CHAPTER NINETEEN
MIGHT
I can never tell anyone what I saw in the depths of the Old City. There are no words. But I hope one day I can show them.
—Dalien Brock, diaries, 10,661 TYA
In the end, she decided her parents could wait. That was a reunion she dreaded, and not only because she had killed her own brother. She dreaded it most because she had failed to save him a second time.
Storms still raged across Tython as she coaxed her damaged Peacemaker down onto one of Anil Kesh’s landing pads. The ship needed repairs, and her droid required some special attention from those expert in such technologies. Most of all, Tre was balancing between life and death. She had done her best for him, but her brief ministrations might have been worthless. He needed the attention of someone experienced in Force healing. She had spoken to him every moment of their brief flight to Anil Kesh, and though he was in a deep coma, she hoped it had done some good. It certainly made her feel better, no longer talking to herself.
But Lanoree’s dark matters were not yet over. And even though her mission was all but completed, she sensed something greater occurring on Tython.
Master Dam-Powl met her on the landing pad, hood raised against the rain.
“Lanoree,” Dam-Powl said with genuine affection. Lanoree went to kneel, but Dam-Powl pulled her into an embrace. She submitted to it and rested her head on the shorter Master’s shoulder. “Your balance is unsettled,” Dam-Powl whispered.
“Yes, Master. I killed my brother.”
Dam-Powl sighed heavily. “These are dark times. Please, come with me so that we can talk. We’ll eat, and drink. I’ll welcome the company. I’m acting Temple Master here in Master Quan-Jang’s absence.”
“Where is he?”
“Away. Now come.” Dam-Powl held out her hand. “Tell me everything. And then I have plenty to tell you.”
“I thought it was over,” Lanoree said, looking up at the skies to the east. Lightning danced there, and powerful winds swept stinging rain across Anil Kesh’s exposed surfaces. Beneath the temple, the Chasm roared. Darkness seemed to rise from there, though it was almost midday. Even after everything Lanoree had seen and done, it made her shiver.
“Your mission is over,” Dam-Powl said. Together they watched three Je’daii Rangers who were carefully carrying the device from the Peacemaker, place it on a stable trolley and wheel it toward an open door. It was destined for one of Anil Kesh’s laboratories. Lanoree only hoped that the Je’daii could learn from it. “But a greater story is beginning.”
Master Dam-Powl told Lanoree of the alien ship that had entered the system, exploded above Tython, and then crashed somewhere near the Rift. Perhaps in the Abyss of Ruh itself. Its arrival had caused the dreadful Force Storms that still rippled across the planet, and the Je’daii were unsettled.
“Master Quan-Jang is one of many seeking news of the crashed ship,” Dam-Powl said. “I fear it means changing times for Tython.”
“Fear?” Lanoree asked.
“There was a disturbance in the Force before the ship crashed. A wave of darkness. A terrible voice of pain, and then silence as death fell.”
“I sensed that also,” Lanoree said. “On my way from Sunspot.”
“Many Je’daii did,” Dam-Powl said. “Those on the ship were Force sensitives.”
“From out of system?”
“We believe so.” Dam-Powl nodded gently but said no more. She could sense Lanoree’s need to talk. “So now, your story,” she said.
They sat in Master Dam-Powl’s laboratory, and Lanoree told her everything.
“Bad things,” Dam-Powl said when the story was almost over. “Such bad things. I hope Tre Sana can be saved.”
“He’s a strange man,” Lanoree said. She was surprised to find herself smiling. “So hard when I met him. Harsh. Selfish. He had troublesome views, and he even told me some of the things he’d done. Not the worst things, I’m sure. But he was very open about his past. Some would have called him wicked, or even evil. But he helped me several times, and I saw the better man inside.”
“I sensed that also,” Dam-Powl said. “That’s why I chose him to be my ears and eyes.”
“You really promised him what he said?”
“I did,” she said softly. “If he survives, I’ll keep my word.”
