SWEET CHILD OF MINE

~

Kindred Spirits

"Quasimoto" and his employer made their way under the South Gate's arch, up its several steps to its arcade, then passed beneath the great vaulted atrium within; a stout push with hump, and the South Gate's door to the wide Lower Staircase opened wide. Three levels above, Judas' ring unlocked the tremendous Main Gate of iron, oak and steel; a telekinetic wave of hand turned it on its massive hinges, indeed the only way to open the vast door without great machines.

Standing at the threshold, the tall one put an arm before his partner. "No, man. This is as far as you come. For your time, the agreed sum: fifty credits." A long, white hand moved to his vest inner-pocket. "And cab fare would be reasonable; I suppose, twenty more, maybe twenty-five—"

A metallic ringing of capacitors accompanied the squat creature's production of a rather large hand blaster. Judas deftly shoved the bills back into his wallet and replaced the thin leather bundle back within his vest: an entirely unconcerned though somewhat annoyed expressioned ruled his handsome face, as he swiftly removed that drenched trenchcoat that had been unclasped some time before. The midget took a few paces backwards, and was slowly beginning to circle Judas, his circumference leading inward, to within the First Hall.

"'Ou 'an 'ake 'iss 'ard, 'r 'aizy, 'Astah…" two gristled and disintegrating thin lips rubbed together bloodlessly. "Th' 'allet, 'n 'll th' cr'dts. 'And 't owv'r. 'Ee 'oath 'oh 'ou 'an spurr 'or 'n 'at now, 'Astah. 'Et's 'ot be 'reedy 'ow, 'ow off all 'imes. 'Atsah 'ood 'oy. 'And 'it owv'r." Serendipity aside, even the well-travelled Judas had to resort to mind reading to figure out just what the bloody hell this midget wanted (not that he was about to give him anything, but it was knowledge nonetheless). The train of thought went something like //You can make this hard or easy, Master. The wallet, and all the credits. Hand it over. We both know you can spare more than that, now, Master. Lets not be greedy now, now of all times. That's a good boy. Hand it over.//

The idiocy inherent in challenging someone who just, with a wave of hand, moved a two-tonne door on its hinges, and at that, wielding in your defense a pop gun of all things, would have made Judas grimace in a lighter moment. But as things stood, he told his onrushing droids to keep themselves unseen. He just stood there, and crossed his arms; jade ring began to shine like a star.

"Well, hunchback, it's your move. Whatcha gonna do?"

Skipping the tedious dialogue itself, and getting right to the translation: //Hey now Master that's right foolish now, we don't have to get heroic now, you've got yourself a fine place with fine things, and your lady won't appreciate you getting killed like this. Not like this, a man should just know, well, the proper times and all, and this isn't it for you, Master.// He was obviously getting flustered, and a bit impatient, but a seed of doubt had grown in his heart that Judas had nothing to do with.

Until now the Master of the Apothecary Sanctum had been simply too lazy to try any mind games on this little dwarf. But, as Quasimoto had ceased to circle, Judas saw that a very little one would do the trick.

"Master Thief."

//Made up your mind, have you?//

"Take a step back."

//I'll oblige ya…// Which he quickly did: and instantaneously, what with the whim of their host, traps well laid within two statues of lions, roaring at each other from across the way immediately within their Master's First Hall, jumped and sparked to life. The would-be thief then standing right between them jumped and hollered and yelled and might have screamed with the feeling of six-inch needles rammed into either ear, but he had no air left, not even to breathe. His blaster dropped to the floor, hands white-knuckled over his ears trying if he might to tear them off, legs sprawling and dangling as if he hung from an invisible noose, rheumatic eyes red-rimmed and tearing, every facial muscle quivering in unshaven agony with a scream that could not be heard. The incensed lion's granite teeth slowly dripped with ruby red delight, running down their carved mouths and dribbling upon proud manes, and henceforward, to the floor.

"Nowthen, Master Thief…" Judas leaned away from the frame of the great door upon which he had been reclining. He strolled slowly but directly to his quivering subject. "I am going to keep your weapon, I hope you can understand why. But as for yourself…" a dark smile, thin and lifeless with eyes half-closed, sprang to undead existence. "You may choose to go as you will." Turning his back on the now-suffocating midget, Judas scooped up the petty weapon, bringing it up to his furrowed brow for inspection. "Lions, release him!"

Gasping and crying and pleading and whining the hunchback groveled at Judas' heels. Glancing down to the worm, he kicked it in its ass. "Go on, get out of here you horrible thing! On your way! Or would you stay with the lions?"

In a hobbling miserable mass the creature was gone, to spread rumours of a haunted castle and the vampire-lord within.

It then occurred to Judas that the only reason for putting that pitiful creature through all that, was he was simply too lazy to put forth the little effort required to warp Quasimoto's mind to the direction he so desired. Remembering Master Windu's words, he considered that the only reason he chose this measure of torture was, of course, for its own sake, that being, preference of torture over diplomatic solution. But diplomacy, unlike torture, did not provide any reason for the midget to ever change: he would have gone and done it again, to someoone else without the skill of mind-trickery. However, Judas was honest enough to admit he did not have the welfare of others at all on his mind during the scene; though perhaps such played a part as a subconscious motivator (that such were viable as motive was a First Principle underlying his uniquely powerful methods of Mind Trickery), there were other methods of attack.

