Midnight in the Garden

Chapter 38: A Snowflake in My Hand

Anakin kept his promise to Palpatine, and squeezed out a day every few months to visit the Sith world and spend time in the company of his old master's spirit.

He was as unwelcome there as ever. The doors which had opened so easily for him when he delivered Palpatine's body were shut tight against him now.

He could always get in the other way, however. Although he had to call upon the dark side to gain entrance, he found it easier and easier to let it go once he was inside. Palpatine had told him it was to be expected, that once a Sith discovered the Path, it grew easier to find, with less and less need for the fires of rage behind it, except in extreme circumstances.

When I had been training for some years, he told Anakin, if I chanced to use the Force to turn on a light or pick up a writing stylus, it was always the dark side, even though the action was so feeble that either aspect of the Force would do. Eventually it was that way out of necessity, as Palpatine could no longer reach the Force through positive feelings at all.

But you did that very last day, said Anakin.

Palpatine said nothing.

Anakin had a half-formed theory in his mind that ultimate control over the Force rested upon some achievement, some understanding in the mind  of the student; and once the student had mastered that, he was able to use the darkness occasionally in the service of a good end. But he would never be able to use it for a harmful one -- because he would never want  to.

At length he understood that this principle was the very heart of Vaapad, that this was all Vaapad was. He had only approached it from the opposite direction. But Palpatine had never seen anyone take the dark path and drop it easily or at will, and Anakin could sense his bewilderment. His feelings seeped into Anakin's pores: Why would anyone want to do that?

Anakin became increasingly concerned about the master as time went on. At first his longing for the love in those last days of his life had been palpable -- for Sereine's arms around him, for Anakin close by, reading to him. But grief was of the dark side; and when the other masters placed him on the lowest level, not even the Hall of Merchants, they hardened their hearts against him who had once been their pride, and the Sith's grief was once again overlaid with shame. And then, as the months went on, anger.

Each time Anakin returned to Korriban, his old friend felt less and less like the Palpatine who had died in Sereine's arms, touching at last the sweetness of love and light, and more and more like the powerful Sith who had reached out to claim him that fateful night the war ended: If the Jedi destroy me, any chance of saving her will be lost. The thoughts that propelled the changes were never coherent behind the misty inchoate cloud of the Sith's emotions. Anakin suspected that Palpatine pushed them down, not so much away from him, but away from the dark beings that surrounded him.

Fifteen months after Palpatine's death, Anakin challenged him: Master, what about me? What about Sereine? You said you loved her. Have you forgotten?

Palpatine sullenly refused to answer. But Anakin could feel his thoughts revolving around the question, and he eavesdropped on some very recent memories.

"You can never have her back, can you, Lord Sidious? Aren't you angry at this? Angry at the way things are? Angry at fate?"

And the replies other masters directed at those who admonished Palpatine: "Why do you concern yourself with Sidious? We thought he was the One, but he was never the One. Look at him -- weak, sniveling over the woman."

"He was powerful once, but look how low he's brought himself -- the great Sidious who once sneered at all of us, even as we finished training him!"