29.2 BBY, Cophrigin V
Distantly, I could feel the burning in my right arm as I held the one-handed hand stand. My breathing was still steady and even, but only due to the Matukai training ground into me by Adept Vinrae. The Force was a series of taut harp-strings being plucked in rapid sequence as the strain to not try and grasp it grew more difficult because of my fatigue. Yoda might enjoy delivering platitudes far too much, but the whole "Do, or do not, there is no try" business was solidly grounded in one immutable reality. Trying to hold onto the Force was like trying to hold onto the wind. You could make yourself a channel for it, you could learn to exert influence through it, and of course you could simply touch it, but the instant contact tried to become acquisition, poof. It was gone, and you were left with a faint ringing in your ears, plus an odd tightness in your temples.
Through the Force, I pulled my training saber from my belt, into my hand, and depressed it's activator even before I'd fully grasped it. Giving my eyes-closed self the extra quarter-second required to split the dirt clod said Adept had just silently flung at my nose with the Force. All without dropping the four stones I held steady in the air before me or allowing them to wobble. I avoided wobbling myself in the wake of the cut only by holding to the concept of the Force as my balance. Holding that balance by the narrowest margin as I returned it to my belt the hard way. God, I never got over just how much I loved telekinesis! I couldn't even begin to imagine how all the other Force-users in this galaxy apparently grew so blase about manipulating reality with one's mind, but I'd long ago sworn never to join their ranks.
"Good! That's five out of seven days you were able to hold your balance and the stones while this fatigued! We'll make a proper Matukai Apprentice out of you yet, Anakin!" The strong alto of the Matukai Adept came to me just as distantly as the increasingly insistent burn of my protesting right arm, but I'd long since learned not to acknowledge any distractions. Not unless I wanted a ten mile run through broken game-trails to "focus my wandering attention."
"Release, Apprentice" Dark Woman commanded firmly. No sooner did the "iss" in "apprentice" leave the weathered-featured, silver haired Jedi Master's mouth than I was flipping forward to land on my feet facing the older woman. The pain in all four of my limbs and my core was much more pronounced now that I was no longer using the Force to distance myself from said pain, but that was nothing new. Physical conditioning and active meditation began an hour before sunrise and continued until the sun reached it's apex. Only to be followed (after a brief meal and rest) by lightsaber cadences, advanced deflection practice, and sparring until sunset. When the absorbing and practicing of more esoteric Force-techniques would commence and continue for the next six hours. Leaving six hours for rest out of a thirty-two hour day-and-night cycle. One day out of seven lightsaber cadences were replaced by galactic history and political theory, as a second day was also devoted to by diverting from force-technique practice. Dark Woman judged my technical and piloting abilities more than sufficient for now, but promised we would revisit those areas later if she judged it necessary.
It was a brutal regimen that would have been impossible without the supplemental teachings of Master Dark Woman's friend, ally, peer? I was never quite sure as to the nature of the relationship between the two women. Sometimes they seemed like old friends. Laughing at inside jokes I couldn't begin to guess at which bespoke a long association. Other times they were all business and extreme formality. I'd tried to use my empathic sense to solve the riddle, but both women were such onion-layered beings when it came to their feelings that empathy only confused rather than illuminated the issue.
My ruminations were interrupted by the careful, clipped inquiry of my Master. "It could be said you've done very well to catch up to and even surpass most Padawans your age raised in the creches and trained as initiates in the Temple's clans. What would your reply to such an observation be, Apprentice?"
Dark Women never, ever asked a non-trivial question of me which wasn't also a teaching opportunity, so I considered my response very carefully. "I would say that comparing myself to others is a trap, because my own progress is what I can influence. I should strive to be the most effective Jedi I can be, and leave words like ahead or behind to those who don't understand as much."
"Perfectly parroted, but I won't set you to running because I can tell there's at least some understanding of my words buried in your mimicry" she responded primly. Her normally all but unbreakable calm now swirled up into a moment of faint anxiety. Nearly causing me to gasp, it was so unexpected. Almost as unanticipated as her next words.
