by Adam Gidwitz
“Lord Vader,” Admiral Piett murmurs. He has hurried from the bridge, from where the destroyer is navigating a particularly nasty asteroid field. His hands are shaking. For lots of reasons.
Slowly, the dark egg cracks open. Vader is sitting with his back to the admiral. His helmet is off. Piett averts his eyes. Even the back of Vader’s head is difficult to look at—flour-white skin, scars and burns crisscrossing the surface.
The helmet is lowered. The skin is sheathed in the shining alloy of Vader’s black helm. He turns. “What is it?”
Vader’s voice inspires uncontrollable shivers of fear, no matter how many times one hears it. The admiral, though, has a message even more terrifying. He swallows hard before saying, “The Emperor commands you to make contact with him.”
Vader’s reaction is swift. “Move the ship out of the asteroid field so that we have clear transmission.”
“Yes, my lord.” The admiral scurries away. Vader steps from his meditation cell and strides to a small platform—the transmitter deck. He steps onto it. He kneels. He bows his head.
The sight of Vader bowing should strike fear in any heart. For it means there is one more powerful, more evil, than he. And that one is come.
A projection fills the room, from floor to ceiling. It depicts a figure in a black cloak, hooded like a Jedi’s. Under the hood, barely visible, is a hideous face. Wrinkles deep and regular as a castle’s moat run in concentric lines from temple to chin and under the sunken eyes. Those eyes are a rich yellow, with piercing black pupils. Vader sees none of this. His head is still bowed.
“What is thy bidding, Master?”
The Emperor’s voice is deep, like Vader’s. But it is raspy, too. More of a croak than a voice. “There is a great disturbance in the Force.”
Vader nods, not raising his head. “I have felt it.”
The Emperor inhales—as if drawing breath through a reed in a swamp. “We have a new enemy. Luke Skywalker.”
Vader’s head does not move, but a new tension grips his hunched shoulders, his bent neck. “Yes, my master.”
“He could destroy us,” the Emperor croaks.
For a moment, Vader does not speak. When he does, his rich voice is slow and deliberate. “He is just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.”
“The Force is strong with him,” the Emperor says. “The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.”
Vader raises his head to his master—a new idea occurring to him, it seems. “If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally.”
Pause. The Emperor’s gaze considers his most promising pupil, penetrating that dark helm, that black mask, through his apprentice’s burnt and scarred skin, and down into his dark heart. There, in the center of evil, the Emperor detects…something….He cannot tell what it is.
“Yes,” he croaks at last. “Yes, he would be a great asset.” And then, “Can it be done?”
Darth Vader bows his head again.
“He will join us or die, my master.”
YOU ARE STANDING on your hands. Yoda is balancing on your feet. The blood has rushed to your face. Rivers of sweat are running down your arms and your neck, and taste salty in your mouth. The air is thick and wet around you.
“Relax you must,” Yoda murmurs. “Use the Force. Think you must not. Strain you must not. Breathe. Rooted you must be. Like a tree.”
There are two stones before you, each about the size of a grapefruit.
“Now,” Yoda murmurs, “the stone. Feel it.”
You focus on the smaller of the two stones. Slowly, it begins to rise. Untouched by anything but your thoughts, and the Force. You lift it, move it, until it rests on top of the other stone.
You have returned to the fen where the X-wing crashed. It has been sinking deeper and deeper into the muck each day. Your supplies are still stacked in messy piles on the bank. As you hold yourself upside down, and focus on keeping one stone balanced on the other, R2-D2 starts beeping frantically.
“Focus…” Yoda purrs.
Still concentrating on the stones, you glance over at R2-D2. He’s standing by the X-wing.
The ship is sliding rapidly into the swamp. At this rate, it will be gone within minutes.
“Concentrate!” Yoda cries. Too late. You go toppling over, throwing the little Jedi to the ground. The stones fall.
You jump to your feet and run to the edge of the swamp. You stare. Only a tip of a wing of the fighter is still visible. R2 continues beeping frantically.
“We’ll never get it out now!”
Yoda appears beside you, dusting himself off from his fall. “So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing I say? Understand you nothing?”
You shake your head, staring at your only means of getting off this fetid, stinking swamp-planet—as it disappears into the muck.
Yoda gestures at the ship. You know what that gesture means.
You look between him and the X-wing. You shake your head. “Master! Moving stones is one thing. This is totally different.”
“No! Not different. Difference is in your mind only. You must unlearn what you have learned.”
You shake your head. “Okay. I’ll try.”
“No. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
You take a deep breath. Focus on the ship. You reach out your hand and grip the ship with your mind. It is enormous.
You wrap your mind around every corner, press your thoughts into every edge.
Your mind probes the swamp around the ship.
You begin to lift.
It rises.
And rises.
You feel its weight. Its enormity. It is ten of you. Twenty. Fifty. You strain against it. Don’t disappoint Yoda, you think.
Your concentration is beginning to waver. You are straining. The ship starts to sink.
Don’t disappoint him.
It sinks entirely.
“I can’t,” you say, bowing your head. You are exhausted. “It’s too big.”
Yoda peers up at you. “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?”
