Ephy
Title: Lunatic Pandora
Author: Ephignia
Rating: PG
Summary: The Jedi offer Xanatos a choice: death, or the Light Side.
Archive: If I post this on your list, you are welcome to archive it. Anyone else, please ask me first.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. Lucas does. If I did, Star Wars certainly wouldn't be G rated. I am not making any money off of this. Lucas is. If I was, I would have a much better computer.
Notes: Thanks a ton to Darry and Snighty. You're absolutely fabulous! Those who send feedback are also fabulous. :)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Part 1: Choices That Aren't Choices
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
You know, of course, the story of how I abandoned the somber world of the Jedi to pursue my own interests, and how that all came about, and so I won't waste the time to recount that to you here. I have also told you about many of my experiences after that proverbial fall from grace with the stolid Master Jinn, the very epitome of all I despise, and most unfortunately my teacher of some ten or more years. But I have yet to open my mouth about one quite important experience, as you may well understand once you've heard it in full.
I am telling you this in strictest confidence. The story really ought to be told to all Jedi apprentices, but that's yet another dream of mine which will never come true. The great number of blasphemies and secrets I am about to utter would make poor old Yoda roll in his grave. Indeed, you ought to be quite titillated... those austere Masters would burn this right along with the Sith Manifesto or dirty Twi'lek holozines found in padawan bedrooms.
Aiomite, until rather recently, was used in the manufacturing of certain non-Republic currencies, and for the span of an entire standard week every mine in which the stuff could be found belonged to me. The only planet anyone had ever discovered it on was a very tiny speck of jungle-covered rock called Aiomum Kondi (thus the substance's name), which literally means in one of the native tongues "fog ball." A ridiculous name for a ridiculous place inhabited entirely by the most ridiculous people in the galaxy, barring all those who live on Coruscant. I didn't encounter any fog at all during my brief stay there.
The vast wilderness of Aiomum Kondi catches the few ships that dare to land there in a tight, and often lethal, embrace. There are no landing pads, no roads, and no trails in that great yellow forest which stretches forever in each and any direction. Nor are there any medical establishments to care for the unfortunates who touch the buds on certain vines and trees which carry enough poison in each amber-colored cell to send a Hutt into writhing agony a second or two after contact. This was the horrendous picture I was greeted with when I stepped down the ramp of my vessel.
I had come to oversee the opening of a new mine and deal with the small matter of the indigenous leaders, who for some reason didn't want us to ruin their sacred caves by cramming them up with digging machines and droids. They worshiped aiomite, you see; apparently they believed that millennia ago their sky god had burst into shards of blue stone, which had embedded themselves into the holy places of the planet. I might have explained to them that I worshiped it too... I was a faithful devotee of the money that it, and other precious substances, poured into my hands. But the dreadful thing about being a business man is that one must always take care to keep one's victims happy, a skill I'd learned quite well during my time as a Jedi student. I generally and wisely passed on making any religious remarks at all.
My crew and I had been feeling very optimistic about the operation, until one bloated Hutt security guard brushed itself up against a plant. The creature spewed awful-smelling black liquids which rolled down his belly in thickening globs as his companions watched in horror and I in disgust, flapping its little arms about in a panic because his throat was beginning to fill up. Someone had the presence of mind to shoot its head off with a blaster before it could suffocate.
That Hutt hadn't been much to grieve over. The problem was, those I had hired for this journey knew of the company's record of success, and hadn't considered the possibility that it might actually be difficult to start a mine in the middle of a rain forest. Morale plummeted before we'd even moved the supplies we'd brought off my ship, and I caught the quiet sound of grumbling from behind me as I moved forward in the direction of the caves.
It was luckily not a very long distance that we had to cover, and when we found ourselves at the bottom of the moss-covered cliffs our eyes traced those lovely cerulean veins as far up as we could see, up so far into the great clear sky that the tops seemed to vanish into the depths of space. The excavation equipment had been set up prior to our arrival, and a building where the crew and I could sleep had been erected as well. The natives had already begun to gather, all of them wearing blue and shouting protests in a language that sounded rather Jawa-like to me. I went to take a nap.
