DISCLAIMER: I do not own any SW elements in this story. I only borrow
and twist them to suit my evil plans.
Chapter 6 - Attack
The night had passed without any disturbance; and Jalekk almost cheerfully announced that they'd get out of the caverns by nightfall. This news cheered everyone up a great deal, and the four packed up quickly that morning.
An hour or so later the four adolescents reached a large cavern. Water flowed slowly down the ceiling and tiny rivulets had formed on the cavern's floor. Tiny, translucent moss-like plants grew in cracks in the floor, thriving on the moisture. Jalekk directed them to the far side of the cavern where there was a hole in the damp wall. On closer inspection, they found that handholds had been hewn into the rock; another indication, Jalekk triumphantly explained, that they were going the right way.
Jalekk volunteered to climb ahead with one pack at the time - the sloping hole was narrow - and heaved the satchels up, accepting them from Taren at the bottom after anchoring himself securely in the tunnel. After all the packs had been deposited safely on the other side of the hole, Jalekk climbed up after them and disappeared.
Kairal scrambled into the hole, followed by Koja and lastly Taren. The hole curved gently upward and they resurfaced in one of the by now familiar passages. Again, this tunnel had dozens of round crevices pock- marking the sides and roof.
Jalekk held his flare torch high, looking up and down the passage.
"So, which way?" Taren asked as he slung his bag onto his back.
The other Sith looked uncertain but not alarmed. "I'm really not sure if we go up or down from here," he said. "But I do know that to one side this passage branches into three; and we're to take the rightmost tunnel."
The brown-haired initiate looked a bit unnerved. "All right. So we just walk in whatever direction until we find the fork, or what?"
Recognizing the strain on the other's voice, Jalekk said, "It's all right. All of you can stay here while I scout up the tunnel." As Taren opened his mouth to interrupt, he added, "I'll go alone - I can move faster and I'll be back before you know it."
Laying his cloak on the ground and strapping a water bottle to his belt, Jalekk held his torch high and moved off at a fast jog before anyone could interject. Soon the bobbing light of his flare torch was swallowed up in blackness.
Taren unpacked some dried meat and offered it to the two girls. Koja was watching him intently and he said, "It's all right. I didn't sense any treachery from him."
The Jedi Padawan shot Kairal an apologizing glance. It was clear Taren still didn't trust the other Sith too much; Jalekk could have just left the underground completely and abandoned them in the bowels of the earth to starve.
Taren chewed on a stringy bite of meat, watching the two slaves. The one, apprehensive and troubled, while the other was watchful and calm. He idly wondered if the Jedi's Force training had anything to do with her bearing.
Oblivious to his gaze, the girls started combing each other's hair; and Taren watched as Jalekk's slave Kairal started weaving Koja's coppery hair in an intricate design.
* * *
Kairal stirred from where she leaned next to Koja. She had plaited and brushed Koja's hair into about twenty different styles and the two girls had eventually just relaxed with their backs to the rocky tunnel wall, starting a dodged conversation. But eventually even that had trickled to a standstill.
"Please Taren, Kairal's voice had taken on a pleading tone. "How long has it been?"
"I don't know," the initiate replied. "I have no time piece." Taren had considered a chrono unnecessary on the trip, and had thus not taken one along.
"At least two hours,'' Koja murmured, hazarding a guess.
The Sith shrugged. "Maybe . . . "
The Hapan girl squirmed again. "Please - can we go look for him?"
Taren frowned. "He's probably just around the next bend. What would he think of me if we suddenly came toward him?" Then he made up his mind, and with a sigh, said: "All right. We can . . . count the seconds until thirty minutes are passed. Then we'll go."
Kairal agreed to this, but still seemed worried. Koja wasn't feeling completely at ease either, but agreed to Taren's reasoning.
And so they started counting, minute after minute after minute. Then, their minds almost reeling from the monotony of the repetitive numbers they had recited, the three realized that a half-hour had now definitely passed and that Jalekk still hadn't returned.
Taren stretched his arms and legs. "Okay . . . Let's go."' After a quick discussion, it was decided to take the packs along, since the other Sith might be hurt somewhere; or that he had indeed found the junction.
Kairal volunteered to take the other Sith's pack, and Koja carried both her and the other girl's satchels. And so they trudged off, well rested and slightly anxious as to what might await them further down the tunnel. They walked along at a brisk pace, always keeping a lookout for the light of another torch up ahead.
