There was no response. Either Luke wasn’t doing it right, or C’baoth was unable to reply … or else this was a deliberate test of Luke’s abilities.
Well, he was game. “Let’s do a sensor focus on the main continent, Artoo,” he called, looking over his displays and trying to put himself into the frame of mind of a Jedi Master who’d been out of circulation for a while. The bulk of Jomark’s land area was in that one small continent—not much more than an oversized island, really—but there were also thousands of much smaller islands scattered in clusters around the vast ocean. Taken all together, there were probably close to three hundred thousand square kilometers of dry land, which made for an awful lot of places to guess wrong. “Scan for technology, and see if you can pick out the main population centers.”
Artoo whistled softly to himself as he ran the X-wing’s sensor readings through his programmed life-form algorithms. He gave a series of beeps, and a pattern of dots appeared superimposed on the scope image. “Thanks,” Luke said, studying it. Not surprisingly, most of the population seemed to be living along the coast. But there were a handful of other, smaller centers in the interior, as well. Including what seemed to be a cluster of villages near the southern shore of an almost perfectly ring-shaped lake.
He frowned at the image, keyed for a contour overlay. It wasn’t just an ordinary lake, he saw now, but one that had formed inside what was left of a cone-shaped mountain, with a smaller cone making a large island in the center. Probably volcanic in origin, given the mountainous terrain around it.
A wilderness region thick with mountains, where a Jedi Master could have lived in privacy for a long time. And a cluster of villages nearby where he could have emerged from his isolation when he was finally ready to do so.
It was as good a place to start as any. “Okay, Artoo, here’s the landing target,” he told the droid, marking it on his scope. “I’ll take us down; you watch the sensors and let me know if you spot anything interesting.”
Artoo beeped a somewhat nervous question. “Yes, or anything suspicious,” Luke agreed. Artoo had never fully believed that the Imperial attack on them the last time they’d tried to come here had been purely coincidence.
They dropped in through the atmosphere, switching to repulsorlifts about halfway down and leveling off just below the tops of the highest mountains. Seen up close, the territory was rugged enough but not nearly as desolate as Luke had first thought. Vegetation was rich down in the valley areas between mountains, though it was sparse on the rocky sides of the mountains themselves. Most of the gaps they flew over seemed to have at least a couple of houses nestled into them, and occasionally even a village that had been too small for the X-wing’s limited sensors to notice.
They were coming up on the lake from the southwest when Artoo spotted the mansion perched up on the rim.
“Never seen a design like that before,” Luke commented. “You getting any life readings from it?”
Artoo warbled a moment: inconclusive. “Well, let’s give it a try,” Luke decided, keying in the landing cycle. “If we’re wrong, at least it’ll be a downhill walk to everywhere else.”
The mansion was set into a small courtyard bordered by a fence that appeared more suited for decoration than defense. Killing the X-wing’s forward velocity, he swung the ship parallel to the fence and set it down a few meters outside its single gate. He was in the process of shutting down the systems when Artoo’s trilled warning made him look up again.
Standing just outside the gate, watching them, was the figure of a man.
Luke gazed at him, heart starting to beat a little harder. The man was old, obviously—the gray-white hair and long beard that the mountain winds were blowing half across his lined face were evidence enough of that. But his eyes were keenly alert, his posture straight and proud and unaffected by even the harder gusts of wind, and the half-open brown robe revealed a chest that was strongly muscled.
“Finish shutting down, Artoo,” Luke said, hearing the slight quaver in his voice as he slipped off his helmet and popped the X-wing’s canopy. Standing up, he vaulted lightly over the cockpit side to the ground.
The old man hadn’t moved. Taking a deep breath, Luke walked over to him. “Master C’baoth,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I’m Luke Skywalker.”
The other smiled faintly. “Yes,” he said. “I know. Welcome to Jomark.”
