Just a reminder, this story contains squick and gore and naked Obi-Wan, and if the last one doesn't cancel out any hesitation over the other two, this story might not be a good choice for your reading pleasure. If you're good to go though, please read on!
Brink
By: Syntyche
Sixteen: Inside Out
Tears bled down Anakin's face as he ran, stumbling and staggering through the heavily wooded forest. He was sure the trees were reaching out for him, long, willowy branches that grabbed at his clothes and hair, whip-thin and scratching and tearing his skin. He wanted his mom, he wanted Qui-Gon, he'd maybe even settle for Obi-Wan right now just to know that Obi-Wan was still alive: he definitely hadn't looked alive the last time Anakin had seen him and the boy shuddered. He'd looked gross, black eyes and black veins you could see through his skin.
Anakin was also scared the monsters from the mountain were still on his trail, but when his racing heart finally thumped so loudly in his ears he knew he needed to stop running for a minute, he couldn't hear anyone following him any more. Anakin had the surprisingly bitter thought that they must have just wanted Obi-Wan and didn't care about him after all despite what Nagash had said, then the Padawan heaved a massive sigh and struggled on. It totally figured. Even mostly dead, Obi-Wan was still the hero the entire stupid galaxy wanted. The memory of Padmé's beautiful smile at the victory parade drifted into his mind and made him smile, but even she, his angel, had given Obi-Wan her smile, too, not just Anakin as he stood heroically by Qui-Gon's side, and Anakin could never forgive Obi-Wan that.
As his weaving bootfalls took him farther from the mountain and the uproots of warpstone shooting up from the rocky ground, Anakin's sense of the Force gradually drifted back into his awareness and the padawan latched onto it eagerly, tears drying as he continued to push away from the monsters behind him. He should never have left the ship. He should have listened to Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon would never have come here; he wouldn't have found Obi-Wan and Anakin wouldn't have either. Qui-Gon would have come back to the ship and they could have left this place already.
A pinprick in the distant Force began to grow in Anakin's mind amidst his increasingly bitter thoughts and he realized that it was Qui-Gon, seemingly unaware of Anakin's presence but becoming more solid to the padawan the closer Anakin got.
Gratefully, Anakin turned tired feet toward his Master.
OoOoOoOoOo
The village was deserted.
There were few times in his life that Qui-Gon had ever really allowed frustrated despair to seize control of his emotions, but at this moment, surveying the rows of darkened houses and empty gravel streets, the Council-forbidden feelings rose up within him, cresting over him in a wave that sank him to his knees in the dirt, a mournful keen pulled from his lips and howled into the quiet air, a broken heart in a broken man.
Obi-Wan wasn't here.
No one was.
He was too late, long too late.
Again.
For a moment Qui-Gon was still, his mind flashing back to the day that he hated and feared above all others, and it didn't take long because that day was always so close to the surface that Qui-Gon never quite forgot it, couldn't let it go.
He'd almost pulled Anakin from the Nubian starfighter himself, a laughing reprimand on his worried lips that pride in his young apprentice dictated he would never deliver. How could he fault Anakin for doing what he did: helping people, saving lives, doing good? And of course Anakin was right, it hadn't been the boy's fault that the fighter's autopilot had activated and sent him into the heart of the battle. The Chosen One had saved the day! Anakin was a hero, and if the Council didn't think that was worth something, well, they could just take their disapproval and shove it right back up their stuffy, overbearing -
The air abruptly jerked from Qui-Gon's lungs with a rush of fire and agony, and the arms he'd outstretched to reach for Anakin were suddenly braced against the permacrete of the hangar floor, the only thing keeping his body from completely collapsing as the skin of his back burned beneath his tunics. Oh gods, had he been shot? Was he dying? Who would care for Anakin?
It took Qui-Gon a moment to realize that, no, he wasn't dying.
Obi-Wan was.
No.
No,damn it.
Pushing the hated memories aside, Qui-Gon hauled himself to his feet, gripping his lightsaber grimly. This wasn't then. Obi-Wan was silent in his mind, but Qui-Gon refused to believe the Knight was gone. Surely the Force he had served so faithfully would not let Qui-Gon fail twice here … surely not.
He rallied his control and decided to search Makir's home first, where the Jedi had stayed not so long ago, and it was an eerily quiet walk across the square to their former host's dwelling. No Anakin chattering incessantly about his classes, peppering him with questions and requests and gossip he'd picked up from the other Initiates. The child had had something to say about nearly every Jedi he'd encountered - did you and Master Windu really almost get executed on Antar 4 for eating off the wrong plates? Did the Jedi really have a civil war? Does Master Gallia really fight Coruscant crime lords in her spare time and are they Hutts? Anakin's questions ran from the macabre to the ridiculous and everything in between, and he never stopped talking, never stopped asking. It hadn't occurred to Qui-Gon until this very moment, however, that with all the questioning Anakin did about Qui-Gon's past and former missions, he almost never asked about Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's time as master and apprentice.
