[Junior Jedi Knights] - 01(16)

“Yes, I’m sure of it-they don’t eat people,” Anakin said to Tahiri. He had sensed her fear.

“Okay, but I still don’t have to like them,” Tahiri muttered.

“This must be the Palace of the Woolamander,” Anakin said. “It was named years ago by some guy who was exploring the planet. The woolamanders must have been here then too.”

“As long as we’re here, let’s explore,” Tahiri suggested.

Why not, Anakin thought. It had been a long time since they’d snuck out of the academy. Heck, Luke Skywalker was probably thinking up some kind of punishment, or maybe even getting the shuttle ready to take them home. It couldn’t hurt to do a little bit of exploring.

Anakin and Tahiri walked through a large stone hallway in the Palace of the Woolamander. Anakin noticed that the same letters he’d seen carved above the door were repeated on the stone walls inside the palace. Tahiri interrupted his thoughts.

“So what happened to the Massassi?” she asked.

“Nobody really knows,” Anakin replied as he ran his hands along the palace walls. “But there was one story about them that my father once told me,” he said. Anakin’s voice echoed in the empty hallways as he began to tell Tahiri the story. “Years ago there was a man named Dr’uun Unnh. He was from the star system Sullust. Dr’uun Unnh was a Sullustan. Have you ever seen one?” Anakin asked Tahiri. She shook her head.

“Well, Sullustans are humanoids with round ears, large round eyes, and heavy cheeks that hang down their faces. Anyway, Dr’uun Unnh was a history and nature lover, and he spent a lot of his life studying Yavin 4. He studied all of the old temples on this planet. By digging beneath the temples he learned about the Massassi. “According to Dr’uun,” Anakin continued, “over five thousand years ago the exiled Sith magicians - whom nobody knows much about except that they’re feared and that Darth Vader was one - settled on Yavin 4. The magicians married the natives to create the race of Massassi. A thousand years later an evil Jedi Knight named Exar Kun came to Yavin 4 to enslave the Massassi, build more temples, and resurrect the Sith teachings. Exar Kun was wiped out in the Great Sith War, which pitted the Old Republic and the Jedi Knights against the followers of Kun, who called himself the Dark Lord of the Sith.”

“That story gives me the chills,” Tahiri said. “Especially the part about Darth Vader being part of the Sith.”

“Yeah, me too,” Anakin agreed. Tahiri and Anakin could still hear the storm raging outside the palace walls. They turned a corner and stood before a crumbling wall of stone blocks. “I guess this is a dead end,” Anakin said. They were just about to turn around when Artoo’s light stopped at a hole in the wall. Tahiri walked forward and peered through the hole. She could see a long stone stairway that wound down through the floor of the palace. Before Anakin could stop her Tahiri had crawled through the hole.

“Wait, Tahiri,” Anakin called. “Someone built this wall so that we wouldn’t go down those stairs,” he said. “Well, the wall is crumbling, so maybe now we’re meant to go down,”

Tahiri called back. Artoo began to beep and blip loudly. “I don’t think he wants us to go down there,” Anakin said. “And he’s not the only one.”

Anakin had poked his head through the hole and could actually sense something evil floating up the stone stairs. The hairs on his arms rose. Artoo continued to beep - beep. Anakin crawled through the hole and joined his friend. Tahiri hadn’t started down the stone stairway.

“There’s something evil here,” she whispered in a small voice. “Anakin, what if those Dark Lord guys are still here?”

“Maybe we should turn back,” Anakin whispered.

“No,” Tahiri said fiercely, her green eyes flashing. “We’ve come this far. I’m not going to turn back just because I sense that something bad is trying to scare us away. Anakin, you said that you felt like we were being called to perform an important task, maybe it’s something that will help us become Jedi Knights. If that’s true, there’s no way I’m going to turn back. ” Tahiri began to make her way down the stairway. There were loose stones and several times she almost fell.

“Tahiri, wait,” Anakin called, but she kept moving. Anakin rushed down after his friend. This is not the way I like to do things, Anakin thought. I like to think, to figure out the choices. He slid his feet along the broken stairs. He thought about the fact that Darth Vader had been a part of the Sith. He always tried not to think of Vader as his grandfather. But Vader had once been Anakin Skywalker, Luke and Leia’s father. And that made him Anakin’s grandfather. But that was before he began using the Force for evil and became Vader. Anakin wished his parents hadn’t named him after his mom’s father.