to her feet, and the hands, the strong, human hands that had cupped his face so tenderly now b
ecame tiny, slimy tentacles that seemed to thrust into his skull, into his brain, and suck out what they found there.
A terrible heat, white hot, seared him there, and he smelled burning flesh. Then his heart spasmed in terror as she moved that hideous, huge mouth closer, closer, until it was touching his own.
She pulled back, and a glowing golden mist clung to her lips. The mist grew, mercifully obscuring her face as she extracted—
A deep, agonized groan was ripped from Dyon, hauled from his innermost soul, floating on that golden mist. Every limb, every centimeter, every cell of him was coming under attack. It was not like the searing, focused pain in his temple; this pain was aching and deep. The pain at his temple changed from white-hot to icy cold, and it began to enter him. As Abeloth pulled forth something—
Life energy, she’s taking my life essence …
—from his body, she gave in return a dreadful cold. A slithering, dark cold that wrapped around his throat, closing it, then his heart, then his entrails, then seeped implacably into the rest of him.
He could feel himself withering up, the desiccation turning him into a living corpse, dried and husklike, as if he had been buried in the sand for centuries.
Abeloth chuckled, a throaty, warm sound. “You have served me well, better than any have in a long time. Soon, we will become one, Dyon Stad. Soon, you will never leave me. And you will have enabled me to continue.”
“THE CAVE,” SAID VESTARA, PEERING AT THE TRACKING DEVICE. SWEAT beaded her face, and tendrils of dark hair clung clammily to her cheeks and neck. They were all baking in the blue sunlight. Under other circumstances, Luke suspected that the Sith would waste the Force by creating cool breezes and lowering their body temperature. But not now, not here. There was no place for trivialities here. There were twenty of them who had fought their way through the voracious plant life lurking on the shores and in the red river itself.
Twenty of them left, anyway. The yellow water plants and the funnel-shaped trees claimed two Sith before they were finally beaten back. Blasted with Force energy, sliced by lightsabers of three different hues, and cut by glass parangs, the damaged foliage hung back almost sullenly as the group stood at the base of the cliff.
“It seems too obvious,” Taalon said. He frowned as he regarded the small dark shape about a kilometer up the shoulder of the volcanic mountain. “Even if Abeloth is unaware that we placed a tracking device on Dyon, which I doubt, she knows that this is the place Vestara first encountered her. Why would she wait here to be attacked?”
“It could be more of a stronghold than Vestara realized,” Luke said. His voice was doubtful. “This could be her ultimate seat of power, somehow.” To Luke, this whole place reeked of the dark side. It was strong where the cave was, to be sure, but there were other places on this world where dark-side energy gathered just as strongly—even more so. “Or there could be a nice little trap waiting for us, which seems more likely.”
“A trap is only a trap if it takes one by surprise,” Gavar Khai said. “Otherwise, it is merely an obstacle to be overcome.”
“On that, at least, we are agreed. Let’s find out which.”
They moved quickly despite the heat up the trail to the entrance to the cave, weapons in hand, senses alert.
It was no trap. It was no attack. Abeloth was not here, but her cat’s-paw was.
Dyon lay on the floor of the cave, his face and arms pale and visible even in the dim lighting. A quick check, both with conventional tools and in the Force, revealed that he was alone, and Ben raced up to him.
“He’s still alive,” Ben said, “But only just.”
Dyon opened his eyes. Luke expected him to struggle, but instead he reached out and clasped Ben’s shoulder.
“Ben … so sorry …”
Ben and Luke exchanged glances. “You know me? You don’t think I’m an imposter?”
“She—she’s not what she seems,” Dyon gasped. “She tricked me. You still seem—seem wrong to me but I know that’s her influence. She tried to kill me. She sensed you coming and left me for dead.”
“Let her fear us,” Taalon said. “Hundreds of Sith, powerful in the Force, come to take her down. She should know fear.”
“I believe that she left, but not because she was afraid,” Luke said. He and Ben helped Dyon to his feet. Color was starting to return to his face. “You all right?”
“I am now. Good timing,” he said, and gave Luke a weak grin. “She tried to—to drain my life energy somehow.”
“Looks like once the contact is broken you’re all right,” Ben said. “Good thing to know if she tries that kind of attack on us.” He smiled at Dyon, who seemed to grow stronger by the minute.
“Where did she go?” Luke asked.
Dyon pointed to the back of the cave. In the red glow of several lit lightsabers, everyone could easily see the mouth of a tunnel that opened onto utter blackness.
“There,” Dyon said.