It didn't take a genius to see why. It only took a master who, at least for the moment, no longer had the veil of adoration covering his eyes.
Qui-Gon didn't bother knocking, just pushed inside the empty house. It was as still inside the home as on the street, and he began methodically scouring the small dwelling. He didn't even really know what he was looking for, but he refused to believe that his driven searching would leave him without the next step.
His exploration revealed nothing until he came to the room the Jedi had slept in during their stay. The bed was neatly made, the mattress he had slept on still unrolled on the floor and the room was clean. He opened the closet door, wondering if he should feel any remorse at his blatant disregard for another's privacy, but his tenacity was rewarded when he discovered that pushed into the recess of the closet was a ball of rough fabric, and unwanted tears stung at Qui-Gon's blue eyes as he shook it out to reveal Obi-Wan's rumpled and worn chestnut robe, last wrapped around Makir's wife Elika's body. The old woman had been killed when a storm over the warpstone fields had kicked up a mass of toothed warpstone that had caught her in the throat. Despite Anakin's begging, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan could do nothing to save her, and Obi-Wan had respectfully wrapped her body in his robe, and then paid for her death with his life.
Crumpled within the robe was a stained tunic, also Obi-Wan's, streaked crimson at the hem. Qui-Gon folded them both carefully and stowed them in his knapsack. Nothing further was revealed in the house, so Qui-Gon set off for the meeting hall, brushing his knuckles across his eyes when his vision clouded with tears.
OoOoOoOoOo
Anakin panted as he ran, frantically following the growing thread in the Force that would lead him to Qui-Gon. The trail was unfamiliar but the call was strong; fading, at times, when he would stagger through warpstone patches, but strengthening again as he moved on as quickly as he could. His heart hammered in his ears, his lungs burned. He felt terrible, was feeling worse by the second. Not guilty for leaving Obi-Wan, he hadn't really had a choice after all, but physically he felt even worse than he had at dinner. He was so warm, and so tired. He needed to get to his master so he could rest. Qui-Gon would know what to do, would take him back to the Temple so he could feel better, and Yoda could send some other Jedi back to get Obi-Wan if he wanted, 'cause that would be better anyway than Anakin telling Qui-Gon that Obi-Wan was alive and Qui-Gon trying to rush back and save him when Anakin wasn't really even sure Obi-Wan was still alive. Definitely better to just wait and tell Yoda about Obi-Wan, that way if Obi-Wan was dead back in Nagashizzar, Qui-Gon wouldn't have his hopes crushed again. Honestly, he was just thinking about Qui-Gon, and Anakin felt proud for that.
Yeah. Definitely better to wait. They needed to get back to Coruscant as soon as possible. Maybe Anakin was even sick enough that he and Qui-Gon would get a little time off while he rested, maybe on Naboo? Qui-Gon had finished his mission after all and found the warpstone; other Jedi could take it from here.
Up ahead, Anakin heard water moving and he smiled. He was so thirsty from running and not feeling well and if the water was moving that was a good sign, right? He pushed through the trees, following the sound, and as the greenery thinned he saw the first glimpses of a wide, glittering river. Suddenly thirstier than he thought he'd ever been, Anakin hurriedly darted toward the river bank, his boots skidding on the small pebbles as underbrush gave way to gravely silt and rocks. His slight weight barely made an indentation as he dropped to his knees and dipped his hands into the water.
Anakin gasped sharply as he saw his hands under the clear river:
His fingers were turning black.
Not black-veined, like Obi-Wan's freaky skin had been, but dark and solid and scary. The water where his hands were submerged was also blackening, roiling clouds under the surface that pushed out into the open water. Hastily Anakin yanked his hands toward his face and inspected them closely: the water dripping off of them didn't appear to be darkened, just fat droplets that fell to the ground as he shook his fingers quickly. Was it just his eyes? Anakin rubbed his fists into his tired eyes and blinked a few times, but no, the water was still black and so were his fingers.
He needed water, though. Carefully he cupped his hands and sipped tentatively at the cold liquid he brought to his lips: it tasted fine, a little bitter maybe but he could ignore that.
More inky clouds rolled from his fingers as he flexed them under the water and Anakin had to admit that it looked pretty cool, actually. It was probably all the darkness of Nagashizzar washing away from his skin. He should probably suggest to Yoda that if the other Jedi found Obi-Wan, they might want to bring him to this river and see if it helped.
Anakin took a few more minutes to admire the way it looked like power was streaming from his hands, rippling under the water and spreading out, before clambering to his feet and continuing toward Qui-Gon.
