Part 32 (1/2)

=17=.

The Face of the Dark Depowered lampdisks were rings of ghostly gray floating in the gloom. The s.h.i.+mmering jewelscape of Coruscant haloed the knife-edged shadow of the chair.

This was the office of the Chancellor.

Within the chair's shadow sat another shadow: deeper, darker, formless and impenetrable, an abyssal umbra so profound that it drained light from the room around it.

And from the city. And the planet.

And the galaxy.

The shadow waited. It had told the boy it would. It was looking forward to keeping its word.

For a change.

Night held the Jedi Temple.

On its rooftop landing deck, thin yellow light spilled in a stretching rectangle through a shuttle's hatchway, reflecting upward onto the faces of three Jedi Masters.

”I'd feel better if Yoda were here.” This Master was a Nautiloid, tall and broad-shouldered, his glabrous scalp-tentacles restrained by loops of embossed leather. ”Or even Ken.o.bi. On Ord Cestus, Obi-Wan and I...”

”Yoda is pinned down on Kashyyyk, and Ken.o.bi is out of contact on Utapau. The Dark Lord has revealed himself, and we dare not hesitate. Think not of if, Master Fisto; this duty has fallen to us. We will suffice.” This Master was an Iktotchi, shorter and slimmer than the first. Two long horns curved downward from his forehead to below his chin. One had been amputated after being shattered in battle a few months before. Bacta had accelereated its regrowth, and the once maimed horn was now a match to the other. ”We will suffice,” he repeated. ”We will have to.”

”Peace,” said the third Master, a Zabrak. Dew had gathered on his array of blunt vestigial skull-spines, glistening very like sweat. He gestured toward a Temple door that had cycled open. ”Windu is coming.”

Clouds had swept in with the twilight, and now a thin drizzling rain began to fall. The approaching Master walked with his shaven head lowered, his hands tucked within his sleeves.

”Master Ti and Gate Master Jurokk will direct the Temple's defense,” he said as he reached the others. ”We are shutting down all nav beacons and signal lights, we have armed the older Padawans, and all blast doors are sealed and code-locked.” His gaze swept the Masters. ”It's time to go.”

”And Skywalker?” The Zabrak Master c.o.c.ked his head as though he felt a distant disturbance in the Force. ”What of the chosen one?”

”I have sent him to the Council Chamber until our return.” Mace Windu turned a grim stare upon the High Council Tower, squinting against the thickening rain. His hands withdrew from his sleeves. One of them held his lightsaber.

”He has done his duty, Masters. Now we shall do ours.”

He walked between them into the shuttle.

The other three Masters shared a significant silence, then Agen Kolar nodded to himself and entered; Saesee Tiin stroked his regrown horn, and followed.

”I'd still feel better if Yoda were here . . . ,” Kit Fisto muttered, and then went in as well.

Once the hatch had sealed behind him, the Jedi Temple belonged entirely to the night.

Alone in the Chamber of the Jedi Council, Anakin Skywalker wrestled with his dragon.

He was losing.

He paced the Chamber in blind arcs, stumbling among the chairs. He could not feel currents of the Force around him; he could not feel echoes of Jedi Masters in these ancient seats.

He had never dreamed there was this much pain in the universe.

Physical pain he could have handled even without his Jedi mental skills; he'd always been tough. At four years old he'd been able to take the worst beating Watto would deliver without so much as making a sound.

Nothing had prepared him for this.

He wanted to rip open his chest with his bare hands and claw out his heart.

”What have I done?” The question started as a low moan but grew to a howl he could no longer lock behind his teeth. ”What have I done?”

He knew the answer: he had done his duty.

And now he couldn't imagine why.

When I die, Palpatine had said, so calmly, so warmly, so reasonably, my knowledge dies with me . . .

Everywhere he looked, he saw only the face of the woman he loved beyond love: the woman for whom he channeled through his body all the love that had ever existed in the galaxy. In the universe.

He didn't care what she had done. He didn't care about conspiracies or cabals or secret pacts. Treason meant nothing to him now. She was everything that had ever been loved by anyone and he was watching her die.

His agony somehow became an invisible hand, stretching out through the Force, a hand that found her, far away, alone in her apartment in the dark, a hand that felt the silken softness of her skin and the sleek coils of her hair, a hand that dissolved into a field of pure energy, of pure feeling that reached inside her-And now he felt her, really felt her in the Force, as though she could have been some kind of Jedi, too, but more than that: he felt a bond, a connection, deeper and more intimate than he'd ever had before with anyone, even Obi-Wan; for a precious eternal instant he washer. . . he was the beat of her heart and he was the motion of her lips and he was her soft words as though she spoke a prayer to the stars-I love you, Anakin. I am yours, in life, and in death, wherever you go, whatever you do, we will always be one. Never doubt me, my love. I am yours.

-and her purity and her pa.s.sion and the truth of her love flowed into him and through him and every atom of him screamed to the Force how can I let her die?

The Force had no answer for him.

The dragon, on the other hand, did.

All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out.

And no matter how hard he tried to summon it, no wisdom of Yoda's, no teaching of Obi-Wan's, not one sc.r.a.p of Jedi lore came to him that could choke the dragon down.

But there was an answer; he'd heard it just the other night.

With such knowledge, to maintain life in someone already living would seem a small matter, don't you agree?

Anakin stopped. His agony evaporated.

Palpatine was right.

It was simple.

All he had to do was decide what he wanted.

The Coruscant nightfall was spreading through the galaxy.

The darkness in the Force was no hindrance to the shadow in the Chancellor's office; it was the darkness. Wherever darkness dwelled, the shadow could send perception.

In the night, the shadow felt the boy's anguish, and it was good. The shadow felt the grim determination of four Jedi Masters approaching by air. This, too, was good.