Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [160]
Leia didn’t remember. That had been back before she’d met Cray. Magrody’s other star pupil, Qwi Xux, had probably had her life saved when the renegade adept Kyp Durron had wiped out her memory.
And Ohran Keldor had been Magrody’s pupil as well.
The door hissed open, and Leia felt the sharp blast of the warmer corridor air on her face. Though her eyes were closed she could “see” Lord Garonnin and Drost Elegin come inside, the stocky security chief carrying an infuser.
The metal of the infuser was cold against her throat; she felt the rush of chemical, of warming wakefulness, stir her veins.
The sensation of green glass around her vanished. So did the ghosts, and even the memories of the ghosts, of others in the room. Her head ached as if her brain had been stuffed with desiccant.
“Your Highness?”
Leia tried to reply and discovered that her tongue had turned into a three-kilo sack of sand. “Unnnh …”
Her eyes were still shut, but she saw Garonnin and Elegin exchange a look. “Another one,” said Elegin, and the security chief frowned.
“We don’t want to harm her. Idiots.”
He loaded another ampoule into the infuser and put the metal to Leia’s throat again.
Her mind cleared with a snap, her heart pounding as if she’d been waked in panic by a loud noise; she flinched, sat up, aware that her hands were shaking.
“Your Highness?” Garonnin sketched a military bow and replaced the infuser in his pocket. “Madame Roganda wishes your presence.”
He didn’t sound happy about it, though it was difficult to tell what emotions passed behind those wet-stone eyes. Madame Roganda was a title of courtesy … Roganda was certainly not a person qualified to demand that the last Princess of the House Organa come to her. Leia slowed her breathing, raised her eyebrows slightly, as if she had not expected that humiliating a slight, but with an air of gracious martyrdom rose, followed the men into the corridor. She had to call on all the physical training of the Jedi not to stumble, but managed to walk with what her aunts would have called “queenly grace.”
Like Palpatine, the men of the Ancient Houses preferred resigned obedience to defiance, and until she found some way in which to actively escape Leia guessed her best course would be to rack up all the points with these people she could.
They were quite heavily armed, with stunguns as well as blasters.
She still felt shaky, strange, and a little dizzy, though moving helped. Having no desire for a guaranteed three hours’ worth of headaches and nausea, Leia decided to bide her time.
Roganda, Irek, and Ohran Keldor occupied a small chamber one level up, cold despite the heating unit placed discreetly in a corner. The walls were draped with black; Leia had the momentary impression of the sort of meditation chamber used by some Dathomir sects, which used silence, dimness, and a single-point source of firelight to concentrate the mind.
A cluster of candles was grouped on the polished wooden table at which Irek and his mother sat. With such discretion as to constitute almost an apology, a quarto-size terminal was set up on a bench just within the range of Irek’s peripheral vision, where Ohran Keldor was keying rapidly through a series of calculations and what looked like sensor reports. There were four glass balls of the type Leia had seen in several places in the crypts, set on stands in the corners of the room so that Irek’s chair was directly where lines drawn between them would cross.
Irek raised his head, stared at her with arrogant, furious blue eyes. “I’ve had enough trouble from you,” he said, his juvenile voice cold, and Leia was aware of Lord Garonnin’s angry frown at the rudeness and lèse-majesté. “Now you will tell me. Why wouldn’t your droid obey me in the crypts? What had you done to it?”
“You’re dismissed,” said Roganda quickly, signing to Garonnin and Elegin—Leia saw the look that passed between them as they left.
True, Roganda was in a hurry—but as a child Leia had had it impressed upon her that no person of breeding was ever in such