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Luke woke with a shout, wrenching up and scrambling back in the same moment until he hit the high headboard behind him, the strength of the Force-shield he'd unwittingly thrown out wrenching back the sweat-soaked covers about him, his eyes wide, chest still heaving.
He stared into the darkness as reality seeped back in, blinking rapidly, his heart still beating so loudly he could hear it in his short, shallow breaths. Slowly coming round, still staring into nothing, he stilled; listened within momentarily… and it was there. It was always there now.
It had started as a distant tone at the edges of Luke's mind when he'd returned to the Palace after Devaron, like a sound just beyond hearing which had built steadily at the back of his awareness for weeks. And there was something else; something achingly familiar in the call; some distant memory which collapsed into itself every time he reached for it, some veiled recognition of that same perfect attunement which pressed in with dull denseness and knife-sharp clarity in the same instant. The same sense of an absolute magnetic draw, a summons which he alone heard, the sound pure and perfect and unrelenting, until eventually it became as stringent and jarring as nails down chalkboard, demanding attention.
For days he'd stubbornly refused to give, adamantly ignored its call. Now, in the dark of the night, still breathing heavily as the nightmares of his past settled once again into the shadowed corners, he knew how futile that was. With a sigh part frustration and part resignation, he rose.
The fine of fossilstone of the mosaic marble floor was cold against his bare feet, but in a reassuringly physical, tangible way, making the moment real, pushing back the nightmare which still clung to his waking thoughts as he paced alone through the vast suite which was his bedroom and into the dressing room beyond. He closed tired eyes against old memories, then opened them against the visions which still lurked in the dark of his mind, trying to ignore their barbed scratch against his sanity, like fingernails down the inside of his skull.
Dressing, he walked quietly to the tall windows, gazing out at the city glittering beneath him, a constant pulse of light and life. He stared a long time into the night, mesmerised by the changing patterns of ever-moving lights, aware that despite its closeness, it may as well be light-years away from him. He stood in the absolute centre of the universe, yet remained forever isolated. How many beings envied him for being here? How many beings would change places with him if they knew what it had cost - what it still took from him every day?
In the still dark of night, the familiar rooms felt more like the confined prison of his past than at any other time, the walls closing in about Luke, the silence unbearable, the demand in the back of his mind still ringing in that pitch-perfect tone…
He turned abruptly, grabbing a shirt and striding through his apartments.
When the doors to his private chambers were flung forcefully open by some unseen source and the Emperor strode through, barefoot and with shirt open, the night-watch guards didn't so much as glance at each-other before falling into pace a discrete distance behind; this was often the way that nights went here, the Emperor walking the halls of his sprawling apartment through the night like a caged animal, exhausted but unable to sleep.
Unlike most nights however, the Emperor surprised them by simply keeping on walking in a straight line as he reached the tall double doors of his apartments, heading out into the Palace Tower still barefoot, a second set of guards falling in behind with hardly a broken step.
Still, somebody had the sense to contact higher powers.
Followed at a discrete distance, the Emperor strode through the Palace, quickly at first, then slowing as he seemed to calm, eventually thinking to button his shirt as he crossed the path of a member of the night staff, who diligently looked the other way, bowing at the last moment as if uncertain whether to acknowledge that this was the Emperor or not.
Pausing occasionally, tilting his head as if listening, he headed up, away from his own apartments and the bustle of the lower levels which would still be staffed even at this hour and into the quiet stillness beyond, walking wide, carved stair after wide stair, traversing the long galleried bridges which joined the Towers occasionally, bare feet patting on the cool marble, emerging at each level and pausing only briefly before heading on again. It was only when he had passed into the quiet stillness of the barred levels in the South Tower that the Emperor stopped dead as if suddenly realizing where he was, staring at the dwarfing proportions of the grand, looming arch of the darkened entrance. He stood brooding before the sealed doors for a long time, his back to the guards, the silence laying heavy.
