by Troy Denning
But this figure was wearing the sleeveless robe of a Fallanassi Adept, and as she strode into the hall, her high cheeks and full-lipped mouth became more obvious. By the time her aquiline nose and gray eyes grew recognizable, Luke could not believe what he was seeing.
“Callista?”
The woman smiled, showing a mouthful of small sharp teeth, and continued toward him. “You could say that.”
The blood in Luke’s veins ran cold. Callista had been one of his early loves, a former Jedi Knight who had lost her ability to touch the Force and, discontented, drifted out of his life. The last time he had seen her had been in the Maw, when she had revealed herself to be one of the untold victims whom Abeloth had absorbed into her own being.
As the figure drew closer, the mostly healed scars of their previous battle began to grow visible—burn medallions left by Sith Force lightning and the pale gash lines left by lightsabers. This Abeloth, Luke realized, was using the same body he and the Sith had fought in the Maw.
And yet, the woman Luke had just slain had also been Abeloth. There could be no other explanation for the power she had wielded. They were both Abeloth.
Luke began to lose heart. He did not think he had the strength to kill her … again. And if he was lucky enough to succeed, how many times would she return? Not wanting to be trapped near the stage pit, he limped toward the front of the hall.
“How many bodies do you have?” he asked.
“More than you can kill.” The Callista-eyes shone, perhaps in delight at the fear she was causing Luke, and she began to advance. “I promise you that.”
As she moved, a ripple ran through her, and she became the hideous, tentacle-armed creature they had fought in the Maw, tall and vaguely human, with a long cascade of yellow hair and tiny sunken eyes with silver, pinpoint pupils. Luke raised a hand, hitting her with a blast of Force energy whose only effect was to hold her back for half a second as she took her next step.
Luke felt a sudden shiver of danger sense, and dived away a mere heartbeat ahead of a dancing fork of Force lightning. Realizing that Abeloth’s change of form had been an attempt to distract him more than frighten him, he spun to counterattack against Taalon—then Abeloth was on his back, her tentacles twined about his neck and limbs almost before he felt them. She pulled hard, bending back his limbs until his elbows ached, prying the lightsaber from his hand and squeezing his already injured throat until his vision began to narrow.
Taalon staggered up, so exhausted and sickened by his condition that he could not be bothered to run. He stepped to Luke’s side and, without ceremony or hesitation, pressed the blade emitter of his unignited lightsaber to Luke’s flank.
But Abeloth spun away, and Taalon’s blade crackled to life without injuring Luke.
“No,” Abeloth said. “First, you must do something for me.”
Luke glanced over to find Taalon frowning in confusion.
“Skywalker has already killed one of your bodies,” the High Lord said. “Are you sure you want to give him a chance at a second?”
“I want what you offered.” Abeloth started toward the back of the hall, where her other body—Akanah—lay at the edge of the glowing stage pit. “I want you to make Luke Skywalker suffer as we have suffered.”
Taalon’s lavender face transformed from an expression of bewilderment to one of understanding, and he looked toward the front of the hall, where the drone-and-crack of clashing lightsabers had assumed a new urgency as Vestara attempted to keep Ben from disengaging and going to his father’s aid.
Luke reached for his son in the Force, urging him to flee.
Abeloth’s hot breath hissed into his ear. “There is no escape, Luke.” She was speaking in Callista’s voice, with an edge so cold and vengeful it made his stomach sink. “Not for you … not for your son.”
Abeloth carried him to the edge of the pit, where Akanah’s burned and broken body lay, her back grotesquely crushed. Deciding to try again, Luke used the Force to reach into the vault overhead and … Abeloth’s tentacles tightened around his throat. He felt himself falling, and in his dream he heard the roaring clatter of a collapsing roof.
But it was only a dream, and he continued to fall … deeper … deeper … deeee …
When Luke awakened, he was still upright, still wheezing, and still locked in Abeloth’s grasp. Taalon stood a couple of meters away, on the adjacent side of the sunken stage. At his feet lay Ben, caught in a crackling net of Force energy and writhing in pain. Behind him stood Vestara, looking exhausted, battered, and—to Luke’s surprise—more than a little frightened and sad. Even Gavar Khai had been brought to the edge of the pit, though he remained unconscious and moaning in his Fallanassi-induced nightmares.
