The Crystal Star

by Vonda McIntyre

  “Human?” the voice said. “You are … human?” A hairy protuberance with a starburst of fleshy tendrils pressed through the opening and wriggled, sensing her. “Or do you prefer transspecies?”

  “We’re looking for Lusa!” Jaina said. “She has four feet, not two! She’s red-gold, with white spots, and she has horns. Horns!”

  The furry starburst inclined downward and inspected Jaina.

  Jacen pulled at Leia’s sleeve. “Mama,” he whispered, “Anakin isn’t in the gold ship.”

  “He—he isn’t? But Jaina said …”

  Jacen shook his head gravely. Leia thought back over what Jaina had said, and Jacen was right. Jaina had never said her friend Lusa and Anakin were together. The Proctor she had questioned had let her think Anakin might be on Crseih Station. But he had not said it was certain.

  If I cannot find my little one, she thought, I’ll go back to the worldcraft and—

  “I mean,” Jacen said, “I don’t think he’s there.” He frowned. “Everything’s so weird.” He looked up at her, trusting and hopeful. “Can’t you tell where he is?”

  “Is Lusa here?” Jaina asked the wriggling starburst.

  “I cannot say, young gentle. You must speak to my mistress, Lady Ucce.”

  Leia stroked Jacen’s hair. The force of her disappointment shook her to her core.

  “Where is Lady Ucce?” Leia asked.

  “You may inquire after her at Crater Lodge.”

  The gold skin of the spaceship healed over smoothly. Leia knocked again, then slapped her hand angrily against the ship’s skin.

  But no one answered her.

  Chapter 12

  Leia’s raiders entered the lobby of Crater Lodge like a party of vacation tourists. They stood alone among the pools and streams and black flagstones. A repair droid buzzed and whined over a long ragged scrape that marred one of the tiles. The droid ignored them.

  Jaina and Jacen stared around, curious. The four-winged bat clambered out of Jacen’s shirt and flitted off into the dimness.

  “Hello!” Rillao called.

  “You are rather late.” A waterspout appeared above one of the still pools, rippling its surface. “You will have to hurry.”

  “Are you speaking to me?” Rillao asked.

  “Yes—are you not a member of the Lord’s retreat?”

  Rillao barely hesitated. “I am,” she said.

  “May I register your name?”

  “If you know the Lord,” Rillao said, “you should know better than to ask my name.”

  Leia did not need Jedi abilities to feel the tension emanating from Rillao. Her abilities had taken leave of her, as far as she could tell, leaving behind them nothing but a dull headache. She wondered if Rillao was having the same disorienting experience.

  “Your pardon,” the waterspout said.

  “Granted. The Lord has arrived?”

  “Arrived, and departed with his followers. But if you hurry you may catch them.”

  “I shall need a guide.”

  “You will not.”

  Rillao gave the waterspout a quizzical look. The waterspout spun peacefully.

  “You need only ask. For Waru.”

  “Very well.”

  “I will see that your servants are taken care of.”

  “They travel with me,” Rillao said.

  “Ah.” The waterspout shivered, then steadied.

  The Codru-bat swooped over the water, dove, splashed, and flapped upward again, a tiny fish caught in its claws. It hovered, snacking on the tasty morsel.

  “This is not the dining room!” The waterspout’s tone sharpened with anger and disbelief. “Those creatures are valuable—they are expensive! They are part of the decor!”

  Chewbacca snorted.

  “I’m sorry!” Jacen said. He held up his hand and the bat nestled into his palm. “He was hungry.”

  “Put the fish on our account,” Rillao said. “Let’s go.”

  Outside, Rillao asked the first person she encountered where to find Waru.

  “This path. That airlink. You will see.” The being blinked a circle of wide eyes. “But revered Waru is resting. He has asked for peace and time.”

  “I see,” Rillao said. “Don’t worry. We’ll just look.”

  She strode down the path. Leia and Chewbacca and the children followed.

  They had left the park dome before Leia noticed that Artoo-Detoo was not accompanying them through the airlink.

  Where did he go? she wondered.

