5/13/23: Edited and chapter order swapped
Chapter 17
Here There Be Dragons
The being that had spoken sounded large. Vader bowed courteously, his mother's tales of polite slave boys and kind peasant girls ringing in his ears. All doors open to courtesy, which costs nothing and gains everything. "Great One, I took refuge from the storm and needed water for the desert journey."
The rich voice rumbled reprovingly, "That is why, but not who. Who are you?"
"I am called Kraytrider."
A soft bellow awoke the echoes. "This is not your true name, and you have no right to claim it. You may plan to free the slaves, but it is for your own ego, not compassion's sake, that you do this. You have neither kept your oaths nor told the truth. Now I ask you again: who are you?"
How could it know? Menace hung in the air as he paused. "No. It is not my true name, Great One. My name is Vader."
The atmosphere grew more oppressive, and the voice rose in a great crescendo until it thundered. "Twice you have spoken deceitfully, son of the desert. I permit no one to claim what is false more than three times. For the last time, what is your name?"
At last he knew what he faced. This was a greater krayt, and only the purest truth would satisfy her. The truth alone gives life, his mother's voice whispered. His own voice felt small as he said, "My name is—Anakin Skywalker, Great Mother."
A low growl throbbed through the darkness, but the menace lessened. "Very well, Anakin Skywalker who is called Vader. You shall live for now, but I claim my Three Questions. You have answered one truthfully, yet you have spoken untruthfully twice. A third lie and you will not escape. Why are you here?"
"Great Mother, as I told you, I needed water."
"That is not an untruth. But it is not the whole truth either. Why have you come?"
Anakin was quiet. The krayt said nothing, waiting patiently in the blackness. When he spoke, his voice was halting. "I do not know. Something called me, so I came. But I do not know what it is, and I do not know why."
There was a pause as though the krayt weighed his words. The silence stretched. "This is a truth. The final Question: What do you want?"
He thought long and hard. Finally he said with confidence, "To kill my master."
A deep hiss in the darkness. "That is a truth, but not the truth."
He considered again, then said quietly, "To be free."
"That is still not the truth." Her voice was a warm rumble all around him. "You want these things, but they are not what you want most."
He never knew how long they faced each other in the gloom before he whispered, "I want my child to be safe, and well, and happy. To know her. And not to be alone anymore."
Her approval seemed to shake the world. "Good, Anakin Skywalker called Vader. Very good. Your honesty has earned you your life. As you have already taken the water you sought, that shall be the boon you might by right have asked of me."
He bowed again. "Thank you, Great Mother."
Abruptly the foreboding menace returned. Anakin flinched. "I smelled death when I arrived. You have spoken the truth of the Three Questions. Now I ask: Why does my nest stink of death?"
He wet his lips. "I killed a pair of womp rats that threatened me. I believe they were seeking your eggs."
"My eggs." The krayt's voice echoed through the cavern. "What do you know of my eggs?"
"I was searching for more womp rats when I saw the nest. But I did it no harm, Great One." He wondered if he would pay for his knowledge with his life, despite the bargain of the Three Questions.
The krayt was silent for a long time, long enough that Anakin began to sweat. A great gust of air blew past him. It was several seconds before he realized she had sighed. "Then I owe you a debt, son of the desert. It must not remain unpaid."
"I—I assure you, Great Mother, that you owe me no debt. The womp rats threatened my life. I did not know of your nest."
"Do you tell me that you would not have protected the young if your own life had not been threatened?"
"I—"
"Do not speak in haste. I will hear the true answer."
He stuttered to a stop. At last he whispered, "I do not know what I would have done. I think I might have protected them. But there are other younglings I did not protect from a much greater threat."
He faltered into silence.
After a heavy pause, the krayt said, "You must speak the words if they are to be yours, Anakin Skywalker. The first step in repentance is always the naming." Her voice was gentle but stern.
"My child," he whispered.
The krayt said nothing. Waiting.
The silence had grown too thick to bear when he choked out his confession at last. "I attacked her mother in my anger and selfishness. I would have—" he swallowed with difficulty, throat so tight he could hardly force out the words— "killed them both if I had not been stopped."
"And yet even this, as grave as it was, is not the entirety of your crimes against those who cannot defend themselves." She fell silent again.