“You are weak because you have not been feeding,” Abeloth was saying to Taalon. “Mortals need to feed, do they not?”
“Of course.” There was impatience in Taalon’s reply, but even more, there was fear. “But I haven’t been able to keep food down since I fell into the Pool of Knowledge. Its water must have been poisonous.”
“And your healers cannot find the toxin?”
Taalon shook his head. “They’ve run every test known to us.”
As they spoke, Luke’s eyes were sweeping the area, searching for some way to escape that did not involve using the Force to spray them all with magma. But he was also listening, because if he and Ben survived—and he was determined they would—anything Abeloth told Taalon about what he was becoming might be a clue to destroying her.
When Abeloth did not reply, Taalon continued, “They’ve found nothing.”
“Why do you think that is?” Abeloth asked. “You have bathed in the Pool of Knowledge, my child. Is it that you remain truly ignorant of the answer? Or that you are afraid to know it?”
Taalon’s brow furrowed, and a look of comprehension and horror slowly came to his eyes. “I … I …” He looked over at Abeloth, his lavender face now so pale it was almost alabaster, then asked, “How?”
The tentacle around Luke’s throat tightened, and his vision began to narrow again.
“First, your promise,” Abeloth said. “Luke betrayed us, and for that, he must pay.”
“As you wish,” Taalon said.
The High Lord glanced down at Ben, still writhing at his feet. The Force net began to contract, and Ben’s eyes widened in surprise. For a moment, he seemed more confused by what was happening than alarmed by it. Then his flesh began to bulge between strands, and his surprise changed to fear as it dawned on him that the net was just going to keep contracting, that the thin lines of energy would soon start cutting into his flesh and slowly … painfully … chop him into tiny squares of meat and bone.
Luke could not bear the thought of Ben dying such a horrid and anguished death, but he knew he had very little chance of preventing it. The instant he tried to call on the Force, Abeloth would tighten her tentacle again, and he would drop into darkness. The cold tide of despair began to rise inside him, threatening to engulf him, and he felt a shudder of delight ripple through Abeloth’s tentacles. She was feeding on his fear, just as she was feeding on the fear of the plague-stricken Pydyrians—using it to fuel her dark side power, to heal the terrible wounds she had suffered when Luke killed the other two bodies.
Thin lines of blood began to appear as the strands bit into Ben’s flesh. The first hint of pain appeared in his expression, but he made a point of catching Luke’s eye.
“Don’t … worry.” He spoke through clenched teeth, obviously fighting to keep his voice from breaking. “I have a … plan.”
The statement was so ludicrous and unexpected that Luke would have burst out laughing … had he not been sick with fear. Still, he did not show his terror to Ben—he did not want that to be the last thing his son ever saw. So he rasped a few words past the pain in his throat. “I hope it’s a good one.”
Ben smiled. “Don’t worry, Dad.” He flicked his eyes toward his shoulder, but Luke did not see anything useful there—on
ly Vestara, standing a pace behind Ben looking entirely remorseless. “It is.”
Taalon chuckled darkly. “Oh, really? Then I must finish this quickly.” He looked over at Abeloth and smiled. “Before young Skywalker escapes and kills us both.”
“No.” Abeloth stepped over to Taalon, standing so close their shoulders touched. “We aren’t done with him.”
One of Abeloth’s tentacles slithered up Taalon’s chest. His eyes widened, and his head drew back involuntarily. The tentacle continued to rise, pushing its tip between his lips—and then it began to pulse. Taalon’s expression changed from repulsion to surprise to hunger, and he leaned forward and began to suckle.
“Stang!” Ben gasped, making a sour face. “Just kill me now.”
Again, Ben’s eyes flicked toward his shoulder, and Luke realized with a sinking feeling that it was Vestara to whom his son was attempting to draw attention.
