Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [255]
Anakin opened his eyes and turned his gaze fully upon the grotesque features of Darth Sidious.
He didn’t even blink.
As he looked upon that mask of corruption, the revulsion he felt was real, and it was powerful, and it was—
Interesting.
Anakin lifted his hand of durasteel and electrodrivers and cupped it, staring into its palm as though he held there the fear that had haunted his dreams for his whole life, and it was no larger than the piece of shuura he’d once stolen from Padmé’s plate.
On the mountain peak within himself, he weighed Padmé’s life against the Jedi Order.
It was no contest.
He said, “Yes.”
“Yes to what, my boy?”
“Yes, I want your knowledge.”
“Good. Good!”
“I want your power. I want the power to stop death.”
“That power only my Master truly achieved, but together we will find it. The Force is strong with you, my boy. You can do anything.”
“The Jedi betrayed you,” Anakin said. “The Jedi betrayed both of us.”
“As you say. Are you ready?”
“I am,” he said, and meant it. “I give myself to you. I pledge myself to the ways of the Sith. Take me as your apprentice. Teach me. Lead me. Be my Master.”
Sidious raised the hood of his robe and draped it to shadow the ruin of his face.
“Kneel before me, Anakin Skywalker.”
Anakin dropped to one knee. He lowered his head.
“It is your will to join your destiny forever with the Order of the Sith Lords?”
There was no hesitation. “Yes.”
Darth Sidious laid a pale hand on Anakin’s brow. “Then it is done. You are now one with the Order of the Dark Lords of the Sith. From this day forward, the truth of you, my apprentice, now and forevermore, will be Darth …”
A pause; a questioning in the Force—
An answer, dark as the gap between galaxies—
He heard Sidious say it: his new name.
Vader.
A pair of syllables that meant him. Vader, he said to himself. Vader.
“Thank you, my Master.”
“Every single Jedi, including your friend Obi-Wan Kenobi, have been revealed as enemies of the Republic now. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, my Master.”
“The Jedi are relentless. If they are not destroyed to the last being, there will be civil war without end. To sterilize the Jedi Temple will be your first task. Do what must be done, Lord Vader.”
“I always have, my Master.”
“Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Leave no living creature behind. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save Padmé.”
“What of the other Jedi?”
“Leave them to me. After you have finished at the Temple, your second task will be the Separatist leadership, in their ‘secret bunker’ on Mustafar. When you have killed them all, the Sith will rule the galaxy once more, and we shall have peace. Forever.
“Rise, Darth Vader.”
The Sith Lord who once had been a Jedi hero called Anakin Skywalker stood, drawing himself up to his full height, but he looked not outward upon his new Master, nor upon the planetcity beyond, nor out into the galaxy that they would soon rule. He instead turned his gaze inward: he unlocked the furnace gate within his heart and stepped forth to regard with new eyes the cold freezing dread of the dead-star dragon that had haunted his life.
I am Darth Vader, he said within himself.
The dragon tried again to whisper of failure, and weakness, and inevitable death, but with one hand the Sith Lord caught it, crushed away its voice; it tried to rise then, to coil and rear and strike, but the Sith Lord laid his other hand upon it and broke its power with a single effortless twist.
I am Darth Vader, he repeated as he ground the dragon’s corpse to dust beneath his mental heel, as he watched the dragon’s dust and ashes scatter before the blast from his furnace heart, and you—
You are nothing at all.
He had become, finally, what they all called him.
The Hero With No Fear.
Gate Master Jurokk sprinted through the empty vaulted hallway, clattering echoes of his footsteps making him sound like a platoon. The main doors of the Temple were slowly swinging