Legacy IV
Chapter 22
The galaxy stood still upon its occult axis, stars and starstuff skirling out into wisping pennants of astonishment, constellations jumbled into skewed parodies of themselves, the dark void shattering, falling through the atmosphere's bright, illusory panes in jagged shards, heaven descending in broken fragments.
Silently. Slowly.
The Force itself choked on his next breath, heart stopping blood freezing spine melting denial.
Silence.
The thing- the Enemy, the Other, the perverse mockery of all he held dear and true…. The Sith - this foul excrescence vomited from the bilious depths of hell, stood gloating triumphantly behind Qui-Gon, one hand twisted cruelly in the Jedi master's hair, the other hidden from sight but obviously holding a lightsaber's hilt against the prisoner's ribcage.
A single flick of one finger, a single twitch…
Obi-Wan remembered to breathe. Sheer horrified disbelief wrung a sharp gasp from his lips. He halted, paralyzed, upon the summit of the dune, the marred slopes of sand spreading before him , scarred and littered with bodies, with death, the exsanguinated corpse of the past, the present. The violence splayed here for his benefit, for his revulsion, was but salt thrown upon a flayed-open wound, sundry insults added to an injurious, fatal strike.
Blackness edged his vision, a prodigious suffocating pressure closed about his chest, built behind his temples, in his aching throat. Qui-Gon.
And then the thing dared to speak to him, chin tilted jauntily, eyes flashing. "What you feel," the foul wretch informed him – smugly, patronizingly – "is fear."
Fear leads to anger, anger to hate, hate to suffering Beware the Dark Side, Jedi. The young Knight slammed mental shields into place, a reflexive and triple-forged barrier between himself and this bloated monstrosity of ego and sadism… but the thing's oily presence penetrated despite his most strident effort, decades of habit, worming through fissures he had not felt until that moment, oozing like sludge between the scabbed over edges of past trauma. The Sith's lurid, horn-crowned face seemed to morph into that of countless others: Zan Arbor, Xanatos, Sifo Dyas, nameless hordes of foes and traitors. Bodiless flames ringed him, rose off the sand in adulation, obeisant to their dark master's command.
With a terrible effort he wrenched his attention off the Sith's mocking visage, and met Qui-Gon's azure gaze. The Jedi master was supremely collected, placid as a meditation fountain amid the Temple's gardens. His eyes held those of his former student for a long moment, then slid sideways.
Obi-Wan had not even seen the third party to this encounter. Anakin Skywalker crouched nearby, tears etching pallid grooves through the thick layer of dust coating his cheeks and chin. The Force shimmered, delicately, bespeaking the invisible thralldom of this second hostage, this shatterpoint in the present balance of power.
Qui-Gon's gentle promptings buffeted his mind, thrumming along a bond reinforced by years of shared joy and pain. It's too late. Save the boy.
A swell of indignation, of rebellion against the stark choice, against the terms of ultimatum, rose within him. No. Not like this. Not by his will, by his decree, like some checkmate gambit in dejarik. Never like this.
"Mister Obi-Wan!" Anakin called out. "Do something! "
Trembling, he chafed against the stalemate holding him inexorably in place. Qui-Gon's wordless urging hammered against his shields, now. You can only save one. Take the boy back to Coruscant. Hear me, Obi-Wan.
He shook his head, slightly, heart driving against his own ribs in rhythm with the soundless chanting in the plenum. Korah. Matah. Yoodah. Ratah-mah.
The tall man's brows contracted, the slightest echo of an authoritative scowl.
"Beg," the Sith commanded, licking his lips in delectation. "Beg for your master's life, Jedi. Abase yourself before me."
The Watcher shivered in anticipation, in delight, as his Chosen sank slowly to one knee, head dipping in the most resentful suggestion of obeisance possible. A frayed and faded garment was his only adornment beyond a thick fall of reddish hair, a youthful ornament theZabrak could only observe with contempt. The hot wind picked at the duster's folds, whipped strands of auburn about the Jedi's sweat-sheened face. A pair of untamed, smoldering eyes bored into him , spitting defiance.
" Abase yourself!" he bellowed, cruelly yanking his captives' head to one side.
The young Jedi bared his teeth, a feral beast too proud to cringe at the whip's touch, too spirited to be broken by any but its true master. He lowered his forehead to the burning sand in a full kowtow, every line of his posture radiating rebellion, redolent of the most exquisite distillation of attachment. The weakness was a gaping hole in adamantine armor, a delicious vulnerability.
