The children at their sides drew back fearfully, but the guests held them tight. One of the guests struggled to keep the red-gold centaur child from scrambling away and fleeing. The child’s hooves clattered and scrabbled on the smooth stone floor.
Lord Hethrir gazed over their heads. He gestured to Tigris.
Tigris edged through the crowd. At first they resisted him—he was only Tigris, in his grubby robe, nursemaid, figure of ridicule. He wished Anakin’s ugly pet would lead the way, instead of tagging along at his heels. Lord Hethrir’s followers surely would move aside for those dripping fangs.
Then Lord Hethrir gestured again, and the followers noticed that he wanted Tigris.
They parted, making a path for Tigris and Anakin.
They knelt on the stone floor. Tigris was thrilled.
If only Lord Hethrir would purify me, Tigris thought. I know I could serve him better. I could truly aid the cause of the Empire Reborn.
He stopped before Lord Hethrir, his vision blurry with tears of hope and desire.
“Give the child Anakin to me,” Hethrir said. “I will present him.”
Anakin clutched at Tigris’s neck, hiding his face. Tigris took a moment to soothe him.
“Do not hesitate when I give you an order,” Hethrir said softly, and for the first time in all the years Tigris had known his lord, and honored him, he heard fury in his voice.
Anakin held tight.
“Let go, Anakin.” He tried to disentangle the little boy’s hands from his neck, from his striped hair. “This will be wonderful, I promise you. You’re such a lucky little boy.”
Anakin trembled, trying to exert his unschooled abilities. But even his light had faded. Lord Hethrir must have him completely in his power. Tigris managed to pry Anakin’s hands loose.
Tigris wished the Lord’s control extended to making Anakin do what he was told.
Anakin looked into Tigris’s face, and put one hand on Tigris’s cheek. “Tigis crying,” he said.
Embarrassed, Tigris ducked his head, trying to wipe his face on the sleeve of his robe. But with Anakin in his arms, it was too awkward. He put Anakin down and wiped away the humiliating tears. Then, holding Anakin’s hand, he took the little boy to Hethrir.
“No, Tigris,” Anakin said. “No. Please?”
Hethrir took Anakin’s hand and led him toward Waru. Anakin hung back, straining toward Tigris with his free hand. Anakin’s creature tried to follow, but Tigris grabbed it by the collar and held it back. It strained forward, whining softly.
All the followers of Hethrir watched, envious that Anakin was to be purified, while the children they had brought were overlooked.
Anakin plopped to the floor, sitting down hard, refusing to move.
“Get up, child,” Hethrir said. “Approach your fate with honor.” Lord Hethrir dragged him a little way.
Anakin kicked, and screamed, and his face turned scarlet. Hethrir scowled, picked him up, held his feet from kicking, and approached Waru.
Lord Hethrir placed Anakin, still screaming, on the gold scales of Waru’s base.
“I have brought you what you wished,” Lord Hethrir said. “The most powerful child.”
He paused.
“I have brought you the grandchild of Darth Vader.”
Tigris watched, his feelings a strange mixture of jealousy, regret, dread, and horror. No wonder this gathering differed from all the others. No wonder Lord Hethrir did not make Anakin go through the training required of helpers, and Proctors, and Empire Youth. Anakin would ascend in one step to the highest level.
Or he would die in the purification ritual.
Behind Tigris, the terrified centaur child reared and screamed and tried to escape. Her hooves slipped and scraped on the stone.
The fanged creature pulled forward till its collar slipped from Tigris’s grip. It ran after Anakin, howling piteously.
And Tigris thought: None of Hethrir’s guests brought any of their own children.
None of the children has any choice. It isn’t fair! I would choose—
Waru rippled its scales. They shimmered, liquefying.
Anakin sank into the molten gold, shrieking in terror.
“Tigis! Tigis!” The little boy stretched his arms toward Tigris.
I would choose to give myself to Waru, Tigris thought. I don’t care about the danger! But Anakin didn’t choose.
Tigris darted forward, grabbed Anakin, snatched him from the altar of Waru’s body, and turned to run.
“What are you doing?” Hethrir cried.
