PART TWELVE: ALLEGIANCE


Chapter Sixty-Two: To What End

Drip.

A single bead of scarlet fell from the tip of the knife, mingling with the rain pooling on the windowsill.

For a moment, Anakin had a childish urge to step further out onto the ledge and look down—to somehow spot Mace Windu's crumpled body as it plummeted into the well of Coruscant. He felt fingers of howling wind reach out to grab him, to pull him down after the man he'd murdered.

Then, at the edge of his vision, the shadow moved.

Turning, Anakin watched it rise—pull itself to its feet with an old man's hesitancy, flinch away from the yawning expanse of open air. It gingerly raised a hand to touch its own shoulder, then inhaled sharply—its fingers came away red. The shadow, too, simply stood there for a moment, blinking away the rain.

Then it met Anakin's gaze. "My boy, are you all right?"

Palpatine's voice.

Looking into the face—the face he'd known for so long, had come to trust more than anything else—Anakin couldn't breathe. His lips twitched, fighting for words, and managed only, "You—you—"

The chancellor nodded. "Please, Anakin. Sit down."

Shuffling over to the nearest chair, the young man felt his foot hit something. Looking down, he saw an unmoving figure wrapped in brown robes—one of the Jedi who'd been killed.

One of the Jedi Palpatine had killed.

"Son."

His eyes darted upward toward the voice. Palpatine had lowered himself down into his desk chair; with one hand, he gently patted the stone surface.

Stepping over the body, Anakin took his place at the desk.

Here, the lights from the ceiling washed down over them both; here, the young man didn't have to blink rain from his eyes every moment. He could see the face across from him clearly now—could see skin gone paler, curdled, the occasional vein pulsing beneath it. Lines that were mere suggestions before had etched themselves into the flesh.

It wasn't much—if Anakin had seen it in a picture, he would have assumed it was an artist's rendering, a concept of the chancellor five hard years from now. But it was not the man he'd known five minutes ago.

Then again, Anakin thought, he could say the same of you.

And indeed, as he watched Palpatine, Palpatine watched him back.

Feeling those eyes on him—eyes that were fatherly, concerned, and also glinting amber—Anakin swallowed. "Sir, we should contact security—"

"Anakin," Palpatine said. "Tell me what it is you want to say."

All you have to do, he told himself, is keep your mouth shut. Trigger the alarm, slip away in the chaos, and then leave.

But then the dark voice spoke. And for the first time, it spoke aloud.

"You lied."

Even as the words left his mouth, Anakin's guts twisted with fear. The blossom of hurt in his head throbbed, and for a moment his vision blurred—the man before him diffused into a vague shape, a presence that suggested a face but had no features at all.

Then his eyes righted themselves, and it was Palpatine again. Older, frailer, but still Palpatine. The chancellor said nothing—he simply sat there, watching Anakin. Waiting for him to continue.

Offering him permission.

"You lied," the voice repeated—his or the dark voice's, it didn't matter, it was spilling from his lips all the same. This time, the words were stronger, sharper, more defined—not a blank statement of fact but an accusation. "To me, to—to everyone."

From across the desk, a single nod of affirmation.

Clenching his teeth together, Anakin did his best to stop his jaw from trembling. "How long before tonight were you cut off from the Force?"

Breathing outward, Palpatine replied, "A long time."

"And before that?" he demanded. There was a squeal as the metal of his hand ground against the desk. "How long have you been a Sith?"

The chancellor showed no sign that he heard the rasp of steel on stone. He did not flinch away from the mechanical hand as it slid closer across the desk. Holding Anakin's eyes, his gaze as calm as it had ever been, he said, "Before I answer you, Anakin, I must ask why you are angry with me."

A wordless sputter that was half shout, half disbelieving laugh bubbled up from his throat. "I—you—"

"Lied to you, yes," Palpatine replied, his steady murmur cutting across Anakin's stammer without effort. "Kept a secret from you.

"I was also your friend. I knew who you were—knew that you had a secret—and trusted you to tell me when you needed to.

"I am a Sith," he conceded, the words as calm as if he were confiding his profession to a friend's friend at a social function. "One who has never sought to harm you, or to make you betray your conscience. One who has trusted you more than I have trusted anyone else. One who knew that someday, we would have this very conversation. I only wish it had been under better circumstances."

Palpatine leaned forward, and for a moment Anakin wanted to lunge backward, saw lightning surging forward to smite him. But then he felt the old man's fingers rest upon his shoulder, and grip it with the same old warmth.

"Anakin," his friend said softly. "I would very much like to explain to you. But I must ask that you trust me."

