Lyric's World Page 2

  across any of the other predators on our planet, we can fight them

  together."

  Lyric was silent for a moment. She began to recall a memory she

  visited only in nightmares.

  "Several years ago, I was gathering trico when we heard the shriek of

  an attacking avril," Lyric said softly. "There were five of us, and we

  began to throw the rocks we carry for defense. I can remember the bird's

  smell, even now. It was sour and dank, and the black feathers that covered

  its body furrowed as it attacked. We ran out of rocks before the creature

  tired. And moments later I felt sharp talons wrap around my body and I was

  airborne. There was nothing the other Melodies could do but fill their

  sacks with trico and return to the mountains without me. They were certain

  that I was dead and would soon be devoured by the avril."

  "Your friends just let the avril fly away with you?" Tahiri said in

  shock.

  "Yes," Lyric replied, her eyes wide with remembered terror. "There was

  nothing they could do."

  "They didn't abandon me," Lyric hastened to say as she saw the

  identical looks of horror on the faces of her new friends. "One of the

  reasons the elders allowed me to come to the Jedi academy is because the

  children of my people do not know how to defend themselves well from

  predators, and the adults cannot leave the water to help us survive. It was

  the elders' hope that I might learn to use the Force to help my people,"

  Lyric explained. "But I am getting ahead of my story. The avril who

  attacked my group and snatched me took me to her nest, a shallow hole in

  the mountains, high above my own home. I heard her young squawking for food

  as I was dropped before their unseeing newborn eyes in a nest of twigs and

  trico. As I lay on my back, I saw the same type of symbols as Anakin drew.

  I did not have long to wonder how or when the carvings had been made. But I

  could tell they were created from the hand of an intelligent being.

  "The avril towered above me; I could see its black tongue lashing back

  and forth as it prepared to devour me, later to regurgitate me in the way

  these birds feed their young. I don't know why I did it, but I began to

  squawk back at the creature. I tried to make my voice sound like the very

  same cries as the young that surrounded me. The avril began to hop madly. I

  could sense its confusion. Then, in a whirl of feathers, it flew off. I can

  only assume that I copied the cries of the creature's young so well that it

  thought I was one of them and went off to find more food. I scrambled down

  the rocky mountain, desperate to find my way back home. Several hours

  later, battered but alive, I entered the portal to my city."

  Lyric paused and looked at Anakin and Tahiri.

  "I wish I could tell you more about the symbols I saw, because it is

  obviously terribly important to both of you," she said sadly. "But all I

  can tell you is that they are much like the ones Anakin drew. That is all I

  know."

  "Are there others on your moon who might know?" Anakin asked.

  "Perhaps the old ones," Lyric replied. "But they no longer surface, so

  I have never spoken to them." Anakin and Tahiri both frowned. They

  desperately needed to figure out what the symbols carved above the palace

  meant if they had any hope of solving the riddle of the golden globe.

  "Why do the elder Melodies live in water?" Tahiri asked.

  "After the changing, our bodies can no longer survive outside the

  water. We develop gills and breathe by extracting oxygen from water. In

  addition, we can no longer walk on land because our legs fuse into a large

  webbed tail," Lyric said. "Most of the elders can surface for varying

  amounts of time, which they do to see their young and give us guidance.

  However, the very old cannot surface at all."

  "Let me get this straight," Tahiri gasped. "You're telling us that

  you're going to turn into a fish?"

  Anakin scowled at Tahiri. Sometimes she could be rude!

  "Not exactly," Lyric said, laughing. "Our upper body remains about the

  same, but our ability to breathe, as well as the form of our lower body,

  changes."

  "What is the changing like?" Anakin asked. He had sensed deep fear

  beneath Lyric's lighthearted laugh.

  "Seldom do all of us survive," Lyric replied softly. "Very seldom. I

  leave tomorrow morning for Yavin... for my changing. That is why I was at

  the academy before you arrived, Tahiri," Lyric explained. "My time to study

  the Force is limited."

  When it was time for the candidates to leave the Grand Audience

  Chamber, Lyric hung back.

  "Go ahead, I'll meet up with you later," she called to her new

  friends. They hesitated.

  "Please go," Lyric said softly.

  Anakin and Tahiri both saw that thick salty tears were on the brink of

  spilling from Lyric's eyes. They left the chamber and waited for their new

  friend in the corridor. The Jedi Knight Tionne walked over to Lyric and sat

  on a stone seat by her side.

  "I don't want to go," Lyric cried to Tionne. "Tomorrow I'll be sent

  back to Yavin 8 when the supply shuttle leaves. I'll be taken to the cove

  where the others who were born at the same time as me will be waiting for

  the changing, just below the blue - green algae that covers the surface of

  the waters in the cove. And while I'm changing, I'll be defenseless,"

  Lyric wailed. Tionne knew all too well what Lyric was going to face.

