Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [63]
As warm as that glow was, however, it did little to dispel the chill I felt coming from the Temple’s main and most disturbing feature.
The third tower—also a tall, narrow cone—had been shaped entirely out of a blue crystal. I would have almost called it sapphire, because it did glow with its own internal light, but the light did not shift as we moved closer. Instead it seemed more to flow as if it were a liquid bubbling up and around inside the crystal, swirling in some great cycle.
“The Sullustan said the stone feels oily, and you can feel the tingle of energy pulsing off it.” Brakiss nibbed his hands together. “Care to confirm the veracity of that report?”
I shivered. “Not me. Not yet.”
Kam extinguished the blade on his lightsaber and clipped it back to his belt. “I’ll take a pass. You probably ought not to touch it either.”
Brakiss frowned. “You’re no fun.”
“Touching that thing will not be fun.” I walked closer to it, being careful not to step into the circular pit surrounding it. The nearer I drew to it, the colder I felt. The energy pulsing out of it was not palpably evil, but I could sense a host of negative emotions like despair and anger. Worse yet, as I stared into the translucent stone’s depths, I saw ghostly images drifting past. Some seemed utterly unfamiliar: gangling creatures with clawed hands and feet. Others were more familiar, often human, with their faces destroyed by damage or just contorted in agony. Even so, I thought I recognized some of them. A few comrades who had fallen along the way, more enemies I had slain.
Then Gantoris’ face appeared and stared at me with dead eyes.
I jerked back and pointed. “Do you see it? Do you see Gantoris?”
Kam’s head snapped around to look at me, his eyes slowly focusing. “I didn’t see him. I saw … others.”
The hint of a smile played over Brakiss’ face as he turned toward us. “I really didn’t see much of anything.”
I glanced back at the stone and Gantoris’ image had vanished. “I could have sworn I saw him.”
Brakiss shrugged. “Trick of the light.” His voice came weightlessly, scourging me with a hint of scorn.
I fixed him with an emerald stare. “You still want to touch it?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s okay.”
Kam wore a grim expression. “I don’t know what this thing is or why it is, but I do know I’m not comfortable here.” He jerked a thumb at the lightbars on the floor. “And the way the sunlight moved between when we started looking and now, we were staring into that thing for a good fifteen minutes.”
I shook my head. “Not possible.”
“Very possible. Very odd.” Kam frowned heavily. “I’m all for leaving.”
Brakiss agreed. “No sign Gantoris was ever here.”
“Right. Let’s go, then.”
It wouldn’t really do to suggest that three grown men, Jedi apprentices all and two of them armed with lightsabers, fled from an uninhabited temple. I prefer to think of it as our having moved quickly to upset the plans of anyone preparing to ambush us. The fact that we didn’t know of anyone else being on the world save our friends still didn’t preclude that possibility and I thought our caution quite admirable.
As we retreated from it, Brakiss took one long look back at the Blueleaf Temple. “It’s rather amazing, I think, that creatures lacking in sophisticated technology could build such a monument and have it stand the test of time. Unnh’s commentary suggests these ruins were all millennia old.”
“The Old Republic was well established by that time.” I held a branch back, opening the way to the trail that had brought us to the temple. “For all we know they could have used lasers to quarry the rock and carve it, then slid it into place with repulsorlift technology.”
“Moreover,” Kam offered, “they could have used the Force. As massive as those blocks are, do you think it would be impossible