Chapter 16: A Path Into the Mountains

Cal and Ilyana move quietly through trees till they reach the village which, with only a few homes and workshops, is even smaller than it seemed in the scans. In the center of town, however, is a larger circular building that looks like an inn or tavern of some kind. As they step in they are greeted by a kind but wary older woman who directs them to one of the small wooden tables near the wall and as they settle in, she returns with some kind of tea.

"What else can I get you?" she asks with a gravelly voice.

"We're actually looking for someone. We heard there's a healer here who can work miracles," says Cal.

The old woman looks both of them over suspiciously.

"Our friend is sick, no one has been able to help him," Ilyana elaborates, unconvincingly.

"There is no one like that here," the woman replies curtly. "I will bring you the house stew then you should leave" and she walks away towards the kitchen.

"You don't lie very well," Cal says to Ilyana as he watches the old woman head into a back room.

"I wasn't trying to," Ilyana answers, smelling the tea before taking a sip, then continues. "But I noticed as we walked up that the only exits from the building are through this room." She begins to explain as the woman comes out from the back with two bowls of stew and as she sets them on the table, Cal notices a small boy run from the back and out the exit behind Ilyana. Then locks eyes with Ilyana who is giving him a look as if to say "Told you so." The woman had positioned herself in such a way to block as much of Cal's view of the boy as possible.

"Thank you," he says to the woman who only nods in reply before leaving them be. Cal and Ilyana pick at their stew for a moment but, as soon as she takes her eyes off them, they quickly come to their feet and rush quietly out the door, leaving untouched stew and a couple of credits behind them.

They keep their distance as they follow the boy along the road out of town, but soon after they pass the last building he turns off of the road and down a heavily wooded path into the mountains. The trail is faint and they are forced to slow their pursuit so as not to lose sight of it, occasionally passing a fresh footprint in the soft ground. For several miles the path winds alongside a small stream that flows down out of the mountain, eventually connecting to the river that runs through the town. They continue as quietly as possible, both to not betray their position and to prevent them from obscuring any sound of the boy. Soon the vegetation thins and the trees begin to change from broad leaves to evergreens. The path then takes a sharp turn away from the water and Cal, who had been leading, comes to an unexpected halt.

"What's wrong," Ilyana asks, quietly.

"I don't see it anymore," he answers, looking around them. As the vegetation changed so had the land. The soft ground of the valley has steadily become more compact and rocky and any signs of the path had completely disappeared. The area here is surprisingly flat with lots of open space between the trees and very little undergrowth. The perfect place for a trail to disappear.

"You got anything BD?" he asks the little droid riding on his back. BD-1 drops down and scampers around, scanning the area for signs of the boy or the trail while the others search as well. After a few moments BD-1 lets out a trill from up ahead where the land begins to slope up again. The other two climb up the slope to join him and find the droid perfectly still and shining his lasers at the ground beneath a dead evergreen tree. Cal crouches down to look at what BD-1 has found. The ground there is covered with a thick layer of needles that have fallen from the dead tree and in them he can clearly see where someone had slipped and brushed them away.

"Good job, buddy," Cal says, giving the droid a pat on the side. BD-1 lets out a happy trill and jumps back on Cal's back. Ilyana cannot help but smile at the interaction between these two as she steps forward and points farther up the slope.

"There seems to be a worn area on that outcrop up there. It looks like he was headed that way. Maybe we'll be able to pick up the trail again from up there."

They climb up the outcropping and see that the trail does in fact continue from there, faint but clearer than before. This time Ilyana takes the lead with a glance back at Cal and the little droid peeking over his shoulder.

"That's a helpful droid," she says as they continue on.

"Oh yeah, he really is. BD and I have been through a lot together. There's so much I wouldn't have been able to do without him around." BD-1 trills a happy reply.

"In the Empire," Ilyana continues, "droids are seen as nothing more than tools; expendable, replaceable," BD-1 lets out a displeased warble, "I never much cared for them, but then again most of those droids would report you for an infraction faster than many of the troopers so it wasn't safe interacting with them any more than you had to."

"That's disappointing," says Cal and BD-1 lets out a sad warble.

"It must be nice."

"What?" asks Cal.

"Having a friend you can trust."

"Yeah, it is," says Cal and BD-1 trills in unison.

Over the next few miles, the path becomes increasingly rocky and they are forced to continue scrambling over more outcrops and boulders. The vegetation thins further and the trees change from a mixture of species to primarily evergreens. Eventually, the path loops around a large boulder and as they come around to the far side, they are surprised to see the boy running down the path towards them at full speed, panic in his eyes.

"Wait," Cal says, stepping past Ilyana putting his hands in front of him to show he is not a threat but the boy does not slow down. Instead he slips past them, around the far side of the boulder and continues racing down the mountain.

