There, perched on the concentric gums of a vast sarlacc pit, touched by neither the massive feeding tentacles nor the flexing of the slender teeth, sat Shaak Ti. Her legs were crossed and her eyes closed. Deep in meditation, she didn't look up as he approached, and seemed not to be aware of him at all.

He didn't believe that for a second. With a flick of one wrist, he ripped a mushroom out of the sarlacc's skin and threw it at her head.

She flicked it away with the Force, barely moving an eyebrow.

"You reek of that coward Vader," she said, unfurling her legs and standing in one smooth movement. Her horn-like montrals framed her red-skinned face like an elaborate headdress. The white oval patches around her eyes gave her a slightly startled look, but the apprentice was under no illusion that he had surprised her. She was dressed in the fashion of the Felucians, in a garment made of vegetable material-some still living, judging by the mossy sheen on her belt-and bone. Her striped lekku hung well out of the way down her back, adorned by ribbons and decorative tassels.

He raised the tip of his lightsaber in challenge, but still she didn't reach for hers.

"My Master is not a coward," he said.

"Then why are you here in his place?" she asked with a knowing smile. "Welcome to the Ancient Abyss, a place of sacrifice since time immemorial."

He smiled, letting anger fuel his hatred for her and for all that the Jedi represented. With the dark side behind him, he reached out for the mind of the sarlacc and goaded it to lash out at her.

All the creature did was roar. It resisted him, he realized, with her help.

She smiled in mockery. "Are you prepared to meet your fate?" Then her lightsaber was lit and she was spinning through the air toward him, striking downward as she fell.

The apprentice simultaneously backflipped and blocked her opening blow. The force of it surprised him, and the recoil threw him backward. His hood caught on one of the sarlacc's teeth, and he tore it impatiently away before the snag could interfere with his defense. Shaak Ti's lightsaber was a jagged blue blur between them. He blocked her as best he could until he had his balance again.

Then he jumped. Over her he spun and fell down two layers of teeth toward the mouth of the sarlacc. From there he jumped up again, angling away from her to avoid giving the Jedi the advantage of height, but she was there ahead of him, driving him back down with a series of blows so rapid he barely caught them all.

In desperation, he summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed. Shaak Ti's right foot slipped, forcing her to flip elegantly out of reach of his blade. He leapt after her, swinging as he came.

The fight progressed around the sarlacc's center rings, blow and counterblow accompanied by the roaring of the beast. The apprentice cut off teeth and threw the fragments at his adversary's head. In return she took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him. He repulsed them and fought on.

Down they drove each other, closer and closer to the very lip of the creature's enormous mouth. The air was foul down there, heavy with digestive by-products and the stink of rotting meat. Ghastly exhalations rolled over them as the sarlacc roared on. The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot. Thick ichor leaking out of the wounds made the footing even more treacherous.

"You can't keep this up forever," he taunted Shaak Ti as they dueled.

"Neither can you," she said. "You are wasting your strength too quickly."

"The dark side is inexhaustible."

"Your strength is prodigious," she admitted, "but that is your doing. Light, dark..." She paused to aim a blow at his head that he barely deflected. "They are just directions. Do not be fooled that you stand on anything other than your own two feet."

He slashed at her own feet as they spun by overhead and sent one of her ribbons twirling down into the sarlacc's gaping mouth. "Spare me the philosophy lesson, Jedi," he snarled. "I'm only here for your blood."

"And you may yet have it, or I yours."

On her last three words, she struck three blows that each partially found their mark. The first burned a sizzling line down the apprentice's left shoulder. The second scored diagonally across his chest. The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin. He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely blue.

She gasped and staggered backward. Her lightsaber and her gaze dropped. A full half meter of red blade emerged from her stomach, then the rest came free with a hiss.

He backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to defeat her. He had raised his lightsaber by reflex. She had, in the desperation of her final assault, practically thrown herself on the blade. Perhaps she had meant for the two of them to defeat each other at the same time.

Her weakening fingers let go of her lightsaber, which deactivated with a click as it spun away into the sarlacc's mouth. She didn't look angry, just weary and in pain. Her red skin was suddenly very pale.

He feinted toward her, but she didn't react in any way, except to look at him.

"You are Vader's slave," she breathed, "but your power is wasted with him. You could be so much more."

"You'll never convince me to betray my Master." He was shocked that she would try such a weak gambit again. Were these the depths to which the Jedi had sunk?

"Poor boy." She winced. "The Sith always betray one another-but I'm sure you'll learn that-soon enough..."

There was pity in her eyes as they rolled up into her head. She went limp and fell back into the mouth of the sarlacc. The apprentice reached out halfheartedly to catch her body, but was too slow. A second later, he wished that he had tried harder.

Chapter 8