The next morning I woke all muzzy and, as a result, didn’t realize I was starting out on my run later than usual. About halfway through the run, at the point in my circuit furthest from the Great Temple, I realized what time it was. While Luke still allowed flexibility in training times, in the mornings he usually appreciated our getting an early start. I tried to pick up my pace, but I knew I’d arrive back at the Temple well after everyone else had assembled to start working.
I wanted to kick myself for being so stupid. The previous evening had been an impressive victory in the battle to open ourselves up to the Force. While the emergency had opened me broadly to the Force, I’d been feeling it before that. I knew I could make great progress and had been looking forward to the morning’s exercises to see if I could capitalize on what I had learned the night before.
The reason I’d awakened rather dull was because I’d not gotten much sleep at all. Master Skywalker had mentioned that dreams rarely disturbed a Jedi’s sleep. I don’t know why, but I’d never dreamed much. When I did dream I tended toward nightmares that ruined my sleep.
Nightmares had kept my sleep uneven and fragmentary. I kept drifting back to the place where I had felt Mirax’s presence. I tried to freeze the stars in place so I could figure out where I was supposed to be, but one by one they winked out. They left me alone and in the dark. When I tried to look at my hands, I saw through my flesh as rot ate away at the bones, then I fell into nothingness, forever to exist in the knowledge that when Mirax needed me, I had failed her.
Pretty much my definition of a nightmare.
Nearing the Great Temple on my return, I heard something that made me push myself and increase my speed. The hum-hiss of a lightsaber and the spit-crack of it slicing through something is unforgettable once heard. I couldn’t imagine Luke and Kam would have begun to teach anyone how to fight with lightsabers without me there. I realized in an instant that such a thought was unworthy and arrogant, but since I had the only other lightsaber on Yavin, including me made sense to me.
I entered the clearing just as Luke drove Gantoris back into a purple-boled Massassi tree. Where did Gantoris get a lightsaber? With the black-haired apprentice’s braid whiplashing through the air, he fell, scattering purple bits of tree bark. His knees resting on a thick root, and his elbows keeping his back off the ground, he stared up at Luke as the Jedi Master approached. Gantoris’ white-violet blade still pointed up toward Luke, but from where he was there was no way the apprentice could strike at the Master.
Then Gantoris did something that extended the blade, doubling its length. He slashed at Luke, but the Jedi Master moved faster than I ever thought possible. The sleeve of Luke’s grey flightsuit smoked from where the lightsaber’s blade had caressed it, but Gantoris had done no real harm. Luke set himself, imposing his green blade between himself and his student, bracing for another attack.
Gantoris had rolled to his feet while Luke retreated and advanced confidently. The length of the blade on his lightsaber gave him an advantage and he clearly meant to use it. He waded in toward Luke, crashing down blow after blow with a ferocity I’d only ever seen in a glitbiter gripped by spice paranoia. Though Luke picked off each blow with ease, never letting Gantoris make him defend in the Inner Ring, the apprentice kept coming. His intensity and singlemindedness kept Luke falling back to the point where the Jedi Master’s only escape was to leap away and levitate himself onto a branch of a Massassi tree.
I watched, stunned, as Gantoris waited for Luke to descend again. All the other students had pressed back away from the clearing. They lurked in the edges of the forest, waiting, uncertain what to do. Like me, Kam had no lightsaber with him. As he glanced over at me, I knew we both weighed the chances of our being able to race to the Temple, getting our lightsabers and managing to return in time to make a difference.
And if Gantoris can kill a Jedi Master, what chance would I have of stopping him?
Luke asked Gantoris a question, but the hum of lightsabers stole both it and Gantoris’ shouted reply. Then the apprentice slashed at the Massassi tree with his lightsaber, shearing all the way through it. Stintarils in the highest branches shrieked as they leaped away. The scent of spicy sap reached me about the same time as the tree slowly toppled into the rainforest with a crackling and snap of bushes and saplings caught beneath it.
Master Skywalker floated to the ground unharmed and again set himself to receive Gantoris’ attacks. Gantoris shortened his blade and came on. Luke gave ground, blocking the attacks in closer to him than before. He gave the impression that he was tiring, weakening. I guessed it was a ploy to draw Gantoris on, but the apprentice was not thinking clearly enough to see that. He pressed forward, slashing his way through leafy ferns and chopping apart nebula orchids.
Suddenly Luke went down and I couldn’t see him. Gantoris rushed forward, his spitting blade shredding the jungle. I started to sprint toward them, cursing the fact that I couldn’t lift Gantoris up the way I had Tionne only hours before. I tried to think of what image I could project into Gantoris’ mind to deflect him and distract him, but I never got the chance.
Gantoris’ purple blade came down in an overhand strike that burned its way through the underbrush. I heard a startled squeal, then an orange furred runyip broke from the brush, darting into the clearing right behind Gantoris. As he turned to face this new threat, his lightsaber flew up out of his hands and the blade died.
