Chapter 18. Truths
The next morning as Anakin was finishing his early morning meditation Obi-Wan appeared in front of him as quietly as a shadow. Since he was sitting on the private terrace attached to Padmé's official residence in the Palace, Anakin could only assume that his Master had come up a number of walls and balustrades to find him rather than invading his and Padmé's privacy. It was decent of him to be discrete, but he never seemed to go away.
This time Anakin noticed his Master's presence right away But he took his time about opening his eyes.
Obi-Wan was staring at him.
"I'm glad to see that you are keeping up some semblance of discipline," he said.
"Why wouldn't I?" Anakin refused to rise to the bait.
"Well, it's an indolent life here." Obi-Wan waved his hand in an exaggerated circle. "Lovely surroundings, servants, good food." He gave his Padawan a very hard look. "Soft beds…"
"Is there something you want from me?" Anakin asked evenly.
"Yes." Obi-Wan rolled his left shoulder backwards and forwards. "A sparring partner. I'm still having trouble with my left side and I haven't had a challenging workout since I arrived here."
Anakin stood up in one smooth motion. "Flattery. That's unexpected."
"Not flattery. Desperation."
Anakin loved the idea. Sparring sounded so much better than talking. He sorely missed training with his Master, not to mention the easy camaraderie they had once shared. Still, it wouldn't do to look too eager.
"If you like," he said casually. "Where?"
"There's a lovely field not far from the outskirts," Obi-Wan said. "Lots of room. No onlookers."
Anakin wondered idly just how much space his Master thought they would need, but he was happy to go along with it.
He was really looking forward to this.
* * * * *
"It's happening again," Dormé said quietly to Sabé early on the same morning. "I've had the doctor in again and he doesn't have a clue."
"She's not pregnant, is she?" Sabé asked with some hostility.
Dormé rolled her eyes. "No. She just – gets that pain. And she looks so tired all the time. She only perks up in the evenings."
"She was fine before we got onto the Yacht." Sabé thought for a while. "By the time we got off, she was getting these attacks."
Dormé frowned. "You don't suppose she picked up something? Something our doctor wouldn't know about?"
Sabé became grim. "I hate to even think this, but maybe we should have her checked for something unusual – like an obscure poison."
Dormé's eyes filled with tears at the thought.
"You don't think the D'laians would have…"
Sabé shrugged. "Sword tips may not be the only things they like to mess with. I don't trust them and this whole conflict may not be over at all."
Dormé was still tearful. Sabé gave her a little hug.
"Don't worry," she said. "We'll figure something out."
* * * * *
The early morning sun had not yet dried the dew off the grass when the two Jedi began their age-old ritual. To warm up they carried out the stylized and elegant movements of several standard forms, increasing in difficulty until their blood was surging and the Force awaited their commands.
When they finally faced off Anakin let his Master take the lead as always. "Attack me so that I have to defend with the left," Obi-Wan called out. "I want to work that side first."
Obediently Anakin did as he was asked, and the meadow began to sizzle with the sound of crystal swords encountering one another again and again. After a while he began to change hands periodically, trying to establish some kind of balance between the hand that was Force-sensitive and the one that was not. It was a problem he had not yet been able to resolve.
Anakin loved every minute of it. There were a great many things he missed about Temple life, not the least of which training and working with Obi-Wan. It didn't occur to him that his Master was watching his every movement, every imbalance and every surge and eddy in the Force like a bird of prey.
When had seen all he needed to, Obi-Wan called out, "Are you up to a challenge?"
"Why?" Anakin asked without missing a stroke.
"Suppose we go all out?"
Anakin was silent for a few strokes.
"What exactly does that mean?"
"Exhibition match. Single round. My choice of weapons. The match continues until one of us yields."
Anakin felt his face go hotter than the exertion warranted. He should have known there would be a lesson in here somewhere. He sliced viciously at Obi-Wan's weak side, but his Master blocked him easily.
"Why don't you just give me the lecture and get it over with." Anakin had to move fast to dodge the next two thrusts. The lectures were something he hadn't missed so much.
"I don't know," Obi-Wan said, keeping up his offensive so that Anakin found himself backing and defending constantly, "perhaps all the rules have changed without my knowing about it. Perhaps the Jedi have a new role in the Galaxy as circus performers." He launched a lethal attack against Anakin's right side. With the miniscule delay in response time Anakin always suffered with his artificial hand, Obi-Wan's thrust hit home and Anakin acquired a nasty proximity burn on his neck.
"Hey," Anakin yelled, still defending, "isn't there some kind of rule about killing your Padawan?"
"Possibly," Obi-Wan said, still attacking. He feinted and jumped sideways, forcing the younger Jedi into a roundhouse leap and slash that he was perfectly positioned to parry. "I suppose it only applies if he still considers himself to be my Padawan."
So. This was not merely a friendly sparring match. It was a time of reckoning. I should have known, Anakin thought.
"I did what I had to do to protect Padmé," he yelled, panting a bit.
