Palpatine granted him a special, secret hyperspace route and use of a diplomatic shuttle. Just as well, Anakin thought. If the Jedi ever realized I'd traveled to Korriban...
He found the shuttle stocked with water and nonperishables. Master seems to think I might be here a while. I wonder why that is?
It wasn't hard to find the building he was looking for. Halfway through a standard orbit of the planet, a massive Y-shaped structure appeared on his scanner. He scanned more closely. Stone, carved into perfect geometric blocks. As he descended into the atmosphere, sinking into that hemisphere's night, the darkness reached up to grab him and sink cold talons into his very bones.
He elected to remain in the shuttle and try to sleep until dawn.
The sun had a pinkish cast here, turning the blond sand rosy and the sky a sort of crisp bronze-blue. He stepped out onto a planet devoid of sentient beings, devoid even of most plant life. But for the scrubby shrubs that dotted the landscape and the pinkish-bronze light, he might have thought himself back on Tatooine. It certainly promised to be as hot.
The Sith temple was built of black stone, the same black stone he had scanned in deposits here and there on the planet's surface. Rocks and boulders of it littered the way up the hill to the structure.
Of course, a Sith temple would be built on a hill.
Looking closer, Anakin discovered that the rock on the ground had marbled veins like quartz, rose and white, but the chiseled rock of the temple walls was solid black. Its formerly sharp edges had weathered with centuries of wind. Carvings adorned the walls, and in these crevasses the marbled veining remained. The rock had been treated somehow, to turn the exterior solid black.
The three arms of the building were each about two levels high and formed peaked, five-sided structures when viewed from their ends. The arms widened gradually as they approached the main body of the building, a huge six-sided body that rose majestically into a peak far above Anakin's head.
Anakin approached the nearest arm, circled it to the end. A stone door was set into the building's face carved with -
Anakin blinked and looked more closely. A stylized glyph of a sun halfway at horizon met him at eye level. A representation of sunrise - and he knew it was supposed to be sunrise because that very glyph appeared everywhere in the Jedi Temple. It symbolized the Light side.
Why was the light side depicted on a Sith temple?
Anakin could not read the Sith heiroglyphs around the door frame; due to the exigencies of the times, Palpatine had taught him little of the ancient system.
He decided to check out the other arms of the Y; presumably they had doors, too.
The north door bore representations of the Unified Force; the southeast door; the Living Force. Anakin could pretty much guess what the pinnacle of the tower symbolized.
But which door to enter?
When he thought of the Living Force, he remembered Master Jinn, blue eyes twinkling mischievously, leaning back in his chair, laughing at his mother's kitchen table.
He figured this door was as good as any.
The doors, huge heavy slabs of thick rock, didn't appear to be locked or secured in any way. At this size and weight, they hardly needed to be; most people would need a blaster or a team of banthas. Anakin settled for the Force.
He slipped inside a long, narrow passageway as black as night. He could feel the cold walls close about him in the Force, dark as the darkness that blinded him. Just as his mind wandered to consider the approximate thickness of these walls, to be so close from in here and so wide from out there, a ringing sound reached his ears.
Before his mind could tell him that that sound wasn't actually ringing - it was the distant slide of metal on metal - alarm suffused his whole body, and he found his lightsaber in his hands.
He didn't have time to identify the projectiles as they came; he whipped and whirled and parried and blocked, dancing, sidestepping. Metal sang on impact and sparks flew into the air.
It went on until his arms ached. You didn't have to be as fast as Sidious to avoid harm here - just almost as fast. When the projectiles finally stopped coming and he could rest, he wondered how Dooku had managed it.
Then he remembered - Dooku probably hadn't had to come here. His throne was to have been placed here by the apprentice he had never lived to train. And Lord Maul had erected Lord Sidious's throne.
