[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(35)

“Set us down here, please, pilot.”

Lumiya walked beside him up the promenade leading to the Temple, and it felt as if she had cloaked herself completely. He could sense her unease, but any hint of darkness had been reduced to no more than the simmering passions found in any ordinary untrained human being. She passed through the huge doors of the imposing entrance and reacted just as any ordinary person with no Force sensitivity would: she stopped in her tracks and stared. If she hadn’t been wearing a full veil across her face, Jacen thought she might well have been gaping, too.

“It’s quite an exercise in material magnificence, isn’t it?” he said.

“A statement of power,” Lumiya responded, wonderfully ambiguous.

Let’s see how much temptation you can stand.

He led her through the few areas where non-Jedi were permitted, and nobody stopped him: he was Jacen Solo, and no one would challenge his right to invite a mundane guest. That much took no Force techniques to achieve, because a confident air of purpose often opened more doors than an ID pass.

He took her into the Room of a Thousand Fountains. If anything would force her to show her true intentions-even a glimmer of a drive for revenge-it was proximity to a place of meditation, and he would spot it.

There was one more test beyond that, but he had to work toward it a little more carefully. And that was to put Lumiya within striking distance of Luke Skywalker.

There was nothing like seeing an old love who was also an old enemy to unlock someone’s true emotions.

They walked in the vast greenhouse of exotic plants that had been collected from across the galaxy. Lumiya still exuded curiosity and a little surprise. There were only a few Jedi meditating there, but Jacen found a convenient bench between two assari trees whose branches swayed gently despite the absence of any wind. Water rushed over a huge granite boulder and tumbled into a stream that disappeared under a cover of bhansgrek bushes.

“I’d prefer you to stay on Coruscant,” said Jacen.

“If that’s what you want.”

“I’ll arrange a safe house for you.” This wasn’t the place to carry on a conversation in any detail. “And I’ll want to discuss what my further instruction might consist of.”

“Speed will be important,” Lumiya said.

Oh, I know how fast events are moving. “Why?”

“I feel what you can feel-that we’re on the brink of another war, and there are some wars from which people might never recover.”

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time in our recorded history when there wasn’t a war going on somewhere.”

“All the more reason for changing the future, then.”

Jacen took her around as much of the rest of the Temple as he could access with a visitor, but no Jedi reacted to her. She didn’t betray a single emotion that indicated any agenda beyond what she claimed she had: to help him fulfill his destiny as the supreme Sith Lord.

He checked his chrono. A wild idea occurred to him, and he was getting used to listening to those as suggestions from the Force. The scheduled high council meeting would be ending soon.

All his study in a hundred different ways of harnessing the Force had come to a single point of fruition now. The only gaps in his knowledge of the Force were those of the Sith.

Sith techniques are just another weapon.

And they weren’t inherently good or evil: they just existed, like a blaster, and you could just as easily use a blaster to murder as to defend. It all depended on who held it, and who stood within its range.

That much he knew.

“All right. How do I change the future for the better?”

“The next few weeks will determine what more you need to learn,” said Lumiya.

“Did you arrange for that bombing to happen?”

Lumiya laughed, one of those little indignant snorts of disbelief.

“I don’t need to create chaos, Jacen,” she said quietly. “People are only too willing to do it for themselves. No, I had nothing to do with that.”

He checked his chrono again. Yes, he had to do it now. It was time for her final test of sincerity.

“Let’s take a walk,” he said.

He led her through the corridors to the main lobby through which the passages to the high council chamber passed. Lumiya should have been able to detect Luke’s presence, but it was essential that Luke not detect hers. Jacen concentrated on forming a Force illusion around her, not to make her appear as anyone else but to simply erase her presence as a Sith, in case her own subterfuge wasn’t powerful enough to deceive Luke.

You’re insane, he told himself. What if you’re wrong? What if Luke can sense her? Who’s going to help you attain full Sith knowledge if Lumiya is killed or imprisoned?