After about an hour, a dim glow reached them from somewhere ahead. "There he is," Taren informed the girls behind him. "I told you."
But as the trio neared the light, they noticed that something was wrong. The other light wasn't moving toward them.
"Jalekk! Taren called. "Jalekk!" His voice bounced off the walls of the tunnel, and echoes replied for the other Sith: /Alekk - lekk - lekk . . . lekk . . .!/
"Maybe he's hurt," the brown-haired Sith offered when the echo had subsided. "He probably slipped and banged his head." But the girls behind him didn't reply.
Finally, Jalekk came into view. He was lying on the ground; and the flare torch lay on its side near him. Taren called the youth's name again, but stopped when he came close enough to see him clearly.
Behind him, the girls gave a frightened gasp and Kairal whispered a phrase in Hapan. Jalekk lay on his side, sightless eyes staring ahead. His hands were clutched around his own throat and his legs were pulled up halfway to his chest, feet twisted at strange angles. His face was contorted into a mask of pure terror.
"No . . ." Kairal whispered and buried her head in Koja's shoulder. "Please no!"
Taren straightened up from his crouch after feeling the other boy's pulse. "He's dead." he sated quietly, confirming what they already knew. Taren turned away from the twisted corpse that had once been their companion. Koja looked into his eyes and saw the fear, the grief, there. He might have paled but it was hard to tell in the harsh glare of the torches.
"Please - Let's leave." Taren whispered. He turned and walked past the body and onward down the passage.
"Come on, Kairal." Koja murmured to the sobbing girl. She was surprised at how shaky her own voice was. "We have to go." Carefully, the Jedi maneuvered Jalekk's former slave around the corpse and followed Taren.
As she walked, supporting Kairal, Koja hoped over and over that the triple junction would be at the end of the passage. She did not think any of them would be able to pass /it/ again. Although she would not have admitted it to anyone else, she was afraid. Afraid of whatever had killed Jalekk.
* * *
After what seemed like hours of endless walking, Taren suddenly halted. Koja realized that he had stopped because the passage they were in had suddenly split into three.
"J - Jalekk said the leftmost one." she whispered almost fearfully. The Sith seemed not to have heard and Koja rubbed Kairal's back comfortingly. The girl had not stopped crying since their discovery, and nothing seemed to be able console her.
Taren seemed to consider his options for a while, but then made off down the left tunnel, not waiting for the girls to catch up.
"Come, Kairal, we're almost out of these caves," the Jedi murmured and led the girl after him.
Koja immediately noticed that this passage sloped upwards slightly, which could only mean that they were indeed heading back toward the surface. Taren's mood, however, dampened her spirit. He had not made any move to help Kairal, and now didn't appear to even acknowledge their presence. Determinedly biting her lip, she urged Kairal to a faster pace but nevertheless hoped that they would reach a cavern soon.
An hour later, Koja Jime got her wish. The natural room the passage had led them to was large and two shallow pools lay along one wall. But as was the case with the previous cavern, no minuscule plant life was present here.
However, she did not have much chance to ponder on that before Taren's command shifted her attention to him. "Help me with this,'' He had started unpacking the shelters to form the covered framework of most previous nights. "And you," Taren's eyes suddenly became hard. "Shut up."
The Jedi realized that he was talking to Kairal. "Taren, please . . . She grieves for - "
"I know!" he cut her off. "Come on, tie this onto this pole." Taren shoved a strap attached to a canvas sheet into her hands and gestured to a horizontal rod. Resolutely, the Jedi did as she was told, then helped the grim youth assemble the rest of the frame. After the last canvas had been secured to the framework, Koja moved over to where the other girl was sitting on a raised section of the rocky floor.
"Kairal," she whispered, rubbing the girl's back. "Come help me with the blankets." But the girl did not respond and kept her head buried in her arms, whispering - chanting - something to herself. The Jedi listened intently but could not make out the strange words.
"/Shaetah n Jalekk, channu omah lainom Jalekk! Shaetah n Jalekk, channu omah lainom Jalekk!/" The language that Kairal was using was obviously her native tongue, and it seemed the initiate's death had robbed her of Basic.
"It's all right, Kairal . . . Jalekk is in a much better place now." Koja murmured. "Please, you mustn't give up like this. Your chants aren't going to bring him back." She said the last part gently, soothingly. "Try not to think about it." she added.
