The Light Inside

by Z. P. Florian

Another challenge series for DMEB like the Bouquet of Deflowers, this time about how Maul survived.

Warning Sex none. Violence plenty. Language none.

Disclaimer as usual, Lucas owns the sandbox and all the toys in it, I only play with the kind of sand he doesn't want.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.
William Blake (from the Proverbs of Hell)

I was a shadow on the walkways of Coruscant, following my Padawan. Anakin was acting strangely ever since the Queen of Naboo had bought his mother out of slavery. I expected the boy to be happy and content.But I sensed more agressivity in him than ever before.

I convinced the Jedi Council to allow him to visit his mother three times a week. Every time he came back from those visits, the first thing he did was to throw his clothes into the cleaner. I found that rather strange from an eleven-year-old. When I was his age, my Master had a hard time to convince me to use the cleaner, During his last visit I shut the cleaner down. While he slept, I retrieved his clothes. There was blood on them. and not his own. I had to follow him to see what he was doing. Certainly he wasn't getting his clothes bloody at his mother's place. He was very strong in the Force, but my shields were good enough to hide my presence from him, my strenght didn't match his, but my training more than made up for the ddifference.

He ran ahead like any happy child. I knew where his mother lived, he seemed to be heading there.She had a small apartment in a friendly housing complex. Anakin passed by,but he didn't go in. Instead he took the nearest elevator down. Way down. I took the next car and followed him on the lower level. He stopped in front of a steel wall, covered with graffiti. I saw him putting his palm against a painted flower. A door opened on the wall, and he went inside. The door closed behind him, but when I touched the flower, it opened again. It was activated by body heat.

I found myself in a dimly lit steel tunnel. Anakin marched fast ahead of me. Another door opened at the end of the tunnel as e approached. I went in after him. A large well-lit chamber was beyond the door. In the middle of that room there was a cage. Its bars shimmered with some kind of energy field.

Inside the cage I saw the tattooed Sith I thought I had killed on Naboo. Naked, filthy, and emaciated, he was chained hand and foot. His ebony skin was covered with barely healed whipmarks.

Anakin opened the cage with a keycard he had in his pocket. A floating droid appeared and gave the boy a studded whip. He took it, stepped into the cage and started to whip the Sith, as hard as he could. Blood splattered on his clothes. The Sith endured the whipping, he didn't even flinch.

Anakin cursed at him. "I hope you live long enough to suffer for years for killing Master Jinn," he screamed, his face distorted with rage. "I hope you are properly starved!"

"Yes. I'm very properly starved, little Jedi," the Sith answered softly.

"That makes you happy. One day you will wish you hadn't done this."

"That day will never come, you filthy animal!" Anakin screamed. "I won't regret anything!!!"

"I thought this way once, " the Sith said.

Anakin only whipped him harder. It was strange because I couldn't feel the boy's presence in the Force at all. I thought the cage was Force blocked somehow.

"Anakin, stop!" I said and dropped my shields.

The boy turned and smiled at me. "You want to have a go at him, Master?" He offered the whip to me.

The Sith just looked at me with his strangely beautiful eyes.

"Anakin. What you are doing is not of the light. It is a darksider act. Master Jinn wouldn't want you to do this. Revenge is not the way of the Jedi."

The boy stared at me with hate. "You want me to forget that this worm murdered Master Jinn? "

" Anakin, if Master Jinn were here now, he would heal this man and feed him. This is how he lived. He wasn't murdered. He fell in a fair fight. He wouldn't rage against his fate,." I told him. I knew my Master, and as long as I tried to live as he did, then he wasn't dead. He was alive within me. "Padawan, who gave you this man to torment?"

"Someone who cares for my feelings more than you do!" the boy said. He hit the Sith again and again his eyes blazing with hatred. The Sith didn't react, just endured it without any sound or movement.

I couldn't bear to watch.