"That doesn't seem good," Cal says, watching the boy disappear into the trees.

"No, it doesn't," Ilyana agrees, staring back up the trail from where the boy had come, "Something's wrong."

They continue up the path cautiously. The trees had been steadily getting smaller as they ascended, strained by the elevation, and now their twisted, stunted forms add to the ominous feeling as the trail comes to an abrupt end at the base of a sheer rock face, broken only by a narrow slit just wide enough for a single person to pass through. The fissure extends up through the rock to the top where it opens to the sky so that anyone moving through the narrow passage would be completely exposed to an attack from above with no way of escape.

"There doesn't seem to be a way to climb up and over," says Ilyana, looking up and down the rock face on both sides of the trail. Cal does not respond and instead seems transfixed by the rock directly in front of them.

While Ilyana was looking for a way around, Cal noticed a familiar purple shimmer in the rock. He reaches out his hand and feels a resonance through the Force like a whisper coming from the stone. He places his hand on the stone and takes a deep breath. The world shifts to shades of gray and he sees a ghostly form moving through the fissure. As it draws closer he recognizes it as the boy they had been following. He is running through the fissure and runs out past them down the mountain. Cal pulls his hand back from the rock. The world returns to its normal color and the purple shimmer is gone.

"Looks like we'll have to go through," he says to Ilyana.

"What did you just do?" she asks him. From her perspective nothing had changed but when he pressed his hand to the wall he had gone mostly still, his breath quickened and his eyes seemed to lose focus on the world around him. Suddenly his eyes came back into focus as he took a sharp breath and pulled his hand away.

"I'm able to see some things through the Force when I touch certain objects, like an echo of past events," he explains, "It's called psychometry."

"Jedi can do that?" she asks with surprise.

"Not many," he says, "it's…unusual but it did show me that the boy came through here. So that's where we need to go."

"If we're attacked, you won't be able to draw your lightsaber," she warns.

"I know but if there is a Jedi at the other end, it's worth the risk. After all, we wouldn't want to fight them anyway."

Ilyana sighs, not liking the situation at all.

"I don't like it either," Cal admits, "but it doesn't look like we have a choice."

"Okay, lead the way," she says to Cal, gesturing toward the crevice.

Cal hesitates at the entrance as he remembers what Cere had said before they left. Ilyana was right, he would not be able to draw his lightsaber in there and if she was behind him he would be exposed to her blaster or vibroblade if she chose to turn on him now. He did not want to believe she would, but he did promise Cere he would be careful. He turns back to Ilyana who immediately reads the look on his face.

"Fine," she says and hands him Cere's blaster.

"Alright." says Cal as he heads into the opening.

As they proceed cautiously through the crevice Ilyana watches the little droid on his back peer over his shoulder, look up at the opening above them, back down to Ilyana, and then stretch himself out to look back the way they had come. Always watching out for his Jedi. She thinks, momentarily distracting her from the feeling of being watched. A few minutes later the fissure comes to an abrupt end and opens up into a relatively large flat area reminiscent of a courtyard but one created naturally. At the far end of the open space is a cave entrance. They both pause to listen for any possible threat and Ilyana notices that there has been no sign or sound of wildlife, just complete silence.

The courtyard curves elegantly and the colorful striations in the rock are beautiful enough to have been deliberately designed but are obviously the result of ages of wind and rain carving away at the mountain. Adorning the walls are patches of rich green moss from which small, delicate white flowers grow. The place should be beautiful, but the dark feeling that dwells there makes it appear almost grotesque. Worse, the feeling is familiar to Ilyana. Far too familiar, but she cannot quite place where she has felt it before.

Cal hands her the blaster without continuing to scan his surroundings and removes his lightsaber from his belt. With weapons at the ready, they cross the open area cautiously and reach the cave entrance without incident. Ilyana enters first, moving low and deliberately, the blaster aimed in front of her while Cal scans the exterior and the open ledges above one more time before following.

The entrance of the cave is only a few feet deep before it opens into a wide chamber. It is not a wet or filthy cave but dry, clean and comfortable. This is someone's home, humble and sparsely furnished with only a few utilitarian belongings. Cal immediately recognizes it as the home of a Jedi. He would have felt at home here if not for the body lying face down in the middle of the floor, dressed black and red armor and an electrostaff a few feet away. On the far side of the room, the body of another Purge Trooper lies on its side in front of a doorway.

Cal ignites his blade and steps into the next room while Ilyana kneels down to examine the bodies. She rolls the one in the middle of the room over onto their back: they have been there long enough to go cold and the scoring in the armor in the center of their chest leaves no question that they were run through by a lightsaber. The Purge Trooper near the door has no visible wounds and may have been killed by the Force alone. Ilyana hears the familiar sound of Cal's lightsaber disengaging and looks up as he walks out of the room. His lightsaber hangs loosely at his side and in his other hand is a lightsaber she has never seen before, old, worn, and damaged. He does not say a word as he heads back toward the cave entrance, but his distressed look tells her exactly what she will find in the next room.