  She could not turn back to look for him now.

  The ground rose beneath Han’s feet. He toiled up the hill. He was getting no help at all from Luke. But even exhausted and overburdened as he was, he was less out of breath than he would have been if he had tried this hike when he first arrived on Crseih Station.

  “Let me go, Han,” Luke said. “Please. Let me go. I have to see Waru!”

  Han dragged him behind a boulder, off the path, and dropped him on the ground. Luke huddled in the dust, his head down, digging his fingers into the dirt.

  “What the hell do you mean,” Han said roughly, “asking that—that thing to heal you? After what I saw it do? And you aren’t even sick!”

  “I am! Something’s happening to me, Han, something terrible. Can’t you see—?”

  “I see you’re behaving like a jerk,” Han said. “Why’d you tell Waru who you are?”

  “Han … I’m losing my abilities. My connection to the Force. I can’t maintain my disguise. People started recognizing me. When we talked about Xaverri—I couldn’t know if you were telling me the truth! I feel like I’m deaf and blind, like my heart’s been ripped out of my body.” He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it into complete disarray. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “Don’t give yourself to Waru!” Han said. “You don’t even know what’s wrong. Maybe somebody put lizards in your bed—”

  “There aren’t any ysalamiri here,” Luke said.

  “—or maybe your lightsaber has blown a fuse—”

  “It doesn’t have any fuses—”

  “—or maybe it’s something in the water! Or the air. Or the light!” Han wiped his sleeve across his forehead. The material of his shirt came away soaked with sweat.

  He sat down in the narrow shadow of a massive boulder.

  Luke started to object again, then subsided. He sat crosslegged, thoughtfully, resting his elbows on his knees. He ducked his head and combed his fingers through his hair and pulled his hood up to shade his face.

  “We’ve had plenty of vacation,” Han said. “Luke, this isn’t the old days. We don’t have to solve every problem and win every fight on our own. If you’re sick, We’ll go back to Coruscant and get you well again.”

  And figure out what to do about Waru from a safe distance, Han thought. This isn’t like the old days at all. In the old days, I always knew who the enemy was, and I only had one response. Now … everything’s more complicated.

  “I want to get out of here,” Han said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “But the Jedi—” Luke said. “Waru—”

  “There aren’t any lost Jedi here,” Han said gently. “It was all Xaverri’s reports, and her reports are all about Waru. Not Jedi. Waru.”

  Luke hesitated, “Yeah.” His voice sounded sad, and confused.

  “Let’s go collect Threepio and Xaverri and blast off out of here.”

  “Xaverri?” An edge of anger replaced the confusion in Luke’s voice.

  “Yeah—you don’t expect me to leave her here, if I can get her to leave. Do you?”

  “What do you need her for?”

  “What’s got into you?” Incensed, Han grabbed Luke’s robe and pulled him to his feet.

  Glaring furiously, Luke pulled away and flung up his hand, palm outward. Han felt the touch of the Force in the center of his chest. He jumped backward, thinking, I can’t move fast enough—I’m dead!

  The touch vanished and Luke crumpled to t
he ground. Han hurried to his side and knelt beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I’m sorry, I don’t know—”

  “I loved Xaverri,” Han said. “I loved her. I won’t deny it. I can’t. If she hadn’t left me—I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, Luke. Can’t you see that? I promise you, brother—what Xaverri and I were to each other years ago has nothing to do with what Leia and I are to each other now.”

  Luke broke his own gaze, looking away, looking down. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no cause to say what I said to you. To refuse to listen to you. It’s just that yesterday—”

  “I saw a child die!” Han shouted. “And it was like I could see my own kids in that thing’s power!”

  “You needed somebody to talk to,” Luke said. “I understand that. But I could have—”

  “You can’t understand how I felt.” Han doubted he could make Luke understand what he was trying to tell him. “I’m sorry, Luke, but you couldn’t. Xaverri could. Her children—the Empire murdered them.” Han jumped to his feet and strode away a few steps, fighting to control himself. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Luke remained silent.

  Han returned to him and helped him to his feet. His friend did not resist him.

