Abyss: Star Wars Legends (Fate of the Jedi) (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi - Legends Book 3) by Denning Troy

Author:Denning, Troy [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780345518729
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

From the depths of the grotto came the sound of water, a single drop, blepping into a pool. A week later, another blep. Then a month passed before three drops fell in as many seconds … or perhaps it was years. Without his body, Luke had no pulse, no living rhythm by which to measure the passing of seconds or days or centuries. He just was—an eternal, pure presence standing outside the cave mouth, allowing the mountain’s acrid breath to waft out over him.

She was in there, the same familiar presence that had reached out from the Font of Power. Luke could feel her in the damp gloom ahead, calling him inside like a lover in need of a visit. But she was hungry and desperate, all appetite and insistence, and he worried that to answer her call was to be devoured by it.

“You have no need to fear anything inside,” said Seek Ryontarr, the onetime Jedi who was acting as his guide. The Gotal stepped down into the overgrown gully with Luke and went to stand beside one of the shadowy columns that supported the grotto entrance, then extended a hand into the sweltering darkness beyond. “Go and have a dip.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t like what I feel in there.”

Ryontarr’s Givin companion, Feryl, descended into the gully and went to stand before the opposite column.

“That is because you fear what is in your own heart,” he rasped. “It is difficult to face the truth about oneself.” The Givin’s skull-like head turned to look into the darkness. “There are not many who have the courage to go inside.”

“But Jacen did,” Luke surmised.

“That does not mean you must,” Ryontarr said. “Once a truth is learned, it cannot be unlearned.”

Luke furrowed his brow. “If you’re trying to challenge me into going inside, it won’t work.”

Ryontarr smiled, his broad mouth just showing the tips of his sharp teeth. “Well, then I guess we can leave,” he said. “Where would you like to go next?”

It was a bluff, and Luke knew it. But as Han was fond of telling him, the best time to bluff was when you knew the other guy couldn’t call. And Luke couldn’t call, not if he wanted to find out what had become of Jacen.

That didn’t mean he had to walk in there blind, though.

Luke shifted his gaze to Feryl’s spectral face. “What I feel coming from there is desire—raw, aching yearning.” He put on a wry smile. “And I’ve reached the age where intense feelings of that kind are always a lot more welcome than frightening.”

Feryl cocked his head in bewilderment and looked to Ryontarr, whose own amused scowl suggested that Gotals, at least, shared that particular aspect of human aging.

Ryontarr dropped his eyes in thought and appeared content to contemplate Luke’s reply for as long as it held his interest. Of course, there was no way to tell how long that might be, since every moment felt like an eternity and eternity seemed only a moment.

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