Ten minutes later Qui-Gon was finally chimneying down the vertical shaft - thankfully wider than the horizontal passage. In the end he'd decided to leave his bulky robe behind in the horizontal shaft. Tahl would be amused. He passed four wall grates, pausing only briefly to listen and look at what lay outside them. The first three looked out on Palace corridors. His vision was obscured by the leaves of potted plants set to artfully disguise the vents, but he could see and hear enough to realize he'd have difficulty getting out undetected at those levels. The halls were wide, ornamented in gold and carpeted in scarlet, filled with guests and attendants and the occasional guard. The fourth vent looked more promising: it let onto a narrow hall with multiple doors; barefoot slaves passed quickly down the hall, carrying trays and cleaning buckets and sundry other items. A guard sauntered by as he watched.
Finally, the fifth vent, and the end of his climb. This grill was set into the floor of the shaft, in the ceiling of a high chamber. The intake area around the vent was wider than the shaft itself; Qui-Gon jumped lightly down to stand on the ledge around the vent grill. Below him stretched a wide, curved chamber: the "backstage" area around all four of the arena floors, the one where Obi-Wan was competing and three others encircling the Palace. Red-suited guards strolled around, looking officious. Burly humans and non-humans - with the dress and manner of the men he had seen using the private arena entrance outside - walked purposefully to and from lift tubes on the outer wall, some of them leading chained slaves. Trainers, definitely. Doors lined the inner walls - entry doors for the arena? Each door had a light above it: some unlit, some glowing red. Qui-Gon watched as a human trainer led a tall furry slave to an unlit door, opened it, and when the slave stepped inside, unclipped the chain from his neck. The door slid closed, the light flashing on above it. The trainer clipped the chain to a hook beside the door and pressed his palm to the panel beside it: programming a palm lock. Then he walked away, to the far side of the room, and through a wide door with a guard on either side. He flashed a small card at them as he passed. Layers of security, even here, Qui-Gon thought. But perhaps some room to maneuver. That door was in the right place to lead to the private door he'd seen outside. From the diagrams he'd studied, he knew there was a passage beyond that would lead to upper levels of the arena as well.
Through the walls, the roar of the arena crowd was a muffled rumble, swelling from time to time like a cresting wave. Carefully Qui-Gon observed the activity below him, looking for weaknesses in the security that he might exploit. He had agreed with the others that it was best to consider this a surveillance run. Unless an obvious opportunity presented itself, of course. There was too much about this situation that they still didn't understand. So: they would go in quietly, and leave without being detected. Qui-Gon by a different route, if possible, than the one by which he had entered. The Jedi grimaced, imagining Tahl's teasing rejoinder: What, you don't want to go back through those ventilation ducts?
No, I don't.
The lift tubes in the walls between the arena backstage spaces appeared from the diagrams they'd studied to go to individual rooms in the Palace: a quick access to the arenas and practice rooms for the wealthier guests. Each had a palm-lock beside it, like the palm-lock he'd seen that trainer use at his furry slave's waiting-chamber. The waiting-chambers themselves - holding rooms between the backstage area and the arena - did not stretch to the ceiling, but stood instead as a freestanding unit of enclosed boxes. From his position in the ceiling, Qui-Gon could drop onto the roof of the waiting-chamber complex - if he used the Force to adjust his trajectory. And if he could find a way to get there without being seen. If only he knew which waiting-chamber Obi-Wan had been assigned to!
A tremendous roar from the arena crowd shook the room, going on and on. A rush of excitement and anger in the Force swelled around Qui-Gon. What was going on in there? He reached out with his senses, not for the first time since arriving on Lansar, to get some sense of his Padawan's condition. As before, he found nothing. Obi-Wan held his mind tightly guarded. Not surprising, when he was so close to Xanatos.
A commotion around the outer door caught his attention. A man rushed through the doors, then palmed a waiting-chamber door and ran through. Qui-Gon looked back to the entrance. The guards were now talking with a second trainer - a tall blond man. With a start of surprise, Qui-Gon realized that he recognized him.
It's the one I saw training Obi-Wan in the desert, Qui-Gon thought. The one with the whip.
