Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 08_ Ascension - Christie Golden [43]
He shook it off. This place would indeed challenge Vestara—but it would challenge the three Jedi, as well. Mistrust, fear, suspicion—all those were tools of the dark side. Ben was sure this place would like nothing better than to cause division among them, turn them against one another, make Vestara feel that she had no place with the Jedi.
Ben wasn’t going to let that happen.
“With all that dark-side energy swirling around, it’s going to be hard to tell if there are any Sith down there at all,” he said. “Particularly if they know how to hide themselves in the Force.”
“I won’t know for certain, but I might be able to help there,” Vestara said. “I know many of the Lost Tribe members who came on the mission. I might be able to discern their presences more easily than you can.”
Luke nodded. “Another reason we’re allowing you to come with us,” he said. He tweaked the controls slightly, and Ben saw they were heading directly toward a notched mountain. As it grew larger in the viewscreen, Ben felt his stomach tighten as the light, dim to begin with, grew even darker around them. As if some thick, toxic cloud was blocking the light and air. Which, Ben mused, it kind of was.
The single mountain turned out to be merely the dominant one over a whole range, a dark and ominous massif that towered over the valley below it.
At the mouth of the valley, there was a ruined citadel. And lining the walls of the valley, some distance back so they towered alone, were enormous stone statues of various figures.
Some of them were hooded, their heads bowed, ominous even as they seemed to be obeisant; more symbolic figures than any representation of an individual. Others were clearly meant to represent specific Dark Lords—towering, prideful, sending chills along Ben’s spine as he looked into empty carved eyes. Steps led upward into what he knew were sealed tombs.
Sith from the luckless slave caste had been sealed in there as well, to tend their masters in the afterlife … once they themselves had died. Dozens slowly starved to death, or were perhaps aided on that journey by tuk’ata, which were also sealed inside the tombs.
All in all, even if the place hadn’t been wrapped in the smothering feeling of dark-side tendrils, it would have been unsettling. Ben realized he was clenching his fists as his father brought the Shadow in for a landing near the citadel ruins.
Luke didn’t rise immediately; he looked at each of them in turn. “No splitting up or wandering off. We stay within sight of one another at all times. Use your comlink to speak to anyone who isn’t right beside you. If you notice anything, either simple physical evidence or something you sense in the Force, report it immediately. Are we clear?”
The last was blatantly addressed to Vestara. Her nostrils flared with annoyance and for an instant she was bright in the Force with it, but it faded quickly as she nodded along with Ben and Jaina.
The door slid open, the ramp extended, and three Jedi and one Sith stepped out onto the sands of Korriban.
GALACTIC SENATE MEDCENTER, CORUSCANT
FOR A MOMENT HE THOUGHT HE WAS STILL IN THE NIGHTMARE. THE nightmare of fighting for his very life against two Jedi who had gone mad—
—they weren’t Jedi. Or else he wouldn’t have been able to—
—to do what?—
—two humans who had attacked him. Cut off his arm with a lightsaber. A green one. Funny what the mind remembered. He recalled grasping his own severed arm, which still held a blaster, and firing at his attacker.
Then the antiseptic sterility. The sounds of voices, muffled, the words indistinguishable but the voices recognizable. Natasi’s, rich and warm. Rynog Asokaji, aide-de-camp. Another he knew, but couldn’t place immediately—a monotone. A voice with the accent of home.
Images, almost constant. Something about the reporter.
Doctors, medical droids. The humming sounds of equipment,