Meanwhile, Taren had stalked over to them. His face was drawn and his eyes cold. "I should kill her." his voice was empty and dead and not the one that Koja knew. She raised her eyes to look up at him. "The incident has turned her into a babbling lunatic." His fingers had already closed around the hilt of his lightsaber.
For the first time since Jalekk's death, Vornei si Kairal registered what was going on around her.
Slowly, she sat up and looked Taren straight in the eyes, tears streaming from her swollen ones. There was indifference in that gaze - and it became clear that the Hapan girl did not care what happened to her from now on.
"Taren, no." Koja said quietly, rising. "She does not deserve to die; she has done nothing worthy of such punishment."
The Sith moved his stare to her, one hand holding his weapon tightly in apparent readiness. "Nor did Jalekk!"
The Jedi took a deep breath. "I know, Taren. And killing Kairal is not going to solve anything." She stepped forward. "You are not thinking clearly. You are also grieving for Jalekk, and you're frightened. Admit that, Taren." She had put a great measure of sincerity into those words, and she knew that the Sith might strike her down for them.
For a moment he just stared at her, then his eyes softened slightly. "Yes. You are right." he admitted softly, but there was no strain or tremor in his voice to support what he had just said.
Koja left the others alone to set the rest of the camp up. She unpacked the groundsheets and blankets from the two Siths' packs, spreading them over the rocky cavern floor. She also started boiling some water. She noticed that the water flasks were empty, and decided to fill them up at one of the pools.
She moved over to the one near the exit-hole and saw that Taren was already there. He was gazing pensively into its dark depths. When she knelt down to fill the bottle his voice stopped her.
"Wait."
Koja stared up at the Sith, and he crouched down next to her. "Look," he pointed out onto the surface of the still little lake, and moved his torch over it. "There are holes in the bottom."
The Jedi saw that the holes on the floor of the lake seemed deep, and she could not judge their depths.
The circular openings did resemble the ones they had often seen in the tunnels earlier on.
Taren braced himself with his fingertips on the edge of the pool and leaned forward, as if to drink. But then the Sith initiate paused, nose and mouth bare centimeters from the surface of the inky waters. She leaned forward too, and watched him questioningly.
He straightened up. "This water smells strange, too." As Koja leaned forward as well, he added, "I don't think we should drink it."
Indeed, a strange, albeit almost indiscernible odor wafted from the black liquid. Koja couldn't identify the tangy, cloying smell. She sat up to look at the Sith. "Do you know why this is?"
But Taren merely shook his head. "No, I don't. I also don't recognize this smell." he paused. ''If the other pool is fine we should rather use it to get water from."
After a short, grim supper, the three bedded down to sleep. All of them were fearful, although they didn't show it. Koja spent most of the night whispering encouragement into Kairal's ears; and Taren lay awake next to her, staring off into space.
* * *
They rose earlier than usual, and the light of the glow lamp found them bleary-eyed and still tired. They ate a breakfast, and Koja wondered how they would go about getting out of these nightmarish caverns. With Jalekk gone, they could only guess with path led to the surface.
"Taren," she said, "Which way are we going to take?" She took a sip of tea, watching the Sith.
He frowned, staring into the light of the glow torch. "We will just take the passage that slants up the most . . . And I have sense- enhancing techniques so that I can smell and, or feel fresh air coming in."
The Jedi stifled a sigh. "All right. Sounds good." Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to come up with anything better herself. She finished her meal and went to the good pool to fill their water bottles. As she passed the other pool, she heard a strange frothing noise. Koja turned to see what was going on in the pool. A few bubbles were converging on the surface, and that acrid scent was getting stronger.
"Uh . . . Taren!" she turned away from the pool and ran back to their camp. "Taren! That pool . . . it's bubbling!"
He stared at her for a moment, but then a revelation seemed to hit his face. He was on his feet quickly. "Kairal, let's go!" He grabbed the startled girl by the arm and pulled her up. "Koja, run! We have to get out of here!" Grabbing a flare torch, the Sith pulled the girl from Hapes with him and made for the closest exit tunnel.
Koja was puzzled but noticed that the sweet stench was indeed getting stronger. Biting back protest, she followed the others from the cave.
Behind them, the pool was seething and hissing, and the water churned with large, popping and reforming bubbles.