In the late afternoon the demands for negotiations being shouted outside my window were becoming annoying, and for some reason or other, none of the guards were beating the crowd away. I agreed at last to speak to whomever it was that they had elected to be their representative to my new regime. Their leader was sent promptly to me, before I'd had the time to properly dress or set Hutts in the hallways to encourage this native messenger to feel that opposing me might not be such a bright idea, after all.
But oh, their leader. She was glorious, the most exquisite thing to ever set a sandaled foot upon any soil in the Outer Rim, and she positively radiated with the untrained power of the Force. I'll admit that it wasn't business I thought about when she and I sat down across the stone table of my makeshift office with no one else but a translator, and that the expressive speech from her lips fell entirely on deaf ears. Her adamancy was provocative. I remained a gentleman, however, and nodded politely. I smiled reassuring smiles occasionally and even took down a few notes from her speech about the destruction of her people's property and the rape of the sacred ground and the rude conduct of this and that Offworld employee, etc. etc. When she appeared to be finished I told her, "I will take everything that you have said into account," and made a few examples of improvements I already had in mind. And, in addendum, "would you like to stay for dinner?"
She did not stay, and was flustered by the question to the point of frustration. I would later discover that she had had more important engagements that evening- as you will also learn in a moment.
And so I sat down to a meal alone, which gets rather tedious after the novelty of having a feast all to oneself has faded away. Times in which I was alone had become, as I grew older and less impulsive, times of introspection. That wasn't a good thing. A Jedi will sit in meditation to explore his inner self for hours every day, admiring the purity of his soul or the sharpness of his Force-honed mind. A Dark Jedi such as I will sit in meditation and either boast to himself about the Dark Side's stains all along the walls of his mind, or get up again and go do something more productive, like tracking down a Twi'lek slave to have a bit of fun with. Avoidance like that can be much more enjoyable. Avoidance like that had become routine for me.
This does not mean that I had grown to regret anything. No, not that at all. I was only lonely. What is the saying? Sin craves company? Or something along those lines. It could be better modified to "the human soul craves company." I, unfortunately, am human. (I am nearly always right, mind you, but those few mistakes I've made in my life have had disastrous consequences.) And I, unfortunately, am subject to dreadful human diseases like longing for companionship and all that sort of rot.
As I was wallowing in self-pity and cnutha steaks I heard the woman's voice again. She was yelling. I, thinking someone had had the same opinion of her as myself, but less self-control to let it pass, had set upon her, hurried out the door and down the hallway, to a second doorway I hadn't remembered being closed before. This I opened, and ran through. I must have cut a very heroic figure, racing out to rescue a damsel in distress.
But I was caught, rather roughly, before I could do much rescuing, and a heartbeat later I saw that the room wasn't full of leering Offworld goons, but rather with a pack of lightsaber-wielding, brown-robed Jedi with grim expressions, some of whom I recognized. Here was Balimber Unald, a boy I'd beaten soundly at practice duels time and time again when I had been a lad at the Temple; there was soft-eyed Da'ud, whom Qui-Gon had once ordered me to help in mathematics; behind me I could hear the odd tempo of 'Olelo Makua Ta's breathing through her two mouths- she had been better than me at swimming, but then, she was amphibious, and had always had an unfair advantage over a human such as me.
I had envied them as a child, and all the others who'd been brought up at the Temple without ever really knowing their mothers and fathers. They had never understood separation or loss as I had, and so they thought it strange that I grieved so much, considered me only a sullen boy who wouldn't play their stupid ball games in the gardens. A psychologist might say- and all Jedi like to think themselves master shrinks- that my being taken away from my family was the root of all the evil in my mind.
No matter the root, there was quite a lot of evil coming out of my mouth in the form of expletives in every language I knew when I drew my blade against those three old "friends" and the padawans they'd dragged along to Aiomum Kondi with them. The woman I'd so admired a few hours earlier stood behind them, looking smug. She'd brought them in, of course, sent somehow for Jedi mediators in negotiations with what she correctly perceived to be an oppressive force. The Jedi knew I was linked to Offworld. I was surprised, actually, that they hadn't been on my tail more quickly. As stupid as they are, the Order can be very efficient when they wish to eliminate someone. Unfortunately, they were after me at that moment.