The guards glanced to each-other, but one shook his head, moving to stand to straight attention outside the vast entranceway to Palpatine's grand apartments. No-one dared approach, everyone prepared to wait this out as the Emperor stood alone in exactly the same position, exactly the same stance, minutes ticking by.
Minutes ticking by. Luke stood before the lofty double-doors and stared at his old Master's apartments, sealed on his death by Luke's command, the whole five levels closed down, though knowledge of its existence remained always like a dirty stain at the edge of Luke's awareness, the stagnant torpor of the place a cloying monument to self-serving greed, the eager, feverish whispers of the power-hungry and the deceitful seeping into the stone here, part of the shadows and darkness.
And then there was this; this single stringent tone, this faded whisper from within.
Luke reached out with the Force and the doors slid reluctantly back into their housings, the darkness beyond absolute. Squaring his shoulders, he walked into the shadows alone. He had nothing to fear; he was, after all, one of them.
The silent step of his bare feet made no sound in the overwhelming grandeur of the massive atrium, its scale designed to dwarf all who entered. After only one year, a heavy pall of dust lay on the jet-black polished stone, Luke's path through it tracked lightly, lifting it into the air to pick out the slim shafts of light which reached into the brooding gloom.
He walked the length of the vast atrium without hesitation, immersed in the silence, searching for the source of that singular pitch. The closer he came the more it drew him, a siren song calling him on, quickening his step, tightening his chest in anticipation as he tried to lock it down; the familiarity of it, the connection, the implication, the memory just beyond grasp.
He moved quickly through the cavernous halls and down the long, perfectly-matched enfilade, eyes turning neither left nor right, coming to large, heavily-carved doors which grated open into another vast chamber, its walls a dark, dour crimson-
-and stopped dead.
Before him, left here at Luke's own order, was the once-magnificent Sunburst Throne. Battered and broken during the fateful duel which had cost Palpatine his life, it stood ruined and abandoned now, a fine film of dust reducing the once-glowing facets to dull lifelessness.
His eyes were drawn to the twisted and misshapen sunburst flares radiating from the massive engraved sun which formed the backrest of the throne. In the endless hours that he had stood behind that throne in Court, Luke had often stared at the sun's mirror-image to the throne's rear, the lowest sunbursts resting on the pale marble floor, the two connected back to back, a perfect match. They had always reminded Luke in some distant way of Tatooine's twin suns, though they were nothing of the sort, simply another expression of the dual representations which littered the throne; another opportunity for scholars through the ages to read significant meanings onto things they knew nothing about whilst claiming its relevance a priceless artefact, ancient and sacrosanct.
The Sunburst throne… the Seat of Prophesy; it was said that in the indecipherable archaic text hidden within the etched designs of the massive sunburst was the key to a power capable of changing the course of the galaxy, secrets guarded and handed down over the ages with near-religious zeal, endless variations and permutations documented and carefully considered, crafted into a fateful Son of Suns prophesy which had hung like chains first about his father's neck and then about Luke's own.
The throne… in the heavy, stagnant stillness, it was the dull, dusty throne which resonated, practically vibrated with that silent tone of perfect pitch which echoed all the way down to Luke's soul.
Luke stared, the scribed words of the portentious prophesy hidden by heavy dust, their fluid flow broken by the crumpled twists of the ruined sunburst – yet they held his attention completely, as they always had. Drawing him in, whispering in the muted silence, calling and cajoling, scratching in the back of his awareness, the connection flawless, fascinating…
Luke blinked, shaking his head as he took a broken step back, dispersing the connection by force of will, unwilling to be led as he had been in the past.
No more prophesies; they'd destroyed his father's life and he wouldn't bow to them any more. This ended now.
In a fit of anger his eyes hardened, his chin raising a fraction of an inch as he brought the Force to bear– the invisible blow was a massively powerful burst of kinetic energy but the throne only toppled backwards, landing on its back with a leaden thud as dust billowed out in a cloud about it, thrown up into the fine slivers of light which reached into the gloom.
