Making
58. You Can't Have This One
16th day, 10th month, standard year 29437
As I write this, Tahl is sitting with me and filling me in on a few details. This is the story of something that happened to both of us, after all. I'm not sure where to begin...
Okay, let's start with Childor. It's made up of two species, first, Philomel, which are wookie-ewok creatures, and humanoid Muh-Hadden. The two societies had always lived in peace, until the Muh-Hadden came under the leadership of Lord Thorno. Thorno was known to be a cruel dictator. He could be dangerous, although Philomel were known to be very paranoid about such things. I was sent to see that the arrogant ruler wasn't up to anything.
It was my first solo mission, and I had messed it up badly...
No you hadn't
That was Tahl, who wrestled my pen from my hand to write that.
It was a man called Conn who caught me. He looked like a viper. That I can remember very clearly. I also remember that Lord Thorno came to see me...and called me a foolish little brat, and told Conn to take me to the 'jungle prison'.
That was where this nightmare began.
------
Tahl tells me that then she woke up from that night's sleep, with some sort of warning in her head. She tried to forget about it, but couldn't. It was in her mind for ages, and it wouldn't go away...so she went to see my Master.
What she discovered there I still don't much want to write down. Tahl said she'd do it, but for some reason I think I have to...
She said she heard the words "I did not say to kill him, you fool!" She said his voice was full of grief and anger. She said when he opened the door and saw her listening, the look in his eyes seemed to tell her that he would crush her throat. She says she remembers him whsipering how I was gone and how it was his fault...
She says he told her he wasn't going to Childor, to look for me or...my body. She says he growled at her to leave. She says she left, and she was crying uncontrollably...
------
While this was happening, I was being sent to this prison of theirs.
And then I was being tortured.
------
Next, Tahl says, she decided to go to Childor.
I HAD to go to Childor.
(That was her again) Anyway, to get there she had to have a ship. Clee works on the starship program, so she went straight to her. Clee apparently tried to talk her out of it...she said she didn't want Tahl to get herself killed, didn't want us both dead...they had an arguement...but eventually Clee got her a ship. She said that all the way there, she was torturing herself with what would happen if I was dead...and being slightly nervous about what her Master would think about her going off like that...and holding the purple Naboo stone I'd given her for her fourteenth birthday, tightly and desperately.
-----
There was a creature in the cells with me. I didn't notice at hadn't given me any water, I was left alone and I thought I would die from thirst and pain.
It started to lick my blood.
"Please! Leave me alone!"
"Why?" it asked me.
"You're hurting me."
It looked at me with slitted eyes. "You are weak, man-child. Why are you tied here, if not for food?"
My throat was dry with fear as well as thirst, and my voice was quiet. "The other men did this to me. I am from far away. This is not my home."
"I know. The Hadden. I hear a great many thing."
"What are you?" I asked.
It laughed in a way I'd never heard anything laugh before. "You are blind by the darkness, man-child. Stretch out your hand and see."
I did. I felt it...her. She was as cold as ice.
"Are you...dead?" I asked her.
"Touch me and see. Your fingers know nothing. Touch me with your mind."
I did. But the inside of her head was like nothing I'd seen before. I drew away quickly.
"You're shadow!"
"Shadow?" She laughed and carassed my cheek. "Shadow. Yes, that is what I am."
"How did you come to be in this awful place?"
"Shadow came here long ago, and has been here forever. Who knows when she came, or who she was? Now she is what man-child calls her, Shadow. The Hadden fear Shadow...and for a reason."
I shivered.
"They are bad," Shadow said. "Sometime I kill them all...but not now." She licked her lips. "You are dying, man-child."
I supposed I was.
She brushed my lips with her fingers. "I will return." Then she was gone...and then she was back again.
With water.
I drank it gratefully, and breathed a thank you. Shadow dipped her head. "You are kind to Shadow, and warm. I will look out for you." She adjusted my restraints, and they slackened.