I fought very well. I managed to cut off one of dear Da'ud's fingers and inflicted a few other wounds which wouldn't be soon forgotten, but they had the advantages of surprise and number. I can't remember the details of the few last moments of freedom I had well enough to describe them to you, but at the end of an intense battle, I was cornered and captured, hit over the head, drugged, and taken to a ship. On this ship I was put into a holding cell, drugged more heavily, and put under surveillance. I've seen recordings of this. I looked dreadful, bedraggled, nearly wanton.
Of course, I tell you this in hindsight. It was not until we had reached Coruscant, where my story truly begins, that I could comprehend anything at all. At the time, the world was simply a black and shifting mass beyond the reach of my mind. I would like to think that this was the Dark Side embracing me, grasping me as a mother would a child hanging on its fingertips on the edge of a precipice, staring and screaming at its doom... but I attribute nothing so nice to the Darkness. What I knew was simply unconsciousness.
*~*~*
Sweet, sweet, sweet fresh air. It doesn't exist on Coruscant, not like it does on places like Aiomum Kondi or my own beloved Telos. And it most especially doesn't exist in the dankest corners of the Jedi Temple, where I awoke with bonds about my ankles, my knees, my thighs, my waist, my chest, my wrists, my elbows, and my neck. If they'd been able to tie up anything else without spoiling their matchless prudence, I'm sure they would have. I felt as though I'd choke on the dust and the horrifying smells emanating from something nearby which I could not see, and I was sure that whatever it was wasn't good.
Colors were swimming around my eyes, and odd shapes bounced from one end of my vision to the next, soundless. It was an effect of what had been given to me to sedate me (the Jedi had decided it wasn't redundant to keep a semi-conscious person delusional, I suppose), and managed to completely obscure everything that people said to me for what might have been an hour or a week, as far as I knew. I'm sure all that time I coughed.
When my brain was finally allowed to function normally, several Healers in long white robes were standing around me, mumbling into datapads. The flat object I had been secured to had been adjusted to float horizontally as high off the ground as an average human operating table, but there was no medical equipment to be seen, except the long needle one of them jammed without warning or preparation into a vein in my arm. I was too well bound to struggle against it much, and the effects were not as bad as I had the short time to expect: in the length of a breath my head felt clearer and my eyes didn't fall closed as if I'd not slept in a cycle. I gasped and panted, demanded water and to be untied. Both requests were fulfilled. A frosty glass of cold, cold water was offered to me once my hands were free, and I drank every last drop as though I gulped from the Iegan's Cup of Youth.
My reprieve was short lived. I was made to stand and clasp my hands behind my back, which were then encased in a tubular device that molded to my hands before I heard the click of the lock. I could not free myself, no matter how hard I tried. The Healers watched me like sandtigers, noting any use of the Force at all. I knew without forewarning that any attempt to use the Dark here would only bring me more trouble, and so I allowed them to maneuver me- with a group of knights, lightsabers in hand as though they were transporting a volatile Sith Lord through an orphanage instead of a resigned scoundrel through a fortress- from those dark corners up and up and up to the highest spire of the lofty city of Coruscant, the Jedi Council's sanctum itself.
That esteemed assembly of twelve strong Jedi Masters, trained to perfection under the Code, wrinkled their noses and other olfactory organs at me just as all the other Jedi I'd encountered had, though these did it more discreetly. I could envision multi-colored Corellian jester's caps on each one of them. The business they conducted in this little circular room would have been quite comical if it hadn't destroyed lives such as mine to casually each day in the name of good, justice, and the Force.
With some surprise I realized that Master Yoda was not present. Nor was his the only chair empty. Though Council Members were free to come and go on business, all those who had ever been elected to their positions had made it a point to come to all important meetings. It was quite insulting that they hadn't shown up for my interrogation. I began to think- correctly- that my being there was a matter of great controversy.
One of the clowns considered me as one hand clutched the edge of his seat like a throne's arm, while the other rubbed the Jedi's hairless chin. I remembered this man, Mace Windu. My master had been casual friends with him. I'd even gone on missions long, long ago with the stony-faced warrior, and it was no surprise to me that he had become one of the vaunted Twelve so young. I'd never seen him make a mistake (aside from being a Jedi, of course).
"Xanatos," he said at length, quite dramatically, "today we give you a choice... and an opportunity."
I responded, "poultry or beef at the ball tonight, held in my honor?" To which the other masters gave steely looks in response. I pretended to be amused with myself.