The Watcher trembled in unison with his victim, panting slightly in the excoriating heat. Two suns sank upon the horizon, slowly immolated upon the planet's hearth, molten golds running together into a monumental idol, a hecatomb of liquid fire.
"Call me master," he cajoled his Chosen, the words silken, a caress softer than any lover's touch.
So close.
The Jedi stiffened, head snapping up. The suns' ire sparked about him, glinting off every crease and fold of white cloth, gilding his unruly hair. "You are master of nothing," he snarled. "The Dark is utter enslavement, not power."
The Watcher leaned forward, over the older Jedi's shoulder. "What you feel: it is called anger."
"I do not know anger!"
But the repudiation rang hollow. He did know anger. He was alflame with it, with intoxicating dread, with the rarefied fury of protective fear, the sweet-sick yearnings engendered by love, by base attachment. Vulnerable, the Chosen one recoiled when his shields were touched, shuddered when his defenses were assailed- gently, so gently, so urgently…
"Hate," the Watcher murmured, nostrils flaring, blood pounding in his veins. So close, so close… he had the demanded prize here, in his hand – the Child precious to his master, the command laid upon him. And better still, imminent victory, the utter violation of his Chosen foe. They teetered upon the brink of seduction, of ecstasy. "Hate. Feel it. Embrace it."
"No," the Jedi insisted, anguish softening the word to a moan.
"No," the Jedi master whispered.
"No!" the Child wailed.
"Yes," the Watcher groaned, thrusting the crimson blade clean through his prisoner's chest. The 'saber shot straight from its hilt, impaling the Jedi master upon a millenium's burning hatred, drawing from his rigid body a silent scream of agony.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" his young counterpart screamed, shields instantly decimated, dams broken, resistance shattered.
And in that moment, the Watcher knew bliss, felt the fatal shaft drive hard into two hearts, skewering his enemy to the very core, to the sanctum of his being, an inviolate temple of light soiled and desecrated in one fell strike.
The Jedi master crumpled forward, body pierced and smoldering; the Watcher's blade swept up in triumphant pride; the victim of his long labors fell upon him in a blazing fury, 'saber still howling that same boundless cry of pain and loss.
And they were joined, in battle, in heat, in passion.
Anakin felt the incorporeal vise about his limbs loosen in the same instant that the fell creature and Obi-Wan's blades slammed together with a dissonant shriek of crimson and blue fire. He tumbled forward onto hands and knees, sucking in great lungfuls of bitter, grit-laden air, gulping down the desert's consuming heat until his insides were smoldering with it.
Through blearing eyes he beheld a combat more ferocious than any krayt dragon's territorial dispute; the clashing warriors spun and leapt, whirled and drove against each other with a speed and abandon that made even him dizzy. Raw power rolled off them in unsteady waves: pain, hunger, rage, need – these blended into a miasma about them, a halo in which sand and sky were snared. Twisting columns of sand rose about their boots, whipped around them in angry comet-trails; moisture precipitated where the plasma blades cleaved the air; the desert floor was scarred with trails of liquid glass where a 'saber nicked its surface, rivulets of molten angush.
The weapons sang an awful canticle of strife, a pair of hammers showering down vivid embers where they struck, the twin screams of thranctills plunging from on high. The evil guy, the black cloaked one, swung one foot so high it almost caught the Jedi in his chin; a tight backflip carried the target away from the strike, with a yell of intense fury.
Fire raged within the spectator. Fire and fear, intoxicating.
Mister Qui-Gon sir was …. Really, really hurt. He could die. But nobody could kill a Jedi, could they? Could they? he flinched when a severed chunk of krayt bone landed just beside him, blackened at one end where a laser sword had cut clean through it. And then he stood, grasping the improvised weapon in one small hand, the desert itself erupting within him, liquefying beneath the twin suns of wrath and sorrow.