"From what?" Obi-Wan asked out of a close-quarters struggle for position. They were nose to nose, with crossed light sabers between them. "From her own personal and political choices?" They both ended up having to push back to realign their positions.
Anakin came up toward his Master's throat from underneath. Obi-Wan flipped backwards and responded with a counterthrust almost before he landed. He had his Padawan on the defensive at every turn.
Somewhere along the line, Anakin realized, this had stopped being fun. It also wasn't fair, because he couldn't exactly attack his own Master…not really.
Or could he?
Obi-Wan felt the shift in Anakin's intentions. He knew he was playing a dangerous game but he had long since run out of ideas for getting the boy's undivided attention. Time was running out.
"What makes you think," Obi-Wan said, between thrusts, "that you are capable of protecting her?"
Something shadowy was beginning to gather at the edges of Anakin's awareness – something that wanted in but had until now found no access. He pushed it away by completely changing his tactics. Abruptly changing to his right hand again, he gave up all efforts to make it respond to the Force and used it to its own best advantage – sheer, inhuman strength.
His slashes took on a whole new power and Obi-Wan found himself falling back against the onslaught. Anakin had stopped talking. After failing several times to re-gain the offensive Obi-Wan resorted to guile and shoved him, hard, using only the Force. It only worked because Anakin had been concentrating exclusively on the strength of his attack. The push succeeded in knocking him backwards off his feet and he fell hard onto his shoulder.
Obi-Wan knew that his advantage was mostly the result of luck and decided that speed was preferable to elegance in securing it. He pounced on top of his Padawan and held his light saber across his throat. Anakin stopped, panting, and glared at his Master.
"How is Padmé lately?" asked Obi-Wan over the singing hum of his weapon. "Is she well?"
"Fine," said Anakin. "She's fine." The shadows were still gathering. Dark tendrils of – something – began to creep up his spine.
"Not tired?" asked Obi-wan. "Experiencing some pain, perhaps? Pain that gets better when you are around?"
The darkness reached around toward Anakin's chest, making it hard to breathe.
"How about signs of increased Force sensitivity?" Obi-Wan was looking straight into Anakin's eyes and holding an activated light saber at his throat. There was no escape, however desperately Anakin wanted it.
"Get off me," the temporarily conquered Padawan said through gritted teeth.
Obi-Wan sat back very, very cautiously, not deactivating his light saber until he had withdrawn to a safe distance.
Anakin sat up and glowered at him, rubbing his sore shoulder.
"What are you talking about?"
To his Master's perception, a dark cloud surrounded the boy.
Obi-Wan knelt in front of his Padawan, toes braced against the ground in case he had to spring. Holding the hilt of his light saber lightly but in readiness, he thought carefully about what he was going to say. He made his voice as gentle as he could.
"Anakin, do you know why the Jedi Order forbids the kind of attachment that you and Padmé have?"
Anakin slanted a look at him. The way his Master referred to her by her first name bothered him. It sounded too intimate. It implied a relationship between the two of them separate from himself, and he didn't like that idea one bit.
"Because it is a distraction," he said sullenly. "Because it can create divided loyalties." He had heard the drill many times.
"Both of these things are true," Obi-Wan said carefully, "and you and I can both cite a number of examples that have already taken place in your case."
Anakin didn't respond.
"The rules of the Jedi Order are neither frivolous nor wrong," Obi-Wan said firmly. There are sound reasons for all of them, most of which are based on long and bitter experience."
Anakin looked away.
"There is another reason." Obi-Wan paused to see whether he was getting through.
Anakin's eyes shifted back to him.
Here it comes, thought the Jedi Knight. He'll either hear me or try to kill me. With the courage of a true servant of the Force, Obi-Wan Kenobi told his Padawan the truth.
"The rule against attachment is largely there to protect those with less Force-sensitivity from the harm that can come to them from people like us."
Anakin's face was back to the stony mask that he seemed to have perfected for use around his Master. But Obi-Wan was deeply attuned to him and could sense a cascade of emotions ranging from disbelief to doubt to…yes, there it was. Fear. There was a part of Anakin that knew, or at least was afraid, that he was telling the truth.
"We have taught you to shield yourself mentally when you are outside of the Temple for a very good reason. You know as well as I do that a highly trained, Force-sensitive adept can wreak havoc on the unwary and unprotected without wanting to."
As he spoke Obi-Wan never took his eyes off Anakin's stony face. If looks could kill…
"I imagine that when you are with her, you let down your mental shielding. That every time you are alone together, she is exposed to a very powerful surge in the Force."
The emotions Obi-Wan sensed inside of his outwardly impassive Padawan were becoming explosive.
"While that – surge – continues, it strengthens and augments her own energy field. But she is untrained, and cannot maintain that level of the Force by herself. When you leave, the augmented energy leaves her and follows you. In effect – your leaving drains her of life Force."