"Vinrae and I agree you've reached a plateau in your Matukai training for now. Which brings us to my assessment of your development. Something which should only be taken for what it is. An assessment of where you currently stand, as opposed to where you must yet progress in order to face and overcome the Trials" Dark Woman began. It was a bit of a fight, but I managed to wrestle down my anticipation for what would come next and remain completely rooted in this present moment as she'd ground into me so relentlessly.
"It's time I take you to Ilum, so you can construct your first lightsaber. I might have chosen to give you another few weeks of polish before ending our time here with Vinrae, but the Force moves as the Force wills." The Jedi Master's words were more than a little cryptic, but I could read a calendar. Of course she was getting antsy. Palpatine had recently been elected Chancellor, Tarkin was moving to secure his grip on the man who designed the Death Star, and everything was spiraling on toward the Clone Wars. It made perfect sense the Force was starting to light a fire under her ass.
None of which I could bring myself to really focus on right now. Ilum and my own lightsaber! It was the moment every Padawan simultaneously yearned toward and dreaded. Would I measure up with the Crystal Caves throwing all my fears and doubts back at me? Could I find the trance to build my lightsaber with the Dark Side emanations trying to seduce me, or at least impede my efforts?
A sigh interrupted my train of thought. One followed by my Master's chiding voice. "I see the speculation concerning the future in your eyes, and the nascent fear it's engendered in your aura, apprentice. Will you never learn that the only place fear can exist is in your thoughts of the future? While you remain grounded in this present moment, fear is a phantom with neither claws or teeth."
I bowed my head in acceptance of the criticism. At least her fear-related chiding came with practical insights useful in stemming it. Unlike a certain platitude-laden green goblin, and a too-earnest Kenobi.
Surprising me by not sending me out on another five or even ten mile run, my Master simply said "Pack your belongings and turn in early. I intend for us to be breaking orbit when you're normally rising to begin the day."
The tall blond with the highly defined musculature and laughing green eyes came over as soon as Dark Woman had glided away. Sadness touched her momentarily, but then the laughter was back in her eyes and a genuine smile was quirking her pretty forty-something features upward, as she said "You must be so excited to be headed to Illum! I understand it's as huge a turning point in a Jedi's career as the day our acolytes are accepted as full Apprentices."
I nodded at her words, and smiled back as I replied "It is, and I am, but you don't need to worry. I don't have any intention of either forgetting anything you've taught me, or failing to continue building on those elements of the training I can persist with on my own. Hopefully, the time will come when I'll be able to seek you out once more to continue learning. I think all members of the Jedi Order need a firm grounding in the Matukai teachings, because the mind can only do so much without a body optimized and ready to carry out one's will."
"You were listening as I prattled on like my old teacher, then. Good! Seriously however, the galaxy's a dangerous place, Anakin. I'm sure I don't need to tell you of all people that, but it really is. What's more, there are a lot of people who believe it'd be quite the notch on their blaster to take down a Jedi. Even one still in training. Promise me you'll be careful out there and remember your training, eh?" Vinrae exclaimed. Finishing with as sincere and concerned a question as any I'd ever heard from her.
I nodded again as I smiled at the woman who'd taught me so much about how the Force interacted with and could interact with my body. My dark blue eyes meeting her bright green ones as I impulsively hugged her. She laughed quietly, then wrapped her arms around me briefly. Finally holding me out at arm's length and looking at me in a way that made me think she was fixing my image in memory just so.
"You're going to do great out there, Ani. The galaxy's never going to know what hit it!" Vinrae's excited encouragement struck me like a shot to the funny-bone given context she couldn't know anything about, but I smiled and laughed it off. While inside doubts continued to swirl about my upcoming trip. We talked a little bit longer, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you what else was said.
I spent a very few minutes packing my meager possessions into a bag. Two changes of casual clothing, two more sets of robes, and a spare cloak rounded out my apparel. Which only left me a few training aids, my personal data-pad, and a simple chain with a tiny four-pointed star of rainbow like lead crystal Shmi had given me. I didn't wear it regularly because I was so active and afraid of breaking it, but I'd held onto it for more reasons than I could easily pin down. Maybe it was just nice to know someone was out there caring about me. Not for what I could do, or what my existence might mean, but just for my own sake.
Even if I wasn't exactly who she thought I was. That thought stung a little, and faded only slowly as I willed myself to find sleep. Dark Woman was not understanding of needless delays when she was ready to be off, so I imagined that principle would only be magnified for an interstellar trip in it's beginnings.