Suddenly Anakin wondered what that throne looked like and where in here it was. Had any special embellishments been decreed to acknowledge the accomplishments of the one who would hold it? Anakin remembered his longing for recognition by the Council. As he stood there feeling the coldness of the place seeping through his clothes, he wondered: What did the highest esteem of every Sith who ever was or would be feel like? And what would it mean?
A damp, dirt smell stung his nostrils, shot through with the rankness of death. His weapon hummed in his ears, breaking the stillness. As his eyes adjusted to the glowing blue gloom, he made out piles of bones and half-decayed corpses scattered about the door, unrecognizable now as to race. None apparently had made it even halfway down the chamber. He bent and picked up a projectile: a long, rounded, rusted piece of iron, wrought to a sharp point on the end. As he bent to put it down, his better-adjusted eyesight picked up the rusty patches of dried blood that painted the black stone floor.
He kept his lightsaber out and at the ready, and walked slowly forward. A temple rat chittered and scurried across his boot.
Cautiously he pushed aside the great stone door at the end of the chamber with the Force. He slid through -
- and stopped himself, struggling to keep his balance.
The next chamber, long and narrow at one end, wider at the other, had no floor. It simply stopped. Had that familiar prickling burst in the Force not warned him, who knew how far he would have fallen?
He held his lightsaber aloft. A little push in the Force brightened his lightsaber so he could see. You couldn't do that for long without burning out the power cell, but he needed light. Why didn't they give you a torch in here?
Maybe Sith blades cast more light. Even Obi-Wan's green blade would have helped.
Rows of stone pedestals bridged the chasm to where the floor abruptly resumed, many meters away. He assumed he was supposed to jump from pedestal to pedestal.
But which pedestals? The first row held many from which he could choose.
He leaned forward. The pedestals all appeared to bear writing - in Sith heiroglyphics, yet again. Anakin's heart sank.
Until he spied one he could read. The third pedestal from the left sported the Sith character for the founder of the modern Sith order: Darth Bane.
Palpatine, Anakin had discovered, gave exams, and the names, their spellings in Sith heiroglyphics, and the salient contributions of each master had been tested at random. He remembered sitting at a table at midnight, sketching each glyph in order while Sidious stood behind him, silently observing, crimson lightsaber humming in his hand.
Anakin had glanced over his shoulder and sniped, "What? Do I lose a finger or something if I get one wrong?"
Palpatine had purred, "You'll lose a lot more than that, young one. Draw."
Anakin leaped to the Darth Bane pedestal. Sure enough, the blue glow of his saber revealed, on the next row of pedestals, the glyph for Darth Zannah - Darth Bane's apprentice, Master Number Two. Anakin leaped to it.
Two jumps later, he found himself stymied by a row of, not glyphs, but colors. Then he remembered - each Sith dynasty had a family color, selected by the master who chose an unrelated apprentice, thus ending the dynasty. Anakin remembered that the first dynasty was silver, and jumped to it.
He thought about that for a moment. Silver, gold, black, purple, gray, green, blue...no red. He had a feeling he knew what color the second and last master of the eighth Sith dynasty had selected.
He ran out of pedestals after the third row of colors - the pedestals only went as far as the twenty-sixth master before he reached the other side. He looked across to the opposite floor and jumped to safety.
How ingenious! Only a well-versed Sith initiate would know the proper sequence of jumps.
Anakin wondered suddenly what happened if you chose the wrong pedestal. He picked up a rock from the floor and tossed it onto an incorrect choice.
An explosion cracked his eardrums. Flames flickered and smoke burned his nostrils. Anakin flinched and stepped back.
Dropping to his hands and knees, he tossed in a second rock. Its white veins flashed blue in the light from his saber - and then it disappeared.
He never heard it hit bottom.
He caught his breath and stood up. Another door awaited him. He pushed it open, and went ahead.
He found his way blocked by a thick, ropy, musty-smelling webbing that glowed a dull blue in the light from his saber. He reached out. Soft, dry, and fuzzy, it resisted him when he tried to push through it.