OoOoOoOoOo
As he'd expected to, Qui-Gon found the village's meeting hall empty as well - almost, anyway. The main meeting area was abandoned, and Qui-Gon pushed into the stillness of the sanctuary. The sanctuary was, frankly, an amazing piece of architecture that looked completely out of place in its rustic surroundings and it reminded him of the Temple, actually, with its high, lonely ceilings and empty spaces meant to encourage quiet contemplation and meditation.
Near the front there was an altar. When Obi-Wan had stumbled across it, the altar had held a severed, dripping hand clutching a chunk of warpstone. The surface now was covered in a body, and the few loose wrappings draped over the still form did very little to obscure the decomposing figure laid to rest on its cold stone. Qui-Gon had no trouble discerning the woman who had taken them to warpstone fields and died there, Makir's wife Elika. The warpstone that had killed her was still lodged in her throat, glittering in the dim light except where it was dulled by darkened blood that had dried on its exterior. Qui-Gon was horrified to discover more shards of warpstone had been lodged in the mostly naked corpse: pushed into the ribcage, the soft flesh of the thigh, nestled in a gaping eye socket, protruding from the navel. Her face was frozen in a terrified rictus of death Qui-Gon remembered well; her petrified expression went side-by-side in Qui-Gon's mind with Obi-Wan's last frantic demand that Qui-Gon choose Anakin to live while he stayed behind to pay for the woman's death.
The body before him was a dreadful and gruesome sight and Qui-Gon turned away hurriedly, not wanting or ready to see more. His abrupt turn brought him about to face a man sitting in a shadowed corner; he'd been watched all along, Qui-Gon realized, but the Jedi couldn't find it in himself to fault his own lack of awareness. He'd been blinded nearly this entire trip - may as well not start blaming himself now when there was already so much fault he deserved. Plenty of time for that later, once he and Obi-Wan were back on the Council ship with Anakin and heading for home. At least Anakin had had the sense not to argue and stayed behind on the ship this time like he'd been told.
Taking the offensive because it really was the best defense, Qui-Gon immediately demanded, "Where are the villagers?"
The man shifted, sighed, and when he spoke Qui-Gon recognized Makir's voice, so the man's vigil over his deceased wife suddenly made sense. "They are hiding. But it will do no good. We knew this day was coming, and now it is here."
The foreboding in his tone raised Qui-Gon's hackles and he found himself reaching instinctively for his lightsaber. "What do you mean? Why won't it do any good?"
Makir shrugged, a rustle of movement in the shadows. "It's too late."
"Too late for what?" Qui-Gon questioned warily, already tired of the man's useless answers. It was taking all he had not to wrap his hands around the throat of this man who had sentenced Obi-Wan to die, and a part of the Jedi Master wondered at his lack of emotional control while the rest of him relished and accepted it as the Living Force he'd barely been able to feel while on this forsaken planet. This man had made him choose Obi-Wan to die, had made him shatter the one he loved unconditionally. This man deserved to die. Not Obi-Wan.
"Our history tells of a plague. A plague that is coming to ravage the people of the land, and the time is now. We can hide but it is no use; the necromancer's army marches behind the plague to bring the damned back to Nagashizzar to fill the dead halls." A pause and the man sighed, but it was there no regret there, more a weariness of Qui-Gon's presence that Qui-Gon felt keenly. "Some of us welcome it as a new life. Some of us do not. Your Kenobi was sent to Nagashizzar."
Qui-Gon's knees felt weak, his breath stopped in his lungs. "What?" he whispered. He'd known Obi-Wan was alive simply from believing he couldn't be dead yet, not before Qui-Gon even had a chance this time to save him, but the verbal confirmation sank him faster than all his false buoyed-up hope that Obi-Wan would live because Qui-Gon had desperately willed it to be so. "What can be done?" Qui-Gon asked roughly, lightsaber firmly in hand now though he didn't know why, only that it felt right and ready. "What can we do?"
"We?" Makir laughed, a breathless, disbelieving sound; a sound of defeat. "I will stay here for my love when she wakes. You?" He hmmed thoughtfully. "You, perhaps, might find your answers lie with Alcadizaar; he waits with the some of our village for the moment when darkness falls, when the army of Nagashizzar marches and the fortress is mostly unguarded." He shook his head, regret and annoyance warring across his lined features. "It is a fool's errand," he opined, reaching forward to grab his wife's lifeless hand, running a thumb over the warpstone fragments pushed into the papery flesh below her knuckles.
Qui-Gon looked carefully away from the gruesome sight. "Sometimes a fool's hope is all we have."
OoOoOoOoOo
A filthy boot descended heavily onto the sprawled Jedi's back, driving him farther into the black earth. Obi-Wan gasped and choked on the dirt trying to find its way down his throat, his leaden limbs jerking helplessly as he fought to bring air into his blocked trachea.
"I told you, little Jedi," the hated voice murmured above him, "You will leave when I will it."