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Space travel was something else I never grew tired of. This was only my third trip, but since the first basically consisted of an awful and ongoing stench when I was three I did my very, very best not to recall it. The smoothly rising arc that Dark Woman's Rho-1 Limulus-class Courier took as it rose out of the atmosphere and accelerated to a point far enough from the planet to engage the hyperdrive provided a beautiful view of the mostly green and brown planet striated with white bands of cloud. Something else the natives of this galaxy took for granted. They completely missed out on the joy and sense of freedom that came with being a member of an interstellar civilization.
"Enjoy the view while you can, Anakin. We won't be seeing much except hyperspace and a bit of black when I drop out to reorient on a new hyper-lane for the next week. Ilum is on the other side of the galaxy, after all" Dark Woman pointed out. Her usually prim demeanor a little softer as she saw just how excited I was, and how much I was enjoying the trip so far.
"It's just so amazing when you think about it, Master. Crossing the galaxy being something two people can do in a week! A person with the means could see so much in a lifetime, if they've a mind to." I couldn't help the enthusiasm in my barely adolescent voice as the stars stretched into the blue-white of hyperspace suddenly. Even the Force felt different while we were moving so fast. Vibrating gently like the string of an instrument struck moments earlier.
"Perhaps the galaxy would be a brighter place if more had your enthusiasm for such simple things" the Jedi Master replied. Her weathered and deeply lined features once more quirking into a small smile.
One Week Later
Ilum from orbit was a white and blue ball covered in huge swathes of rapidly moving white as our ship drew closer and began it's descent. More detail of the planet below became visible as we dropped, but I would have known we were getting close if I'd been unconscious. The Force not only sang a far more powerful song here than anywhere else I'd been. It kept echoing back at me again and again. Although "echo" wasn't anymore accurate a term to describe the indescribable phenomena than "reflection" would have been. I guessed aloud that the odd sensation I was feeling were the crystals and the Force-vergence present here. Which observation was rewarded by my Master with a bit of cryptic commentary.
"Ilum is a place strong in the Force, but it's difficult to quantify what that means by way of conversation. It is a place of testing for some, and deep contemplation for others. Somewhere which has become as important to the Order as it is to your training. I know how you love to define and delineate, but you'll have to learn the truth of Ilum for yourself, Anakin" Dark Woman remarked. A note of reverence and deep respect having entered her strong and normally unflappable voice.
The ship set down with an almost imperceptible thump a few moments later. The Jedi Master directed me to the cold-weather garments in the gantry-way compartments, and a couple of minutes later I was walking on the surface of a planet I'd imagined countless times. This was where a Jedi's story really got started. I couldn't deny my rising anxiety, so I used a trick for calming oneself Vinrae had taught me. Ironically, it involved focusing intently upon my body's physical responses to my present stress and anxiety, then tracking and cataloging each minute change in my breathing rate, heartbeat, muscle tension, and even my perspiration. It ate up a lot of one's attention, but damned if a couple minutes of doing nothing but pinning down physical reactions to distress didn't go a long way toward alleviating said distress.
Dark Woman didn't say anything about my near panic-attack or my reaction to it, but she did give me a rare smile of approval as I brought my body and emotions under control. When she struck off at a brisk walk to the north, I focused on using a Matukai technique to keep myself warm in Ilum's wintry environs as we walked. With the cold-weather gear it wasn't strictly necessary, but it was more comfortable, and it did serve to help keep me from putting too much pressure on myself.
The path we were following was somehow being kept free of the imposing snow drifts which had formed like great walls of white and gray to either side of it. Giving our immediate environs a very closed in feel that was only exacerbated by the sound muting quality of the densely packed snow. The only clear sounds I could make out were our boots crunching through thin patches of ice that had formed, and the omnipresent wind. It ranged from an almost inaudible whirring to a mournful howl when gusts began to pick up strength. Overall, it felt like Master Dark Woman and I were the only living things on Ilum.
Never one to speak just to fill up silence, and intolerant of those who did just that, Dark Woman was a perfectly self-contained island in this silent white desolation. I wished I possessed that unshakable calm and seemingly perfect poise, but every day forward felt like one day closer to the doom of the galaxy.