You shake your head.
“Be not the older sons. Judge me not as a toad. Nor a cat. Nor a king. Nor a man. I am both. I am all.” Suddenly, Yoda pinches you.
“Ow!”
“This flesh deceives you. Yes, today you look like a man, and the ship looks like a ship. But you are not, and it is not. Shapes of the Force you are. One and the same. Reach out with your feelings you must; part of all things you are. Particles we are, waves, all one.” He holds you in his gaze. “A candle’s light you see. The candle I hide with my hand. The candle I reveal. Different light? No. One light. Separated by my hand.” He turns to the swamp. “So with you and the ship. One you are. Just separated.”
Your shoulders go limp. You are so confused, so tired. “I don’t know,” you say. “I think you’re describing the impossible.”
Yoda shakes his head. He closes his eyes and reaches out a small, withered hand. Birds are singing in the ancient trees. The forest is thick and still. Calmly, with a face relaxed and at peace, little Yoda raises his hand.
The X-wing begins to rise, rise, rise, up out of the swamp. Ten metric tons of steel and circuits hover over the surface of the water, and then travel, slowly, steadily, to the shore. Yoda, all thirteen kilograms of him, lowers his hand, and the fighter comes to rest on the mossy, root-strewn bank.
“I…” you stammer. “I don’t believe it…”
Yoda nods.
“That is why you fail.”
LESSON XI:
DO NOT STAND ON YOUR HANDS AND LIFT ROCKS
Don’t worry, young one. I don’t except you to stand on your hands and move stones around, or to lift a spaceship with your mind.
I mean, that’d be cool. If you can do it, go for it.
But I don’t expect you to.
Instead, try this: first, meditate for ten seconds.
Then, stand on one foot. Or put a book on your head.<
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Count to ten.
Okay? Now, while still balancing, say your telephone number, backward.
Can you do that? If so, keep balancing, but now, spell your first name backward.
Now, if you’re somewhere you can, stand on one foot and balance a book on your head, and then spell your full name backward.
Try not to get frustrated. Breathe. Use instant meditation to stay calm.
If this is hard, that’s okay. Just keep doing it. Not trying to do it, mind you. Just do it again and again and again until it isn’t so hard. Until you can balance on one foot and keep a book on your head and spell your full name backward—with a smile.
And then you might be ready to move rocks and spaceships with your mind.
Maybe.
YOUR EYES ARE CLOSED. The breath whistles in and out of you, like water running through a thin pipe. The corners of your mouth edge up. It is pleasant to be at peace.
The sounds and smells of Dagobah are exploding. A bird with a raspy, echoing caw announces that the tree twenty paces forward and forty paces to your left is his tree. And don’t you forget it. You can’t see the bird, or the tree, of course, because your eyes are closed. But you can hear him, and sense him, and you try to tell him, Fine. It’s your tree. Enjoy.
It rained last night, and the smell of the ground is rich with all the plants and worms and millipedes that love it when the earth is soggy. They are churning the loam over and over in their little underground farms. You can sense each one.
“Good,” Yoda says. “Good. Feel. Sense. Smell. Hear. Mm. Your eyes closed you must keep. Test you now, I will. Calm you must stay. Still you must be. Holding something, I am. Sense it, and tell me.”
You breathe out through your nose, pouring out your silvery, fluid breath. You draw it in again.
His hand is outstretched. Something sits on his hand. You can hear its rapid heartbeat. So it is alive. And small. Last time it was a mouse, so maybe this time—no, don’t think it through. Just sense it. The creature is lying flat, its belly—
“Luke!” Yoda rasps.
You smile. He’s trying to distract you.
“Open your eyes you must!”
You shake your head and retrain your focus on Yoda’s outstretched hand. Where is his outstretched hand? Has he moved it? Your smile fades. You are concentrating.
“Luke!”
You are jerked back and forth. Yoda has grabbed your shirt. He is shaking you.
You laugh quietly. “Oh, no, Master. You told me to keep my eyes closed. Nice try, though. You’re holding a small animal in your hand. I’m going to sense what it is.”
“Sense what is coming out of the jungle you should!”
Your smile disappears again. But still your eyes are closed. You throw your attention to the woods. A distant boom, accompanied by the sounds of branches snapping and brush being crushed. Again. And again.
“It’s a…” you say. “It’s a…”
“Keep your eyes closed if you like!” Yoda croaks. “Running I am!”
Your eyelids pop open.
Your mouth falls agape.
Coming through the trees, directly for you, is an enormous elephoth.
Its hide is green and thick as armor. Its two thick tusks jut straight out from its mouth, like the blasters on a snow walker. They are greenish, and covered with moss and vines, like fallen trees. It has two trunks protruding from its face, and they writhe like angry snakes.
The elephoth stands as tall as a small tree, and weighs probably as much as your X-wing. Its legs are thick and round as hornbeam trunks. Its small red eyes gaze around madly.
You look over your shoulder. Yoda is hopping over fallen tree trunks and waddling away from you as fast as he can. He is making pretty good time.
You look back at the elephoth.
