The Golden Globe

by Nancy Richardson

him Anakin's grandfather. But that was before he began using the Force for

  evil and became Vader. Anakin wished his parents hadn't named him after his

  mom's father.

  He had once asked his mother why she had chosen to name him after

  Vader.

  "You weren't named after Darth Vader," Leia had explained. "You were

  named after my father. He was Anakin Skywalker, not Vader. And before he

  died your grandfather did turn away from the dark side. He died saving your

  uncle Luke's life." Leia had told Anakin that it was important to remember

  that the power of the Force could turn even a good man to the dark side.

  "Anakin, to me your name reminds me of hope," Leia had explained. "Hope

  that even when a Jedi uses the Force for the dark side he can choose to

  turn back to the light. Just as my father Anakin Skywalker did."

  Right now Anakin didn't need any reminders about the dark side-it was

  all around him. It coated the walls of the stairway in sticky darkness.

  Anakin could feel it trying to cover him. It tugged at the sleeves of his.

  jumpsuit and swirled around his head. He pushed it aside with his mind and

  followed his friend down the spiral stairway. Whatever was down there, he

  and Tahiri would meet it together.

  "I am going to get kicked out of the Jedi academy for this," Anakin

  said under his breath as he climbed down the stairway. "Not only that, I'm

  probably going to run into that Dark Lord of the Sith and end up in even

  bigger trouble."

  Anakin could hardly see Tahiri's back in the darkness as the two

  climbed down the stairs. And he could barely hear Artoo beeping in the

  distance. The stairway was too broken and winding for the droid to manage,

  so Artoo had stayed behind. Anakin was sure that the droid was telling them

  both to come back.

  "Tahiri, will you please wait for me? I can't see anything," Anakin

  called out. Without Artoo's light, which had been lost right after the

  stairway turned away from the crumbling wall, it was almost impossible to

  see. At least if Tahiri was right in front of him, he said to himself, he

  would be able to tell where to walk.

  "I can't see any better than you can," Tahiri called back. "This is

  quite an adventure, isn't it, Anakin," she began to chatter. "We'd probably

  just be looking at holographs if we were back at the Temple right now.

  Instead we're-yipes!"

  Anakin had heard his friend begin to fall before she'd cried out, and

  now there was a quiet rumble as the stone she was on gave way.

  "Tahiri, are you okay?" he called as he tried to move quickly down the

  stairs. He could barely see her when he bent down.

  "Yeah, I think so," she said. "Serves me right for talking so much

  instead of concentrating on where I was going."

  Anakin smiled in the darkness. He moved to help Tahiri to her feet.

  She gave a small yelp.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  "My foot is caught under something," Tahiri explained.

  Anakin searched the darkness around Tahiri's foot with his hand.

  "Your foot is wedged under a heavy stone," Anakin groaned as he tried

  to move the rock.

  "Let's do this together," Tahiri suggested. They concentrated on using

  the Force. Slowly the stone rose and then fell to one side. Tahiri pulled

  her foot out of a small hole.

  "Is it broken or cut?" Anakin asked.

  Tahiri bent down to feel her bare foot. "Not a scratch," she said in

  amazement. A moment later her hand brushed against something. Something

  that was not another rock.

  "What is this?" Tahiri muttered as she lifted up the object by her

  foot. She ran her hands over the thing. It was strangely smooth and thin.

  "Let me feel it," Anakin said. Tahiri handed it to him. He ran his

  fingers along it until he reached what felt like two wide bumps. There were

  four thin, short objects coming out of the bumps. Each of them was about

  five centimeters long. They were all bent in several places. Anakin closed

  his eyes. He knew what this was.

  "Let's keep going," he said in a weak voice.

  "What is it, Anakin?" Tahiri asked. She could tell her friend knew

  exactly what the object was.

  "You don't want to know," Anakin told her.

  "Yes I do," she replied stubbornly.

  "All right. I'm pretty sure that it's an old bone."

  "A bone from what?" Tahiri asked.

  "I think it's the arm and hand bone of one of the ancient Massassi,"

  Anakin explained. "What's more, I think it was a child's."

  Tahiri was silent.

  "Do you want to turn back?" Anakin gently asked his friend.

  "No," Tahiri replied. "We have to go on."

  "Okay. But since you won't turn back, at least let's do this together,

  " Anakin said. They joined hands and slowly walked downward. The stone

  staircase was much longer than Anakin had imagined. It wound in a tight

  spiral deep into the surface of the planet. At certain spots the stairway

  was so narrow that Anakin could touch the stone walls on both sides of it.

  The walls felt sticky.

