Rage. Pain. Despair.
If a Jedi-turned-Sith has any friends, it is these three. Rage, Pain, and Despair – his closest companions, his constant scourges, his only links to what is left of his soul.
Over the years I had grown accustomed to these three. At a young age I had learned to beat them back, keep them at bay, but now I could only resign myself to their presences. They were my secret strength and deepest scars, and at times the only things that kept me going, kept me from sinking into the blackness that at times threatened to consume me.
My master would mock me at the times when the Rage, Pain, and Despair would conspire together to overwhelm me. A Sith had to be strong, he told me. A Sith used the Rage and Pain to further his own ends, to fuel the fires of the dark side. And Despair… there was no place for such in the Order. Despair was for the weak, the slaves to the dark side.
And in my master's opinion, the creatures of the galaxy were his slaves. Even me.
There are few enough who know my story, and fewer still who know the how and why of it. For those who are reading these words, however, I will not bore you with a recounting, for doubtless you are familiar with the fall of Anakin Skywalker and the rise of Darth Vader. Other aspects of my story may need… clarification. But more on that later.
Suffice it to say that I was a man betrayed.
Rage. Pain. Despair. I think the Rage was the least of these three evils, for it blazed like a black fire in my soul, driving away the dark shadows of the other two as long as I fueled it. It was the Rage that drove me on the battlefield, goaded me in my quest to hunt down the Jedi, powered me in my struggles. But there were times when the other two, the Pain and Despair, would join forces and blindside me in a vulnerable moment, when my Rage lay dormant and my soul lay bare to their torment.
My master's solution seemed simple enough – meditation. Make them your servants, not your dominators. Overpower them and use them to fuel your own ends.
He could say this, of course, with the blind ignorance of one who has never had cause to know of Pain and Despair. He had never tasted of love, comradeship, friendship – he could never know the true meaning of their twisted counterparts. Betrayal, loneliness, hatred – not the conditioned hatred passed down through the Sith Order, but true hatred bred from love lost and abused, hatred born of the heart and not of the mind.
Palpatine… how I hated him. I hated him with a passion greater than that which drove me to murder my own master, greater than that which possessed me to lead the massacre within the walls of the Temple. For he had manipulated me, toyed with me, used me. The deepest desires of my heart were pawns in his game, and my soul was the prize when he finally bested every opponent in said game. The Jedi, the Republic, the Confederacy, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Yoda, myself… all defeated in his perverse game.
And oh, did I lose. The brotherhood I had shared with Obi-wan, my truest, deepest love and the child she carried, even the freedom to live a life without pain, without mechanical aid… all lost, gambled away in a stupid wager when I attempted to play Palpatine's game.
Small wonder the Rage, Pain, and Despair had grown so close.
Sometimes, in my meditations, the three would besiege me until the only escape came from sinking into the furthest recesses of my mind, to a refuge where their powers were impotent, where their influence could not touch me. In some ways, the escape was just as bad as the Rage, Pain, and Despair, for the images that sprang forth were unsettling to say the least… but I took some small comfort knowing that I had a weapon against my greatest foes.
But lately the images had grown clearer, the refuge in my mind more distinct. It was as if latent memories were awakened every time I sought escape from the dark side. Strange creatures, flashes of power beyond description, faces that were at once unfamiliar and familiar, snippets of conversation that I must have overheard a lifetime ago…
…a deformed, masked girl, hunchbacked and ragged… a knight in rusted armor… a shabby white stallion… a plain, fat woman leading a blind man…
…Oh wise young maid, wise for all your tattered clothes and crouched back – you have discovered what all others could not see… see, maid, see, O wandering ones! See, and marvel, for this is probably the only time you will witness such again!…
…a great white sea-beast, pinned beneath a fallen rock, its murky green blood staining the waters… a blue-scaled dragon blasting fire as it soared from its cavern… another dragon, black and yellow-eyed, rising from a great stone-studded plain… a black bird, a mongrel dog, a raging brown-furred beast like a gargantuan Wookie…
…Under and over and about and through this old world of ours there flow sources of Power, as aimless as streams and rivers. As I said, they are neither good nor bad, they are just there…
…a woman screaming, swords clanging, flames enveloping my vision, a beast of rainbow charging down a pack of brute savages, the treachery of a young man bringing fiery destruction to the woman he adored…
…All Hallow's Eve? I might have known it. She had her revenge after all. Fifteen years… oh, Lord, was it worth it all? …
I never questioned these fragments, only accepted them as one accepts an unwanted side-effect of a necessary medication. Jumbled and senseless as they were, they were a small price to pay for escape, however temporary, from the pain.