He put all his weight on it, using both hands, but he could not break the strands. He put his lightsaber back on his belt and tried grasping it and tearing it. His own body strength was not enough; the stuff had a tensile strength that was unbelievable. He applied the Force, but the webbing began to sting his hands the harder he gripped it.
Anakin let go of it and took his lightsaber back off of his belt.
As he ran his blade through it the stuff seemed to melt and stick. Soon he had a great wad of it wrapped around his blade like a giant medical swab, and the weapon started to tangle in it. He stopped struggling and waited for the blade to burn itself free. Eventually it did, and he carried on, slashing and straining through the mess.
When the perspiration started running down his face, he stopped and checked his chrono. He'd been here an hour and only moved three meters forward through this mess. Worse, he reached behind him and only felt an opening for about half a meter or so. The webbing seemed to be reannealing to itself after he cut it.
The chamber was packed with the stuff from top to bottom. Anakin imagined having to cut his way back out again and groaned out loud.
Halfway through, he saw a dark shape ahead of him and found the eight-legged, sharp-fanged exoskeleton of the creature that had spun all of this, curled on the floor and light as a shadow. He could just have gotten his arms around it, had he wanted to.
He thought he would leave it where it was.
Three hours later, he finally reached the other door.
This door led into the hexagonal body of the building. Anakin knew this, even if he hadn't been sure how far he'd traveled, by the chatter that reverberated inside his skull; sixty-five sharp intelligences - the total number of Sith currently residing here - lustful, greedy, vengeful, ambitious, sparked somewhere within.
Anakin laid his palms on the door and quieted himself, trying to sort them out. So many discordant notes: jealously, of him and each other; melancholy, curiosity. Recognition of his observing consciousness. A piercing thought: What? Lord Sidious has another apprentice?
And then he swore that he actually did hear, "What? We don't even have the first two yet!" There was a general murmuring, the kind Anakin associated with his mentors in the Jedi Temple shaking their heads together, usually at him, and Anakin almost laughed. Why, they sounded like a bunch of unhappy, critical old women!
He pressed the door open with the Force, and walked up several steps into the main chamber.
High up on a wall, his lightsaber illuminated a torch on a bracket. He stretched up and lit it with the tip of his weapon.
Three black-veined walls enclosed him within a smallish triangular chamber, taller than it was wide. He could only imagine how thick the walls must be, to convert such a large hexagonal space to this tiny one.
He freed the torch from its bracket and lowered it with the Force. As he turned around, holding it aloft, a sudden sharp jerk at his lightsaber wrenched his hand.
He dropped the torch and wheeled to grasp it with both hands, but the minds that desired it were too quick for him. It slipped from his grasp and disappeared through the stone door that still stood ajar. Anakin ran for it - but it closed in his face.
Sixty-five minds working together could move a ton of stone faster than he had ever thought possible.
And here he was, trapped in a tiny stone chamber with walls meters thick, and no lightsaber to cut his way out.
"Now what?" he said aloud.
The mind chatter of ancient spirits echoed from wall to wall. Their emotions flowed through Anakin. Smugness. Defiance. A challenge. Malevolence. An evaluative, watchful patience.
They didn't feel like a klatch of petty old ladies now.
Anakin turned around. In one corner, he was horrified to find a pile of bones and scraps of clothing, jumbled helter-skelter as if a previous occupant had shoved them all out of his way. He counted three skulls and, looking closer, a pile of dried, mummified excrement. As if these three had been here a while before they thirsted or starved to death.
But obviously, not every apprentice had starved to death here. There had to be a way out.
Anakin levitated the torch back to its bracket and went to the obvious place. The Force would not open the door this time. He got the sense of sixty-five minds all pressing it back at him, and he actually heard a snicker.
If I'm the Chosen One, Anakin thought, certainly I can do better than this.
Close to an hour of struggle convinced him otherwise.
