him Anakin's grandfather. But that was before he began using the Force for
evil and became Vader. Anakin wished his parents hadn't named him after his
mom's father.
He had once asked his mother why she had chosen to name him after
Vader.
"You weren't named after Darth Vader," Leia had explained. "You were
named after my father. He was Anakin Skywalker, not Vader. And before he
died your grandfather did turn away from the dark side. He died saving your
uncle Luke's life." Leia had told Anakin that it was important to remember
that the power of the Force could turn even a good man to the dark side.
"Anakin, to me your name reminds me of hope," Leia had explained. "Hope
that even when a Jedi uses the Force for the dark side he can choose to
turn back to the light. Just as my father Anakin Skywalker did."
Right now Anakin didn't need any reminders about the dark side-it was
all around him. It coated the walls of the stairway in sticky darkness.
Anakin could feel it trying to cover him. It tugged at the sleeves of his.
jumpsuit and swirled around his head. He pushed it aside with his mind and
followed his friend down the spiral stairway. Whatever was down there, he
and Tahiri would meet it together.
"I am going to get kicked out of the Jedi academy for this," Anakin
said under his breath as he climbed down the stairway. "Not only that, I'm
probably going to run into that Dark Lord of the Sith and end up in even
bigger trouble."
Anakin could hardly see Tahiri's back in the darkness as the two
climbed down the stairs. And he could barely hear Artoo beeping in the
distance. The stairway was too broken and winding for the droid to manage,
so Artoo had stayed behind. Anakin was sure that the droid was telling them
both to come back.
"Tahiri, will you please wait for me? I can't see anything," Anakin
called out. Without Artoo's light, which had been lost right after the
stairway turned away from the crumbling wall, it was almost impossible to
see. At least if Tahiri was right in front of him, he said to himself, he
would be able to tell where to walk.
"I can't see any better than you can," Tahiri called back. "This is
quite an adventure, isn't it, Anakin," she began to chatter. "We'd probably
just be looking at holographs if we were back at the Temple right now.
Instead we're-yipes!"
Anakin had heard his friend begin to fall before she'd cried out, and
now there was a quiet rumble as the stone she was on gave way.
"Tahiri, are you okay?" he called as he tried to move quickly down the
stairs. He could barely see her when he bent down.
"Yeah, I think so," she said. "Serves me right for talking so much
instead of concentrating on where I was going."
Anakin smiled in the darkness. He moved to help Tahiri to her feet.
She gave a small yelp.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"My foot is caught under something," Tahiri explained.
Anakin searched the darkness around Tahiri's foot with his hand.
"Your foot is wedged under a heavy stone," Anakin groaned as he tried
to move the rock.
"Let's do this together," Tahiri suggested. They concentrated on using
the Force. Slowly the stone rose and then fell to one side. Tahiri pulled
her foot out of a small hole.
"Is it broken or cut?" Anakin asked.
Tahiri bent down to feel her bare foot. "Not a scratch," she said in
amazement. A moment later her hand brushed against something. Something
that was not another rock.
"What is this?" Tahiri muttered as she lifted up the object by her
foot. She ran her hands over the thing. It was strangely smooth and thin.
"Let me feel it," Anakin said. Tahiri handed it to him. He ran his
fingers along it until he reached what felt like two wide bumps. There were
four thin, short objects coming out of the bumps. Each of them was about
five centimeters long. They were all bent in several places. Anakin closed
"Let's keep going," he said in a weak voice.
"What is it, Anakin?" Tahiri asked. She could tell her friend knew
exactly what the object was.
"You don't want to know," Anakin told her.
"Yes I do," she replied stubbornly.
"All right. I'm pretty sure that it's an old bone."
"A bone from what?" Tahiri asked.
"I think it's the arm and hand bone of one of the ancient Massassi,"
Anakin explained. "What's more, I think it was a child's."
Tahiri was silent.
"Do you want to turn back?" Anakin gently asked his friend.
"No," Tahiri replied. "We have to go on."
"Okay. But since you won't turn back, at least let's do this together,
" Anakin said. They joined hands and slowly walked downward. The stone
staircase was much longer than Anakin had imagined. It wound in a tight
spiral deep into the surface of the planet. At certain spots the stairway
was so narrow that Anakin could touch the stone walls on both sides of it.
The walls felt sticky.
