Star Wars - The Courtship of Princess Leia

by Dave Wolverton

  A musical intro with horns and strings began playing, and Han found himself a bit surprised. He knew that Threepio could mimic other voices, and he'd heard the droid give some nice sound effects when telling stories to the Ewoks, but he'd never heard music coming from the droid. Threepio did a rather convincing impression of a full symphony orchestra.

  Then he began swirling in dance, doing a soft-shoe that scraped and echoed over the stone floors, and the droid sang in a deep voice that sounded an awful lot like Jukas Alim, one of the galaxy's more popular singers

  He's got his own planet,

  Although it's kind of wild.

  Wookiees love him.

  Women love him.

  He's got a winning smile!

  Though he may seem cool and cocky,

  He's more sensitive than he seems,

  (Chorus sung in accompaniment with three women who all sound like Leia)

  Han Solo,

  What a man! Solo.

  He's every princess's dream!

  Threepio ended with a flourish of horns and drums and a tap routine, then took a bow to Leia. Leia just stared at him with an expression somewhere between bewilderment and horror.

  "Hey, that's pretty good," Han said. "How many more verses do you have?"

  "Only fifteen so far," Threepio said, "but I'm sure I can come up with more."

  "Don't you dare!" Leia said, and Chewie roared his agreement.

  "Well!" Threepio huffed. He powered down for the night.

  Han lay back and smiled to himself. The chorus "Han Solo, / What a man! Solo," kept ringing through his mind the way that stupid jingles will, and he took a strange sort of pleasure in knowing that Threepio had gone to so much trouble.

  He listened to Chewbacca's deep breathing as the Wookiee fell asleep. Yet Han lay, restless.

  "Han," Leia whispered.

  "Yeah?"

  "That was nice of you, offering her the planet."

  "Oh," Han said, almost choking on the words, "it was nothing."

  "You're a pretty nice guy sometimes," Leia said.

  Han raised an eyebrow, looked across the room to where Leia rested on her mat, blankets pulled tight against her throat. "So, uh, does that mean you love me?"

  "No," Leia said flippantly. "It just means that sometimes I think you're a pretty nice guy."

  Han lay back, smiled, and breathed the sweet night air.

  When Augwynne returned to her council chambers, the children and men were still there, but the sisters of her clan had formed a circle. "Well," she said to the sisters, made nervous by the presence of the men and children she had sworn to protect, "you have all seen what the offworlders offered. Now we must decide how best to meet their price."

  Old Tannath said, "Moments ago you quoted the Book of Law , saying that we should not concede to evil. But when have we of the Singing Mountain clan ever stopped conceding to evil? Gethzerion is powerful because we of the clans have not challenged her for far too long. When she began following her dark ways, we could have put an end to her easily."

  "Hush," Augwynne said. "That was long ago, the mistake cannot be unmade. We were right to hope that she would turn from her ways."

  "She violated all of our laws," old Tannath said. "Those who commit evil are supposed to go into the wilderness alone to seek cleansing, but she sought to unite the forsaken ones and create the clan of Nightsisters. We could have killed them all when there were less than a dozen. And when she and her cohorts went to work for the Imperials, we could have warned the offworlders at the least. Yet even then we did not fight her. Admit it, Augwynne, you have loved Gethzerion too much, and we have feared her too much. We should have killed her years ago."

  "Tannath, do not question past decisions here," Augwynne said, letting her tone of voice carry her anger, "in the presence of men and children. We would not want to upset them."

  "Why not? Will my words upset them any more than Gethzerion's attacks?" Tannath asked. " 'Never concede to evil.' I ask that the council obey its own law."

  "We have all agreed to this already, earlier this afternoon," Augwynne said. "We have all agreed to help Leia and the offworlders."

  "You agreed to help them, but did you agree to pay the full price? Even if we can help them fix their ship and escape, do you think Gethzerion will just allow us that small victory? No, she will seek vengeance."

  The room became silent as the witches held their breath, thinking. If a sister from another clan stole a male slave to take as a husband, it was considered unseemly for the man's owner to steal him back. You allowed the victory. But Augwynne could see that Tannath understood the Nightsisters too well. The Nightsisters would not allow the Singing Mountain clan even a small victory.