"The Jedi children." He stopped, hoping that would satisfy her, but still she waited. With a sinking heart, he admitted she would say no more until he had named the crime in full. "They trusted me, and I murdered them. I told myself they were better off dead than trained in the Jedi lies or taken by Sidious. But really I wanted no competition for my own position as Sidious's apprentice. Or for my child's status."
Still she said nothing. The darkness itself seemed to lean in, pressing against him, stifling him with the weight of her expectation. When he thought he could endure the silence no longer, she said more softly than seemed possible for such a creature, "And still you avoid your naming."
He knew what she meant. All the same, it was many long seconds before he could make himself speak. And even then he stumbled over the words. "The Sand People. I hated—I hate them—for what they did to my mother. I slaughtered them all—including the children."
"Your hatred is not unreasonable," her tone was the gentlest yet, "but it is no excuse for wanton destruction."
"They killed her. For no reason. She never hurt anyone—she did good all her life. She chose to remain in slavery to help others. They deserved to suffer for what they did." The old anger had ignited, hot and quick and fueled by disillusioned faith. "I—I asked for help to save her. The Sisters were meeting that night. But they did nothing! She died in my arms." It was a cry of agony. The first tragedy he had not been able to prevent. The one that had broken his hope.
"On the contrary. The moons blessed your journey that your mother might not die alone. Shmi Skywalker suffered greatly, it is true, but she never despaired, and they guided you across the sands in order that she might be comforted at her death. The Sisters offered you light." She had spoken mildly—almost tenderly—but now she growled deep in her throat. "You plunged into darkness. Even your Force cried out in warning. Yet you paid no heed. Rather, you exacted your vengeance."
Longing to flee in the face of these unbearable truths, he was riveted in place by something greater than himself.
"Was it justice, Anakin Skywalker? Did it increase the galaxy's store of goodness? Did it bring light to the Riders of the Wastes, lost in ignorance and superstition?" Gentle but firm, her measured words struck his spirit like silent hammer blows. "Personal feelings must not justify evil."
He stood a long time fighting the bitterness that even now filled him at the memory of his mother's suffering. The Great Mother did not speak again.
This was it. The core of his sin. His personal feelings had always governed him. Had been his justification for every evil he had committed. As long as he justified his actions because they served his ends or because someone had wronged him, he would be a slave whether he bowed before a master or not. With a choked-off cry, he surrendered to a truth he had fled all his life. He could not forgive the Sand People for what they had done. He could not release his bitterness at what his mother had suffered at their hands. But he would use it to excuse his own crime against them no longer. "It was not justice, Great Mother."
"Would you do it again?"
He clenched his fists until the gears groaned. "No. Never again."
"This also is a truth. What amends will you offer?"
His head remained bowed. His whisper dropped straight to the floor with the weight of his shame. "I cannot do anything. The evil is too great."
"Do not be so swift to abandon hope." The low rumble sounded almost soothing. "Will you swear to defend those who cannot defend themselves? To do what is right when it is easier to do wrong? To respect the natural order of life and death? To submit to the will of the desert and your Force rather than strive to make them submit to you? Consider carefully, Anakin Skywalker called Vader. To break this Oath will cost your life."
The indistinct call he had followed through the desert sharpened. This was what he had been summoned to do: to take the Krayt's Oath—solemn, binding, unbreakable. The stories said that the Oath could be refused, but the one who did forfeited all help from both krayt and desert. They told how the Oath was offered by the desert itself through the Great Mother. That those who accepted it were bound for life to the terms but that the desert itself would help them fulfill their vows.
He never knew how long he considered the question. Could he keep the Oath? He had broken his vows to the Jedi, the Sith, even his own wife. Would he exercise the fidelity it demanded? The krayt seemed willing to wait as long as necessary. Finally he squared his shoulders and straightened his spine. "I will take the Oath." He dropped to one knee, as he had done to bind himself to both the Jedi and the Sith.
"Do not bow to me, son of the desert. I am not your master, and I never will be. I will be your ally for the work that lies before you, but I shall not command you. Stand up, you who would be free."
Anakin hesitated. Was he seeking a new master? The ease of surrendering control of his life to another? He searched his heart for long moments. At last he looked up, though he could see nothing in the dark cave. "I do not bow to you as my master, Great Mother, but only in humility at the vow I am taking." His voice grew faint. "I have failed to keep every oath I have ever made, but now I see that I took those vows in pride and ambition. I take this one in humility, knowing my own weakness and failures."