Kairal had finally found her legs and was forcing them to move as quickly as they could. The Sith raced along next to her down the long tunnel. The Jedi came behind, and they ran as if a rabid gerr was chasing them. However, both the girls were still struggling to link Taren's haste with the bubbling pool.
"Come on, come on!" Taren yelled to both of them. "Don't stop!" he was breathing heavily, and the torch in his hand bobbed up and down furiously with his clenched fist. Panting, Koja gritted her teeth and fell in step with Kairal, wishing for a more scanty outfits than the heavy clothing she was wearing now.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of running, the Sith slowed down and stopped just around a bend in the tunnel. He was breathing hard and could barely speak. "All . . . right. Let's . . . hope . . . this is . . . far enough!"
The girls slumped down next to him, exhausted. Koja felt her throat burning with each intake of breath she took, and coughed because of the phlegm her rapid breathing had loosened. "Are you all right, Kairal?" she asked the other girl, who looked sick. She got a nod for an answer. She took a deep breath before asking the initiate, "Why did we run?"
The Sith let his eyes trail over the bumpy rock wall opposite them. "I think I know what killed Jalekk."
Both the girls wordlessly turned their heads to look at him. On the one's face was disbelief and curiosity; while the other girl's drawn features were etched with uncaring apathy, though her eyes seemed brighter.
"When we found him, Jalekk had not drawn his lightsaber," Taren paused. "No one would point a weapon at something they can't see. Also, his posture did not suggest that anything physical had attacked him . . . more that his body had suddenly acted against him," They unwillingly recalled the deceased boy's twisted corpse.
The young Sith went on. "There was also a similarity between his posture and that of the skeleton's."
Koja nodded. She had noticed that, too.
"I drew the conclusion that Jalekk and the owner of the skeleton had been killed by the same . . . thing."
He paused, and closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath, sampling the air - probably with the technique he'd mentioned earlier - and, seemingly finding nothing, continued. "Yesterday, when I noticed the strange stench coming from the rock pool back in the cave - and that there are no plants growing in it . . . I started wondering . . ."
"And then, when the pool started bubbling this morning; I knew what had killed Jalekk." he paused with a sigh. "Jalekk was killed by a poisonous gas. Those strange holes that we noticed all the time - that's how the gas escapes. It probably comes from somewhere deeper underground - and then it moves upwards, through those holes. Jalekk didn't know what was happening when the air suddenly started smelling strange."
Next to her, Kairal closed her eyes and rested her head back against the tunnel wall. Koja nodded solemnly. 'May the /spirits/ of these caverns . . . ' Maybe the toxic gas itself had made those holes while the earth had still been soft - and still used them to escape, even though the earth had long hardened into rock. The Jedi swallowed. "At least we now know what to look out for," she looked at Taren, feeling relieved. "How long do you think it'll be before we can go back to get our things?"
"I - I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how much gas gets released from underground . . . We should stay here for quite a while. There are no holes here; so we ought to be safe. I'll switch off the torch if that's okay with you - to save energy." he looked at them both. Koja nodded silent assent.
Taren flicked the switch on the handle of the short glowing staff, and the tunnel was plunged into pitch darkness. The three young people immediately moved closer together, assuring themselves that they were not alone in this black, silent space.
And then, Kairal's full, eerie voice echoed along the stone walls. "/Nahmia'e taesan i, Jalekk. Utaeni n sho. Kidohla ruhasen dra'i, me haurdah Jalekk!/"
Koja felt Taren nudging her in the dark. "What is she saying?" he whispered close to her ear.
"I don't know." she returned, wondering herself.
Almost as if reading their minds, Kairal suddenly spoke for the first time since they'd found Jalekk's body.
"It means 'We have found the cause of you death, Jalekk. Your passing was nobody's fault. Still, we all grieve for you, my love Jalekk!''' her voice was flat compared to what she had sung just moments ago.
"Why do you sing for the dead, Kairal?" Koja whispered in the girl's direction.
"We Hapans believe that when a body dies, the soul travels to a place called Ukari; where all souls go. From this place they can hear and see what goes on in the material world - here."
Koja nodded, although the other two could not see the gesture. It was commonly known among Jedi, as well as the Sith, that when a creature died, its essence returned to its origin - the Force itself, so this could indeed be linked to Kairal's belief.