  She'd been to Yavin 8 during her search for Jedi candidates for the

  academy, and had witnessed a changing ceremony. Tionne recalled the

  explanation Lyric had given her months before, when she'd questioned why

  the Melodies had to partake in a ceremony set in such a dangerous place.

  The shallow algae-covered waters of the cove were the only place on the

  mountain where the changing could occur. Until the changing was complete,

  the young Melodies needed the blue - green algae that carpeted the waters

  and created oxygen through photosynthesis, to provide them with enough

  oxygen to breathe. Once their gill slits were completely formed, the

  Melodies would be able to extract oxygen from water without the help of the

  algae and could be moved to safety-to the deep pool of water within the

  mountain. Until that time, Melodie children did their best to protect the

  changelings. The children circled the shallow cove and sat on its banks

  with bags of rocks to fight off the purella, avrils, reels, and raiths that

  came to feed on the changing Melodies.

  Those creatures seemed to instinctively know the right season to hunt

  for changelings, Tionne grimly recalled. Lyric had ringed the cove with the

  other children for many seasons of changing ceremonies. She knew all too

  well, Tionne thought, that though the children always fought without fear

  for their lives, some of the changelings as well as some of the children

  didn't survive the day.

  "I don't want to go," Lyric said plaintively. "I want to stay at the

  academy."

  Tionne studied the young Melodie. From what she'd seen, Lyric was more

  than ready for the changing. In the past few weeks, she'd noticed that the


  child had begun to have difficulty breathing, her breaths sometimes

  sounding like rattling, dry gasps.

  "Lyric, do you remember when I fought by your side at the cove?"

  Tionne asked.

  Lyric nodded. "You came in search of Jedi candidates, but it was the

  day of the changing, and you fought to help save those who would become

  elders," she whispered. "I remember an avril swooped over your head and

  tried to slash you with its sharp talons, and you didn't see the reel that

  slithered up behind you," Lyric said.

  "You saw the thick violet snake moments before it wrapped me in its

  coils and began to hiss and squeeze," Tionne said softly. "I recall that

  you turned and, without thought, stared into its black eyes and began to

  hiss at the long creature. Lyric, your voice, the voice of rushing streams

  and tinkling water, became the snake's voice. Just as I was about to be

  crushed, the creature released me from its coils and slithered away. For

  that reason, I took you to study at the Jedi academy.

  "You were strong in the Force, even then," Tionne said to her student.

  "You are even stronger now. But if you don't return to Yavin 8 and undergo

  the changing, you'll die. You knew that you wouldn't have a lot of time at

  the academy," Tionne continued. "You said that you wanted to study here

  anyway, in the hopes that you could use your training to help your people

  when you returned to Yavin 8. If you want to help them, you must return.

  And you must survive."

  Slowly Lyric turned and left the room. Tionne was right, she thought.

  The only way to help her people learn to fight and survive was to teach

  them what she had learned at the academy. To find other Melodies who were

  sensitive to the Force, and train them to use their voices and minds to

  fight the predators that fed on the Melodies ' eggs and changelings.

  Still, her sobs caught in her throat as she left the Grand Audience

  Chamber.

  "Lyric," Tahiri called out. "We didn't mean to eavesdrop, but we were

  worried about you. How can we help?" she asked.

  Lyric shook her head.

  "You can't," she answered sadly. "This is something I have to do

  alone."

  "Why?" Anakin asked suddenly. "Why can't Tahiri and I go with you to

  Yavin 8 and help you through the changing ceremony?"

  "Your place is at the academy," Lyric murmured.

  "Our place is with our friend," Tahiri replied.

  The battered supply ship, the Lightning Rod, slid silently through the

  morning sky. Its courier and message runner-a longhaired pilot named

  Peckhum-navigated the ship past Yavin's moons. Old Peckhum would not only

  take Anakin, Tahiri, and Lyric to Yavin 8, but would accompany them

  throughout their journey. Lyric's world was too dangerous a place for the

  children to be alone. Anakin and Tahiri sat side by side. Anakin stared out

  his window. As they passed Yavin 13, he found himself wondering about the

  moon. It was said to be inhabited by reptilian creatures called slith. He'd

  read that the slith were meat - eating creatures with enormous jaws lined

  with spiked teeth. Anakin shook off his thoughts and rose from his seat to

  check on Lyric, who was sitting up front with Old Peckhum.

  Since they'd left the academy, she hadn't spoken. And, while Anakin

  knew that she was relieved to have him and Tahiri with her, he could also

  sense her apprehension and fear. Persuading Luke Skywalker to allow them to

  accompany their friend to Yavin 8 had been difficult. Anakin thought about

  the conversation they'd had that morning with his uncle.

