by Watson, Jude
At last all the tuk’ata lay dead or dying, their cries echoing off the stones of the mountain.
“So much for legends,” Anakin said, sheathing his lightsaber.
Now they were able to simply walk through the narrow passage and enter the valley. But the dark side slammed into them, a body blow. For a moment, they paused to fight the feeling, pulling in the Force to cushion it.
The mausoleums marched down the valley. Hewed from slabs of the mountain, polished by slaves, and then battered by the elements over hundreds of years, they were still enormous, high and wide, with columns and turrets. Mammoth statues, similar to those in the landing hangar, posed like guards outside the tombs. On the cliff summits, ancient statues of horrible creatures perched, appearing ready to strike. It was a valley designed to strike fear into every heart.
“We’ll have to search every tomb,” Soara said.
“Oh, good,” Darra breathed under her breath.
Obi-Wan glanced at Anakin. “You’re hurt,” he said, concerned.
“It’s nothing.”
“This is only the beginning of the battle, Anakin,” Obi-Wan warned sternly. “Let me treat it.”
Anakin bared his arm. Quickly, Obi-Wan administered bacta. The burning sensation lessened somewhat. Anakin felt the coolness of the medicine on his skin. Gratefully, he shrugged his arm back into his tunic. He thanked his Master with his gaze.
He heard something—whispering voices, just as he’d heard upon his arrival. He could see that the others heard them, too. Low, guttural, insistent. Yet what were they saying? It was impossible to tell. Something evil. Something he did not wish to hear.
“They are waking,” Ry-Gaul said.
“They know we’re here,” Siri agreed.
The dead Sith Lords, slumbering inside the huge stone mausoleums, had felt the Jedi presence. The dark energy poured out of the tombs. Anakin could taste it all, anger and cruelty and pain.
“Let’s try the first tomb,” Obi-Wan said.
He’s not there! Anakin wanted to cry. But he didn’t know how he knew it. He couldn’t trust it. It could be the Sith, trying to confuse him.
Frustration coiled inside him. He hated this feeling. He wanted to be able to trust what he knew. And he wanted to know everything. That would be true power.
“Stay together,” Soara said.
The tomb was massive. Two stone creatures guarded it, teeth bared, claws in attack position. Now Anakin recognized them as tuk’ata. Obi-Wan pressed against the stone door, and it groaned as it opened. They walked inside, keeping close together, their lightsabers held in position, serving as illumination as well as defense.
The tombs ran along the wall, slabs of stone with life-sized carved stone figures resting on top representing the dead Sith Lords. The whispers in the air grew louder. Anakin felt them against his skin like little puffs of foul air.
Trespass don’t we power Sith darkness command merciless…
Anakin heard random words, hissed in hate. He called on the Force to help him turn the words into meaningless static.
The darkness was absolute. The glow of their lightsabers barely penetrated it. They walked another few steps.
Suddenly, Darra cried out. A human skeleton rose out of the dark corner and slammed into her, knocking her to the floor. The bones trapped her like a cage. She tried to slash at them with her lightsaber but couldn’t move her arm.
Soara’s lightsaber whipped through the air. In seconds, the bones were dust. She stepped forward to help Darra.
“Careful—” Obi-Wan began.
It was too late. An energy net fell from the ceiling, trapping Soara and Darra. At the same time, blasterfire pinged throughout the tomb in a zigzag fashion. They couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Obi-Wan leaped to protect Soara and Darra. Tru and Ry-Gaul moved forward, trying to detect the source of the fire. Anakin followed while Ferus and Siri slashed at the energy net, trying to release them.
From the rear of the tomb, a fireball erupted. It rolled toward them, fast and deadly.
“We have to get out of here!” Obi-Wan shouted.
Soara began to kick free of the net, grabbing Darra’s arm and hauling her out. The Jedi hurtled toward the door. It was sealed tight.
They were trapped.
Chapter Twenty
There was nowhere to go but up. The heat of the fireball singed them as they leaped. It hurtled under them and smashed against the door. The Jedi were able to hang in the air, using the Force, for the crucial seconds they needed. They watched in astonishment as the fire blasted through the closed door. Corrosive, annihilating, the fire ate through stone.