Waru rose, its body elongating enormously, scarlet ichor flowing from its flesh. The being roared, a cry of protest, and anger, and desperation.
The roaring shriek of the strange gold being overwhelmed Leia’s cry when she saw Anakin. A youth pulled her little son away from the writhing gold creature. The youth stumbled backward, trying to flee. Mr. Iyon’s wyrwulf crouched at the foot of the altar, growling.
Leia ran toward the youth, toward Anakin. Han was right behind her.
Leia ran through the crowd, through the ragged path the people had left clear when they knelt. Some were struggling to their feet. All the adults were human, but the children with them were of many other species.
Leia and Han reached the youth who had rescued Anakin.
“Papa! Mama!” Anakin cried. His face was streaked with tears, flushed with anger and terror. The youth—This must be Tigris, Leia thought, oh, my, he looks like Rillao!—was crying, too.
Anakin struggled from Tigris’s grasp. He leaped and fell into Leia’s arms. She hugged him with desperate gratitude. She held him against her, kissing his sticky face. Han touched Anakin’s hair, gently, with wonder.
“It’s all right now, sweetheart,” Leia said. “I’m here, Papa’s here—”
The golden being stretched itself toward them. Leia had never seen anything like it. She backed away, bumping into Han. He, too, backed away, holding Leia and Anakin.
Anakin scrambled over Leia’s shoulder and flung his arms around his father’s neck. Han held him gently, radiant with relief and joy.
A white-robed man—Hethrir, Leia thought—grabbed Tigris by the collar and shook him.
“You fool! Wretched, worthless fool!”
“Waru!” Luke ran past them all, passing Tigris, leaping onto the altar.
“Luke, no!”
He’s empty-handed! Leia thought. He’s attacking—defending—without even his lightsaber!
“Stop!” Hethrir cried.
Luke leaped onto the dais, onto the border of gold scales.
“Waru!” Luke said.
“What do you want, Skywalker?” Waru said, its voice rumbling. “I am in pain, I have no gifts to give my followers.”
Hethrir stared at Luke in confusion and anger. Then his expression changed to astonishment and recognition.
“Skywalker!” Hethrir said. “Waru, take him. Luke Skywalker is a trained Jedi. He is Vader’s son.”
The great gold being loomed. Luke faced it, completely open, his arms spread wide. His boots sank into the liquefying gold. The gold being’s form widened. It formed a concave surface, with great rough wings curving forward to surround Leia’s brother. Luke’s reflection in the scales was distorted, inverted, misshapen.
“Yes,” Luke whispered. “Take me.”
The being roared again, but its voice was softer, a great sigh of satisfaction.
“Luke!” Leia cried.
Before she could react, the gold wings collapsed, falling onto Luke, inundating him. The gold scales liquefied, surging forward like waves, pulling back like the tide.
Luke disappeared.
“No!” Leia cried, horrified. This was all too much like seeing Han trapped in the carbon-freeze—
Anakin was safe in Han’s arms. Han stared at Waru, the joy in his face turning to grief.
Leia brushed her fingers quickly against his cheek. Han looked down at her.
Leia turned toward the roiling, clenching m
ass of molten gold that imprisoned Luke.
She ran after her brother.
Leia dived beneath the surface of the golden sphere.
Leia swam in golden light, her hair fanning all around her. At a great distance, she saw Luke, straining and twisting between great rippling shields of solidified gold. She plunged toward him. He wrestled futilely. She remembered his time in the regeneration tank, where he slept, and dreamed nightmares, and struggled to escape.
Leia’s breath burned in her lungs. She was afraid to breathe, afraid of drowning in the thick and honey-colored light. But she had no choice. She gasped, and the warm thick radiance poured oxygen into her lungs. She exhaled, and breathed again. It was hard work, but she was not drowning.
The gold shields twisted and danced between Leia and Luke. She tried to push one aside, but it turned edge-on to her and slashed at her like a blade. Her sleeve ripped. Leia tumbled backward, then kicked upward, outward—she could hardly perceive gravity in the strange environment—and avoided one of the shields. Another whirled toward her. She met it with her boots. She kicked it. It shattered. Its fragments shattered again, and disintegrated into fine glittering gold dust, and disappeared.
