"You would rather murder someone than risk losing my allegiance?" Isolder found his nostrils flaring. "Did you also hope that by doing this you could further distance me from my aunts?"

The queen mother's eyes narrowed. "Oh, your aunts have committed their shares of murders. They're every bit as dangerous as you believe. But Leia is a pacifist. I couldn't let you marry a pacifist. She would be too weak to rule. Don't you see? If Hapes had had a stronger military presence before the rise of the Empire?as I always advocated?we never would have fallen to the Empire. Mealymouthed pacifists and diplomats nearly ruined our realm."

"And the Lady Elliar," Isolder said with wonder in his voice, "she was a pacifist. Did you kill her, too?"

Ta'a Chume pulled the veil back over her face, turned away. "I will not be interrogated in this fashion. I'm leaving."

A note of wonder and horror came to Isolder's voice. "And my brother?was he too weak to rule? Is that it? Have you never intended to let anyone but you choose your successor?"

Ta'a Chume spun around. "Keep your a.s.sumptions to yourself!" she said vehemently. "Don't ponder things that you can't possibly understand. You are, after all, only a male."

"I understand murder!" Isolder shouted, nostrils flaring. "I understand infanticide!" But Ta'a Chume began picking her way through the crowd, heading for the door.

Teneniel took his elbow and said softly, "Let me reason with her. Ta'a Chume," she said softly, and Ta'a Chume stopped as if Teneniel had yanked her with an invisible cord. "I'm going to marry your son, and someday I'll rule your worlds in your place." Ta'a Chume turned, and her eyes seemed to be burning lights as she glared through her lavender veil.

Teneniel continued. "Let me a.s.sure you that I am not a pacifist. In the past two days alone, I have killed several people, and if you ever try to harm me or mine, I will force you to confess publicly all of your crimes, and then I will execute you. I a.s.sure you, I find you to be that contemptible!"

Ta'a Chume's four bodyguards had been standing against the wall. Teneniel could not know it, but threatening the queen mother was grounds for immediate execution. The queen's guards went for their blasters, and Teneniel waved her hand. The blasters crumpled and clattered to the floor. One guard rushed forward, and Teneniel waved her hand and struck her from a distance with an invisible fist. The guard's jaw cracked with a sickening thud, and she fell backward, stunned.

Ta'a Chume watched the brief battle from the corner of her eye.

"Reconsider, Mother," Isolder said. "You once told me that you didn't want to risk the chance that our ancestors would be ruled by an oligarchy of spoon benders and readers of auras. But if I take Teneniel as my wife, there is a good chance that your grandchildren will be those spoon benders."

Ta'a Chume hesitated. Looked at Teneniel for a long moment. "Perhaps,"

Ta'a Chume said with conviction, "I was hasty in my judgment. I suspect that Teneniel Djo, princess of Dathomir, will make an adequate queen mother. Make sure you dress her in something appropriate before you bring her home."

She turned to leave, and Isolder said to her back, "One more thing, Mother. We are going to join the New Republic. Now!"

Ta'a Chume hesitated, nodded her head in consent, and stormed from the room.

The next morning, Luke stood on the parapet of the war room in the early sun, watching the shuttles rise in the distance, carrying the last of the refugees from the prison.

Augwynne came and stood behind him, watching the tiny ships leave. "Are you sure you won't go with them?" Luke said. "This will still be a dangerous sector."

"No," Augwynne answered. "Dathomir is our home. And we have nothing here that anyone would want?except you. We have something you want. I can feel that about you. What do you desire?"

"A wreck, out in the desert," Luke answered. "Once it was a s.p.a.ceship, called the Chu'unthor, and the Jedi trained there. I'd like to come back someday and salvage it, see if any of its records are intact."

"Ah, yes. Our ancestors once fought a great battle there with the Jai."

"And you won," Luke said.

"No," Augwynne said, leaning her back against the stone wall of the fortress and folding her arms. "We didn't. In the end, both sides sat down and talked, negotiated a settlement."

Luke laughed. "So you got the ship, but it sat in the desert for three hundred years and rotted? What did you gain?"

"I don't know," Augwynne said. "Only Mother Rell was there, and her mind is nearly gone."

"Mother Rell?" Luke asked, and an odd sense of peace stole through him.

Augwynne looked at him questioningly, and Luke hurried through the hall, down to Rell's room. The old crone sat on her cushion on the stone box as before, wisps of silver hair shining in the candle lights. She looked up at him vacantly.

"Mother Rell, it's me, Luke Skywalker," Luke said, and the old crone peered at him through rheumy eyes.

"What?" she asked. "Are the Nightsisters all dead? You killed them?"

"Yes," Luke answered.

"Then our world is ended, and a new one begun, as Yoda foretold." Luke found he was shaking with excitement. "I suppose you have come for the records?"

"Yes," Luke answered.

"We wanted them, you know," Rell said. "But the Jai would not give us the technology to read them. They said that the teachings were too powerful, and as long as there were Nightsisters on our world, we could not have them. Yoda promised that someday you would share them with our children."

She feebly got up from her seat, turned to the stone box and pulled off the cushion, tried to open it.

"Help me, here," she said, and Luke heaved the box open. Inside was a metal locker, corroded, with an ancient access control panel on it. The green run light on the box still shone. Luke studied the box, punched in the two glyphs that spelled Yoda's name. A hissing noise erupted from the locker as the lid popped and air seeped in. Luke opened it.