"We must be hundreds of meters down," Tahiri said. "Why would someone
build such a big staircase and then block it with a stone wall?" she asked
out loud. "Somebody must have wanted to keep wherever we're going a big
secret," Tahiri answered herself breathlessly. A moment later she stubbed
her toe. "Ouch, I wish we had a glowrod," she grumbled.
"We won't need one in a few minutes," Anakin replied.
"How do you know that?" Tahiri asked.
"I just have a feeling," Anakin said slowly. The two tightened their
grip on each other's hand. The stairway circled ten more times. But just as
Anakin had said, light began to appear. But the light was not like the
light from Artoo. It was a dusting of glittering gold that appeared in
spots on the stairway and the stone walls. The gold glowed in the dark.
Tahiri touched one of the spots and her finger began to tingle.
Moments later they heard the voices.
"Go back," came the rumbling moans. "Go back or fear for your lives,"
the voices called.
Anakin could almost hear his own heart pounding.
"We are the followers of the ancient Sith teachings. We are sworn to
protect this place from intruders. Go back or die!"
Tahiri stopped, her hand clenching his tightly. "Did you hear that?"
she whispered.
"Yeah," Anakin said shakily.
"Maybe we should get out of here," Tahiri suggested.
Anakin wanted nothing more than to agree. He desperately wanted to
race up the stairs and back into the light. He was terrified that he was
being drawn to the dark side of the Force, that something was trying to
turn him toward evil. But Anakin couldn't turn back. He knew in his heart
that there was a reason that he and Tahiri were here. He also knew they
might never get another chance to find out that reason, that it would be
impossible if they were kicked out of the academy and returned to their
home planets.
"Tahiri, you go back if you want," Anakin whispered. "I have to go
forward. I don't know why, but I know that the voice I heard in my head was
not something evil calling me."
"This is a dark place. You are not welcome here. Only those that serve
the dark side of the Force can stay," the evil followers of the Sith
teachings rumbled.
Tahiri began to shake. She hated being afraid almost as much as she
hated being told what to do. Anakin squeezed her hand tightly, and Tahiri
stopped shaking.
"Anakin, I won't go back. We're a team," Tahiri said in a tiny voice.
"Anyway, if those voices could really hurt us, they'd be doing just that.
Right, Anakin?" she asked.
began whispering their threats.
"Go back... go back... or strike at us to kill us."
"Quit it!" Tahiri finally screamed. She'd had enough of the voices.
"We don't want to listen to you anymore!" she shouted into the darkness.
"And we won't use the Force for evil. We believe in using the Force for
peace, knowledge, and defense, not to attack. So just be quiet."
The voices stopped.
"And Anakin," Tahiri said in exasperation as she turned to face her
friend. "Stop thinking that you are the only one that beings who serve the
dark side of the Force are interested in. I'm hearing those voices too.
Just because your grandfather was Darth Vader doesn't mean you are going to
serve the dark side of the Force. You aren't your grandfather. You are your
own person, and you can make your own choices."
Anakin was speechless. He thought he had kept his feelings private; he
hadn't known that Tahiri understood about his grandfather. But he did know
that some of what Tahiri had just said was true. He wasn't Anakin
Skywalker. He was Anakin Solo, the son of Han and Leia. Still, he couldn't
help wondering if there was something evil planted within him. Something
that would make him use his powers to serve the dark side of the Force.
After all, he was directly related to Darth Vader.
"I don't know if yelling at those voices was a good thing or a bad
thing," Anakin finally said.
"At least whatever it was has shut up," Tahiri grumbled.
Anakin grabbed his friend's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. They
circled down again, and suddenly Anakin and Tahiri found themselves on the
last step of the stairway. They had finally reached the bottom. Before them
was a small stone room that glowed with golden light. There were patches of
golden glitter everywhere. They seemed to be seeping from the wall at the
far end of the room. Anakin moved to the wall and gently touched the stones
with his fingers, which soon began to tingle.
"The gold is coming from behind this wall, Tahiri," Anakin whispered.
"There must be a hidden room back there."
But how were they going to move thousands of kilos of stone? Anakin
wondered. Sure they had lifted Artoo, and even a two-kilo hunk of metal,
but this was different.
As if reading his mind, Tahiri said softly, "I guess we should give it
a try."
Sweat dripped down Anakin's forehead. He had been trying to move the
stone blocks for a long time. Tahiri rubbed her fingers against her eyes.
The strain of trying to move the stones had given her a terrible headache.