His eyes flicked downward then, almost unnoticeable in their swiftness. Anakin's followed them, and saw gleaming metal.

The knife, he realized, was still gripped in his flesh hand. Blood was smeared across it in drying streaks; the weapon made small circles as the fingers that held it shivered.

He'd been pointing it at Palpatine's throat.

The blade clattered to the desk. Anakin tried to speak, to force air through his convulsing throat, but Palpatine—without even looking at the weapon that, only a moment ago, had been one awful decision from piercing him once more—raised a finger to his lips. "It's all right, son."

Feeling the hand still resting on his shoulder, Anakin began to sob.


It begins, I suppose, with Malachor. Not the battle itself, but what it represents. The failure of both the Jedi and the Sith.

Darth Plagueis, as the tale goes, recognized that power lies in balance. Darkness rises, and light to meet it—the fundamental truth not only of the Force, but of all things. There was no way the Sith Order of his time could destroy the Jedi, not when they'd spread the dark side thin across thousands of people, thousands of worlds. And so, he tricked his compatriots into their own destruction. And after he'd drained the well of Malachor—transformed the seat of dark power there into a weapon that blasted everything dry, including itself—his own power rose to fill the void. That was Plagueis' great genius—power must be cultivated, concentrated, if it is to be effective.

However, as happens to all too many geniuses, Plagueis let his insight carry him too far—his vision turned narrow. When he destroyed the rest of the Sith Order, he achieved a dark power unequaled in history—but having gained that power, he became obsessed with keeping it. For centuries, he hoarded it like a miser—watching the Jedi Order flourish, rising to the height of their influence. In his mind, if he were to reach out against the Jedi—to use the power he now contained—it would destroy him.

Like all philosophers, he'd become consumed by paradox. Fail to destroy but one of the Jedi, and the power of the survivor would be magnified—his hard-won victory would be for nothing. The Jedi had to remain many, if they were to remain weak.

And so Plagueis hid. But he could not quite bring himself to hide completely. He needed an apprentice—someone who would carry his legacy, a vessel for the power he commanded.

I won't bother you with the particulars of when or how or why he chose me—suffice to say that I was about the age you were when the Jedi found you. Like you, I was eager for instruction. And like you, in the first years of my tutelage, I was enraptured. The dark side was more than power—it was a way of understanding, a perspective on the nature of every part of the universe.

But as the years wore on, I began to realize that my master was not so wise as I had thought. Knowledge he possessed, yes, and power upon power—but to what end?

He was blind, Anakin. Blind to the disunity that was festering in the foundations of the Republic; blind to the churning outer territories eating themselves with each revolt. And worse than blind—for he knew that his great enemy, the Jedi, had gained a foothold in every part of the galaxy. He knew that they were not only failing to avert disaster, they were enabling that disaster. And yet he was content to watch them and their allies bring things to the brink—to fan the embers of the war he and I had both long foreseen. For, so long as they survived, his power lived.

I grew to despise him—this coward, willing to damn the galaxy so long as he could keep the power he'd accrued. What good, I asked him, is power that is only held and not exercised?

And then, the dark side granted me the greatest gift I'd ever received. My master died.

In the aftermath of his death, I knew what I had to do. War was coming, that much the dark side foretold. The Jedi's days as the galaxy's defenders—if they could ever have claimed to hold that title—were long gone; to hold onto their power, they would let it all burn, manipulating things from the inside without ever stepping forward to do what was right.

Only the Republic could save the galaxy from the doom that awaited. And a weak Republic—a Republic of coalitions, of special interests, thousands of systems all fighting for themselves—was not up to the task.

The Republic needed unity. Needed its watchwords to become brotherhood, security, loyalty. And more than anything, it needed a leader who'd foreseen the path that would lead it to victory.

I knew that I'd cultivated my power for a reason. I alone had seen the doom before us—I alone could avert it. But I also knew that, were the Jedi to learn of my existence, my life would be forfeit. The Jedi Order would never permit a Sith Lord to enter the Senate, much less become chancellor. They would sense the darkness within me, and destroy me without benefit of charge or trial.

So I did the only thing I could. I looked at the power I'd inherited from my master—the power that had allowed me to see what I must do, if the galaxy were to be saved—and I cut myself off from it. A necessary sacrifice, but not a permanent one—I would restore my connection to the dark side when it was safe to do so.

It seems, to my great regret, that this wasn't enough.


At this, Anakin willed himself not to look at the bodies near his feet.

