Amber: generation next
Jessica's tale: The Age of Darkness 2403-2420 d'L
Chapter 10: The Fall
I felt a Force Scream. It was weak, as if it had rippled a great distance. It carried, with it, a feeling of familiarity. A presence I had felt before, a long time ago, so long ago I had all but forgotten it. My mother . . . my "real mother," it had to be.
Owen had felt it too.
We all gathered a Julianson Enterprises California, in San Francisco. Titan was not yet fit to travel, and elected to stay behind. I removed the Kaiburr Crystal fragment from my lightsabre and Michael and I walked the Pattern within.
Once at the center, we had the Pattern send us to the Shadow where the Force Scream initiated.
We Trumped the others to us then looked around.
It was a desolate dry planet, with three moons. The stars and moonlight shifted and shimmered as if the Shadow were unstable. A Shadow too close to Chaos for anyone's comfort, even Julia. The Force plays nasty tricks on us, I was raised on a wet, arid, muggy planet, but I can't seem to avoid deserts.
The life web of this planet was weak, barely enough to even feel. The air was cold . . . the two smaller moons merged and became one. The air grew colder rapidly. We had to find shelter, quickly.
We traveled to a village that had to be nearby. The Force gave me the ability to endure the cold, but even Julia with her flame-based powers, Michael with his sorcery, Belle and Valian's shape shifting weren't enough to keep us going for long. My dress had grown up around me, covering me like a thermal suit, and it was suffering in the extreme cold.
The village was a greater distance away than we thought, but once there, we met an elderly woman with a nominal control and understanding of the Force. She told us of her encounters with the Lords of Chaos, of Lord Nor the Dark Jedi Master imprisoned at Castle Amber, and of Belledonna. She gave us food, shelter, and clothing to protect us against the cold. We thanked her and continued our search for the source of the Force Scream.
Even Owen could feel it now as I did. It was here on this world, but still a great distance away.
A chasm filled with electrified lava, possibly the source of Michael's magical spell, stood in our path. It stretched from horizon to horizon, with no visible way across. Michael cast a flying disk spell and instructed us to climb aboard. Julia attached a mystic chain between the disk and her flaming motorcycle, pulled from Shadow, as any Amberite might pull an object sacred to them, such as a personal deck of Trumps, Lord Corwin's sword Greyswandir, or my lightsabre.
Julia mounted her motorcycle and rode it through the sky over the chasm, towing the disk behind her.
Over the center of the chasm, a Logrus tendril reached up and grabbed Julia and her flaming motorcycle, from within the lava. Julia was engulfed and pulled into the electrified lava. Another tendril hit the disk, and it vanished.
I grabbed onto my falling companions and attempted to telekinetically levitate us across the chasm. Valian assumed his Chaos form and swooped down taking one of us in each of his four arms. He flew so fast; we all passed out from the G-forces.
Using the Force, I regained consciousness and put up a "Force Shield" around us protecting us from further effects of the G-forces and the tendrils attempting to pull us down.
I used the Dark Side to create a Force Wind to help push us along. We soon cleared the chasm only to be faced with a fast moving, deadly storm.
The storm was full of hurricane force winds, acid rain, and deadly lightning. I summoned a Force Storm, but only held it in place. We had to wait it out or go past it.
Owen remembered a small cave at the edge of the chasm, our only hope for shelter. I knew the storm would erode much of the cliff, so we went, as deep, into the cave as we could. Our only light was my Jedi weapon.
I stopped trying to hold back the storm and let it come. It washed over us in seconds, taking with it six meters of the cliff face and the cave. In its wake, it left a toxic permeation on the ground. Owen and Michael choked on the fumes.
Valian and Belle shifted their lungs to breathe the toxins. I used the Force to control my breathing, then tried to expand my power to include Owen and Michael.
Belle covered the opening of the cave by shape shifting into an air filter for the toxins. I relaxed.
A pulsing of light and sound began. Slowly, very slowly, the air began to grow less toxic. It was Titan . . . technology over nature and time.
This shadow had rendered Michael and Belle without magic, powerless. The Trumps were useless. Even the Pattern was difficult to use. Only the Force seemed to work here, and the Dark Side was decidedly easier and more seductive than ever.
The sunlight shone through Belle the air filter. I turned off my lightsabre and removed the Crystal fragment. I began to walk the Pattern within, in hopes that I would have the power to get us out of this. In his own turn each followed me . . . Michael, Valian, even Owen.
I reached the center and waited for the others. It had been harder to reach this time than even the real one in Amber, I was exhausted. I rested as I waited.
Darkness . . . cold . . . anxiety, anger, fear . . . I could feel their emotions as they walked the Pattern. I could taste it. The draw was too strong to ignore. It began to fill me with power. I was feeding on their negative emotions. I wanted more . . . I gave into it!
Michael stepped out into the center. This was no longer a path to Power over Shadow, it was mine alone, a Sith Temple bathed in the blood red light of the Crystal. Dazed and confused, he glanced around and asked, "Jess? What's going on?"
"Welcome sorcerer," I said wickedly. "In a short while you and all your friends will call me Master. You wanted to learn about the Force? Kneel and surrender yourself to me!"
"No!" He responded, "Jess, this is wrong. Don't give in to it . . . "
"I said, KNEEL! You are now mine!"
Caught off guard, and practically powerless in this Shadow of Chaos, Michael was soon reeling in pain as I twisted his will to mine.
I could feel Owen approaching. I offered encouragingly, "Come, brother, you can make it. A few more steps, come on."
He was struggling. I had warped the integrity of the Pattern so much even Random would have difficulty with it. He knew it meant death to stop. I knew I needed him . . . his servitude as I did Michael's. I could feel Valian behind him. Titan in the rear . . . his thoughts were to reach the center and find Belledonna. From where I stood, the Dark Jedi seemed a mere fledgling student by comparison.
Owen crossed into the center of my Temple. I stood in the blood-red glow basking in the glory and power of the Dark Side. Michael was on his knees at my feet sobbing, "No more, please, no more!"
"On your knees, brother," I demanded. Owen glanced at Michael, then to me. He looked as if he was going to comply, then he hesitated, grabbed the lightsabre from my wrist . . . knocked me across the room . . . removed the crystal from it . . . dropped it on the floor and crushed it under the heavy heel of his boot . . . everything went black!
I awoke from the nightmare, still in the cave. The Crystal fragment a few centimeters from my outstretched hand, as if I had dropped it. Dark, cold, lifeless as any gemstone, as any jewel that never knew the true power of the Force. Instinctively I replaced it in my lightsabre, but it was dead. My Jedi weapon, my symbol of power, my only true possession, was nothing more than a fancy glowrod.
Valian sat talking with Belle near the mouth of the cave. Michael cringed in the corner, pathetically, muttering to himself. Owen, only a meter or so away, glared at me with burning hatred in his eyes, hand on the ivory dragon hilt of his sword. Titan was nowhere to be found.
I knew full well what I had done, but I hardly felt remorse for any of it. The influences of the Dark Side still pulling at my 'strings.' I could not feel pity for Michael, or even care that Titan was gone.
I knew where we were bound, a dead city. I attempted a Trump Sketch in the dirt floor, while Owen held my 'glowrod.' The Trump of course failed, like all the other efforts I had made in this Shadow.
We had no choice but to travel under Valian's power, protected by my force shield and Belle the air-filter. Once clear of the toxic fumes, Belle assumed her true Faerie form and flew alongside Valian.
The plateau upon which the city sat came into view on the horizon. The evil influences withing could be felt even at this distance. It was too much for the Faerie to bear. She vanished into Shadow. If only, I had that innocence back.