Silence returned to the passage, and Koja soon started dozing, knowing that Taren would keep his vigil.
Chapter 6 - Attack
The night had passed without any disturbance; and Jalekk almost cheerfully announced that they'd get out of the caverns by nightfall. This news cheered everyone up a great deal, and the four packed up quickly that morning.
An hour or so later the four adolescents reached a large cavern. Water flowed slowly down the ceiling and tiny rivulets had formed on the cavern's floor. Tiny, translucent moss-like plants grew in cracks in the floor, thriving on the moisture. Jalekk directed them to the far side of the cavern where there was a hole in the damp wall. On closer inspection, they found that handholds had been hewn into the rock; another indication, Jalekk triumphantly explained, that they were going the right way.
Jalekk volunteered to climb ahead with one pack at the time - the sloping hole was narrow - and heaved the satchels up, accepting them from Taren at the bottom after anchoring himself securely in the tunnel. After all the packs had been deposited safely on the other side of the hole, Jalekk climbed up after them and disappeared.
Kairal scrambled into the hole, followed by Koja and lastly Taren. The hole curved gently upward and they resurfaced in one of the by now familiar passages. Again, this tunnel had dozens of round crevices pock- marking the sides and roof.
Jalekk held his flare torch high, looking up and down the passage.
"So, which way?" Taren asked as he slung his bag onto his back.
The other Sith looked uncertain but not alarmed. "I'm really not sure if we go up or down from here," he said. "But I do know that to one side this passage branches into three; and we're to take the rightmost tunnel."
The brown-haired initiate looked a bit unnerved. "All right. So we just walk in whatever direction until we find the fork, or what?"
Recognizing the strain on the other's voice, Jalekk said, "It's all right. All of you can stay here while I scout up the tunnel." As Taren opened his mouth to interrupt, he added, "I'll go alone - I can move faster and I'll be back before you know it."
Laying his cloak on the ground and strapping a water bottle to his belt, Jalekk held his torch high and moved off at a fast jog before anyone could interject. Soon the bobbing light of his flare torch was swallowed up in blackness.
Taren unpacked some dried meat and offered it to the two girls. Koja was watching him intently and he said, "It's all right. I didn't sense any treachery from him."
The Jedi Padawan shot Kairal an apologizing glance. It was clear Taren still didn't trust the other Sith too much; Jalekk could have just left the underground completely and abandoned them in the bowels of the earth to starve.
Taren chewed on a stringy bite of meat, watching the two slaves. The one, apprehensive and troubled, while the other was watchful and calm. He idly wondered if the Jedi's Force training had anything to do with her bearing.
Oblivious to his gaze, the girls started combing each other's hair; and Taren watched as Jalekk's slave Kairal started weaving Koja's coppery hair in an intricate design.
* * *
Kairal stirred from where she leaned next to Koja. She had plaited and brushed Koja's hair into about twenty different styles and the two girls had eventually just relaxed with their backs to the rocky tunnel wall, starting a dodged conversation. But eventually even that had trickled to a standstill.
"Please Taren, Kairal's voice had taken on a pleading tone. "How long has it been?"
"I don't know," the initiate replied. "I have no time piece." Taren had considered a chrono unnecessary on the trip, and had thus not taken one along.
"At least two hours,'' Koja murmured, hazarding a guess.
The Sith shrugged. "Maybe . . . "
The Hapan girl squirmed again. "Please - can we go look for him?"
Taren frowned. "He's probably just around the next bend. What would he think of me if we suddenly came toward him?" Then he made up his mind, and with a sigh, said: "All right. We can . . . count the seconds until thirty minutes are passed. Then we'll go."
Kairal agreed to this, but still seemed worried. Koja wasn't feeling completely at ease either, but agreed to Taren's reasoning.
And so they started counting, minute after minute after minute. Then, their minds almost reeling from the monotony of the repetitive numbers they had recited, the three realized that a half-hour had now definitely passed and that Jalekk still hadn't returned.
Taren stretched his arms and legs. "Okay . . . Let's go."' After a quick discussion, it was decided to take the packs along, since the other Sith might be hurt somewhere; or that he had indeed found the junction.
Kairal volunteered to take the other Sith's pack, and Koja carried both her and the other girl's satchels. And so they trudged off, well rested and slightly anxious as to what might await them further down the tunnel. They walked along at a brisk pace, always keeping a lookout for the light of another torch up ahead.
