Chapter 5 – In the Depth of a Planet
Obi-Wan woke to find himself hanging from binders on a wall in a dark cell. His blindfold was removed and ankles are no longer bound together. Although his wrists were no longer lashed with the too-tight binders, instead, it was chained to the wall behind him.
It was awfully cold in here, Obi-Wan shivered. The cell must be metres below the ground, for it was very damp. He could feel the soft, wet moss next to the back of his forearms where the skin was exposed to the cold, damp air as the baggy tunic sleeves fell to about his elbow. Pain immediately shot from his shoulder as he tried to move, stretching the ghastly blaster wound on his shoulder. It had definitely gotten worse in the coldness and dampness of the cell.
A strong smell of decay and blood filled the cell…or, is it a cell? Air felt hollow around him. Obi-Wan nudged his foot forward cautiously and immediately touched something that felt like a rock. Kicking it with all his strength, he heard it scrape off the floor and, to his horror, it connected with something solid and what sounded like many hollow sticks shattered apart and fell on to the ground. Amongst the bone chilling crash, Obi-Wan thought he heard a clang of chains and the sound of stone scraping against stone. Then, footsteps followed.
Obi-Wan turned towards the direction of the sound, but saw nothing but darkness. Without the Force, Obi-Wan felt small and vulnerable. He felt his heart pounding rapidly in his chest, making it difficult to breathe through his already damaged chest. He didn't know what to expect, but soon, a faint glow appeared around a corner, illuminating a man swathed in dark cloak who was the holder. The cloak wept soundlessly across the floor. If not for the footsteps, it would have truly looked like a phantom. Obi-Wan could tell from the way he walked that the man was Xanatos.
The light illuminated things around the man as well. Chains could be seen dangling from the high ceiling. Some hang empty, dripping with dampness; some occupied by what looked like a tangle of bones and moss, barely making the shape of what was left of a man, whose flesh decayed long ago. In the light, dried blood could be seen stained on the floor, ceiling and walls. The Xanatos approached closer, his steps steady, it did not even falter when crunches of bones are clearly audible under one of the boots. Both the man and sound came to a halt in front of the boy. Eerie silence followed.
Obi-Wan looked up at the hooded face, though now he had a pretty good idea who he is, he could not find calm in this horrid place. The dead seemed had left their mark here, he hazily felt pain, fear, anger, hate, despair, sorrow hang thick in the moist air, and in the rocks around him, just like the stains of blood, which had soaked into the rock walls. He realised that the Force inhibitor drug they had used on him was being slowly repelled out of his system.
Xanatos' handsomely wicked face appeared from under the hood. His ice blue eyes sparkling with evil. A smirk appeared on his face. "Enjoying yourself here, young Padawan? I see you had shattered one of the castle monuments."
"What do you want, Xanatos." Obi-Wan asked hostilely, trying to keep the tremble from his voice as a chill went through his body.
"Ah, still so brave. Anyone your age would have been scared out of their wits in here."
Obi-Wan glared at him. "Yeah, someone like you."
Xanatos stared at him hard, then his face relaxed and he looked around. "A frightening place this is, isn't it. No living beings had been here for thousands of years. It used to be a dungeon in Mesoelliane Era for what they call Mesoes, their word for Force-sensitives. Of course, they were not trained in a way like you Jedi do. Yes, they can use it to sense things around them, but mostly to tame wild beasts. They use the beasts for all uses, like labour, transport, protection, pet and so on.
"But one day, the Queen of the empire was killed. It was discovered that a Mesoe had tamed a poisonous Dowus snake and commended a Kllew bird's mind to carry it through the Queen's window and the snake to creep into the Queen's bed while she was asleep to bit her on the leg. The King was furious, he ordered a mass execution for all Mesoes. So the empire irrupted into chaos, the hunt went on for decades and the last Mesoe died in here. So naturally, you realise that the Force cannot help you here." Xanatos stepped closer, leaning nearer to the apprentice. "Tell me, if Qui-Gon died, would it break you, would you let the darkness fill you and join us on the darkside?"
Obi-Wan spat on his face.
Without warning, Xanatos struck him on the face with a vicious backhanded blow, snapping the boy's head sideways with the force of the impact. Obi-Wan tasted blood washing around in his mouth and his head pounding.
Grabbing the apprentice's jaw roughly, frighteningly close to the throat, Xanatos tilted the boy's face up so his gaze could meet his. He saw that blood was trickling down a corner of the Obi-Wan's mouth and from his nose, and gave a satisfied smile. He wept his face with his other sleeve and stared into Obi-Wan's bright, sapphire eyes with his ice cold ones. "Have it your way then. If you weren't a part of my plan, I would most certainly wring your scrawny neck and save myself the trouble."
