Star Wars_ Planet of Twilight - Barbara Hambly [130]
“The first of the new batch, I hope.” He thought about those he had trained: Kyp, so intense and so frighteningly powerful. Tionne and her music. Clighal with her talents for healing. Some had already departed Yavin Four, to seek their own paths, their own work. Some, like his faithful Dorsk 81, were already on the Other Side. There was a new recruit, a Bith, of all things.… And more, over the years. With the help of the Force, many more.
If he died tonight, they’d be able to go on, somehow.
The memory of Callista on Yavin Four was piercing, pain more intense than any he had experienced in his flesh. He remembered her teaching Tionne the finer points of the lightsaber or sitting on the terraces of the old temples in the apricot sunset light, speaking of her own master Djinn Altis and his floating stronghold in the gas clouds of Bespin. The morning Luke had brought the image tank that Han and Leia had found in the crypts of Belsavis, Callista had showed them all how to call shapes in it, how she had learned to use such a thing as a tool to strengthen her command over the Force. While the students shrieked with laughter and congratulations at one another’s successes, Callista had left in silence. Coming out a half hour later Luke had found her standing on the terrace, staring out across the jungles at nothing, willing herself not to feel.
“I should have realized it earlier,” went on Liegeus. “The planet … draws Jedi. At least Beldorion always claimed to be a Jedi, and he got that lightsaber of his from somewhere, though that horrible woman Taselda claims that it was originally hers. She sent that poor girl of hers to steal it back …”
“Girl?” Luke’s heart stood still in his chest. He tried to keep the flare of fear, of hope, from his voice, but must not have succeeded, for in the starlight the older man’s eyes seemed to change, understanding.
“A young woman named Callista.”
Luke felt for a moment unable to breathe. He remembered his own willingness to do whatever Taselda asked, not only in the hopes that she would lead him to Callista but out of the urgent desire to please her that seemed to be one of the uses of the control mind of the dark side of the Force.
Of course Callista would have lied to Officers Grupp and Snaplaunce about leaving Hweg Shul of her own free will. She had left to do Taselda’s bidding.
If she came to harm, he thought, I will …
Will what? Kill Taselda? And Beldorion? And who else?
None of it would bring Callista back.
Release your anger. Truly release it, and let it evaporate like the drochs in the sunlight.
Liegeus was still watching his face. “Beldorion took her prisoner, of course,” he said, his voice gentle, as if speaking to a man who had been hurt in some accident, or who had fallen hard and far. “She was no match for him, and Ashgad’s synthdroids. She seemed to think Taselda could make her a Jedi, and Beldorion wanted her taken alive because he thought she had some kind of … of Jedi power, though that wasn’t the case. Beldorion had some thoughts of enslaving her himself, but he ended up giving her to Dzym. One … one does.”
“And you did nothing?” Luke’s hand balled tight. The urge swept him to strike this helpless man where he lay, and Liegeus knew it. He flinched, but made no effort to ward off a blow.
At the whisper of his indrawn breath Luke remembered him dying among the drochs, remembered Dzym with blood and brown slime running down his monstrous mouth and pity for him swept away his rage. “No,” he said softly. “What could you have done?”
The Force, he thought. The dirty echo of the Force I felt in Dzym’s power …
As if through a mouthful of dust, he asked, “What happened to her?”
“She escaped. I overheard Beldorion and Dzym; I told her what they had agreed. She escaped that night. I don’t know what became of her after that. She was … very bitter.”
Luke found that he was breathing hard. “I have to find her,” he said softly. “I have to tell her …”
His voice trailed off. In the lifeless silence of the