"What happened out there, Sitaris?" one of the guards asked him.
"Yeah, I've not heard the crowd this riled since that slave killed his opponent."
"The boy had Heavy Hand dancing, nearly pulled him down. Got him angry, Heavy Hand couldn't hit him. So the big idiot jumped the disks, to get at the boy. Tried, anyway."
"Crazy offworlder," snorted the first guard.
"Wish I'd seen it," the second called to Sitaris' retreating back.
There were only a few other trainers in the room; they gathered a few meters behind Sitaris as he walked to one of the waiting-chamber doors.
"How does he do it, Sitaris?"
"He doesn't look to be that good!"
"I've never seen a human so fast," called another trainer.
So much for sneaking Obi-Wan out of there. They all knew what he looked like, apparently.
Sitaris said nothing, merely pulled the chain off the hook by the door and palmed open the lock. Qui-Gon watched intently, his heart suddenly loud in his chest.
Obi-Wan stepped from the chamber, his head bowed low, looking wan and dispirited. Sitaris clipped the chain to his collar, then put a hand on his shoulder.
"Well played again, bonder."
He waited a moment, watching the boy for some kind of reaction. When Obi-Wan gave no indication he'd heard he turned and led the boy away, past the watching trainers, to the wall of lift tubes. The trainers were quieter now, some of them muttering to each other, others observing intently. Qui-Gon marked carefully which lift-tube Sitaris palmed open and entered. He knew he could find it again; more importantly, he would be able to find it on the Palace plans so he could know where Obi-Wan was being held.
Be all right, Obi-Wan. Just a little longer. He felt no answer in the Force. Obi-Wan was closed to him still.
"I don't see how he does it. Any bonder looking like that, I'd say he wasn't fit to fight."
The trainers nodded, agreeing with the one who spoke.
Qui-Gon drew breath and stretched, then leaped lightly up to lodge himself in the ventilation shaft and chimney his way back up. He would not risk detection by exiting another way. A plan was already forming in his mind. It was time to get back to Tahl - and time to track down Sitaris.
"Bring the red, boy!"
Exhausted from three long fights that afternoon and evening, and not at all eager to join Xanatos and his 'guest', Obi-Wan nevertheless hurried to gather glasses and wine carafe. He walked quickly from the food service station through the sliding door into the opulent dining area of Xanatos' apartment in the Palace, and placed the two glasses and carafe on the table between them, stepping back immediately, his head lowered.
"Your bonder is amazing, Xanatos," came the woman's rich voice as Xanatos poured wine for both of them. "Three more fights won today - if he wins tomorrow, he will be the undefeated champion of Sha-Zayet!" Obi-Wan did not need to see her face to feel her eyes on him; his skin grew hot.
"I told you, Mazala, that betting on him would be well worth your while."
"I hardly believed you when you said I should put my money on a half-grown boy. The youngest ever to compete at the Palace." She stood, stepping behind the boy; raised one hand languidly to run her fingers across his bare side and back, then moved behind Xanatos' chair to rest her empty hand on the man's shoulder as she sipped her wine. He took her hand in his own and leaned his head back against her chest. Obi-Wan wished he dared leave. He stood motionless, waiting.
"You would win more if you stayed tomorrow."
"You know I would love to stay! But I am expected back in two days: I must leave tonight."
"I shall simply have to suffer here without you."
Disappointment tinged Xanatos' voice, but Obi-Wan knew better. The dark Force surged through the room, thick with the bonds of compulsion. Mazala Lidocha stood in Xanatos' shadow, her thoughts of nothing but him. Xanatos pulled her head down until their lips met.
"Will you take me to my transport?" she asked him, finally.
"I wouldn't miss the privilege for all my winnings of this week."
"A substantial sum!" she laughed; moved away from the table as Xanatos rose from his seat. "I shall miss your bonder's service. Such a sweet young thing." She paused in front of Obi-Wan, raising his face in one hand. He avoided her brown eyes studying him; stared into the middle distance, trying to ignore her attention. Her face was a smooth oval, framed by thick dark curls. "He flushes so prettily," she laughed.