Neither of the two Jedi students had been able to move the blocks even a
centimeter. They walked over to the last step of the stairway and sat down.
"I don't want to give up," Tahiri began, "but this just isn't working.
"
Anakin nodded at his friend's words. There has to be another way, he
thought; maybe strength isn't the answer. Then he heard the voice in his
head again. He turned to Tahiri, his blue eyes open wide.
"The voice in my head just spoke again," he said softly. "It said that
there are different kinds of strength. One is physical, like the lifting of
the droid. Another is the strength of the mind."
Tahiri stared at her friend. For once she was speechless. Anakin
thought about those words. He and Tahiri had proven that they could move
heavy objects. But their use of the Force was still limited; they were not
powerful Jedi yet.
What exactly was "the strength of the mind."? What had the voice in
his head meant? He remembered a gift his father had once given him. It was
a laser puzzle, the kind that had thousands of smaller puzzles within it.
His father had said it would take his strength to figure them out. But it
hadn't taken any muscle for Anakin to solve the puzzle. He had used his
mind, not his body.
"That's it, Tahiri!" Anakin cried. "The stone blocks are a puzzle that
we have to figure out with the strength of our minds. We solve the puzzle,
and we'll find out what's behind that wall!"
"I've never been very good at puzzles," Tahiri said to Anakin.
"It's not that hard. You just have to look for patterns," Anakin
explained. "Try to look at the shapes of the stones or the cracks between
them. Maybe you'll see something in them," Anakin offered. Together he and
Tahiri walked along the stone wall.
"All I see is a lot of gold glitter," Tahiri grumbled. She still had a
splitting headache. "Hey, this looks like an arrow," Tahiri said, pointing
to a crack in one of the stones. It was a dark brown, and wiggled in a
curving line up the stone wall. "There's another one," she cried.
Anakin stood beside his friend.
"You're right-there are at least five arrows that I can see from here.
And they all seem to be pointing up," Anakin noted.
"Well, then that's where I'm going," Tahiri said with a grin. She
began to climb the stone wall. Her small feet wedged carefully between the
stones and her hands gripped tiny bumps on the rock.
"Tahiri, be careful," Anakin called to his friend.
Tahiri had climbed halfway up the strange stone wall and now stood two
meters off the ground.
"There's got to be some sort of secret button that will open this
wall," Tahiri said. Her hands flew around the corners of the stone blocks.
She didn't feel anything, so she moved higher. Tahiri was still following
the brown arrows. Only now the arrows had grown larger and were much easier
to see.
"It can't be this simple," Anakin called to his friend. "If the secret
to opening the wall was arrows and a hidden button then anyone could find
it. This wall has been standing for thousands of years. The secret just
can't be that easy."
"Maybe we're really smart," Tahiri called down to her friend.
"Tahiri, you should come back down," Anakin instructed. "We need to
think this through. Those voices that told us to go back or fear for our
lives? Maybe they meant that if we do something wrong down here we could be
in danger. Anyway, we aren't using the strength of your muscles." our minds
to figure out the puzzle. You're just using the strength of your muscles."
Tahiri grunted in response. She was almost to the top of the wall. Her
hands ran along a stone block. There was something there. It felt like a
smooth button.
"Anakin! I think I've found the secret button!" she called.
Anakin was overcome by an immediate sense of dread, so strong that he
could almost taste it.
"Don't d
o anything!" Anakin screamed to his friend.
But it was too late. Tahiri pushed the smooth button. It made a soft
popping sound, but nothing happened. Tahiri pushed the button again, this
time harder. A loud rumbling began.
"Hey, it worked!" Tahiri called down. "Do you hear that, Anakin?
Something is happening. Maybe a hidden door is about to open," Tahiri
suggested breathlessly. Anakin's neck was bent back so far that he felt it
might break. He stood staring up at his friend. When he heard the rumbling
sound he knew something wasn't right. No doorway was opening. Anakin looked
above Tahiri's head. A big block of stone had come loose. If his friend
didn't move quickly the stone would drop from the roof and crush her! There
was no time to shout a warning. Anakin closed his eyes and concentrated on
pushing the stone to the side. A thunderous crash jolted Anakin's eyes
open.
He turned to see that the stone block had landed centimeters from his
left foot. It had missed them both. Tahiri was scrambling down the wall
toward him.
"Anakin, that rock would have crushed me if you hadn't moved it!"
Tahiri cried.
"We had better think things through before we push any more secret