"The reality," Palpatine said, "is worse than even I had imagined." He inhaled sharply, and Anakin saw his hands start to tremble. "The Jedi have become judge, jury, and executioner. It doesn't matter that, before tonight, they had never once felt me touch the Force—they were willing to use any means to remove me from office.

"This attempt on my life has failed, but I fear it's only the beginning. You heard what that maniac accused me of—Palpatine, the architect of the Clone Wars. If they spread this treason among the Republic, it will be worse than the desolation of my name. It will destroy everything I have worked for. What fragile unity we've achieved will be brought down not by enemies from without, but whispers from within."

Tears glistened in his friend's eyes—eyes that already were fading from yellow back to that familiar, gentle blue. For a moment, everything else washed away, and Anakin wanted nothing more than to reassure Palpatine that everything would be all right, that nothing would happen to him.

But then Windu's words whispered through his mind. You on one side, Maul on the other, and the galaxy caught between you both like a vise.

Looking into Palpatine's eyes—into the traces of amber that lingered—Anakin could see another face. A livid mingling of crimson and ebony, rotting teeth bared, horns stretching upward like a devil's. Malice and cruelty and rage rose from it in noxious fumes.

And its eyes, too, were yellow.

"What about Maul?"

The chancellor absorbed the question; blinked once, hard, to rid his eyes of moisture. Then, with a sigh, he replied, "Maul. My greatest failure.

"I knew that, were something to happen to me before I could complete my task, I would need an apprentice—someone who knew what I knew, who could foresee what would need to be accomplished to save the galaxy. More than that, were I to succeed in becoming chancellor, I would need a strong right arm—someone who could enforce the will of the Republic directly. I thought it was him—a mighty warrior, young and strong, the perfect vessel for the legacy of the Sith."

When next he spoke, Palpatine looked not at Anakin but at his desk. In the reflection, Anakin could see something he'd never once before seen on the chancellor's face: shame.

"I was wrong. Maul's mind . . . it couldn't handle the power he wielded. And where I saw a duty to avert disaster for the galaxy, he saw only the chance for his own gain. He tried to kill me; when he failed, he fled for the Outer Rim. He knew the war was coming, and he knew which side he wanted to be on. He wanted chaos." Inhaling slowly, then exhaling in a rush, he continued, "When I next became aware of his whereabouts, he was with the Confederacy."

Returning his eyes to Anakin's face, he gave a bitter chuckle. "So you see, in a sense, what the Jedi said was true. I am not the architect of the Clone Wars, but by placing my trust in the wrong person, I nearly caused our doom."

The pain on Palpatine's face was only the surface. Beneath it, Anakin could sense a wellspring of regret, a bitterness in the chancellor's aura that was almost palpable enough to taste. That he could feel it at all, after all these years of Palpatine being an inscrutable question mark through the Force, was overwhelming enough. But more than that, as he touched the emotion, Anakin found that he recognized it.

He'd felt it himself, over and over again, in the years since Serenno fell.

The moment he had the thought, another piece gently clicked into place. "That was when you cut yourself off, wasn't it?" he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse. "After you failed with him."

At first, Palpatine's eyes widened in surprise; then, he nodded. "I'd already known it was coming, in order to keep away from the eyes of the Jedi Order. I would restore myself once I had fulfilled my task—once the war was over, and the Jedi were no longer a danger. But after Maul's betrayal, when the time came for me to make the break, I . . . I thought it would perhaps be better to stay that way. I had failed so badly as a teacher . . ."

He let the sentence fade. For a while, they simply sat there, listening to the rain as it hissed against the windowsill.

Then, the next question—the one he'd been holding onto since the moment Windu had hurled his accusations—left Anakin's lips. "On San Sestina . . ." he said, keeping his eyes carefully focused on the sky behind Palpatine. "Valis told me she wanted someone called—"

"Darth Sidious." When Anakin's eyes reflexively flew back to the chancellor, the old man was nodding calmly. "I expected she'd said something to that effect, when I learned you'd gone to meet her. And I know you've been using the investigative squad I assigned to you to try to trace the name."

A blush burned Anakin's cheeks. Somehow—after all this—it was still so easy to feel shame. "You . . . you knew? And you let me?"

"In fact, I was rather hoping you'd find out."

Anakin took this piece of information. Weighed it in his head. Studied its shape long and hard.

"Why?"

Looking up at his friend's eyes—which now carried only the barest hint of yellow—he pretended that he didn't already know the answer.

Palpatine looked back, pretending in turn. "Before I can answer that, Anakin, I must ask you one thing more.

"What is it that you want?"