Vortex: Star Wars (Fate of the Jedi) (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi)

by Troy Denning

  All he had to do was be patient.

  As they drew nearer to the gorge wall, Ben began to feel the breeze Vestara had mentioned. The air was damp and cool, and she was right. He could smell a definite hint of rock and mildew, and something more caustic, too—perhaps sulfur. Within a few steps, the ground started to rise sharply, and they began to catch glimpses of a tangled curtain of moss fluttering in the jungle ahead.

  Ben risked moving close enough to grab Vestara’s shoulder. “Okay, so it was that easy. But hold up here for a second.”

  “What for?” Vestara continued to clear vegetation, increasing her pace and drawing half a dozen steps closer to the mossy curtain. “Come on, Jedi. Show some initiative.”

  “It’s called the Pool of Knowledge, Vestara.” Whatever happened, Ben knew that he could not allow her to enter the pool before his father arrived—that even if she survived, the experience would change her into something he had no chance of pulling back into the light. “Does that really sound like something we should mess with?”

  “Sure.”

  Vestara used the Force to hurl the last meter of vegetation aside, then drew up short. The grotto could be seen less than two paces ahead, a fluttering rectangle of shadow only half visible through the yellow moss hanging down the gorge wall. About the height of a Wookiee and wide enough to admit a speeder, the portal looked more like an underground hangar entrance than a cave—especially when Vestara slashed the moss curtain away, revealing a lintel and support columns carved with the same ophidian grotesques they had found at the Font of Power.

  Vestara smiled. “Knowledge is good for you, right?”

  “Not always.” Still holding his own lightsaber, Ben stepped toward her—and the grotto entrance. “Some knowledge destroys.”

  “Don’t be silly. Knowledge is just … memory and thought.” Despite Vestara’s bravado, she paused at the entrance to glance back at Ben—and at the unlit lightsaber in his hand. “How can it destroy anything?”

  Ben remained where he was. “Has your mother always been faithful to your father?”

  Vestara scowled at him. “What business is that of yours?”

  “It isn’t,” Ben admitted. “But what if you knew she hadn’t been? Would you be obligated to tell your father?”

  “Of course,” she said. “He’s a Sith Saber, and she is … well, she isn’t.”

  “And what would happen then?”

  Vestara’s eyes went hard, revealing more about Keshiri society than she probably realized. “I see no point to your questions,” she said. “My mother would never be unfaithful to my father.”

  “Of course not. But if you knew that she had been, you’d be obligated to tell your father.” Ben paused, then added, “And that is knowledge that destroys. Just one example. Are you sure you want more? Are you sure you’re ready?”

  Vestara glanced toward the grotto entrance, and her expression turned more thoughtful than troubled. “The Pool of Knowledge can do that? How?”

  Ben saw his mistake at once, of course. To the Sith, no knowledge was forbidden, no mystery better left unsolved. To them, it was all just information, to be gathered and utilized in their pursuit of galactic domination—which meant they could never be permitted to enter the Pool of Knowledge. Ben and Luke would have to stop them.

  And Ship had known that when it brought the Skywalkers and the Sith here together. Ship wanted them to fight.

  “Vestara,” Ben said, “you’re going to have to trust me on this, but we need to back out of here and think about what we’re doing.”

  Vestara barely glanced back. “Nice try, but the only place I’m going is in there.” She swung her lightsaber toward the grotto entrance. “With you or without you.”

  “Hold on.” Ben extended a hand. “Think. Why did Ship bring my father and me along?”

  “To help us find the Pool of Knowledge, of course.”

  Ben waved at the cave entrance. “Does it look like you needed our help?”

  “So I got lucky,” Vestara said. “It happens.”

  Ben shook his head. “You know better than that. Ship put us down right on top of the Pool of Knowledge. It wanted to make sure we found the grotto quickly, so we’d all still be relatively close together.”

  A light came to Vestara’s eyes. “The ambush my father warned against?”

  “In a way,” Ben said. “Ship is trying to start a fight between us again—between your side and ours, I mean.”