The box was filled with reader disks?hundreds of them, containing more volumes of information than any one person could hope to study in a lifetime.

At noon that day, a Hapan shuttle came to pick up Teneniel and Isolder.

Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia, and the droids went to see them off. Isolder found that he was hesitant to leave this planet. Leia hugged them both and wished them happiness, weeping openly until Teneniel reminded her that their paths would cross from time to time, now that Hapes had joined the New Republic.

Han shook Teneniel's hand, punched Isolder on the arm in a friendly sort of way, and said, "See you around, Slime. Watch out for pirates."

Isolder smiled back, held Han's eye. The witches and Luke had done their best to heal Han's broken leg and teeth, though he still wore a brace on his leg. Han looked like a pirate. He still had that c.o.c.ky air, the swagger to his walk. Even with a brace, Han could swagger. "See you around, Oaf," Isolder said, but he couldn't leave it at that. "So where do you two think you'll take your honeymoon?"

Han shrugged. "I had hoped to take it here on Dathomir, but things have quieted down so much in the past two days, I'm afraid it would get boring."

"Perhaps you would like to tour the Hapan worlds," Isolder suggested.

"I'm sure you would find this visit more hospitable than your last."

"That's an easy promise to keep," Han agreed, "as long as they don't shoot me on sight."

"We won't do that," Isolder promised, "though I might have my people check your bags for stolen goods before you leave."

Han laughed, clapped him on the back. Chewbacca and Threepio said their good-byes, and then it was Luke's turn. The Jedi had hung back from the rest, watching them intently. He did not give them a tearful farewell.

Instead, he took Teneniel's hand, held it for a moment and looked into her eyes?no, looked beyond her eyes. "You will give birth to a daughter first," Luke said, "and she will be strong and virtuous, like you. When you feel the time is right, perhaps you will send her to me for training."

Teneniel smiled, hugged him. Luke took Isolder's hand, held it. "Remember to serve the light side of the Force," Luke said. "Though you will never wield a lightsaber or heal the sick, you have some light within you. Be true to that light."

"I will," Isolder promised, and he wondered at how much his life had changed in the past few days. In a fraction of a second he had decided to follow Luke to this planet, and now he knew that he would be following Luke's path for the rest of his life. "I will," he said again, and he hugged the Jedi.

For a moment, they all stood staring at one another, and then Isolder looked around the valley once again, to the huts in the fields, the dark fortress above them, the rancors splashing in the pond, the bright sun shining over the southern valleys, the mountains and the deserts beyond.

Isolder inhaled the sweet, clean air, tasting the rich scent of Dathomir for one last time, and he felt his sinuses burn just a little. He realized that he must have been allergic to something on this planet.

He took Teneniel's hand, and headed aboard the shuttle with his betrothed, taking her to other worlds, other stars.

Six weeks later, under the blue skies of Coruscant, Luke had just finished bathing and had dressed in a fine gray robe. As best man at Leia's wedding, he'd planned to arrive early, but then the shuttle driver dropped him at the Aldereenian consulate by accident, a building occupied by some insect race Luke had never heard of and which happened to be nearly two hundred kilometers from the Alderaanian consulate.

So he found himself arriving at the consulate an hour later than he planned, and when he managed to get in the door, he raced down a long corridor paneled with great slabs of l.u.s.trous ancient uwa wood, toward the White Room. He turned a corner, and found See-Threepio running frantically just ahead.

Luke caught up with the droid and said, "Hey, Threepio, what's wrong?"

"Oh, Master Luke," Threepio said. "I'm so relieved to see you. I'm afraid I've gotten us all into a terrible mess! It's all my fault! We must stop the wedding immediately!"

"What's wrong?" Luke asked. "What are you talking about?"

"I just learned horrible news from the city computer. It was cross-verifying some files, and found that Han isn't royalty after all!"

"He's not?" Luke said.

"No! His great-grandfather, Korol Solo, was only a pretender to the throne?and got hanged for his crimes! We must warn everyone!"

"So that's why he got so embarra.s.sed and walked out on the Alderaanian Council when you announced his lineage," Luke said. "He knew that his great-grandfather was a pretender all along!"

"Indeed!" Threepio agreed. "Stop the wedding!"

"All right! All right!" Luke said, placing his hand on Threepio's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything."

"Oh, that's so good of you, Master Lu?" Luke flipped the droid off, dragged him into an empty office, locked the door, then made his way to the White Room, opened one of its many doors.

The room had an enormous vaulted ceiling, ornately carved from one monolithic stone, and brilliant lights reflected from the dome, bathing everything in a soft, celestial glow. A thousand guests from a variety of planets sat to witness, and some of them turned to look at Luke. In the front row, Teneniel Djo and Prince Isolder sat together next to Artoo and Chew-bacca, who was immaculately shampooed and brushed. The prince held a plant on his lap, a purple, trumpet-shaped arallute flower.

Luke stood at the back, staring up at the marble altar where Han and Leia knelt across from one another, holding hands across the altar. The officiator stood in his emerald robes of office, leading Leia in her vows.

She turned and glanced at Luke, the diadems in her veil flashing in the light, and Luke could feel that she was not angry at him for having arrived late, only grateful that he had made it. And at that moment Leia was more serene, more content, than she had ever been in her life. And perhaps she was as filled with joy as anyone could be.