Into the Storm

Chapter 19

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

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Palpatine walked down the empty corridors of this dedicated level of the Detention Center, designed specifically to hold his Jedi. The twelve Royal Guards who had left the cell with him followed at a discrete distance, their sense in the Force casually brutal, indifferent to the pain they inflicted on Palpatine's command.

He had remained with his Jedi for almost an hour, taunting and provoking, spurring and inciting him until the boy was too weary and too drained and too numb to even try to listen or retaliate any more. Then the guards had entered, as they always did, and beaten from him what little awareness he'd had left.

In a few hours, before the boy had been able to rest, Palpatine would return and begin again, with the guards awaiting their cue. Then perhaps once more tonight--or in the early hours of the morning. Or perhaps he would simply tell the boy that he would return tonight, and leave him hanging...

Skywalker's perceptive accusations, hurled out every day now with such vindictive, bitter malice against that which injured and tormented him, had left Palpatine both gratified and uneasy. As they began to sharpen, the boy's aggrieved, persecuted threats became ever more biting and barbed, aimed with cold precision and hostile animosity. No longer momentary outbursts, but genuine, serious threats.

Again, the Sith Master was aware that he must walk a fine line; he must control his Jedi without stifling this raging wrath, but he could not have it aimed at himself; he must remain forever beyond such notions. So with Vader gone, it had fallen to Palpatine's Royal Guard to become the unknowing brunt of the boy's frustration, and feed all that outrage and passion and fire; to concentrate it on that single source.

Because soon now, it would boil over into fury...

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Something was changing.

Within the Palace, all about him--he could sense it. Sitting huddled in the freezing darkness of his cell, deep in the bowels of the huge, hulking Palace, removed from anything which was real or of any substance, he still sensed it.

Everything was becoming surreal; unreal. He wasn't sure when he was unconscious and when he was awake, anymore. The only thing which separated reality from nightmares was that reality was hard to remember--twisted nightmares came to mind far too easily.

The Darkness which had been snapping in silence at his heels for so long, now howled in the dead of night. It warped perceptions and contorted the shadows about him, twisting his thoughts and his dreams. It fired his anger and fed his outrage; fuelled his fear every time he heard the hiss of the cell door opening and the whispering drag of cloth against cold, hard floors as his tormentor returned.

Driven by something stronger than exhaustion and weakness and broken bones, he paced his cell like a captive animal, like a caged wolf in the dead of night--or was that a dream? Because something Dark and hard and terribly powerful stood at his shoulder in fevered nightmares, shrouded in his shadow just beyond awareness. Pushing down, pressing in, suffocating. Closing inexorably about him, waiting for its moment, always waiting...waiting for something to happen.

A pivotal moment--a fracture point.

He would not turn...or had he already?

He knew the power which coursed about him, the power which the Emperor goaded him into calling close. He knew that it was Darkness. And each time, as it came so easily to answer his anger and resentment, it left a shallow imprint on his soul, a mark which no light could burn away, a moment lost to Darkness. So many moments lost... Too many--too many to register. And each time it became harder to push it back. They fused into one as the Darkness blurred into a single, hulking mass in his shadow, calling him on, howling in the oppressive silence of his prison. Amid all his confusion, like the calm eye at the center of the darkest storm, it beckoned. He pushed it away, denied it...but in those bleak, wild moments it felt so right--absolute clarity amid raging chaos.

He'd stood so long against the tempest...was one moment of calm worth his mind? Worth his life? His soul? Because he would give them willingly, without hesitation, if the Darkness offered even one moment of peaceful oblivion.

Was he lost already?

Something was changing.

He was very much afraid that it was him.

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Absolute bone-deep heat. It wrapped about Luke like a blanket, its comforting familiarity promising release and refuge, its reassuring warmth soothing taut, aching muscles into heavy, weary release.

He was lying on his back in the desert looking up at the stars, the familiar sounds of the homestead murmuring at the edges of his perception. Vaporators humming, coolant pipes grumbling, the perimeter shields hissing quiet static. Someone crossed the courtyard below, clothes rustling, sand whispering as it was brushed aside.

