deep."
"I'll help you," Lyric sang up to Tahiri, and beckoned her friend into
the waters with her pale, graceful arms. Tahiri dipped her toe into the
warm water. She sat down on the rocky edge of the pool and slowly lowered
herself until the water swallowed her body. Lyric floated by Tahiri's side,
her arm around the girl's waist, her powerful tail fin keeping Tahiri's
head above water. Anakin slipped into the water and moved to Tahiri's other
side. He, too, wrapped an arm around her waist.
"Ready?" Anakin said to Tahiri.
"As I'll ever be," Tahiri replied with a nervous smile.
"Do not be frightened," Lyric called to Tahiri. "We will be traveling
deep within the waters to the place where the oldest of my species live.
There, I hope, you will find the answer to your questions."
Tahiri allowed herself to sink below the surface of the crystal blue
water. Anakin and Lyric kept hold of her as they descended into the depths.
At first Tahiri felt panicky and breathed through the filter in ragged
gasps. Her eyes rolled wildly from side to side. Once, she tried to
struggle out of the arms of her friends, but they held her steady until she
relaxed. Tahiri saw hundreds of elder Melodies swimming around them as
Lyric pulled her friends deeper and deeper with swift, powerful thrusts of
her tail fin. The elders were so beautiful and graceful, Tahiri thought as
they traveled through the crystal waters. Strange, Tahiri pondered, as she
studied the underwater world, it was light beneath the surface of the
water.
She had expected to be swallowed in blackness. The purple rocks of the
mountain actually glowed, and streaks of neon scribbled through the waters
as Anakin and Lyric dragged her downward.
"Kick with your feet," a soft gurgling voice said from behind Tahiri.
Tahiri turned her head and saw an elder, his blond hair, as long as her
own, floating in tendrils around his face. His tail was a darker shade of
pink than Lyric's, and it sparkled in the waters.
"Kick with your feet," the elder said again.
Tahiri began to kick.
"Let her go for a moment," the Melodie instructed Lyric and Anakin.
Slowly they unwound their arms from Tahiri's waist.
"Use your arms like this," the Melodie said as he demonstrated how to
move through the waters by pulling his arms from his head to his side.
Tahiri tried. And, although she didn't shoot through the water as he
did, she did move, all by herself.
"Am I swimming?" Tahiri gurgled from beneath her mask.
"Yes," the Melodie said with a large smile and a laugh that sounded
like a waterfall.
"This is my father," Lyric sang out to Tahiri and Anakin. "His name is
Gyle." Lyric floated over to the elder, and he wrapped her in an embrace.
"You have helped bring me my daughter. Thank you," Gyle said.
Just then a school of silver - backed fish streamed through the Jedi
candidates. Tahiri panicked, and tried to thrash her way back to the
surface. Several of the elders encircled her and swam her back down to
Anakin and Lyric.
"There is nothing to fear down here, little one," Gyle said when
Tahiri was back in their midst. "Come, there is not much time, we must go
farther. Tahiri, hold my hand. Anakin, hold Lyric's."
Gyle and Lyric led the Jedi candidates swiftly through their world.
Tahiri and Anakin took in its beauty as they streamed through the waters.
There were glowing caverns, vibrant-colored fish striped with shades of
blues, greens, and yellows, and elders everywhere, playing in the liquid of
their world. Gyle came to a stop before the mouth of a purple cavern whose
surface was lined with stones that glistened red.
"Aragon!" Gyle called into the cave.
There was a rush of water, and then the elder floated gently out. He
was smaller than Gyle, and his long hair flowed in a cloud of white around
his face. His yellow eyes were large as he studied Anakin and Tahiri, who
floated in front of him in their orange academy jumpsuits.
"Aragon, these children are Jedi candidates from the academy we sent
Lyric to on Yavin 4," Gyle began. "They have come to ask about the strange
symbols that are carved in some of the tunnels and on the rock wall of an
avril's lair. Since you're the keeper of legends, and the oldest of us, I
thought you might know of these things."
"I think I have seen the symbols you speak of," Aragon gurgled. "But I
can no longer remember where, or what they mean. Ask something else of me-I
can tell you legends about almost anything beneath these waters, but the
old story you ask about was told to me more than a hundred years ago. It is
a mere whisper in my ancient mind."
Anakin and Tahiri couldn't hide the disappointment in their eyes.
"I am sorry," Aragon said sadly. "I see that I have failed you."
Tahiri let Aragon's words sink in. Aragon hadn't failed them, she
thought. It was she and Anakin who had failed, who had been unable to
discover a way to decipher the strange symbols. And in failing, they had
given up any chance to destroy the evil that held children trapped within
the golden globe.
