Chapter 51
Dies Illa
Anakin stared down at Palpatine's crouched figure. Gasping and wheezing, the Emperor twisted to glare at him, hatred blazing in his yellow eyes. "You are…too weak…" he choked out. "Even now, you lack the resolve to kill me."
Another wave of hatred surged through Anakin. He clung to his composure by a fingertip. "Obi-Wan," he rasped, "I—I am too angry. I am afraid if I—if I do this now…that…"
The scrape of something large sliding over rocks and sand sounded behind them. "Well done, Krayt Rider," a powerful voice rumbled.
With a startled yelp, Obi-Wan whirled to face the Great Mother, his blade springing to life reflexively. Ahsoka sprang up, the lightsaber Luke had dropped flying to her hand in an instant.
Anakin startled, not so much in response to the Great Mother's arrival as to his friends' reactions to her, and the crossed lightsabers in his hands parted involuntarily. Palpatine would have lost his head then and there, except that he had seized the moment to dive forward. Intentionally or not, he glanced off Anakin's knees and the impact sent Anakin, already slightly off balance, teetering until he stumbled into Obi-Wan's back. Meanwhile, Palpatine clambered awkwardly to his feet and made a break toward the south and the only open ground available.
The krayt lunged to cut him off. Fangs as long as a lightsaber blade snapped a warning a mere meter from his head. The Emperor—who had never, to Anakin's recollection, flinched at anything—recoiled. As though to cover for the lapse, he snarled, transformed his fear into lightning that he hurled at her eye, and dodged into the blind spot beneath her neck. The lightning flickered across her scales without causing her visible distress. With another equally impotent bolt of electricity to the underside of her neck, Palpatine launched himself into the air in the direction of the Jundland Wastes beyond the shuttle. Swifter than sight, the krayt's tail snatched him up to hold him suspended before her.
She skewered him with one inscrutable eye, but it was to Anakin that she spoke. "You have indeed done well, Krayt Rider. You have found true freedom: the freedom to master yourself. Even when confronted with your greatest enemy threatening what you hold most dear."
"Barely. And only with help, Great Mother," he said with a respectful bow.
"Who said you must do it alone?" The words were amused, if he could dare to ascribe such a human emotion to her.
Surprise had frozen Luke where he still hunched over his wounded wrist. Ahsoka, mouth agape, her eyes glued to the krayt, wrenched her attention back to Leia when the girl moaned. Obi-Wan extinguished his lightsaber and hurried to her side.
Anakin took a step toward them but hesitated, looking irresolutely back at Palpatine, still thrashing in the krayt's grip.
"You may tend your young, Krayt Rider," the Great Mother said. "I will deal with this slaver."
Still Anakin hesitated, torn between conflicting needs.
The krayt huffed. "Unless you wish to enact justice yourself, Anakin Skywalker. The choice is yours." It was Anakin's turn to find himself weighed under her aloof gaze. Palpatine had ceased to waste his energy on struggling and glared at him with a venomous sneer. Anakin glared back, his hatred writhing in his gut. "The choice is no trap. You may choose what it is you desire. Freely and without coercion."
"Go on—do it, Anakin," Ahsoka urged beside him. "Nobody could say he doesn't deserve it."
Anakin set his jaw. She was right, but he still feared the consequences of killing his master when he was in this state. And in a choice between his own desire for revenge and his children's well-being, he would always choose his children. He extinguished his blades. "I have every right to kill you for what you have done to me and my family, but I refuse to serve the Dark Side again, and killing you right now just might lead me back down that path. So I will let you stand under the Great Mother's judgment. But so much as try to touch them…"
"Have no fear, Krayt Rider. I will give him a choice and his fate shall be on his own head." The Great Mother set her captive on the ground, boxed in between her tail and her head. "No matter his choice, though, his tyranny ends here and now."
Anakin scoffed. "The Questions are a waste of time. He's never told the unvarnished truth in his life."
"We shall see what he will do. Go now. Your young need you."
"A word of advice, Sheev," Anakin said as he hung the lightsabers at his belt and slipped his left arm around Luke, "don't try to lie to a krayt. They take it very seriously."