Luke turned, tried so hard to look away–
But a sliver of light now sliced across the underside of the beaten metal throne, catching at the complex etching which covered even the underside of the seat, its edges gleaming through the dust-filled haze…
And from the corner of his eye Luke saw something there... his head froze, eyes locked, completely captured...
It seemed at first glance to be a continuation of the intricate design of interlinked circles that scribed in ornate, elaborate patterns over the whole throne... but slowly as he stared, as that perfect pitch sung, the lines writhed, the complex design falling into place. Nothing changed… and yet now, etched into the underside of the seat in two interlocked circles, were stretched hierogyphs, their letters so distorted as to be little more than a scrawling decoration.
Luke stared, eyes drawn to them, unable to turn away-
Just as so much was on the seat of prophesy, the words were written twice, one circle of words within the other, the direction of the letters reversed, the subtle inscriptions carved in fine, fluid lines. The slim rays of shuttered light traced their shape, catching across the carved words, the only sound in the profoundly still silence that of Luke's own heartbeat, loud in his ears- and that pitch-perfect tone.
For a second they seemed alien; unreadable – but as he stared mesmerised at the faceted rose-gold carvings, just as it had done before, an insular acuity whispered up his spine, resonating through the Force… and the words swam effortlessly into his consciousness, forming complete and unbidden, written twice, each time as a circle, one linked within the other with no beginning and no end. Luke frowned, eyes tracing the curve of the scribings, words transmuted with flawless clarity-
"-And he balances on the biting blade whilst devils and angels whisper-
-And she balances all the fates of the worlds whilst head and heart make war-"
"…. Luke?"
The word, quietly whispered, shattered Luke's rapt attention with an almost physical force, making him spin about, arm raised, fingers outstretched. The Force surged into him, its energy crackling to this open palm and lighting it with an intense, sulphurous glare, igniting into power which arced from his fingers, searching to ground-
Hallin flinched back–
–and Luke caught the power, contained it, the energy crackling back through him like knife-blows, a burst of scarlet pain firing through him, tensing every muscle and ripping the breath from his lungs with incredible force.
He was left gasping, breathless, the shock of it throwing reality to a distant blur for long seconds…
Slowly, still doubled half-over by the wrenching, stabbing spasms, he became aware of Nathan speaking as he stepped in, hand to Luke's shoulder to steady him, though Luke had no idea what he said, the implications of his own barely-halted actions chilling.
It would have killed him, Luke knew. The energy he'd focused; the draw on the Force he'd summoned to contain it… it would have killed Nathan.
He was furious; at himself for the momentary lapse, at Nathan for risking the intrusion, at the Force itself, that it would have done the deed indiscriminately. At the throne, for its damning distraction…
The throne; Luke turned to it, incensed, pushing Nathan's hand away as he straightened. "Get it out. I want it out of here." he snarled to Nathan, hearing the rage in his own voice and not caring.
Nathan took a hasty step back at the unfamiliar ferocity twisting Luke's voice, at the feral fierceness in his glassy eyes, almost aglow in the low light. "Out of here? Where do you want me to put it?"
He could see Luke struggling to bring his emotions under control, his body tense and wired, voice reduced to a flat, grating, growl.
"Just get it out. I want it out of the towers, I want it out of the Palace. In fact smelt it down."
Nathan hesitated, uncertain what was going on here, what had unhinged Luke to this degree, pushing him over the edge. "Smelt it?"
"Smelt it. Melt it down. I want it destroyed, I want it gone. Permanently. No more prophesies - no more."
Luke turned on his heel and stalked from the room in brooding silence, leaving Nathan to turn back to the tarnished ruin of the toppled throne, aware that he'd just seen something of great import though he had no idea what it was or why it had unbalanced Luke so completely.
Knowing only that it, this – this place, this task, this past, this path… it was taking Luke to pieces.
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