After about an hour, a dim glow reached them from somewhere ahead. "There he is," Taren informed the girls behind him. "I told you."
But as the trio neared the light, they noticed that something was wrong. The other light wasn't moving toward them.
"Jalekk! Taren called. "Jalekk!" His voice bounced off the walls of the tunnel, and echoes replied for the other Sith: /Alekk - lekk - lekk . . . lekk . . .!/
"Maybe he's hurt," the brown-haired Sith offered when the echo had subsided. "He probably slipped and banged his head." But the girls behind him didn't reply.
Finally, Jalekk came into view. He was lying on the ground; and the flare torch lay on its side near him. Taren called the youth's name again, but stopped when he came close enough to see him clearly.
Behind him, the girls gave a frightened gasp and Kairal whispered a phrase in Hapan. Jalekk lay on his side, sightless eyes staring ahead. His hands were clutched around his own throat and his legs were pulled up halfway to his chest, feet twisted at strange angles. His face was contorted into a mask of pure terror.
"No . . ." Kairal whispered and buried her head in Koja's shoulder. "Please no!"
Taren straightened up from his crouch after feeling the other boy's pulse. "He's dead." he sated quietly, confirming what they already knew. Taren turned away from the twisted corpse that had once been their companion. Koja looked into his eyes and saw the fear, the grief, there. He might have paled but it was hard to tell in the harsh glare of the torches.
"Please - Let's leave." Taren whispered. He turned and walked past the body and onward down the passage.
"Come on, Kairal." Koja murmured to the sobbing girl. She was surprised at how shaky her own voice was. "We have to go." Carefully, the Jedi maneuvered Jalekk's former slave around the corpse and followed Taren.
As she walked, supporting Kairal, Koja hoped over and over that the triple junction would be at the end of the passage. She did not think any of them would be able to pass /it/ again. Although she would not have admitted it to anyone else, she was afraid. Afraid of whatever had killed Jalekk.
* * *
After what seemed like hours of endless walking, Taren suddenly halted. Koja realized that he had stopped because the passage they were in had suddenly split into three.
"J - Jalekk said the leftmost one." she whispered almost fearfully. The Sith seemed not to have heard and Koja rubbed Kairal's back comfortingly. The girl had not stopped crying since their discovery, and nothing seemed to be able console her.
Taren seemed to consider his options for a while, but then made off down the left tunnel, not waiting for the girls to catch up.
"Come, Kairal, we're almost out of these caves," the Jedi murmured and led the girl after him.
Koja immediately noticed that this passage sloped upwards slightly, which could only mean that they were indeed heading back toward the surface. Taren's mood, however, dampened her spirit. He had not made any move to help Kairal, and now didn't appear to even acknowledge their presence. Determinedly biting her lip, she urged Kairal to a faster pace but nevertheless hoped that they would reach a cavern soon.
An hour later, Koja Jime got her wish. The natural room the passage had led them to was large and two shallow pools lay along one wall. But as was the case with the previous cavern, no minuscule plant life was present here.
However, she did not have much chance to ponder on that before Taren's command shifted her attention to him. "Help me with this,'' He had started unpacking the shelters to form the covered framework of most previous nights. "And you," Taren's eyes suddenly became hard. "Shut up."
The Jedi realized that he was talking to Kairal. "Taren, please . . . She grieves for - "
"I know!" he cut her off. "Come on, tie this onto this pole." Taren shoved a strap attached to a canvas sheet into her hands and gestured to a horizontal rod. Resolutely, the Jedi did as she was told, then helped the grim youth assemble the rest of the frame. After the last canvas had been secured to the framework, Koja moved over to where the other girl was sitting on a raised section of the rocky floor.
"Kairal," she whispered, rubbing the girl's back. "Come help me with the blankets." But the girl did not respond and kept her head buried in her arms, whispering - chanting - something to herself. The Jedi listened intently but could not make out the strange words.
"/Shaetah n Jalekk, channu omah lainom Jalekk! Shaetah n Jalekk, channu omah lainom Jalekk!/" The language that Kairal was using was obviously her native tongue, and it seemed the initiate's death had robbed her of Basic.
"It's all right, Kairal . . . Jalekk is in a much better place now." Koja murmured. "Please, you mustn't give up like this. Your chants aren't going to bring him back." She said the last part gently, soothingly. "Try not to think about it." she added.