Mace continued. He clearly wished to get this over with as much as I did. "Your choice is life or death. I will be brief. We have been experimenting with methods of purging the Dark Side from Force-users in response to the reappearance of the Sith and the increasing numbers of non-Jedi Force-sensitives in the universe who break the laws of the Republic and pose a threat to innocent people."
"A politically correct way to say "Dark Sider suethna," I interrupted lightly, dredging up the foulest expletive in my extensive vocabulary.
"We wish to be able to battle our enemies without killing countless numbers of people, criminal and innocent alike."
"Understandably," a frumpish Cerean broke in, "purifying a Force-user from the Dark Side would be better in all respects than exterminating that person. We have been able to use a very simple, straightforward operation to do this, enlisting the help of Jedi masters who are particularly good with the use of the Force in the mind." He paused. "It seems to be our only good... relatively good... option." He scowled at me. He'd most likely thought that I wasn't quite worth this "better option."
Slowly, I said, "In other words, you brainwash Dark Jedi into being good, charitable citizens of the Republic, whom you don't need to watch for anymore." I said this wide-eyed. I said this shocked. Even I, a master of hidden emotion, could not contain my amazement... which grew when the Jedi looked to the floor to avoid each other's eyes. "You breech your own ideals to do this? You create from sinners the pristine saint, but allow no choice in the matter?"
"You have the choice. You may choose to undergo the procedure as our test subject before we hunt down the Sith, or we will destroy you. Either way, you see that we do the galaxy a favor."
The words rang like the bells tolled in distant Thani to mark momentous occasions, and I could say nothing. After a moment, though, I smiled. Yes, they threatened my life. But this "procedure" was merely experimental. What a blow it would be if it didn't work!
You know me to be stubborn, willful, and strong. I knew myself to be these things. Turn me? They sought to obliterate all that was Xanatos in me and expect to find a cuddly, lovable young man of excellent moral fiber within. Turn me? Ha! They'd already begun to turn themselves, the fools, by giving in to this one desire and pretending to be able to force others to do as they wished.
And even if they did manage it, they'd have been destroyed in the process.
"It would be a great pleasure to become one of you once again," I told them after I'd come to the conclusion that there was no way in ten Sith hells that it could actually happen, "as it seems to me that it would be far more fun to be Jedi than evil incarnate. After all, taking advantage of others and destroying their free will would be much more fun than the old routine of running around pillaging and murdering."
Mace Windu probably would have liked to say something much ruder, but with admirable self-control he said, "We will begin in the morning."
*~*~*
In the evening I was taken to a very simple bedroom, in which there was nothing but a bed and a door, and a sensor switch to control the lighting. There was no window, which gave the place the uncomfortable atmosphere of a prison cell, and I remarked on the Jedi's treatment of their guests to the three knights who'd been ordered to place me there. Everything I said went ignored, which I had anticipated. No one could expect angels to pander to a demon.
The door was sealed and locked behind me, and I wondered if anyone would try to block the air vent to get rid of me sooner. To do so would incur the wrath of half the Jedi Council, however, so I didn't worry too much and hopped into bed. I'd need rest if I was to make it through whatever ordeal the Jedi planned to put me through.
I had only just closed my eyes when the door re-opened and someone entered, careful to close the entryway immediately. My mouth curved into a bitter smile so cold it might have been carved from the ice of Hoth as the figure hesitated at the sensor, turned, and paused again to pensively watch for my reaction.
"I don't suppose it was you who elected me to be their test subject?" I queried.
Qui-Gon folded his big hands into the folds of his robe. "No. I didn't know you were here or what they planed to do with you until Ki-Adi told me earlier today. Believe it or not.
"Then I'm even less popular with the Order in general than I'd thought," said I. "What luck."
Jinn stared at me until I became even more uneasy, and I stared back. Not defiantly... defiance was long past me. But with every ounce of that consuming, unrelenting, unquenchable hate he'd unknowingly fostered in me for years, which had driven me to great heights no Jedi could ever have dreamed of. "Is there is a reason you're here, or have you just come to confirm the good news of my incarceration with your own eyes?"