She slid between two other shining plates, and reached Luke’s side.
“We can’t stay here, Chewie!” Jaina cried.
“Mama’s down there, and Papa too, and Uncle Luke,” Jacen said.
“We have to help them.” Something was wrong, she knew it. But she could not tell what. Her head hurt so much.
Chewbacca’s growl turned to a cry. He was as upset about being left out here, as anxious to go inside and help, as Jaina and Jacen. He had already moved halfway down the hill, as Jaina and Jacen pulled at his hands, but there he stopped.
Mama left him here to protect us, Jaina thought. To protect the children.
The dome reverberated with a mournful howl.
“Chewie! That’s Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf!”
He glared down the slope, whuffling with indecision.
Another child screamed.
“It’s Lusa!” she cried. “Oh, Chewie, please—!” She pounded at his leg, desperate, trying to make him go down the hill, trying to make him let her down. He glanced down at her. She stopped. She saw that she had hurt him, and she was horrified at herself for hitting him. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” She patted his fur, trying to straighten it around the bandage. “But it’s Lusa, they’re cutting off her horns, please, we’ve got to hurry!”
She pulled out of his grasp and ran.
Chewbacca roared. He grabbed Jaina and stopped her. He lifted her, and Jacen, onto his shoulders, and he loped down the hill with amazing speed.
Chewbacca crossed beneath arches and entered the building. He had to push his way into the theater past a line of Hethrir’s Proctors, who barred the way of a crowd of people fighting to get out. The people were in fancy robes and jewelry. They all shoved and shouted, in a panic. Chewbacca pushed straight through them. Jaina was afraid of the Proctors. But they could not even turn on their lightsabers! Jaina could not use her abilities, either. But Chewbacca was not afraid of them at all. He walked through their line and hardly even slowed down.
Everyone was shouting and screaming and running around. All the children Hethrir had sent away were right here, crying in fear. Even though they had no place to run, they were all trying to run away.
Except Lusa. She was running, but she was not running away. She ran right up to one of the Proctors and turned her back on him and kicked him so hard with her back feet, with her cloven hooves, that he fell down. He lay on the floor, groaning. Mr. Chamberlain’s wyrwulf followed, watching curiously.
Jaina laughed with delight. “Lusa!”
The noise was so loud in the theater that Jaina did not know if Lusa could hear her. Jaina could hardly hear herself.
Chewbacca never paused. He strode to the front of the theater, where Papa stood holding Anakin. They were both safe, and both of them were crying.
“Anakin!” Jaina shouted with joy. “Papa!” She reached down from Chewbacca’s shoulder to touch her father, to make sure he was real. “Don’t cry! You’re not dead, I knew all along you weren’t dead! Where’s Mama? Did you see Mama? Where’s Uncle Luke?”
Nearby, Tigris looked confused and hurt and unhappy. The Firrerreo stood between him and Hethrir.
She launched herself at Hethrir. She grabbed him by the throat and knocked him down.
Papa put Anakin into Chewbacca’s arms.
“Take care of the kids,” he said.
Jaina had never heard Papa’s voice sound like that before. He looked at Jaina, and at Jacen, just a quick look that did not even last a second.
“I love you,” he said. “I’ll always love you.”
He turned around and ran away and leaped up at a huge quivering gold sphere.
He disappeared beneath its surface.
“Papa!” Anakin buried his face against Chewbacca’s fur and bawled.
It was so beautiful—! Jaina wondered if Papa would come out of the sphere all covered with gold like Threepio.
Lusa ran up beside Chewbacca. “Jaina! Isn’t this fun? It’s fun to kick Proctors.”
“I’m so glad to see you! They didn’t cut off your horns!”
“No—but they were going to feed me to that monster, that monster can eat people.”
“F-feed—?” Jaina whispered. She stared at the gold sphere where Papa had disappeared, and she was afraid she knew what had happened to her mama and Uncle Luke.
Tigris fell back against the dais. Waru’s transformation roiled and shook above him. Shock paralyzed him. He had not ever expected to see his mother again. Hethrir had told him she was dead. She had been executed for betraying the Empire. For refusing to support the Empire Reborn. And Tigris had been glad.
