Anakin strode down the impossibly long hall that marked the way to the Emperor's private throne room, boots clicking and formal cloak billowing behind him. If a message from Palpatine summoned him, he went to a stately suite of rooms high above Coruscant, lush and sophisticated and meant for entertaining the highest level of guests.
If a message from Sidious summoned him, he came here.
The corridor was a grand expanse of bare stone and metal designed to make anyone feel tiny and ill at ease as they traversed it, even someone of Anakin's height and presence. Despite its modern lines and the almost garish lighting overhead, the empty space felt like a tomb long undisturbed and best left that way.
The guards that stood every ten meters saluted, eyes straight ahead as he walked by. In a sign of how much fear he himself inspired, none dared to look after him after he passed.
Anakin felt restless, irritable. Fighting was good. War, campaigns, battles: those things kept him occupied. But recently, in the silence that fell between, he found his mind turning more and more to Obi-Wan, and he itched to get back to pursuing the last walking shadow of his former life.
Finding him and killing him.
Well, maybe. That had been the plan following Mustafar, but his rage had cooled into something icier since Obi-Wan had slipped through his fingers back on that abandoned ship. Anakin didn't know what the plan was becoming, exactly, but he knew he no longer wanted to simply murder his former master.
Capture him. Make him suffer for his betrayal. For bringing Padme to Mustafar when I was out of control. For turning against me when I needed him most.
For not joining me… ? The idea drifted through his mind, as strange and mysterious as the rare glimmers in hyperspace old-timer pilots talked about.
Anakin pushed the thought away, puzzled and wondering where it had come from. I don't want him to join me! Weak old fool!
The doors to the throne room now loomed above him, twice as tall as he was and flanked by two of the familiar red shadows that were his master's personal guards. The chamber lay briefly lit and then sank back into a pale gloom as he stepped inside, the doors closing behind him with a heavy, final thud.
The room's menacing atmosphere flowed over him, welcoming him as it always did with cool, dank air and the subtle promise of violence. Few outsiders saw this true throne room of Darth Sidious, of the man they knew as Emperor Palpatine, and usually only those who were about to die.
There were no windows, only long, narrow cuts in the stone of one wall that let in the murky dimness of the undercity levels. Anakin had once estimated they were hundreds of levels below sunlight, far below where he would normally venture in Coruscant's seedy underworld if given a choice.
This was another good idea of his master's, he had admitted to himself on previous visits: the building itself was surrounded by empty air on all sides for hundreds of meters and virtually impenetrable, the basement level where Anakin now stood impossibly deep in the planet's underworld. Uninvited guests, unable to use the secured elevator he had taken, would have to go through the horrors that walked and crawled along the sublevels' darkened passages to reach this place.
None had ever made it.
The far wall, the one he looked up to now, was a massive and simple black screen that always glowed with the bright dots of inhabited systems. Most of them glittered red, and he was pleased to note the addition of the three he had turned the tide for.
Sidious stood beneath this grand display, looking up at it with his gnarled hands clasped behind his back. "Good evening, Lord Vader," he said without turning, considering the sprawl of lights above him.
"Good evening, Master." Anakin walked over to join him at the map, stopping and once again counting off the newest three stars. I did that. Pride rose inside, shaking loose some of his uneasiness. My empire grows.
He glanced at Sidious, the ugliness of the old man's face hidden in the dimness of the room, and reluctantly corrected himself. Our empire.
For now.
"You did well, my apprentice. And as I have promised, I will now share something with you. You have clearly progressed to a level where you will be capable of dealing with it." Sidious smiled at Anakin's curious expression, the old man's scars twitching.
He turned to walk back to a small dais in the center of the chamber and his throne atop it, a bulky thing inlaid with stonework that Anakin was sure came from some Sith monument or possibly even Korriban itself.
It felt wrong to look directly at the throne because of those unnatural carvings, which was undoubtedly the point: when someone was brought here before Sidious, he wanted them to squirm and grovel before they died. He wanted them to be afraid.
As the Emperor climbed the low steps to the throne, Anakin kept his mental guard in place and did not look away, even as he wanted to turn his eyes down or away or even up to the ceiling. He did this every time he had an audience here with his master.
It was not suitable for him to be afraid. He loathed being afraid.
Sidious turned and sat down, brushing a bit of something off of his robes and looking up to chuckle at Anakin, the sound dying away quickly in the damp air.
"Master?"
"Such a stubborn man you are, and yet, that is part of your strength." He sighed, content, and reclined into the throne as if it were stuffed with the finest pillows. "Have I ever told you the story of these sculptures?" He tapped one arm of the throne fondly, that side a rough outline of sharp angles and disconcerting shadows. The other side was worn away to near perfect smoothness, but the ridges and rounded edges always seemed to suggest faces if the light caught them right.