  When Ben said no more, Vestara cocked her head slightly and demanded, “What are you keeping from us, Ben?”

  “Plenty,” Ben replied. “And that’s not going to change. But trust me, it would be better for everyone if you just forgot we ever found this place.”

  The reply came from behind Ben, halfway back to the stream and in a deep, silky voice that was chilling in its calm menace. “It’s too late for that, Ben.”

  Ben’s heart jumped for his throat. His thumb dropped toward his lightsaber’s activation switch, and he pivoted sideways, so he could see the stream and the grotto. Taalon was leading Luke and Khai up the path toward them, his lavender eyes fixed not on Ben but on the dark portal that Vestara had cleared just a couple of minutes earlier. The crooked ribbons of pollen and spores that streaked the robes of all three men suggested they had come in a hurry—as did the beads of perspiration clinging to their brows in the humid jungle air.

  Ben glanced back toward Vestara. “You summoned them?”

  Vestara shrugged. “As soon as I realized we had found it,” she confirmed. “That’s the difference between young Sith and young Jedi, Ben. We are taught to follow orders.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, I see that.” He stood aside and let Taalon pass. “But when are you taught to think?”

  Taalon answered for her. “After we teach them to obey, young Skywalker. A sharp arrow is worthless if it doesn’t fly true.” He stepped to the grotto mouth and peered inside. “Let’s go inside and see what you hoped to hide.”

  “You go ahead,” Ben said. “I’ve got a problem with dark side nexuses.”

  Taalon turned back to Ben. “Was there something in what I said that made you think I was asking?”

  “It’s okay, Ben,” Luke said. He caught Ben’s eye, then slid his gaze toward the grotto and gave a little nod. “I think we’ll all want to see what the pool reveals.”

  Ben paused a moment for show, trying to uphold the impression he had been cultivating among the Sith of being an unruly teenager. Clearly, his father had a plan, and it involved being outnumbered in a tight, dark space. Hoping it didn’t involve a thermal detonator as well, he sighed loudly and stepped up behind the others.

  “Oh, no—after you.” Taalon pivoted aside and waved Ben toward the grotto entrance. “I insist.”

  Ben scowled and, receiving a nod of permission from his father, said, “Thanks for nothing. If I sense any traps, I’ll be sure to leave them for you.”

  “That will be fine, young Skywalker,” Taalon replied. “It’s the traps you can’t sense that I wish to avoid.”

  The admission sent a shiver down Ben’s back, but he stepped into the grotto entrance and felt no danger in the damp gloom. From ahead came the sound of dripping water, a single blep every two seconds or so. There did not seem to be any living presences within the chamber, only a miasma of sulfurous fumes so thick and rank that even a whiff made Ben feel physically ill.

  After a moment, Luke said, “Go ahead, son. The only traps in there will be of our own making.”

  “Which are always the worst kind,” said Taalon. “Is that not true, Master Skywalker?”

  “Certainly for the weak,” Luke said. “But Ben will be safe enough.”

  Recognizing a cue when he heard one, Ben stepped forward and discovered that the grotto was not as dark as it had appeared from outside. A cold, diaphanous light rose from a small pool in the center, filling the chamber with a silvery glow and revealing that the cavern walls were covered in a meshwork of tiny crevices. Seepin
g from most of those crevices were tiny wisps of yellow, acrid fume—the source of the sulfur smell that Ben had noticed earlier.

  He stepped to the edge of the pool and saw that it lay not in a shallow natural bowl as he had expected, but in an artificial basin with deep, sheer sides. The edges had been decorated with the same grotesque patterns that had been carved into the pillars and lintel at the grotto’s entrance.

  Reflected on the surface of the pool was someone that he barely recognized, a man who had Ben’s own strong chin and wavy reddish-brown hair. But he looked twenty years older, with wise blue eyes and a smiling face deeply etched by laugh lines. The figure was dressed in a brown homespun Jedi robe over dark combat armor, and he was holding a lightsaber with a hilt somewhat longer and thinner than normal, similar to those the Sith carried.

