Legacy 4
Chapter 12
The next instant, Anakin found himself seized round the waist and yanked off his feet, vision blurring into a whirl of swirling black cloak and smeared stars as he was hefted bodily onto a sleek-bodied swoop in front of the Zabrak stranger. Fear flooded his veins with acid, a tardy certainty of destruction; he kicked and screamed, and sank teeth into the thickly gloved hand clamped over his chin and cheeks, the fingers digging cruelly into his flesh.
And then they were screaming over the sand, wind flaying tears from his eyes, scourging his exposed face with a fine spray of grit as he struggled.
"Be still," his captor hissed; an invisible vise seemed to clamp down upon him, crushing his every limb in a terrible grip, smothering and absolute. He squirmed, panted, felt panic spurt beneath his ribs. This thing was more than mortal….. images of demons, monsters, vampires, creatures described by spacers and childhood fancy danced before his inner eye, fanning the flames of terror and resentment.
Another swoop's intakes could be heard howling just behind – the two tones blending then parting in continual discord, two endless shrieking cries carving a line of strife across the open desert floor. Anakin twisted, yearning to see their pursuer, his would-be rescuer, but the Zabrak's whipping cloak blocked his view, blurred the landscape into uniform shreds of grey and black. Behind his temples, a tidal thunder rose and swelled, more deafening than even the twin wails of the swoop turbines. And somehow, without understanding how, he knew this to be the clashing of titanic wills, one against the other, giants grappling in some invisible domain – clashing like electrical storm fronts over the Black Hills.
It made his head feel like it would explode.
And his temper snapped next. Who did these people think they were? How dare his kidnapper abscond with him like so much stolen merchandise? He wasn't goods, he was a person! And his name was Anakin! A scream of defiance tore loose from his throat, a desperate war-cry fierce enough to loosen the impalpable bands holding him in place. He kicked, one foot catching the grav compansator a glancing blow – and the world flipped upside down as the bike, the stranger, and he himself were tossed willy-nilly into the sky.
He landed flat on his back, really really really hard in the sand. All the breath left his body in a giant whoosh and he thought maybe he was bugsquat, smooshed flat and messed up. Before he could wonder whether he was dead, he saw the black swoop crash into a dune , sideways, kicking up a big old wave of sand like an explosion. And then he saw the rider land on his feet, just like that! –flipping down from midair into a crouch, his face drawn into a hideous scowl, teeth bared and barbed head silhouetted against the deep purple heavens.
Anakin rolled over –it hurt! – and sucked in a shuddering gasp, eyes wide and jaw unhinged in shock. The second swoop swerved off to one side, in a tight spiral; its rider also launched himself into the air, turned over once, and landed on his feet, tossing a dark cloak to one side as he did so. The cloth landed in a rumpled heap to one side, while the man stood with feet apart and shoulders thrown back, starlight glinting faintly on pale garments.
It was that guy! The one who had come to Tatooine before, Mister Qui-Gon's friend, the one who needed help fixing his ship and was pretty nice but hard to understand. He looked different. Wild. Elemental. Scary, even.
"He is mine," the snarling Zabrak told his foe. They were circling now, counterclockwise, like boxers on the cusp of a fight. Anakin tried to scrabble upright, but his body wouldn't move. He knew what was going to happen; icy chill was cascading down his spine, a heady blend of fearful anticipation and raw, terrifying bloodlust. What would happen? Who would win? Would they kill him, too?
"I don't think so," the other one said. He looked really young, Anakin thought. Not a match for the thing circling round him with predatory intent stamped on every line of his garishly painted features, shining in hollow eyes.
They kept moving, slowly, slowly, until the Zabrak was opposite and the young guy closer to Anakin. His boots were just an arm's length away now. Squinting up, the boy could see the weapon in his hand – a laser sword, the one he'd been carrying when they'd first met. What a chupa booki! Only jedi used weapons like that, he couldn't possibly hope to stand up to the stranger with something he didn't really know how to –
The Zabrak flourished a pair of similar hilts; with a nerve-jolting snap and hiss, two brilliant crimson flames shot from their open ends, twin blades of blood red, pulsing hot and loud like the pulse of some primordial monster. Anakin clapped hands over his ears, scrunched up his face. Oh, he didn't want to see the other guy get blitzed, not like this, not burned and sizzled into a nasty mess, not cut to pieces and –
He cried aloud when the idiot ignited his own sword – blinding sapphire blue, humming one long sonorous note in the deathly still air. His posture loosened into a supple readiness, the blue 'saber swept round and over, carving an elaborate knot in the darkness, leaving a subtle afterimage where it passed – epehemral, luminous wings spread bright, a corona of fleeting, hard-forged purity.
Anakin's jaw dropped, because in that instant he knew.
"You," the horned stranger growled, eyes burning.
"You," his foe said, dead calm.
Their spectator clutched at the sand beneath him, pressing his body flat, instinctively aware that absolute stillness was his best chance of survival, that this was a fight for him, for his fate…. for his salvation or perdition, freedom or utter eternal enslavement.
They fell upon each other like two kraits vying for supremacy, might against might, skill against skill, one razored intent against its polar opposite. The combat unfurled like one of those dust-storms that roared in from the open wastes, a towering column of death spinning out into tattered pennants and gales, destructive arms sweeping out from the furnace of a tight center. Blue and red blades screamed and clashed, the sound of their meeting an awful shriek of distress, sparks cascading like hot rain where they hammered together, their songs dissonant and yet beautiful, a pounding chorus singing out forgotten truths, secrets, prophecy and sacred portent.