And then you remember R2. He’s doing some maintenance on his memory core. You spin around. Lights are flashing on his body, but his audio and visual processors must be temporarily offline, because he hasn’t started screaming and cursing at you yet. If he had seen the elephoth, he would have invented new curse words by now.
You spin back toward the rampaging beast. It tramples the earth and is twice as close to you as it was before. Could you outrun it? Maybe. But not if you had to carry R2 with you.
So you reach for your lightsaber. You ignite it.
The blue light catches the elephoth’s small red eyes. It rears back, like a tree uprooting itself, and blasts a double cry, one from each trunk, in wrenching harmony. The jungle echoes.
You breathe. You straighten your spine. You smile. You hear. You feel. You sense. You raise your pulsating blade.
And then you hear another blast, also in the distinctive harmony of elephoth trunks. But this one is shriller, and far away.
The cry enrages the elephoth before you. It rears up again, and then comes crashing down.
“Beeeeeeeeeep! Beeeeeep beep beep beep beep boop!”
R2 has woken up. Great.
“Beep beep booooooop!”
You try to focus on the elephoth again, and not the unrepeatable things R2 is emitting from his speakers.
The elephoth is coming for you. You grip your lightsaber. It is ten meters away.
Eight.
Six.
Four.
Almost close enough for your blade.
Two meters away.
You bolt to the right, waving your lightsaber above your head.
The enraged elephoth follows.
You bound over a fallen tree trunk, plant your foot on a flat stone, leap across a mucky patch of thick moss, and begin to run. Still, you wave your lightsaber above your head.
You don’t have to look back. You can feel the elephoth following you. And hear it. It’s pretty loud.
Ahead there is a tangle of brambles. You slash it with your blade and run directly through it. The elephoth roars its two tones. Somewhere ahead of you, the roar is answered. The crash of the great beast’s footsteps are falling ever so slightly behind.
Four meters.
Six meters.
Eight.
You slow your pace.
Eight meters.
Six.
Okay. That’s close enough.
A ravine is ahead of you. You can see it, thick with ferns and vines and half-rotted trees still standing somehow.
You dance across a fallen log, sensing the good wood without having to hesitate even for a moment. As soon as you jump off it, the elephoth steps on it, sending it splintering into the air. You jerk your head to the left as a chunk of sharp wood hurtles past your ear. From behind. You felt it before it happened. You try not to smile.
You arrive at the edge of the ravine. Vines hang like a quiver of arrows. One of them is good and strong and ready to bear your weight. You ignore it. You turn off your lightsaber, sheath it, and then slide down the side of the ravine.
The elephoth slows. It doesn’t like steep slopes. You had not reckoned on that.
You break your fall with your feet, slowing the slide down the slope. You reach for your lightsaber.
You ignite your blade and wave it above your head. The response is the frantic two-tone call of an elephoth, coming from the bottom of the ravine. Above you, the call is answered.
And then there is thunder. The great beast with the tree-trunk tusks is charging down the slope behind you.
Twelve meters.
Six.
Two.
You plant your feet and hurl yourself away from the ravine wall, hurtling across the space of the ravine, arms flailing, legs kicking, hair flying, before you crash into the opposite wall, a good ten meters away. You did not know you could jump ten meters. As it turns out, you can.
Your cheek hits the twiggy, root-woven earth. It explodes around you. You grip the soil and turn around.
The elephoth has stumbled to the bottom of the ravine. Its great tusks are covered with half the forest that you ran through to escape it. But it has calmed. For beside
it is a much smaller elephoth. That smaller elephoth is rubbing its great domed head against his mother’s flank. And she is exploring his face with her two huge trunks.
You smile, pull yourself to your feet, and climb up the side of the ravine.
At the top of the slope, Yoda is sitting on a stump. He is watching the two elephoths.
You look at him expectantly.
He says, “Next time I tell you to open your eyes, listen you might.” Then he crawls down from the stump and hobbles off toward home.
He is laughing quietly.
LESSON OMICRON:
KEEPING TRACK OF EVERYTHING ISN’T EASY
You’re going to need an assistant for this one.
I want you to stand on one foot, or to balance a book on your head. Breathe. Meditate for ten seconds.
Now, while you’re balancing, your assistant is going to read the following riddle to you. You should NOT read the riddle before this begins. The whole point is for you to focus, relax, and think clearly—all while standing on one foot or balancing a book on your head.
Okay. Get in position. Meditate.
Hello, assistant. This is the riddle. Read it aloud:
A city bus is on its route. At its first stop, it picks up ten passengers.
At its second stop, the big white bus whines to a stop, opens its doors, lets off two passengers, and picks up four more.
At the third stop, its brakes screech, it lets off two more passengers, and picks up six.
At its fourth stop, it hisses as it comes to rest. The doors jerk open. No one gets off, and four people get on.
At its fifth stop, with the sun glinting off its windshield, five people get on and six people get off.
Okay? Got all that?
What color was the bus?
Don’t know? You should keep balancing. Your assistant should read the riddle again.
Did it?
Okay, this time the question is: How many people got off the bus at the fourth stop?
Don’t know? Last chance. Read it one more time.
Now: How many people are on the bus after the fifth stop?