He blinked slowly, completely at peace, staring serenely up to those scattered points of glistening light in the velvet darkness, distant suns heating distant worlds. The sand was still warm against his back, soft and yielding, surrendering the heat of the day. The air, baked dry by twin suns, cooled now in the night's creeping embrace.

A door rasped open, the grinding grate of plasteel against plasteel unfamiliar here, the whisper of heavy cloth against permacrete shivering through him, tearing into the warm memories to rip away the heat of the desert and the comfort of home and leaving only the cold, hard floor at his back, body aching, every breath a knife-stab in battered muscles and broken bones. The weight of reality pressed in about him, pulling tired, gritty eyelids open. He blinked several times, but blood-cast eyes couldn't focus on the dark shadow that crouched over him now, sense intent on his own.

But then, he didn't need sight to know...

"How are you this evening, my friend?" The Emperor's voice grated with empty, mocking compassion as he knelt beside Luke. "You look tired."

Luke didn't bother to answer, blinking slowly then letting his bruise-rimmed eyes fall closed, his awareness drifting in a haze of hunger and thirst and pain and exhaustion.

He felt Palpatine rest the flat of his palm against his chest in warning and tensed in anticipation of a violent shock.

"Answer me when I speak to you," Palpatine said without malice.

"You know the answer," Luke murmured, voice broken by his parched throat.

His tormentor smiled at that. "I wish to hear you say it."

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Palpatine watched the boy's lips tighten in a momentary flare of stubbornness. He faltered at the very edge now, mentally and physically, body a mass of bruised and grazed skin, dozens of cuts left to bleed dry unheeded. His eyes--those wonderful ice-blue eyes--were dull now, shot through with blood, one so badly that no white was visible at all. His ankle had been re-broken at some point, the massive bruise stretching down over the sole of his foot. Not that he could have stood anyway.

He watched without feeling as the boy's eyes fluttered and he began to drift, prompting Palpatine to press the flat of his palm harder against his Jedi's chest, calling the Darkness to him.

The boy's eyes snapped open, muscles tensed against the implied threat.

"How are you this evening?" Palpatine repeated easily.

He tried to remain silent, Palpatine knew, but the investment of twelve long weeks in his rooms in the palace above, had established the precedent that no matter what, they spoke. So even now, in this dire, aggrieved situation, that ingrained practice held sway as his Jedi sighed lightly, all fight gone.

"I'm tired," he said at last, defeated. "Very tired." Unable to stop himself, he glanced to the door.

"Yes, they are there, waiting," Palpatine said, knowing what the boy was thinking, sensing his anxious apprehension in a scarlet spike of fear.

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Luke's stomach twisted, his chest burning in despair as he closed his eyes against the knowledge, for all the good it did him. It wouldn't stop them--nothing did. His mind numbed against that knowledge, unable to deal with the reality of imminent torment.

"Shall I call them now...or shall we talk, my friend?" Palpatine asked.

Luke hesitated, wishing to delay the inevitable, knowing this was a pointless act, but unable to do otherwise.

"Talk," he finally conceded, the whispered word escaping him in a resigned sigh.

"And what shall we discuss today?" Palpatine asked indulgently, hand still resting against Luke's chest.

Luke shook his head slightly against the hard floor, too tired to play these games any more.

"Answer me when I speak to you." There was a biting demand in the words as the voice dropping lower.

"I don't care," Luke whispered.

"Hmm. Perhaps they will come in now," Palpatine reproached. "Yes, that would be for the best."

Luke only curled up and turned away from the door. He was past arguing--it did no good.

He heard again the rustle of cloth against the hard floor, felt the cloak brush against his shoulder, even that a knife-sharp scrape against bruised and broken skin, making him jerk away, lighting a shock of pain in tense, burning muscles.

The door opened with its familiar double-grind of reinforced plasteel and he braced as they came forward in meaningful steps, force-pikes activating, their grating buzz cutting through the air...

They gathered about him...and attacked.

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"Stop," Palpatine said quietly, and the world fell to silence.

Luke let out a gasp--the first noise he had made since the assault had begun--he didn't shout out anymore.

"Leave," the Sith ordered, and they stalked from the room in a silent pack, no trace of guilt, no hint of compassion. Only blind obedience.