Luke couldn’t believe it. Here they were, both nearly helpless and on the verge of death, and his son was counting on a Sith girl to save them—a Sith girl who had betrayed them both half a dozen times already. Had he been able to, Luke would have shaken his head in despair. Ben had been raised better than that.
As Taalon continued to drink, he began to look less weary and haggard by the moment. His pupils contracted to tiny pinpoints of light, and Luke realized with a shudder that this would have been his destiny, had he allowed the Mind Walkers to convince him to drink from the Fountain of Power—or bathe in the Pool of Knowledge. There were horrors in the galaxy that transcended all the glories of galactic civilization, evils that had existed before the founding of the first city—and that would remain after the razing of the last.
Taalon glanced down at Ben. The thin lines of blood swelled into rivers as the Force net tightened. Ben’s eyes rolled back, and he hissed between his teeth. Taalon grasped the tentacle and began to drink more greedily.
“Fear will make you strong,” Abeloth said, encouraging him. “Fear is the food of gods. Drink deeply and you—”
Luke reached for the ceiling in the Force and—hoping Abeloth would be distracted enough for him to succeed—pulled.
But the tentacle tightened. His vision darkened. His knees buckled, his hearing faded, and he felt himself falling again.
Luke continued to pull.
The floor started to vibrate beneath a clattering avalanche of roofing tiles and cross-supports. Something flat and hard broke over Luke’s shoulder and something long and light glanced off his head, then the tentacle around his throat slackened and the distinctive sizzle of a Keshiri lightsaber filled his ears.
Luke tried to spin away … and found himself still entangled in Abeloth’s tentacles. But his vision was returning, and he saw the cascade of tiles and cross-supports as it continued unabated, pummeling him, Abeloth, and everyone else.
He could also see about half a meter of crimson blade protruding from Taalon’s chest, slicing left, then right as the wielder made certain of a kill. To his astonishment, when the blade came free and the High Lord’s lifeless body tumbled away, the hand holding the hilt belonged to Vestara.
In the next instant, the girl went cartwheeling across the room. The blow had been so quick that Luke did not even realize Vestara had been struck until Abeloth’s tentacle retracted and began to twine itself around his forearm.
By then, it was too late for Abeloth to recover. The Force net had sizzled away with Taalon’s death, and Ben’s blood-sheeted form was already leaping in to attack. He ducked a lightning-fast tentacle slash, then spun into an ankle-high heel-kick that had Abeloth’s feet flying off the floor before she could coil the tentacle for another strike.
Luke and Abeloth landed hard, with Luke purposely slamming his head back into her face. In the next heartbeat he drove his elbows into her ribs. The blows clearly stunned her, for suddenly he had room to fight. He grabbed the tentacle around his throat and rolled, turning away from his son so she would be forced to release her choke hold—or present her back to Ben.
Abeloth released Luke. He rolled to his feet coughing and staggering, his chest aching and his knee trembling with pain.
But Abeloth was advancing on his son now, lashing high and low. When Ben extended a hand to summon Taalon’s lightsaber, her tentacle caught his wrist before it arrived, and she spun him into her grasp.
So Luke extended his hand, summoning the weapon into his grasp and stepping in to attack in the same instant. As the blade crackled to life, it was already descending toward her collarbone.
Abeloth would not be killed so easily. She spun around, swinging Ben like a club. It was all Luke could do to shift his strike and cleave through her shoulder instead of his son’s head, and even then Ben’s swinging hips caught him under the arms, and Abeloth sent them both tumbling toward the fiery cleft in the stage pit.
Luke caught his son in one arm and grabbed for the front wall with the Force. They came down on the first seating tier, more or less on their feet, and facing Abeloth.
If she had ever been anything but a monster, she did not look it now. Her eyes were blazing pits of silver fire, her wide mouth a gaping cave of fangs. The tentacles on her remaining shoulder were lashing around her in a wild tempest that was either a defensive pattern or an expression of immortal fury, and she was surrounded by a knee-high ring of shimmering Force energy that seemed to be pouring from her wound.
Luke slapped a hand against his belt and found, as he had expected, that his lightsaber was somewhere else. Without looking away from Abeloth, he asked, “Ben, do you know where your lightsaber is?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“Not on you?”