"Padawan, if you don't stop now, I will not teach you anymore." I had promised to Qui-Gon that I would train the boy, but I couldn't believe that I was able to reach his soul, Even if he had one, I think the child lost his soul the day Qui-Gon died. And suddenly I knew, who had to be the one who catered to the boy's dark feelings. It had to be the Sith Master. Who else could deliver him this Sith to torture? Every slash of that whip brought the boy closer to the Dark Side.

How blind I have been.

Only one person who could have done all this, to convince the Queen to buy Shmi Skywalker's freedom. Palpatine, he had to be the Sith Master, he used the Trade Federation's war to get himself elected Supreme Chancellor. I told Anakin to stop again, but he didn't listen to me. He faced me defiantly. "Someone has to make sure that this piece of filth gets punished! If you don't have the stomach to do it. I will!"

I knew then that I was too late.

"Yes, Kenobi, you are too late." The silken voice of Palpatine came from a speaker on the ceiling. "You may now practice your compassion on your fellow prisoner."

As I was standing there another cage descended from the ceiling, trapping me inside. It was Force blocked. A pair of floating droids came in, tearing off my clothes, and binding my hands and feet.

"This will be most amusing." Palpatine chuckled." Anakin, return to the Jedi Temple. Tomorrow you shall ask Master Yoda where your Master has gone. They will never find him."

I think two days passed. Being cut off from the Force was nearly unbearable, the world was empty. The entire universe disappeared the steady hum of the living was not there. I felt lost in nothingness.

I got some water but no food. The Sith wasn't fed either. He didn't talk to me. I asked his name but he didn't answer. I thought perhaps he was in a state of some sort of hibernation, which is not a bad method to slow down the metabolism and conserve strength. The blank walls of the chamber were bathed in sterile white light.

The honeyed voice of Palpatine came from the speaker once again.

"Kenobi. You will be fed if you hit the Sith with the whip."

The man opened his eyes. "Do it, Jedi. Maybe your compassionate heart will compel you to share a bite of your food with me."

The floating droids brought the whip to me, and my cage moved immediately beside his. The sides snapped together, and a bar pulled up to allow me to get to him. The manacles on my feet loosened enough so I could walk. I understood that I had to do it if I wanted to see him fed.

I hit him.

Palpatine said. "Kenobi, I said hit him, not tickle him. Draw blood."

I had to. One look at the Sith's ebony skin stretched taut over protruding bones convinced me that he needed food badly enough to take pain for it . I hit him hard, enough to see bright red blood on his ebony skin. He looked at me. Just how seldom they fed him, I didn't know.

"Now that was satisfactory. Give food to the Jedi."

The manacles on my legs were drawn tight again. The droids gave me a package of nutribars. There were three of them. I turned away from the Sith as I opened the package. With my hands in manacles it wasn't easy.

"How many did you get?" he asked.

"Four," I said, and gave him two. I had to crawl to him with my legs manacled. I couldn't walk.

He took them with shaking hands. He only ate half of one at first. Not even biting into it, just licking it slowly until it melted in his mouth. It took him two hours to eat two nutribars with this method.

Now we were together in the joined cage, the one bar that was pulled up remained open.

"Have you been in this cage since Naboo?"

"Yes," he said.

I couldn't imagine how can anyone could survive for so long being confined in a cage, but I have seen zoos on planets and their animals survived for years in cages. Why should a Zabrak be any different?

"Two years?" I asked. "Two whole years?

"Almost. It took a good while to get me healed after your strike. I was in a hospital for some six months. Only after that did he put me in here."

"He got you healed just to give you to the boy?"

"Yes. He is a careful planner. He knows what he is doing. But I don't know why he needs you."

"He couldn't really let me go after I came in here."

"But he could have killed you and be done with it." He sat for a while thinking, then he spoke." Maybe he wants Anakin to kill you, if the boy sees you helping me he'd be enraged enough to do it. That would complete his turn."

"I have to admit, that it does make sense." I told him.

"Shouldn't you at least pretend that you hate me?"