Never quite taking his eyes off Palpatine, he pulled Luke under the shelter of the shuttle where Leia was sitting on the edge of the ramp and leaning dizzily against Obi-Wan. Ahsoka considered the situation for another moment, but in the end she too returned its her hilt to her belt. Squatting beside Leia, she pulled a knife out of her belt and slashed the cable that still stretched between the twins.
"Sheev Palpatine," the Great Mother intoned, "you who call yourself Emperor and Darth Sidious, you have come to the desert of your own choice. The time has come for you to account for your crimes, so I adjure you to answer the Three Questions. Who are you?"
Palpatine fixed his eyes somewhere beyond the Great Mother, as though by refusing to acknowledge her existence he could refuse her demands. "You have no authority over me, and I shall not stoop to be questioned by a mere brute beast."
The krayt raised her head in a resounding bellow and the force of it shook the ground. Her presence swelled around them, immense and inexorable. Palpatine tried to resist that compulsion so hard that his face grew taut with the strain. Even Leia and Luke, who were not its target, sagged under the weight of it.
"You shall. For a mortal to refuse the Questions is to choose death. Who are you?" Impossible as it seemed, the pressure of her will increased until Anakin thought his body must bend under it.
Even Palpatine could not withstand her power. "Since you insist," he grated through a clenched jaw, "I am the Emperor of the galaxy. I govern the star systems flung over a hundred thousand light years, and no one can resist my will."
"That is not who you are."
"How…?" Ahsoka, still crouched beside Leia, twisted her head toward the confrontation.
Anakin shrugged helplessly. "I can't explain how she's doing it."
The krayt lowered her head still farther until she was directly in Palpatine's line of sight. Rebelliously, he turned his head to the side and resumed his obstinate silence.
Ahsoka narrowed her eyes. "I have no idea what's going on, but the lizard seems more than capable of handling Sheev." She sliced the other end of the cable near Luke's left hand. "Maybe we could take care of the twins now?"
"Yes. But, Snips—no nicknames," Anakin warned. "Krayts are not to be trifled with."
She considered the dragon for a moment and nodded. "Agreed. Well, Leia's shoulder is dislocated, but this isn't the best place to set it."
"How about over there." Obi-Wan pointed with his chin to the boulders that marked the southern boundary of the plateau. Without waiting for a response, he eased Leia from her seat on the ramp until she was standing and he could support her slow steps. With a mournful hoot, Artoo followed, chittering forlornly all the while.
Ahsoka straightened and returned the knife to the pouch on her belt. "I'm going to check the shuttle for medical supplies." She scowled at the scowling and silent Emperor. "Make sure Old Gristle Guts doesn't try anything."
"I'm okay, Ahsoka. Really." Luke's tight voice belied the cheerful words.
"Sure you are, SkyKid." She gently brushed Luke's unkempt bangs out of his eyes. "Just—stay out of trouble? For my sake?"
"I'll keep him safe," Anakin assured her. He tightened his arm around Luke. Ahsoka, with a last suspicious glance at Palpatine, hopped up onto the cockeyed ramp while Anakin encouraged his son to follow in Leia's footsteps. "Luke. I'm so sorry, son. I never wanted this for you."
Despite the pain in his eyes, Luke's lips twitched upward in a valiant show of fortitude. "Not…your fault. 'S mine. Trying—take on…Sith…Lord."
A faint, pained grin flitted across Anakin's face. "Well, if it's a fault, then it's one we share." Luke twisted his head to look up at him quizzically. Anakin waved his right hand. "I lost my first limb to Sidious' previous apprentice when I wasn't much older than you."
Luke blinked. "Oh. I thought…But you said—Obi-Wan…?"
"That was later. This happened at the first battle of the Clone Wars. Doing something about as reckless as you just did."
Luke huffed a weak laugh as he took the last few steps to where Leia and Obi-Wan waited. "Like father, like son, you mean?"
"Oh, I devoutly hope not," Anakin said as he lowered him to lie on the ground beside Leia. He would have preferred to move the twins off the plateau entirely or at least into the hut, but there was no path around the shuttle or the krayt. Luke settled, he turned to examine Leia. "Do you think she's ready?" he asked Obi-Wan.
"Yes," Leia slurred. "Now."
Obi-Wan nodded and set his lips. "Let's get this over with." The next minute was painful for all of them but blessedly brief.
"Lie still until we can find something to stabilize the joint," Anakin said once her shoulder had snapped into place.