Before him, she fought Hethrir bitterly.
He should help his lord. But he could not move.
Hethrir snatched his lightsaber from beneath his robe. Instead of turning itself on at his command, it reacted with an electronic screech and an assault of sparks and ozone. Hethrir cursed and dropped it. It spun across the floor and crashed into the wall. It shattered, melting the stone beneath it.
Rillao clawed at Hethrir’s face. The second, smaller lightsaber fell from his belt. Rillao leaped away from Hethrir. They faced each other, panting, scraped, bleeding. Rillao feinted, and when Hethrir leaped to the attack, she ducked away from him and grabbed the fallen lightsaber.
She did not engage it. She slipped it beneath her robe. In her moment of inattention, Hethrir leaped onto her back. She staggered. He choked her with his arm, and when her knees trembled, Hethrir bared his sharp teeth. He would bite her spine, snap it, paralyze or kill her—
“No!” Tigris shouted. He grabbed Hethrir’s robe and pulled him back. The Lord’s teeth snapped together, biting air, gashing his own lip. Rillao escaped his grasp and fell forward, panting.
“Foolish boy! Foolish! She’s a traitor!” Blood gushed down his chin.
“Please don’t kill my mother, my lord.”
Hethrir snorted in disgust. “She’s a traitor! She betrayed the Empire—she betrayed you!”
Rillao struggled to her feet. “You are the traitor,” she said.
Tigris glared at her, furious. “How dare you say that to Lord Hethrir!”
She looked at Tigris sadly, then faced Hethrir again. “You could not tell him, could you, Hethrir?”
“Do not speak my name!” he said.
To Tigris, she said, “He is a traitor to you.”
Tigris shook his head, confused.
“Hethrir is your father.”
Han swam toward Leia and Luke, flailing through the thick light. He swam forever, until his muscles ached.
Waru was far larger inside than outside. The creature’s circulation whirlpooled around a central point of darkness. It looked like the black hole and its accretion disk.
Han wondered, Could the black hole open
a portal to another universe? Is that where Waru came from?
Nothing could escape the black hole’s gravity … but the singularity distorted time and space around it—
None of that mattered. All that mattered was getting to Leia, to Luke. They swam back to back, fending off creatures that looked now like knife blades, now like streamlined predators with hides of molten gold. Han plowed through the ring of attackers, succeeding in his blind rush because Waru’s predators were so intent on the prey at the center of their circle.
“Han—!” Leia’s warm fingers wrapped around his. He melded into a circle with his love and his friend. They swam, back to back, kicking, twisting, fighting.
The whirlpool swept them around and pulled them inward, toward the point of utter darkness.
“Swim!” Han yelled. He knew—How do you know? he asked himself, and answered, I don’t know, I only know what I know—that if they touched the darkness, they were doomed forever.
He thought he could hear the ghosts of the people Waru had killed.
He kicked, a Swimming kick. He tried to propel himself and Leia and Luke away from the center, out of the maelstrom, to Waru’s molten skin. Leia joined his efforts.
But Luke floated between them, strangely quiescent, holding them back.
“Give yourself to me, Skywalker,” Waru said. “I’ll show you—I’ll open you to the greatest power you can imagine.”
Luke slipped away, diving toward Waru’s trap.
* * *
“It’s lying!” Leia cried. She felt her brother falling. He drew her with him, tempted her with him.
He slipped away from her. She swam after him. The whirlpool drew them deeper.
“It’s the truth,” Waru said. “I am truth.”
The siren song of Waru’s voice soothed Leia’s fears. Her fingers slipped from Han’s grip, and when she tried to find him again, the golden light blinded her.
The whirlpool held her hand.
Chapter 13
Jaina rode Chewbacca’s shoulder, with Jacen beside her. Chewie hugged Anakin close against his chest with one arm. With his free hand, the Wookiee grabbed one of the Proctors by the scruff of his neck and shook him. The Proctor grabbed his lightsaber but Jaina was not even afraid of it. She knew it would explode as soon as he tried to turn it on. He did, and it flashed sparks and burned his hand and fell to the floor in pieces. Jaina was glad.
The Crystal Star Page 30
