Jacen was waiting patiently by one of the exits. As Luke faced him, he said simply, "Walk with me, Uncle."

The Force was full of shadows and the acrid taste of defeat. With every heartbeat, Luke could feel the danger growing, little scolds of desperation that whispered to him, telling him to escape before it was too late. But he ignored it.

For each moment that he waited, Mara and Ben were a little closer to safety. It was enough. He patiently followed his nephew past the broken panels and crunch of old bones into the inferno beyond. Behind them, the light faded slowly into black.

Their silence led them to a balcony of some kind, warped with the heat. One end was completely buried in resolidified rock but the rest of it seemed stable. Beyond the railing, in the distance, molten lava plummeted over a sharp-edged obsidian cliff, sending clouds of smoke and choking ash into the air. A small sun failed to light the darkness; the only illumination was from the crimson glow of hot rock and the erratic splash of meteorite strikes.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry it had to come to this." Jacen was leaning against the balustrade, gazing out into the distance. His face was a map caught in reds and black.

Luke picked his way carefully over to his nephew's side. But he kept away from the edge, just as a precaution. The metal railing looked as fragile as spun glass.

"I cannot make you return to the Temple, Jacen, but you need to think about what you are doing, not just reacting to the political maneuverings of the GA. This path you are taking, it's wrong. Not just for the GA but for yourself. I know that you are better than this."

"I do what I must for peace and security in the galaxy. Perhaps you should remember that." Jacen shifted, looking at Luke with determination in his eyes.

"Peace is not won with the torment of innocents. Security is not found in wholesale murder." Luke shook his head. "Have you forgotten everything you learned at the Academy?"

"I forget nothing." Straightening up, his voice sharp as a vibroblade, he shot back, "Do not assume that I do this for my own pleasure. We must bring peace back to the galaxy before it is too late."

Even as he was trying to reason with Jacen, Luke knew he was failing. The frustration and urgency in his accusations would only alienate the man further, he knew, but desperation can make the best intentions go awry.

"Jacen, I understand the need for peace. I've strived for it my whole life. So have your parents. So have the Jedi. There are many ways to peace but murder is not one of them." Taking a step closer, he said quietly, "You've lost your way. Come back with me and we can work together to find it again. "

But Jacen just shook his head, and looked away, cool, impassive, alone.

For a moment, Luke tried desperately to remember the once happy child, the boy with his silly jokes and empathy for all living things, the energetic brown-eyed combination of Han's passionate loyalty and Leia's steadfast determination.

"What ever happened to the compassionate boy I knew? The Jacen I remember would never have done the things that you have done. He would have died first."

Now, there was only sun's-core heat in those eyes as Jacen snapped, "That boy died a long time ago. With Anakin."

For a moment, behind the fury, Luke could feel Jacen's Force signature and the grief buried there, unreliquished and festering. His own heart aching to comfort, he started to reach out to his nephew, wanting to connect with him and share his sorrow. There was something in touch that could never be expressed in mere words.

But Jacen jerked back, out of the way, and his presence in the Force vaporized as if it had never been. All that was left was a scowl and stone.

It hurt to know that there could be no connection, even one of solace. Sending his heartache into the Force, hoping that Jacen would feel it, hoping he would realize just how much Luke regretted Anakin's death, he softened his tone and tried again.

"Jacen, I'm sorry about Anakin. I still mourn his death and my part in it. I can't take back the past but I would change it if I could. His death was a great loss to us all."

His nephew appeared to be listening, but with every heartbeat, Luke could see that Jacen was withdrawing into some remote cold place that no one could touch, where no one could touch him. He had seen it before: in soldiers pushed beyond their limits, in refugees who had lost their families and homes, in victims of torture. It was a way of coping with the unendurable. But if left to fester, it could also morph into self-destruction or cruelty or even an insatiable lust for control.

His voice almost pleading as he tried to break through that icy wall, Luke said urgently, "But Anakin would not want you to lose yourself like this. Please, come back with us. We can help you regain..."

In Jacen's eyes, there was nothing more of grief or even recognition, only the hard-edged stare of a man who had tortured helpless innocents. "You have no idea."

"I do, though. I've made my own bad choices in the past, thinking that the use of the Dark side would help bring peace to the galaxy, that it would make everything better. It took your mother to bring me back."

Luke had almost destroyed everything he had ever cared about in those awful days. Countless beings had died and worlds destroyed because of him. The weight of it still pressed in on him, in the night. "The dark is seductive, warping your mind until you lose all sight of what is right. Until your choices twist you into something unrecognizable, a creature of evil. I know it too well." Shaking off the haunting memories, Luke said, "Come back, Jacen. Please."