He watched, entranced, heart falling into rhythm with the wild dance of the paired warriors, the impossible speed and power of their battle opening before him like revelation, like first vision: speed, speed and power – these were but the vestments obscuring an invisible Source, the pulsating Heart of the universe. He looked, and he beheld it: Light and Dark, sempiternally locked in strife, in a lover's embrace, in unity, in absolute opposition. From that furnace-star the world was born and died, cycling perpetually, spilling over the rim of being without cease, trillion-fold reflection of the primordial, the Real, the one.
It blossomed within him, a seed hidden until this moment, and took root. He screamed, in pain or in joy he did not know. Light and Dark clashed before him, around him, cacophonous, silent. The Zabrak and his enemy panted, sweated, snarled; blood and sky clashed, screamed, burned and throbbed, blinding, dizzying, overwhelming. Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, but the conflict erupted within him now, filling him, penetrating him, sweeping him up in its obliterating embrace, hammering him between principalities, pulling him apart, ripping him in twain, eating him alive….
He screamed, and screamed, clawing at his own chest and hair. No, no no nonononooo… make it stop, make it go away, leave me alone, please please no –
He slatted open tear-blurred eyes and beheld the final strike. The young man, the fool, ducked a double decapitating blow, reversed, spun, and flicked his blade straight down across the Zabrak's torso, leaving a molten line of fire from collarbone to navel; the black-robed figure threw back his head and loosed an awful cry, rage and pain wedded together, explosive, poisonous – then threw out a hand, his agony a wall smashing the world flat.
A body landed flat on top of Anakin, with a hard grunt. The desert rang with fury, with liquid fire.
There was scuffling, the sound of wheezing breath, a whine of approaching thrusters. He glanced up, around, disoriented. Somewhere, distance and location smashed into a kaleidoscope of scattered fragments, there was a third swoop and another rider. He saw the Zabrak curse, flick a wrist, bring his felled vehicle flying back to himself, mount it in a whirl of angry cloak and hissing pain. He saw the second swoop descending a steep dune at breakneck speed, too late to catch the fleeing warrior. Focusing closer, he saw a pair of blue eyes squinting into his face, a drop of perspiration trickling in slow motion along a loose strand of long auburn hair, the rumpled edge of cream tunics, clean thick-woven cloth, ootmian's garb, too finely crafted for a native.
"Anakin," the young man said. His voice was a little rough about the edges, like he couldn't breathe quite right. "Are you injured?"
He sat up, kind of. Another pair of hands helped him. "I'm okay, mostly," he said. His ribs hurt, and his head really hurt. And he was shaking now, feeling kinda sick. "You're…. you're actually a Jedi. Like a real one," he wheezed.
"Kenobi!" another voice rapped out. The sky was blotted out by another figure, broad shouldered, dark-clad. "What in stars' name was that thing?"
Kenobi. That was the guy's name. Obi-Wan. Anakin clutched at his middle and curled into a ball. He really didn't feel so good. "My podracer," he moaned. "It's over …. By the krayt…"
The next thing he knew, he was being lifted up again, but this time gently. "I've got him," the deep-voiced woman said. She was super huge, like a bantha or something, not a human. "We'll take him back to the shuttle for now. You all right?"
He could hear the young Jedi dusting off his clothes, which was kinda silly because sand got everywhere, no matter how tidy you tried to be. Then he laughed a sort of dry, not-funny laugh, which made Anakin frown. It wasn't a joke. They'd almost been killed back there… like blitzed, not just regular killed.
"My podracer," he moaned, feeling really dizzy and tired.
"We'll retrieve your blasted racing contraption," Obi-Wan promised, still kinda sounding short of breath. "Stars forbid anything happen to your machine. I'm sure your mother is worried sick about it."
It wasn't a nice thing to say, but the sarcastic reassurance sufficed to quell Anakin's rising panic. "Okay," he slurred. "Thanks."
"Quiet, young one," the gargantuan woman murmured. "You've had quite the misadventure tonight."
Twenty klicks out into the arid desert's sea, the Watcher dismounted and fell to his knees, reeling beneath the black Night. Hands scrabbled at each other, fumbling off the thick gloves. His tunics were singed, reeking of burnt fiber and charred flesh; he tore them apart, revealing his livid chest, where red and black sigils were scarred over by a molten line, a thin brand running like a carven canyon from clavicle to belly, a throbbing, pustulent wound like a lingering caress of fire, a tongue of agony snaking down his body.
He threw back his head and groaned aloud, relishing the pain, the hate, the anger, the vulnerability. Dark eddied and pooled, lapping at him, burbling in delight. Pain was strength, pain was anger and fury and power. His Chosen had gifted him this first kiss, this graze of his blade, a pledge and token of their bond. His fingers pressed against the blackened, swollen edges of the Makashi strike-line, fanning the pain into spiking intensity. Hate pounded behind his temples, rose like bile in his throat, brimming over. He glutted himself on it, lips drawn back in ecstasy , eyes fluttering shut. It was but a taste of the destruction ahead, but a flirtation, a coy touch- and yet it was exquisite, intoxicating, addictive.
It made him stonger, it made him bolder.
He lusted in earnest now, where he had but yearned. He would return this delicate salute with another, with vengeance and pain, with ruinous seduction to hatred. He would have his Chosen, own him and consume him. It was meant to be; he was meant to ascend, to dominate the Light, to be crowned Darth and master.
He groaned, cherishing the smoldering embers of his wrath, of his longing, … and Waited.