Maybe there's another way out of here, he thought. Some trick, some game of knowledge like the Sith heiroglyphs.
He felt carefully around the stone he could reach, inspecting the branched veins and the mortar, finding nothing. He pushed the pile of remains aside to facilitate his search.
Nothing.
Using the Force to levitate himself, he inspected every stone block that was previously above his head. He began to inspect the ceiling.
And found one block, slightly larger than the others, around which the mortar had been chiseled away. Just the right aperture for an average-sized humanoid to crawl through.
He pushed upwards on it. It moved.
With a sigh of relief, Anakin applied the Force. The stone moved - and then it stuck.
Well, it didn't stick, really. As he pushed, feeling the weight of the uneven stone shift and balance on his hands, he felt a vibration and a corresponding shift from the other side. As if many pairs of hands pushed it back toward him.
Anakin pushed harder. So did they.
He tried every way he could think of to get the stone up. He tried Force-pushing it from various places on the floor. He tried to pull it down into the chamber. But he soon realized that it was a levered cut, wider at the top than the bottom, and the top of the stone simply wouldn't fit through.
He thought of breaking pieces of the surrounding rocks to widen the hole. Gentle arms of the Force restrained his own, and he felt an admonition: No, young one. That's cheating.
"And this isn't?" he shouted.
He tried huddling on the floor, sending his thoughts elsewhere. He thought of his two beautiful babies side by side on his bed, Padmé hovering over them on her hands and knees, cooing, counting tiny fingers and toes, exclaiming with delight over a smile. He switched his attention back to the problem at hand, Force-pushing at the stone, hoping to catch his jailers unaware.
It didn't work.
As the hours passed, a cold fear set in. What, he thought in all seriousness, if I never get out of here?
He pictured Padmé pacing the floor, weeping tears of worry. He pictured her going to Palpatine to plead for information.
A horrible thought struck him. What if she had to barter for information, bargain with the Sith master to come and get him? What terrible choices might she be forced to make?
Oh, he was stupid for coming here. He had been such a fool.
This could easily get out of hand. He pictured Padmé, Finis, and Sereine arguing furiously over what to do. He pictured them having to go to the Jedi Council to save Padmé from an agreement that would destroy them all. He saw them all destroyed anyway when the Jedi made war on Palpatine.
He saw two powerful Jedi babies, innocent and unprotected. Why hadn't they made firm plans to move them right after their birth and stuck to them no matter how wrenching it would be? Was this all just Palpatine's plan - to get him out of the way?
He had to get out of here!
Fear drove him into the Force, drove him at the stone with all his heart and soul. In desperation, he tried to shear the Force around it - tried to crack it in two. But the Fallen Masters were ready for that, and they adjusted their own leverages to compensate. With his mind, he drove the Force like a speeder, turning, twisting it like a pod on a racecourse. But they were faster, they were stronger; the Masters rode him the way he had ridden the reek in the Geonosis arena. The stone rattled and banged, but it did not break.
And Anakin was getting angry.
There, fighting for his life, he began to hate the beings he fought against. He hated the Masters, he hated Palpatine who had tricked him here, he hated Sereine who had talked him into this in the first place. He hated the Jedi who had never trusted him, he hated Obi-Wan who had not helped him, he hated this temple and its stone walls with a fury that wanted to bring them all smashing down and obliterate every mind within them.
And he hated himself for his weakness. Hated himself, to his very core, for not being able to move that stone.
And as he thought that, the Force turned like a kaleidoscope around him with a disorienting jolt, and he felt it. Felt the power that had surged through him at his Naming, when his Master laid his hand in his hair. Felt the power that had reduced a whole village of Sand People to smoking corpses. Found the rage that guided his lightsaber as it cut off Dooku's hands, and slashed away his life. It filled him, electrified him, strengthened him. He felt tall and terrible, and if these things who no longer even lived wouldn't move this stone, he'd take this place apart stone by stone with the sheer power of his mind.