Then the day came when my world was disrupted in the space of a breath.
Break…It was an oppressive day on Corusant, muggy and breezeless. The sky seemed to hover lower than usual, pressing the heat of late summer downward, a ceiling of ferrocrete-gray clouds keeping the warm, smelly atmosphere trapped. Creatures had to gasp for air, as if the humid heat leached away oxygen, and even the simple act of rising from sleep seemed more trouble than it was worth.
I was in an irritable mood that day, stalking through the corridors of the Imperial Palace like some irate demon set on harrowing the doomed. Two officers had died at my hand just that morning, and a third escaped death only by virtue of a distraction in the form of a summons from my master. It seemed all elements – the stifling weather, the incompetence of my subordinates, the demands of the Emperor, the approaching conflict over Endor that I at once anticipated and dreaded – had conspired to put me in the worst temper possible.
And the stormtrooper idling in the hallway did nothing to help matters.
The soldier in question was reclining against the inside of a doorway in the main corridor leading to my master's audience chamber, conveniently obscured from the sight of the guards. At first I thought him a spy, but upon studying closer I realized he was merely lazing around. A specimen from the newer batches of clones, I theorized, one of the inferior grades. I had little tolerance for those, for they were next to useless on the battlefield.
"My lord," the clone greeted, offering a salute without changing his body position in the least.
I considered killing him then and there, but something stopped me. Whether it was a vague premonition or simply the unwillingness to leave a body with no explanation, who can say?
"Don't you have anything better to do, soldier?" I snarled instead.
"Yessir," he replied, straightening and marching away. For a moment his armor seemed to gleam silver… but perhaps that was merely the cloud-filtered light pouring through the nearby windows.
I then turned my attention to the doorway where the trooper had been resting. Odd, I'd never seen this room before. Or I had, but I'd always been too preoccupied to pay much notice. But today, something behind the door seemed to be pulsing with power, resting, watching, waiting…
Waiting for what?
There was no keycard slot on the door and no keypad, only an open/close button. I pressed it and entered the room. What could my master be keeping in here? What would make him so confident to keep it in an unlocked chamber? And why had I never sensed it before?
It was a small room, approximately four meters square with a ceiling just high enough to accommodate my height. The walls were paneled, not in metal as I expected, but in a dark brown wood polished mirror-smooth. The floor, again, was not metal but a dark blue-gray stone in which I found myself vaguely reflected like a ghostly doppelganger. On the far wall stood two iron pedestals, and upon each pedestal rested a transparisteel display case.
I ventured a step nearer, puzzled. It wasn't the layout of the room that confused me – rather, it was the items displayed in these cases. I approached the pedestal on my right, carefully lifting the display case to more closely inspect its contents.
At first glance it appeared to be a scrap of some animal's hide, so old it was coming apart in great flakes. But buried within the disintegrating skin was a round, hard object, as large as a man's head and gleaming with a creamy iridescent gloss like a massive pearl. Was this the source of the power I had detected? Upon further probing with the Force I decided not – whatever power this object had once contained, it was now dead. Something lay within, yes, but it was as lifeless as the rotting hide about it.
Closing the case, I turned my attention to the second item. Why this would be so highly prized by the Emperor I had no idea. Stang, I couldn't even tell what it was. It could have been anything – a shaving of wax, a curl of horn, a fossilized shell. And yet… it seemed to glow with an intelligence all its own.
