Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [195]
So all that had been left for him was to find some way to respectfully extricate himself.
And then go find Obi-Wan.
Because he wasn’t about to give up. Not in this millennium.
The Jedi Temple was the greatest nexus of Force energy in the Republic; its ziggurat design focused the Force the way a lightsaber’s gemstone focused its energy stream. With the thousands of Jedi and Padawans within it every day contemplating peace, seeking knowledge, and meditating on justice and surrender to the will of the Force, the Temple was a fountain of the light.
Just being on its rooftop landing deck sent a surge of power through Anakin’s whole body; if the Force was ever to show him a way to change the dark future of his nightmares, it would do so here.
The Jedi Temple also contained the archives, the vast library that encompassed the Order’s entire twenty-five millennia of existence: everything from the widest-ranging cosmographical surveys to the intimate journals of a billion Jedi Knights. It was there Anakin hoped to find everything that was known about prophetic dreams—and everything that was known about preventing these prophecies from coming to pass.
His only problem was that the deepest secrets of the greatest Masters of the Force were stored in restricted holocrons; since the Lorian Nod affair, some seventy standard years before, access to these holocrons was denied to all but Jedi Masters.
And he couldn’t exactly explain to the archives Master why he wanted them.
But now here was Obi-Wan—Obi-Wan would help him, Anakin knew he would—if only Anakin could figure out the right way to ask …
While he was still hunting for words, Obi-Wan reached him. “You missed the report on the Outer Rim sieges.”
“I—was held up,” Anakin said. “I have no excuse.”
That, at least, was true.
“Is Palpatine here?” Anakin asked. It was a convenient-enough way to change the subject. “Has something happened?”
“Quite the opposite,” Obi-Wan said. “That shuttle did not bring the Chancellor. It is waiting to bring you to him.”
“Waiting? For me?” Anakin frowned. Worries and lack of sleep had his head full of fog; he couldn’t make this make sense. He patted his robes vacantly. “But—my beacon hasn’t gone off. If the Council wanted me, why didn’t they—”
“The Council,” Obi-Wan said, “has not been consulted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I.” Obi-Wan stepped close, nodding minutely back toward the shuttle. “They simply arrived, some time ago. When the deck-duty Padawans questioned them, they said the Chancellor has requested your presence.”
“Why wouldn’t he go through the Council?”
“Perhaps he has some reason to believe,” Obi-Wan said carefully, “that the Council might have resisted sending you. Perhaps he did not wish to reveal his reason for this summons. Relations between the Council and the Chancellor are … stressed.”
A queasy knot began to tie itself behind Anakin’s ribs. “Obi-Wan, what’s going on? Something’s wrong, isn’t it? You know something, I can tell.”
“Know? No: only suspect. Which is not at all the same thing.”
Anakin remembered what he’d said to Padmé about exactly that last night. The queasy knot tightened. “And?”
“And that’s why I am out here, Anakin. So I can talk to you. Privately. Not as a member of the Jedi Council—in fact, if the Council were to find out about this conversation … well, let’s say, I’d rather they didn’t.”
“What conversation? I still don’t know what’s going on!”
“None of us does. Not really.” Obi-Wan put a hand on Anakin’s shoulder and frowned deeply into his eyes. “Anakin, you know I am your friend.”
“Of course you are—”
“No. No of courses, Anakin. Nothing is of course anymore. I am your friend, and as your friend, I am asking you: be wary of Palpatine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you are his friend. I am concerned that he may not be yours. Be careful of him, Anakin. And be careful of your own feelings.”
“Careful? Don’t you mean, mindful?”
Obi-Wan’s frown deepened. “No. I don’t. The Force grows ever darker around us, and we are all affected by it, even as we affect