REMNANTS IN THE MIND - Cascadia
See part 1 for notes, disclaimer, etc.
CHAPTER 11-DESCENT INTO TORMENT
The room had become somber, dingy dark walls enclosing, light fading to deepest shade on a collied night where all hope laid extinguished and conquered.
Or so it seemed.
He tried to focus on a solution, but his mind was flooded with images of his padawan being taken from him . . . .
Bright aquamarine eyes staring back at him as they dragged the boy from the cell. Filled with a melange of courage and rebellion and a slight daze of fear, never stolid in their oceanic depths, those same eyes looked to him with heart-breaking trust. Trust that his master would help him, would do something - anything - to keep him from being harmed.
But it was too much. There were too many of them, and he could only do so much. Pushed to the floor and beaten with metal shock rods, Qui-Gon had been unable to stop them. He had looked at his charge just as they had pulled him away, in a respite from the beating, to see the lithe padawan being taken away - wrenched away - and the door had closed in upon him.
Obi-Wan was gone.
At first, he had been angry, crying with desperation, but that had only lasted for a moment before grim determination doused any stray emotions that could pull him under billowing waves of despair. It would only be to Obi-Wan's detriment were it any different, and that would never happen - no, not now, not when he so needed to be above that.
And Jedi masters did not give in to despair.
The guards had left him alone here with no explanation.
The shackles fell to the floor with a heavy clank. Obi-Wan's eyes widened and peered with open awe down at his freed ankles and wrists. Then the Force-inhibiting collar that dug tightly into his flesh clicked open and slid loosely to rest on his delicate collarbone. The returning power that gushed through him was almost overwhelming when his awareness brightly flashed anew with the Force.
"Oh," he softly sighed in relief, staggering slightly from the suddenness. Languidly, he raised his hands to his neck and rubbed the abused flesh. He felt so much better now, released from that draining restraint, but remained at a loss as to why his captors had done this.
What was he to them, and what did they plan to do with this dark imprint? The notion of the imprint frightened him even more than any other uncertainty of his imprisonment.
His eyes, blinking rapidly with confusion, swept over the room. It was dim, and there were no furnishings, only dark walls and simple ebony tiled floor. Absently, the padawan tugged the collar from his neck and dropped it to the floor next to the chains.
There was something here, something unclean, he could almost immediately sense. An aura so vile and warped, so disturbingly ancient in its origins, that is had no name. It simply was, and it curled and coiled densely around his mental awareness, almost suffocating his luminous life-force in a stagnant pool of pure wickedness.
His thoughts grew unfocused as the presence embraced him, penetrating and pouring through him like the silk of blackened water, and he felt himself slipping. With vision spinning, he crashed to his knees, dimly aware of someone now standing next to him.
It was black here. And so very cold.
"There, there, boy," rasped a voice. A clammy hand descended on the coppery-gold hair, threading through strikingly silken strands, petting the trembling padawan.
Obi-Wan shivered from the unwelcome touch and wanted to pull away, but the mental intrusion somehow left him incapacitated enough so that he could not. He merely remained kneeling helplessly and panting heavily from the piercing mental assault.
"Welcome, young Kenobi. I have looked forward to this day with great interest." The man's eyes flashed with hatred, and he quickly accessed that imprinted pattern buried beneath the boy's shields, and pushed.
Obi-Wan cried out at the sudden slamming thrust of the vile Darkness scraping across the landscape of his mind. It was searching, scouring ruthlessly with no care for gentleness or formality, and there was no hindering its blitzing progress. Bent over with hands bracing him against the floor, he felt the Darkness permeate his every pore, and knew that he was thoroughly soaked in its foul decay.
Vaguely, he heard a menacing laugh that sent icy chills through him.
Deep and deeper, the vileness sifted through memories long buried, pulling out and dusting off those that had been pushed into the scourged vaults of pain and forgotten fear. Released, they pranced to the forefront in a mad parade of hideous derision.
The boy with the blinding white hair.
The last hope for a master, turning and walking away, never intending to take him as padawan learner.
Anger at the boy's betrayal and the impersonal order to leave immediately for Bandomeer.
Then there were cruel hands holding him down and . . . .
No!
Darth Sidious intensely studied the youthfully attractive face contorted by sheer agony, and he smiled.
Peace was not easily achieved. For he had none this time.