5th day, 1st month, standard year 29438
So. Where were we? I haven't written this in a while. I suppose I ought to, I suppose it's good to get everything down on paper and out of your head...but I can't help feel like I'm...whining. Worse things have happened to people. I know I'm lucky. Tahl or my Master or anyone could have died.
Then I would be...alone.
-----
Shadow came back and gave water to me a few times. She had no idea how incredibly grateful I was...am...to her. And then Conn came back.
The torture they'd put me through had hardly been fun. The opposite. As far opposite as it is possible to go. But what happened next...was worse.
Conn held up a piece of string. "This," he said. "...is the silk of a very rare spider that lives on your own Coruscant. Do you know what's special about this spider's web?"
My eyes widened. I had heard of them. Heard of them when I was a youngling, in the crehe, away from all this...they were the stuff of legends. I'd wondered if these 'spiders' existed.
They did.
And I remember Clee, eyes sort of giggling, telling me stories about Jedi kidnapped by the monsters, who tied them up with web, and the web blocked them off from the Force, and they were left imprisoned there until they'd gone half mad...or all mad. I wondered if that was true.
It was.
-----
Cut off from the Force, they tortured me again and again. It's blurred in my mind. They asked me the names of the people who sent me there. I tried to find my Master through our bond, I tried...but he wasn't there. They did awful things. They kicked me. They injected me. The pain got worse and worse as the days went on, like I was feeling more pain than just my own. It was awful, it was a living hell...but there is one bit I remember clearly.
One of the guards. Li. He yelled things...things
I can't really remember now, but he was angry. Angry that Conn was doing
this.
His words were just like blood bubbles in my
brain. I felt hope, but it had been caged by hate and loneliness and so
much desapir. There were bits of words. Then Li kneeled down next to me.
The others had gone.
"Come on, on your feet," he muttered.
I didn't think I could answer. I thought most of me was dead. "Yes, Master." I muttered. I don't remember if I threw up then, I may have done. Li lead me down to the cells.
I said thank you.
It didn't make him happy. "I didn't do it for you."
"Thannk you." I repeated. He pulled at my chains and I hit the wall. And screamed. He looked sorry then. He reached out in touched me shoulder. It calmed me down a little. I think.
"Hey kid, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't sign up for this."
I didn't mean for this to happen. How many times had I heard those words said? Murderers and assassins and all sorts of people had said them...some were sincere, some not. I thought that Li, however was.
"Won't your Temple come looking for you?" he suddenly asked.
"Thought they would have...already come."
Li left. I was alone. No Shadow, no anything. Only just the Force. Maybe I'd turned to the Dark Side and ended up in hell. Maybe everyone hated me back home. Maybe I was just going to die.
Alone.
6th day, 1st month, standard year 29438
Worse things have happened to people? Worse things have happened to people? WORSE THINGS HAVE HAPPENED TO PEOPLE?
Tahl, you oughtn't to have read all that.
You're insanely bloody stupid. You really are. You've been to hell and back and all you can say is worse things have happened to people?
There was a huge massacre on Neimodia only yesterday. The day before that eleven Jedi died in the skies above Coruscant. The day before that two Padawans were killed on a mission-
And not so long ago a very young Padawan was tortured horribly and very nearly killed. No, don't try and take the pen off me. You are a bit of an idiot. You're also the model Jedi, but I'm going to overlook that for now.
Anyway, to spare you having to write the rest of this, to cut a long story short, me and Li rescued him.
Now you ought to stop writing about this.
7th day, 1st month, standard year 29438
I love Tahl, but she doesn't seem to really understand. Whiny again, I know, but I can't stop writing about all this.
Anyway...what else to I remember? I remember rain. I remember Li saying that I seemed like too nice a kid to die such a horrible death. I remember thinking about my Master. I remember thinking I was going to die, but it was alright this time because at least I was free. I remember knowing how terrified Tahl was...
I remember her terrified voice whispering: You can't have this one....
And they didn't have me. I woke up. I was alive. Tahl was alive.
She healed me.