The hush lay heavy when the door finally ground closed, Palpatine remaining very still, so that all Luke could hear was his own heart pounding, slow and irregular, his breath ragged in his lungs as he lay still to wait for the blinding pain to subside, even a little.

Eventually that whisper of heavy cloth sounded, making Luke's breath hitch in his throat. But all he could do was remain curled up on the cold blood-stained floor, drifting somewhere between pain and unconsciousness.

Palpatine crouched beside him, taking Luke's shoulder and turning him about so that they were facing, breathtaking spasms of pain wracking his body at this.

"Shall we talk, my friend?" he asked again.

"What do you want?" Luke gasped, desperate and despairing. Whatever it was, in that bleak moment if he could have done it, he would have.

Palpatine's voice was calm and reasonable, completely unmoved by the pain wrought at his command without any true provocation--he no longer bothered to wait for reasons or excuses, they were beyond that now.

"Nothing. I have everything I want," the Sith said, a knowing echo of his words in their very first meeting. "What do you want?"

Hope. The word, the need, came desperately to mind, though he didn't say it out loud.

"I can give it to you...if only you'd stop fighting me," Palpatine said, and Luke knew he'd been listening to his thoughts--had expected no less. Cool fingers gently pushed matted hair back from his eyes, the action as near to genuine compassion as Luke had ever known from the Sith. "You are lost, child...but I believe in you. In what you can be. You will be my greatest apprentice."

Luke didn't bother replying, remaining on his side, eyes half-closed. What was left to say?

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Palpatine settled contentedly beside his Jedi, admiring again that willful mindset, even as he sought to break it. He tilted his head to one side, unmoved by the boy's agony and exhaustion and desolate despair, radiating out into the Force unchecked. "I know what a hard thing I am asking of you."

The boy's gaze came up at that, his right eye cast blood-red, where a blow had come too close, and Palpatine smiled indulgently. "I've told you, I understand you. You are so very much like your father."

His Jedi blinked slowly, beyond bothering to contradict.

"But this fight is long lost, my friend. You know that. It was lost the moment you came here. It was lost the moment you first touched the Force, the moment you left Tatooine, the moment you were born. The moment your father knelt before me, he condemned you too."

The boy let out a low sigh, eyes unfocused, but Palpatine knew he was listening.

"Hemade you everything that you are. Because of him, you will serve me...and you know it." Palpatine paused expectantly, though his Jedi only closed his eyes. "But I understand you. I know why you do this, even if you don't understand yourself."

Pale eyes opened and Palpatine gazed into them, so listless and grey now, dark with bruises. They would burn again, Palpatine knew, as bright and as cold as ever. But his Jedi was afraid now, afraid to touch the Force--afraid of the Darkness which answered when he did.

So close now...

"You're fighting because it's what you were born for, child. You're fighting because it's in your blood. You're fighting because you don't know how to stop." Palpatine shook his head gently, his tone indulgent. "But you have nothing left to fight for, my friend--so you're fighting against. Because that's all that is left to you."

He took the boy's chin, lifting that numb gaze up to his own. "Let me give you something worth fighting for. Something worth any price...worth any risk."

"What?" How weary and wary that voice.

"Power," the Sith whispered, eyes lighting at the mere word.

"I don't want that power," the boy refused, voice desperately weak.

"You already have it, child. It's already loose. You could no more choose not to use it than you could choose not to breathe."

"I could choose...to stop. To end this now,"

Palpatine only shook his head. "You know I would never let you, my friend. You're worth far too much to me."

With studied care, Palpatine wiped the blood from a deep, oozing split above the boy's eye with his sleeve; he didn't flinch, no longer seemed to notice at all. "You could never let yourself. I told you--you were born to fight, one way or another."

He smiled as he held his pallid, scarlet-stained hand before those lost blue eyes. "It's in your blood."

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Luke didn't move as Palpatine let his hand fall away; didn't speak, all fight gone.

Yes, he felt it. Baying, howling with raw, primal power greater than any storm, calling to be used, wrapping about him like a heavy cloak, empowering and stifling both.