The Jedi landed on the still burning ashes and made it outside. The fire burned itself out until it was just a pile of ash on the floor.
“Are you all right?” Soara asked Darra.
Darra nodded, but she still looked shaky from the electrical pulses in the stun net.
Obi-Wan knew one thing. They could not search every tomb like this. They would lose their energy, lose their focus.
He faced the tombs. He reached out, feeling each dark place, sending his concentration to every corner.
He felt him again. Omega was close now to his goal. Obi-Wan smelled his triumph.
He turned. “There.” He pointed down the row. “Zan Arbor and Omega are in there. They’ve gone to meet the Sith.”
Singed by the fire, bloodied by the tuk’ata, they moved as one body toward the tomb Obi-Wan had indicated.
Anakin knew he was there. The Sith was somewhere in the vast tomb. He was waiting. He was watching. But Omega didn’t interest him. The Jedi did.
When they entered, it seemed even darker than the first tomb had been. The air was close and smelled of decay. The tombs here were in worse shape, crumbling, some of them decayed so much that they could see the bodies inside wrapped in shrouds.
Obi-Wan held up his lightsaber. From its glow they could see pictographs on the walls, images scrawled in red that had faded. Images of deeds done by the Sith. Wars. Massacres. Anakin turned his face away.
Join us darkness conquer dominance glory…
Anakin saw one of the shrouds rise. The layers of gray, shredding rags fell away. He gasped in shock. It was his mother, Shmi.
“Annie,” she called. “Annie.”
“Mother.” The word was wrenched out of his belly. How much had he longed to say that word again, to see her again? It was the Jedi who kept him from her, the Jedi who had taken him away.…
“Anakin!” Obi-Wan’s voice was sharp. “It’s a vision. Nothing more.”
Anakin swallowed. The shroud was back in the crypt. He gazed at the others, embarrassed. Ferus looked at him with pity. Pity! His hatred for Ferus flooded him again. He had embarrassed himself in front of Ferus!
The visions came to all of them then. Sith Lords rose and walked toward them, their mouths gaping, their hands grasping, and then disintegrated onto them with foul smells and tastes. The Jedi walked on, through the corpse visions, through the whispers, through the taunts.
You are blind and you are fools and you understand nothing.…
The dark side of the Force was like a thick curtain Anakin couldn’t draw aside. It got in his mouth and eyes and felt as though it could slow his hands, stop his legs. Still, he kept on walking, kept on moving. There was nothing else to be done. They had to get to the end of it.
The creatures carved from stone that sat on the ledges took flight in shimmering images of fire and destruction. Tru ducked as one of them flew directly in his face, but the creature became nothing but particles of dust. Anakin saw Tru grip his lightsaber more tightly.
Tru’s lightsaber! He had forgotten to tell him to check the readout for the flux aperture! He had walked away, angry and hurt. Why hadn’t he remembered?
Had he wanted to forget?
He couldn’t do it now. If he did, the Masters would know that Tru’s lightsaber had broken and he hadn’t told Ry-Gaul. He would get hi
mself and Tru in trouble. And Ferus probably had fixed it perfectly, the way he did everything else.
What you are and what you do mean nothing next to what we are and can do.…
Thinking of Ferus made anger spurt through Anakin. It was something hard inside him. It filled him up. It felt natural, it felt right, to allow his anger to grow. Why had he tried to quell it? He had every right to feel it! Just feeling it now gave him strength.
Obi-Wan held up a hand. “Stop. Energy trap.”
Anakin could see nothing. Everything was dark except for the light from Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.
Obi-Wan spoke in a hushed tone. “Concentrations of dark power. They are capable of immobilizing a Jedi for a time.”
“I don’t see anything,” Ferus said.
“Look away, then look back. Use the Force,” Siri instructed.
Anakin looked away, then looked back. He caught the faintest shimmer of purple in the air. It appeared and disappeared. You could miss it if you blinked.
“I see it,” Darra said.
“There will be more,” Obi-Wan warned. “The Padawans must be very careful. You most likely won’t be able to escape alone. Stay close to your Masters.”
