Traitor by Matthew Stover (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

chamber, and the boil of dust, and the absolute night that had swallowed him … “You should have warned me how dangerous and erratic this ‘Dark Jedi’ power can be,” he insisted.

“Look around you. A dozen warriors, and you. And me. All living. If, instead of wielding this ‘dangerous power’ about which you whine, Jacen Solo had been calm, centered, and armed with his lightsaber …” One arm rippled in a shrug more eloquent than any words. “You saw what he did in the Nursery. There might have been survivors, but you and I would not be among them.”

Nom Anor only grunted. “I do not understand the purpose of this Jedi babble of the ‘dark side,’ either. What was the use of sparking this crisis? Here I am, at your insistence, lying to the Shaper Lord, manipulating his troops, lurking in this hideous place—not to mention placing my life at considerable risk—to trigger this … what? What has any of this to do with converting Jacen Solo to the True Way?”

Vergere looked up from tending her wounds. “Before one can learn truth, one must unlearn lies.”

“You mean, our truth. The True Way.” Nom Anor squinted at her. “Don’t you?”

“Our truth, Executor?” Her eyes seemed to expand into vast pools of unreadable darkness; in them he could see only his reflection. “Is there any other?”

NINE

THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

Ever deeper, ever darker, farther and farther below even the memory of light—

Jacen staggered out from a downlevel stairwell onto some forgotten catwalk, gasping. Had he been running for hours? For days? His legs refused another step, and there was no reason to force them.

No matter how far or fast he fled, he could never outrun himself.

The ancient duracrete floor of the catwalk, rotten with age and neglect, collapsed beneath his weight; a frantic grab onto a lichen-crusted rail left him hanging by one hand over a hundred-meter drop. This shaft might once have been a dump for wrecked air taxis: twisted, rusteaten metal tangled together below, a heap of curving knife edges and torn jagged points.

He hung there for a moment, imagining a long, long plunge, a slicing, ripping impact, a flash of colorless fire …

Maybe he should just let go. Maybe this was his only answer to the darkness inside him. Maybe he wouldn’t even scream on the way down.

There was only one way to find out.

His fingers loosened.

“Jacen! Hey, Jacen! Over here!” He knew the voice. He could not remember ever not knowing this voice; it was as familiar as his own. The voice was a trick—he knew it was a trick, it had to be, he’d been tricked this way before—but he could not make himself ignore it. With the deliberate caution of an experienced climber in a tricky traverse, he reached up and grabbed the rail with his free hand, so that he had enough strength to hold on while he turned his head to look.

On a smog-blackened balcony jutting just below the far end of the gangway, stood Anakin.

Jacen muttered, “You’re not real.”

“Come on, Jacen!” Anakin waved, and beckoned. “This way! Come on! You’ll be safe here!”

Jacen closed his eyes. There was no such thing as safe. “You’re not real.”

When he opened them again, Anakin was still there, still beckoning, wearing a loose-fitting tunic and pants in the Corellian style, lightsaber hung loosely at his belt. He waved Jacen on, jittering with urgency. “Jacen, come on! What’s the matter with you? Let’s go, big brother, let’s go!”

“I saw you die,” Jacen said. He opened himself to the throb of the Force around him; the red tide swelled within his chest, but he pushed it down, focusing tightly, reaching out with his feelings …

Uncle Luke had told, sometimes, of getting guidance from his dead Master, the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi. He had told of seeing his Master, hearing his voice, feeling him in the Force, long after Kenobi’s death—

Jacen could see Anakin. Could hear his voice. But when he reached toward his brother through the Force, he felt nothing. Nothing at all.

“Two out of three,” Jacen said through his teeth. The red tide roared into his ears. He clenched his teeth together to lock his voice in the back of his throat. “Two out of three makes you Vong.”

“Jacen! What are you waiting for? Come on!”

He could put up with a lot. Had put up with a lot. More than anyone should ever have to. But to have some Yuuzhan Vong masque himself as Anakin—

The red tide gathered in a wave of power that spun him into an effortless rising somersault, flipping high above the crumbled catwalk. He landed balanced upon the rope-thin rail, his feet rock-steady, his arms loose, nerveless at his sides. His power would not let him fall.

The shadow worm in the center of his chest shouted for blood.

Two out of three makes you dead.

“All right,” the shadow worm rasped through Jacen’s mouth. “Wait there. I’m on my way.”

He ran along the rail lightly, swiftly, a drumbeat of murder in his heart drowning any thought of the long fall below; he was at the catwalk’s end in seconds, but Anakin had already darted through the balcony door into the building. Jacen spread his arms and let his rage uphold him as he fell forward, kicking off the rail, gliding over the hundred-meter drop onto the balcony.

He landed in a crouch, skidding, left hand splaying onto a smooth cold layer of slime that coated the balcony. Hawk-bats burst out of the doorway, shrieking and clawing, a wheeling cloud of leather and fur and talon.

Jacen made a fist: an instant gale howled around him, sending the hawk-bats scattering, tumbling helplessly away into the darkness. He sprang forward, eating ground like a sand panther running down a paralope, bounding through the ink-black interior of the building with the Force to guide him around and over obstacles. A flash of booted feet disappearing through a doorway into a globe-lit corridor drew him onward. He reached the doorway in one long Force-boosted leap.

Impossibly, Anakin was