Part 33 (2/2)

The shadow he fought, that blur of speed-could that be Palpatine?

Their blades flared and flashed, cras.h.i.+ng together with bursts of fire, weaving nets of killing energy in exchanges so fast that Anakin could not truly see them-But he could feel them in the Force.

The Force itself roiled and burst and crashed around them, boiling with power and lightspeed ricochets of lethal intent.

And it was darkening.

Anakin could feel how the Force fed upon the shadow's murderous exaltation; he could feel fury spray into the Force though some poisonous abscess had crested in both their hearts.

There was no Jedi restraint here.

Mace Windu was cutting loose.

Mace was deep in it now: submerged in Vaapad, swallowed by it, he no longer truly existed as an independent being.

Vaapad is a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. He accepted the furious speed of the Sith Lord, drew the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center-And let it fountain out again.

He reflected the fury upon its source as a lightsaber redirects a blaster bolt.

There was a time when Mace Windu had feared the power of the dark; there was a time when he had feared the darkness in himself. But the Clone Wars had given him a gift of understanding: on a world called Haruun Kal, he had faced his darkness and had learned that the power of darkness is not to be feared.

He had learned that it is fear that gives the darkness power.

He was not afraid. The darkness had no power over him. But-Neither did he have power over it.

Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office. There was no sc.r.a.p of carpet nor shred of chair that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of red or purple; lampstands became brief s.h.i.+elds, sliced into segments that whirled through the air; couches became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue.

Impa.s.se.

Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift.

The fighting was effortless for him now; he let his body handle it without the intervention of his mind. While his blade spun and crackled, while his feet slid and his weight s.h.i.+fted and his shoulders turned in precise curves of their own direction, his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source.

Feeling for its shatterpoint.

He found a knot of fault lines in the shadow's future; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back to the here and the now... And it led him, astonis.h.i.+ngly, to a man standing frozen in the slashed-open doorway. Mace had no need to look; the presence in the Force was familiar, and was as uplifting as sunlight breaking through a thunderhead.

The chosen one was here.

Mace disengaged from the shadow's blade and leapt for the window; he slashed away the transparisteel with a single flourish.

His instant's distraction cost him: a dark surge of the Force nearly blew him right out of the gap he had just cut. Only a desperate Force-push of his own altered his path enough that he slammed into a stanchion instead of plunging half a kilometer from the ledge outside. He bounced off and the Force cleared his head and once again he gave himself to Vaapad.

He could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of Sith he faced; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge.

Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rain-slicked ledge above a half-kilometer drop.

Out where the shadow's fear made it hesitate. Out where the shadow's fear turned some of its Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete.

Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half.

One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below.

Now the shadow was only Palpatine: old and shrunken, thinning hair bleached white by time and care, face lined with exhaustion.

”For all your power, you are no Jedi. All you are, my lord,” Mace said evenly, staring past his blade, ”is under arrest.”

”Do you see, Anakin? Do you?” Palpatine's voice once again had the broken cadence of a frightened old man's. ”Didn't I warn you of the Jedi and their treason?”

”Save your twisted words, my lord. There are no politicians here. The Sith will never regain control of the Republic. It's over. You've lost.” Mace leveled his blade. ”You lost for the same reason the Sith always lose: defeated by your own fear.”

Palpatine lifted his head.

His eyes smoked with hate.

”Fool,” he said.

He lifted his arms, his robes of office spreading wide into raptor's wings, his hands hooking into talons.

”Fool!” His voice was a shout of thunder. ”Do you think the fear you feel is mine?”

Lighting blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him.

Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power pa.s.sed into him and out again without touching him.

And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source.

Palpatine staggered, snarling, but the blistering energy that loured from his hands only intensified.

He fed the power with his pain.

”Anakin!” Mace called. His voice sounded distant, blurred, ; if it came from the bottom of a well. ”Anakin, help me! This is your chance!”

He felt Anakin's leap from the office floor to the ledge, felt his approach behind-And Palpatine was not afraid. Mace could feel it: he wasn't worried at all. ”Destroy this traitor,” the Chancellor said, his voice raised aver the howl of writhing energy that joined his hands to Mace's blade. ”This was never an arrest. It's an a.s.sa.s.sination!”

That was when Mace finally understood. He had it. The key to final victory. Palpatine's shatterpoint. The absolute shatter-point of the Sith.

The shatterpoint of the dark side itself.

Mace thought, blankly astonished, Palpatine trusts Anakin Skywalker . .

Now Anakin was at Mace's shoulder. Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face.

Palpatine's eyes glowed with power, casting a yellow glare that burned back the rain from around them. ”He is a traitor, Anakin. Destroy him.”

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