mate. Battling with another rancor for dominance. And then, finally, he found what he was searching for.
Buried deep in the creature's memories was the image of a great four-sided stone pyramid hidden deep within the jungle's heart. The rancor had seen it only once, back when it was still a youngling in the care of the herd mothers. Yet the structure had left an indelible mark on the brutish mind.
The rancor was an animal, the top of the Unknown World's food chain. It knew no fear, yet it let out a low moan as Bane dredged up the memory of that Temple. The beast shuddered, knowing what was expected of it, but it was powerless to flee; the Force compelled it to obey.
It crouched low to the ground, and Bane leapt up onto its back. It rose carefully to its feet, its rider perched on its great, hunched shoulders. At Bane's command the rancor lumbered off, leaving the beach behind and heading back into the forest, carrying him toward the ancient Rakatan Temple.
Chapter 22
It took nearly an hour before Bane reached his destination. The vegetation around him was teeming with life, but as he was carried along through the jungle he saw nothing larger than insects or small birds. Most creatures scattered before the rancor's advance, vanishing long before Bane ever cane close enough to catch even a glimpse of them. Yet though they scampered away, the rancor's keen sense of smell often picked up their trail, and more than once Bane had to rein in the beast's hunting instincts to keep it on course.
As difficult as it was to keep the beast from racing off in pursuit of its next meal, it became even more difficult to drive it forward as they neared the temple. Every few steps it would try to veer to the side or suddenly shy away from its course. Once it even tried to rear up and dislodge him from its shoulders.
Bane couldn't see more than a few meters ahead through the thick vegetation, but he knew they were close now. He could sense the power of the Temple, calling to him from behind the impenetrable curtain of tangled vines and twisted branches. Clamping down with the dark side, he crushed the last of the mighty rancor's will to resist and urged it forward.
Suddenly they broke through into a clearing, a circle nearly one hundred meters across. In the very center stood the Rakatan Temple. The structure rose nearly twenty meters to the sky, a monument of carved rock and stone. The only entrance was a broad archway at the peak of an enormous staircase carved into an outside wall of the Temple itself. Its surface was pristine: stark and pure, unsullied by clinging moss or climbing ivy. The grounds surrounding it were barren but for a carpet of short, soft grass. It was as if the jungle feared to creep forward and reclaim the tainted stone.
Bane leapt down from his mount, all his attention focused on the structure towering before him. Freed from his power, the rancor turned and fled back into the undergrowth. The terrible crashing cacophony of its escape was overlaid with its tortured howls, but Bane noticed neither sound. He had no more use for the rancor; he had found what he was searching for.
He took a trembling step forward before stopping short. He shook his head to clear it. The dark side was strong here, so strong it made him feel light-headed. That meant this was a place of danger; he couldn't afford to be wandering around in a stupor.
According to the accounts he'd read in the archives, the Temple had once been protected by a powerful energy shield, one that required an entire Rakatan tribe, of which each individual had been a powerful Force-user, to bring it down. He didn't sense any such barrier, but only a fool would proceed without caution.
As he had done in the tombs on Korriban, he began to probe the area around him with the Force. He felt the echoes of the safeguards that had once protected the Temple, but they were so weak as to be almost nonexistent. He wasn't surprised. The shields around the Temple had been fueled by the power of the orbiting Star Forge. With its destruction, the shields had failed, along with all the other defenses that had made the Unknown World a graveyard of ships.
Wondering what else had been lost in the Star Forge's violent end, he crossed the surrounding courtyard and mounted the Temple steps. The staircase was steep but wide, and the stone was neither worn nor cracked despite its age. It ended at a small landing leading to the stone archway of the entrance, three-quarters of the way up. He paused at the threshold, then passed through. He had a brief sensation of what it must have felt like for those who came before him: the anticipation, the thrill of discovery. Once inside, however, it only took a few minutes of exploration for his excitement to fade.
Like Korriban, the Temple had been stripped of anything of value. He searched for hours, beginning with the top floor where he had first come in and proceeding deeper and deeper until he reached the bottom level, combing every centimeter of the empty halls and deserted rooms. Yet even though his search was proving futile, he didn't despair. The crypts in the Valley of the Dark Lords had felt drained, used up and sucked dry. The Unknown World felt different. There was still power here.
There had to be something here for him to find. He was certain of it. He refused to accept another failure.
It was in the lowest level of the Temple, far below the planet's surface, that his obsessive quest finally ended. When he first stumbled into the room his attention was immediately drawn by the remains of a massive computer, but it was clearly beyond any hope of repair. And then he noticed something on the stone wall behind the computer.
The surface was etched with a number of arcane symbols: the language of the Rakata, perhaps. They meant nothing to him, and he would have dismissed them without a second glance. Except that one of them was glowing.
He almost hadn't noticed it at first. It was subtle: a faint violet hue tracing the edges of one of the unusual shapes. It was almost perfectly level with his eye.
As he stared at it, the glow grew stronger. He stepped forward and reached out tentatively with his hand. The light winked out, startling him into taking a step back. He reached out again, but this time, instead of using his hand, he reached out with the Force.
The stone character flared to life.
Struggling to contain his eagerness, he again extended his hand and pressed hard against the glowing symbol. There was the sound of turning gears, and the grinding of stone on stone. The seams of a small square, less than half a meter on each side, took shape in the wall as a section of stone pushed out.
Bane stepped back as the chunk toppled down from the wall and shattered on the ground at his feet, revealing a small cubbyhole behind it. With no hesitation, he thrust his arm into the darkness to seize whatever