  "She needs us!" Tahiri had cried. "Please let us go to Yavin 8 with

  Lyric. Anakin and I can help her survive her changing, I know we can! And

  Peckhum will be there to protect us."

  Luke Skywalker had been unmoved.

  "I can't send students into a potentially hazardous situation," he had

  said.

  "Uncle Luke, you're the one who said that we can't learn to become

  Jedi Knights by listening to words. Experience is the best teacher, right?"

  Anakin had asked innocently, his ice blue eyes meeting his uncle's pale

  ones. "Please let us help Lyric."

  Finally, Luke Skywalker had agreed. Anakin stared out the window as

  the supply shuttle sped through the silent sky. He thought about that

  morning. As he'd packed his academy jumpsuit and some extra socks, Ikrit,

  the Jedi Master they'd found in the palace, had climbed through the open

  window of his room.

  "Where are you going, young Anakin?" Ikrit had asked in his raspy

  voice.

  Anakin had explained the situation.

  "Are we wrong to leave now, when we haven't solved the riddle of the

  golden globe?" Anakin asked.

  Ikrit had only replied, "You must go where you are needed. You must go

  where you are drawn."

  Then the Master had swung off the window ledge and scampered down the

  pyramid-shaped stone wall of the Great Temple. Anakin hadn't expected him

  to be much help. Ikrit had already explained that if an adult Jedi Knight

  or Master tried to break the curse, the globe would shatter into a thousand

  pieces of crystal. Anakin understood that he and Tahiri were on their own.

  His thoughts were interrupted.

  "Anakin, have you thought much about the globe?" Tahiri whispered. She

  didn't wait for an answer.

  "I have. I don't know how, but we've got to understand what the

  symbols carved in the palace and in the mountain on Lyric's planet mean.

  It's the only way I can think to figure out how to break the curse."

  The curse. Ikrit had come to Anakin's room the night he'd returned

  from the Palace of the Woolamander. He'd explained to Anakin that four

  hundred years ago he'd discovered the globe in the ruins of the palace,

  which had been built thousands of years earlier by an ancient race called

  the Massassi.

  Ikrit said that he couldn't break the curse, so he'd curled up at the

  base of the globe to wait for the people who could. Those people were

  Anakin and Tahiri. When Anakin had told Tahiri what Ikrit had said, she'd

  agreed that they had to work together to break into the crystal sphere that

  was locked with a riddle and filled with glittering golden sands and the

  cries of trapped Massassi children.

  "I think you're right," Anakin said to Tahiri now. "Understanding what

  the Massassi wrote in their palace will help us to unravel the riddle of

  the globe. But right now, we've got to concentrate on helping Lyric."

  He didn't add that he'd seen Ikrit. Or tell Tahiri Ikrit's words. It

  was enough to feel that what he and Tahiri were doing was right. And to

  know that he felt drawn both to Lyric and her moon. The shuttle dipped

  toward Yavin 8. Anakin watched the moon grow in size as they sped toward

  its surface. He could see that it was covered with brown and green tundra

  and a ridge of purple mountains that jutted from its surface.

  Moments later, the ship gently touched down, only a few hundred meters

  from the mountains. Lyric moved back to join her friends. In the time of

  the flight, her breathing had become alarmingly labored. It escaped from

  her mouth
in deep rattles and hisses, and Anakin could see that the effort

  of drawing air was exhausting her. Lyric raised one hand to brush her red

  ringlets from her eyes.

  Anakin gasped. In the last hour, the pink webs on her hands had spread

  until they reached the tips of her fingers. It was clearly getting close to

  the time for her changing ceremony. The silver door of the shuttle hissed

  open. Old Peckhum, Anakin, and Tahiri followed their friend down the ramp.

  Waiting for them were five Melodie children.

  "Welcome," one of the Melodies began, but he stopped when he saw

  Lyric.

  "Come," he said, "we've got to get Lyric to the cove quickly."

  The look of worry on his face told Anakin all he needed to know. He

  reached up and took hold of Lyric's elbow. Tahiri moved to the other side,

  and together they helped Lyric half walk, half run to the mountains that

  loomed before them.

  "Oh no!" Peckhum cried as he followed the children toward the

  mountain.

  "What is it?" Anakin asked as he ran.

  "I forgot some of the supplies I need to transport after we leave

  Yavin 8," Peckhum worriedly explained. "It wouldn't be important, except

  they're medical supplies, and this trip has already put me behind schedule.

  "

  "Go back and get them," Anakin called over his shoulder. "You'll only

  be gone for a few hours, and we'll be fine. Just come find us in the

  mountains when you return."

  "I don't think I should leave you. Luke Skywalker wouldn't be pleased,