A shift in focus and he stood abruptly, crossing to the metal door, his thoughts illuminated by a thin shred of hope. He leaned against the door, pressing his ear to the cold surface, only to be met with silence. A vacant useless silence.
Something must be done. Even without the Force, he knew that.
Qui-Gon started banging on the door.
The boy would either be turned or killed, Sidious mused. There was no other option.
For there was a place that Sidious could not see, where he could never look, that the boy occupied. A bright, gleaming, glowing, blinding place that touched upon his visions and haunted his dreams, but never revealed what was there. He had foreseen a great many things, but only those shaded in the darkest of murk, the blackest place, the place of purest evil. This boy - this one single Jedi padawan - could, somehow, play some significant role in the future of the galaxy, but Sidious could not ascertain just what role that could be, and it frightened him. Perhaps, he surmised, that the boy could be turned, and then all of that revoltingly blessed light would be extinguished and eternally christened by darkness.
But if not . . . .
The imprint had allowed easy access to the boy's mind that might have taken longer and been more difficult to breach had it not been placed and allowed to be tested over time without Obi-Wan's knowledge. Sidious had touched upon the boy's consciousness for many days, testing the effectiveness of the imprint, but never to this intensity. Now, it was invigorating.
By now, Obi-Wan was sobbing bitterly, caught up in reliving a horrifying night in a gloomy speeder garage, but now things had gone differently. A smile slowly crept across Sidious' face. Now, the boy had not repelled his assailant. It was an easy trick, and one the Dark Lord maliciously reveled in.
He spared a disinterested look at Nim Tarren, who stood nearby at the Dark Lord's request. The man would be used for as long as was necessary, and that time was nearing its completion.
Casually, Sidious stepped up behind the padawan. With one hand, he grasped Obi-Wan's short ponytail and yanked it painfully back to bring the boy's tear-streaked face into view, and a soft moan escaped the boy's slightly parted lips. The eyes once radiant as the warm glow of an incandescent sunset now watered with anguish and stared out from a muddled haze of despair and pain.
Obi-Wan's vision was blurred by the welling of tears, and he couldn't make out his captor's face. It hid in the shadows of a black hood, like horrid monsters of a nightmare never wanting to be seen. All that was visible was a pallid chin and a cold smile that sent a shiver racing up his spine.
Sidious traced his free hand down Obi-Wan's pale fair face, wiping stray tears from the boyishly curved cheeks. The touch was strangely gentle, but lingered far too long for the padawan's comfort, although Obi-Wan watched him dully as he did so.
Releasing the ponytail, knowing the boy would stay upright now without help, Sidious stood aside to reveal a familiar metallic cylinder gleaming silver against the ebony floor about a meter in front of him.
Obi-Wan blinked. Was it real? Was it really there? Squeezing his eyes closed, he wanted all of the pain and fear and confusion to just go away, but inside his heart twisted and cried for a sliver of mercy - if ever there be any left in this galaxy. But maybe there would never be any. Maybe he was doomed to suffer for eternity for all of his mistakes, for everyone else's mistakes, for all the galaxy's mistakes. But that was not fair, was it?
Overcome by a churning storm of perplexity of thought and angry hot passion, he let himself drift with it until a persuasive voice jerked him from his careless wandering.
"Yesss. I can feel your anger stirring," Sidious said quietly.
Obi-Wan's eyes shot open. A distressed crease fell across Obi-Wan's fevered brow, and he caught his lower lip between white teeth.
"Look," Sidious pointed an accusing finger to Tarren. "There is your perpetrator."
Tarren's eyes went wide. "No, my Lord," he pleaded. Grabbing at his throat, he gurgled as he slid to his knees, then gasped loudly, inhaling gulps of air. His blanched face rose, revealing a look of horror to Obi-Wan, while the Dark Lord's cackling laughter echoed through the chamber.
Obi-Wan's troubled gaze fell on Tarren, whom he had not noticed before, and a raging torrent of emotion - dark and forbidding - roiled through him.
"Yesss," the chilling voice drawled. "You want your lightsabre. Take it," Sidious prodded.
Obi-Wan swallowed the bile gushing in the back of his parched throat, and finally his eyes dropped back to the lightsabre waiting on the floor.
"He is defenseless," Sidious said, softly, almost nonchalantly. "Now . . . take your weapon and strike him down."