  Sister Shen was nursing her baby, and she looked up, suddenly frightened. "We will have to prepare to escape," the young woman said. "We can evacuate the children and the old now, send them to the Frenzied River clan. We should prepare to retreat if we are attacked."

  "And leave the ship in the hands of the Nightsisters?" Tannath asked.

  "Yes," another answered. "If Gethzerion left the planet, we would be rid of her."

  "For how long?" Sister Azbeth asked. "She dreams of power and glory. Yet she would know that we are her enemies. No, she will hunt us down. We would gain nothing, in the end. No, we must fight her."

  "But if we ran" one of the sisters said.

  "Then the Nightsisters would only chase us, fight us in the open where we have no advantage," Tannath said. "No, we must prepare to make our stand here, at Singing Mountain, where our weapons and fortifications will be some help."

  "Sisters, you are talking war," a witch said from the back of the crowd.

  "And what choices do we have, really?" old Tannath asked.

  "But I am afraid it is a war that we cannot win," Augwynne said.

  "If we choose not to fight, then we will have only chosen to lose without fighting," the old one answered. "I for one will fight. Who is with me?"

  The old witch looked around the room, and the clan was quiet, even the sound of breathing was stifled. Augwynne looked at the rigid expressions, the set eyes of the women, and could see that this decision was one they regretted having to make. It was a decision they had put off too long.

  Sister Shen juggled her nursing child to the other breast, said, "I am with you," and at the back of the room two more answered, "I am with you," and their small voices fell like the first tumbling stones that signify an avalanche.

  Hours later, Han woke to the sound of distant thunder in the moonlight, the smell of some sweet perfume. The fire had died in the hearth, and outside the window, out on the parapet, Leia stood facing him. Her long robe draped to the stone, and the scattered light of moonbeams made a halo of her hair.

  "Han, come here," she said. Her voice rang in his ears, unnaturally loud in the still room, but not unpleasant.

  He got up from the straw mattress, slowly. He cleared his throat, and said, "What's going on? What are you doing out there?"

  She put a finger to her lips, glanced down the side of the cliff. "Come," she whispered.

  Han hurried over, nervous. Leia seemed soat ease, rested. Not her usual self. Han wondered if it was just the darkness widening her pupils that made her eyes seem so large, so liquid. Leia took his hand. Her small fingers were cold, more heavily calloused than he remembered. She walked out to the edge of the parapet. "Come with me," she said more loudly. "I won't let you fall." She began singing lightly, swaying in dance, and it felt as if a warm woolen blanket fell over his mind, making his thoughts muzzy. She took a step out and stood in midair, and Han thought he should be surprised, yet somehow it seemed natural for Leia to be standing in the air. He wanted to follow, but somehow his throat tightened, his face felt hot, and his knees wobbled.

  "Don't be afraid," Leia whispered. "The drop is not so far as it seems. I won't let you get hurt."

  Han's knees seemed to strengthen, and the warm burning in his cheeks and ears lessened.
He took a careful step.

  A blurring figure dressed all in hides leaped from the dark doorway behind them. The steel of a vibro-blade hummed in the air, slashed down through Leia's face. She shrieked and dropped, clinging to Han's wrist, pulling him over the edge.

  Suddenly Han recognized his danger. He jerked away reflexively as Leia fell shrieking to the rocks two hundred meters below.

  The figure in black pushed Han to the ground, pulled a blaster and began firing at the cliff face. There were women crawling up the rock wall, clinging impossibly like spiders. All of them looked like Leia. Han gasped, watched them scurry backward, then leap away and drop safely to the ground. Other guards rushed out to the parapets and began firing. Within seconds the Nightsisters disappeared.

  The woman who had saved him pulled back her hood, stood panting in a cloud of pale blue smoke and ozone from the blaster. "I knew they'd come for you," Leia said, glancing sideways at Han, and only that dangerous fire in her eyes and the sure way she gripped the blaster let him know that it was the real princess. "They'll be back."