His own raw scream echoed in his ears.
He gathered the Force in a great wave and lifted his palms. If he couldn't move one stone, he'd blow up the entire ceiling.
The ceiling quivered and bucked. Cracks appeared in the mortar. Anakin's eyes burned in his skull.
Most of the masters relented then. He felt a gentle give in the Force. Quickly he directed all his effort at the loose stone, and it moved almost a hand's breadth.
A quarrel consumed the floor above him. This in tune with the dark side, he could hear every thought.
"Now I see why Sidious is so interested in him!"
"We can't trust this one. We must not let him out!"
"This is satisfactory. What more could you possibly want?"
And the minds above him began to struggle among themselves. It took just enough of their will away from him, and with a giant heave Anakin popped the stone loose. He leaped into the Force and onto the upper level, into a darkness dimly lit by the flicker of the torch below.
With a whoosh the Force ignited some ten torches on the walls. Anakin looked around a wide hexagonal chamber at the most bizarre and gruesome sight that had ever met his eyes.
A fine, powdery dust covered everything. Against each wall stood two thrones, two massive stone chairs built, with varying styles and degrees of skill, from the same rock that made up the rest of the temple.
On each throne sat a skeletal, mummified corpse. Gray, dried, leathery remnants of skin, muscles, and ligaments bound their bones in place.
Anakin's stomach turned. A musty smell made him sneeze, and as he turned reflexively, he noticed something. A throne on the far wall stood empty, and next to it stood a smaller one, bearing a young adolescent's corpse.
A deep, friendly voice resonated through his mind. So you are the Chosen One. Anakin Skywalker, I presume. Welcome to the Hall of Scholars.
Spent rage and adrenaline made his insolent bow shaky and off balance. "My masters - care to explain why you just tried to kill me?"
It was necessary. You have passed the Testing, and achieved the most crucial learning: The dark side should never be extinguished from your soul, because it is essential.
Anakin frowned. "Essential?"
Yes, young one. For without it, where would you be? The voice chuckled softly. Anakin had no idea to which corpse it belonged.
Over here, on your right. I am Darth Sage. He felt his attention being directed around the chamber. Darth Avarice, Darth Manticore, Darth Tempest, Darth Seer, Darth Imperius, Darth Ghore, Darth Zeal, Darth Orphic, Darth Benthic, Darth Venin. Tell us, what has Lord Sidious seen fit to call you?
"Darth Vader," said Anakin. "Tell me, whose is the empty chair?"
See for yourself, was the answer.
Anakin went, avoiding the long drop to the death chamber. Something glimmered at him from the floor. His lightsaber! He bent and picked it up.
As he approached the empty throne, he saw the letters carved unevenly across the top: Darth Plagueis the Wise.
Had Palpatine said it took him only a day to make this thing? To carve the pieces from the rock with a lightsaber, maybe, but the intricate little marks that adorned it like trim - that had to have taken a while. They were all made with a straight edge, thus disguising the age of the artist, but the uneven lettering and the three symbols that decorated the back of the chair above where the occupant's head would rest - definitely made by a child.
Amazing to view something Palpatine had made at such a young age. He looked closer. In ancient times the Naboo had used pictographic writing as well. The symbol placed directly above the occupant's head was familiar to him - a crown and a half sun, symbol of the Naboo king or queen. From its placement on the throne, Darth Plagueis must have been very tall, indeed. Interesting in light of how tiny Palpatine was. Anakin committed the symbols placed above the "shoulders" to memory. He would ask Padmé what they meant when he got home.
He walked to his left to study the smaller throne. The inscription surprised him: Darth Plagueis the Lesser. A steadier hand had lettered this throne - probably Darth Plagueis himself.
The hexagonal body of the temple had five levels, all containing thrones and remains - sixty-seven thrones would not have fit on one level. Anakin discovered, as he climbed stairs through the Hall of Merchants, the Hall of Sorcerers, and the Hall of Warriors, that a definite caste system appeared to be in place among Sith. He found Darth Maul's empty throne in the Hall of Warriors.
