Shadow Academy

17

Tenel Ka and Luke rode astride a young rancor that had not yet been marked to show ownership by any particular clan.

The night air was warm and still heavy with moisture from the unnatural storm Vonnda Ra and her student Vilas had called up. Dathomir’s two moons floated in and out of wispy clouds, shedding a diffuse pearly light on their path.

Tenel Ka sat in front of Luke on the whuffa-hide saddle, guiding the rancor steadily in the direction of the Great Canyon. She was a good rider, and she knew it. She had to admit that it felt good to demonstrate to Master Skywalker that she was an expert at something.

A light breeze rustled the leaves of the low bushes around them, so that when Luke leaned forward to whisper in her ear, Tenel Ka hardly heard him at first. “I had to kill a rancor once,” he said. “It was a shame—they’re such fine creatures.”

“Even so,” Tenel Ka answered, “they are dangerous to those who are not their friends.”

Luke was silent for a while. “I’ve fought many battles,” he said at last, “and yes, I have had to kill. But I’ve learned from the light side of the Force that it’s better to do everything in my power first to … turn a situation—”

“But surely,” Tenel Ka interrupted, “a Nightsister—or anyone else seduced by the dark side—would not hesitate to kill you.”

“Exactly!” Luke’s soft exclamation took her by surprise. “Now you begin to understand,” he said. “Those who use the light side do not believe the same things as those who use the dark side. But we can only demonstrate our differences by acting on our beliefs. Otherwise … we’re not so different after all.”

“Ah. Aha,” Tenel Ka said. “Just as I struggle to show that I am different from my grandmother on Hapes….” Her voice trailed off. “Yes, I see now.”

In spite of the darkness, their surefooted rancor picked its way steadily down the steep path that led to the floor of the Great Canyon. During their descent, they spotted a cluster of more than a dozen campfires, and knew that they had found the Nightsisters’ encampment.

By the time they reached the canyon floor, both Luke and Tenel Ka were sore and aching and weary. The air was cool, with a light mist hovering close to the ground, and they were both glad of the warm cloaks that Augwynne had pressed on them during their rushed preparations for departure. She had given them each a change of clothes appropriate to their cover story, along with a bag of provisions. Then she had hugged Tenel Ka fiercely. “Daughter of my daughter’s daughter,” she said, “go in safety. The thoughts of the Singing Mountain Clan are with you.” She turned to Luke. “And may the Force be with you.”

Augwynne had released Tenel Ka and spoke again to her. “I am proud of what you do for your friends. You are a true warrior woman of our clan. Always remember our most sacred rule from the Book of Laws: ‘Never concede to evil.’”

Now, as they drew closer to that evil, Tenel Ka shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly about her. She wondered if they would find Lowbacca, Jacen, and Jaina at the camp of the Nightsisters, or if that would only be an intermediate step in their search. Could the Nightsisters be training them in the dark ways of the Force? Tenel Ka let. her eyes drift shut and cast about with her mind, but she sensed no trace of her three friends.

As if understanding the direction of her thoughts, Luke leaned forward again. “If we don’t find them here, the Force will guide us. We are close … I feel it.”

An ululating cry rang out from the canyon rocks above them. Tenel Ka started in surprise. “A scout sounding the alarm,” she said, irritated with herself for having been caught off guard.

“Good,” Luke replied. “Then they know we’re here.”

Tenel Ka hesitated at first, uncertain of whether it was safe to continue, and then urged the young rancor forward. She looked up at the sky, which had lightened from black to predawn grayness, reminding her again of how much time had passed since her friends had been captured.

Rounding the next bend in the trail, the rancor came to an abrupt stop. Tenel Ka looked at the path ahead of her and saw that their way was blocked by three full-grown rancors, each bearing a rider, dressed much as Vonnda Ra and Vilas had been earlier that evening.

The pressure of Luke’s hand at her waist was a warning, but she already knew. Even in the dimness she could see that each of the riders held an Imperial blaster aimed directly at them.

Tenel Ka had been raised to take command, and though she rarely exercised that power, it did come naturally. She sat up straighter in the saddle and held one arm high. “Sisters and brothers of the Great Canyon Clan,” she said, “we have heard your message as far away as the Misty Falls Clan and have traveled here to join you. We are not without skill in the Force, and we wish to learn your ways, to use all of the Force and to become strong.”

Leaving the rancors at the well-provisioned stockade, Tenel Ka and Luke followed the guards toward the center of camp. She was surprised to see two Imperial AT-ST scout walkers clanking like mechanical birds around the perimeter on guard duty, near the penned rancors.

Passing between boldly colored tents made of water-repellent lizard hides, Tenel Ka noted roughly ten women and at least as many men going about their early-morning business in eerie silence, as if the warm ground mists swirling up to their knees muffled all sound. She saw no children at all in the encampment, heard no baby’s cries, no sounds of young ones playing. In fact, she saw very few in the Great Canyon Clan who were even as young as she was.

Though she had known what to expect, it amazed Tenel Ka that men came and went here as freely as the women, apparently slaves to no one. She wondered if it really was possible on Dathomir that these men and women now thought of each other as equals.

At the center of camp, they came at last to an enormous patchwork pavilion that floated on the mist like a barbaric island made of furs and lizard hides sewn together. It was held up at the center and the corners by spears, three meters long and as thick around as Tenel Ka’s wrists.