It seemed as if my hands were operating independently from my brain. I watched myself open the display case, lift the delicate circle of ivory-colored material, lift it to the light. There was no doubting it – this was the source of the power I had felt. And even as I held the ring, it seemed to throb as if with a heartbeat, its energy pulsing and ebbing, a primitive song that somehow seemed hauntingly familiar…
A cold darkness touched my awareness. The Emperor had just arrived at his palace. And he would expect to find me in his audience chamber awaiting his arrival. Did he know my location? I considered shielding my mind, but that would only arouse his suspicion. I settled for closing the second case, glancing quickly about the room to ensure all was as I had found it…
The second case was empty. Where was the item it had concealed? Had I dropped it? Crushed it by accident?
A glint of gold betrayed its location. I raised my hand disbelievingly. Somehow, without even thinking about it, I had slid the ring of ivory onto the middle finger of my left hand.
Frantically I pulled at the ring, twisting, tearing, but it wouldn't move. It seemed to have constricted around my finger, not tightly enough to damage the cybernetic components, but still as snugly as if it had been molded there. None of my efforts could shift it. Oh good stars, this would not please my master at all…
Fire erupted in my left shoulder, the socket blazing and searing. I grunted and staggered, clutching my burning shoulder, forgetting all but the pain. Golden flames licked the edges of my vision… the entire room seemed to lurch under my feet… my sight was momentarily dazzled by a burst of gold and silver light…
Then all abated as swiftly as it had begun. The floor remained in place, nothing hampered my sight, my arm…
My arm!
I raised my left arm, the ring catching the light like the flame of a candle. My arm was no longer metal and circuits, no longer a droid-like prosthetic, but flesh and blood. I could feel the play of muscles and tendons as I flexed and rotated the joints, feel my pulse beating in my wrist, feel the texture of my armor and gauntlet against my skin. I was restored – well, not totally, for my right arm remained mechanical. But still, even a partial restoration…
What else could this ring do? I tried again to pry it off, eager to see if it could do the same for my right arm if I placed it on a finger of my right hand… but again, it wouldn't move.
The cold presence of my master drew nearer. I had to leave the room. The second case was still empty, but that couldn't be helped. I could only hope the Emperor would not come into this room for a while. Swiftly I exited the chamber, strode down the hallway, bypassed the red-armored guards, and entered the audience chamber.
I didn't have long to wait. The doors hissed open within a few minutes, admitting my master's hunched, decaying form.
I sank to one knee. "What is thy bidding, my master?"
The hideous mouth leered open in a sneering grin. "Good news, my apprentice. The trap is set, and the Rebels have taken the bait."
My stomach turned at his gleeful laugh. How could this depravity amuse him? I clenched my fist in anger, straining to keep my emotions in check. He could not know how much I hated him, despised him, longed to destroy him once and for all, if only to end my bondage…
The ring pulsed once, then was still. Somehow, I got the feeling that it had acknowledged the threat my master represented. Once again I had to struggle to shield my emotions, this time those of fear. The ivory-gold of the ring was horribly conspicuous against the black of my glove…
"You will go to the Endor system," the Emperor went on. "You will tell Commander Jerjerrod to step up his pace – the Death Star is sadly behind schedule. You will stay aboard the station and await my arrival."
"Yes, my master," I replied, bowing my head.
He raised a hand over my head, and I felt for a moment like a dog before a brutal master, not sure whether an uplifted palm would mean an approving caress or an angry blow.
"You are dismissed," was all he said.
I stood and left the chamber, only severe discipline keeping me from fleeing his presence. I hated him. I hated him with a passion. I could hardly stand to be in his presence…
I glanced down at the ring. How had he not noticed it? But to my surprise, the ring had somehow changed its color. Neither ivory nor gold, it was now almost totally transparent, showing only a vague outline and the black leather underneath. Only a sharp eye could spot it now. But the sense of an inner power had not diminished at all.
I shook my head and continued on my way, wondering just what I had mistakenly unleashed with my tampering.
