Master Apprentice
Archive
Stoicheia 14: Sulphur
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Four blades.
Scintillating, tiny, pinpricks in my eyes that sting all the way into my brain with an edge like searing metal. On edge is too weak a word for how I'm feeling... on the edge, literally, and ready fall or to leap -- the glass is smoky and yellow, casting a sickly tint of hellfire over the scene, but for all the distortion through the glass I can see that two of the blades are... red.
Now it may have been years, but... no Jedi has ever wielded a red blade. Two... two red blades. One weapon. Two blades. Two... two blades lashing out for Kenobi's virgin throat, but... I swallow hard as if the acid heat was closing in on my own throat. Two blades stabbing for Qui. For my Qui.
For all the distance between us, I see him as clearly as if he was right here with me, a foot away in a sparring match, prickly beads of sweat from his flying mane bridging the distance between us unwittingly. You never knew, Master. Pray you will learn now.
My fingers clench around the locking mechanism of the door that leads into the hall, into the maze of shafts and girders, walkways and crazy tubing. Oh to be visible... but to be seen would be death right now... death at the tip of Jinn's green blade or Kenobi's blue one, and me with just the one dart and that's decaying too... could use the Force of course, should use the fucking Force but... where the Force should be there's that thing, that other thing.
The greasy crackling lightning that sticks to my skin like something physical and ugly, attaches itself to me like an unwanted admirer... and it's powerful, incredibly powerful. Sweet torture to have it dancing over my fingertips, and me unable to grab it much though I want to. My knuckles are white around the door lock, and they feel black, pitch black.
It emanates from that other thing. The Client, I guess, the agent planning the destruction of the Jedi. The Jedi that I promised would not be a problem any more. Bitter, Xan, bitter. You can imagine where he'll turn his forces once this battle is over. Survive it or not, stranger... I sense your anger, and it spreads wide, goes deep. Deep within you, deep within me.
Once this battle is over, I said... and yet it looks like it never will be. Flames of pure Force energy collide in these three bodies, high and savage, floating on coloured light and pure darkness. That... thing -- it's hard to tell from here which are its arms and which its legs, it wheels around the walkways like a spider in perfect symmetry, red blades spinning arcs, circles, discs of angry orange radiance.
Red radiance. The yellow glass has become part of my vision... gilds Jinn's flying form as he leaps down into the depths after his fallen boy. Heavy hard golden flight, my Master, touching down on sure booted feet, bright green blade at the ready, driving, forcing his way towards me, chasing the spidery black creature with short sharp jabs of the sabre, shouldering the dark thing out of the way by sheer physical presence, face a grim mask of steel-eyed concentration, hair flying rough and golden with every spin, every leap and thrust... closer, Master, closer...
Fool.
Never coming for you, he isn't. And yet, coming for me, only for me, is what he will be doing, one day, one day when I've found a way out of this. Yes. Yes, I will find a way out of this... I'll fucking have to, I'll have to... I hear my mental voice going shrill, and can't stop it... something tickles my fingertip and I stare in blue-tinged disgust as I tear my eyes away from the window for a split second to watch the blood trickle down my hand from where the locking mechanism has split the skin of my palm. Look, Jinn, I bleed for you. You'll have to make amends for that later, you know? Later...
You, Master, closer still, running, swinging that formidable green blade of yours in wild arcs of abbreviated light, driving that thing with its back towards the wall, closer, closer towards me and the sticky lightning crackles all over my skin as if seeking entrance and it tingles like hell and eats into me, my Force sense swamped by the oily flood of pure alien power. Use it, damn Xan, use it... the kid's fallen behind, now is the best time to tip him over the edge out of sight, out of mind, Master, isn't it? Say it is... say --
Oh Force. It... it's looked at me. Well, stared wildly around more like, but... hellfire. Whatever this creature is, it's... it's a wild curling bundle of snaked Force energy barely held together by the spidery body... the darks of its eyes are pure white. Or yellow, under the deceptive sulphur cast of the glass I'm trapped behind. It is the opposite of human, the opposite of you, Master, in your tense golden solidity, the opposite of your Light and of mine, ... this thing is the Dark, the near-legendary Dark... personified.
I've bitten my lip so hard I've brought tears to my eyes. The yellow swims, your precise movements distort in my eyes, Master. Hold out, just hold out, you hear? For me...? Shrill again. Pathetic... and where's the boy when you need him? Standing there like a vertical fish gasping for air, 'sabre-blade withdrawn... behind a thin veil of orange... red... light. Stuck.
Fuck. Clench hands, unclench. Get out there, use, break, distract. Free the lad to help them get rid of that awful dark creature? Kill him outright? Kill Kenobi, kill the spider thing? Kill! Will I, can I, can I still tell the difference? Do I know if I've got the fucking power to do any of this and not just get stuck in the web of beams and blades and trajectories, sticky like the dark Force covering my skin... touching me... demanding entrance... through the wound in my hand, warm sticky strength, dark and cramped, too much power for this weak body, too much, filling me up through the mouth, through the eyes, and I want to scream and cannot, weep and cannot, it's falling into me and filling me to bursting with a power too great for me, greater than all the pathetic fumbling Jedi in the galaxy, searing my skin from the inside, setting me on fire to burst out there and reduce Kenobi to a standing cinder, to tear Master away from this fight and tear him apart and feed, feast on the poor bleeding light of his pale body... the glass is yellow, is yellow, but what I see is red. Red, a thin energy barrier separating me from my final goal, and me the tool of a force too great to hold... the door lock has crumbled in my hand, white-knuckled, bleeding and clutching tortured broken metal, shoving the door open is easier than breathing, watch out boy, watch out...
A scream rends the air, sending the energy barrier shuddering with the force of the boy's emotion -- my head whips around as if on a cord, where the fuck is he looking, what... and all the breath leaves my body in one endless instant, too much breath, too long a scream...
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!"
I crumple forward on to the hard metal floor, vision blurred and blue, bleeding blackish from my torn hand. Fallen, like my master. Fallen. Dead.
A hand grabs my shoulder, firm, cold compassion. A voice, dark, synthetic.
"The game is up, Lord te Crion."
Yes. Yes, it is.
--- The End ---