"Whether it is good news or not is yet to be seen," he told me. "It has been a long time since you left, and all through it I hoped you'd return. Now you have. But if they can turn you, it won't mean a thing. Conversion can't count if it isn't by choice." He unclasped his hands, and clasped them again, but despite his fidgeting, he didn't appear to be a nervous wreak at all. That's one thing I've learned from Qui-Gon which has served me well. "Still, they might save you from yourself."
"I'd really rather die a happy hedonist than live an unfulfilling life someone else gave me. But the Jedi don't care much for freedom or for choice, do they?"
He seemed to brush over my words with his sigh, but deep in his pious blue eyes I saw the faintest spark of anger. I cannot convince myself even now that it was directed entirely at me. "We will be friends again someday, I hope."
"Perhaps," I replied. I could not hide my resentment. "And perhaps, once we are devoted companions, you'll care to kill my mother as well?"
He grimaced and fled.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Part 2: Memory Fishers
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I heard screams in the night, the reasons for which were never fully explained to me. My room, or rather my cell, had not been soundproofed like I'd thought, and did a poor job muffling the shrieks. They were feminine, but neither high-pitched nor particularly desperate- they were angry. I understood perfectly.
I'd spent long nights in revolting places where one piteous cry melded into any number of others until all one could do was tune them out, but in these serene halls, a raised voice alone was startling. I listened to it drag on and on and then, suddenly, cut short. I was more annoyed than distressed by it. It forced back into my mind unpleasant thoughts I couldn't escape until sleep finally claimed me.
Qui-Gon's visit had been both a blessing and a curse. I think I'd felt ashamed of being held in captivity there in the Temple, after all the years of promising myself and him that I would be the one in control of our game, always. Dwelling on my situation brought the chilling feeling that I'd managed to slip, to make an error, and such an imperfection on my part was something I could not abide.
Still, another odd feeling, that of hope, also accompanied my master. I'd had years of practice manipulating his mind, and though I knew, when push came to shove, where his loyalties would ultimately be, I was sure I'd be able to evoke some sympathy from him if necessary. That gave me some sort of advantage, at least. I had yet to think of any plausible, sure way out.
When a Jedi appeared some hours later, after I'd dozed off a bit again, I asked what the fuss had been about. She handed me a processed bar of some sort of grain- it turned out that this was to be my only meal of the day- and told me I'd know soon enough. She said it with great gusto, too. I think she thought she was menacing.
More Jedi appeared and the arm restraints were replaced, and off we marched. I was taken up and down lifts and halls so much that I lost my bearings, which was probably why it was done, though I'm sure some of the others weren't quite sure where they were, either. This was a section of the Temple I had never been in, and as a former captive there my knowledge of the place was extensive. Every inch reeked of the Light Side, but none so horribly as the entryway which I was pushed through by my guards.
I had expected something a bit more dramatic to meet me in that room: needles the size of lightsabers, ominous, looming machinery, a hoard of masters with murderous expressions and tools of torture in hand- or at least something more tangible than the unsettling quiet in that small chamber which gnawed at the corners of my mind from the instant I stepped in it. I encountered instead an assembly of twelve Jedi seated in a half-circle like that of the Council, though many of them I had not seen before. All were meditating, hands folded in their laps, perfectly silent and unmoving. All had dressed in immaculate white robes, all were full to the brim with their self-righteousness. I shook my head and would have said something if a hand hadn't been slapped over my face in time to save them. I was given a warning glance, shoved onto my knees in the middle of the circle, and left to my fate by my escort.
And there I stayed for quite some time, uncomfortable as a tauntaun on Tatooine, and feeling more and more exposed by the minute, until Windu, who faced me from his place in the circle, opened his eyes.
He looked at me for a very long time, and I couldn't tell if he was measuring me up like a fighter would an opponent, or if he was really looking right through me and into himself. I smiled quite charmingly for him, and he shook his head.
"This process could take minutes, or it could take days. With you, I would not be surprised if it takes an entire year," he told me.
I asked, "Am I really worth all the time and trouble of saving?"
"All of the people you'll undoubtedly murder if we don't do this are worth saving," he retorted. "This can be a very painful experience. I suggest that you don't fight us."
Of course, I was perfectly aware that if I tried to fight all these dolts I'd most likely end up on the loosing end, seeing as I didn't have the use of my hands or much else to work with. But, "I can deal with a bit of pain. That's all the Jedi have given me all of my life, isn't it?"