  Chapter 17

  The next morning as Isolder sat at the campfire cooking a clutch of lizard eggs, he looked up at the cave walls, at stick figure paintings of women that danced on the rough stone. The smoke above the fire gathered at the top of the cave, an ominous blue cloud. Outside the sun had just risen, and flecks of sunbeams beat through the wiry trees. A long green lizard on a nearby tree flapped its gills and made spitting noises.

  At the back of the cave Teneniel stirred, propped herself on one elbow. "Thank you for staying with me," she said, blinking sleep from her eyes.

  "It was nothing," Isolder said.

  Teneniel argued softly, "You could have run away."

  Isolder nodded, looked down at the fire to avoid seeing the gratitude in her eyes. Teneniel seemed thoughtful. In the corner, Artoo's lights suddenly flashed as he powered up for the day. The little droid looked around the cave, whistled and chimed.

  After a moment, Teneniel said, "Your metal friend asked to know where Luke is."

  A chill ran down Isolder's spine. Every time he turned around, it seemed that Luke or Teneniel was doing one more superhuman thing. Teneniel had first come upon him by the river, danced around him, singing to him coyly, then held a rope out for him. He'd thought perhaps it was some odd custom, and as he reached to take it, the thing had leaped in the air and wrapped its coils around him so fast he'd thought it was a snake. Before he'd even thought to yell, Teneniel had stuck a gag in his mouth. Later in the afternoon he'd seen the devastated forest where she'd battled Zsinj's troopstrees stripped of leaves, denuded of bark; even the ground had been gouged. Now she was interpreting some cybernetic code for him. It gave him the chills to be in the presence of beings with such power.

  "Luke just went to fill the canteens. He'll be back in a moment. How much farther till we reach your clan?" He turned the eggs, listened to them sizzle and pop.

  Teneniel got up, wrapped her robe around her naked body, and walked over to the fire. Isolder thought she would sit to warm herself, but instead she leaned over and cupped his chin in her hands, then kissed his lips tenderly, experimentally. He was so surprised that he did not pull back. On all of Hapes, no woman had ever treated him that way so casually forceful. Instead, the women around him had been respectful but distant. When she finished, she stepped back, licked her lips as if to taste him. "You are very handsome," she said. "I wish you were Luke, and not just some commoner."

  Isolder had to think for a moment. He'd never been called a commoner before, being the prince of the hidden worlds, yet when he saw her power, he understood how she could think of him that way. "Luke's . . . a good mana great man," Isolder agreed. "I can see why you would like him."

  "All night long I dreamed about him," Teneniel said. "You could never take his place in my heart."

  Isolder thought it such an odd thing to say that he suddenly realized that more was going on than he understood. Luke came in at that moment. "I've got the water bottles filled, and the trail ahead seems clear. Let's go."

  Isolder scraped the rubbery eggs from the pan, gave several each to Luke and Teneniel. Teneniel wrinkled her nose in disgust, but Luke said, "They're pretty good. You ought to try them."

  "I do not know what you eat on your worlds," Teneniel said, "but it is obvious that you do not know how to cook." She did not eat the eggs.

  They broke camp and walked a kilometer through the forest, then came to a wide, lightly graveled trail leading north and south. Teneniel led them south on the trail for four kilometers, then took a better road east, following a river. By midmorning they came to a low valley where fog climbed up the stone mountainsides. Teneniel led them up a winding stone trail, still wet from the night's rain. She took Isolder's hand and held it the rest of the way, as if he were some schoolchild that might slip off the face of the cliff. When they reached the top, he thought they had come into a valley of oddly shaped stones, but as they walked through the fog he saw the witches, dark shapes in the white fog, straddling shadowy monsters.

  Isolder stopped to stare at the women with their helms, their intricately embroidered cloaks and glittering tunics of scaled leather. Luke's R2 unit began to rattle in its housing and moan softly. Teneniel gripped Isolder's wrist tighter, pulled him urgently, and Luke followed.

  As they passed between the monolithic mounts, the women stared down at Isolder and gave a loud ululating cry, smiling at Teneniel and laughing. He could not doubt the meaning of the hoots and chatter. These women cheered him as if he were a stripper.

  Teneniel led them to a landing, then up a flight of stairs to a stone fortress marred from battle. Apparently their presence was causing some kind of stir, for a crowd followed behind.