“He came for me on Sunspot, saved me. And I think he was willing to sacrifice himself to save my life again down in the Old City. He knew what was at stake. If he hadn’t put himself in the way of that laser blast, I might have died.”
“Your alchemical skills are … quite remarkable.”
“Only what you taught me, Master.”
“No. What you did cannot be taught, Lanoree. You’re a natural. Just be careful when you continue your experiments.”
“I’m not sure I will continue,” Lanoree said.
“Oh, you will.” Dam-Powl smiled, but it quickly faded. “But what you did … the dark tempts you. It teases with the power it could give. And killing your brother has pushed you that way, also. You feel conflicted. You feel … confused.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Brush aside the confusion,” Dam-Powl said. “That is the first step to confronting any imbalance. Know that you are troubled, or be comfortable that you are not. Be honest with yourself. And … I am here, Lanoree. We are all here to help. Every single Master, because …” She shrugged. “It could be you saved us all.”
“I feel that my balance has swayed, Master. But I have not fallen. And I will not.”
Dam-Powl raised an eyebrow, took a drink, delicately wiped her mouth. “So, the threat is quashed, and another rises in its place. You’ll be wanting to rest before your journey back to Bodhi and your parents.”
“No,” Lanoree said. “I’m not going home just yet. And rest will wait. I still have questions.”
“Oh,” Master Dam-Powl said, but she knew very well that Lanoree had more to ask.
“The hypergate. I felt it.”
“You felt something in the Old City, as anyone particularly talented in the Force will. Just as the Chasm causes disturbance, and the Abyss of Ruh, and other places on Tython. Your brother was right in one regard, at least. This is not our planet.”
“But I felt such power. Like something waiting.”
“The wine’s finished. I need to fetch another bottle.” Dam-Powl stood and went to turn away. Lanoree grasped her robe and pulled her back around so that they were face-to-face. It was an audacious move, handling a Master like this. But Lanoree felt justified.
“Master. Is there a hypergate down there?”
Dam-Powl looked down at Lanoree’s hand on her sleeve, waiting until it was released.
“Whether there is or isn’t—whether anyone knows for sure, or not—doesn’t change what you did, Lanoree. If that Gree device had been turned on … well, we might not be here now. Friends. With wine. The whole system might not be here anymore.”
“Might,” Lanoree said.
“Civilization is built on the word.” Dam-Powl smiled. “You serve the Je’daii well, Lanoree. You remember when you and your brother first came to Anil Kesh? I saw the potential in you then. And when you returned to complete your training after you thought he had died, and we spent long days together here, in this laboratory …” She gestured around at dark corners and flickering candles. “That’s when I knew for sure you would one day be a great Je’daii. I was not afraid to tell you so. And today, I’m not afraid to claim an element of pride, because I was right. You are a great Je’daii. And on your journey, you might need to learn when to confront things, and when to turn away. When to obey your Masters, and when not.” She shrugged. “Hmm. That word might again. It means ‘perhaps,’ and it also means ‘strength.’ Maybe it’s doubt that gives true strength, eh, Lanoree? Balance is easy. Shifting from balance and finding it again means you have to be stronger than most. And I have every confidence in you.”
The Je’daii Master turned away again and walked across the laboratory, past benches where she and Lanoree had practiced alchemies and manipulation. As she returned with a new bottle of wine, Lanoree had one more question to ask.
“Master, where did the information about Dal, the Stargazers, and their device come from?”
Dam-Powl nodded, as if affirming something to herself. “It’s Kalimahr you need to visit.”
“Yes,” Lanoree said. “Kalimahr.” She held up her glass for one more drink.
On her way to Kalimahr, Lanoree had time to reflect on what she had done.
Your balance is unsettled, Master Dam-Powl had said, and Lanoree could not disagree with the Master. Darkness haunted her dreams, and sometimes she found herself dreaming of Bogan. All that troubled her, yet this journey was not yet done. When it was over, soon, she was confident that she was strong enough to correct the unbalance herself.