It was as close to snapping as I'd ever seen a master. "I also suggest that you shut up."
I did so smiling, because I knew that, even if I was significantly disadvantaged here, I could at least annoy the hells out of them.
It is difficult to explain how the "process" was carried out to someone who isn't familiar with the mental warfare that accompanies physical combat in all Force-using battles, but I will try my best. Imagine the feel of a school of tiny fish nibbling at your toes when you sit at the edge of a river on a summer's day, your legs swaying underwater with the current. It isn't unpleasant (unless the fish on your homeworld happen to be a bit more vicious than those on mine). This is how it felt in the beginning. The Jedi hovered near for a while, and then darted over the borders of my consciousness, too quick to be caught or swatted away, and too many coming from too many directions for me to put up much of a defense. I watched them warily, but it was crystal clear that there was no escape.
This went on for an indeterminable amount of time. Occasionally one of them would dip deeper than the surface, and that one I could pluck out and toss away more easily because of my own control of the Force. But one by one they all began to sink in, and I couldn't very well block all of them out of my mind and maintain the strength to fight for a great deal of time. As stupid as they are, Jedi Masters are appallingly powerful. Some flitted over my memories. Most leapt about the barriers I'd created in my mind with the Dark Side, similar to those any Jedi apprentice would erect with the Light Side, and seemed both revolted and intrigued by them. And then, with a singular combined effort only trained Jedi could muster, they broke one down.
I twitched- I mean, my whole body twitched, not just my mind. It hadn't hurt, but my vulnerability had been illustrated all too well. Those cute little fish suddenly became sharks in the space of a second, and I had only just begun to realize that I had only one defense when I was overtaken by the memories they were dissecting, reliving with them some of the most precious, mundane, and awful moments of my momentous life.
*~*~*
My mother, Marpessa, was beautiful. She was an artist, and I don't know how nor why she ever married my father, a statesman. She hated politics and wasn't particularly fond of people in general, preferring the society of the marble gods and goddesses sculpted under her tiny hands then that of my father's scheming friends. I seldom saw my parents together when I was a child, before the Jedi tore me away from them, and the only evidence I have of their having ever been loving with each other or intimate in any way is my own existence- their marriage wasn't any sort of monetary or social advantage for either of them which couldn't have easily been found elsewhere, and so it had to have been for another reason.
When my father began to climb the ranks in earnest, my mother left Thani and lived in a small house in the countryside, which wasn't good for Crion's image. He did not follow her, and I don't believe he ever tried to convince her to return. They were much happier apart.
I am Marpessa's only child. Crion had several bastards whom he wouldn't dare to confess to be the father of, as career-minded as he was. But she was never much of a mother to me. She lacked interest, lacked care. I did not stay with her long before Crion decided I would live with him in the city, and then I was able to thoroughly enjoy being spoiled by an attentive father until Qui-Gon Jinn came to claim me for the Temple.
When all was said and done, when I had grown up and trained and turned, when my first earnest battle of sabers and wills with my master was done, I returned to the one with whom it had all began. She did not cry or smile or say anything at all when I told her of her husband's death. Marpessa saw with open eyes what Qui-Gon would not allow himself to believe: Crion was dead, but in his place had risen a monster far more terrible than he had ever been.
Well. Like father, like son, I suppose. Crion would be proud. As for my mother, she hadn't cared in the first place. Far be it from her to concern herself now--
The memory shifted and changed; the Jedi had had enough of it. They moved on:
---a child crying. She was tiny and homely, as dungy as any of the rest of her kind: Arconian slaves in the Offworld mines. The guards had been cruel to her. She wore thick erasteel chains and was too filthy to be told apart from the mounds of dirt around her when she was still. Arconians, or at least the lot working at the lode on Yemfstod, voiced their pain through violent shrieks and yowls instead of tears, and this little one was annoying the overseers to no end.
They advanced upon her, vibroknives and blasters drawn, making quite a show of their toughness because they knew that I was watching. She had not known who I was, and so she threw herself at my knees and clung to them, hoping that I would prove a savior, hollering for the rest of her people. It was probably the first time she had been separated from the swarm of her kind there.
And for a moment I was filled with a kind of sympathy that I hadn't known before (or if I had, had forgotten it along with all the other useless weaknesses Qui-Gon had attempted to ingrain in me), and I waved away the guards who came to remove her.