All hope was gone in this forsaken place, his mind and his soul surrendering to the shadows. Deserted and desolate for too long, alone against the onslaught, it had simply become too hard to keep it alight within himself and slowly, gradually, in subtle, guileful increments or tearing, fury-driven outbursts, Palpatine had bled it away, until only the shadows remained.

It was his now, this Darkness which enclosed him. There by his making.

And the Emperor knew it.

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They were all around her, Leia knew--all around her and closing in. The hunting bay of the pack in the darkness. She never saw them, only heard them, heard their breath as they ran to either side of her, animal grunts in the pitch black of the night, glints of eyes in the shadows.

And then she came to the canyon, as she had time and again, feet slipping, digging up gouges in the soft sand which sprayed over the precipice into the bottomless gulley beyond.

And the pack closed in, panting in the darkness as she turned, her heels to that terrifying drop...

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Leia's body jerked from sleep so violently that Han scrambled upright, fumbling for the blaster he kept under the pillow as he shouted out.

"What the...?!"

Leia let out a half-sob beside him.

"Hey, you alright?" Han murmured gently, reaching out to embrace her.

But she was already shrinking from his arms, sliding from the bed and folding her wrap about her against the chill of the ship's night-cycle.

"I'm fine. It was just..." She didn't finish--but then she didn't need to. He knew.

Every night now--every night the nightmares came...

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Days passed in a blur of pain, never a moment's respite. And always the guards, minds blanketed with violence and hostility. Then the Emperor, cursing and cajoling, capricious and volatile, hard and spiteful and cruel.

Then the guards returned.

Then another day, exactly the same as the last.

Then another day.

Then another.

The dreams were sharp and barbed now, like claws scratching at his sanity, like the Emperor's nails dragging across his scalp when he trailed those skeletal, bone-white fingers through matted hair.

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Bright-white light bled into the sun-bleached memory of Beggar's Canyon on Tatooine, towering above the distant dunes.

A child again, no more than nine or ten, Luke sat at the very edge of the precipice, legs hanging over the sheer drop, heels kicking at the canyon walls, dislodging fine pebbles which fell into distant darkness far below, a fractured fissure of cold, parched, lifeless rock which never saw the light of day.

A shadow fell over him, the baking heat momentarily chilled, and he turned, squinting as the twin suns flared a corona behind the form of a boy of his own age, unfamiliar though his clothes were similar to Luke's own, dusted with desert sand, his mop of brown hair bleached pale by twin suns.

He didn't look at Luke, but instead stared beyond, intent on the dark depths of the chasm, fascinated...

Luke leaned forward to look over the steep precipice, morbid curiosity calling him on. He leaned further, trying to see what held the boy's attention so completely...

The deep canyon fell into eerie darkness, wind whipping the baked sand into dust-devils. He glanced back, but the child was gone and the summer sky had turned to night, familiar stars glinting through velvet black.

Far below he heard a howl, wild and primal, sending a shiver down his spine and dragging his eyes back to the canyon floor where a deep, fast-flowing river had replaced centuries-dry stone, stars reflected and distorted in its inky depths, foam whipping white waves up at its edges, a distant ribbon of black against the sheer rust red of the towering ravine walls.

The wind shrieked in a fury now, buffeting him, driving and dragging him, the sand beneath Luke's hands giving no purchase as he tried to scrabble back.

He toppled from the ridge, tumbling forward in freefall, arms outstretched, crying out, desperate for someone, anyone to hear. He twisted as he fell, the night shrinking away, his world, his whole life, dwindling to a distant, narrow slit between the confining canyon, the roar of the river louder and louder...

It hit like a body-blow, the water freezing, shocking, black as ink, the sky immediately lost to its depths--

Hold your breath...

Still he was pulled deeper, whispers of air trailing away from him in pearl bubbles--

Hold your breath...

Down, the freezing, pitch water pressing in on him now as he struggled against its pull--

Hold your breath...

Down...reality long-gone, legs kicking against nothing, no hope of resurfacing--

Hold you breath...one second longer...

His lungs were burning now, no up, no down, no sky, no light, just pitch black--

One second longer...

His chest heaved, desperate to pull in air, fingers outstretched, searching for something...anything--

Just one second longer...

Lungs locked in contention--

Don't breathe...