"No. It wouldn't bring Anakin closer to the light. He would think that I agree with him. That would be even worse." I didn't think Anakin would kill me, but maybe he would. There was nothing I could do except to be who I was, and hope that eventually an opportunity would present itself. Patience is the way of the Jedi . My Master would do the same. He taught me well. Time passed slowly I thought about a month had gone by. Anakin came once every week.The routine never changed once or twice a week the droids hosed us down, that didn't help much, we were both filthy beyond description. I got two nutribars a day. The Sith got nothing. I always gave him one. A man can survive on a nutribar a day for a long time.

Once the temperature of the room dropped to freezing. The Sith shivered. I crawled to him, sat with my body pressed to his hoping to keep him warm.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Maul."

"Not Darth Maul?" I asked. He tried to pull away from me, but he was shaking too badly, eventually, he instinctively came closer.

"Not anymore. There can be only two, and I'm not one of the Sith now. What is your name, Kenobi?"

"Obi. Obi-Wan."

"Should I call you Obi?"

"Yes," I told him. His body was still ice cold.

He closed his eyes and his breathing slowed. He was hibernating again. I decided to follow suit.

I woke up when Anakin arrived.

"What does the Council think of my disappearance?" I asked him.

"They don't know what to think," the boy said. "He was right. The Jedi are powerless. They can't keep order in the Galaxy, they can't do anything. If I ever want to help people. I need more power than the Jedi can give me. I've learned from them as much as they can teach me. Then I will start my real training."

"Anakin, he is just using you." I told him.

"You don't understand anything, Master!" he hissed. "I haven't seen you leading an army to free the slaves! You are soft as all the other Jedi!" The floating droids came again with a whip. Anakin beat Maul for a solid twenty minutes. When he left, Maul was bleeding very badly. I had nothing to bandage him with. I tried to lick his wounds at least to clean them a little. .He looked at me as if he thought I was crazy.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, staring at me.

"I don't have anything better to do right now. My appointment for lunch with Queen Amidala was canceled."

"How can you joke at a time like this?" he asked.

"When should I joke? When everything is all right? Then we wouldn't need it."

"You are strange." he said.

"Maybe." I continued cleaning the gashes. He was so thin that where his skin split, I could see bone exposed. "I'm going to heal you a little."

"You can't do it. You can't draw on the Force."

"I can lend you some of my own strength." I told him.

"That will drain you."

"Yes. But I'm strong and healthy. I can afford it." I knew that it would drain me, but not dangerously.

I put my hands on him and willed part of my strength into him . This kind of healing, works instantly the whipmarks disappeared. He looked much better.But I felt faint. He just stared at me and said. "You are crazy, Jedi. I wanted to kill you."

"It wasn't even a fair fight." I said. "Two against one. I'm still ashamed of it."

"I could have taken you both."

"Why didn't you?"

"I had my orders to kill Jinn, You were not important so I was careless with you.."

"To kill him, so he couldn't train Anakin?"

"Yes. He could have kept the boy on the Light side forever. You couldn't."

"I know." I said. "I never liked him. But he wants to be liked, he is a good boy. In the right hand he could have been magnificent."

" He will be magnificent, a magnificent Sith."

"Do you envy him?"

"Not now. I don't think I'm capable of feeling emotions anymore." He drank of his water. He was thirsty as he lost blood.

"I don't believe you. I think you do have emotions. Don't you think of getting out of here?"

"That's useless. We will not get out of here alive."

" Now that's an useless attitude. To give up before you are dead. The game is not over yet. We are alive. There might be a chance to escape."

"Like how? Talk the droids into deactivating the field?" He almost smiled.

"There's always a bigger fish." I said without thinking

"What does that mean?"

I told him the story. I talked about our mission in detail. He curled up on the dirty floor, listening. I wondered how could I survive for almost two years without having anyone to talk with.

"What have you been doing for all that time alone here?"

"Sleeping. I just made myself sleep."