“Taalon took it,” Ben replied. “You?”
“No idea.” Luke passed the one lightsaber they had—Taalon’s—to his son. “Wait for my signal.”
“As if I’m going anywhere without you.”
They began to edge apart, forcing Abeloth to divide her attention. To Luke’s relief, she seemed no more eager to re-engage than they were—at least not yet. Even with the gruesome wound, Luke knew she would be replenishing her strength much faster than any human could … even a Jedi human.
The Skywalkers had put about five meters between them when a Sith lightsaber crackled to life on the far side of the stage. Luke cursed under his breath and hazarded a glance in that direction, anticipating another last-moment betrayal. Instead, he found Vestara tossing her lightsaber in his direction.
“Go!” she yelled.
The girl was already swinging both hands toward Abeloth and unleashing a dancing fork of Force lightning. Swallowing his surprise, Luke extended his hand to summon her lightsaber and sprang forward as best he could on his injured knee.
It was like hitting a wall of solid Force energy. One moment, he was hurling himself forward, reaching out to coordinate with Ben. The next, he was standing motionless, head spinning and ears ringing, watching Abeloth stumbling out the front door of the hall.
Luke managed to remain standing for the handful of seconds it took to be certain that she wasn’t returning—that, once again, they had wounded her severely enough to make her flee. Then his knee collapsed, dropping him to the floor in pain.
Ben was at his side at once, pulling the medkit from his belt. “Dad! Are you okay?”
“I’ll live.” Luke eyed his son’s blood-soaked form. At the very least, Ben was going to need a kilo of bacta salve and two liters of plasma. “How about you? Anything feel bad?”
“None of it feels good,” Ben replied. “But it’s just a flesh wound. Well, okay, a lot of flesh wounds, but it’s still only flesh wounds.”
Luke heard a groggy groan on the other side of the stage and realized that Gavar Khai was slowly returning to consciousness—a sign, perhaps, that the Fallanassi were no longer under Abeloth’s control. He glanced toward the door, wondering what had become of the Sith outside, and extended a hand for Ben to help him up.
“Let’s get going,” Luke said. “We should hurry, if we wa
nt to make it back to the Shadow in one piece.”
“I think you can forget that idea,” Vestara said, joining them. She stopped well outside of lightsaber range, then added, “Considering that you would have to escape Sith custody first.”
Ben’s head snapped around. “Custody?”
Vestara waved her hand toward the door. “You are badly outnumbered, in case you’ve forgotten.” She extended her hand. “It would be best if you handed your weapons over now. We don’t want any misunderstandings when I take you outside.”
Luke sighed and turned to Ben. “Some plan.” As he spoke, he was reaching out to Gavar Khai in the Force, trying to draw the Sith’s semiconscious attention to their conversation. “Tricking Sith girl into killing High Lord … good work. Letting Sith girl betray you again … not so good.”
“Ben didn’t trick me,” Vestara objected. “It had to be done.”
“Because you couldn’t bear to see me tortured?” Ben’s tone was light and unconcerned, a sure sign he understood what Luke was trying to do. “I knew you were falling for—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vestara interrupted. “Anyone could see what had to be done. Abeloth was making a pet of Lord Taalon. That wasn’t going to do the Sith any more good than you Jedi.”
“Vestara?” Gavar Khai cried. He rose and, fumbling for his lightsaber, started around the stage area toward them. “You killed High Lord Taalon?”
Vestara exhaled sharply. “Ah criik!” She looked toward the ceiling and let her eyes roll back, thinking—or, perhaps, wishing a slow death on both Skywalkers—then shot Luke a glare and raised a hand toward Gavar Khai. “This is just a dream, Father. Go back to sleep.”
She hit her father with a Force blast and sent him tumbling into a wall. When he came to a rest in a limp heap, Vestara watched long enough to make sure he was still breathing, then lowered her hand and dropped her gaze in thought.
“So what’s it going to be, Ves?” Ben asked, flashing her a grin cocky enough to do his uncle Han proud. “Stick around for Sith justice … kill your own father … or help the Skywalker boys escape?”