  “Where’s Threepio?” Han asked.

  Luke shrugged. He was shaking. Han looked at him with concern, thinking, He really is sick. I’ve got to get him away from here.

  “It beats the hell out of me where he could have gone,” Han said. “He isn’t at the lodge.” He glanced toward the secret path, not looking forward to the trek through the mutant forest.

  Xaverri ducked out of the concealed entrance. She walked toward him.

  “Xaverri!”

  She raised one hand to acknowledge his greeting. Her expression remained neutral. He had almost forgotten the way their last conversation ended.

  Helping Luke along, Han went to meet her. When he stepped out of the shade, the light hit him like a wave of hot water. He stopped before her, hoping she would take his hand. She simply gazed at him, in silence.

  “We’re leaving,” he said. “You’re right about Waru. About the danger. We’re taking the information back with us. To decide what to do.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” she said in a neutral tone.

  I’ll find the Ithorian family, Han thought. They’re New Republic citizens—I’ll try to persuade them to press charges in a New Republic court. Then I can have Waru arrested, and tried—even if the Ithorian family won’t agree, there must be some victim of this monster who’s come out of its spell.…

  “Come with us.”

  Her lips twitched in a quick smile.

  “Xaverri, in the center of government? The center of law? I could never fit there, Solo. I could never survive.”

  Han grinned. “You might be surprised.”

  “Perhaps. But I think I will not risk it.” She glanced at Luke, who stood gazing at the ground with his hood pulled far forward.

  “Skywalker,” Xaverri said. “Why are you so melancholy?”

  He raised his head, but the starlight shone in his eyes. He flinched and ducked down again. Xaverri frowned and leaned against a rock spur edging the trail. She gazed at Waru’s retreat.

  At the far end of the dome, a group of people entered from the main connecting path. They strode toward Waru’s compound. First came a marching phalanx of youths in blue uniforms. Their chests shone with medals, their shoulders with bright epaulets. They led the way for a tall man in a shimmering white robe. Older youths in long white vests flanked the tall man. A more unruly crowd of richly dressed people brought up the rear.

  Han leaned on the rock beside her to watch.

  The blue-uniformed cadre stood guard on either side of the filigreed archway. The white-robed man walked alone into Waru’s compound.

  Xaverri’s whole body tensed. Han glanced at her.

  “What—?”

  “I know him,” she whispered. “It is the Procurator of Justice.”

  Han snapped around, following Xaverri’s gaze. The other followers were entering the compound.

  Then Han saw, at the back of the crowd, a human youth, or one of the smaller species of sentient beings. He held the hand of an even smaller person, a child by the way he walked. They vanished between the two lines of guards.

  Han froze.

  “Luke,” he said.

  Beside him, Xaverri turned toward him, startled by the tone of his voice.

  Han’s heart crashed against his ribs. “Xaverri …”

  “What’s wrong, Solo?”

  “That’s Anakin,” he whispered.

  He vaulted over the rock and onto the steep slope. Ignoring the path, ignoring the prickly mutant plants that ripped at his clothes, he stumbled and slid down the hillside. Pebbles rolled and clattered, avalanching beside and around him, making so much noise, raising so much dust, that he had no idea if Luke or Xaverri were following him.

  Anakin vanished into Waru’s retreat.

  For a moment, just a moment, Leia could imagine she was taking a quiet walk with Jaina and Jacen. They held her hands, trusting. Then the emptiness of Anakin’s loss drained her again, leaving a cold and hollow spot in her heart.

  “Can you catch any hint of Tigris?” Leia asked. “If Anakin is there …” She sought desperately for a sense of her child. She felt as if she were shouting as loud as she could, in a canyon so large she could not even hear the echoes. “If they’re here—then what?”

  I’ve spent years bringing back the rule of law, Leia thought. Putting the rule of justice in place of the rule of terror. But there is no law here. No justice.

  “I’m not completely without resources,” Rillao said. She strode onward without looking at Leia.

