Chapter Eleven

"What do you mean he's not here?"

Madam Kam blinked her large eyes slowly, three times. Obi-Wan thought he had time to count each striation in the color of the irises. "He didn't appear at the beginning of my class, Baklee Tachi. You should perhaps speak to your charge. He seems to have left school grounds."

"How can that happen? I thought the school was supposed to have some responsibility for the children here."

"This is not a prison, sir. Our shields are not set to show alarms if a student determines to cross one. If your brother-in-law has any affinity with mechanics, he may have been able to damage the field. We've known for years that there is a flaw, but… "

Obi-Wan clenched his teeth and held up one hand. "Very well. I will report Kit's absence to Madam Dysto, then I will attempt to find him." He took a deep breath. "Do you know of any… perhaps not entirely sanctioned diversions in the area? Particularly races?"

Madam Kam shook her head in bewilderment. Obi-Wan scanned the room, saw no apparent secrets in the eyes of Anakin's classmates, and nodded his thanks to the teacher. He left, not bothering to stop in Madam Dysto's office. It would do little good to put the school's machinery in motion -- if Anakin had left, he had done so without consulting the school, and without an adult per child, the school would have no way to actually track him.

And, as Anakin was ultimately Obi-Wan's responsibility, it was hardly fair to waste annoyance on the school.

But where would Anakin have gone?

He almost tripped over a small boy sitting on the wide steps in the school lobby. The boy's bag tipped over, spilling datapads, drawings, styli, and a hoverscoot onto the hardwood floor.

Hoverscoot.

Obi-Wan bent down. "I'm sorry, child. But do you know where Daj Orti's shop is?"

The boy smiled widely, apparently pleased to be spoken to by an adult. "Oh, sure. Everyone knows Daj's. It's down the street, then a left turn through the old town, then out until you're almost in the new town. It's all clean and there's a ramp on it."

"Thank you. You've been quite helpful."

Obi-Wan left the school grounds, unable to keep a slow and measured pace. He was concentrating now, trying to feel Anakin's presence in the Force. As he'd told Siri, the Force was not a compass, but it could be used to track, and Anakin was usually, quite frankly, a gravitational force. But now, Obi-Wan could only feel a vague tugging at his mind, a small hook pulling him in no direction. He could only trust his knowledge of Anakin, and the problem with that was that the most likely thing for Anakin to do was something new that hadn't occurred to him before, which left Obi-Wan with nothing at all to go on.

He supposed that objectively, it only took him ten minutes to get to Daj's store, but it seemed at least an hour, maybe more, before he saw the odd building with the scoot ramp outside. His feet only hit one riser on the porch steps.

Daj Orti was alone in the shop, behind the counter, and he stood with a welcoming smile. The smile faded abruptly into concern when he saw Obi-Wan. "You are Kit's guardian." It wasn't a question.

Obi-Wan nodded. "He isn't here?"

"No. I assumed he was still in school." Daj came around the counter and pulled a stool out from an aisle. "Sit down. You look upset. Has something happened?"

"I don't know. I went to the school, and he wasn't there. I don't know where he's gone, and I am concerned."

"He may have simply slipped away… "

Obi-Wan didn't know how to address the issue without giving away some skills he didn't want to discuss, so he just shook his head and repeated, "I am concerned."

Daj drew back and looked at him in an appraising way. "You sense he is in danger?"

"I can't find him."

"But he often runs off, doesn't he? Back on Coruscant?"

Obi-Wan nodded. He raised his hands to his temples and rubbed in small circles. "Yes. Yes, he runs off. If he isn't here, I need to go now, to find him."

Another appraising look. "You really are concerned. Your worry is for the boy."

"Of course it is."

"He is difficult for you."

"He is difficult for everyone, but at the moment he is lost, and he is therefore my difficulty to deal with." He stood up. "I really must go."

"They go to the woods," Daj said abruptly. "I am not supposed to know, but I repair their scoots. They are gummed with resin and clogged with leaves and needles. I walked the woods not long ago. There is a path of sorts from the school to the mayor's home."

"The mayor's home?" An alarm seemed to sound in Obi-Wan's mind. The mayor--the one who wouldn't see him, the one who had never made an appearance.

"Yes. He lives near the waterfall."

Back where I started, with all this time wasted. "So far from town?"

Daj sniffed. "He does not bother himself with our everyday concerns, you know. His business is with galactic trade. But it is an attractive spot. I believe the children may approach it."

"Thank you. I--"

"Go fetch him." Daj gave the forced and unusual smile that Anakin had told him about. "He's the best assistant I ever had."

"I'm afraid you can't keep him."

"I knew that from the first. But collect him anyway."

Obi-Wan nodded his thanks and left.

It would be the woods. That's why it had been so strong there in the first place. Along the stream to the waterfall.

He didn't bother looking for a path to the school or to the waterfall itself. He just ran through the woods toward the sound of the water; he could pick up the path going back. He didn't need to bother to hide his skills here; he could sense no one nearby, and he leapt easily over stumps and other obstacles. He reached the stream quickly and followed its course toward the ever-growing hiss of the waterfall.