"No, I'm not doing this again. Not here, and not today of all days. I'm just one person trying to fight his way free of the tire-fire, and still a few months shy of being thirteen no less! I will do whatever I can to stop Palpatine, but I'll drive myself crazy if I keep obsessing about what's happening without any let-up." The silent chiding I gave myself loosened the knot forming in my guts somewhat, but didn't entirely dissolve it. Snapshots of what Order 66 had looked like on the big screen flitted through my mind, but I resolutely shoved them from my mind's eye.
"This present moment is what's important. Focus on doing what you need to do now, Anakin. Leave later alone until it becomes now" I murmured to myself as I trudged along in my Master's wake.
Glancing back over her shoulder, the Jedi Master shot me a satisfied smile. Giving me even more reason to believe she had eyes in the back of her head.
Several minutes passed as we crunched along, then the temple seemingly rose up out of nowhere ahead of us. I knew it was simply an optical illusion predicated on the confined field of view created by the huge snowbanks, but you try not being impressed when what amounts to a great crystal castle just looms up in front of you without warning. My Master gave me a couple moments to goggle at the magnificent soaring cylindrical spires and broad ramparts seemingly fashioned of solid ice, then turned and spoke to me in the most serious manner I'd yet heard from her.
Dark Woman's voice was quiet, but it lost none of it's gravity or authority as she explained "Six Initiates or young Padawans are often brought here by their Masters as a group, but I requested and received a place on the Gathering schedule for the two of us alone. You don't need the help of your peers to lift the gate, but more importantly; you've convinced me you're psychologically and emotionally mature for your age and can therefore handle this on your own."
Pausing a moment to allow the third bit of real praise I'd had from her in nearly seven years to sink in, her voice was deadly serious when she continued. "You may lift the Gate whenever you're ready to get out of this wind, Apprentice." The words were at odds with the seriousness used to deliver them, but the extreme gravity didn't depart from either the Jedi's body language or aura.
I studied what I'd at first taken for one great slab of semi-translucent blue glacial ice and realized there was a half-cylinder of ice dead in the middle of the wall. With the way the snow kept piling up against and flurrying up from it intermittently the difference was easy to miss, but once I saw it, I steadied my breathing and emptied my mind of everything except the task before me. This was the one thing I really truly blew the doors off my contemporaries at, because I'd truly internalized the whole midichlorian count higher than Yoda's thing. This didn't take decades of contemplating the Force. It simply took the basic knowledge required to lift a pebble with the Force, and true belief the pebble didn't differ from the X-Wing.
It sounded crazy to me at first, too, but when your Master simply refuses to feed you until you get it through your fool head, you catch on fast.
I raised my hand in front of me and made a vague lifting gesture as I focused on reaching out through the Force to surround and grasp that ten foot high half-cylinder of ice. A series of escalating notes as rapid as they were powerful sang out inside my head, as my ears carried the sound of ice grinding on ice and stone to me from twenty feet away. I had my bag of components in the light pack I was wearing, and had just begun to take my first few slow and steady steps forward while continuing to hold a couple thousand pounds of ice aloft when my Master's voice rang out sharply. It was as much a deliberate attempt to distract me from my ongoing task as it was a need to communicate information, I swear. Just the kind of thing Master Dark Woman loved doing to me.
"It bears mentioning that the entrance to the cavern complex within will ice over completely in six hours. If you haven't found your crystal and completed your lightsaber by then, well, let's just say we'll both make compelling wordless warnings to the next Jedi who come along. Just something to bear in mind, Apprentice." The words were delivered with such perfect gravity, and in such flawless synchrony with the dark seriousness of the Jedi Master's present emotional state she still nearly gulled me, and that's with my knowing the "warning" is a fake-out perpetrated by every Master on every Initiate and Padawan brought here.
I bobbed my head in acknowledgement as I continued on forward. I had more than enough anxiety and doubt flitting through me as we walked beneath the huge chunk of ice to convince the woman she'd conned me completely. What was more, as the ice now behind us slowly ground down into it's grooved resting place once more, I was forced to recognize I didn't need material dangers like being entombed alive in a glacier-temple to scare the shit out of me. Unlike all those other Initiates and Padawans, I knew what was waiting down there in the dark for me. Something much more frightening than any white-out blizzard or icy tomb.