Xanatos grabbed Obi-Wan's wounded shoulder suddenly, gripping it so hard that the apprentice had to bit down hard on his lip to stop himself from crying out in agony. Obi-Wan tried to twist away from the man's grasp, but the chains did their job and Xanatos tightened his grip. At this moment, Obi-Wan felt even more helpless than he'd ever imagined he could. Xanatos was gripping his shoulder so hard that his thumb dug into the barely sealed flesh, blood trickled from the wound again. Kicking out desperately, Obi-Wan found his feet connected with Xanatos' shin, but the man gave no yielding and tightened his grip even more.
"Now, is there anything you didn't tell me before?" Qui-Gon was getting very impatient. Obi-Wan's life was on stake here, he could not risk much more time.
"There isn't anywhere I know, I swear…"
Qui-Gon felt a burst of agony coming through the training bond he had Obi-Wan shared, Qui-Gon suddenly became very white. /Padawan! Obi-Wan! Are you all right/ He clearly wasn't.
"…Master Qui-Gon, Master Qui-Gon! Are you all right?" The mayor's voice snapped Qui-Gon back to his surroundings.
"Obi-Wan, he's in pain."
The Mayor gasped, "Oh no, that poor kid!"
"Come on, you have to tell me."
Obi-Wan strained on his bond trying to shut out the blinding pain, but it only made the metal cut into his already bruised wrists, but he still refused to grant Xanatos the satisfaction of hearing him in pain. Blood was flowing freely from the wound now and Xanatos finally loosen the grip of his strong hand now stained with Obi-Wan's blood. Obi-Wan sank at the sudden release on the worst part of the pain, letting out his breath in a pain-filled hiss.
"I hope you had learnt your lesson, Padawan." Xanatos said the last word with much disgust, releasing Obi-Wan's bloody shoulder, he turned to leave without another word. The dome was once again echoed with the bone-chilling sound of crunching skeleton under a boot.
Soon, everything was dead silent and dark again.
Though he could not see anything in the suffocating darkness, Obi-Wan could feel blood dripping steadily down his shoulder. The dampness would slow the wound's healing and in a place filled with rotten bodies the wound could easily get infected. Obi-Wan could feel the Force around him more strongly now, the room was filled with darkness. The doom and pain hang so thick that Obi-Wan almost felt sure that he could touch them. Hope and lightness were dead here, the prisoners known that in the end the cold, the dampness and hunger will kill them if torture did not. Obi-Wan shuddered at his imagination of what had happened in here so long ago. He concentrated on his centre and reached out for the Force to heal his wound. He had only the slightest grasp on the Force when pain starting from his wrists wracked through his already pain-filled body and increased it by tenfold, breaking his concentration immediately. Obi-Wan did cry out this time, this sudden shock had caught him off-guard. His cry echoed in the dome, reflecting off its many walls, sounding like a dome swarming with restless phantoms wailing to see justice.
The sound echoed in the dome for what seemed like an eternity, finally faded away. This was what Xanatos meant; he could not use the Force in here. But he still could feel it even he could not use it. There was not one living thing here in the dome but him. Obi-Wan felt the utter loneliness and fear that threatens to consume him. He had always hated the dark – you never know what's there waiting to strike at you. Although Obi-Wan had the Force, it never felt the same using Force to guide your way instead of using your eyes.
Obi-Wan could not focus. He was getting colder and colder in the past few…is it only a few hours? It felt like days to him! He was now shivering uncontrollably, the cold had finally broke into him. Was it because of the blood loss? His wound had been sealed for a while now, but already a large area of his tonic was damp with his own blood, making him chilled to the bone. He was loosing conscious dangerously, Obi-Wan wandered if he was dying. He briefly thought that if he died, Qui-Gon wouldn't look for him anymore therefore would not step into Xanatos' trap. But could he give his life up like that? As long as there is life, there is hope. As long as there is hope, he could think of a way to escape and help Qui-Gon. Closing his eyes, Obi-Wan took a deep breath, trying to push off the dizziness.
Just then, the dome shook with amazing ferocity. The eerie silent space was suddenly filled with chaos as rocks rain down from the unstable roof. Obi-Wan opened his eyes again with much effort as he was slowly losing the battle of holding on to the thin thread of consciousness, but what he saw shocked him even in his current state. The wall directly in front of him was crumbling like fragile glass; some kind of animal had its vicious claw in and tearing the whole place apart. Obi-Wan shut his eyes and weakly tiled his head to the side as a blinding flash of light filled the once pitch dark dome. The boy hadn't seen sunshine for so long that his eyes would take a while to adjust to light again.
Despite the glaring light, Obi-Wan's world was dimming, shadows swallowed up the bright light and soon, the world was black again as consciousness slipt out of the young Jedi's grasp eventually.