She enters anyway and finds the body of the Jedi lying next to the bed. The Jedi suffered wounds from an electrostaff and laser bolts. The walls are covered with lightsaber scars and carbon scoring. As the initial shock of the scene wears off, Ilyana gets the nagging feeling that she has missed something.

"Something isn't right," she says quietly to herself and steps back out into the main chamber. She looks over the troopers again, the electrostaff near the one in the center of the room, and the marks on the walls.

"Where's the blaster?" She asks herself then immediately answers, "There was a third!" The third was using the blaster and took another weapon from the fallen trooper. The carbon scoring on the walls is too pronounced to be from a standard issue blaster, these marks came from a E-11D blaster carbine, much more powerful and deadly than other blasters. Just then she realizes what it means: the third Purge Trooper never left and Cal just went back outside.

"Cal!" she whispers urgently to herself and rushes back to the entrance but he must have sensed it too because he is standing just inside the entrance surveying the courtyard. She is about to speak when he suddenly jerks back, narrowly dodging a blaster bolt as it hits the entryway next to his face. It came so close that scorched dust from the rock left a smudge on his cheek. He steps back further into the home.

"It came from the ridge." Cal says.

"Traitor!" Comes a voice echoing off the stone.

"What is it?" Cal asks, noticing the color drain out of Ilyana's face and that terrible feeling she had felt in the courtyard suddenly made sense to her.

"I know that voice," she says, staring outside where a light mist had begun to fall while they were inside. Then she looks him straight in the eyes and takes his hand. "Cal, I have to do this."

"Not alone."

"Yes, alone," she insists

Cal wants to argue but he cannot resolve in her eyes, "Okay."

Ilyana steps out of the cave, blaster in hand, and walks to the center of the courtyard. She stands there alone, exposed for a moment before the sniper appears, stepping out of a gap in the rocks, carrying the E-11D blaster carbine in his hand and the dead trooper's electrobatons on his belt. The mist beads up on his black armor and turns the red fabric pauldron on his shoulder bright and vivid.

"Traitor," he growls again, his voice menacingly distorted through helmet.

"You can't betray something you have no loyalty to," she says, knowing it will infuriate him.

He rips off his helmet and tosses it aside, "You swore an oath!" he screams at her.

She shrugs, "I lied."

The fury rises in his face then twists into a wicked smile. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time. Ever since they stepped in. They should have left you to bleed out on the floor."

Ilyana holds his gaze but does not respond.

"Is that all you carry?" He asks, gesturing to the blaster in her hand.

Ilyana looks down at the blaster then tosses it aside and pulls out the vibroblade she had hidden in her belt. His grin grows even bigger and he tosses aside his rifle then the electrobatons. Pulling out his own vibroblade he yells "Let's finish this!"

The mist thickens, beading up on their hair and clothes as the fear and pain of that last fight come rushing back into her and with it the anger. Then like a crash they both lashed out at each other at once; blades flying and blows connecting. Even after all this time, both fighters are on par with each other and every missed strike makes him more angry and more wild. Finally, he manages to get a foot behind her, flips her to the ground, and drives the blade down toward her face, but the thin layer of muddy water collecting on the rocks makes the ground just slippery enough that she is able to twist out of the way, avoiding the blade by a hair, and the strike slams down onto the rock so hard that it leaves a ringing in her ear. The impact throws him off balance enough that she is able to twist him to the side, raise her hip, and flip him over and as he lands on his back she plunges her blade into his throat. He grabs at her hands but she shifts all of her weight onto her knees, pinning his arms down.

As he breathes his last, she pulls back and crawls off to the side. Sitting on her knees in the rain, staring at the knife and blood on her hands, the fear and anxiety that she had been holding at bay came rushing through her; memories of sparring with the other troopers, fighting and failing against the Inquisitors, years spent with pain and death looming from every turn. Knowing just one threat is gone opens the floodgates to all those feelings and she releases them all in a long pained scream. With her cry the Force bursts from her like an explosion, sending a shock wave out in all directions slamming into the walls of the courtyard shattering the exposed rock. Cal raises his hand just in time to use the Force to stop the shockwave from slamming into him as well. The release drains the last bit of energy from her and she slumps exhausted down onto the rock.

Cal lowers his hand again now that it is safe and looks around the courtyard at the rubble, now piled around the edges. He shivers from the rain and the recognition of the nature within the explosion. The last time he felt it was with Vader. It had flowed from him and from the Inquisitors. It was the Dark Side.

Cal takes a step towards Ilyana and notices a weight in his hand. He stops and looks down to see that he had drawn and ignited his lightsaber without thinking.