  "We must be hundreds of meters down," Tahiri said. "Why would someone

  build such a big staircase and then block it with a stone wall?" she asked

  out loud. "Somebody must have wanted to keep wherever we're going a big

  secret," Tahiri answered herself breathlessly. A moment later she stubbed

  her toe. "Ouch, I wish we had a glowrod," she grumbled.

  "We won't need one in a few minutes," Anakin replied.

  "How do you know that?" Tahiri asked.

  "I just have a feeling," Anakin said slowly. The two tightened their

  grip on each other's hand. The stairway circled ten more times. But just as

  Anakin had said, light began to appear. But the light was not like the

  light from Artoo. It was a dusting of glittering gold that appeared in

  spots on the stairway and the stone walls. The gold glowed in the dark.

  Tahiri touched one of the spots and her finger began to tingle.

  Moments later they heard the voices.

  "Go back," came the rumbling moans. "Go back or fear for your lives,"

  the voices called.

  Anakin could almost hear his own heart pounding.

  "We are the followers of the ancient Sith teachings. We are sworn to

  protect this place from intruders. Go back or die!"

  Tahiri stopped, her hand clenching his tightly. "Did you hear that?"

  she whispered.

  "Yeah," Anakin said shakily.

  "Maybe we should get out of here," Tahiri suggested.

  Anakin wanted nothing more than to agree. He desperately wanted to

  race up the stairs and back into the light. He was terrified that he was

  being drawn to the dark side of the Force, that something was trying to

  turn him toward evil. But Anakin couldn't turn back. He knew in his heart

  that there was a reason that he and Tahiri were here. He also knew they

  might never get another chance to find out that reason, that it would be

  impossible if they were kicked out of the academy and returned to their

  home planets.

  "Tahiri, you go back if you want," Anakin whispered. "I have to go

  forward. I don't know why, but I know that the voice I heard in my head was

  not something evil calling me."
>
  "This is a dark place. You are not welcome here. Only those that serve

  the dark side of the Force can stay," the evil followers of the Sith

  teachings rumbled.

  Tahiri began to shake. She hated being afraid almost as much as she

  hated being told what to do. Anakin squeezed her hand tightly, and Tahiri

  stopped shaking.

  "Anakin, I won't go back. We're a team," Tahiri said in a tiny voice.

  "Anyway, if those voices could really hurt us, they'd be doing just that.

  Right, Anakin?" she asked.

  Anakin didn't answer. The two friends moved forward. The evil voices

  began whispering their threats.

  "Go back... go back... or strike at us to kill us."

  "Quit it!" Tahiri finally screamed. She'd had enough of the voices.

  "We don't want to listen to you anymore!" she shouted into the darkness.

  "And we won't use the Force for evil. We believe in using the Force for

  peace, knowledge, and defense, not to attack. So just be quiet."

  The voices stopped.

  "And Anakin," Tahiri said in exasperation as she turned to face her

  friend. "Stop thinking that you are the only one that beings who serve the

  dark side of the Force are interested in. I'm hearing those voices too.

  Just because your grandfather was Darth Vader doesn't mean you are going to

  serve the dark side of the Force. You aren't your grandfather. You are your

  own person, and you can make your own choices."

  Anakin was speechless. He thought he had kept his feelings private; he

  hadn't known that Tahiri understood about his grandfather. But he did know

  that some of what Tahiri had just said was true. He wasn't Anakin

  Skywalker. He was Anakin Solo, the son of Han and Leia. Still, he couldn't

  help wondering if there was something evil planted within him. Something

  that would make him use his powers to serve the dark side of the Force.

  After all, he was directly related to Darth Vader.

  "I don't know if yelling at those voices was a good thing or a bad

  thing," Anakin finally said.

  "At least whatever it was has shut up," Tahiri grumbled.

  Anakin grabbed his friend's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. They

  circled down again, and suddenly Anakin and Tahiri found themselves on the

  last step of the stairway. They had finally reached the bottom. Before them

  was a small stone room that glowed with golden light. There were patches of

  golden glitter everywhere. They seemed to be seeping from the wall at the

  far end of the room. Anakin moved to the wall and gently touched the stones

  with his fingers, which soon began to tingle.

  "The gold is coming from behind this wall, Tahiri," Anakin whispered.

  "There must be a hidden room back there."

  But how were they going to move thousands of kilos of stone? Anakin

  wondered. Sure they had lifted Artoo, and even a two-kilo hunk of metal,

  but this was different.

  As if reading his mind, Tahiri said softly, "I guess we should give it

  a try."

  Sweat dripped down Anakin's forehead. He had been trying to move the

  stone blocks for a long time. Tahiri rubbed her fingers against her eyes.

  The strain of trying to move the stones had given her a terrible headache.