"You don't have to do that now. You have me I can talk until the cows come home." My Master told me that.

"So talk, what do you want to talk about?"

"If you don't mind I'm going to recite poetry."

"Go ahead. I know nothing about poetry, at least I will learn something."

I started with one of my favorite poems. I had to translate it to Standard. It didn't sound quite right . But I said it anyway.

"I stand among the tall grass on the shore.
They told me I won't see you anymore.
The sun sinks slowly to the West.
For it's usual nightly rest.
Waves chase each other in their eternal dance.
I still believe in luck and chance.
The setting sun paints the waves red.
As I stand here, missing you.
But I believe you are not dead."

I finished the stanza.

"Are you thinking of your Master now?" he asked.

"Yes. I think my Master is closer to me dead, than yours ever was to you alive."

"That is true." He nodded.

"Was your Master ever good to you?" I was curious how the Sith trained their apprentices.

"When he was satisfied with me he was generous with his praise.. How did your Master treat you, how did he punish you?" Apparently he was just as curious about us as I was about them.

" He never punished me. It was enough punishment to feel that I displeased him."

"You mean he never hit you?"

"Of course not," I said.

"How could you ever learn if he didn't beat it into you?" The surprise was clear on his face.

"I learned because I wanted to learn. I wanted to know."

"Anakin could use a good beating," he said." And he will get it, when he starts his Sith training."

"Yes, he will," Palpatine's voice came from the speaker, sounding happy."It is not very long now, Kenobi. Anakin will kill you both when he returns. He will be mine then."

"Just how do you plan to accomplish that?" I asked.

Maul whispered to me. "If he says it will happen- it will happen. Never doubt him. He is never wrong. He knows the future."

"He is always wrong." I said. "The future is not fixed. Anything can change even as we speak."

"Kenobi," Palpatine said."I change the future. Anakin will find his mother dying in your cage. She came to help you, Kenobi. But Maul beat her half to death."

"He won't do it." I protested.

"Of course he won't, but isn't it enough that both Shmi and Anakin will believe that? She will remember how Maul attacked her. And I will be the one to heal her. While I do the healing I will have plenty of time to give her that memory." I could almost see Palpatine's smiling face as he talked.

"And why would Anakin kill me as well?" I asked.

"Because you'll try to stop him. You Jedi with a heart of gold." Palpatine's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Stop him from doing what?" His voice gave me a very bad feeling. I knew what he was referring to, my favorite ballad the Lady with the Heart of Stone. Just how much did he know about me? I dreaded what he was going to say.

"Stop him from driving Maul's horns into his skull with a hammer. I will tell the boy that this is the only sure way to kill a Zabrak..I know you well enough Kenobi. You will try to stop him. You can't imagine the pain Maul will feel. It is not a fast death, it is very slow . It will be unbearable for you to witness it. Your compassion will be your undoing." Now he laughed.

I looked at Maul. He sat there with his eyes closed.

"I might have a few ideas to avoid that fate," I said.

"Kenobi, you can't have any ideas that I wouldn't anticipate and foil. You can't even guess what it means to be a Sith Master. Soon I will rule the entire Galaxy. And the Jedi will be extinct." The speaker went silent with a click.

Maul still didn't move. Minutes passed before he spoke to me. "It will happen. Believe me. He will accomplish anything he wants. Let the boy kill me. There's no need trying to stop him." He said it so softly that I could barely hear him.

"What about Shmi telling Anakin what really happened?" I asked.

"Believe me, she will remember how I attacked her. You don't understand what are you up against. No one is a match to my Master." Maul's eyes were lifeless as he spoke to me.

"Why do you think the Dark is all powerful?" I had to ask that.

"Because it is. The Lightsiders are crippled by knowing that there are things you can't do. The Dark has no restrictions, so the power is infinite. The only way to foil Palpatine's plans would be to kill Anakin. And you are not going to do that, Kenobi. Will you?"

