Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [44]
“Who are you?” Luke shouted at the figure through the roar of sudden blazing devastation around him. “Who?”
Instead, the hollow shadow laughed and laughed, ignoring the destruction that erupted from the construction sites—or amused by it. The Massassi temples exploded. The thick rain forests burst into flame.
The dark man’s silhouette grew larger and larger, swallowing up the sky. Luke backed away from it, but his dream feet reached the edge of the imposing temple, and he stumbled backward, falling away, falling.…
Surrounded by the thick stone walls of his quarters, Gantoris did not even attempt to sleep. He sat on his bunk dreading the arrival of the dark man from his nightmares.
He fingered the lightsaber he had constructed, feeling its smooth cylinder, the rough spots where he had welded the pieces together, the buttons that would activate the energy blade. He wondered how he could use it against the ancient spectre who had taught him things that terrified him, things that Master Skywalker would never show his Jedi trainees.
“Do you mean to strike me down with that weapon?” the hollow voice said.
Gantoris whirled to see the oily, infinitely black silhouette ooze out of the massive stones in the wall. His impulse was to ignite the lightsaber and slash the violet-white blade across the dark form. But he restrained himself, knowing it would do no good.
The shadow man laughed, then spoke with his antiquated accent. “Good! I am glad to see you have learned to respect me. Four thousand years ago the entire military fleet of the Old Republic and the combined forces of hundreds of Jedi Masters could not destroy me. You would certainly be unable to do so alone.”
The dark man had shown him how to borrow energy from other living things, to shore up his own reserves. His mind was alert, but his nerves were frayed and his body exhausted. “What do you want with me?” Gantoris said. “You don’t just want to teach me.”
The shadow man agreed. “I want your anger, Gantoris. I want you to open the doorways of power. I am barred from the physical plane—but with enough other Sith followers, I could be at peace. I could even live again.”
“I won’t let you have my anger.” Gantoris swallowed, searching for a core of strength within himself. “A Jedi does not give in to anger. There is no passion; there is serenity.”
“Don’t quote platitudes to me!” the dark man said in a cold, vibrating voice.
“There is no ignorance; there is knowledge,” Gantoris continued, repeating the Jedi Code. “There is no passion; there is serenity.”
The dark man laughed again. “Serenity? Let me show you what is happening at this moment. Do you recall the people you saved from Eol Sha? How happy you were to learn they had been taken to a place of safety, a paradise world? Observe.”
Inside the black cut-out form of the hooded man, an image appeared, displaying the grasslands of the planet Dantooine. The scene looked familiar to Gantoris after seeing the progress tapes delivered by Wedge Antilles.
But now he saw Imperial lasers striking down, leveling colony buildings, giant armored walkers striding across the savanna, blasting anything that moved, igniting the temporary living units. People ran screaming. His people.
Gantoris recognized most of their faces, but before he could name them, they dissolved one by one in brilliant flashes as they tried to flee. The trees blazed in conical bonfires; black clumpy smoke rose in jagged swirls.
“You lie! This is a trick!”
“I have no need of lies when the truth is so devastating. You can do nothing to stop it. Do you enjoy watching your people die? Does that not spark your anger? In your anger lies strength.”
Gantoris saw the old man Warton, whom he had known his entire life, standing in the middle of the holocaust. Warton stared around him, hands