SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Old Friends Long Gone

Judas' tower, renamed "The Apothecary Sanctum" on all the new maps, was nearly complete, and its vast dome, sitting at the very top of the Sanctum like a white skullcap, was being lowered in place over the most costly single piece in the entire project: his antique telescope, and its 10000-millimeter liquid-mercury lens wrapped in sterile shroud, aglow with the light of softly hovering construction-utility craft and surrounded by a swarm of worker droids.

Night had fallen on Coruscant. Hands behind his back, Judas strolled the stone-and-steel halls and corridors and passageways far below the activities of the pinnacle, his mind even further away from worrying about that vastly expensive piece of scientific hardware at the epicenter of all the dimly-felt thuds and booms and clickety-clatter of droid's feet. As it was, his tower had a definite gothic feel to it, imploring more "castle" than "building": it would be a joy to furnish every hall, plaza, square, balcony, and promenade to his liking (in consideration of rooms, there were only two in the entire Sanctum: his own, and one probably eternally unoccupied servant's quarters). The master did not expect guests, and neither much would appreciate them, he thought: being the probability of someone who, speaking, might say anything that caught his attention as intelligent, and that person knew where the Sanctum was, and cared to drop by –with these layers of improbability in mind, Judas was not only prepared, but had wholly intended from the very beginning, to live a life of solitude among the teeming masses of this city-world. Even upon the desperate appeal of the resconstruction architects, he overtly demanded there be no landing-pads hanging like metal drapery from the side of his home: civilized people still knew how to knock, did they not? Or at least, this was the cliché he used (intentionally) for a vast sum of damn good reasons for not wanting, and indeed refusing to have, any damn landing or docking facilities for shuttles on his tower: the cliché was used to sum, and to ease discussion, as much as fire may well be used to heat a home and cook food and not only as a weapon of war or torture.

Yes, this will be used for a library, he would say to himself, strolling easily into a wide semi-circle of a chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. Or, no, he would alternately think: perhaps, a theatre? Or auditorium? Or lyceum? Or perhaps, an aviary, or arboretum? Looking over his shoulder down the way he came, Judas might check just how close this room was to the exterior wall: if he truly desired an aviary, strips of stone might be knocked out of the wall, letting in an appreciable degree of sunlight. But no, it was not to be: the semicircle faced the north wall, and the question of architecture would leave a rather bizarre signature to the construction. Perhaps a library, Judas thought; or even a saltwater pool! The possibilities excited him, but it was neither novelty nor ownership that birthed that consuming, invigorating, etherally warming smile of his, calm as an infant in his mother's arms, sweet as parting, sad as sunset, patient as God; and those two violet eyes half-closed were the post-script to this echo of a heart heatedly romantic, yet sad with a secret grief and melancholy he was himself entirely aware of.

But he did indeed have a guest, one who was expected, though utterly without any sense of urgency: the monks had the habit of being late, and disdaining any aggravation so produced in their host as "impatience". They were a strange lot, he knew; one of the many reasons Judas was no longer counted among them: not so much eccentric, but possessing ideas that were incompatible with his, resulting in actions he had long ago found intolerable. A largely human society, he reminded himself proudly, saluting his golden chalice heavenward and taking a long draught of the ultra-pure ice-water: for "human" meant "corrupt" in his large doe-eyes, as in those of most of his thinly-spread race. But of course, if you were hunted for several generations, and your blood used as universal cure-alls and age-defying potions, and your children captured and their heads shaved (the very idea sent chills down his spine), well then, it was only necessary that you see the races responsible as little more than wretched vampires. The fact that he was a philosopher extraordinairre, as it may be said, only purified his rancid bigotry of a people he considered utterly incapable of purity, be it in mind, thought, or deed: it wasn't fate that a prostitute slept around; her choice, and from that perspective inevitable, taking no prophet to guess what she was to be up to next evening.

Feeling his guests pulse, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat, and inhaling deeply the smell of living blood wafting up from below, Judas made his way through hall and corridor to the high arch of his south gate, moonlight streaming through its wide pavillion arcade in silver pinstripes. The Sanctum's oak outer-doors were all open, their silver keyholes receptive only to the ring Judas wore, just as the webs he wove upon the gates of his tower would only receive expected guests and minds of a certain flavor. Of course, should any masterful Force-user attempt to force entry through his simple (though well-hidden and enduring) spells, well, he would be well aware of them by the time they tried to breach the third floor and the first locked doors on their way up. What with the current trouble in Coruscant, and the Galaxy at large nowadays, Judas had made his Sanctum secure: from its very inception, from the first hour after receiving the monk's message, it was intended to be a place of sanctuary and study from the world without: not just for him, but any of the pure of heart were welcome; Judas had made sure they would know so, saturating the marble of his Sanctum's central statue of a tall rider on a pale horse with subconscious whispers and thoughts sent out like radio waves from his high place: not necessarily of benevolence, but of calm, intended for receipt as the glow of a lighthouse in a storm. Now, if the mind be other than the desired type, the whispers would filter differently, being warped by their marred perception into, for instance, a repulsion, a blasphemy, or even a hatred…

But he was then at the door, scant three floors above the entrance terrace and its four cardinal pavillion-arcades, and upon the other side of the sweet-smelling oak there was an old friend. And the monkish emissary. Two guests; wonderful, his thought, gray eyebrow arching. Ring in the keyhole, with a wave the massive entrance opened before him.

"Good-evening Father Avrael; Master Jedi; I am the Astronomer, Judas."