  “But we aren’t armed. And you said … you told me …” Leia hesitated, reluctant to bring up a subject that caused Rillao pain. “Wait, please.” Jaina and Jacen could not keep up, so Leia picked up Jacen and Chewbacca carried Jaina.

  “I told you he overcame me, five years ago. Yes.”

  “All his guards are with him. And he must be armed!”

  “He is. With his lightsaber … and mine.”

  “Then—”

  “Lelila, you must have noticed! It’s as your boy said.” She glanced at Jacen, and brushed his tangled curls from his forehead. “Everything is weird here.”

  Leia nodded.

  “The Force is disturbed, disarranged. I open myself to it, and it will not touch me. I cannot heal—so Hethrir cannot destroy. Our worlds have turned to chaos.”

  They exited the airlink and came out at the top of a long low slope, above a graceful building.

  “I could not use my lightsaber if I had it,” Rillao said. “But neither can Hethrir.”

  Leia frowned, confused. “Why not?”

  “Because Hethrir’s lightsaber can only be empowered by the Force,” Rillao said. “Mine is built to the same design.”

  They walked through an airlink and came upon a peaceful vista, a wide valley spreading below them.

  Rillao stood on the hill above a graceful building surrounded by archways and gardens. One by one, youths in pale blue uniforms passed through one of the arches, crossed a courtyard, and vanished into the building.

  “We have found him,” Rillao said softly.

  “His guards, anyway,” Leia said. “They’d be easier to recognize with mud on their uniforms.”

  Leia put Jacen down and turned to Chewbacca. He growled in refusal before she even spoke.

  “It’s important!” Leia said. “I expected Artoo to stay with the children, but he’s disappeared! Please, Chewie! Someone’s got to keep watch out here. In case … in case we fail.”

  Jacen clutched Leia’s leg.

  “Mama, don’t go away again!”

  She knelt beside him. “I have to, sweetheart. I have to go get Anakin. I’ll be back soon.” She steadied her voice. “I promise.”

  Chewbacca sat on his heels, hugg
ing Jaina in one arm, and gathered Jacen to him.

  “Hurry, Lelila,” Rillao said as Leia rose. Below them, the last of Hethrir’s Proctors disappeared inside Waru’s building.

  Rillao and Leia hurried down the hillside path.

  Leia heard a scattering of gravel, the scuff of boots on steep ground. She turned.

  Partway around the dome, Han plunged down the slope, heedless of the trail. Luke and another person followed close behind.

  “Han!”

  Leia ran to meet him. She pushed her hair back from her face; it flew behind her in the wind of her speed. Han slid to a stop in a small avalanche of gravel and dust. Astonished, he enfolded her in his arms.

  “Leia—what—?” He touched her hair, her painted eyebrow, her cheek.

  “I found Jaina and Jacen,” she said. “They’re all right.” She pointed up the hill, where Chewbacca stood with the twins, watching unhappily but stoically. “But Anakin—we think Hethrir brought him here!”

  “Anakin is here,” Luke said. He glanced at Rillao, then looked at her more closely. She met his gaze coolly.

  “He’s inside,” Han said. “We saw him—What happened?”

  Leia grabbed his hand and ran toward Waru’s building.

  The crowd swept Tigris into its excitement. Hethrir’s guests gathered around the stage, below the great gold altar of Waru’s form. Their lord faced it; the Proctors fanned out on either side of the entryway, standing along the back wall, watching and alert.

  “Hello, Ally Hethrir.”

  Tigris surreptitiously watched the new Proctor, amused by his surprise: The altar spoke! It moved! Its gold scales rippled and surged.

  In Tigris’s arms, Anakin watched, wide-eyed and silent.

  “Hello, Ally Waru.”

  “What have you brought me, my friend?” the golden being asked. Its form changed and expanded. Scarlet flesh swelled between the shining scales.

  “What you required,” Lord Hethrir said. “I will give you a gift. And you will keep your promise to me. You will open me to the limits of the Force.”

  “What have you brought me?” the being asked again, its voice soft and wondering. “I have waited a long time. I am tired. I am lonely.”

  Hethrir’s guests pressed forward, whispering, “My lord, take mine, take mine.”