And then they were leaving, passing through the door to the main room, standing on the rich rug before a wall entirely of transparisteel: a view of the fountains and gardens of the Starways resort. Obi-Wan followed, standing unobtrusively in a corner, looking hungrily toward the starlit desert beyond the gardens: he had not been out of the Palace since Xanatos took him from Sitaris' desert training ground. Xanatos and Mazala were speaking once more, but their words made no impression on him. When they turned, finally, and walked to the entry hall, he followed as required.
"I already had your luggage brought to the docking bay; is there anything else you need? That you might have left behind? "
"Only you," she answered. He smiled, charmingly, in answer, then turned to thumb open the door behind Obi-Wan. The boy entered, automatically moving into the inner chamber defined by two steel walls and an energy wall, then watched as a second energy wall sprang up between him and the door before the door closed and locked. He pulled down the bare, narrow bunk that occupied one wall of the tiny room and lay down, hugging himself with both arms.
His cell was just wide enough for the bunk with room to stand beside it; the energy walls stood an arm's length from the bunk's head and foot. A door stood behind each energy wall: the door he had not entered from this time led into the utility area for the apartment. The wall across from the bunk hid a small refresher and food dispenser. He did not bother to check the dispenser: though he had eaten little in the past twelve hours, he was not feeling hungry. The energy walls filled the room with an eerie blue light and hum to which he had long since grown accustomed.
Having Mazala gone was something of a relief. He could not hate her, could not blame her for anything she had done under Xanatos' control, but coexisting with Xanatos' dark workings had drained him, and having to watch while being helpless to stop the workings had sickened him. Not for the first time he wondered what Xanatos was up to. Snatches of overheard conversation had given him the sense that Mazala was some kind of important official, but in what capacity he had no way to guess.
He felt empty. Numb. The four days he had been trapped in the Palace with Xanatos felt like a lifetime. On first arriving he had been alert, observant, certain there must be an opening somewhere for him to make an escape. As the days went by he had become resigned to his confinement. Everywhere he went he was accompanied, even chained. The slave harness and collar he wore not only made it easy for anyone to physically restrain him, they marked his status. The collar itself contained a beacon to his presence, and could be activated from anywhere in the Palace, by Xanatos or by anyone he had authorized to do so, including the Palace management itself. The entire Palace, from architecture to guards to electronic security, was designed to keep bonders under the control of their owners.
And he was a bonder. A slave-Xanatos' slave-his mind paced the confines of his bondage. How long before his facade of apathy became his true face? Or would he explode in madness first, all his repressed feelings released in an insane bid for freedom or death?
He shuddered. He knew he must be strong. He was a Jedi. And yet every day, every hour the temptation to despair grew stronger in him. He drew on the Force to win the contests in which Xanatos entered him; yet he felt no strength, no hope in the connection: darkness hemmed him in, and all his thoughts were dark. He had stopped his meditations, for they gave him no comfort; all he found within was nameless dread.
Xanatos entered, pausing for the door to slide shut behind him before he deactivated the energy wall. He carried the silver cup with its bitter drug, as always this time of night. Obi-Wan's spirit rebelled. He sat up, curling into a ball, hugging his head to his knees with both arms. Every night at the Palace, Xanatos gave him the bitter drink, and every night the effects grew worse: he woke screaming or sobbing, nightmares clawing at his consciousness. The drugs pulled him into a dark pit from which he could not find escape, darkening his waking hours until he felt he walked a dream.
"Your resistance is pointless." Xanatos' drawl held a note of cruel amusement. "Even pathetic."
Obi-Wan ignored him: even knowing what was to come, he could not submit to take the drug himself. He tensed and held himself tightly, determined to hold on even as the collar activated, as he knew it would, paralyzing his muscles and overwhelming his senses: still he kept himself clenched tight. It was no use: when the current from the collar ended, he was gagging from the bitter drug, the manacles on his wrists fastened to the wall over his head, the rest of his body sprawled on the floor. At least Xanatos was gone, the energy wall restored behind him. His body quivered with the first effects of the drug. Then darkness swallowed him.
Much later, he woke to the cool blue light of the energy walls. He was lying on the floor. He had no memory of Xanatos coming to free his hands: he never did. He curled up where he was and let his exhausted mind and body sink into sleep.