Now I was the one who remained silent for a while. I wasn't sure what I was capable of doing. Qui-Gon always did what his feelings told him to do. He was one with the living Force. But now I was alone, the Force wasn't with me. I had to trust myself.

"Answer me!" Maul demanded.

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"About what?"

"Maul, the Light must be stronger. Life is Light. The light builds, the Dark destroys. Life is eternal, death is momentary. Peace nourishes, fear cripples."

"Not if you master it. Fear is a power. Fear drives. Scare a spring nerf badly enough and it will attack a gundark." He looked at me now with pity.

"You think I'm weak? Like Anakin does?"

"No, you are not weak, you just lack the power to use your strength. I was strong. Very strong." I felt no regret in his voice, just resignation.

"Fat lot your power is worth, if you sit here doing nothing more than waiting to be killed.. At least I will go down fighting to the end." I hoped I could taunt him into gathering his strength.

"You are delusional. You can't stand against Palpatine." He shivered, the temperature was down again almost to freezing. I crawled to him. I knew that if I couldn't get him out of here soon, he would die. He needed far more food than that single nutribar I gave him. I decided to give him both today. I was still in a far better shape than he. I told him I got four bars. I knew he wouldn't take two if he knew that I didn't have more. He was odd that way. He had honor, I didn't know how I knew it, but I knew. We slept beside each other until the heat came back again.

"Do you know any more poetry?" he asked me.

"I know plenty. I can sing too. Do you want to hear a ballad?''

"Do it. I don't really know what those are."

I sang the Lady with the Heart of Stone, one of the oldest ballads in the universe. I had a passable voice. I told him it wasn't much that good without a lyre or a guitar.

But he listened to it with rapt attention. I thought it was not only his body that was starved but his soul and his mind. He had been in this cage for nearly two years now .I would have gone crazy in less time than this.

"Do you want to hear another one?" I asked him.

He nodded.

I sang the Corellian Mother's advice song to him, the one about how a Corellian girl should stick to Corellian men, because no other race has the stamina to keep her happy.

He smiled at that. I thought I knew why.

"Yes," he said. "I used to have the stamina."

"And you will have again." I sang in tune with the song.. "When we are out of here, I want to go with you to the Festival of the Thousand Flowers on Taurin. They have it once every year. With music and dances, and incredible hospitality, that includes their women inviting the visitors for long walks. If you are lucky, those long walks end in far more than sightseeing."

"You are delusional, Obi. But this is probably the last day of your life, you might as well spend it dreaming." He gave me a bitter smile.

I was not delusional. I just didn't want to lay down and die. Not because I feared death. He welcomed it, I knew. But it would have been a horrible injustice to let him die. And let Anakin fall to the Dark even before he was mature enough to know what he was doing. There had to be something we could do to save ourselves.

"Maul, as thin as you are, can't you slip through the bars?"

"We are monitored. They droids would notice that."

The droids came then to hose us down. The water was ice cold. But at least the cage wasn't utterly filthy anymore.

I settled down to meditate. Maul was doing the same.

He nudged me out of it.

"I thought of something." he said. "I could kill Anakin. That might give you a chance to live."

"How can you kill anything in the condition you are in?"

"Remember, you healed me using your own life-force. I could use up mine." He said it without any emotion.

"I could do the same."

"But you don't want to die. I do."

"No. I had a beautiful life. You didn't. If it is between the two of us, you deserve to have a chance to live. Besides, I have my Master waiting for me on another plane of existence. And believe me, it would give me much pleasure to sacrifice myself for you and Anakin. The boy shouldn't became Palpatine's servant. Eventually it'd destroy him. It's better for him to come with me now."

"Maybe it won't destroy him . Maybe he will be happy as a Sith Lord, he has the temper for it," he said.

"No. I want both of us to get out of here. This is not a contest to prove which one of us is the most noble."

"You really think so?" He laughed a little.

