A/N: Late as usual I'm afraid :/ I blame 1) grad school and 2) my new niece, who (her father assures us) was born a LOTR fan and therefore instead of a crochet stuffed animal from me, got a (partial) crochet Fellowship of the Ring. I.e. instead of writing, my creative energies have been devoted to stitching teensy swords, embroidering microscopic leaves of Lorien, and tying individual yarn fragments on hobbit feet. My handses, precious, my poor handses... But they turned out extremely cute. Not as cute as my niece obviously, but cute. On with the show :)
CANTO VIII
"The deep things that on me bestow
their image here, are hid from sight below,
so that their being lies in faith alone,
and on that faith the highest hope is founded;
and thus it is that faith is called a substance.
And it is from this faith that we must reason…
without our being able to see more:
thus faith is also called an evidence."
- Dante's Paradiso, Canto XXIV, 70-78
"What is thy bidding, my master?"
Like an obsidian mirror, his apprentice has become: smooth, flat, dark, reflecting all, revealing nothing. Two years now they have been playing this game, and still Lord Vader has yet to mention the name Skywalker. He scarcely regrets the loss of Padmé Amidala's spectral visits. Who would have thought the volcanic Lord Vader could learn patience after all? It gives him hope that the man might yet master a little real deceit. In the meantime, there is amusement aplenty to be had paying out the leash, seeing how far Vader will carry this charade of ignorance, needling him towards confession…
…and, of course, enjoying his abundant rages from afar. His spies tell him Vader has deprived his navy of two more command officers today, so presumably the young sand flea has stung the krayt dragon yet again — though it is looking less like a sand flea these days. It is getting faster, its teeth sharper, its wings longer; there is a whiff of brimstone in its breath. The game, diverting though it is, must end. He can afford to lose it; the real contest and the real prizes lie elsewhere.
Still, the dejarik player in him cannot resist one last round, to see if Vader's nerve will hold to the limit. He relaxes in his throne, all easy poise, as if they do not both know that this is mere theater. "We have a new enemy," he drawls. "The young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star."
They both know he knows the name, has known it for years — that doesn't matter. He wants it from Vader. Give him to me, Lord Vader…or do you dare lie to my face?
If not the former, he fully expects the lie…but what Lord Vader in fact does is nothing. He remains silently where he is, a bland question on one knee, as if awaiting orders he does not care about concerning the fate of some embezzling moff on some backwater world.
Bravo, Lord Vader. But there are ways to lose victoriously.
"I have no doubt," he says calmly, "that this boy is…" He speaks slowly, letting Vader hear the possibilities: your son, he might say, or the son of my loyal servant, or any other permutation that would acknowledge Vader's claim on the brat."…the offspring of Anakin Skywalker."
He has been at considerable pains to instruct Lord Vader in the catechism of Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker is a dead Jedi. Anakin Skywalker is a pile of ashes, mercifully reforged by a benevolent master into something worth being. If there is any trifling sense in which Anakin Skywalker can still be said to draw breath, it is only by his will. It has been decades since Vader contradicted him on any of these points. Even assuming he wanted to, heresy entails a steep penalty.
"How is that possible?"
Not nearly enough question in that question. He narrows his eyes, equally impatient of the obstinacy and the subpar acting. Vader never did have the finesse for these psychological games. Typical of him, still trying to play after the game has ended.
"Search your feelings, Lord Vader," he says — much too grandly, but one must exaggerate with Lord Vader to be sure he understands that he is being toyed with. "You will know it to be true."
He is half tempted to search Lord Vader's feelings for him, break that obsidian mirror and rifle through his mind. He could do it, certainly…
…but that would be such tedium. There is nothing in that mind he doesn't know, however Vader dissembles outwardly. As it was with the wife, so now with the son: first the discovery, then the concealment, and now the justifications will begin. As Amidala was "just a friend," this will be "just a boy." As he once excused love under the Jedi banner of compassion, so he will excuse it now under the Sith banner of ambition, painting the chaotic whelp as a potential asset.
"He could destroy us," he prompts, all solicitous concern.
"He's just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him."
He really mustn't laugh, but it's difficult. "The Force is strong with him," he points out instead. It's like reading off a prompter, the man's train of thought is so predictable. "The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi."
Dear, oh dear…if not a Jedi, what is a strong young Force sensitive to become?
"If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally."
And that, sadly, is the closest Lord Vader is ever likely to get to subtlety. How Amidala would wince. "Yes…he would be a great asset. Can it be done?"
"He will join us or die, my master."