Tahiri thought about the Jedi Code. Luke Skywalker had said that there
was no try, only do. But she and Anakin had tried. Or had they?
"Anakin, Aragon once knew the information we need," Tahiri thought out
loud.
"So the memory is somewhere in his mind, he just can't find it, right?
" Anakin nodded. He saw at once what Tahiri meant.
"Aragon," he said, "would you let us try to help you remember where
the symbols are and what they mean?"
The elder met the boy's ice blue gaze. It was clear to him that the
children's request was not one of idle curiosity; they truly needed to
know.
"Yes," he replied gravely. "Help me to remember if you can."
Anakin floated before the elder named Aragon as he struggled to put
into words a skill he'd always had. He could remember when he was two years
old and took apart his first droid with his siblings, Jaina and Jacen. He
could remember the first time he'd seen a lightsaber, heard about the
Force, learned about good and evil. But how did he travel through his mind,
picking up memories as easily as he'd drawn the symbols carved in the
Palace of the Woolamander?
"Close your eyes," Anakin said to Aragon. "Think back to the one who
told you the stories. To the one who was the keeper of legends before you."
"That was my mother," Aragon gurgled softly. "Her name was Esla. She
was taught the legends from her father, and so on and so on, stretching
back thousands of years."
"Can you see her in your mind's eye?" Anakin asked softly.
"She was beautiful," Aragon replied. "Thick, long, black hair that
reached well past her waist, lovely yellow eyes, lips the color of the
palest pink webbing. She told me the stories every day of my life, until
she passed away. We'd swim together in the waters and her pure voice would
ring with legends... the legends of my people, and of the ones who came to
ask our help."
"Who were they?" Anakin asked, trying
to control the tension in his
voice. Trying to gently lead the elder down the path to remembrance.
"I cannot recall their names," Aragon said thickly as he struggled
through the dust-covered corridors of his memory. "Only that they came to
Sistra in search of help for their children. Children who were enslaved by
some unnamed darkness. Our own children found them wandering through the
mountains and brought them to the elders. But we couldn't help them!"
Aragon cried, remembering his mother's grief in the telling of the legend.
"We could not leave our moon, the water. And so they left their messages
carved in the rocks and tunnels of our world, in the hopes that someday
someone might read them and come to their aid."
"And the symbols?" Anakin asked. "Do you know what each one means?"
"I'm afraid I do not," Aragon answered. "I saw some once, deep in the
belly of the mountain where the purella dwell, and my mother told me what
they meant. But it was so long ago, so long ago..."
Aragon fell silent, lost in his memories. Another dead end, Anakin
thought wearily. He felt his breathing becoming more labored, and knew it
was time to resurface.
"Thank you," he said to Aragon. "The algae in our filters won't last
much longer," he told Lyric. "We need to go back to the surface."
Lyric looked sadly at her two friends.
"I'm sorry," she said as she and Gyle propelled Anakin and Tahiri away
from the elder.
"Wait," Tahiri cried. She broke away from Gyle and clumsily kicked her
way back to the elder.
"What is it, child?" Aragon asked. "You said that you couldn't
remember what each symbol meant," Tahiri said breathlessly, her head
pounding as the oxygen from the algae grew thinner, "but do you remember
what the message was? Because if you do, we can find it in the bottom of
the mountain, decipher what each symbol means from the whole message, and
then use them to translate the carvings on our own moon!"
Aragon was quiet for a moment. He closed his eyes and dove into the
dark recesses of his mind, searching for the information Tahiri asked.
"I saw the strange symbols at the base of the deepest tunnel of
Sistra," Aragon said slowly, wrenching the long-forgotten memory from a
corner in his mind. "My mother told me the symbols read, `Peace to all. We
are the Massassi. We beg the ones who read this message to travel to the
fourth moon. Break the curse that the evil Jedi Knight Exar Kun made to
enslave the Massassi and imprison our children. We cannot break the curse
ourselves, but will leave a message in our palace to help those who can."'
Aragon met Tahiri's green eyes with his own. "Does that help you,
child?" he asked.
"Yes," Tahiri gasped. "Thank you."
Gyle and Lyric grasped the hands of the Jedi candidates and quickly
led them back to the surface, their tail fins furiously swishing through
the crystal waters, scribbling streaks of neon behind them. Tahiri felt her
lungs tightening as she ran out of oxygen. She clawed at her pockets and
released the rocks that weighted her down. The pounding in her head became
dizzying, and she was afraid that she might lose consciousness. Just in
time, she and Anakin burst through the surface. They ripped off their
filters and greedily gulped in air. Lyric helped Tahiri swim to the side of
the waters, and several Melodie children pulled her out onto the rocks,
where Anakin already sat.
