Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (5 page)

She swiveled the pilot’s seat and looked to the stars. There was already
much to absorb and muse upon, and she had the time it would take to reach Kalimahr
to do so. All these secrets being entrusted to her should have made her feel honored.
But instead she was unsettled. There was so much she still didn’t know.

After running through standard checks to ensure that her Peacemaker was not being
tracked or followed at a distance—being alone was more than habit—she turned to the
flatscreen once again.

“So let’s see what
all
the Masters wanted me to know.” She lifted a keyboard onto her lap, tapped in some
commands, and started to view the information that had been loaded into the ship’s
computer.

Lanoree and Dal’s parents told them that the ritual of visiting each temple would
be best done under their own steam as much as possible. Not for them the ease of a
speeder or the comfort of a shire, one of the most common beasts of burden on Tython.

Walking, their parents said, will bring them closer to Tython, which itself is incredibly
rich in the Force. It will make them understand, experience, taste, and smell their
surroundings instead of viewing them through a speeder’s windshield or from the high
back of a shire. And sometimes it means there will be dangers to confront. Dreadful
dangers.

Forty days and twenty-four hundred kilometers from home, on the strange continent
of Thyr, they reach the expansive Stark Forests that lead eventually to the Silent
Desert. The trees of these forests store water in pendulous, leathery sacs, useful
to travelers and constantly refilled as the skeletal branches suck what moisture they
can from the air. It is here that their lives are threatened for the first time.

Tythos shines down on them, the weather neither too hot nor too cold. The going through
the forest is gentle, and they are following a shallow stream that meanders lazily
toward the desert some kilometers ahead.

“I’ll harvest ground apples for dinner,” Dal says.

“I’ll catch a rumbat to cook,” Lanoree says.

And then a flight of hook hawks swoops out of the high trees and attempts to hypnotize
Dal and Lanoree with their sweet song. Carnivores, these birds hunt in packs, singing
their prey to a somnolent
standstill and then tearing into eyeballs and throats with their wickedly hooked beaks
and sharp talons. They hover in a rough circle around the brother and sister, wings
beating a gentle rhythm, voice glands whistling and humming in practiced harmony.
Their eyes are dark and intelligent. Their claws shine.

Lanoree has heard about these creatures but has never seen them before. She is terrified.
Never has she faced such danger, and the knowledge that their lives are at risk strikes
a heavy blow. And yet a thrill rushes through her as she thinks,
This is what the Great Journey is all about!
“Quick,” she says, “down to the stream!”

“What good will that do?” Dal asks. She realizes that he is also afraid, and she feels
a rush of protectiveness.

“The splashing of water can sometimes smother their song.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you listen in
any
of our lessons?” She grabs Dal’s hand and tugs, but already his eyes have taken on
a hazy sheen, the corners of his mouth lifting in a lazy smile. “Dal!”

“I’m fine.…”

A single hook hawk drifts down, slow and casual, still singing as it aims its claws
for Dal’s eyes.

Lanoree punches wildly, and in her panic she feels the Force flailing within her.
It is against everything she has learned, but she does not have time to berate herself—her
fist ruffles feathers, and she feels the cool kiss of the hawk’s claws across her
knuckles.

It screeches in anger as it flaps back, and in that moment she manages to calm, focus,
and flow with the Force.

When the bird swoops down once more and turns its beak toward her eyes, Lanoree reaches
out and Force-slaps it aside. This time her hand hardly touches the creature, barely
a kiss of feathers across her fingertips. But the impact is much greater. Bones crackle,
and with a single weak cry its body disappears into some undergrowth, leaving only
a few feathers dancing on the air.

“Come on!” she says, dragging Dal with her.

The hook hawks are still singing, and their voices silence the rest of the forest.
A cool cascade, a pleasing symphony, and though Lanoree tries to close herself to
their influence she can feel a distance growing
around her. She is dragging Dal along, and when he trips and falls, his hand is jerked
from hers.

She turns back, and her brother is lying on his back, smiling up at the Stark Forests’
canopy. They will never reach the stream in time. The hook hawks are coming close.
This is all on her.

Lanoree feels like screaming in fury and fear, but instead she finds serenity and
balance. She draws her consciousness inward and crouches, breathing deeply. Perhaps
the hook hawks see this as her succumbing to their charms. But they could not be more
wrong. As the first of the birds swoop, Lanoree stands and sends an air-splitting
Force punch their way. Two creatures are knocked from the sky with broken wings and
ruptured innards, and a third is smashed into a tree trunk in an explosion of feathers.
The surviving birds change their song to one of panic, and fly up through the canopy
and away.

Lanoree smiles at Dal, who is still shaking with fear. His eyes are distant.

“But they were so …” he says.

“Beautiful? A trick. They’d find beauty in your flowing blood and open flesh.” Pleased
that she has protected them, yet wary of pride, Lanoree helps Dal stand.

“Your hand,” he says. It is bleeding. He tends his sister’s wound silently, dripping
in medicines from his rucksack that will clean the talon cuts. Then he wraps her hand
in a bandage. All the while, Lanoree listens for a return of the hook hawks, and a
small part of her
wants
them to come back. Her heart is beating fast, and she delights in her success. But
the birds have finished hunting for the day.

Dal leads the way through the diminishing forest, and as dusk starts to fall they
see the sparse desert landscape visible on the horizon. The edge of the forest leads
down a gentle hillside, and the boundary between forest and desert is a gradual lessening
of undergrowth, a greater spread of creeping sand. They pause for a while, filling
their water canteens.

And as they move out into the desert they are cocooned within a deep, encompassing
silence.