Now the opponents moved so fast he could not see their separate movements, distinguish one blazing arc of fire from another. They were locked in a frenzied contest of speed, power, skill, passion, burning passion –
And then they grappled, bodies locked and struggling, faces contorted in a mutual snarl. The Zabrak roared, and slammed his horned head smack into Obi-Wan's face; the latter person stumbled back, but in his left hand he had another 'saber hilt, Mister Qui-Gon's weapon, and then –
Anakin yelped in astonishment, for now there were four blades carving the twilight into bloody tatters – two scarlet, an emerald and a blue. Their cacophony filed the desert to overflowing, echoed back off the Black Hills, cast angry radiance over the krayt's leering skull, churned the onrushing night into apocalyptic fireworks. Dust rose in a storm about the battle, encircling it, veiling it. Anakin crept nearer, heart pounding to a compelling chorus – Korah Matah Yoodah Korah!
The Zabrak wheeled now, facing him; and he threw his piece of bone, not only with his arm but with every fiber of his being. It hit the tattooed warrior full in the jaw, snapping his head back and eliciting a howl of surprise.
And in that instant, Mister Obi-Wan struck, the green blade sweeping wide to knock his foe's 'saber clear, the blue one whipping down and around, adder-like, to chop his enemy's sword-hand off at the wrist!
The Zabrak roared in agony and twisted to one side, face a jagged gargoylish mask of rage – and then he took a boot to the head, rolled backward, and ended with Mister Obi-Wan standing over him, one foot pressed hard against his jugular, the sapphire blade thrumming hot just between his eyes.
Whoa. Anakin panted, riveted to the spot, unable to draw his eyes away. Would a 'saber burn straight through a skull, melt the brain within, burn out the eye sockets and sizzle the flesh to blackened ash? Bile rose in his throat, his stomach flipped queasily, and yet he could not look away.
The Zabrak laughed, and laughed. "Hate, " he gasped, pain serrating the syllable, "This is hate. I have won."
Mister Obi-Wan's face was a mess: blood ran freely from his forehead, where the Zabrak had head-butted him; sweat sheened his skin, making him look ghostly and waxen in the reflected fire of the 'sabers; his teeth were bared like a cornered beast, his eyes wide and red-rimmed.
Anakin cringed, entranced. Just kill him, kill him please please please end it…
And then the Jedi did the most choobazzi ridiculous stupid thing. He threw his own laser swords away. They landed in the sand behind Anakin, thumping into the dust, thwack thwack. And then he stepped backward, shaking like he was in shock or something, his breath coming in heaving gasps.
The Zabrak clutched his arm, the place where the cloth and flesh glowed red-orange, and his yellow eyes goggled, his lips contracted about his crooked teeth. He spat between them, a sibilant curse, and he rolled to his feet, also panting, weaving where he stood like he was about to pass out.
Anakin heard the whine of a speeder's drive, and hollered aloud. Mister Obi-Wan ducked, faster than thought, and the first blaster rifle shot winged so close to the Zabrak's head it might have clipped a horn.
"Farkin' son of a whore!" a harsh voice shouted, as the speeder with its four passengers careened by. More rifle shots peppered the air, indiscriminately aimed, badly off mark. A body slammed into Anakin's and pinned him against the sand, protectively.
"Stay down," Mister Obi-Wan hissed in his ear.
The sound of a speeder's repulsors whizzed by overhead - a strafing run made by the monster's former indignant victims. Rifle blasts exploded in the sand, sending up spouts of grit. The machine circled and came back again, its pilot unleashing a steady string of imprecation.
"Whooooooooop! That's right you whoreson vetch! Run!" the moisture farmers bellowed as they passed again, and headed into the open wastes.
Anakin pushed the heavy weight off him. "Hey! Hey! Where's that guy? What happened?"
"…He fled," the Jedi answered, kneeling there in the sand, looking white as the mighty lizard's bleached bones. He looked ill, sick and weary, and something worse. Much worse.
Anakin squinted into the rapidly deepening dusk. The higher whine of a swoop could be heard over the speeder's rumbling drive. "They won't catch him," he decided.
Obi-Wan shook his head, eyes closed. "No," he agreed, breathlessly. He struggled to his feet, and stumbled across the beaten sands to the place where the Jedi master lay, deathly still, in a crumpled heap.
Anakin followed, magnetically drawn to the scene of disaster, eyes wide.
The young Jedi dropped to his knees, and tenderly rolled his mentor over, one arm supporting the wounded man's head, one trembling badly as it hovered above the awful, smoldering gash in his chest, the blackened crater where a 'saber had pierced through and through.
"….Qui-Gon," he choked, voice breaking.