"We've got to find those carvings," Anakin said weakly to Tahiri.
"Sannah," he said to the girl beside him, "can you take us to the deepest
tunnel in the mountain?"
"That is where the purella live," Sannah said in a voice laced with
fear. "They are enormous red - bristled spiders with glowing orange eyes.
It is strange that you have not seen a purella-every year one comes to the
cove to snatch a child or a changeling. We were lucky this time. The
purella is a vicious beast who drags away her prey and traps it within the
web of her lair. There is no escape from the web. The victim is consumed
slowly," Sannah explained in a hollow voice.
"Will you take us there?" Anakin asked again.
"I will lead you to the beginning of the deepest tunnel," Sannah
finally replied. "But I will not journey to its base. To do so means
certain death. I am willing to risk my life for both of you," San - nah
said, looking from Anakin to Tahiri. "But facing the purella is not risking
life, it is embracing death."
Anakin and Tahiri rose to their feet and walked to the water's edge.
It was time to say good-bye to Lyric. They were determined to unravel the
riddle that had held the Massassi children prisoner for thousands of years.
"You are leaving now," Lyric said sadly as she floated on the surface
of the water. "I know that you must return to the academy, but I don't want
you to leave."
"Lyric, we'll miss you," Tahiri said softly.
"You are the two best friends I've ever had," Lyric said in a voice
like dropping tears. "I won't forget you, and I'll help to teach the
Melodie children all that I learned at the academy. Perhaps someday you'll
come back to visit me?"
"I hope so," Anakin said. He didn't mention that there was a chance he
and Tahiri might never leave Lyric's mountain. A chance that they would be
devoured by an enormous, red-bristled spider. "Good-bye, Lyric. May the
Force be with you," Anakin said.
"And both of you," Lyric replied. Large salty tears dropped from her
eyes and plinked sadly down. Then she dove beneath the surface of the
crystal blue waters. The last Anakin and Tahiri saw of their friend was a
flash of her glistening pink tail fin.
She was beside herself with hunger and rage. Her underbelly yawned and
screamed for the sweet taste of a Melodie. She'd been so close. They hadn't
even seen her clinging to the top of the rocks overhead as they'd raced
through the passageway with the changelings toward the crystal waters.
She'd been ready to drop, to gouge the sharp pincers that lined her mouth
into tender flesh. Then she would have flushed her prey with enough poison
to immobilize, but not to kill. She liked her food alive. The agonizing
scream of a raith as one of the Melodies ran the creature through with a
spear broke her pleasant anticipation. She crept along the passageway to
drink in the scene with glowing eyes. She'd never seen a Melodie kill so
easily. And she'd experienced something she'd never felt before. Fear. She
didn't like it. Didn't like it at all.
Her pincers clicked frantically as she remembered how she'd skittered
back through the passageways, away from her prey, to the safety of the
tunnel where she dwelled. The purella picked her way across her thick black
web. The web she'd spun to ensnare a Melodie. Caught in its center was a
small raith. She'd come across the black rodent in one of the middle
tunnels, and dropped on it in hunger and frustration. Her pincers had
plunged deep into the tender skin of its neck, filling the raith with
enough venom to paralyze it so she could drag it back to her web by its
thic
k green tail.
When the venom had worn off, the raith had struggled in the thick
stickiness of the purella's web. But the more it had writhed, the more the
web had bound its body. Now it could only move its hard, black eyes. They
rolled from side to side. She could taste the raith's terror, just as she
would soon taste its meat. The purella slowly moved toward the rodent, her
eight legs picking through the web with care. She, too, could be caught if
she allowed her bristly backside to touch its gummy strands. But that never
happened. She moved with an eerie grace, never losing her balance. There
was no need to rush once her prey was ensnared. There was no escape from a
purella's web.
She felt a slight tremor in the web, and fixed her eyes on the raith.
He hadn't moved. Couldn't move. Another tremor, dancing along the strand on
tiptoes. The purella skittered back to the edge of her web. A web that not
only trapped her prey, but served as a perfectly tuned alarm system that
picked up every movement and vibration. Something was traveling in the
lower tunnel. The purella usually had to hunt for her prey in the mid-
passages of Sistra, but once in a while a raith or reel would come down to
the lower tunnel. When that happened, she was always ready. Orange eyes
narrowed as she glanced at the ensnared raith.
Her belly ached, but it would have to wait. When she returned, she
hoped, she'd have more food. That would be good, because she was hungry.
Lyric's World Page 5