That he received pleasure from hurting the fool was, maybe, the key. As a First Principle, to receive sadistic glee from watching the execution of a mass-murderer is sick and twisted: though justly deserved many times over, it is still a bad thing to execute someone: though just, though right, it is a bad thing: a bad thing that ought to be done, but a bad thing nevertheless. Perhaps the motivator of pleasure in this case was the "Don't tread on me" idea embodied by so many righteous men fighting for their homes. Then again, perhaps the word "pleasure" to describe what he felt was incorrect, for in itself it violated the First Principle, while the emotions and ideas of the slogan "Don't tread on me" were more accurate, and conveniently of a far nobler calling.

It was then decided that to receive joy from running an enemy out of your home, and even, to receive happiness from his underestimation of that which he attempted to rape, was morally permissible, a lighter shade of gray, and that what doubt he had within stemmed from his own tiredness (sunrise was in a few minutes) and infant-learned brainwashing by the Jedi: words remembered from Windu were laced with cliches and phrases and methods of classical "thought reform", tugging at his heartstrings because he was once one of them.

Nabbing his trenchcoat he slid it on, neverminding to latch it shut; instead Judas slipped the blaster into one of its interior pockets, and flew down the First Hall with the tails of his long jacket trailing in the wind like a hero's cape.

"Droids! You may come in now!" he sounded amid the proud columns at the center, the crux, the four-way crossroads of the First Hall. Appearing from behind Egyptian towers of marble that plumed like trees across the vaulted ceiling, like so many munchkins the various working droids and his silver protocol droid (which he was considering as his First Servant, but only after observing how Catie would react to "him") surrounded their benefactor and leige. He tossed his trenchcoat to one: "Wash this. And you, remove the blaster from outta there, clean it up, and put it in the armory. You three –no, make that you four—go and haul the packages of clothes up to my room. You, I want you to do a forensic of the area: DNA, fingerprints, the whole bit: I wanna know exactly who that freak was. The rest of you, to your duties. Matrix, with me." Judas hung a left, continuing down the West Wing of the First Hall; coming across the proper passageway, he and the silver protocol droid were eventually at a double-helix stairway. As his Master was faster than himself, Matrix wasn't sure which staircase he had gone up: as both circled and interlocked with each other, but never crossed, his mechanical mind made a guess, and ran as fast as those whirring hydraulics could allow. Judas, abosrbed in thought, was entirely unaware of the half-made attempts of his servant to communicate some rather important information. All the robot did was follow, steadily falling behind, and stutter about "Sir, please if you would sir yes well I'm your servant sir if you would be so kind sir please if you would sir…", ultimately never getting a word in edgewise. As they passed a balcony, a golden ray materialized on the wine-red carpet just as Judas passed; and immediately, both could hear a single, high note, echoing soprano about the stone and wood and iron corridors of the Apothecary Sanctum from on high: the voice of the archangel crying from heaven.

But this chord was not "WOE TO THE INHABITANTS OF EARTH!" Rather, after a time it died and was replaced by the march of a song. Neither brain, flesh nor metal, could descry exactly what words were being said neither even what language (though Matrix had a much better idea in that department than his Master), but that it was a profound song; a piece of sublime truth inspired by Immortality maybe, or Love; there was no question. In its sadness there was no sorrow, and the voice soared to tell of joy without hope. These things deeply touched the heart of Judas Aries Ferreus, a passionate man who mourned that civilization had even forgotten that such things had even been.

The one whirred about, turning at the hip, seeming to look for the origin (though he damn well knew what was going on), while Judas closed his eyes and, from the minutest of differences in the perspective of either ear, triangulated the exact position within his sanctuary. "The Crown of Apothecary," he murmured, and was off to the observatory. Within moments his lift echoed to a stop beneath the awesome form of his telescope; but Judas went to one of the four small elevators at the observatory walls, and rode it up to the catwalk encircling the dome-peak of his home, a thousand feet above street level. Matrix was not left a little bit behind.

Wind whistled and gusts screamed at this altitude, pockets of air heaving about the body as the sunrise flooded the land with light and life, the darkness retreated, and the world warmed. Coruscant's bloated sun had barely broke the horizon and had dyed everything crimson and red, like the lidless Eye of some vast serpent possessed to swallow the whole world, and was scanning its prey one last time.

As it was a large dome the extremes of the catwalk were very far away: but still she could be seen, almost eaten by the red ameoba of the sun, leaning dizzyingly over the railing nearest to it and welcoming the dawn with a song she cried for herself: for its own sake, and that of her heart.

It was small matter for him to approach utterly unobserved. As she began her last chorus, Judas had been quick to learn the words: and there was no interruption as the angelic soprano was joined by a baritone strong enough to move the foundations of the earth. But they were soon over, in only a few seconds time, and they two stood there together, inches apart, and watched the dawn.

She eliminated the inches between them, suddenly, though softly, leaning her head and shoulder against her host.

"Hi, I'm Catherine." She said sweetly, and tiredly. Smiling faintly, "I had a dream where we talked, and I told you already."

"I know."