FIRE

[This is the prologue to my first Star Wars novel]

A ship. Because it always starts with a ship.

It entered the atmosphere leisurely, as if flown by one whose time is always his own. Descending, unheeded, toward the remote plains outside the city, it landed quietly, and from it emerged a man. He was tall, hooded, and powerful, and he strolled purposefully toward the city. He had no map or device by which to orient himself, yet he knew exactly where he was going. And so he traversed the miles from his ship to his destination silently and without incident.

His destination was a small home near the outskirts of the city. Within, a young boy of seven years was sitting down to supper with his father. The mother of the boy and wife of the father had been dead for some time, and all that each had now was the other. The father smiled fondly at his son as he prepared their supper, tired though he was from the day’s work. As he finished preparations and set the food on the table, a shadow of fear fell over the home. A sense of deep foreboding came over the father, and he spun toward the entrance of the house, instinctively moving his body in front of his son.

The door opened without a knock, and a man entered. His black robes and hood concealed his identity, though few would have known him. He stood just within the door and gazed past the father toward the far end of the table, where the boy sat, paralyzed by fear. The dim light of the home glinted off the man’s yellow eyes. The father opened his mouth to speak, but the man lifted up his hand and silenced him.

“You are no longer necessary for this boy’s future. Thank you for your investment; I am sure you have been a wonderful father. He is now mine.”

The father, taken aback by the straightforward nature of the stranger, gripped the chair next to him. “Who are you? Why are you here?” When no response came, he added, “I think you had better leave.” He lifted the chair from its place menacingly, and with his other hand reached for his blaster on the table.

The stranger lifted his hand again, bringing his forefinger and thumb together. The father dropped the chair and reached for his throat—he was choking. The boy, leaping from his chair, screamed for the man to stop, but the stranger leveled his yellow eyes at the child.

“There is nothing you can do to change the fate of your father, boy. He will only hold you back in life. I will show you your true destiny. I will teach you fear and respect, and you will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

The boy, stopped dead in his tracks by the power of this stranger and the strength of his gaze, began to cry. Through his tears, he whimpered, “I don’t want that; just let my dad go.”

The man in black laughed—a deep, rich laugh that chilled the very air around him.

“One day, you will feel differently,” he replied with a smile.

With those words, flames suddenly emerged from his outstretched hand and consumed the father. His screams of agony coincided with those of his son, who ran with abandon to his father’s aid, but he was thrown back against the far wall by an unseen Force. In mere seconds, the tired, loving father had been reduced to a pile of ash on the floor. The boy burst into tears, sitting against the wall, but his sobs soon turned to whimpers of terror as the man stepped toward him. “Stop blubbering, boy!” the man said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “Get up and come along. You cannot bring him back now. The sooner you accept that fact, the less your pain will be.”

At that moment, however, the door opened once more without a knock, and four individuals in brown cloaks entered the house at a dead sprint. Their hoods were thrown back from their faces, and they quickly took in the situation. In a moment, the room was illuminated with blue and green light. The stranger turned and examined them, searching for their feelings. Anger in one, fear in another, and in two, grim determination.

He laughed again.

At his will, all other lights in the house were extinguished, and his own lightsaber flew from his robes to his hand. Its red light illuminated his face, and he sensed one of his opponents quail within.

They descended upon him, and he fended them off with ease. The two determined Jedi he kicked aside. The fearful one stood, clutching his lightsaber, but the angry one jumped towards him aggressively. He reached out his hand and stopped her in mid-air, still several feet away. His fist clenched, and her spine snapped. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the body aside, and it hit the wall with a dull thud. One enemy was vanquished; three remained.

He moved toward the fearful one, but the two other Jedi were up again, and they pressed him hard on either side. With speed almost too quick for mortal eye to follow, he returned his weapon to his robes and thrust out with open palms toward his opponents. They flew backward, leaving the weakest of the three isolated. The man in black stepped toward the youngest Jedi, and though his own sword remained deactivated in his clothes, his opponent backed up defensively. With a smirk, he reached out his hands, lifting the young warrior, and incinerated him like he had the father a moment before. His ashes were still fluttering to the floor as the man in black, weapon once again in hand, turned to face his final two opponents.

At this point, however, the tide of the battle turned. Calm and experienced as the two remaining Jedi were, their blood boiled at the sight of three people, two of whom had been friends, needlessly slain. They advanced as one, and with years of shared experience on their side, fought the stranger past his comfort zone until he was the one fearing for his life. Unaccustomed as he was to being overmatched, even when he was outnumbered, the stranger panicked, and forgot for a moment his own skills in combat, relying instead on his knowledge of the Force to save him. This was his undoing, for powerful as he was, he was not as powerful as he believed himself to be, nor the most powerful in the room.

Once again, he kicked aside one of his opponents and focused his flames on the other, but he chose poorly. This Jedi was old and powerful, and though doubtlessly the man in black would have been able to overcome him eventually, for the moment, his power was withstood. As he strove against him, the Jedi he had kicked recovered and attacked, and the stranger, caught off-balance and surprised, retreated before him. This younger Jedi was an exceptional swordsman, and with surprise on his side, he prevailed. Within seconds, he had disarmed the stranger and slashed him deeply across the leg.

Beaten and wounded, the man in black managed to thrust the Jedi away from him, even as he dropped to one knee in agonizing pain. With his pride and confidence now broken, he became enraged and screamed at his enemies, “This boy will never be a Jedi! If I cannot have him, you will not either!” Staring with hatred at them, he reached behind him and for the last time, flames licked from his fingers and enveloped the child.

The Jedi’s hands dropped to their sides, realizing that all, in an instant, had been lost. The screams of the child echoed off the walls, and though they wished to come to his aid, their will had been broken. They only hoped for a quick end to his short life and then immediate, decisive justice. The child’s screams, however, continued and intensified, and they clutched their lightsabers, wondering if the man was purposefully tormenting him. At that instant, however, the flames died down.

The stranger still stared at his enemies, relishing the despair in their faces. When his attack on the boy ceased, however, the look that came to their faces was one of wonder and disbelief. The man turned and rose in spite of his pain, such was his astonishment.

For there, unscathed, stood the boy. His eyes burned yellow with hatred. Power radiated from him. He stood with his arms outstretched and his hands spread, as if warding off the flames, which was indeed what he had done.

Now it was the stranger’s heart that quailed within him, and rightly so, for to the surprise of everyone save the boy, the same flames intended for his demise now sprang from his hands toward his father’s killer, accompanied by a scream of rage. For a few seconds, the two Jedi watched, dumbfounded, as the boy and the man strove against one another. Then the will of the boy won out, and the flames consumed the stranger in black. The two Jedi leaped out of the way as the inferno surged past them, destroying the door on which no one had bothered to knock and the wall in which it was set.

The dark lord now experienced the excruciating pain he had inflicted on others for years, and his robes and his skin burned away. The boy lifted his body in the air even as he destroyed him, and with a final surge of power, he tore the man completely in half—the two parts of his body struck the walls to either side and broke to pieces. Nothing now remained of the once-proud lord but two heaps of ash and charred bones at the base of either wall, and on one pile, half of a skull, split right down the nose, smoldered and smoked.

The two Jedi Masters sat, dumbfounded, their lightsabers deactivated and useless at their sides, staring in turn at the boy they had found and then at one another. After such a display of power, they wondered to themselves if they should leave him where he stood, even if the fate of the galaxy hung in the balance.

But they didn’t.

The boy, exhausted, collapsed and knew no more.