  Guessing that he was looking at an image of himself in a couple of decades, Ben gasped and started to back away—then sensed Vestara coming to stand beside him.

  “It seems you’ll age well.”

  As she spoke, Vestara’s image appeared in the pool, not next to Ben where she was actually standing, but facing him from a short distance away. Like Ben, she appeared to be older and more attractive, with high cheeks and oval eyes that seemed even larger than they did now. But there was also a loneliness in her expression that made her appear more hardened and sad, especially when she smiled and extended a hand in his direction.

  Vestara stepped closer, pressing her shoulder to Ben’s, then continued, “And it seems we won’t be strangers to each other.” She turned to face him directly. “I wonder how we find out whether that’s going to be a good thing … or a bad thing?”

  “You don’t,” Luke said, stepping into the grotto behind them. “We’re here to find out where Abeloth went. Nothing else.”

  Taalon entered on Luke’s heels and said something about utilizing every resource to its fullest, but Ben did not catch the exact words. His attention was locked on the pool, where Vestara’s reflection was changing before his eyes, twisting into something grotesque and alien—something that was vaguely human and just barely female, with a long cascade of yellow hair that reached nearly to her feet. Her eyes were sunken and dark, like a pair of deep wells, and she had a broad, full-lipped mouth so wide that it reached from ear to ear. She seemed be running—or, rather, rippling—along a sandy beach somewhere adjacent to a crimson river—

  “Our ships!” Ben whirled toward the grotto exit and found himself facing a wall of robed chests. “That’s why Ship brought us here—so she would have time to steal one of our craft and escape!”

  Ben started to step around the others, but Gavar Khai quickly moved to block his path. “Explain yourself.”

  “Abeloth!” Ben said, thrusting an arm back toward the pool. “I saw her. She was on the beach where we left the Shadow and the Emiax—and she was running.”

  “Toward the vessels?” Taalon demanded. “You saw that?”

  Ben nodded. “Not the ships, but it was the same beach.” He started toward the exit again. “It’s going to take half a day to get back. We’ve got to hurry.”

  “Not until we are sure.” Khai used the Force to push Ben back toward the pool, then looked to his daughter. “Vestara?”

  “I wasn’t, uh, looking at the time.” The pitch of her voice suggested surprise. “But I think he’s right. We should go back now.”

  Puzzled by the urgency in her tone, Ben spun around and found her whirling away from the pool. Her eyes met his and flashed in alarm, then quickly slid away. Reflected on the water behind her was a walled city filled with lacy glass spires and living trees twisted into sculptures of remarkable complexity. Surrounding the city on three sides were high, steep mountains blanketed in a jade-green forest. On the fourth side, a plain of verdant farmland swept down to a turquoise sea, where the sands of a lavender beach lay shuddering beneath an unending assault of whitecaps.

  Kesh.

  Even had Ben not guessed by Vestara’s reaction what the pool was showing him, he would have known by the angry outburst that erupted from her father that he was looking at the mysterious homeworld of the Sith.

  “Jedi treachery!” Khai extended a hand and used a blast of Force energy to splash the image away, then turned to glare at Ben. “I should have killed you days aaah—”

  Khai’s threat came to a startled end as he went sailing across the Pool. He slammed into the far wall of the grotto and remained there, pinned in place by the invisible hand of the Force.

  “Days ago, Gavar, you might have had a chance to succeed,” Luke said, stepping to the pool. “Now that the odds are more even, you’d do well to avoid threatening my son.” He glanced over at Ben and flashed a quick smile, then added, “The next time, he just might take you seriously.”

  Wondering if this was his father’s way of starting the fight that had to be coming, Ben pivoted around to guard their flank. But the other two Sith appeared less concerned with the developing situation than with the undulating surface of the pool. Taalon was kneeling at the edge of the water, scowling down at the broken reflection of what might have been a large white throne. Vestara was standing at the High Lord’s shoulder, apparently unaware of—or unconcerned by—her father’s predicament.