Obi-Wan sighed wearily, head pillowed on the rocky ground as gravel dug into his cheek, forcing his voice from his closed throat. "Well, could it be soon?" he scratched out dryly. "I must say I've grown more than tired of your dubious hospitality."
"Oh, no," the voice was a throaty growl, delighted at his weak struggles and the pressure in his back increased, grinding his ribs and forcing watery coughs from his gasping lungs. "The time of the prophesy is upon us, and you Jedi shall play a crucial part - you yourself should be aware of this from keeping my history."
"Well, can't you find someone else to keep your awful books for you?" Obi-Wan ground out, he thought, rather reasonably. "I'm sure there's at least one other person in the whole of your 'lair' who can read and write. I'll even teach them myself, if you'd like - I'm thinking distance learning courses would work best for me, of course, I really am getting behind on my other work thanks to my little enforced stay here at beautiful Nagashizzar."
The leather workings of Nagash's armor creaked as the massive skeleton lowered himself to kneel beside the Knight sprawled on the ground. The pressure in Obi-Wan's back shifted to the side to press more on his bound arm and Obi-Wan stifled a scream, battle-weary amusement sliding from him as quickly as the blood washed from his black-veined face. The splintered bones of his unhealed upper arm raked together and Obi-Wan clamped down hard on a strangled gasp, sweat beading on his forehead and sliding across his cheek and nose. Gauntleted fingers dipped into the moisture gathered at his hairline, brushing and soothing, almost fatherly in their gentleness were it not for the weight still bearing down on his fissured humerus.
"There is one more task I require of you, Obi-Wan Kenobi," The words were breathed into his ear with a finality Obi-Wan shivered to hear. It was an odd conversation to have, lying on the rock-strewn ground surrounded by wraiths, and skeletons, and a great hulking beast that would sooner eat the living flesh from his body than anything else. And hulking over him: the great twisted remains of an undead skeletal necromancer.
"War is coming," Nagash announced, "And you shall be my champion; you, little Jedi, shall lead my army."
"I shall do no such thing," Obi-Wan snapped back tiredly. "Kill me now if you wish, and save yourself the fruitless trouble of trying to convince me otherwise."
The pressure in his side lifted and hands, gauntleted and bony, grasped the Knight under his arms and hauled him to his feet. The world spun dizzily before righting itself and Obi-Wan slung an accusing gaze at his captor, cutting off the words ready to flow from the necromancer's rotting mouth.
"I will not lead your army," he growled, though Obi-Wan's soul shivered as he was swung back to face the yawning black gates of Nagashizzar. Not back there, please. Not back into the darkness.
"Of course not," he was assured with a satisfied purr, complete with patronizing shoulder pat that seemed especially grotesque coming from a living skeleton. Nagash added, "but I am sure the greater good calls to you, little Jedi; I am sure the voices of the tormented will not fail to reach your ears, especially when the blame for their agony lies on one of your own."
Obi-Wan wrenched his arm from the necromancer's and stumbled forward on shaking legs - he would be damned if he'd be dragged back into the fortress of darkness looming out of Cripple Peak. Black shards of warpstone gravel inched its way into his already shredded feet, working into the bare skin mercilessly. "You must think me a fool easily swayed by your words," he murmured, and his blackened eyes fastened on the sorcerer, the whites gleaming ebony against the thin grey circle of his irises. With every unwilling step he took toward the black gates, Obi-Wan's shoulders sagged further and his dragging stride slowed. He couldn't go back, Force, not back … please …
"Think you a fool?" Nagash's laugh was deep and rumbling, rattling around armor that hung heavy on sinew-draped bones; right behind Obi-Wan's shoulder as he continued to drag his way back up the rock-littered mountainside. "No, not a fool, Obi-Wan Kenobi: a champion! The champion that shall lead my army against those that have defied me for too long."
They were close to the gates, passing the ever-watchful golems, and Obi-Wan's breath stuttered to a stop in his throat, his trudging footsteps scraping to a halt. Already the heat from inside was licking at his flesh, stealing through the tears in his skin and breeches.
"You have read the forbidden book, your eyes have seen the words burned into the frail pages: a plague, little Jedi, is about to be unleashed - a plague borne by Skywalker and you have set him loose!" The light of triumphant madness burned so brightly in Nagash's eyes that Obi-Wan tore his own gaze away, horrified beyond words.
A shove from behind propelled him over the threshold of Nagashizzar and Obi-Wan's ravaged feet sank into the bloodstained carpets he so reviled yet was now shamefully grateful for as they stole the smallest shards of pain from his shredded soles. The huge black doors slowly swung closed behind him and defeated, Obi-Wan hung his head, captured again by the darkness.
OoOoOoOoOo
If you enjoyed this chapter and would like to read more, please let me know! the drama and angst are not over yet!