"What is wrong? What have they done?" I asked, but she only trembled in response. The guards, unused to a superior treating a slave so graciously, began to slink off to find something else to do, until she and I stood alone in the yard. "Well?"
"We can't find the others," she whimpered, with that wearisome way her people had of referring to themselves as parts of a society instead of individuals. It reminded me quite a bit of the Jedi, actually.
"The others are in the mines," I told her. "Why didn't you go with them?"
She said something undeterminable, and I had too much business to do elsewhere to pursue the subject much further. Still, I motioned for a passing human slave, and instructed her to "bring another Arconian up for the girl. Clean her up and give her food. Let her rest before you take her back to work."--
The Jedi became perplexed. Evil incarnate may have admirable feelings such as sympathy? And so they delved deeper within, and I knew well what they would find next, because in my mind the two were interconnected somehow:
--my son. His little body was wrapped in a blanket with his head covered. An old Gsalian woman was offering the bundle to me in the courtyard of a house I once owned, and I was refusing to hold it.
"No. Take it away," I told her crossly. "I don't want to see it. Take it away."
"He is your child!" She was angry with me when she ought to have been sympathetic, and that made me furious.
I snapped at her, "You aren't here to tell me what to do, you're here to do what I tell you. Take the thing away- immediately!"
The Gsalian clutched the baby close and narrowed her ugly, stagnant eyes. "Your son"--
I shivered and managed to snatch the memory away from the fiends for a moment, but that was the best I could do against them. They were too powerful, and they wanted to see more. I cursed them, but they ignored me.
--"is dead," the old woman in my mind finished. "Don't you have the…"
At that point, I hit her. Not with my hands, but with the Force, and she was so surprised that she had no time to wonder how it had been done before she ran out, carrying the tiny corpse in her arms. The gates banged shut once she had passed through them.
I stood and watched her go, insensitive, and for a moment in time there was nothing in the universe but me and the moaning wind which swept through that place like a ghosts' cavalry. I collapsed on the stone pavement and lay there for hours and hours, watching the suns beat their way across the bright green sky, because that blessed isolation was what I felt I wanted for the rest of eternity.
And the memory was tinged with anger, too, because the Jedi were watching this, intruding in precious territory which didn't belong to them or anyone else. But as I'd said before to my dear old friend, the Jedi don't care much for freedom of choice, nor do they really have much respect for privacy.--
The image swirled, brightened, twisted. It became something else, and I was as thankful as someone in my position could be.
--Qui-Gon and I, on a mission. What a pair.
But in the time I relived with my voyeuristic captors now, there was no darkness. For a moment I was sixteen again. After days of traveling through a dense forest we had arrived at the most beautiful place in any galaxy: a beach, untouched by any sentient creature, which stretched from one end of the horizon to the next. The waves of the blue ocean lapped up on it gently, and when the water fell back it left a glittering, golden trail behind on the sand which flashed so brightly it seemed to be on fire. Up from the ocean curved natural sculptures of a crystal of many colors, so that it seemed as though frozen rainbows had been caught there and kept by the sea's hand.
The Force was there like it was in the Temple, but purer- not exactly Light, not Dark, but just the power of life and death and all the beautiful things in between.
Every cell in my body ached to stay there and rest in this heaven, and I pleaded with my master that we could make camp for the night.
"No, padawan," he said, "We still have a lot of ground to cover."
"And we have weeks to do it in. We have enough time to stay."
He wasn't angry. He never got angry with me. But he wasn't happy, either. "Let's go, Xanatos," he said, sternly.
I sighed, and turned my feet down the path once more to follow Jinn. I didn't understand why he couldn't see what I saw out there, or if he did, why he didn't appreciate it as much. I knew that he was responsible for shaping me into the stone soldier every padawan trained so hard to be, and part of that was the ever-important teaching that the mission came first.
But I hated it.
And still, I trailed him like a dog.--
At least, I thought, no vision the Jedi saw in my mind was without the barb of my opinion.
I began to realize that the reliving of each memory took only a little time, and that the strength of the intruders was so great that they could go on with the dissection for hours, digging through the mire of my brain to find shards of the past which I treasured or detested more than others. And they did. I will spare you a description of the rest; you get the picture, I think, and can see quite well that it's not a pretty one.