"You know what? Maybe we shouldn't make plans. I bet he is monitoring every word we say. My Master said, I our actions should flow with the moment."

"Great idea. Just see what happens and act on impulse?" He looked at me as if he had never seen me before.

"I still believe in luck and chance." I quoted.

I couldn't bear seeing him giving up. Not only Maul's horrible death I had to avoid, but I had to save Anakin from the Dark.He was destined to balance the Force, to eliminate the Sith. Or at least that was what Qui-Gon believed. Some thought that balance meant to have as many darksiders as many lightsiders. That wasn't true. Balance is life, Qui-Gon told me. The Sith is an abomination, their mere presence distorts the Force, he said. And if he was right, Anakin had to be the one to help me now.

"I will meditate." Maul told me. "Do you visualize the possibilities before an assignment?"

"No, how can I flow with the moment, if I have made plans." I teased him a little.

"How can you be ready to act if you leave yourself open to surprises?" His yellow eyes measured me.

"Are you afraid of surprises? I thought the Sith mastered fear." This was more than a tease, this was a taunt.

"Not the way the Lightsiders do," he said. "You are taught to ignore it. We are taught to feed on it."

"Yours or others?"

"Both."

"Well, tomorrow, we will see which method is better."

"Neither. He will get what he wants. Tomorrow we both will be dead." He curled up, making himself very small.

Only then it occurred to me that his utter desolation might have been an act., for his Master's benefit. Making himself look absolutely defenseless, I decided to follow suit. I just sat there , softly humming to myself. Once he looked at me, and I thought there was a spark in his eyes he understood, that I knew what he was doing. I thought he was planning something. I had to force myself not to make plans. I even slept a few hours. I don't think he did. In the morning we were hosed down, this time with warm water, and they gave us the usual "Can you digest it?"

"I can. But I wouldn't want to."

"You don't know what you are missing. I don't eat sentients. But nothing compares to the taste of raw meat."

I could see the craving in his eyes.

"You can have it all. I won't fight you for it."

Anakin came soon enough. He was carrying a hammer.

"Anakin, what he told you is not true. If you deactivate the Force block, you'll sense the truth." I told him.

"He prepared me for that! Of course you want me to let you draw on the Force, so you can fight me. I should have killed you both. Long ago."

"If he is so concerned for your mother, why didn't he take care of her as soon as she was injured? Why wait until you killed Maul and I?"

This made him think. He was not stupid.

"How did your Mother get here in the first place?"

"She probably followed me the same way you did!"

"Really? And you didn't sense her being there?"

"She is good at these kind of things." Anakin probably believed that his mother had the Force. "Are you trying to make me believe that this beast didn't hurt her? He has her blood on his face."

"He licked her clean." I said. "He didn't hit her. May I ask how could he gather the strength to beat anyone? He can barely stand."

"He doesn't have to if she leaned down to tend to you. She would."

" Anakin, you are being seduced to the Dark. You are the chosen one, Palpatine wants you, you are the one that can help him to rule the galaxy. I have to stop that... It would destroy you." I told him. He looked past me, at something behind me.

I felt a strong surge in the Force inside the cage. Maul was healing Shmi, with his own life force. He didn't have much to spare. Maybe that's why he needed her blood. He was a second away from passing out when he finished. Shmi's wounds healed visibly. She opened her eyes and the love for Anakin in them was clear.

"Mother, what happened to you?" The boy asked.

"I don't quite remember, all I know is that somebody knocked me out," she said.

"Was it him?" Anakin pointed at Maul.

"I have never seen him before. What beautiful tattoos he has."

"Mom, have you followed me here?"

"Where is here?" Shmi asked.

"Anakin, Maul didn't heal her, he planted false memories into her head."Palpatine's voice came though the speakers. "And your ex-master, is ready to confirm every lie. Kill the Zabrak now. Before he makes believe what he says."

But the boy wasn't that sure now who lied. He went to Maul, staring into his yellow eyes.

" Look at me, I will read you now." He could do it. No one ever was stronger in the Force than this child.