Anakin dreamed of home.

He was cold, as he often had been at night, though it felt oddly damp. Mom was cooking breakfast, baking bread. He had to wake up now, or he'd be late to the shop, and Watto would be furious. He didn't want Watto to be mad, because there was a big race coming up, and maybe Watto would let him fly again, even though he'd crashed last time.

He started to roll over, but it hurt his head.

Mom! Hey, Mom, I'm sick!

No answer.

Mom!

Anakin pulled himself to his hands and knees, ignoring the pain in his head. It wasn't awful. It just made him a little unsure on his feet. Mom!

He tripped over something on his floor, something that looked like a tree root, but couldn't be, as there were no trees in Mos Espa.

The kitchen was shadowy and green. He couldn't see Mom anywhere.

He blinked his eyes into the sun.

I'm on Malkiri. I haven't been on Tatooine in four years, and I can't find Mom because she's still back there.

Anakin swayed in the circle of trees, feeling completely lost. He had been by the strange house that looked like a hill. How had he come here, and where was here?

His head still hurt, and he still felt unsteady on his feet.

Someone hit me and dragged me.

A horrible thought occurred to him, and became a certainty before he even thought to check. Someone had found him and knew he was a Jedi padawan. Someone had seen his pack. His lightsaber.

He pulled his pack around to the front. It was undisturbed.

Why?

Why wouldn't someone have opened it? Why knock him over the head and then not take what he was carrying? Forget that for a minute. Go back to 'Someone hit me.' Go back and think about that closely. What are you going to do about that?

"Shut up," Anakin hissed at the voice in his head, and for once it did. Maybe it knew as well as he did that there were more important things right now than worrying about payback. Like finding out who had found out what. And finding out where he was and how to get back home. "Think," he whispered to himself. "Just think. There has to be a way."

He looked around himself. He was in a circle of trees that could be anywhere. He couldn't see any glint of the windows of the house he had been at. It could be anywhere in the woods. The stream burbled away not far from here. He could hear the hiss of the waterfall. It hadn't been too far, then, unless he had been taken to an entirely new place, but he didn't think it had been that long. The sun hadn't moved very far.

The stream. It goes behind the house. Follow it upstream into town.

Anakin rolled his eyes. He must have been hit harder than he'd thought. He'd found his way home from the open desert by the shapes of rock formations, and that was a lot more complex than this. He turned toward the stream.

And promptly fell forward, the world spinning around him at an alarming angle. His hands hit the damp ground, and he stayed there on his knees, long hair hanging in his face, trying not to vomit.

After awhile, the dizzy spell passed. He reached for a tree and pulled himself up slowly, stopping each time the vertigo tried to take him. He would need to remember to move slowly.

Using the trees for support, pausing now and then to get his equilibrium, he made his way toward the sound of the rushing water.


Obi-Wan ran along the stream, darting around trees easily, leaping over roots. He could see the place where the land dropped off, and he knew he was getting close. Anakin's presence was growing stronger, but he was lost and disoriented. But for a moment, he'd felt a surge of impatience and anger that -- for once -- had done his heart good. Anakin with enough energy to be angry was Anakin not badly hurt.

It didn't make his impatience any less. He had been worried and

(frightened)

concerned, and he wanted to actually have the boy in sight, in easy reach. Once he was there, he wasn't sure if his instinct was to embrace his padawan or cuff him -- neither was precisely the approved method of dealing with a Jedi padawan -- but such choices were irrelevant until he was actually there.

The path ended abruptly at the top of a steep incline beside the waterfall. He could see the flashing light on the windows of the house Orti had told him about. Below, the stream bent sharply toward another part of the woods. He looked out over the trees, preparing for the inevitable frustration, and saw motion.

He opened himself up to the Force, felt Anakin's presence and nearly cried out in relief. But the boy was moving strangely, listing from tree to tree as though he were on a water-ship and didn't have his sea legs.

Obi-Wan started to nearly fly down the slope, then remembered that it could be seen from the windows of the house. He made himself slow down and pick his way over the rocks to the stream below. "Kit!" he called out, when he was close enough to see Anakin's face on the other side of the stream.

Anakin looked up in a dazed way, then smiled. He took a stumbling step toward the stream, and Obi-Wan put on a burst of speed, splashing across the shallow water. Anakin had taken a few uncertain steps in, and was swaying with the current when Obi-Wan caught him and held him. To keep him from falling down.

"Are you all right?"

"Someone hit me. I wasn't paying enough attention."

"We'll talk about that later." Obi-Wan picked him up -- barely noticing that Anakin's legs were long enough to dangle almost to the ground when he did so -- and carried him over to the side of the bank he'd been running on. He set him down on a boulder. "Let me look at your head."

Anakin obediently bent forward, pulling his long hair up from his neck. An ugly welt crossed the base of his skull, but it didn't actually look like a bruise. More like an energy burn.

"Did you sense anyone nearby, Anakin?"

"At the last minute. I should have been paying more attention."

