Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 05_ Allies - Christie Golden [142]
No. That was not the way. Luke touched her cheek gently, and she leaned into his hand. Luke wanted to help her. He needed to take her away from here, find a way to separate that part of her that was warm, stubborn, brave, humorous Callista from the monster in the Maw capable of such vast evil and cruelty. It would be all right. It would all be all right. He could unravel the bright thread of Callista from the ugly tapestry of Abeloth and her darkness, he knew he could, if she would let him—
Let him? Let him? Let him take away the power she had discovered? Let herself become less than the magnificent being into which she had evolved? No, Luke had it all wrong, she would make him like her, would teach him to grow so far beyond himself that he would laugh at the small being he had once been, even as she now laughed gently at his misguided earnestness. This was why he had come. Luke’s path had led him here, beyond any hope or dream or wish, to the Maw, to Callista’s arms again, and now he would never leave.
They would be together.
The way she was, and the way she would make him.
For eternity.
Luke’s heart broke, again, inside him.
Mara’s words came back to him: She is never what she seems to be.
This being was not Callista. Oh, it wore parts of her like some obscene costume, real, true parts of her, parts that made him ache to behold, but it was not her. Callista had once vowed to never use the Force again, if the only way to do so was to touch the dark side. She had fought bravely in the Clone Wars, had sacrificed her life to save others. She was a Jedi. And he knew now that she was as dead as if he had seen her lifeless body.
The woman he had loved was gone. Abeloth had taken her, as she had already taken so much from so many. He wanted to reach Callista, to save her, but he realized sickly that there was not enough left to save.
I’m sorry. I can’t help you.
Callista—no, it wasn’t her, he needed to stop thinking of her as that—Abeloth dropped his hands and stepped back, shock on her face.
“After all this, after all we went through, together and apart … you would forsake me?” Tears filled the silver gray eyes, poured down her cheeks.
Luke swallowed, forcing calm alertness through his body. He dropped into a pre-fighting stance, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet, the lightsaber, still lit, in his hand.
“You might once have had part of Callista in you,” he said quietly. “But whatever was good, and true, and right about her—that’s all gone. You took it all and left only shards of her behind. Just like you tried to do with Dyon. For the love I once bore her, I again say, I am sorry, I cannot help you.”
She continued to gaze at him, and the expression on her face would have moved a harder heart than Luke’s. But his was already broken with the knowledge of what had happened. That his Callie was gone, forever. He continued to regard her solemnly, and she fell to her knees, looking dazed. Sobs racked her frame and she lowered her head.
“Then you doom all you love, Luke Skywalker,” said Abeloth. Three voices seemed to come from that throat.
She raised her head. Her face had changed, had become that ugly, tiny-eyed, wide-mouthed monster. Except the part of her that remained Callista. Luke wasn’t sure which—the nose, the hair, but it was an obscene amalgam he knew was designed to torture him.
He had refused her, and she would destroy him.
Her eyes suddenly blinked quickly and she glanced upward. Luke could feel it now, too, a tingling of dark-side energy overhead, but nothing of Abeloth