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His wife walked straight toward the bogey, her free hand upraised. The bogey hovered there, decorative and unmenacing, making a curious clacking and chattering noise, until she was a meter from touching it. Then it plunged straight down into the stone below, vanishing from sight.

And taking every trace of illumination with it.

Suddenly Han was thrust into the past, into the absolute darkness of these tunnels, when he, Chewbacca, and Kyp Durron had run for their lives with a monster in pursuit. Now, again, he was kilometers deep within Kessel, insufficiently armed or mobile to deal with the dangers of the place.

He forced himself to slow his breathing. Now wasn't then. More than thirty years had gone by. He was in a section of the mine where there was no sign of spice, and therefore no sign of spiders.

But if one came, he'd be just as helpless before it.

“My lightsaber doesn't work.”

Han let out a slow breath. “How do you know?”

“Tried to turn it on to give us a little light.”

“Let me know if you hear anything like skittering. Clattering. Clicking.” Well, maybe he wasn't entirely as helpless as he'd been the last time. The grenade launcher in his hands was reassuringly heavy, and perhaps, given its antiquity and simplicity of construction, it hadn't been disrupted as the speeder and lightsaber had.

Perhaps. He kept his voice under tight control. “Want to get back in the speeder, sweetie?”

“No, I'll just keep my ears open until you get it started up.”

Han fought the urge to grit his teeth. “All right.”

CITY OF DOR'SHAN, DORIN

The chamber where they met Mistress Tila Mong was far less ceremonial and ostentatious than the one in which Ben had fought. Though it was circular, with smooth black walls of stone, its furnishings of tan wood proclaimed it to be an office.

Tila Mong, seated behind one of three desks when the Skywalkers entered, rose to shake their hands. She was, to Ben's unpracticed eye, perhaps a bit older than the other Kel Dors he had seen, more wrinkles to her face and even less flesh on her bones, but she moved gracefully enough. She wore simple, undecorated robes in a shell-like off-white that seemed oddly detached from the colors around her.

Once her guests were seated and the door had slid shut behind Tistura, she began. “We heard with sympathy and misgivings the news of your recent unpleasantness.”

“Thank you.” Luke gave her a little nod of appreciation. “Because of those events, it would be inappropriate to refer to me as or accord me any of the benefits that would come to me as Grand Master of the Jedi Order.”

“Then we shall limit ourselves to the benefits due the man who re-founded the Jedi and helped break the hold the Empire had on the galaxy.”

Ben decided that he liked her.

“My recent unpleasantness is related to the Second Galactic Civil War. The war was, in part, due to the actions of Jacen Solo. I am trying to retrace the steps he took throughout the galaxy prior to the war, to find out more about what made him the way he was. Some time back, he demonstrated a Force technique that makes me think he may have been here during his travels—here, studying among the Baran Do Sages.”

Tila Mong nodded. “He was here. Some nine years ago. He came seeking knowledge of our ways with the Force.”

Ben did a quick mental calculation. That would have put Jacen's visit close to the end of his wanderings, just prior to the Dark Nest crisis.

Neither Luke's face nor any sign in the Force betrayed his reaction. “May I ask, what did you teach him?”

“I, nothing. I was not Mistress at that time. Master of the Baran Do was then Koro Ziil, who has since accepted death.”

Luke looked a little puzzled. “I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand. In most dialects of Basic, one ‘accepts death’ as a consequence of an act or as an alternative to some other fate. Is that what the phrase means as you use it?”

“Oh. No.” Tila Mong shook her head. “To accept death among the Baran Do is to decide that your time has come, to make preparations,