"No…prob—lem…"
Fortunately, it was at that moment Ahsoka hurried up with painkillers, a sling for Leia, and a compression bandage for Luke's wrist. Lightsabers cauterized as they cut, so Luke hadn't bled to death, but the wound still required pressure for optimal recovery. Although recovery was a distant consideration until Palpatine had been neutralized. First aid out of the way, Anakin and Ahsoka spread thermal blankets over the twins.
Beside the derelict shuttle, Palpatine was still doing his best to ignore the krayt. There seemed to be no sound in the world except her breathing.
"Very well," she said at last. "I shall speak since you will not. You are Sheev Palpatine called Darth Sidious, the Great Slaver. You have used the advantages to which you were born, not to serve those less fortunate, but to advance your own status and power until you crushed the galaxy under your fist. Do you acknowledge this truth?"
Palpatine lifted his chin but it seemed his resistance had run its course. Or else his pride had been stung enough that he could no longer resist answering. "I do not. I will not. I have taken what was my due and proven my right to it by holding it."
"No one holds power by right. You have been permitted to hold it this long only in order that, when judgment comes, all may see that it is just. Now—why have you come to my domain?"
"Your domain?" Palpatine sneered, looking at her at last. "This is my domain. If you hold it at all, it is only at my pleasure and permission."
"You delude yourself, slaver, as all slave masters do," the krayt growled. "The power you hold is temporary and fleeting. Nothing built on lies can endure. Not even your empire."
The krayt brought her head forward until she was fang to eye with him. "And still you avoid the Question. Why have you come here?"
"My Apprentice—" Palpatine twisted to spit the word at Anakin— "betrayed his oaths and challenged me before the galaxy. His treachery cannot stand. I will destroy him for it."
Moving slowly and with great deliberation, Anakin planted himself between the Emperor and the twins. Eyes on the Great Mother, he drew his weapon but did not activate it. Yet.
"And what of your own treachery?" the krayt intoned. "What of your oath to uphold the Republic, which you betrayed to found your Empire? What of the many promises to your various Apprentices? What of the slavery in which you bound the Krayt Rider? Do not speak to me of Anakin Skywalker's broken oaths when your own demand redress.
"Twice you have evaded the Questions and spoken deceptively. This is the final Question—consider your answer well. Have you used the power gifted to you to pursue justice, peace, and the welfare of all?"
"Justice is an illusion. Peace is a lie," Palpatine hissed. "Lesser beings exist for nothing but to serve my will. The only truth is that my strength and power gain me victory, and through my victory, the Force sets me free."
"You are not free." The krayt's words were almost detached, in stark contrast to the Emperor's rage. "You are more fully a slave than the meanest captive of the Hutts. You are enslaved to your passions. Your efforts to subdue the Force to your will have only bound your chains the tighter. You are not free because you do not master yourself."
"You know nothing!" Palpatine began to pace in front of her. The krayt made no move to restrain him—she merely followed him with her eyes. "Only Sith achieve true self-mastery. Only one who can store up his anger and hatred until the opportune time to unleash it upon his enemies knows what self-mastery is."
"You are wrong. Only the one who knows how to feel all that anger and fear and hate and can restrain it until he can release it without acting upon it is truly free. Only such a one has true self-mastery."
"Passion is power! The one who wastes such power is a fool." Palpatine cried.
"So long as you chase after that mirage, you will remain a slave to it." The Great Mother drew her head back from the Emperor in a gesture that recalled a judge straightening at the bench before delivering a verdict. "Now hear my judgment: You have answered the Questions deceptively and stand condemned for it. But death is a far more merciful sentence for your crimes than you deserve. And I am not merciful to slavers. You shall dwell here for the rest of your days, whether they be long or short, confined by me and my children. You will have nothing. No subjects. No power. No empire. Attempt to escape, and the desert will exact its price."
"You pathetically deluded beast. Do you think I cannot escape any prison that can be devised for me?" Without warning, Palpatine threw himself at Anakin. The Force gave only a fraction of a second in warning before Palpatine's foot struck his chest.
Anakin doubled over, choking and wheezing at this assault on his most vulnerable system. He grasped feebly at the Force, bracing to resist the follow-up attack. It was a moment before he realized that he had not been the Emperor's true target.