Don't...

His eyes closed...dizzy and tired, he stopped struggling, stopped fighting, stopped hoping.

Breathe--

With a gasp, he drew in breath...and only the dark water answered, flooding into his lungs to drag him down like a stone...and every last hope fell away with that breath, displaced by the inky, ice-cold water--

He closed his eyes and drowned...

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Leia dragged herself upright, clawing at the sheets and pulling in huge gasps of air, desperate and blind and terrified.

"Ho! It's alright! It's alright Leia. It's alright..." Han had reached up, arms about her, pulling her back to reality as she gasped for air, his voice shocked and reassuring all at once.

"S'okay," he repeated, over and over. "It's okay, Leia. It's alright... It's alright. No one's gonna hurt you. No one can hurt you. You're safe... You're safe...

"You're safe."

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He was shaken awake, hoisted half-upright as his eyelids fluttered open, then dropped to the ground. He curled defensively as he fell, knowing it wouldn't be enough, hearing the hissing buzz of the force-pikes.

The first jolt shocked through the small of his back as he fell, making already aching muscles contract violently. The second hit his shoulder, two more on his arm, cramping muscles, the pain driving the air from his lungs in a gasp.

Too many after that. Too many to register individually as they crowded in around him. Just pain, raw and sharp and hard, taking his breath away, piercing his mind.

"Stop." Palpatine's voice, quiet and calm and cold.

Stop. Luke's breath caught in his throat, muscles contracting involuntarily as if they were still being shocked.

Louder than a scream came the whisper of heavy cloth against the smooth white floor. Footsteps paused close to his head; silence reigned.

Then the rustle of cloth as it pooled against the ground beside him.

"Jedi?"

He couldn't speak.

"Jedi?" A hand brushed oh so gently against his cheek and into his hair, making him physically jump.

"Should they continue?"

The word wouldn't come, but his bloody lips mouthed it all the same: No.

"I think they should." The voice was hard now, disappointed.

No, Master, he mouthed in silence.

He sensed the smile, the gratification.

"Was that so very hard, my friend?"

Long silence, his heart beating hard against his chest.

"Was that so very hard?"

No. His lips barely moved now.

Another pause. He tried to breathe past the pain, to swallow the blood in his throat before it choked him.

"Should I leave, my friend? Do you wish me gone?"

Yes

"Then I will leave you. With them." The heavy raven cloak scratched against Luke's face as its wearer rose.

No, wait...

Palpatine walked on without hesitation--

--Please!--

The footsteps paused fractionally, then continued--

--No...Master!--

They halted; Luke pulled in breath, desperation giving him voice, hoarse and broken...

"No Master. Please...don't leave."

That smile again, searing into his mind. He didn't need to see it, he didn't need to hear it in the Sith's voice. It was burned into his soul.

"I will never truly leave you, my friend. Never again."

His Master turned and walked quietly back, the whisper of that midnight cloak sending shivers up his spine as the Sith crouched low to murmur beguilingly. "Do you wish them to stop? Do you hate them for what they do to you? How you must hate them. How you must fear them. How easily you give them control over you."

--How easily you could stop them-- This last was for him alone. "This is my gift to you, my friend. One that I could not give to you any sooner than this moment. The gift of freedom."

Luke knew that this freedom was also slavery. He no longer cared.

"But I cannot give you this gift, my friend. You must take it. It is all around you, only waiting for you to call it into your control. But you must call it, my friend. You alone."

His Master's voice was barely a whisper as he leaned in close, his finger raking a line through the blood on Luke's cheek.

"Call it to you. You alone can end this."

With a flurry of cloth, his Master stood and walked away, and he knew that nothing would stop him from leaving. And he knew that when he left...

The door ground shut and the lock fell home and the guards around him closed in.

No...not again...no more.

--No more--

Anger and fear welled up within him and the Darkness answered it, potent and familiar, tracing through fiery spoor burned into his mind through weeks and months of torment--

And he didn't push it away. He didn't hold back. No accident this, no momentary slip. He opened himself to it, opened his mind and his soul, let it channel through him--

Infallible clarity; the knowledge of absolute, unconditional power. No restrictions, no consequences. Waiting to be used, asking for direction, screaming for release--

The air charged; like the moment before lightning strikes...

