Shadow Academy

15

It was midafternoon by the time Tenel Ka returned. She found Master Skywalker quietly contemplating in the small slaves quarters Augwynne Djo had offered him to keep him away from curious eyes during the meeting.

“I’ve spoken with the Council of Sisters,” she said. Waves of afternoon heat rippled up the cliffside to the fortress of the Singing Mountain Clan, giving the air a flat, burnt smell. “They expect visitors to come at dusk. At that time all of our questions will be answered.”

“Then we wait,” Master Skywalker said, looking at her with his intense blue eyes. “It is one of the most difficult things to do—especially at such an urgent time, when we don’t know what’s happened to Jacen or Jaina or Lowbacca. But if waiting gets us answers where action would not … then waiting”—he smiled—“is the action we must choose.”

Like a good guest, Tenel Ka busied herself with minor duties to help the Singing Mountain Clan as the hours crawled slowly by.

The sun swung toward the horizon and dusk. Low clouds in the otherwise clear air burned pink and orange, scattering leftover rays into the heated atmosphere. Clicking insects and scuttling lizards began to move about as their world cooled with evening, adding faint rustling noises to the day’s silence.

On the lower tier of cliff dwellings, looking down upon the baked rocky plain, Tenel Ka and Master Skywalker watched the lengthening shadows cast by sunset across the desert. Compared with the bright reptilian hides Tenel Ka wore, Master Skywalker’s brown robes seemed drab and nondescript—but she knew the strength and skill he harbored within himself.

Tenel Ka noticed something dark and large moving across the plain. She perked up and squinted her gray eyes, studying the creature as it came closer. Some large beast bearing a rider—no, two riders.

Master Skywalker nodded. “Yes, I see it. A rancor carrying two.” Tenel Ka squinted again, then realized that Luke was enhancing his vision with the Force, sensing as well as seeing.

Others from the Singing Mountain Clan came to their open adobe windows and stood on the cliff balconies, gazing down in nervous anticipation.

The rancor plodded forward, slow but unstoppable. Tenel Ka could clearly see the hulking monstrosity, whose knobby, tan-gray body seemed nothing more than a vehicle loaded with ferocious fangs and claws. A tall, muscular woman rode in front; behind her sat a dark-haired young man with thick eyebrows, wearing a cloak of silver-shot black, just like the woman’s.

“She’s a Nightsister,” said Tenel Ka. “I can feel it.”

Master Skywalker nodded. “Yes, but this new breed seems well trained and even more dangerous. Something is happening here. I can feel we’re on the right track.”

“But—what is that … man doing with her?” Tenel Ka asked. “No ruler on Dathomir would treat a man as her equal.”

“Well,” Luke said, “perhaps things really have changed.”

Below, the Nightsister rider pulled the enormous rancor to a halt. The clawed, lumpy-headed beast hissed and reared up, dragging its knobby knuckles across the baked hardpan. The Nightsister dismounted, and her black-robed companion slid down beside her. They stood between two towering bronze rocks that thrust up from the sands.

“Hear me, worthy people!” the woman called up the cliffs. Her shout echoed along the rocks, reflecting her words and making her voice seem louder and broader. Tenel Ka wondered how the dark woman could speak so forcefully. She felt the Nightsister’s tug on her imagination even as she stood and listened.

“She’s using a Force trick,” Master Skywalker said, “pulling on your emotions, making you interested in what she’s about to say.”

Tenel Ka nodded. A cool breeze stirred up by the rapidly changing temperatures of evening whipped her red-gold hair about her face.

“Once again, we come to seek others interested in what we have to offer. Yes, we know that long ago evil Nightsisters ruled Dathomir with an iron hand and a cruel will. They were bad people—but that doesn’t mean their training was completely wrong, that everything they knew about power is to be despised.

“I am Vonnda Ra, and this is my companion Vilas. Yes—a male. I can sense you are shocked and surprised, but you should not be. From other allies, we have learned that this power we call … the Force dwells in all things, male and female. Not only can the Sisters use it for their own benefit, but males—Brothers—can also wield such strength.”