Lanoree speaks her own name, and feels it only as a vibration in her chest and jaw.
It is as if the desert does not wish to hear. She looks at
Dal and he is wide-eyed and afraid, and Lanoree thinks,
I have already saved him once
. Pride swells once again. She tries to push it down, because pride is distracting.

That first night they camp on the cooling sands. They have eaten and are seated close
to the campfire, blankets huddled around their shoulders, packs resting beside them,
sleeping rolls already laid out. Yet neither of them wishes to sleep. This place is
so strange that they relish each other’s company as never before. Lanoree fears the
dreams such utter silence might bring.

Reflecting on the fight with the hook hawks, she stares across the fire and sees movement
in the shadows beyond. Tensing, nudging Dal, she realizes that he is also alert to
the movement. Lanoree stands. Dal crouches. Firelight flickers from something, and
a nightmare slashes into their camp.

Silik lizard!
she thinks. Rare but deadly, these silicon-based creatures absorb energy from the
sand itself, but have been known to supplement their diets with mammalian spinal fluid.
The size of a human adult, they are viciously spiked beasts, six limbed and capable
of charging on their hind legs. Encounters with them are often fatal. For some, siliks
are much-prized hunting trophies.

For the second time in half a day, they must face a terrible danger.

Lanoree is so shocked by its appearance that she freezes. Sparks scrape from its extremities
as it lopes toward her; its curved claws dig into the sand and splash up fleeting
flames; and its mouth falls open to display crystalline teeth beyond counting. The
complete silence of the attack is perhaps the most shocking aspect, and Lanoree opens
her mouth in a soundless scream.

The lizard leaps through the fire, scattering burning brands around it and throwing
up a confusion of sparks.

Force-punch, push it back, shove it
back
!
Lanoree thinks, but her instincts are petrified by disbelief. That she will die so
soon after beginning her journey, victim of such a beast—

A flash lights up the night, and the scattered campfire seems to erupt with new life.
The terrifying creature twists and squirms away, slicing shadows with its limbs and
slipping through them to safety.
One heartbeat it is there, the next gone, and Lanoree turns a quick circle to try
to see where the next attack will come from.

Dal is holding his laser blaster. Its muzzle is still warm.
No
, she wants to say, because she is meant to protect
him
. Her limbs quiver in fright, and as she starts to draw in her senses and balance
herself within the Force, the darkness beyond Dal sparkles with a hundred dancing
stars.

Lanoree opens her eyes wide as she tries to form a Force punch. But her fear is still
a barrier, seemingly muting the Force as this desert mutes sound.

Dal crouches and spins, alerted by Lanoree’s reaction, and the night is lit by three
blaster shots in quick succession.

The silik lizard spins a full circle as it powers from the darkness. It hits the ground
close enough for Lanoree to kick. Dal’s gunfire and the creature’s fall are silent.

Her brother is still aiming the weapon at the lizard. He’s shaking slightly, his eyes
wide as if he can’t quite believe what he’s done. It is an old weapon, bequeathed
him by his grandfather, and Lanoree has always dismissed it as clumsy and unreliable
compared to the Force. Now, though, it has saved them both. The lizard’s head hangs
by a thread. Its blood is dust.

She embraces Dal and tries to speak into his ear,
Thank you
. Even as she does so, she is troubled and ashamed at her hesitation. Perhaps after
the hook hawks she was too confident in her abilities. Misplaced pride has no place
in the heart of a true Je’daii.

They drag the silik lizard away from their camp and bury it to prevent interest from
carrion creatures. The burial is silent, even the shush of sand between their fingers
unheard. Before sand covers its face, the beast stares past them at the glorious night
sky with violet eyes.

Forty days out from home, not having even reached the first temple, and already their
lives have twice been endangered. Lanoree thinks of the long journey still ahead;
the perils they will face; the distances they will travel on water, in the air, and
largely on foot. For the first time since leaving their parents, she wishes for home.

That night in her dreams Lanoree sees great shapes rising out of the desert, sculptures
in sand that live in a manner beyond her comprehension,
feeding on sound and taking sustenance from every whispered word, each expression
of love or fear. In the morning the desert around them has changed in profile, there
are three humped mounds of sand close by, and she wonders what watched them sleep.

They march hard for the next two days. In the afternoon of their third day in the
desert they see curved rock spires rising from the landscape far ahead, and know that
they mark the location of Qigong Kesh. Lanoree feels a rush of excitement, but she
has also seen the holos about this place. As the desert steals sound, so its dry,
scorching atmosphere also muddles distance; the temple could still be another four
days away.

They walk on, traveling by day, camping by night, watchful for danger and barely sleeping.

When they arrive at last they are tired, hungry, disoriented. The silence has become
a great weight crushing them down. Even communicating by sign language is an effort,
and for the last two days Lanoree has felt so alone even with her brother constantly
by her side.

But the sight of the giant rock spires, and the mysterious Tho Yor floating between
them, brings a sense of anticipation.

We’re here at last!
Lanoree thinks.
Qigong Kesh!
The temple is belowground in a network of natural caverns and tunnels. Beneath the
desert, they will be able to speak, to hear once more. As they pass within the shadow
of one of the massive rock spires, several Je’daii guards emerge from a cavern in
its vast base. They look Lanoree and Dal up and down; smile; and hold out two canteens
of cool, fresh water.

Then they take the exhausted brother and sister down beneath the desert. Here, in
a huge cavern, lies the majestic Temple of Qigong Kesh where the arcane, mysterious,
and enlightening training in Force Skills will commence.

It is here that Dalien Brock’s fall will begin.