Luke plucked the lightsaber from the air, then extinguished his own blade. The two of them stood there, facing each other. Sweat streamed down their faces and their breath came ragged, yet neither one wanted to show any sign of weakness. In the absence of the lightsaber hissing, the fading sounds of the runyip’s squeals and the normal sound of the rainforest fought for supremacy.
Then Luke did something that stunned me. He flipped Gantoris’ lightsaber around and extended it to him hilt first. Gantoris accepted it timidly, clutching it in both hands. He studied it, turning it over and around as if seeing it for the first time, then he looked back at Luke.
The Jedi Master nodded. “Good exercise, Gantoris, but you must learn to control your anger. It could be your undoing.”
I dropped to my knees in utter astonishment. I watched Gantoris turn away and retreat into the rainforest. The other apprentices seemed as surprised at what had happened as I was. They whispered together in little knots as Luke emerged from the undergrowth, clipped his lightsaber to his belt, and pulled his cloak back on.
He looked around calmly and even gave us the hint of a smile. “Perhaps, after last evening, we started too early today. We will reconvene this afternoon.” In his words I felt a gentle urging to go back to my room, but I resisted it. The others did not and melted away unseen into the rainforest.
Luke glanced back at me, a half-smile on his face. “I thought you would still be here. You did not see the beginning?”
I shook my head. “The ending was more than enough. What are you going to do?”
“Do? This is done already.”
My jaw dropped open. “Unless I missed something, one of your apprentices found or somehow constructed a lightsaber and just tried to kill you with it. You don’t see this as cause for alarm?”
“How can it surprise you that Gantoris has found a way to fashion a lightsaber? You and Kam already possess one. We’ve talked about Gantoris’ competition with you.”
I held my hands up. “That may be an issue, but not the core one as I see it.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “So your vision here is paramount.”
I hesitated and felt my stomach collapse in on itself. “No, Master Skywalker, it is not. I mean no disrespect.” I sighed. “I just want to understand. Gantoris has gotten into something he shouldn’t have. You have to discipline him.”
“He’s going to be a Jedi Knight. I cannot treat him like a child.” Luke shook his head. “To do that would stunt his development. He’s very good and one of the best students here. He just needs guidance.”
“Then give it to him.” My hands convulsed into fists, then I forced them open again. “You’re assuming that he will see the error of his ways and never do this again. He attacked you! He’s already shown he’s not scanning right and wrong correctly. He can’t begin to figure out where the line between them runs if you don’t find a way to punish him when he crosses that line.”
The Master shook his head slowly. “I can tell you that Gantoris already regrets what he has done here. Stretch out with your feelings. You’ll feel it, too. He is teaching himself where the line is and how to stay on the light side of it.”
I did as I was bidden and did sense both remorse and confusion from Gantoris. “You are right, Master. I know you believe in redemption. What you say about Gantoris is true. I guess I don’t see why he should not be punished for having done something wrong.”
“You’re not supposed to see it, Keiran, you’re supposed to feel it.” Luke rubbed a hand against his forehead. “Retribution leads to the dark side.”
I sighed. “I know. I would argue that a little punishment now could prevent a disaster later, but I don’t think that will get me anywhere.”
“You see, Keiran, you grow in wisdom as well as the Force.”
I didn’t want to laugh, but his comment was funny. Still, coming from someone my age, it also rankled a bit. Luke obviously deserved the title Jedi Master, but part of me wished we weren’t the group on which he first practiced being a teacher. He clearly had his ideas about how we should learn, and we were all making progress. Some faster than others.
Even so, I wasn’t used to his methods. I flashed on Iella’s heart and mind split and knew it was a key to my problem. “I shall think further on my ignorance, Master, that I may see how much wisdom I yet need to learn. If you would permit it, though, I want to ask you a question.”
“Please.”
I scratched at the back of my neck. “What did you ask Gantoris and what did he shout at you before he cut down the tree?”
“I asked how he had learned what he needed to know to make a lightsaber.” Luke shifted his shoulders stiffly. “He replied that I was not the only teacher of the Jedi way.”
“Not a very good answer. Do you think he would have gotten the knowledge from the Holocron?”
“I can’t see how. The Holocron detects a student’s ability and holds back things they are not prepared to know.” He smiled carefully. “It works so well, in fact, that I do not know if there are things there that I have yet to learn.”
“If not from Bodo Baas, then from whom did he learn?” I frowned. “I couldn’t teach it to him. I don’t think Kam would and you, I take it, have not. Who did?”
Luke remained very still for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But it would have to be a Jedi, or someone with the knowledge of the Jedi ways and, presumably, considerable power in the Force.”
“I think so, yes.”
“And yet, last night, when we were all so open to the Force that we were able to catalog stars, we didn’t feel the presence of such an individual right here?”
Luke’s eyes became sapphire slits. “No.”
I shivered, and it wasn’t because I was soaked in sweat. “Does that worry you as much as it does me?”
“More, I think, Keiran.” Luke’s cloak rippled with a shudder. “Much more.”