The force-pike thrust in toward him--so slowly; so very slowly, as if time itself bowed to the Darkness. Luke twisted and easily caught the blunt tip. It discharged into his hand, but the shock was contained within the Darkness; the pain was still there, but it didn't matter any more. His anger pushed past it, narrowed to absolute focus.

He channeled the Darkness toward the man holding the pike; threw it into him, ripped out in every direction at once. An organic sound like tearing silk, like water exploding--a deluge of scarlet rain.

And the man was gone.

Still the Darkness poured into him, savage and unshackled, and he gave it focus, head snapping up, eyes wild.

He rolled, pulling his feet under him as they scattered, the power coursing into him, unstoppable now. Giving life to ripped muscles, pulling broken bones together. Power to slough off any injury, to burst through exhaustion and pain, to see past sight. He could sense their fear and it only fed his desire for revenge. He didn't look, didn't need to. The Darkness raced at the speed of thought, jumping from man to man, from corpse to corpse. The warm scarlet mist spread and spattered; on his skin, on his clothes, in his hair.

He ripped through them like a tornado, like wildfire, every last shred of control given up to the raging power.

Violent retribution, cold and hard and merciless. The air hazed with it, his lungs filled with it; copper taste as warm ruby rain settled out from the air.

When there was only one left alive, hammering the door for escape, he paused...

And turned slowly. In the bloody mask of his face, his eyes shone cold and blue, ice in twilight.

With absolute calm he wrapped the Darkness about the guard, drawing the man's eyes to his own, holding him transfixed for several seconds, giving him time to realize.

Then his eyes hardened and the Darkness hardened and he closed it in so slowly, pressing on lungs and bone and fragile tissue, holding contact with those terrified eyes until the life within was crushed.

He turned and walked away, the multiple 'cr-ack' as he collapsed the Darkness completely in on itself pulling the slightest twitch of a satisfied smile to bloody lips.

He sat very still on the only chair, possessed of the distant calm of a trauma victim as he looked, strangely detached, at the carnage about him, the walls wet with staccato trails of deep scarlet, the metallic tang of raw blood still in the air.

Somewhere deep inside his conscience shrieked in horror as he let out a trembling breath, momentary realization buzzing through him, horrific in its consequences--

But he called the Darkness to him and it soothed like a balm, smothering the scream within...;

Oh, but it had felt so good.

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Palpatine stood in the shadows of the corridor, transfixed with the relish of utter gratification, achievement of this final, long-anticipated goal. Such power; such tormented agony released. It was a transcendental moment, surpassing his every expectation, fluid and wild, savagely poetic, undeniably enthralling.

It had taken his fallen Jedi less than a minute to slaughter them all.

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Luke sat silently in the chair, tired and wired, surrounded by Darkness. Potent.

His Master entered the cell, his sense ecstatic, fiery with conquest, drunk on the raw power which swirled about them, intensity magnified and expanded as it ricocheted and recoiled between them.

Now. Now he understood why.

His Master walked toward him through the carnage, laughing lightly. Bone-white fingers raked through Luke's hair, leaving caustic trails of Darkness behind them; power drawn to power.

"You were born for this moment, my friend. If you ever doubt, remember this. Remember what you are capable of. Nothing is beyond you now." Strong fingers closed tightly and his head was yanked back. "Nothing except me. Understand that."

It was made as a statement of absolute fact...but the Darkness whispered his fear. Whispered the truth.

Luke held eye contact with his Master for a moment, considering... Then he blinked, dropping his gaze in submission. For now. "I understand."

He felt abruptly, indescribably tired; his body sagged. His pain, so easily willed away, now washed over him in waves. His vision split and blurred as his breath came ragged.

But he waited.

He wanted desperately to rest, to sleep. But he waited...

He would wait as long as was required of him.

--Rest now, Dark Jedi--

With absolute relief, absolute calm, Luke fell back into the Darkness, let it smother him completely, gave himself into its cold embrace.

Distantly, he felt his Master's hand on his cheek, sensed his laughter in his mind.

Then that too was gone, and only the Darkness remained.

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To be continued...

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