  Taalon waved a hand over the pool, using the Force to still the shimmering waters, and Ben’s heart climbed into his throat. Sitting on the throne, wearing a simple aurodium crown, was a slender red-headed woman. She looked a lot like Tenel Ka, except that she had two arms and a small, button-ended nose that clearly came from the Solo line. Hanging from the belt of her gown was a long, curved lightsaber with a rancor claw in the hilt, and standing guard around her, with their weapons drawn and ignited, were a dozen Jedi Knights representing a dozen different species. One of those Jedi, the human, had the same square chin and wavy red hair that Ben had seen in his own reflection just a few minutes earlier.

  Taalon turned to glare at Ben. “Who is she?”

  Ben shrugged, trying to calm himself and still his Force aura before he answered. A dark fury came instantly to Taalon’s eyes, and Ben realized that the High Lord already knew that he intended to lie.

  “Uh, Dad?”

  A lightsaber snapped to life behind him, and Ben realized no further explanation was required. Knowing he would have only one chance to stop Taalon before Taalon stopped him, he jerked his own weapon off his belt. He stepped forward, rolling the hilt around for an overhand strike and angling left to force Vestara to pivot out of his attack path.

  But Vestara did not react as expected to the sound of the igniting lightsaber. Her mouth simply gaped open, and her green eyes locked on the sizzling blade in disbelief and confusion. Ben brought his free hand around to trap her weapon arm against her flank and push her aside when she tried to counterattack.

  No counterattack came. Vestara’s expression merely melted into disappointment, and her gaze slid away, filled with sorrow and surrender. A cold, sick weight filled Ben inside as he realized what she was thinking, that their flirtations had meant nothing to him and he had planned to kill her all along. Ben drew up short and, unable to reach past her to strike at Taalon, whirled around behind her.

  A loud splash echoed through the cavern, and Ben knew he was too late. He came around with his lightsaber in both hands, at middle guard between him and Vestara. She had finally taken her own weapon in hand and stood prepared to defend herself, but she still appeared more puzzled than ready. A couple of meters to their side, Ben was vaguely aware of his own father diving toward the far side of the cavern, and the delicate clinkle of Gavar Khai’s shikkar shattering on the stone floor behind him.

  Vestara tensed to spring, confused no longer. Ben sprang forward, swinging his lightsaber at her forward knee. She ignited her own blade and flipped it down to block; then a hardness came to her eyes and her parang began to rise from its sheath.

  Ben was already snapping his hips around, launching a vicious roundhouse kick at her sore shoulder. “Out of my way!”<
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  The blow caught her high on the arm, driving her injured shoulder up toward her head. There was a loud pop, and Vestara staggered away, one arm hanging limp. Ben stepped to the edge of the pool and, below its surface, saw Taalon’s dark-robed figure swimming underwater toward the far end. Ben stepped after him, gathering himself to dive.

  “Ben, no!” His father Force-shoved him back. “Take—”

  The order vanished beneath a deafening crackle, and suddenly the blinding blue flicker of Force lightning filled the grotto. Ben pulled his blaster with his free hand and traced the dancing forks to their source on the far side of the pool, where Gavar Khai crouched on the stone floor spraying bolts at Luke.

  Ben squeezed his blaster trigger half a dozen times and saw Khai slam into the cavern wall with smoke rising from his robes and armor. He sensed danger, turned to his side and saw Vestara flying at him, her blade weaving baskets of crimson light as she whirled it through an attack pattern.

  Ben turned the blaster on her, then had to ignite his own blade to deflect the bolts she sent flying back toward his head. They met half a heartbeat later, the power of Vestara’s attack driving his guard down despite her injury and smaller size.

  He dropped flat on his back, then aimed his blaster up behind her guard and squeezed off three quick bolts. She threw her chin back, and that was all the opening Ben needed to spring up and land a Force-enhanced elbow strike to her solar plexus.

  Vestara went flying back … and slammed Taalon in the flank as he came leaping out of the water. The pair cartwheeled sideways, the High Lord filling the air with curses until they slammed into a wall. Taalon rose to his knees, then Ben saw a fist rise and fall, and Vestara groaned in pain.