They moved forward, avoiding the trap.
The chuckle split the fetid air.
“I would expect no less of you, Obi-Wan.” The voice came out of nowhere. Mocking, sure of himself.
Granta Omega.
Obi-Wan stopped.
Slowly, Omega walked out from behind a tomb, just meters ahead.
He tapped a finger on his utility belt. “Did you really think you could avoid a few traps and catch me?”
“Get back here, you fool,” Zan Arbor hissed, appearing behind him out of the darkness. “Why must you always talk to him?” In her blue shimmersilk, she looked as well-kept as ever, her blond hair piled in a profusion of neat braids on her head.
“Because I’m enjoying myself,” Omega said. His handsome face creased in a wide smile. He appeared utterly at home in the terrible tomb. “I have, let’s see—one, two, four, eight Jedi, all sent to capture little old me!”
“Are you forgetting I’m here, too?” Zan Arbor snapped. “Typical. I was a Jedi enemy before you were born, Granta.”
“My father was their enemy before me,” Omega said.
Xanatos. Omega’s father, the former Jedi who had tried to destroy Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan had told Anakin about him. His son maintained the same arrogance, the same cruelty, the same howling need to hurt the Jedi, to make them pay for everything they lacked themselves. Honor meant nothing to either Xanatos or Omega. Only power. Only revenge.
Zan Arbor waved a hand. “This isn’t a contest. I’m going on. Sith or no Sith, I can’t wait to get off this planet. Come along. He’s waiting for us. Come on,” she urged sharply. “He’ll take care of the Jedi—he promised us that. He’s about to give us everything we worked for. Resources. Secrets of the galaxy. Wealth. An army of our own, Granta!”
But Omega didn’t move. Here would come his downfall, Anakin thought suddenly. The reward he was about to receive meant nothing in the face of his personal revenge.
“I can take care of this,” Omega said. “With his help.”
“Can I remind you of something?” Zan Arbor exploded in exasperation. “You are not a Sith!”
“I have surprised you every step of the way, Obi-Wan,” Omega said, ignoring her. “And I didn’t even know the secrets of the dark side! Can you imagine what I’m capable of now, in this place, where the very walls are your enemy?”
Obi-Wan held his gaze. Anakin glanced at him. He saw that Obi-Wan had no desire to speak. In his gaze Anakin detected no anger, no response to Omega’s taunts. There was simply the grim will to get this done. There was no way Omega was leaving this tomb unless Obi-Wan led him out.
“Don’t want to talk to me, Obi-Wan? Giving me the silent treatment? You’re spoiling my pleasure.” Omega gave a theatrical sigh and raised his hand, revealing a KYD-21 blaster. Anakin recognized it. Fast, precise, compact.
“I must admit, it’s inconvenient that the Jedi found me here. But in a way, it’s such a delicious end. I’m invincible now, you see. I fight with the power of the Sith behind me. And that means I can watch you die, Obi-Wan. You and your apprentice. I can’t wait. Do you want to follow me back there, or are you too afraid to finally meet your defeat?”
He had gotten no further than a flex of one finger muscle to fire before Obi-Wan exploded in movement. He raced toward Omega, his lightsaber held in a classic offensive maneuver.
The blaster bolts came fast and furious. Obi-Wan deflected each one, swinging his lightsaber in a wide arc.
A horrid stench suddenly rolled out from behind Omega. He smiled, as if he knew what was coming. No doubt he did.
Then the undead came. Korriban zombies, revived by the Sith to guard the tombs. Anakin had read about them, but never thought he’d see them; the Sith must have activated them to defend Omega and the sacred Sith ground. The zombies were used to eating the flesh from the tombs; now they had living targets in mind. And they had blasters and detonators to make the kill. They came careening out of the darkness now, different species but all moving with the same odd, lurching gait…the air came alive with smoke and fire.
Recovering from a moment of shock, Anakin moved to flank Obi-Wan. The zombies had strength beyond the living. They were half-rotted, a horrifying sight. Anakin did not look at their dead gazes. He went after them ruthlessly, his lightsaber deflecting their fire while he cut them to ribbons.
