With that dream to comfort him in his temporary exile, he lowered the Shadow Crown upon his head and sent his will into the Dark beyond darkness, to take control of the mind in the stone.

But where there should have been Dark, he found only light.

White light, brilliant, blinding, a young star born within his head. It seared his mind, blasting away even his memory of darkness. He recoiled convulsively, like a worm encountering red-hot stone. This was more than light; it was the Light.

It was the power to drive off the Dark.

This was inconceivable. What could heat his absolute zero? What could banish his infinite night?

You should know. The voice of the Light was not a voice. It spoke without speaking, communicating not with words, but with understanding. You invited me here.

Skywalker? This light was Skywalker?

In the instant he thought the name, Cronal saw him: a shape of light, absolute, uncompromising, kneeling within the Election Center in the darkest heart of the Shadow Base, his hands solemnly interfolded with the massive paws of Kar Vastor. He had linked his shadow nerves to Vastor’s, and through the intimate connection between Vastor and Cronal he had somehow stretched forth to touch the Shadow Lord himself.

In the Dark, Cronal saw Skywalker smile. Thank you for joining me here. I was a little worried you might get away with that silly crown of yours.

This was impossible. This must be some hallucination, a twisted product of his Darksight run amok. He was in hyperspace! Hyperspace did not, could not, interact with realspace—

I was with Ben Kenobi in hyperspace when he felt the destruction of Alderaan.

No wall can contain the Force.

The Force, the Force, these pathetic Jedi kept nattering on about the Force! Did any of them even faintly comprehend how naive and foolish they were? If any of them had ever had so much as a glimpse of the real power of the Dark, that glimpse would have snuffed their tiny minds like candles in a hurricane—

Was my tiny mind snuffed? I must have missed that part.

Cronal could sense gentle amusement, like a tolerant uncle indulging a child’s tantrum. Fury rose within him like molten lava climbing a volcanic fault. This simple-minded youth had fooled himself into believing his paltry light could fill the infinite Dark? Let him shine alone within eternal night.

[...]

This boy, this infantile Jedi-ling, had thought his meager light could stand against that power? Cronal’s black hole had swallowed every last lumen; Skywalker’s light was gone forever. His puerile Force trick of light had done to Cronal nothing whatsoever.

That’s because I’m not trying to do anything to you. I’m doing something through you.

What?

How could Skywalker still speak?

A creeping dread began to poison Cronal’s smug satisfaction. What if Skywalker was telling the truth? What if the boy had been so easily vanquished because he had intended to be? He had already used his tiny gift of the Force to forge a link through Kar Vastor to Cronal … what if his light had not been destroyed by falling into the black hole that was Cronal’s mind?

What if his light had simply passed through?

That’s where you dark siders always stumble. What’s the opposite of a black hole?

Cronal had heard this cosmological theory before: that matter falling into a black hole passes into another universe … and that matter falling through black holes in other universes could pass into ours, bursting forth in pure, transcendent energy.

The opposite of a black hole was a white fountain.

He thought, I’ve been suckered.


- Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Chapter 18