One of the Nightsisters raised a tent flap and motioned them inside. They entered, but the Sister did not follow. The flap dropped shut behind them, sealing out the wraithlike mists and the morning light. Waiting for her eyes to adjust, Tenel Ka tried to sense her friends; she still found no trace, but the light touch of Master Skywalker’s hand on her arm reassured her.

At the center of the tent a tiny pinpoint of light suddenly flared into a bright flame, and Tenel Ka saw that it came from an oil lamp fashioned out of the inverted skull of a mountain lizard. Beside the lamp, on a wide platform covered with furs and cushions made from the hides of a variety of wild beasts, an imposing woman reclined in a massive chair made from a stuffed rancor head. The woman beckoned them forward into the flickering circle of light.

Without so much as a greeting, Vonnda Ra asked, “What is your business here?”

Tenel Ka, who had recognized the dark-haired woman instantly, said, “I have come to join the Nightsisters, and I have brought my slave with me.”

“What have you to offer us?” Vonnda Ra looked mildly interested, but not impressed. “Many come wishing to join us, but they are weak. Women seek us out because their powers are small or they have no status in their clans. Men come here because they have never had power, and our teachings offer them freedom—but they usually have even less to offer. What do you have?”

Vonnda Ra’s hand reached out and pointed to the lizard skull filled with burning oil. “Can you do this?” The lamp floated straight upward toward the peak of the tent, casting an ever-wider but dimmer circle of light, and then settled slowly back down onto the platform beside Vonnda Ra.

Tenel Ka nodded. “I have had some training.” Deciding against using any theatrical gestures or words, she half-closed her eyes in concentration and grasped the lamp with her mind. She had never enjoyed showing off her skill with the Force, using it only when absolutely necessary, but this performance was not for herself. She would probably never see Jacen and Jaina and Lowbacca again if she could not show these Nightsisters her true potential.

She drew in a deep breath, let it out again. Without a sound the lamp glided off the platform and high into the air over their heads. Tenel Ka thought about the flame, feeding it with her mind and making it brighter, brighter, until its warm radiance reached even to the darkest corners of the pavilion. Then she sent the lamp sailing around the outer edges of the tent; it made the complete circle so quickly that she heard Vonnda Ra gasp with amazement. Through her half-closed eyes Tenel Ka watched the dark-haired woman sit up, one hand outstretched, palm up, as if to ask a question.

Tenel Ka brought the lamp in closer for another circle, and then another, smaller and closer to the central tent post, until at last it spun around the center pole in a dizzy downward spiral, still glowing brightly—all in a matter of a few seconds. Last, Tenel Ka brought the spinning lamp lightly to rest in Vonnda Ra’s outstretched hand.

The Nightsister gave a gleeful chuckle. “You are welcome here, Sister,” she said. “What is your name?”

Tenel Ka threw her head back. “My name—our names—no longer have any meaning for us. We discarded them when we left our clan.”

“Come here,” Vonnda Ra ordered. When Tenel Ka did as she was told, the Nightsister stood and took the young girl’s chin in her fingers and looked deep into her eyes. “Yes,” she said with a satisfied nod. “You have much anger in you. Are you willing to go elsewhere to learn? To a place of instruction among the stars?”

Tenel Ka’s heart leaped. Perhaps this was where Jacen, Jaina, and Lowbacca had been taken. “Wherever your finest teachers are, that is where I wish to go,” she replied.

“But you must leave your slave behind. We will have little use for him,” Vonnda Ra said. No!

Vonnda Ra sighed. “What if I were to tell you that men rarely have any talent, and that we have never trained one this old? He would only distract you from what you must learn. There is little hope of teaching him. If you knew all this, then what would you say?”

“Then I would say … ,” Tenel Ka replied, leveling her best cool gray stare at Vonnda Ra, “that you are a fool.”

Vonnda Ra’s eyes went wide with surprise, but Tenel Ka did not stop. “This man has watched and learned the ways of the Force since before I was born. Not many—not many who still live—have seen his power. But I have seen it.”

Vonnda Ra abruptly turned her skeptical gaze toward Luke. “If you can lift this,” she said, pointing to her lizard-skull lamp, “and bring as much light to this tent as she did”—she nodded toward Tenel Ka—“then you shall accompany her.”

The Nightsister looked at Luke and then back down at the lamp. When it did not move, a small contemptuous smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. Then something large and dark floated between them and blocked her view. The flame from the oil lamp brightened, and the massive rancor-head chair grinned at her, its lifeless eyes glowing with reflected light. Then the head lifted and glided around the perimeter of the tent like a shuttlecraft.

Tenel Ka could see Master Skywalker standing with arms crossed over his chest, one knee bent in an apparently relaxed posture, his head cocked to one side, smiling at Vonnda Ra as he sent the rancor head whizzing about the pavilion.

“Since you asked,” he said, “I will give you light.” Suddenly, in a blur of motion, the stuffed rancor head shot upward with the speed of blaster fire. It disappeared through the ceiling of the tent, leaving a gaping hole in its wake, through which the bright morning sunlight streamed.

Vonnda Ra looked more than a little nervous as she stepped forward and took Luke’s chin in her hands. For more than a minute she gazed transfixed into his eyes. “Yes,” she hissed at last. “Yes, you understand the dark side.”

She backed away from him as if in awe, stared up at the rent in the ceiling of her pavilion, then looked back at Luke and Tenel Ka. “We expect an Imperial supply shuttle at dawn tomorrow,” she said. “When it leaves this planet, the two of you must be on it.”