Meanwhile, Taren had stalked over to them. His face was drawn and his eyes cold. "I should kill her." his voice was empty and dead and not the one that Koja knew. She raised her eyes to look up at him. "The incident has turned her into a babbling lunatic." His fingers had already closed around the hilt of his lightsaber.
For the first time since Jalekk's death, Vornei si Kairal registered what was going on around her.
Slowly, she sat up and looked Taren straight in the eyes, tears streaming from her swollen ones. There was indifference in that gaze - and it became clear that the Hapan girl did not care what happened to her from now on.
"Taren, no." Koja said quietly, rising. "She does not deserve to die; she has done nothing worthy of such punishment."
The Sith moved his stare to her, one hand holding his weapon tightly in apparent readiness. "Nor did Jalekk!"
The Jedi took a deep breath. "I know, Taren. And killing Kairal is not going to solve anything." She stepped forward. "You are not thinking clearly. You are also grieving for Jalekk, and you're frightened. Admit that, Taren." She had put a great measure of sincerity into those words, and she knew that the Sith might strike her down for them.
For a moment he just stared at her, then his eyes softened slightly. "Yes. You are right." he admitted softly, but there was no strain or tremor in his voice to support what he had just said.
Koja left the others alone to set the rest of the camp up. She unpacked the groundsheets and blankets from the two Siths' packs, spreading them over the rocky cavern floor. She also started boiling some water. She noticed that the water flasks were empty, and decided to fill them up at one of the pools.
She moved over to the one near the exit-hole and saw that Taren was already there. He was gazing pensively into its dark depths. When she knelt down to fill the bottle his voice stopped her.
"Wait."
Koja stared up at the Sith, and he crouched down next to her. "Look," he pointed out onto the surface of the still little lake, and moved his torch over it. "There are holes in the bottom."
The Jedi saw that the holes on the floor of the lake seemed deep, and she could not judge their depths.
The circular openings did resemble the ones they had often seen in the tunnels earlier on.
Taren braced himself with his fingertips on the edge of the pool and leaned forward, as if to drink. But then the Sith initiate paused, nose and mouth bare centimeters from the surface of the inky waters. She leaned forward too, and watched him questioningly.
He straightened up. "This water smells strange, too." As Koja leaned forward as well, he added, "I don't think we should drink it."
Indeed, a strange, albeit almost indiscernible odor wafted from the black liquid. Koja couldn't identify the tangy, cloying smell. She sat up to look at the Sith. "Do you know why this is?"
But Taren merely shook his head. "No, I don't. I also don't recognize this smell." he paused. ''If the other pool is fine we should rather use it to get water from."
After a short, grim supper, the three bedded down to sleep. All of them were fearful, although they didn't show it. Koja spent most of the night whispering encouragement into Kairal's ears; and Taren lay awake next to her, staring off into space.
* * *
They rose earlier than usual, and the light of the glow lamp found them bleary-eyed and still tired. They ate a breakfast, and Koja wondered how they would go about getting out of these nightmarish caverns. With Jalekk gone, they could only guess with path led to the surface.
"Taren," she said, "Which way are we going to take?" She took a sip of tea, watching the Sith.
He frowned, staring into the light of the glow torch. "We will just take the passage that slants up the most . . . And I have sense- enhancing techniques so that I can smell and, or feel fresh air coming in."
The Jedi stifled a sigh. "All right. Sounds good." Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to come up with anything better herself. She finished her meal and went to the good pool to fill their water bottles. As she passed the other pool, she heard a strange frothing noise. Koja turned to see what was going on in the pool. A few bubbles were converging on the surface, and that acrid scent was getting stronger.
"Uh . . . Taren!" she turned away from the pool and ran back to their camp. "Taren! That pool . . . it's bubbling!"
He stared at her for a moment, but then a revelation seemed to hit his face. He was on his feet quickly. "Kairal, let's go!" He grabbed the startled girl by the arm and pulled her up. "Koja, run! We have to get out of here!" Grabbing a flare torch, the Sith pulled the girl from Hapes with him and made for the closest exit tunnel.
Koja was puzzled but noticed that the sweet stench was indeed getting stronger. Biting back protest, she followed the others from the cave.
Behind them, the pool was seething and hissing, and the water churned with large, popping and reforming bubbles.