The Jedi couldn't battle an evil without knowing how deep it plunged and how wide it stretched, and even more importantly, why it did so. The cure to my "disease" lay inside my head. What they had found in this session they would use in the others. They knew weaknesses now which they could never before have guessed existed.
Still, I remained an enigma. That was what I wanted to be to them, and that, I firmly resolved, was what I would stay, no matter what I had to do to make sure of it.
*~*~*
It was not until I woke up I realized that the session was finished and I had fallen asleep. I assumed I'd been knocked unconscious, though I supposed it might as well have been the strain and the stress of the hours spent in that horrible room with those asinine masters.
I felt as vindictive as ever. That was a relief.
There was also a woman around me, her face buried between the lumps in the pillow beneath my head. I couldn't think of how she'd managed to get there without waking me up- in fact, I was appalled by it- but somehow I knew that she wasn't exactly a threat to me, and I knew she had been the one screaming in the night. I also knew there was no cause for her to be on top of me.
We were not in the room I'd spent the night in before. Their air in the vents above me, if one listened long enough and had an imagination, sounded like a very long, very lovely, harmonious chant. The kind reminiscent of candles and jeweled idols. I moved, just slightly, to see what was around me, and instantly her head snapped up and her arm pressed down against my chest to hold me still.
She was humanoid. Her skin was greenish, but too pretty a shade to seem sickly, and across it traced swirls of pink scales which seemed better suited for design than protection. Her hair was thick and blonde, and had been bound up in a multitude of zigzagging braids and twirls, slightly mussed, too fancy for this place. Her face was interesting to look at, but not particularly pretty. She considered me as I considered her, and we seemed to make up our minds about each other at about the same time.
"Is fear an aphrodisiac for you?" she asked me.
"Not mine," I told her, and she nodded and flicked her tongue out like a lizard, apparently pleased.
"It is for their apprentices. They fear me, and they want me. I hate their eyes. They brought you here to change you, didn't they?"
"Is that why you are here?"
Her head bobbed up and down. "You make seven," she said, as though it was important.
"Seven?"
"Six of us are alive still. One escaped, but she's dead now."
"What?"
"Sing. Aurra Sing. She died when she tried to escape this place. I don't mind much. The others could die, too, and I wouldn't mind. But you are different. You make seven. That's the end."
"Of what?" I asked, irritated.
"Of the tests. Of the changes. The Jedi told us there would be seven test subjects, and then they would use their tests on others. They would start to destroy the balance of the Force." She cocked her head to the side. "You see?"
I did. "I thought I was the only one. Or at least the first," I confessed.
"So did I, when they first brought me here. But you're the last. They saved the worst for last." She smiled humorlessly.
"The worst," I repeated.
"To them, you are the worst. You and Sing. The Jedi can't stand that they are responsible for creating the worst… what they think are the worst… of us." She shifted a bit and sighed.
"These tests," I asked, "are they working?"
A clawed finger was laid over my lips to silence me, and the woman shook her head violently. "Don't think about that," she whispered. "Never think about that. Never, never. Never. They can't take ourselves away from ourselves. Even if some of the others succumb…" she gave me a meaningful look, and I knew that the tests had worked. "It's only because they are stupid. We are stronger than them."
I moved slowly, because I knew already that she was far quicker than I was, to clasp her finger in my hand, and said, "I may not be strong enough. How would you know?"
"Because," she explained, "last night you were brought to the same cell as me and the ones who haven't turned." She paused. "And also, they looked scared."
"So?"
"So, do you think that they can turn you?"
For a long time I was silent, staring into and far past her eyes. Then, ever so slightly, I shook my head. Just that. It was hardly a portrayal of confidence, but she nodded, and lay her head on my chest as though she meant to go back to sleep. "You have a strong heart," she told me after a while. "Rotten, maybe, but strong."
"Does that give me a better chance?" I asked.
I felt her shrug. "Maybe. Don't ask me. I don't have answers."
"You seem like you do."
Her claw scratched the skin above my heart, drawing blood, but neither of us reacted. "I have no answers. I only know that you are seven. You are the end. And it must end with you, or the Jedi will become far worse than we have ever dreamed of being."
If only the Jedi could have heard that said with open ears.
