They were trapped.
Chapter Twenty
There was nowhere to go but up. The heat of the fireball singed them as they leaped. It hurtled under them and smashed against the door. The Jedi were able to hang in the air, using the Force, for the crucial seconds they needed. They watched in astonishment as the fire blasted through the closed door. Corrosive, annihilating, the fire ate through stone.
The Jedi landed on the still burning ashes and made it outside. The fire burned itself out until it was just a pile of ash on the floor.
"Are you all right?" Soara asked Darra.
Darra nodded, but she still looked shaky from the electrical pulses in the stun net.
Obi-Wan knew one thing. They could not search every tomb like this.
They would lose their energy, lose their focus.
He faced the tombs. He reached out, feeling each dark place, sending his concentration to every corner.
He felt him again. Omega was close now to his goal. Obi-Wan smelled his triumph.
He turned. "There." He pointed down the row. "Zan Arbor and Omega are in there. They've gone to meet the Sith."
Singed by the fire, bloodied by the tuk'ata, they moved as one body toward the tomb Obi-Wan had indicated.
Anakin knew he was there. The Sith was somewhere in the vast tomb. He was waiting. He was watching. But Omega didn't interest him. The Jedi did.
When they entered, it seemed even darker than the first tomb had been.
The air was close and smelled of decay. The tombs here were in worse shape, crumbling, some of them decayed so much that they could see the bodies inside wrapped in shrouds.
Obi-Wan held up his lightsaber. From its glow they could see pictographs on the walls, images scrawled in red that had faded. Images of deeds done by the Sith. Wars. Massacres. Anakin turned his face away.
Join us darkness conquer dominance glory..
Anakin saw one of the shrouds rise. The layers of gray, shredding rags fell away. He gasped in shock. It was his mother, Shmi.
"Annie," she called. "Annie."
"Mother." The word was wrenched out of his belly. How much had he longed to say that word again, to see her again? It was the Jedi who kept him from her, the Jedi who had taken him away….
"Anakin!" Obi-Wan's voice was sharp. "It's a vision. Nothing more."
Anakin swallowed. The shroud was back in the crypt. He gazed at the others, embarrassed. Ferus looked at him with pity. Pity! His hatred for Ferus flooded him again. He had embarrassed himself in front of Ferus!
The visions came to all of them then. Sith Lords rose and walked toward them, their mouths gaping, their hands grasping, and then disintegrated onto them with foul smells and tastes. The Jedi walked on, through the corpse visions, through the whispers, through the taunts.
You are blind and you are fools and you understand nothing….
The dark side of the Force was like a thick curtain Anakin couldn't draw aside. It got in his mouth and eyes and felt as though it could slow his hands, stop his legs. Still, he kept on walking, kept on moving. There was nothing else to be done. They had to get to the end of it.
The creatures carved from stone that sat on the ledges took flight in shimmering images of fire and destruction. Tru ducked as one of them flew directly in his face, but the creature became nothing but particles of dust. Anakin saw Tru grip his lightsaber more tightly.
Tru's lightsaber! He had forgotten to tell him to check the readout for the flux aperture! He had walked away, angry and hurt. Why hadn't he remembered?
Had he wanted to forget?
He couldn't do it now. If he did, the Masters would know that Tru's lightsaber had broken and he hadn't told Ry-Gaul. He would get himself and Tru in trouble. And Ferus probably had fixed it perfectly, the way he did everything else.
What you are and what you do mean nothing next to what we are and can do….
Thinking of Ferus made anger spurt through Anakin. It was something hard inside him. It filled him up. It felt natural, it felt right, to allow his anger to grow. Why had he tried to quell it? He had every right to feel it! Just feeling it now gave him strength.
Obi-Wan held up a hand. "Stop. Energy trap."
Anakin could see nothing. Everything was dark except for the light from Obi-Wan's lightsaber.
Obi-Wan spoke in a hushed tone. "Concentrations of dark power. They are capable of immobilizing a Jedi for a time."
"I don't see anything," Ferus said.
"Look away, then look back. Use the Force," Siri instructed.
Anakin looked away, then looked back. He caught the faintest shimmer of purple in the air. It appeared and disappeared. You could miss it if you blinked.
"I see it," Darra said.
"There will be more," Obi-Wan warned. "The Padawans must be very careful. You most likely won't be able to escape alone. Stay close to your Masters."
They moved forward, avoiding the trap.
The chuckle split the fetid air.
"I would expect no less of you, Obi-Wan." The voice came out of nowhere. Mocking, sure of himself. Granta Omega.
Obi-Wan stopped.
Slowly, Omega walked out from behind a tomb, just meters ahead.
He tapped a finger on his utility belt. "Did you really think you could avoid a few traps and catch me?"
"Get back here, you fool," Zan Arbor hissed, appearing behind him out of the darkness. "Why must you always talk to him?" In her blue shimmersilk, she looked as well-kept as ever, her blond hair piled in a profusion of neat braids on her head.
"Because I'm enjoying myself," Omega said. His handsome face creased in a wide smile. He appeared utterly at home in the terrible tomb. "I have, let's see — one, two, four, eight Jedi, all sent to capture little old me!"
"Are you forgetting I'm here, too?" Zan Arbor snapped. "Typical. I was a Jedi enemy before you were born, Granta."
"My father was their enemy before me," Omega said.
Xanatos. Omega's father, the former Jedi who had tried to destroy Qui- Gon. Obi-Wan had told Anakin about him. His son maintained the same arrogance, the same cruelty, the same howling need to hurt the Jedi, to make them pay for everything they lacked themselves. Honor meant nothing to either Xanatos or Omega. Only power. Only revenge.