[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(28)

Grandfather…

“Are you all right, Master?” said a very young apprentice. The girl had a bright, optimistic face like polished ebonite; she held a datapad in one hand. “Can I get you some water?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” he lied. “Just a little giddy, that’s all.”

The girl bowed her head politely and walked off, eyes fixed on her datapad.

Jacen wanted to vomit. But he controlled his shock and revulsion: he now knew things he could never erase from his mind. It was Anakin’s moment of madness, his surrender to slaughter even though he knew it was insane. That wasn’t the man he had grown to understand through his mother and uncle.

Would he go that far for his own wife? Would he know where personal need outweighed his duty?

He centered himself with every scrap of effort he could muster and waited for the turbolift, eyes averted when anyone passed. He felt they could see the horror in his soul. But, of course, he was now adept at concealing even that from other Jedi.

I’m not Grandfather.

The lift seemed to take forever to arrive.

I was meant to see how low be fell.

He hit the control with the heel of his hand, fighting tears. “Come on. What’s keeping you?” Two apprentices stared at him but hurried past.

That’s my proof. That’s my pain. I have to embrace it to understand that I am not making my grandfather’s mistake all over again.

Jacen knew what it was to love, and he was older and far more experienced than Anakin Skywalker had been then. He could handle what was happening to him now. He would never do another’s bidding and he could become a Sith without fear of being sucked down into something evil. He still didn’t relish the duty, but it was a duty, not a delusion: he wasn’t repeating his grandfather’s mistakes. He was absolutely certain of that now.

Relief, unbearable sorrow, and disbelief fought in him. He might have asked his grandfather for his reasons, but that was for his personal comfort and not for the purpose of peace, so it would have to wait. That was something for later, once he had become a full Sith Lord and brought peace and stability to the galaxy at last.

By then, he might be ready to deal with the truth of his grandfather’s shame.

Finally-the turbolift doors opened. Jacen ascended to the re-created Room of a Thousand Fountains to sit among the plants and pools to meditate. He knew what he had to do now: he knew he had to test Lumiya to be sure she could help him achieve full Sith knowledge, as she promised, or if she was following her own agenda and planning to exploit him.

It should have been a terrifying thought, but a delicious sensation of complete stillness settled around him. He had found a precious piece of absolute truth, both about the universe and about himself.

Crossing his legs in a mediation position, he let his consciousness reach out across the Force, not as an open hand but as a commanding fist.

Lumiya. Come here, Lumiya.

Come to Coruscant and answer to me.

CORELLIAN SANCTUARY, CORUSCANT.

It was one of the saddest places that Ben had ever visited. He felt the loneliness the moment he got within fifty meters of the Corellian Sanctuary. Outside, three men-one of them very old-were scrubbing away at bright red paint that had splashed and run down the polished gold and black marble inlay of the little domed memorial. They looked up at him as he approached, frowning and suspicious. Ben wasn’t sure what to say.

“What d’you want, kid?” said the youngest man.

“I wanted to look inside, sir.” Be polite; be humble. Jacen had taught him that if you treated people kindly, they normally returned the favor. “Is that okay?”

“You a Jedi?”

The brown and beige robes were a giveaway. “Yes.”

“Why do you want to see inside?”

“My uncle’s Corellian.” And it wasn’t even a lie: he was genuinely as curious about Corellians as he was determined to complete the task that Jacen had given him. “May I go inside?”

The men looked at him, then at each other.

“I’ll take him,” said the old man.

Ben hesitated on the threshold. The doors of the arched entrance looked as if they’d been forced open. He followed the man into darkness and when his eyes adjusted, he was in a black-walled chamber that swallowed up the light. Then he looked up. The domed ceiling was studded with sparkling chunks of rough diamond set in constellations.

“They compressed the carbon left from cremations,” said the old man. “Turned it into diamonds. That’s the night sky as you’d see it from Corellia.”

“Why?”

“Corellians who couldn’t get home during the New Republic.” The old man kicked through rubble on the floor of the chamber; some chunks bore black paint, signs of how the vandals had hacked at the plaster. “Next best thing to resting in home soil.”