Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [123]
The trainees looked at each other as if they had been wanting to ask the same question.
Streen stood up and looked around in alarm. “It’s too quiet,” he said. “Too quiet. I wanted it quiet, but this is too much. I can’t hear Master Skywalker. I could always sense voices in my head. I hear all of yours. It’s too quiet.” He sat down again as if embarrassed. “Too quiet.”
Tionne rushed into the dining hall, clutching her twin-boxed musical instrument. Her silvery hair streamed behind her in a wild mass, and her pearly eyes were wide and panic-stricken. “Come quickly! I’ve found Master Skywalker.”
Without question, without confusion, all the Jedi trainees rose in a coordinated, flowing movement. They moved together and sprinted after Tionne as she ran down the winding moss-grown halls. Cilghal attempted to keep up with the more athletic members, such as Kirana Ti and Tionne.
They ran through the echoing grand audience chamber where vines covered the walls and the long polished seats stood empty in shafts of sunlight.
“This way,” Tionne said. “I don’t know what’s happened to him.”
They reached a back staircase of worn stone steps that led to the observation platform at the top of the ziggurat.
Cilghal drew up short as she noticed the robed figure sprawled on the flagstones under the sky. His hands were thrown back as if to defend against something.
“Master Skywalker!” she called. The other trainees rushed forward. Cilghal pushed through the gathered students and knelt beside the fallen man.
Luke’s face seemed curdled in an outcry of pain or fear. His eyes were squeezed shut, his lips were curled back in a grimace.
On the stone floor beside him lay his lightsaber, as if it had proved useless against whatever enemy he had fought.
Cilghal propped Luke’s head up, touching his pale-brown hair. Rivulets of cold sweat glistened on his face, but she felt no warmth on his skin. She probed, using her newfound abilities in the Force, desperately searching.
“What happened to him?” Dorsk 81 said in great alarm.
“Is he alive?” Streen asked. “I can’t hear him.”
Cilghal probed with her sensing abilities and shook her orange and muddy-green head. “He’s breathing. I can sense very little heartbeat, just the faintest pulse. But I can’t find him inside. When I touch him with the Force, all I find is a great empty spot.…”
She turned to look at the others with her sad round Calamarian eyes. “It’s as if he has left us.”
“What can we do?” Kirana Ti asked.
Cilghal cradled Luke’s motionless head in her lap and blinked her huge Calamarian eyes, unable to speak for a long moment.
“We are all alone now,” she finally said.
About the Author
Kevin J. Anderson is the author of nearly 100 novels, 48 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 22 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, and New York Times Notable Book.
Anderson has coauthored eleven books in the Dune saga with Brian Herbert, as well as the new original novel, Hellhole. Anderson’s popular epic SF series, The Saga of Seven Suns, is his most ambitious work, and he has completed a sweeping fantasy trilogy, Terra Incognita, about sailing ships, sea monsters, and the crusades. As an innovative companion project to Terra Incognita, Anderson cowrote (with wife Rebecca Moesta) the lyrics for two ambitious rock CDs based on the novels. Performed by the supergroup Roswell Six for ProgRock Records, the two CDs feature performances by rock legends from Kansas, Dream Theater, Asia, Saga, Rocket Scientists, Shadow Gallery, and others.
His novel Enemies & Allies chronicles the first meeting of Batman and Superman in the 1950s; Anderson also wrote The Last Days of Krypton. He has written numerous Star Wars projects, including the Jedi Academy trilogy, the Young Jedi Knights series (with