The last door was marked in crude Basic script, Hall of Kings. Anakin, drawn forward by curiousity, ascended a narrow, cramped staircase into a tiny chamber at the very dome of the temple, a torch in his hand.
Inside were only three thrones. The first, inscribed The First Emperor, bore the remains of Darth Revan, whom Anakin recalled from his early history classes had ruled part of the Republic as dictator over a thousand years ago. The second, inscribed The Dark Prince, bore the remains of Lord Bane. He could feel their presences, watching him. At last Lord Bane spoke to him.
"Lord Vader. You will carry a message to your master on my behalf."
Anakin bowed. "Yes, my master."
"Tell Lord Sidious," the Founder sneered, "that I congratulate him on his first serious mistake. Tell him we will see him in the Hall of Warriors very, very soon."
"My master."
"You can move that throne now, or later."
Anakin bowed again. "I'll move it later." If I ever come back here.
"Oh, you'll come back here."
The third throne, inscribed The Last Emperor, stood empty. Below that inscription, Lord Maul had engraved: Darth Sidious.
Anakin's stomach felt as hard and cold as the stone floor. If any proof existed that Valorum's suspicions were correct, this was it. And it threw his whole consciousness into disarray. He felt blasted by his anger and the consuming darkness of the place, shaken, weak, and unsure of himself. The incredible power of what he had just experienced called to him.
He descended four flights of stairs on feet so numb they seemed to move by themselves.
Lord Vader, said Darth Avarice.
He found his attention directed to a door he hadn't previously noticed. Four shorter flights of stairs led to a wide stone-lined underground chamber. As he held his torch aloft, golden and jewel-colored gleamings winked back at him.
His footsteps tapped on the black stone floor. In airtight cases of plastisteel, fabulous riches lined the walls, perched on ledges, filled stone, wooden, and marble tables to groaning. Precious and semi-precious stones, statues and sculptures of every precious metal known, ancient figurines, bracelets, crowns, and other articles of jewelry. Perfectly preserved paintings lined the walls. Anakin recognized one famous Alderaanian work, mysteriously stolen some one hundred and fifty years ago. Finely crafted examples of ancient hand weapons decorated the walls.
And there was money. Loads and loads of Republic ditaris, Nubian tuktus, Nemoidian decicreds, and coins of almost every denomination filled trunks in the center of the hall.
As Anakin wound his way through the chamber in wonder, a voice resonated in his mind. Welcome to the Hall of Treasures, Lord Vader.
Obviously whatever he brought Sidious was supposed to come from here. Anakin selected a small war sword with a gleaming steel blade and a jeweled hilt. A door to his right led to a narrow passageway to the surface. Any tests or traps in it must be activated only by a being coming in, not a being going out, for nothing disturbed his progress.
He soon found himself outside the "Unifying Force" arm of the building.
He started around the temple, headed back toward his shuttle.
After he had killed the Sand People, Padmé had been there with soothing words and an unshakable faith in him. Who could think himself essentially wrong or bad when such a divinity ran her fingers through his hair and gently said, "To be angry is to be human."
After he had killed Count Dooku - Lord Tyranus - there had been no time to think. Events had kept spinning around him, forcing him to ensure others' safety from the moment the Sith lord's head had hit the floor until yesterday.
Now there was a long trip back to Coruscant, alone. And Anakin did not want to be alone. The memory of that searing power gnawed at him, left him aching and empty somewhere deep inside. And that terrified him.
He tried to comm Padmé, but she was in chambers. That meant that Palpatine and Sereine were, too. In desperation he even thought about comming Valorum - but that was too risky. And there was no way he could comm Obi-Wan. Not after where he had just been.
He tried a Jedi meditation trance. But he had never been very successful at those, and he was not at all successful now.
The power of his hatred dogged him all the way home.