  Neither of the two Jedi students had been able to move the blocks even a

  centimeter. They walked over to the last step of the stairway and sat down.

  "I don't want to give up," Tahiri began, "but this just isn't working.

  "

  Anakin nodded at his friend's words. There has to be another way, he

  thought; maybe strength isn't the answer. Then he heard the voice in his

  head again. He turned to Tahiri, his blue eyes open wide.

  "The voice in my head just spoke again," he said softly. "It said that

  there are different kinds of strength. One is physical, like the lifting of

  the droid. Another is the strength of the mind."

  Tahiri stared at her friend. For once she was speechless. Anakin

  thought about those words. He and Tahiri had proven that they could move

  heavy objects. But their use of the Force was still limited; they were not

  powerful Jedi yet.

  What exactly was "the strength of the mind."? What had the voice in

  his head meant? He remembered a gift his father had once given him. It was

  a laser puzzle, the kind that had thousands of smaller puzzles within it.

  His father had said it would take his strength to figure them out. But it

  hadn't taken any muscle for Anakin to solve the puzzle. He had used his

  mind, not his body.

  "That's it, Tahiri!" Anakin cried. "The stone blocks are a puzzle that

  we have to figure out with the strength of our minds. We solve the puzzle,

  and we'll find out what's behind that wall!"

  "I've never been very good at puzzles," Tahiri said to Anakin.

  "It's not that hard. You just have to look for patterns," Anakin

  explained. "Try to look at the shapes of the stones or the cracks between

  them. Maybe you'll see something in them," Anakin offered. Together he and

  Tahiri walked along the stone wall.

  "All I see is a lot of gold glitter," Tahiri grumbled. She still had a

  splitting headache. "Hey, this looks like an arrow," Tahiri said, pointing

  to a crack in one of the stones. It was a dark brown, and wiggled in a

  curving line up the stone wall. "There's another one," she cried.

  Anakin stood beside his friend.

  "You're right-there are at least five arrows that I can see from here.

  And they all seem to be pointing up," Anakin noted.

  "Well, then that's where I'm going," Tahiri said with a grin. She

  began to climb the stone wall. Her small feet wedged carefully between the

  stones and her hands gripped tiny bumps on the rock.

  "Tahiri, be careful," Anakin called to his friend.

  Tahiri had climbed halfway up the strange stone wall and now stood two

  meters off the ground.

  "There's got to be some sort of secret button that will open this

  wall," Tahiri said. Her hands flew around the corners of the stone blocks.

  She didn't feel anything, so she moved higher. Tahiri was still following

  the brown arrows. Only now the arrows had grown larger and were much easier

  to see.

  "It can't be this simple," Anakin called to his friend. "If the secret

  to opening the wall was arrows and a hidden button then anyone could find

  it. This wall has been standing for thousands of years. The secret just

  can't be that easy."

  "Maybe we're really smart," Tahiri called down to her friend.

  "Tahiri, you should come back down," Anakin instructed. "We need to

  think this through. Those voices that told us to go back or fear for our

  lives? Maybe they meant that if we do something wrong down here we could be

  in danger. Anyway, we aren't using the strength of your muscles." our minds

  to figure out the puzzle. You're just using the strength of your muscles."

  Tahiri grunted in response. She was almost to the top of the wall. Her

  hands ran along a stone block. There was something there. It felt like a

  smooth button.

  "Anakin! I think I've found the secret button!" she called.

  Anakin was overcome by an immediate sense of dread, so strong that he

  could almost taste it.

  "Don't d
o anything!" Anakin screamed to his friend.

  But it was too late. Tahiri pushed the smooth button. It made a soft

  popping sound, but nothing happened. Tahiri pushed the button again, this

  time harder. A loud rumbling began.

  "Hey, it worked!" Tahiri called down. "Do you hear that, Anakin?

  Something is happening. Maybe a hidden door is about to open," Tahiri

  suggested breathlessly. Anakin's neck was bent back so far that he felt it

  might break. He stood staring up at his friend. When he heard the rumbling

  sound he knew something wasn't right. No doorway was opening. Anakin looked

  above Tahiri's head. A big block of stone had come loose. If his friend

  didn't move quickly the stone would drop from the roof and crush her! There

  was no time to shout a warning. Anakin closed his eyes and concentrated on

  pushing the stone to the side. A thunderous crash jolted Anakin's eyes

  open.

  He turned to see that the stone block had landed centimeters from his

  left foot. It had missed them both. Tahiri was scrambling down the wall

  toward him.

  "Anakin, that rock would have crushed me if you hadn't moved it!"

  Tahiri cried.

  "We had better think things through before we push any more secret