Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [58]
Luke shook his head. “You will find that only Gantoris and I have touched that lightsaber.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” Luke raised his hands. “If you open yourself to this room, you can feel the residue of Gantoris’ last moments. There is much pain and much anger, as well as doubt and outrage. The pain is physical, of course, and mental. It feels as if he was tortured before he died.”
I stood again. Gantoris’ body lay between us like a wall. “Who would have done that to him?”
Luke shook his head. “None of you. Shock and surprise and horror radiates off everyone else very openly. They were not involved.”
“And me?”
“Some surprise, certainly, but also a determination to solve this puzzle.” Luke regarded me through half-lidded eyes. “If you were to kill him, you would have goaded him into a duel or used an illusion to make him have a fatal accident. You wouldn’t have been this clumsy or left this sort of evidence, you would have been subtle.”
“Thanks, I think.” I folded my arms across my chest. “So if we didn’t do it, who did?”
“I don’t know.” Luke’s face darkened. “Gantoris did have premonitions of disaster, however. Even when I first met him, he wondered if I were the ‘dark man’ who would bring him to ruin. He said ‘If I go with you, I am lost.’ At the time I thought he was just afraid of what would happen to his people if he left them. Then, last evening, as he was leaving the grotto he told me that I was not the dark man.”
I chewed my lower lip for a moment. “So Gantoris positively identified his dark man. You told me that Gantoris also mentioned to you that you were not the only teacher of the Jedi way. I don’t think it’s a stretch to think this dark man might be the other instructor. The fact that you can’t feel this other individual here is not a good sign.”
“He cannot remain hidden forever.”
“I don’t think he intends to.”
“What do you mean?”
I glanced down at Gantoris’ body. “You said that if I wanted to kill Gantoris, I’d have been subtle. This death is anything but subtle. We have someone dead by means that are impossible, and he was killed right here in the heart of the academy. You can see by that one diagonal cut on the wall there that Gantoris apparently tried to strike at his attacker, but that did no good.
“In my time with CorSec I helped track a sociopathic killer or two. Leaving a body out in the open like this was a taunt. It was the killer saying that he’s smarter than we are, more powerful and more cunning. Gantoris tried to kill him with a lightsaber and failed. That means the rest of us have little chance of hurting him. He is challenging us and challenging you. He obviously won one of your students over to the dark side, then left him here like a discarded plaything to show his contempt for you.”
Luke hugged his arms around himself. “I think he may have been even more direct.”
I shook my head. “I’m not tracking here.”
“Tonight I had a nightmare. I stood with my father on top of this temple, but it was back when the Massassi people still lived. It must have been millennia ago. My father tried to explain to me how it was Obi-Wan’s fault that he had been corrupted by his studies of Sith material. What he told me seemed to make sense for the most part, but then he invited me to follow him down that path, which I knew my father never would do. I accused him of not being my father. The image then shifted into that of a shadow that swallowed everything. At that point Artoo awakened me, so I don’t know what else would have happened.”
“He became a shadow?” I shivered. “Gantoris’ dark man?”
“Obi-Wan suggested there was no such thing as coincidence. I would have to suppose that all this is related.” Luke’s expression hardened. “I have to decide very carefully how to proceed from here.”
“If you will, let me suggest two things.”
“Go ahead.”
“First, this dark man apparently managed to convince Gantoris that he could offer