They were an obstacle, nothing more. A sorcerer’s trick from long ago. He would not let their gruesome appearance or their grasping bloodied hands deter him.
He had to be in on the capture of Omega. Working together, he and Obi-Wan deflected fire while they moved toward a steadily retreating Omega. Zan Arbor had disappeared. For Anakin, she had ceased to matter.
Then the darkness came alive with visions. The Sith Lords, mighty in their armor, terrifying in their decaying, bloodied faces. They rushed at the Jedi, only to disappear in a shower of splintered shadow. Anakin tried not to flinch, to keep his eyes on the blaster fire, but the confusion was everywhere.
The dark side of the Force was like a presence, interfering with concentration and sapping energy. The Jedi reached out to one another, calling on the Force to battle the dark side, the undead who kept on coming. Anakin saw Shmi rise and fall, rise and fall. He felt the familiar need, the familiar guilt. The feelings overwhelmed him and Obi-Wan had to leap in front of him to protect him from a detonator heading his way. Obi-Wan swiped it out of the air.
They didn’t choose me, and yet I fight for them, Anakin thought in anger. They chose Ferus, and yet I must fight to protect him, protect them. My Master didn’t protect me, why am I doing this?
A phantom Sith Lord smiled at him. Reached out a hand.
“Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice was close. “Keep your focus.”
His focus. Yes. Of course the dark side would go after him, not just with phantom Sith, but phantoms in his brain. Thoughts that weren’t his. Anakin reached out to the Force to help him battle the voices. He felt his head clear.
Tru had leaped up on a tomb to fight two zombies. With his flexible arms and legs, he moved like a rolling wave. He took down three thermal detonators that were flying through the air. He swung his lightsaber in an arc. It flickered. Anakin watched in horror as it buzzed, the shaft flickering again and again. It was losing power!
Tru was in the middle of them. Obi-Wan hadn’t seen it. He had charged forward, the way to Omega now clear.
Everything in Anakin screamed to follow Obi-Wan, to be in on the capture of Omega. Except one thing.
Friendship.
But he had hesitated too long. As he watched, Ferus and Tru exchanged a glance. Simultaneously, Ferus and Tru flipped their lightsabers through the air. Tru caught Ferus’s, and Ferus caught Tru’s.
Re-energized, Tru went after the undead, hacking off limbs and dis
abling the living corpses. Ferus dropped to a backup position with the half-powered lightsaber.
But suddenly Omega appeared again. He had sneaked around the back of the tombs. Zan Arbor reappeared at his side. Anakin realized that they were trying to trick the Jedi. They had set up most of the firepower in the middle of the tomb. While the Jedi expected them to retreat to the rear, they were actually about to escape through the front door.
He saw it again, the flicker at the end of his vision, a cape furling as fast as a serpent’s strike. The Sith stood at the entrance to the tomb. Waiting. His face was hidden in the shadow of his hood.
Zan Arbor hurried toward him.
Anakin wrenched his attention back to Tru. Because Ferus was watching Tru’s back, he was the only one in Omega’s path. The Jedi Masters had all been at the fore of the fight. Ferus’s lightsaber flickered in the dark.
Seeing that he was in trouble, Darra Force-leaped toward Ferus, her lightsaber held high, determined to save him.
Anakin saw the smile on Omega’s face when he fired.
The bolts hit Darra straight in the chest. She fell, still keeping her body between Omega and Ferus.
Soara cried out. Anakin felt the moment spin out into impossible time, time that froze everything, even his heart.
He saw the blue shimmersilk move like a breeze as Zan Arbor took advantage of the distraction to dash for the entrance. Blue Force-lightning erupted in the darkness, a barrier shielding her from the others, giving her space to run.
He saw Tru’s mouth open in a howl. He saw Ferus drop to his knees and crawl toward Darra, saw him take a blaster bolt in the shoulder and keep on going. He saw Siri leap forward to defend all of them, saw Soara fly through the air in a great Force-leap to be near her Padawan. Saw Darra’s head turn toward him, her cheek against the dirt. Saw the cloudy film in Darra’s eyes, the shock of catching the blow. He saw, as if it were a physical struggle, her gathering her courage to accept the blow.