Kairal had finally found her legs and was forcing them to move as quickly as they could. The Sith raced along next to her down the long tunnel. The Jedi came behind, and they ran as if a rabid gerr was chasing them. However, both the girls were still struggling to link Taren's haste with the bubbling pool.
"Come on, come on!" Taren yelled to both of them. "Don't stop!" he was breathing heavily, and the torch in his hand bobbed up and down furiously with his clenched fist. Panting, Koja gritted her teeth and fell in step with Kairal, wishing for a more scanty outfits than the heavy clothing she was wearing now.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of running, the Sith slowed down and stopped just around a bend in the tunnel. He was breathing hard and could barely speak. "All . . . right. Let's . . . hope . . . this is . . . far enough!"
The girls slumped down next to him, exhausted. Koja felt her throat burning with each intake of breath she took, and coughed because of the phlegm her rapid breathing had loosened. "Are you all right, Kairal?" she asked the other girl, who looked sick. She got a nod for an answer. She took a deep breath before asking the initiate, "Why did we run?"
The Sith let his eyes trail over the bumpy rock wall opposite them. "I think I know what killed Jalekk."
Both the girls wordlessly turned their heads to look at him. On the one's face was disbelief and curiosity; while the other girl's drawn features were etched with uncaring apathy, though her eyes seemed brighter.
"When we found him, Jalekk had not drawn his lightsaber," Taren paused. "No one would point a weapon at something they can't see. Also, his posture did not suggest that anything physical had attacked him . . . more that his body had suddenly acted against him," They unwillingly recalled the deceased boy's twisted corpse.
The young Sith went on. "There was also a similarity between his posture and that of the skeleton's."
Koja nodded. She had noticed that, too.
"I drew the conclusion that Jalekk and the owner of the skeleton had been killed by the same . . . thing."
He paused, and closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath, sampling the air - probably with the technique he'd mentioned earlier - and, seemingly finding nothing, continued. "Yesterday, when I noticed the strange stench coming from the rock pool back in the cave - and that there are no plants growing in it . . . I started wondering . . ."
"And then, when the pool started bubbling this morning; I knew what had killed Jalekk." he paused with a sigh. "Jalekk was killed by a poisonous gas. Those strange holes that we noticed all the time - that's how the gas escapes. It probably comes from somewhere deeper underground - and then it moves upwards, through those holes. Jalekk didn't know what was happening when the air suddenly started smelling strange."
Next to her, Kairal closed her eyes and rested her head back against the tunnel wall. Koja nodded solemnly. 'May the /spirits/ of these caverns . . . ' Maybe the toxic gas itself had made those holes while the earth had still been soft - and still used them to escape, even though the earth had long hardened into rock. The Jedi swallowed. "At least we now know what to look out for," she looked at Taren, feeling relieved. "How long do you think it'll be before we can go back to get our things?"
"I - I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how much gas gets released from underground . . . We should stay here for quite a while. There are no holes here; so we ought to be safe. I'll switch off the torch if that's okay with you - to save energy." he looked at them both. Koja nodded silent assent.
Taren flicked the switch on the handle of the short glowing staff, and the tunnel was plunged into pitch darkness. The three young people immediately moved closer together, assuring themselves that they were not alone in this black, silent space.
And then, Kairal's full, eerie voice echoed along the stone walls. "/Nahmia'e taesan i, Jalekk. Utaeni n sho. Kidohla ruhasen dra'i, me haurdah Jalekk!/"
Koja felt Taren nudging her in the dark. "What is she saying?" he whispered close to her ear.
"I don't know." she returned, wondering herself.
Almost as if reading their minds, Kairal suddenly spoke for the first time since they'd found Jalekk's body.
"It means 'We have found the cause of you death, Jalekk. Your passing was nobody's fault. Still, we all grieve for you, my love Jalekk!''' her voice was flat compared to what she had sung just moments ago.
"Why do you sing for the dead, Kairal?" Koja whispered in the girl's direction.
"We Hapans believe that when a body dies, the soul travels to a place called Ukari; where all souls go. From this place they can hear and see what goes on in the material world - here."
Koja nodded, although the other two could not see the gesture. It was commonly known among Jedi, as well as the Sith, that when a creature died, its essence returned to its origin - the Force itself, so this could indeed be linked to Kairal's belief.
Silence returned to the passage, and Koja soon started dozing, knowing that Taren would keep his vigil.