Palpatine had wrenched his lightsaber out of his hand and launched himself into a spinning attack at the krayt. He ignited the blade in midair, but instead of the familiar snap-hiss and the formation of a meter-long staff of plasma, there was an abortive pop, followed by erratic sputtering. The blade refused to stabilize, shifting its length and width with no warning. He lost control of his spin, and his efforts to correct his form only caused him to lose more speed. Plunging downward, fighting the jerking of the lightsaber, he thrust it out toward the krayt's snout, but it did nothing more than slide across her scales.
The blade flickered out.
The krayt growled and snapped her teeth in unmistakable warning. Palpatine landed on his feet, but heavily. Once he recovered his balance, he reignited the lightsaber. The oscillations in the weapon visibly shook his body. All the while, the crystals shrieked in the Force. Belatedly, Anakin understood. The crystals were fighting Palpatine, and the resulting vibrations were making it nearly impossible for him to even hold the blade, let alone control it.
"I believe, my Master," Anakin spat, jerking his old lightsaber—Luke's now, really—from his belt, "that my lightsaber doesn't like you."
"That blade can only be wielded in pursuit of truth and justice," the krayt thundered at Palpatine, who was still wrestling with it. "You will never be able to use the instrument I have gifted to the Krayt Rider." As fast as a striking rock serpent, her mighty tail lashed, its tip sending Palpatine tumbling.
The lightsaber hilt flew free.
Without conscious intent, Anakin summoned it to strike his hand with a solid smack. The crystals ceased shrieking and resumed their familiar song as his fingers curled around the hilt. Holding his breath—concerned that the blade had been damaged—he ignited it, ready to toss it over the edge of the plateau at the least hint of instability. To his relief—and, if he were honest, somewhat to his surprise—the blade emerged in perfect working order.
Bruised and battered, robes bedraggled with dust and blood, his right hand swollen, and his thumb at an unnatural angle, Palpatine lay in an apparent stupor. But at the sound of the lightsaber activating, he shouted with rage. He staggered to his feet. Even before he was steady on the ground, he drew his arm back as though hurling a ball. All the Royal Guards' force pikes, lying abandoned on the ground since Ahsoka had killed them, shot toward the krayt. Her head tossed once to each side, knocking them out of the air. Several discharged on contact, but the krayt shrugged off the shocks like a bantha ignoring sand gnats. One she snapped in half with her teeth. She spat the remains back toward Palpatine.
He made a scooping gesture. Scree and rocks and boulders swirled to surround the krayt in a cloud. She weaved her neck. The debris bounced off her scales.
There was a surge of Darkness and a tremendous screech of metal scraping on stone. Palpatine raised his hands over his head, arms quivering with strain. The shuttle rose into the air until it cleared the roofline of the hut. He drew back his arms and the shuttle hurtled toward the krayt.
As the wreck descended, the Great Mother reared up to intercept it with her shoulders. A vigorous heave sent it tumbling behind her down the east cliff to crash among the boulders below. She dropped back to all fours and the earth shook with the impact. She loomed over Palpatine, who gave an eldritch cry. Streams of blue-purple energy blasted from his deformed hands. The hatred and fury poured off him in a stream so thick, it was almost palpable.
The krayt did nothing more than flick her tail as the lightning struck. "I am a creature of the desert. I have survived storms that would flay you alive. I have walked the wastes where the sands burn too hot for life. I have overcome all challengers. Do you think your feeble power can affect me?"
Palpatine increased the intensity of his attack, but the bolts of electricity did not even reach her. The scene was like nothing Anakin had ever seen. The energy did not appear to strike a shield so much as simply dissipate into the air.
"This perversion you use is nothing but a youngling's toy." The krayt's voice rang over the cliffs and reverberated through the Wastes. "A crippled shadow that is no match for the light that lies beyond it. You have deceived yourself that the flickering of shadows on the wall of a cave is reality. You sneer at the blindness of others, never realizing that it is you who cannot see. For decades you have toyed with deceit and manipulation and tyranny and told yourself it was power. You have never understood that power is only ever on loan to those who wield it. That true freedom is to be experienced only in submission to the light."
Her words incensed him. The electrical discharge from his hands became sheets of energy, as though his hatred had taken visible form. He was straining every muscle now, jaw clenched tight, face contorted, hands warped with the effort to thrust every scrap of malice and rage into the discharge, but his efforts only grew less effective the more he struggled.