Exactly as foreseen. He ends the transmission, sitting back to reflect with satisfaction. Young Skywalker may take after his mother all he pleases. Like her he may have contrived to give a few surprises, may have bumbled his way to subverting certain schemes; but like her, he is ultimately no more than a pawn on the board. Well…perhaps a knight or a rook. Vader is right about that much, the boy could be quite useful under the right circumstances. Not least among his attractions is the thought of how exquisitely the sight of him, twisted and corrupted like his father, would torment Amidala. If she ever dares to show herself again —
Rising from his throne, he stills suddenly.
Amidala.
Why did Vader make no mention of Amidala?
He sits back down, mind sprinting. Vader may not know of Amidala's involvement in his own survival, but this boy is another matter. Even premising that Kenobi cut the infant out of its mother's womb, he could not have done so until after the battle — more than twenty minutes later, far too long for a fetus to have survived in a dead host without medical intervention. The child left Mustafar alive; therefore so did its mother. It is impossible that Vader has failed to realize these facts. Equally impossible that he has failed to extrapolate one further fact: that his master lied to him concerning Amidala's fate.
Yet he never so much as spoke her name. Never even referred to her, except perhaps that disinterested, almost sarcastic question: how is that possible. As if he scarcely cared to know…
…or does he already know?
A snarl twists his lip and spits a command into the currents of the Force. Padmé Amidala, present yourself to me!
There is a long pause, a pause that disquiets him strangely. In all these years he has never attempted to summon her, content to allow one little pleasant unpredictability in his carefully planned and controlled days; but now that he has tried, it would gall him to fail. Perhaps she can no longer manifest, her life force subsumed in the brat she somehow slipped past him…or does she have the power to refuse such a command —
But no. A soft sigh of wind stirs the drapes of the throne room, and when he turns, a graceful form flickers softly against the fabric and the shadows. He relaxes a little.
"There you are, my dear. I was beginning to wonder if there was anything left of you."
"I've wondered the same about you."
"Indeed?" He indulges her with a smile. Does it think there is good still in him, too? Does it fancy that the kind Senator Palpatine of its childhood was ever anything but a façade? It would be like her. "Your concern touches me, child. I've missed our little talks of late."
He beckons. He doesn't want to allow her to shelter her insubstantiality in the shadows, and one more test of his control won't hurt. She steps forward, and he grins…though her form doesn't pale in the light. It grows harder, sharper, brighter. He finds himself disdaining to look her in the eye.
Instead he glances leisurely at the holocom projector. "I've just been speaking with Lord Vader. A bit belated, but do allow me to offer my congratulations on the birth of your son." He activates his holoimage of young Skywalker, ochre gaze boring into it. "Such an active young man he's turned out."
He deigns to look at her again to see the result of his needling. Her face is unmoved and calm, a deep still sea. Anything might be swimming in those waters.
"Like his father before him," he adds. Savagely — it is a promise. Whether in darkness or in fire, Luke Skywalker will share his father's destiny. And now he is confident he can command it, he'll make sure the mother is there to watch.
"Yes," she says. "Like his father before him."
He sits back with a leer. "In other words, he is not mine and there is good in him?"
She is standing directly before him now, studying him with a clear and unnerving gaze. His countenance contorts with rage; how dare she examine him like this, she, a dead woman, a failure — yet he can't think how to stop her. Lord of the darkness though he be, even he can't kill her again.
"A little left," she says, more to herself than to him. "It might be enough, though."
She turns, and he snaps his fingers, the Force lunging out like a hound to forbid her departure. "I gave you no leave to go, woman." She turns back — a trifle slowly, perhaps, but they can work on the fine details of obedience later. "You will await my permission. In this, and in all things."
"Including speaking to my husband?" A wry, amused smile and a knowing air hover about her, as if she's been waiting for this subject the whole time; perhaps the Force vouchsafes more insight to the dead, or perhaps she was already nearby during the exchange with Vader. "I speak to him all the time. You know he doesn't hear me."
He settles comfortably back into his throne, satisfied. Like all good politicians she is—was—a most competent liar, but the ring of truth fills the Force. She cannot manifest to Vader against his will, and thus Vader can never discover the true manner of her death. Her sentimental sacrifice remains, as it has been these past twenty-two years, his gain. "Because I have forbidden it. I have won. He is mine. Your son is also mine…or else he will forfeit his life, like his mother before him."
Deep and solemn as the tolling of a great bell, she nods. "As you say."
He has a crawling feeling that this is also some sort of promise, but he can't imagine what.
tbc