"No, Master."
"Well, they relate to what we are to talk about, so I shall tell you." He tapped the arm again. "This stone was taken from an ancient battleground in a system almost no one remembers. Sith, in the glorious days of the armies of our people, sacrificed Jedi atop it to celebrate their victory. For days after the battle it ran red with their blood, until there were no prisoners left."
Anticipating Anakin's question, he smiled and stroked the dark carved ridges like a favorite pet. "The souls left inside told me of this when I found it, though I fear in their insanity they are not always the most coherent storytellers. But I do love to hear them when I can get them to speak."
Somewhere outside and down below in the mist, a corridor ghoul howled, its unearthly cry echoing through the dark canyons that surrounded them.
"And the other?" Anakin asked, determined not to look away.
Sidious drew a long, thin finger along the weathered stone. "I believe this one may come from one of the first Sith temples. It is so powerful, and so ancient, I have only touched minds with it once. I think it would kill a man to do so for longer than a few seconds."
Something inside the worn block whispered to Anakin, as if it had stirred at Sidious's touch. Death, it hissed, less a word than a long, excruciating promise of pain and madness slipping through the back of Anakin's mind and down into his gut. He gritted his teeth, gaze sliding away for just a second, bringing another laugh from his master.
"Don't be embarrassed, my apprentice. Not everyone can be as powerful as I am. Now," he continued, "come closer and see what I have for you. There are powers other than fear that can be useful."
Anakin reluctantly approached the dais and took a few steps up as Sidious waved a hand, using the Force to open a small box on a table that sat next to the throne. "For you."
A small object floated down to him, and he frowned as it dropped into his hand. "What is this?" It was glossy and smooth, some type of polished oval stone that almost blended into the black leather of his glove. Three rough, jagged lines were etched into it, almost invisible in the gloom of the chamber unless held just right. It felt powerful, but more like a searing fire than the dead ice of the throne. He closed his hand over it and looked up at Sidious as the old man shut the box with a click.
"It is an old talisman of sorts, one I have used in the past. I give it to you now that you are capable of using it, Anakin. My only wish for you is to grow in your power, to bring glory to yourself and the Sith."
"Thank you, Master." He examined it, holding it up, unable to get any kind of sense from it beyond a strange, ravenous hunger. Like a fire, it wanted to eat, for lack of a better word. Anakin had the feeling it would try to eat him if it weren't somehow afraid of him. "What does it do?"
"I believe it was used, long ago, to reanimate enemy corpses for war and send them back into battle against their own side. An excellent demoralization technique, I must say."
Anakin let this explanation flow past him, willing himself not to flinch or show any reaction to this gruesome information. He believed in power, in strength and in victory. He had no desire to step off of those well-established paths of his Sith apprenticeship into the deeper shadows his master wandered in.
"I am a weapon, not a witch, my Master. You know this. How will I use this?"
Sidious was watching him from the darkness of his cowl, assessing him as he so frequently did. Anakin wondered, not for the first time, if the older Sith found him lacking. "The primary manipulation of the Force in this talisman is to seek out Force-sensitive beings, or their remains, and bind them. Especially Jedi."
The Emperor closed his eyes with a sigh, recalling some pleasant memory Anakin had no desire to know about. "While the binding aspect has been lost over the millennia and some of its power has faded, I have found that if one has strong enough feelings about a particular Jedi, this little stone can help you locate them."
Obi-Wan.
As if reading his mind, Sidious grinned, wrinkled face splitting into a cruel, ugly smile. "Your old master, I was thinking."
"I…"
"I know you've been chasing Kenobi between campaigns. And I encourage it," he said, waving his hand dismissively at Anakin's surprise. "Oh, my apprentice, I know everything you do. It's a sign of how long you have to go before you can one day challenge me."
The great and terrible Lord Vader stood there sheepishly, hands in fists at his side as his humiliation warred with his eagerness. He knew?! I… it… it doesn't matter. At all. What matters is that I can find Obi-Wan now. And with this that bastard will never be able to escape me again.
The stone hummed in his hand, sending strange feelings of heat and anxiety through his racing mind. Sidious tilted his head, hood shifting, as if he could hear it.
"I think it's working, Master."
"It is responding to your power, which you have built so much these past few years. Go. Meditate with it, my boy. And enjoy your hunt. Let all of your hatred for him burn through you." The Emperor patted the lines of stonework his arm rested on. "Find him. Bring him here. We will make him suffer."
Sidious let the last word linger in the damp gloom: it stirred Anakin's blood with its horrible, limitless potential. He did not know exactly how he would make Obi-Wan Kenobi pay, but he would pay, as he deserved to. I will have my revenge.
He bowed and left in a swirl of black, the stone's heat growing against his gloved palm.