Between one breath and the next, his concentration failed. The attack petered out less than a meter from his hands. For a brief moment, the final remnants of blue-purple sparks danced along his gnarled fingers, then he staggered, panting heavily.
The Great Mother brought her head so low, her jaw nearly rested on the ground. "And now, Sheev Palpatine, who is called Darth Sidious and styles himself Emperor of the galaxy, your time to rule has come to an end. You will live out your days here in isolation and captivity. Submit to my judgment and you may yet live many long years, though you will be an exile and an outcast. You may even live long enough to learn to serve the truth."
"Submit?" Palpatine spat the word so hard, saliva sprayed the krayt's snout. "My Apprentice and the dupes he has thrown his lot in with may submit to you or the Force or whatever other absurdity they believe, but I will never submit. I am the Dark Side."
"Very well. You have chosen your own fate." She lifted her neck to look toward the little group at the edge of the plateau. "Krayt Rider, you and your brother must secure him within the hut."
Anakin and Obi-Wan started forward. The Force sang a warning. Anakin braced himself to withstand another attack, but instead of the physical assault he expected, Palpatine shoved with the Force. Anakin stumbled back, and Obi-Wan rolled his ankle on the loose scree. Palpatine took full advantage of the diversion to pivot and leap away. He landed near the rocky ground that bounded the plateau on the west side. A path led into the wilds of the Jundland Wastes beyond. He paused only to launch a small boulder to his left. Toward Luke and Leia.
The twins tried to heave themselves out of the way, crying out in pain, but they couldn't move fast enough. Without waiting to see the result of his attack, Palpatine lurched along the path, only marginally slowed by his injuries.
Ahsoka threw herself between the oncoming boulder and the twins even as she lifted her hands to deflect it with the Force. Unfortunately, her effort was only partially successful. The boulder glanced off her left side—by the grace of the desert, away from the twins. She cried out and doubled over.
Anakin, his balance recovered, charged after Palpatine with a roar of protective wrath and a burst of Force-enhanced speed. He barely felt the jolt of each step.
Luke's lightsaber was still in his right hand. He hurled it toward the escaping Emperor. Palpatine dodged, so that it only caught the edge of his sleeve, but the fractional delay allowed Anakin to gain on him by a couple of strides. Obi-Wan had now recovered enough to pursue them both at a halting jog.
Recklessly, Anakin flung himself into the air in an Ataru leap he had not attempted since Mustafar. Before he had time to regret his rashness, he was in range. His blade swept out to the side and down.
The Emperor dropped to the ground, headless.
Anakin landed on a bit of clear ground with an impact that jarred his entire body. Heaving for breath, battling a wave of dizziness, he collapsed beside the Emperor's corpse. He had the vague thought that Medic Pran'ta would be apoplectic if she learned of what he had just done.
"Anakin!" Obi-Wan's cry was frantic.
Anakin dragged himself into a semi-seated position with the aid of the nearest boulder. He blinked at the bleary form hobbling desperately toward him and scrubbed his eyes against his arm. "All—right," he panted. He jerked his head to the right. "'Soka. The—twins. Check—"
Obi-Wan hesitated, studying him intently, but then nodded and turned to pick his way to the others. Anakin was too winded to be more than faintly aware of his own anxiety. He concentrated on breathing while he waited for the sharp pain in his stumps to ease to a dull, pulsating ache.
When Obi-Wan returned, he was leaning on a Force pike as a staff.
"What's wrong?" Anakin asked, still panting a little.
"Sprained my ankle, I think."
"The others?"
With the support of the pike, Obi-Wan sank down heavily onto the boulder. "The twins are as well as can be expected. Ahsoka has a severely bruised side. Maybe some broken ribs."
Relief washed over Anakin in a giddy wave. Somehow, in spite of everything, they were all alive. Even Luke's injury, terrible as it was, could be treated. He sagged until his forehead rested against Obi-Wan's leg, his muscles twitching and trembling with the aftermath of fear and adrenaline.
Placing a gentle hand on Anakin's shoulder, Obi-Wan said with concern, "Are you certain you aren't injured?"
"I'm fine. Just—so…grateful." Without lifting his head, Anakin rolled it to the side stare at the Emperor's body in awe. "We did it. He's dead."