Many of the people in the cliff dwellings stirred.

“I sense your disbelief,” Vonnda Ra said, “but I assure you it is true.”

Tenel Ka whispered to Master Skywalker. “I have seen many things in the last few years,” she said, “and I believe I know how other societies work—but I fear that some of the more conservative clans on Dathomir are not quite ready to accept such measures of equality.”

Master Skywalker nodded, but pursed his lips gravely. “There’s nothing in Jedi teachings that favors either male or female—or even human, for that matter. Your people have only been deceiving themselves.”

Far below, Vonnda Ra stood beside her tamed rancor and shouted up. “Vilas, my best male student, will demonstrate for you one small thing he has learned, something that will amaze you.”

Dark-haired Vilas removed his spangled black cloak and draped it on the patched whuffa-hide saddle across the rancors back. He began to concentrate, standing off to himself in the flat, baked dirt between the stone columns, his arms at his side, hands clenched into fists.

Even from this far up the cliff, Tenel Ka could hear Vilas humming. Beneath their bushy brows, his eyes were squeezed shut. His black hair began to rise, flickering with static electricity. He rippled with a growing power.

Up in the purple sky, stars had just begun to shine through, bright white lights against the darkening backdrop of the almost-faded sunset. Clouds started to gather, faint wisps at first, like corded shadows across the sky that knotted and drew together. Tenel Ka stood back as the breeze picked up and became colder.

“We are always searching for new trainees,” Vonnda Ra shouted up to the gathered crowd. The Singing Mountain people clustered forward to their windows and balconies.

“If any of you would like to learn the ways of the Force, to do what Vilas and I can do—whether you be male or female, noble-born or slave—come join us. Our settlement is at the bottom of the Great Canyon, only three days’ journey from here by foot.

“We cannot guarantee that we will choose you, but we will test your abilities. Any we find with the right kind of talent, we will adopt as our own. We will teach you to be an important part in the machine of the universe. Your future can be bright, if you are with us.”

As Vonnda Ra finished, an ear-shattering peal of thunder drowned out her last words. Violent blue lightning danced in great forks that skittered across the sky.

Vilas had climbed one of the bronze rock pinnacles, scrambling up, light-footed, as if someone were drawing him up on cables. Now he stood on the flat weathered rock, arms raised. Static electricity swirled like a whirlpool around him as the gathering thunderstorm coalesced at his bidding.

More lightning flickered around the desert-scape, striking solitary boulders on the flat plain and sending up showers of dust and sparks. The storm thickened, slashing at them with cold wind. Tenel Ka blinked back stinging tears as her hair thrashed around her.

Vilas stood atop his pinnacle of rock, commanding the storm. The clouds thickened, turning the sky black.

Tenel Ka looked down the cliff face and saw that beside the lone rancor, Vonnda Ra also held her hands outstretched, palms up, fingers spread, calling the storm. Lightning came down across the desert. The rancor snorted and reared, but did not run.

“Come to the Great Canyon,” Vonnda Ra shouted above the screaming wind. “If you want to touch power such as this, come to the Great Canyon.”

Vilas sprang down from the stone pinnacle and landed with ease on the windswept desert sands next to the rearing rancor. He and Vonnda Ra scrambled onto the patched saddle.

Vonnda Ra grabbed the creatures reins and yanked it about. The clawed monster loped off into the distance as the storm continued to rage around the cliffs.

Tenel Ka stared after, trying to keep her eyes on the dwindling silhouette of the monster and its two riders. “So now we know….” she said. “What shall we do?”

Luke put his hand on her shoulder, and she could sense his confidence. “We go to this Great Canyon and offer ourselves as candidates,” he said. “They are looking for new people to train. And now we’re sure we’re on the right track. Jacen, Jaina, and Lowbacca might be there already.”

Tenel Ka bit her lip and nodded. “This is a fact.”