Maul cringed. His mind must have been turned inside out and examined from every angle.

"All right, he didn't lie to me. But he is dying."

"Good." Palpatine purred. " Anakin, If you don't come to me willingly, you'll come as my slave. Your mother's welfare will depend on how well you serve me. And if her life is not enough to make you obey, I can add Padme to the hostages. Anakin, you are mine for as long as you live."

"Yes, Master." Anakin said. "But please, take my Mother and finish her healing. "

Palpatine came in then, he did heal Shmi fully. He was indeed very powerful. She looked twenty years younger when he was through with her. She had the memory that Maul was the one who beat her up. I could see that she was afraid of him, even now, when he looked about half dead.

"Anakin, now take that hammer and kill this thing for me. Show me your obedience now," Palpatine said.

"Yes. Master. I shall kill that thing." Anakin seemed to grow two feet taller. He stepped out of the cage, leaving the door open. He led his Mother out.

Though the Force blocking bars I could feel the power of the child. He was that strong. He activated his saber.

"Not with that. Remember, even after Kenobi cut him in half, he recovered." Palpatine warned him. "Do it with the hammer."

"Yes, Master. " Anakin bowed, but he didn't deactivate his saber.

The next thing I saw was Palpatine being sliced in half. I taught Anakin that swing.

Just before his presence flickered away, Palpatine hit Anakin with all of his life force . The white lightning tore into the child...

"Anakin! Noooo!" I screamed.

The boy crumpled on the ground .I went to him, and held him in my arms. "It is all right, Master. This is what I was born to do. Now I can go. I'm free. Take care of my mother."

"Anakin why?" He didn't look like a child to me anymore he was Light. When he spoke, he sounded like a Master.

"I read the Sith Lord's mind, even with all the darkness within him, there was a small light deep inside. That light had called to me. I would have killed Palpatine sooner or later, but better now, than after decades of slavery in his service. Promise me, you will free the slaves, Master."

"I'm going to do that."

"No, Obi, I will" Maul croaked. "You won't like the carnage it needs. But I will."

"Do it then." Anakin whispered. "Tell them- I sent you."

"I will." Maul was almost too weak to talk.

"One more thing before I go. Let him drink my blood." Anakin said. "I tortured him long enough, he deserves this much." He offered his wrist to Maul.

I saw them as something holy. A legend was taking shape in front of my eyes. Maul was feeding. I could see him healing as he fed.

Shmi cried softly behind us. Apparently with Palpatine gone, her memory returned. She didn't seem to be afraid of Maul anymore.

We left the cages. Maul's binders fell off his wrists and legs. I got rid of my binders too.

"Come, with me, Lady Skywalker." Maul said. "We have slaves to free. As your son commanded me to do. You will help me."

"Yes. I will." Shmi said.

"Return to the Temple, Kenobi," Maul told me.

He didn't call me Obi anymore.

I walked back to the Jedi Temple. For the first time in weeks, I took a shower and ate a regular meal. The disappearance of the Supreme Chancellor caused quite a stir, his body was never found. Tatooine's slaves were free in a week.

I told everything to the Council. I had to write it down. This is what you just finished reading.

Well, not quite.

A little more than year later, I received a package. It was a guitar, a very beautiful one, with the image of the Lady with the Heart of Stone carved into it. I tried to play it but it didn't sound right. I reached inside it and found a holocube. I put it into the projector. I saw Shmi and Maul, standing in front of a small ship. Shmi was holding a little baby boy, with blazing red skin and blue eyes, tiny little horns crowning his head. Just a short message came with it. Maul's soft voice said:. "Greetings, Obi-Wan. The child is called Anakin, of course. Why don't you leave the Temple and settle down with a Lady who doesn't have a Heart of Stone? It's worth it."

End.

Just for your information, the ballad of the Lady with the Heart of Stone, is the galactic version of Keats'poem "La Belle Dame sans merci."