  There, at the doors of the fortress, an old woman came out, bearing a staff of golden wood with a great white gem near a knob at the top.

  "Welcome, Teneniel, my daughter's daughter," the old woman said. "It has been months since you last visited us. Did you find what you seek?"

  "Yes, Grandmother," Teneniel said, still holding Isolder's wrist. She dropped to one knee. "I hunted near the old wreck at the throat of the desert, guided by a vision, until I almost despaired. But I captured this man from the stars, and I claim him as my husband." She raised Isolder's wrist in the air. "His name is Isolder, from the planet Hapes!"

  Isolder was stunned. He pulled his wrist down and backed up a step, but the women around him crowded close, cooing in admiration. "All of you sisters see this man," the old woman said. "Do any of you dispute Teneniel's ownership?"

  A tenseness to Teneniel's stance told Isolder that this was a dangerous moment. The old woman searched the faces of the crowd, and Isolder looked at the warrior women. Many had dark looks on their faces, openly envious. Others smiled at him playfully, lustily.

  "I do!" Isolder said, because no one else spoke up.

  The old woman jerked back a step. "You claim that some other sister of the Singing Mountain clan is your owner?"

  "He came with me peaceably!" Teneniel argued. "He could have run away, but he gave himself!" Her voice was filled with such pain, such betrayal, that Isolder did not know how to answer her.

  "II only wanted to help you!" he said, looking to the old woman to referee. "She was injured. I only wanted to help care for her!"

  From the recesses of the stone archway, Leia appeared in a gown of glittering red scales. "Isolder? Luke?" she called, and Isolder's heart swelled inside him.

  He choked back a cry, and Leia rushed into his arms, hugged him. "Are you all right?" Isolder asked.

  "Fine," Leia said. "I can't believe you came all this way. I can't believe you found me! Luke," she cried, and she hugged the Jedi. Isolder stared at them agape a moment. Somehow, he had never realized that they were so close.

  The old woman said to Leia, "Do you know this man? Is he your slave?"

  "No, Augwynne," Leia said, separating from Isolder and Luke a bit. "He's a friend. Where I c
ome from, we don't have slaves."

  Augwynne thought a moment. "So, Teneniel captured him fairly. This one belongs to her."

  "Isolder once saved my" Leia began to argue, then tensed as Augwynne gave her a hard look.

  "What?" Augwynne asked. "You would plead for his freedom on the same ground that you did for Han Solo?"

  "We were attacked," Leia said. "Isolder saved me."

  Augwynne studied Leia's face and said skeptically, "You seem uncertain. Why? What is the whole truth?"

  "It was a brief melee," Leia answered regretfully. "I'm not sure who our attackers were firing atme or Isolder."

  "Thank you for answering honestly," Augwynne said, patting Isolder's hand.

  Augwynne glanced at Luke. "What of this one?" she asked Teneniel. "He's not bad looking. Will you also take him for a slave?"

  As one, both Teneniel and Leia said, "He saved my life," and Teneniel added, "This one is a male spellcaster, a powerful Jedi. He slew Nightsister Ocheron."

  At those words, many of the clan sisters hissed and stepped back, gauging Luke skeptically, and some of them began whispering to one another in their own language. From the cautious glances, the frowns, the whispered voices, Isolder guessed that more was going on here than he knew. It was almost as if they found Luke's presence to be . . . portentous.

  Augwynne studied Luke carefully and then glanced at the other women. She shook her head and laughed, feigning dismay. "Bah! Three new men in the village, and only one of them eligibleand him just barely? It sounds to me as if every man up there in the stars must have saved Leia at least once. All of my life I've wanted to travel offplanet, but nowI wonder how I'd fare. Tell me, Sister Leia, are people always trying to kill you?"

  Isolder could not miss the uncomfortable tone in her voice. She was nearly begging Leia to change the subject. "Well, the last few years have been pretty rough," Leia admitted.

  "Perhaps some evening, you will have to sit by the fire and spin your tale," Augwynne said. "But for now, I must make a ruling. I give this man Isolder into custody of Teneniel Djo, to keep as her husband."