Me. The worst of everything in me. All charged up by the Force and set in my path to bar my way. Other Initiates and Padawans had the fears and failings of children to serve as their rock-lions and sphinxes. I'd lived nearly thirty-one years before being reborn in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Add to that the sure and certain knowledge of just how much worse the tire-fire which was this era could be made if I ended up drinking the Dark Side Kool-Aid. It truly didn't bear thinking about.
Except that's exactly what this was all about.
We walked across the huge flat plate of ice in silence for more than a minute. Finally coming around a bend in the gently curving corridor to face another wall of ice soaring up into the darkness beyond the reach of our wrist-lights. There was the largest of cave openings directly in front of us, but I could see at least three smaller and slightly more irregular openings off to our right and left.
Turning at the sound of clothes rustling beside me, I saw my Master now seated indian-style on the cold floor. Her eyes were just closing, as she quietly prompted me "Tick, Tock, Anakin."
I took the warning for what it was. Sooner begun, sooner done, and all that jazz. Again, I drew on Vinrae's trick to cope with my rising fears and self-doubt. Listening to my sped-up heartbeat and focusing on my shallow rapid inhalations and exhalations as I moved determinedly forward into the tunnel mouth.
The tunnel proceeded almost perfectly straight for perhaps a hundred paces, before turning first sharply to the left, then back to the right after another thirty-five steps or so. I'd turned the wrist-lamp up to maximum before entering the tunnels, but the walls seemed to devour much of the light. Confining me to perhaps ten feet where I could see clearly, and another twenty feet where things were dim and more indistinct beyond that. Confinement and an inability to see in an unrestricted manner seemed to be repeating themes of the Crystal Caves. Causing me to wonder if the claustrophobic design was an intentional attempt to bring the fears of Initiates and Padawans as close to the surface as possible, so that the Force which imbued the area could create the manifestations that tested us.
"Always so quick to define and delineate! I've done my very best to teach you how to really see, Anakin, but you insist on remaining bogged down in the material and the most simplistic of thought-forms. How do you expect to become a Jedi Knight, when you can't even internalize a lesson as simple as this?" Dark Woman said from behind me. Causing me to spin in surprise, because I knew tradition demanded she remain in meditation beside the Gate until I returned.
Seeing my surprise at her presence here, she explained in a chiding tone "I already deviated from tradition by making it just the two of us here. You've never known me to cling to form at the cost of function. Why would you expect me to do so on a day as important as this? I sensed you were struggling, as you always do once we begin drawing away from physical applications, so I came to offer my guidance again. All you have to do is stop, meditate on my words, and you'll see where you've already begun to go wrong."
That didn't sound like Master Dark Woman. She always advocated rolling up one's sleeves and learning by doing. I literally couldn't recall one time she'd ever told me to stop an assigned task or lesson to navel-gaze in search of answers. My doubts must have been visible on my face, because she suddenly snapped "I gave you an order, Apprentice. Join me in meditation upon your failings, then you may continue!"
I bowed out of respect for what the image represented, but shook my head. "My Master would never tell me to stop doing what's necessary to contemplate how I might do it better. That's exactly the kind of second-guessing she's always onto me about. You'll have to do better than that, Cave."
"Do you truly believe I can't, young Skywalker?" The image was still Dark Woman's, but it was Sheev Palpatine's silky-smooth voice coming from the Cave-projection's lips. It was that calm, urbane, cultured voice he used. Right before the hissing devolution of tone that ordered his latest atrocity.
I swallowed, hard, but that voice wasn't something I respected and it wasn't something that could hurt me unless I let it. Giving the Voice of Absolute Evil the finger, I wheeled suddenly and marched on my way.
I made it perhaps twenty paces, when Wilhuff Tarkin stepped right out of the wall to my left. The old-money aristocrat from Eriadu sneered down at me as he said "You had precisely one advantage which might by the narrowest of margins have seen you through to victory, but you squandered it saving one aging Jedi Master the Order doesn't even have a use for. Now, your foreknowledge is all but worthless, yet Palpatine is still Supreme Chancellor. How do you intend to stop the march of history now? With a lightsaber? Pffagh!"