The krayt's voice rolled through the cavern. "You have spoken well, Krayt Rider. Very well. Make the Oath."
"I—You know that Kraytrider is not my name, Great One."
"It is now. Make your vow, Anakin Skywalker the Krayt Rider."
He drew a shaky breath. His voice was thready as he began, but it strengthened as he recited his Oath. "I swear to defend and protect the weak, to submit to the will of the Force and the desert, to—respect the natural order of life and death. I promise that I will do what is right, even if it costs me what is most dear. I swear by the desert, the Two Brothers, and the Three Sisters in the presence of the Great Mother." As he spoke, the mysterious call that had drawn him into the desert grew deafening. It was so overwhelming, it almost drowned out the Force, which rang like a great bell. Anakin fell back in an ungainly sprawl. The Great Mother's bellow of approval shook the walls and ceiling of the cavern.
"Good! It is very good! Now come."
He could not see her turn toward the opposite wall of the cavern, but he heard her moving away. He scrambled for his dropped lantern, hoping it would still work, but had no sooner grasped it than she reproved him.
"You will not need your light. Come."
Gripping the lamp nevertheless, he stumbled in her wake, following her presence by some combination of the strange magic in this place, the sounds of her movements, and the guidance of the Force. She had no presence in the Force that he could detect, though she was perhaps the most alive being he had ever met. He might have puzzled over that contradiction more, except he was too busy trying to keep up without tripping.
He gasped when he stepped into a second cavern—rather smaller than the first, he thought, though still large enough not to feel cramped with the bulk of a krayt in it. Where was the light coming from? He glanced around, discovering eventually that a cleft in the cavern's roof framed the constellation of the Great Krayt above. The leading edge of Ghermessa was even now clearing the rim of the fissure.
"Take what you will need to fulfill your oath, Skywalker Krayt Rider," she said.
He tore his gaze from the void overhead to look at her. Her eyes gleamed silver in the faint light. He caught an impression of bulky immensity that was nonetheless incredibly graceful. Just how big was she, anyway? He shoved the question aside. It was irrelevant. She paced along one wall, saying, "This is my treasure house. You may claim one thing that will assist you in keeping your vow. Choose well, for mortals see the krayt's treasure but once in a lifetime."
Every instinct cried out to keep his attention focused on her, radiating as she did the untamable menace of an apex predator. It was with great effort that he turned to study the contents of the cavern, mere indistinct shapes in the dimness. His finger twitched over the lamp's power switch, but he restrained himself. The krayt had said he would not need his light. He hoped that was not merely because she did not understand the limitations of human vision in the darkness. He scanned the cave but saw nothing that seemed essential to his quest. Slowly he walked among the piles and along the walls. The krayt had not moved from her position near the door. He caught glimpses of strange shapes and gleams that might be moonlight reflected off metal. He had wandered through the entire cavern without finding anything that felt right. Sighing, he turned to survey the cave once more when a flash caught his eye.
It disappeared as soon as he turned his head, but he walked in the direction it had come from. Reaching the wall, he could see no sign of what had drawn his attention. He examined the area from different angles without success. Not understanding why he continued to search, but knowing in his bones that it was important, he ran his hand across the wall. While the nerves in the prosthetics were not nearly as sensitive as those in a natural hand, they were adequate to perceive the roughness of the stone and the softness of the overlaid moss. Something had caught the light. The wall was uneven, with hollows and protrusions. It was in one of the hollows that he felt it: A small nub with a different texture than the surrounding rock. It seemed to be covered with moss. His fingers groped along its outline, and with a quiet snap, it dropped into his hand, gleaming as it fell.
As he caught it, the Force and that other strange call rang in harmony again. The almost-sound was so loud that he thought he could hear it with his ears, staggered again at its power. He brushed moss off the stone to find he was holding a crystal. He turned and held it up. It glinted and flashed in the silvery light.
"Is this your choice?" the krayt asked.
"Yes, Great Mother. It is the heart of the weapon I must build to defeat my master." He bowed in her direction. "I crave your favor. I do not know why, but I must make it here, while the Three Sisters meet above in the heart of the Great Krayt. Will you grant this boon?"
"Do what is necessary, Krayt Rider," she said and settled herself in her place by the door.