"Always the compassionate one." There was pity in his mild words but he wasn't looking at Luke. Rather he was gazing out into the hellish scene beyond. "I was talking about sacrifice earlier."

If Jacen was trying to keep him off-balance with the sudden change in topic, it was working.

Blinking in surprise, Luke recovered quickly. Stepping closer, hoping to shake that cold calm and bring warmth back into Jacen's eyes, he said gently, "Your examples were good ones. But you left out your own. Your time on the worldship, your torture at the hands of the Vong and Vergere, marked you, saddened you to the point that no one could reach you. Not Jaina, not your parents, not me."

Despite the heat, Luke shivered slightly. His nephew was growing more remote by the second. "I couldn't help you, no matter how much I wanted to and I am truly sorry for that."

Shrugging off the attempt at reconciliation, Jacen seemed to be caught up in some agenda of his own. As another meteor streaked past, lighting the sky in red flame, he nodded out toward the smoky landscape. "Do you know where you are?"

So his nephew was going to ignore apologies and grief and pain. "Jacen, if you have something to say, then please say it. I will do everything in my power to help you regain your balance..." Smiling slightly, Luke tried to joke, "including braving the wrath of Mara." Then turning serious again, he said, "but you have to choose to accept my help. I cannot force you into it."

Jacen wasn't listening.

Instead, he frowned down past the balcony, apparently fascinated with the molten river far below. "It wasn't always called Hell's Gate. Darth Vader renamed it in the early days of the Empire. I could never find out its true name. But I wondered why Vader took the trouble to change it."

Much as Luke was curious, he was growing more alarmed by the moment. Jacen seemed off-balance, almost irrational in his somber ramblings.

And the Force was urging him to flee. Its currents were agitated, wild, a sludgy mixture of shadow and desperation, mirroring the chaotic churn of liquefied rock and black slag in the distant river.

He would be a fool to ignore the warning any longer. He had tried and failed to help Jacen and now all he could do was hope to escape before disaster struck.

Luke began to inch back toward the exit. He said mildly, "Bad memories, perhaps."

"I found the records eventually. My years of study away from the Jedi paid off." Jacen straightened up, glancing at Luke for a moment, and then brushed at his sleeve, as though trying to rid himself of dust. From behind Luke, there was a far-off rumble but he could not tell what caused it, only that the air seemed to grow suddenly warmer, and more dangerous.

His nephew ignored the sound. "I don't think Vader quite knew just how much it would cost him, to become Sith. It was easy enough to destroy the things that didn't matter to him. The Jedi, the Republic, people and things to which he had no loyalty or interest."

His voice softened, and he began to walk toward Luke, his hands loose at his sides. "But for the Sith, in order to gain ultimate power, a sacrifice is demanded, a sacrifice of the ones he loves most." He looked around, eyes flicking back toward the hellscape and then stared, unseeing, at Luke. "It was here he lost everything that truly mattered to him - his wife, his best friend, his hopes for a family, everything."

Blinking, Jacen suddenly came back to himself and smiled as he whispered, "His sacrifice to power."

Taking another uneasy step backward, Luke tried to remember what pitfalls lay between him and the doorway. The floor's surface was uneven and gritty with ash; it crunched sharply as he moved. "But my father loved me and he refused to sacrifice me, even when faced with his own death. He died, trying to save me."

Jacen just shook his head, almost regretfully. "Yes, in the end, he was no longer Sith. Compassion is a Jedi trait."

"And one you can regain. Come back, Jacen. It isn't too late." One last try to turn his nephew from the path he seemed determined to follow.

Jacen's eyes were full of red-streaked shadow, feverish with pity and resolve and decisions. Face hardening back into stone, he was adamant. "The Jedi... the Jedi have brought us nothing but chaos. When we needed strength, there was only weakness. When the people of the galaxy needed peace and security, there was only war."

His hand half-curling around his saber, Jacen took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders, his body spear-rigid with determination. He looked like a hero of old - tall, strong and certain of his choices. "It's time to change. I'll do whatever it takes, including sacrificing those I love, the ones most important to me, to make it a reality."

The Force was shrill with warning.

"What are you saying, Jacen?" Luke's voice was still mild but he was alert, his fingertips close to his saber. Force help him, he did not want to fight his nephew but he would if necessary, fight and kill if necessary. But the memory of a compassionate little boy and the thought that he might die by Luke's hand was almost overwhelming.

Jacen bowed his head slightly and then lifted it, looking straight at him. "I'm sorry, Luke, but I need the strength and power to stop this war for good. I can only do that through sacrifice."

Resolute and steady, Jacen said softly, "I have avoided this long enough. It is time to choose."

Then he stepped closer and, as the Force tore into chaos, Jacen's green blade was slicing through the air toward Luke's head.

"I have chosen you."