I refused to rise to any bait laid out by the Champion of World-Murder. "The fact that Qui-Gon Jinn is a wise enough Jedi to heed even the warning of a small child proves your master is right to fear him, murderer. I regret I could not be completely honest with Master Jinn, and had to play I've had the same recurring dream again and again, sir, but there are days the ends do indeed justify the means. Lest you think me nothing but a sentimental idealist, Oh Butcher of Biomes, how's Darth Tyranus these days? Oh! That's right, THERE ISN'T ANY SUCH SITH LORD! Meaning no dead Master Sifo-Dyas, and a gaping hole in the whole Send in the Clones gambit. Plagueis might have conned a good man into building your damned army, but there's still the problem of getting inhibitor chips into all those skulls, and keeping them there long enough to use them. Good luck with that, Mr. There Have Been Unavoidable Delays."
Enraged, Tarkin snarled at me in wordless fury, then fractured into thousands of slithering shadow-fragments and disappeared.
Far from being jubilant due to my "victory", my stomach was in knots. A real twelve year-old bordering on thirteen might not have recognized the old "Set 'em up, then knock 'em down" ploy, but I did. The Grand Skinhead of Mass Murder had played right into my hands by bringing up Qui-Gon. I was meant to feel like I'd outmaneuvered someone I considered as cunning as he was dangerous, so I'd take the next hit like a hook to a gut soft with surprise.
Still, the conflict had bought me another hundred steps of peace. Then a completely unexpected voice threw me for a loop.
Adam Driver in his rare calm and wry voice commented "I'm supposed to delay, or better yet; seduce and corrupt you to the Dark Side, but I'm not sure I should bother trying. The real Anakin? He at least had fire and conviction. Say what you want about him, but whatever side he was on he made things happen! Great things, terrible things, they were all feats indicative of the fact he had that one-in-a-million quality upon which the levers of history always rest. I don't think you could even manage a half-assed me, so what's the point of turning you? I mean, I suppose the Emperor could freeze you in Corbomite and use you as a sperm-donor in the hopes of acquiring a Luke and Leia pair he could work on from birth, but that's the upper limit of your value to the forces of darkness. Sorry to disappoint you, interloper, but you're no great villain in the making. Great? You'll struggle to attain mediocrity."
I couldn't deny there were things he touched on that touched on some of my deepest fears, but a facsimile of Kylo Ren once again playing up Darth Vader as the pinnacle of all that's righteous and badass rather weakened his message. In retrospect, I should have realized the Cave knew what it was doing with Tarkin and Kylo Ren. I wouldn't recognize the feint-within-a-feint until it was all over.
Catching a glimpse of some diamond-like glints up ahead, I quickened my pace as the Kylo Ren projection dissipated like smoke once it elicited no reaction at all from me. I turned the corner thinking I saw where those crystalline glints were coming from.
Only to end up nearly nose to nose with a red-eyed, blotchy cheeked Shmi Skywalker. She'd obviously been crying a great deal, and the bags beneath her eyes denoted many sleepless nights. I reflexively moved to help her, so utterly convincing was her presence, but the absolute desolation in her voice stopped me. There wasn't any anger or bitterness. It was the sound of someone who'd passed through the gamut of heart-rending emotion and landed somewhere that left them feeling as dead inside as their voice sounded.
"It wasn't enough to steal my little boy's life. You couldn't even be bothered to truly try and give me anything in exchange for what you took from me! I tried so hard, but all I ever got for my trouble were a few tiny crumbs when you could spare a moment from your constant scheming to get to the Jedi as soon as humanly possible. Tell me, imposter, did you give me even one thought once you'd packed me off to Birren with a case full of sops for your conscience?" The words, the question was delivered in the tone of someone who was slightly curious only because they had absolutely nothing else and simply wanted to tie up a final loose end.
The sight of her like that, and the things Shmi said. It hit me like a K-bar run up my middle like a trout in need of being filleted.
Had I killed an innocent little boy when my consciousness arrived here? What did I owe Shmi? How could I have just moved in like a tenant taking over a lease? The questions tore the scabs off wounds at the bottom of my mind I'd carefully avoided looking at too closely, and the sight of Shmi bereft of, well, everything dropped acid in those wounds.
I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to do. I was just, frozen there.