“Do you know where this tunnel leads?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Luke turned to the others. “I think she went through here to better her attack position, and it was a smart move. There could be all kinds of traps or dangers in that tunnel. She’ll certainly be waiting to pounce the second we emerge on the other end.”
“I cannot sense her in the Force,” Taalon said, and the admission clearly pained him. “Now that Dyon is no longer with her, I think that this is, unfortunately, our only option.”
Unease rippled through those assembled. Vestara took a step closer to her father, who reached out to squeeze her shoulder briefly. It was, Luke mused, likely certain death. Abeloth held every advantage now. But if they were slain, or taken, there were at least several hundred other Sith who would come. It was not an even fight, but it was a fairer one than he had had any right to expect.
“I think so, too,” Luke said. “Ben and I can go first, and if it’s safe, we can let the rest of you know.”
Taalon flushed, his lavender cheeks turning dark purple. “Are you calling us cowards, Master Skywalker?”
“No,” Luke said. “You’re the one who used that term.”
“I am not afraid, nor is anyone else here,” Taalon growled.
“Then you’re an idiot,” Luke said. “You should be afraid. Lack of fear makes one careless, and being careless here will get you killed.” He gave Dyon a comlink. “You stay here.”
“I’d like to come with you,” Dyon said.
“You’ve already helped a great deal,” Luke said. “But I need someone here I can trust if this backfires and she comes back this way. Taalon, pick some of your people to stay here and give Dyon some backup support.”
Taalon’s eyes narrowed. Luke knew he was pushing the Keshiri by continuing to angle for control of the situation, but he also knew that showing anything that could be perceived as weakness to this Sith would be fatal. Luke was significant, in some way, to Abeloth, although that thought disgusted him. Taalon knew it. He might dislike Luke, might take joy in attacking him, but he would not until his own purposes had been achieved.
“It is wise to cover all avenues of her possible escape,” Taalon said, instead of what he no doubt wished to say, and nodded to two others. “Let us know if you see anything out of the ordinary here,” he told them, then turned back to Luke. He offered a completely false smile.
“Let us go to Abeloth then, Master Skywalker. And since this is again your plan …” He left the sentence unfinished, instead extending a hand mockingly toward the yawning black mouth of the tunnel.
Luke did not put walking through a dark, tight tunnel with several Sith behind him at the top of his list of highlights of his life, but it was not as bad as he had feared.
The tunnel was clearly artificial. It was almost a perfect circle, and was wide enough to permit everyone to walk erect, even to have some freedom of movement. It went slightly downward at first, leading them through the mountain. Roots, powerful on this world, had forced their w
ay through the sheer stone in clumps, slicked with some kind of ooze that dissolved the corpses of the small animals clutched in their grip. Abeloth apparently had not had time to rig any elaborate traps for them. Nor did the tunnel suddenly abruptly collapse. The greatest threat came from the occasional root that came to life, pushing through the top of the packed soil passageway attempting to wrap around a throat, or from the bottom to seize an ankle. The ooze was not acidic, although it was likely toxic, and there were no injuries. The roots were quickly repelled with the glass parangs each Sith appeared to carry, or a quick, precise lightsaber stroke.
“It seems our luck is holding,” Gavar Khai said.
“For now,” Luke cautioned. He and Ben led the way, with Taalon, Vestara, and Khai behind them. “She may simply be conserving her strength.”
“For a Jedi, who is supposed to be so positive, you are quite the pessimist,” Khai said. Confidence radiated from him. Luke mentally shook his head. Khai was strong in the Force, as was his offspring. He was, Luke was certain, well trained in combat. But there was a naïveté about these Sith that confounded him. As if they were at once ancient and new. He hoped he’d live long enough to get to the bottom of it.
“A realist, Khai. I’ve seen quite a lot in my life. I know to expect the unexpected. Your Sith underestimated Abeloth once before. How many did you lose last time, Taalon?”
The Sith High Lord did not reply. The tension increased, and the rest of the way through the tunnel was spent in a silence that was broken only by the sound of errant roots being slashed.
Finally, Luke halted. “Extinguish lightsabers,” he said.
“What?” exclaimed Taalon.
“Just do it,” he said. There was some muttering, but one by one, the red lights went out.
And up ahead, they could all see the bright blue smudge of light that showed the end of the tunnel.
Luke extended his thoughts in the Force, but again, could sense nothing. He frowned, perplexed. He had no doubt that Abeloth knew exactly where they were. If she could reach his consciousness aboard the Jade Shadow in his sleep—a thought that still turned his stomach—surely she would know how to find them here, where her power was the strongest. He couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t be out there waiting for them, ready to pounce.
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