She was surprised to find herself lonely. Ironholgs remained at Anil Kesh, being repaired by a young Journeyer whose talent was mechanics; and without Tre here, her cabin felt too large, her ship too silent. She spoke to herself again but was sad that there was no reply.
Tre’s prognosis was good, she had been told. She held on to the delight she felt at this fact. She thought perhaps she had made a friend.
A group of Journeyers led by Master Kin’ade had searched for Dal’s body for some time, but it was never found. Creatures, Lanoree thought. There could be anything down there. There are depths.
She sat staring at her experiment for some time. It was shriveled and denuded, and it should have been blasted into space. Yet she could not rid herself of it. Darkness danced around the petrified flesh, and Lanoree tried several times to find life still within it. At first it was simply dead. But then, half a day out from Kalimahr, her Force senses perceived a speck of flesh that pulsed with life once more.
Given time, she would relearn the alchemy of flesh. Its draw was too great to ignore. And she was strong.
On Kalimahr, there was nothing to find.
Kara’s high apartment was abandoned. The damage caused by the battle she and Tre had fought with the fat woman’s sentry droids had been repaired. The secret room Lanoree had discovered was clean and empty, now opened up as part of the apartment. Everything personal was gone. Kara had left her apartments for the first time in thirteen years, and they should have been desirable real estate. And yet no one had chosen to rent it. There was something dark about that space.
Any enquiries she made as to Kara’s location were met with a blank wall. Most claimed not to have heard of her. The several times Lanoree used a subtle Force trick to read her associates’ minds, she found confused images of Kara as friend and threat, but no indication of where she was now. They had all known her, and they were lying about that. But when it came to her whereabouts, they told the truth.
Kara had vanished.
With her, so the militia captain Lorus told Lanoree, had gone several other high-profile members of the Rhol Yan community. One day they were there, the next … not. Their homes were abandoned, sometimes still filled with personal possessions. Their business interests were left without directors. There was never any trace.
“Maybe you’re better off without them,” Lanoree suggested.
“And why would you say that?” Lorus asked her.
“Because they weren’t what they seemed. They were darker. They had their sights elsewhere, and when it suited them they fed information to the Je’daii. Brought me here. Made my brother and his cronies speed up their plans. I think perhaps Kara and her like are the real Stargazers.”
She left Kalimahr the same day that she arrived, sensing that Lorus was glad to see her go. And she was glad to leave.
She thought of Ironholgs being repaired. There were the machines and there were the masters; the tools that function and react, and the programmers who use them for their own ends. She suspected that Dal had been a machine, a tool, and that Kara and her missing comrades were the real masters.
Perhaps Dal had been moving too slowly with his schemes, and his masters had wanted to encourage him to speed up. And what better way than to set the Je’daii on his trail? Lanoree did not like the feeling of being used, and yet it was something that haunted her.
But now Tython was her destination once more. Her parents awaited, and it was time for their daughter to come home.
After the second remembrance service for Dal, she would stay for a while. She would wander the grassy plains around Bodhi Temple alone, perhaps swim in the river, and watch the weave birds making nests. And when darkness fell she would lie back and contemplate Ashla and Bogan, and her place of balance between them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TIM LEBBON is a New York Times bestselling writer from South Wales. He’s had almost thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. His most recent releases include Coldbrook from Arrow/Hammer, London Eye (book one of the Toxic City trilogy) from Pyr in the United States, Nothing as It Seems from PS Publishing, and The Heretic Land from Orbit, as well as The Secret Journeys of Jack London series (co-authored with Christopher Golden), Echo City, and The Cabin in the Woods novelization. Future novels include The Silence (Titan). He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson awards.
Film rights to The Secret Journeys of Jack London series have been acquired by 20th Century Fox, and he and Christopher Golden wrote the first draft of the screenplay. A TV series of his Toxic City trilogy is in development with ABC Studios in the United States, and he’s also working on new novels and screenplays, both solo and in collaboration.
Find out more about Tim Lebbon at his website www.timlebbon.net.