I'm sure the sea was much closer to the main street than this, he thought. Obi-Wan suddenly felt confused, as if he had walked onto a completely different planet. Wasn't Kodai covered by a vast sea?
Obi-Wan stopped and stared ahead, concentrating hard. At first he could not see any water. Then he thought he saw a liquid shimmer, but it was far away. He suddenly realized that the water had receded hundreds of kilometers since that afternoon.
Peering in the other direction, he spotted a large group of Kodaians farther down the beach. They carried torches and hovered around what appeared to be an ancient ruined structure, frantically digging at the seafloor. They were obviously trying to scavenge parts of the city that were lost in the flood hundreds of years ago.
Watching them from a distance, Obi-Wan was suddenly filled with a deep sense of sadness. It would be awful to lose so much of your history to a raging sea. And to be tortured every ten years by the opportunity to find the broken pieces of it.
Obi-Wan turned back to the water — or lack of it. In the near darkness he could not even be sure that the reflections he saw were, in fact, the sea.
An image and a voice flashed in Obi-Wan's head — Lundi storming out of the storehouse on Nolar. 'I just have to time it right,' he had said.
With a jolt, Obi-Wan knew that Lundi had been waiting for the water to recede so that he could get the Holocron. The Kodaian sea would be at its lowest tide in a decade in just over an hour.
Obi-Wan raced through the darkness back to the lodging quarters.
Outside the building he spotted someone racing away. Omal? Unfortunately it was too dark to tell, and he had no time to go after the figure. He had to get to Qui-Gon. When his comlink wouldn't go through, he headed back.
'Master!' Obi-Wan shouted, but stopped short. Qui-Gon was not at his lookout post and the door to the professor's room was wide open. No one was inside.
Suddenly Qui-Gon was behind him assessing the situation. 'I was only gone a moment,' he breathed. 'I got a communication from Jocasta Nu and stepped away. He can't be far.'
Once again Obi-Wan felt frustration well inside him. How were they going to locate Lundi and the Holocron now?
'We'll have to go on our instincts,' Qui-Gon said, as if reading his Padawan's mind. 'If we listen carefully the Force will guide us.'
Obi-Wan knew his Master was right. And anyway, they had no other choice.
Silently, Obi-Wan led Qui-Gon toward the water. The seemingly endless beach was now teeming with Kodaians and their digging tools. Pausing for a moment to close his eyes and focus, Obi-Wan sensed that there was a deserted area farther north on the sand.
The Jedi walked out for several kilometers, moving as quickly as they could. All around them Kodaians were uncovering artifacts from the infamous flood. Some held their newly discovered treasures high above their heads with glee, while others fell to their knees in tears. Obi-Wan felt for them.
Up ahead was a strangely deserted strip of sodden land. Kodaians worked busily on either side of it, but the raised area was completely empty.
'It's almost as if an invisible barrier is keeping them away from this area,' Obi-Wan commented.
'Perhaps one is,' Qui-Gon replied, looking around.
The Jedi hurried ahead. Several Kodaians stopped their digging and stared after them.
They did not avert their eyes now. Some even shouted warnings. The Jedi ignored them. As Obi-Wan moved forward, he began to feel something dark and powerful surrounding him. Horror and relief collided within him.
They were definitely approaching the right place. The Sith Holocron was not far away.
Letting his fear slip through him like water through a sieve, Obi-Wan moved forward. He was so intent on finding Lundi and the Holocron that he didn't see the crevasse in front of him.
'Obi-Wan, stop!' Qui-Gon shouted from behind.
Obi-Wan skidded to a halt centimeters before a yawning black chasm.
He peered into it, but could see nothing but darkness. A wave of evil energy wafted up at him. The Holocron.
Without speaking, the Jedi pulled out their cable launchers and anchored the ends firmly into the seafloor next to the crevasse. A thousand thoughts were running through Obi-Wan's mind, and he wanted to express them all to his Master. But doing so was impossible.
Glancing at each other only briefly, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan simultaneously rappelled over the edge into the blackness. Before long the top of the cliff disappeared from view.
The crevasse wall was slippery and wet. Obi?Wan took a deep breath as he continued to descend. Part of him wanted to know what he would find below, and part of him didn't.
Suddenly he felt a flicker of movement in his cable. A second later his anchor flew over the edge, and Obi- Wan found himself careening into the darkness below.
Chapter 12
Qui-Gon saw a figure standing above them at the top of the chasm. It leaned over the edge for a split second, then was gone. A moment later Obi- Wan's launcher cord went slack and his Padawan fell past him with alarming speed.
Qui-Gon immediately anchored himself to the cliff and reached out to the Force to try and stop the fall. But