"We did." Obi-Wan squeezed his shoulder.
Anakin pushed himself up enough to see Obi-Wan's face. His own relief and stunned joy reflected back to him in the other man's eyes.
"Albeit with some…highly unexpected help." Obi-Wan gestured toward the Great Mother with an air of disbelief. "When you said I wouldn't believe where you'd got your crystal…"
Anakin stared at her dumbly. The help of the desert, indeed. More help, in fact, than he ever could have dreamed of. When he met her eyes, she dipped her head regally. Wanting to rise, to give her the thanks he owed, he pulled at the boulder, but the angles were awkward and he was too exhausted to push himself up on his own strength.
"Let me help." Obi-Wan heaved himself to his feet with evident effort.
Anakin reached up to take his proffered hand. The maneuver was clumsy, but Anakin pushed and Obi-Wan pulled and somehow they managed to get him on his feet. Once he was upright, he staggered a few steps and groaned, conscious all at once of every abrasion made by every grain of sand. His tunic was soaked and the burn on his shoulder throbbed. The extra weight of the sand in his prosthetics seemed to double. Obi-Wan grabbed his elbow to steady him.
"It's okay," Anakin said breathlessly. "The gyros are just adjusting."
Obi-Wan raised a skeptical brow.
"Really," Anakin assured him.
"That was a foolhardy stunt." The reproof lacked a little force, blunted by the wobble in Obi-Wan's voice and the tightening of his hand around the elbow he still clutched. "You could have broken a leg. Or your neck."
"Yeah," Anakin agreed, words also wobbly, "and it still would have been worth it."
Consternation warred with anguish before Obi-Wan's expression deflated into resignation. "I find I can't argue with that."
Before he could think too hard about it, Anakin twisted to put his arms around Obi-Wan. The other man startled. Hesitated. Then the staff clattered to the ground and he threw his arms around Anakin in turn. He pressed his face into Anakin's shoulder to muffle the choked sob that escaped him.
Anakin buried his own face against Obi-Wan's shoulder. They both stank of sweat and dust and fear. They were overheated. Sand was crusted to their skin and hair. Their shoulders shook with reaction and overwrought emotions. Anakin's oxygen canister pressed uncomfortably into his hip. It had to be the single most uncomfortable hug of his life.
And he never wanted it to end. His emotions were too big, too full, too much, to be tamed and reduced to mere words. Almost drowned by his feelings, needing to communicate what was in his overflowing heart, he pulled his friend—his brother—even closer and let the whole inarticulate tangle radiate into the Force.
"Aakaa." Obi-Wan pushed away from his shoulder with a wince.
Anakin flinched and withdrew as well. All these years, and he still lacked the control to express even a fraction of his emotions without overwhelming the ones he loved. "Sorry," he mumbled, eyes on his boots. "I know I'm overdoing it."
Obi-Wan grabbed his shoulders and reeled him back in. "It's fine. It's not that. The—the prosthetics just don't have any give, and I—I wasn't expecting…"
Anakin blew out a heavy breath. "Oh. Uh. I suppose they don't." He looked sidewise at Obi-Wan's profile. "I—I didn't realize. I—uh—haven't been in the habit of hugging people recently."
Obi-Wan leaned back to grin at him. "About time to change that, don't you think? You've moped about alone for long enough. You have a family now, and don't think I'm going to let you exclude me from their number."
The ghosts of Mustafar flickered at the edge of Anakin's vision.
You were my brother.
I hate you.
His stomach twisted with shame and he dropped his eyes.
He must have still been projecting, because Obi-Wan tightened his arms until Anakin had no choice but to rest his head in the crook of Obi-Wan's shoulder. The phantoms did not seem to trouble him. "None of that. My brother. You're on the right path. I'm proud of you. You've done something the Jedi have believed impossible for thousands of years." Patting Anakin on the back and making soothing vocalizations, Obi-Wan allowed his own emotions to wash over Anakin, who stood stock still, too dazed to do anything other than bask in Obi-Wan's approval and acceptance.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there before his sluggish thoughts stirred and he choked out thick words. "But—I hated you. I destroyed everything you loved. How—Can you really forgive that?"