Obi-Wan sighed. This was so difficult. He had worked so hard to keep the boy from realizing just how powerful he was until he gained more control over himself. The Force embraced Anakin like a lover; it gathered around him and longed to do his bidding. He could do things instinctively that others struggled years to master. Obi-Wan had not yet found a single limitation on what his Padawan could learn to do with the Force, given enough time and training.
"Can you imagine what that feels like to her?" He went on. "And can you imagine the effect it has on her biological functioning?"
Anakin suffered a sudden, terrible memory of the etheric cuts he had experienced from Wolan's magic-killing Balaan sword. It was the break in the energy field, the sudden absence of the Force that had caused the pain.
Padmé, he thought. Padmé, with whom he let down all of his mental shielding, all of his defenses. Who could now often sense his presence before she could see him. With whom he could communicate wordlessly.
She was suffering. And it was his fault.
The shadow began to rise into his throat. Before it closed completely, he managed to gasp out, "You're saying that I'm hurting her. I'm hurting her just by being with her."
Obi-Wan reached out with the Force to give Anakin support but encountered only chaos. There was anguish in his Padawan's voice.
"If she is showing increased Force sensitivity, that means her body is trying to adjust and beginning to hold on to some of that higher-level energy. But let's face it, Anakin, even some Jedi need to remain shielded around you now that you have reached your current level of proficiency. I can't imagine that a completely untrained person could ever develop the required levels of protection."
Anakin began to weep openly. Obi-Wan found himself overwhelmed by compassion, but there was nothing he could do to soften the blow.
"I don't believe you," Anakin sobbed between clenched teeth. "It's not true."
"I don't lie," said Obi-Wan quietly. "I never lie."
"But you could be wrong." Anakin wasn't about to give up. "It could be something else. How would you know, anyway? Have you ever had an…attachment?"
"I have been much more careful than you," Obi-Wan said, just as quietly. In the next instant he was grateful that he had not completely lowered his defenses, because Anakin had activated his weapon and began to attack him with a power that was fueled by despair.
"It's not true!" Anakin shouted, slashing viciously. "I wouldn't hurt her!"
Obi-Wan kept him at bay without attacking, letting him burn out his rage as much as he needed to. Anakin's furious attack took them all over the meadow leaving deep slashes in the earth that had been meant for his Master. Obi-Wan fought mindfully, carefully conserving his energy. He was beginning to wonder just how long he would have to hold out when Anakin's savagery finally began to subside.
The Jedi Master risked disengaging his light saber. The Padawan hesitated, and then deactivated his as well.
"If you don't believe me," Obi-Wan said, bent over, panting, and bracing his knees with his hands to prevent them from buckling, "then decide for yourself. Go and see her. Think about what I have said. Then come back to me and we will talk more."
Anakin stood poised on a knife-edge, heaving for breath, looking from the cylinder in his hand to his Master. There were still fresh tears on his face.
And then he turned and ran. He ran back toward the Palace and back toward Padmé as if he could outrun the black shadow that was now clutching his soul.
* * * * *
When his Padawan was no longer in sight Obi-Wan sank down to his knees and lifted his face to the sky. Alone in the wide, scarred meadow surrounded by waving shades of green and gold, he offered everything he could find inside himself to the Force: sorrow and tenderness; doubt; worry; and even the nameless dark dread that had been haunting him since Anakin left their home in the Temple. The dread that had impelled him to follow his Padawan at all costs. Emptied, he breathed in the living energy of the planetary Force stream that had absorbed his own Master ten years before. Since his return to Naboo Obi-Wan took comfort in imagining that Qui-Gon's essence was still out here somewhere.
What had his Master imagined he was going to do with the boy? If he had left him alone on Tatooine Anakin would probably be living a happy and successful life as a pod racer. Smuggler. Gambler. Gifted mechanic. Even leader of a slave rebellion. He would have succeeded at any opportunities his world offered. He might have kept his mother. And he probably would have been content.
And there would not have been this dread.
Instead, without proof that he was in fact the Chosen One, and against the Council's wisdom, he had been torn from his home. Trained in the Jedi arts. And now he was afraid. And unhappy. And powerful. And dangerous.
The boy didn't know who he was or where he belonged.
Taking deep and rhythmic breaths Obi-Wan called out to his old Master with his entire being.
We did this to him, Master. We trained him. We honed him into a weapon.
A breeze played around Obi-Wan's face, answering.
He is the Chosen One. He has a destiny to fulfill.We have hurt him and he will hurt others.
It doesn't have to be that way. He has great capacity for love and good.
How can he remain on the right path if even the Jedi cannot keep him there?
His path is freedom. He must choose the right way.
What if he cannot? Every day I see him struggle and fail.
Then see him succeeding. He will choose rightly.
But at what cost?
There was no answer.
AT WHAT COST?There were no more answers in the wind.
Obi-Wan slowly stood up and headed back to Theed, resolved once and for all to use many means necessary to bring Anakin back home to the Temple. Before it was too late.