"And you should have been paying more attention when I said we'd talk about that later. Did you sense someone who was in tune with the Force?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. It wasn't there, and then it was there. Why?"

"This looks like a wound from a lightsaber in training mode. You've had them before on your arms and chest. Inflicting one near the base of the brain would cause temporary unconsciousness."

"Somebody snuck up on me with a lightsaber? Why didn't they kill me?"

"I don't know. What were you doing before it happened? For that matter, why weren't you in school? What did you think you were doing?"

"I was following Tomik. Then I decided to see what was down here. There's a big comm array. That's what I was looking at. I thought it might be important. It's all hidden."

"You should have come straight home when you found it, and let Siri or me come to investigate."

"Who do you think hit me? Was it a Sith?"

Obi-Wan frowned. "No. A Sith would have killed you, probably taken your lightsaber. The same is true of whoever killed the royal family."

"Then who?"

"There's only one I can think of. Shapoi. Siri sensed him in the woods just before I felt you hurt. And he was careful not to do any serious damage to you. He didn't want you wherever you were."

"Is he on our side or not?"

"He is on the side of the Jedi," Obi-Wan answered. "That I am confident of. But he doesn't necessarily interpret that in the same way you or I would."

Anakin didn't answer.

"We need to find him. It's time to leave."

"Why would he hit me? Why not just say, Stop it?"

"I don't know."

"I want to know. And I want to hit him back."

Anakin looked up through narrow eyes, and Obi-Wan realized that he was fighting with his temper. His tone had not been defiant. It had been rather miserable. He wanted Obi-Wan to help him not want to hit Shapoi.

Obi-Wan found that help a bit difficult to offer, since he himself would have liked nothing better at that moment than to do precisely the same thing. But he was older and wiser, and knew better.

"Anakin, whatever Shapoi's motives were, I think they were not malicious. I believe he may have been trying to protect you from something he has already discovered."

"He surprised me."

"He frightened you."

"No." Anakin shook his head. "Well, a little. But mostly… it's embarrassing." He blushed and looked down.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. However gifted you are, you are still a padawan, and Shapoi is a full knight."

"I should have felt him there."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "Ah, so there was a permanent injury after all. Anakin Skywalker's pride has been wounded."

He had tried Qui-Gon's wry tone, the one that had always felt was to him when he was a padawan, and was surprised when Anakin turned and glared at him. "All right, yes, okay? I'm embarrassed. I screwed up. I didn't do it right. I -- "

Obi-Wan put a hand on his arm. "Anakin, be calm. There is no shame in a mistake, and you should not be shamed by this."

Anakin drew in a deep, shaky breath. "Yes, Master. Does this mean I'm going to have to have special lessons where I have to make mistakes and be embarrassed?"

Obi-Wan thought about it very hard. He had made up what Anakin called his "special lessons" to deal with some of the baggage Anakin had carried from Tatooine, and because they hit directly on his weaknesses, they were rarely pleasant, but he learned from them. At the same time, while Obi-Wan had been able to deliberately provoke Anakin's temper, consciously force him to sit out his impatience, and make him see the results of his impulsive behavior, he found that he simply could not make himself deliberately humiliate the boy. Not for anything. That lesson wasn't worth the price. "No," he said. "No special lessons. But be aware of your pride, Anakin."

"I'm aware."

"Are you?"

"I am."

"All right then." He pulled out his comm-link. "Siri?"

She answered immediately, also sounding put out. "What?"

"I have Kit."

"Good. Then I can stop looking."

Obi-Wan almost asked where Shapoi was, then remembered that the comm-link was not untraceable. Instead, he tried something he hoped was obvious enough for Siri to follow. "You're sure you've found the datapad you misplaced?"

"No. I'm sure I've actually lost it." She sounded discouraged. And embarrassed. Obi-Wan wondered if she and Anakin would benefit from discussing the subject of pride with one another, or if they would just exacerbate the situation for each other.

"We'll be at the top of the waterfall," Obi-Wan said. "Meet us there -- you'll see a large house in the hill with full size windows looking out -- and then we'll go home."

"Fine. Siri out."

The comm-link emitted a hiss of white noise as it was turned off on her end, and Obi-Wan thumbed the control on his own. "Can you climb the hill?" he asked.

Anakin got to his feet, swayed, looked at the top, and squared his shoulders. "Sure."

"Are you certain?"

Anakin stood swaying for a moment longer. He turned to Obi-Wan, his lips pressed firmly together, and shook his head, looking very angry with himself for doing so.

"Very good," Obi-Wan said. "You passed this one and only special lesson on your pride." He squatted down in front of the rock. "Now put your arms around my neck and I'll carry you on my back."

A few more seconds passed than really needed to, but Anakin's strong arms wrapped themselves carefully around Obi-Wan's neck from behind, the hands clasping opposite elbows above Obi-Wan's breastbone. Obi-Wan hoisted him up, making his arms into stirrups, and started to climb up the hill. Anakin didn't talk as they went, but when Obi-Wan set him down at the top, his expression was merely neutral.

They sat quietly together, leaning against tree trunks, while they waited for Siri to join them.