Obi-Wan pushed Anakin's shoulders away until Anakin met his eyes. He drew a shuddering breath. "I love you. I never stopped loving you. You have always been my brother. Even when…" his voice trailed away. He released one hand to brush at tear tracks on his cheek. "When it seemed all hope was lost." He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Anakin again.
Automatically, Anakin lifted his arms to return the embrace, even as he fought to swallow the lump in his throat. Shudders still ran through Obi-Wan. Reaction—emotion—relief too profound for words. He smeared his eyes against Anakin's tunic. "Retribution," he said shakily in an unsuccessful attempt at the light touch as he stepped back. "For all the times you soiled my cloak and tunic when you were small."
Anakin sniffed. "You're welcome to it. I owe you a lot more than a convenient tunic." He laid his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Thank you. For standing with me. In spite of…everything."
"You came back. That's all I ever wanted." Obi-Wan reached up to clasp his hand. He looked to the side and swallowed. "Well. We—we do have things we need to do."
Anakin nodded. "Yes." He released Obi-Wan's shoulder with a final squeeze and summoned his lightsaber. He weighed it in his hand consideringly. It had done all he could have hoped for and more. He looked toward the Great Mother. She waited placidly beside the hut. He took an exploratory step. His thighs ached and something was off-kilter in his left prosthetic, but the gyros had stabilized and walking wasn't going to get any easier the longer he stood still.
Obi-Wan's hand on his elbow arrested him. The other man reached out a hand and Luke's hilt flew through the air. He held it out to Anakin. "This is yours, too, I believe." Another ghost—of the way Obi-Wan had come to be in possession of it in the first place—flashed between them, then faded under Obi-Wan's roguish smirk. "But in light of everything, I'll skip the lecture on losing your lightsaber today."
Anakin smiled weakly as he extended his left hand to accept it. "Luke's, now, I think." His smile twisted a bit at the sharp sting of the memory of Luke's injury. "But I'll hang onto it until he can use it again." He clipped it to his belt where it hung with a weight both familiar and unaccustomed. His new lightsaber remained in his hand as the two of them picked their way back through the debris to face the krayt.
Anakin bowed.
Silence hung in the air. The Great Mother looked at them judicially.
At last, she said gently, "Well done, Krayt Rider. He bound his soul in lies many moon meetings ago. Some men will not serve truth, even when the lie is broken before their eyes."
Anakin rose. He was distantly aware that Obi-Wan and the others were staring from him to the krayt.
"No. He loved his own ambitions too much to face the truth." He extended his hilt toward her. "This weapon has fulfilled its purpose, and I thank you for the gift. Now that my master is dead, I do not need it any longer."
The krayt shook her head in an incongruously human gesture. "I require no thanks. I made my own Oath when you made yours. As for your weapon: keep it as you fulfill the rest of your Oath and restore that which was destroyed. May you bear it in justice, mercy, and honor as you have done this day." She peered beyond him. "There is more yet to do. Your young require help."
"They both need more than first aid," Ahsoka said from where she lay beside the twins, anxiety lacing the words.
"I don't have a long-distance comm." Obi-Wan crossed his arms with an apologetic air. "And I expect the shuttle's systems are a lost cause—if we can even reach it…"
Leia mumbled, "The Emperor tried…the sand…"
Anakin wanted to curse with frustration. "I'm going to Mos Espa," he announced. "I'll contact the Rebellion for a medevac."
He worked his way around the stern of the shuttle and almost groaned aloud when the vaporator on the west side of the hut came into view. It had been partially crushed by the shuttle in its blind landing, and the speeder beneath it was mangled beyond use. Exhaustion swept over him in a heavy wave. Mos Espa was days away on foot.
Wearily, he retraced his steps to ask Obi-Wan the location of the nearest moisture farm.
"Do not despair." The krayt's voice was warm with compassion. "You must mount my back once more, Krayt Rider."
He blinked, uncomprehending.
"Time is passing. Get on my back, if you would bring your young the help they need." She stretched down to nudge him with her snout. He staggered at the impact.
Obi-Wan chuckled wearily. "Do as she says, Anakin. Go. We will watch over the twins."
Anakin stared at him blankly for a long moment. The krayt gave a soft growl of encouragement. Finally, still in a daze, Anakin approached her side. It was the work of a moment to mount, and without another word, she whirled to descend the path into the canyon.