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He stepped to the edge of the pool and saw that it lay not in a shallow natural bowl as he had expected, but in an artificial basin with deep, sheer sides. The edges had been decorated with the same grotesque patterns that had been carved into the pillars and lintel at the grotto’s entrance.

Reflected on the surface of the pool was someone that he barely recognized, a man who had Ben’s own strong chin and wavy reddish-brown hair. But he looked twenty years older, with wise blue eyes and a smiling face deeply etched by laugh lines. The figure was dressed in a brown homespun Jedi robe over dark combat armor, and he was holding a lightsaber with a hilt somewhat longer and thinner than normal, similar to those the Sith carried.

Guessing that he was looking at an image of himself in a couple of decades, Ben gasped and started to back away—then sensed Vestara coming to stand beside him.

“It seems you’ll age well.”

As she spoke, Vestara’s image appeared in the pool, not next to Ben where she was actually standing, but facing him from a short distance away. Like Ben, she appeared to be older and more attractive, with high cheeks and oval eyes that seemed even larger than they did now. But there was also a loneliness in her expression that made her appear more hardened and sad, especially when she smiled and extended a hand in his direction.

Vestara stepped closer, pressing her shoulder to Ben’s, then continued, “And it seems we won’t be strangers to each other.” She turned to face him directly. “I wonder how we find out whether that’s going to be a good thing … or a bad thing?”

“You don’t,” Luke said, stepping into the grotto behind them. “We’re here to find out where Abeloth went. Nothing else.”

Taalon entered on Luke’s heels and said something about utilizing every resource to its fullest, but Ben did not catch the exact words. His attention was locked on the pool, where Vestara’s reflection was changing before his eyes, twisting into something grotesque and alien—something that was vaguely human and just barely female, with a long cascade of yellow hair that reached nearly to her feet. Her eyes were sunken and dark, like a pair of deep wells, and she had a broad, full-lipped mouth so wide that it reached from ear to ear. She seemed be running—or, rather, rippling—along a sandy beach somewhere adjacent to a crimson river—

“Our ships!” Ben whirled toward the grotto exit and found himself facing a wall of robed chests. “That’s why Ship brought us here—so she would have time to steal one of our craft and escape!”

Ben started to step around the others, but Gavar Khai quickly moved to block his path. “Explain yourself.”

“Abeloth!” Ben said, thrusting an arm back toward the pool. “I saw her. She was on the beach where we left the Shadow and the Emiax—and she was running.”

“Toward the vessels?” Taalon demanded. “You saw that?”

Ben nodded. “Not the ships, but it was the same beach.” He started toward the exit again. “It’s going to take half a day to get back. We’ve got to hurry.”

“Not until we are sure.” Khai used the Force to push Ben back toward the pool, then looked to his daughter. “Vestara?”

“I wasn’t, uh, looking at the time.” The pitch of her voice suggested surprise. “But I think he’s right. We should go back now.”

Puzzled by the urgency in her tone, Ben spun around and found her whirling away from the pool. Her eyes met his and flashed in alarm, then quickly slid away. Reflected on the water behind her was a walled city filled with lacy glass spires and living trees twisted into sculptures of remarkable complexity. Surrounding the city on three sides were high, steep mountains blanketed in a jade-green forest. On the fourth side, a plain of verdant farmland swept down to a turquoise sea, where the sands of a lavender beach lay shuddering beneath an unending assault of whitecaps.

Kesh.

Even had Ben not guessed by Vestara’s reaction what the pool was showing him, he would have known by the angry outburst that erupted from her father that he was looking at the mysterious homeworld of the Sith.