“Thank you,” Luke said, letting his breath out in a quiet sigh. At last. It had been a long and circuitous journey, what with the unscheduled stopovers at Myrkr and Sluis Van. But at last he’d made it.
C’baoth might have been reading his mind. Perhaps he was. “I expected you long before now,” he said reproachfully.
“Yes, sir,” Luke said. “I’m sorry. Circumstances lately have been rather out of my control.”
“Why?” C’baoth countered.
The question took Luke by surprise. “I don’t understand.”
The other’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you mean, you don’t understand?” he demanded. “Are you or are you not a Jedi?”
“Well, yes—”
“Then you should be in control,” C’baoth said firmly. “In control of yourself; in control of the people and events around you. Always.”
“Yes, Master,” Luke said cautiously, trying to hide his confusion. The only other Jedi Master he’d ever known had been Yoda … but Yoda had never talked like this.
For another moment C’baoth seemed to study him. Then, abruptly, the hardness in his face vanished. “But you’ve come,” he said, the lines in his face shifting as he smiled. “That’s the important thing. They weren’t able to stop you.”
“No,” Luke said. “They tried, though. I must have gone through four Imperial attacks since I first started out this way.”
C’baoth looked at him sharply. “Did you, now. Were they directed specifically at you?”
“One of them was,” Luke said. “For the others I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe the right place at the right time,” he corrected.
The sharp look faded from C’baoth’s face, replaced by something distant. “Yes,” he murmured, gazing into the distance toward the edge of the cliff and the ring-shaped lake far below. “The wrong place at the wrong time. The epitaph of so many Jedi.” He looked back at Luke. “The Empire destroyed them, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Luke said. “They were hunted down by the Emperor and Darth Vader.”
“And one or two other Dark Jedi with them,” C’baoth said grimly, his gaze turned inward. “Dark Jedi like Vader. I fought the last of them on—” He broke off, shaking his head slowly. “So long ago.”
Luke nodded uncomfortably, feeling as if he was standing in loose sand. All these strange topic and mood shifts were hard to follow. A result of C’baoth’s isolation? Or was this another test, this time of Luke’s patience? “A long time ago,” he agreed. “But the Jedi can live again. We have a chance to rebuild.”
C’baoth’s attention returned to him. “Your sister,” he said. “Yes. She’ll be giving birth to Jedi twins soon.”
“Potential Jedi, anyway,” Luke said, a little surprised that C’baoth had heard about Leia’s pregnancy. The New Republic’s publicists had given the news wide dissemination, but he’d have thought Jomark too far out of the mainstream to have picked up on it. “The twins are the reason I came here, in fact.”
“No,” C’baoth said. “The reason you came here was because I called you.”
“Well … yes. But—”
“There are no buts, Jedi Skywalker,” C’baoth cut him off sharply. “To be a Jedi is to be a servant of the Force. I called you through the Force; and when the Force calls, you must obey.”
“I understand,” Luke nodded again, wishing that he really did. Was C’baoth just being figurative? Or was this yet another topic his training had skipped over? He was familiar enough with the general controlling aspects of the Force; they were what kept him alive every time he matched his lightsaber against blaster fire. But a literal “call” was something else entirely. “When you say the Force calls you, Master C’baoth, do you mean—?”
“There are two reasons why I called you,” C’baoth interrupted him again. “First, to complete your training. And second … because I need your help.”
Luke blinked. “My help?”
C’baoth smiled wanly, his eyes suddenly very tired. “I am nearing the end of my life, Jedi Skywalker. Soon now I will be making that long journey from this life to what lies beyond.”
A lump caught in Luke’s throat. “I’m sorry,” was all he could think of to say.
“It’s the way of all life,” C’baoth shrugged. “For Jedi as well as for lesser beings.”
Luke’s memory flicked back to Yoda, lying on his deathbed in his Dagobah home … and his own feeling of helplessness that he could do nothing but watch. It was not an experience he really wanted to go through again. “How can I help?” he asked quietly.