Author's Note

Thank you to all my readers for your patience. The holidays were crazy for me, and I just moved across the country. Enjoy the chapter. I'm really starting to set the foundation for the character that Jamous is going to be for the rest of the series.

Chapter 4

35,355 B.B.Y.

Sweat dripped down Jamous's bald scalp; it broke over his brow. His muscles burned with tension as he held held himself in a handstand position, each hand on a separate wooden poll jutting from a pit of sharp wooden stakes. But this was not what was really causing him to sweat. All around him, held by his connection to the Force, levitated three large boulders and one of his instructors Mal'Li.

"Yes, yes," said the old, decrepit human instructor in a hoarse voice. "Push aside Ashla. Push aside the light. Find that light within you and remove it as much as possible. Make room for Bogan. Make room for the darkness. There is darkness in all of us, but you must make it expand as much as possible. You must let it have all it wants of you."

Jamous did as Mal'Li instructed.

For fifteen years now he had studied the Force steeped in the shadows of Bogan at the Monastery of the Fallen Arts. After a perilous journey through the continent of Kato Zakar and a nerve racking ascent of Sefrin Mountain, Jamous had found himself before the large wooden doors of a monastery carved solely from the rock of the mountain's face. The monks had accepted him and let him learn the Arts of Bogan right away. Jamous was their only student, the first in a long time, so they poured everything into him. All of the old renegade Je'daii found renewed strength as they saw Jamous as their final vessel to contain their dark and outlawed teachings.

"We never rebelled against the Je'daii," Mal'Li had told Jamous once. "There was once a time where there were plans to, but the Je'daii of balance banished us from the Order before a war could begin."

That had been many, many years ago. Students had once made the journey the the monastery in order to learn at the feet of the Je'daii of the Fallen Arts, but according to the monks, the students had started to come few and far between. Jamous was their first student in over twenty-five years.

These monks that practiced the ways of Bogan had to have been at least almost two hundred years old. At least that's what Jamous guessed from what he had learned from them. They had found a way in their dark connection to preserve their life force. It wasn't anything like what Jamous had, but they were still able to extend their time before passing on. Jamous himself was now seventy years old, but rather than showing any signs of aging like the monks had these last fifteen years, he still looked and felt as he had the day that he had met Mortis. His body was that of a twenty-five year old, yet now it was augmented with an acute understanding of the Force, specifically the ways of Bogan.

His connection to the Force was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was a weapon, a pulsating beam of dark energy, just waiting to be harnessed by him. It would bend to his will, do exactly what he wanted, be an extension of his goals and aspirations. That's how he saw it. Not as an entity or a state of being as Delroth had seen it, and not as a benevolent master to bow down to like the monks here saw it, but as a tool, one that could further Jamous's motives.

When he had first arrived at the monastery, it had been hard for him to empty himself and feel the connection of the Force within. His mind had been too clouded by cynicism and, though he was wont to admit it, fear. Jamous had denied his ability to use the Force for all of these years because if he had admitted the fact that he had this connection, he would also have to admit that his life was being guided or directed by a higher entity. It didn't take long to realize how foolish of a thought process that was. As Jamous had grown stronger in the Force, had become familiar with it, he realized that the Force was not a spiritual entity that permeated Tython. No, it was a tool that could be used to do one's bidding. That's how Jamous chose to see it at least. Was he right? Or was he still just too stubborn to admit Delroth had been right? Jamous really didn't know, but he had the rest of his life to figure it out.

That last thought caused Jamous to smirk.

"Focus, Jamous," Mal'Li crooned. "Keep your thoughts centered."
"Yes, master," Jamous grunted, still levitating Mal'Li and the three boulders while performing a handstand over the pit of sharpened stakes.

"Now, set me down. Use the boulders as a path to safety."

Deftly, Jamous lowered Mal'Li to the ground. He then levitated the rocks to form a little bridge from the poles he supported himself on to the edge of the pit. Jamous relieved the stress on his arms, flipping onto his feet and walking across the boulders that he still levitated with the Force. Once he had crossed the opposite side, Jamous lifted the three boulders up and then gently stacked all three of them on top of each other. He let out a sigh of relief once he had finished.

"Good work, my student," Mal'Li said. "You have done well."
"Thank you, master," Jamous said as he picked up a rough towel and wiped himself down.

Mal'Li walked towards him, the old master bent over and using a cane. His face was covered in hundreds of wrinkles, and his eyes were a dull yellow. He had lived a long life. "It is your time."

Jamous stopped toweling himself down. "My time?"

Mal'Li rested all his weight on his cane. "Yes, your time to fully join the Brothers of the Fallen Arts." He gave what could pass as his version of a small smile. "Your training is complete, Jamous. There is only the Final Trial, and then you are one of us."

"When is this last trial?" Jamous asked, already feeling the adrenaline in his veins at the mention of this last trial.

"Tonight."

—

Jamous walked into the main chamber of the monastery. It was very dark and gloomy, the only source of light a few torches placed higher up towards the ceiling. Their glow barely illuminated the room. There was a smoke that wafted throughout the entire room; it lapped up towards the high ceiling of the chapel, though Jamous was not sure where it's source was.

As he came to stop in the center of the chamber, the fifteen monks, those who were left of this lost art of the Force, the way of Bogan, formed a circle around him. They chanted a low and ominous mantra. Mal'Li stood in the center with Jamous. Before him was an altar, a live latherine beast strapped down to it, its eyes wide with fear.

"Brother," Mal'Li began, "your final trial awaits you, but you must prepare." He lifted out his hand which held a small wooden bowl. Jamous took it from him. There was a burning powder in the bowl, a small thin line of smoke snaking out of the embers within. "Breathe it in," ordered Mal'Li. "Breathe it in deep." Jamous did as he was told. He breathed in the smoke coming from the bowl, inhaled it deeply into his lungs. He repeated this four or five times.

Mal'Li turned to the cowering latherine beast and gently stroked the fur on it's neck. Without another word, he took out a small knife from the sleeve of his robe and brought it down on the latherine beast's neck. The animal let out a yelp of pain and then died. Mal'Li pulled the knife out of the beast's neck. Blood gushed forth from the wound, and he took a chalice from the altar and put it underneath the animal's neck. The cup filled with the beast's blood.

"Drink," ordered Mal'Li. "Drink, and let the herbs and blood and rock take over you."

Jamous took the cup. He wasn't sure what he had inhaled, but it had made him light-headed. Everything seemed to have a blurred filter over it. Normally, he would have thought twice about drinking the blood of a freshly slain beast, but there had to have been something in those herbs he had ingested. He felt more impressionable, easily swayed.

Jamous brought the chalice to his lips and drank, slowly at first, but then he gulped the animal's blood down, finishing it to the bottom of the cup.

Mal'Li's face contorted into a mischievous grin. "Good," he said. "Good."

But Jamous could barely hear him. Or the other monk's chants for that matter. Everything seemed to begin to fade. The lights, the sounds, the monks, all of it. It wasn't long before Jamous found himself in place of black emptiness.

"Hello?" he called, his voice echoing on for what seemed like kilometers upon kilometers.

A black cladded figure slowly seemed to almost fade into existence right in front of Jamous. This figure was in a suit of black metal, his face covered by a masked helmet, a black triangular vent where his mouth should be. He breathed a steady and slow rhythm. It was metallic, robotic.

"Who are you?" Jamous asked. Was this is a vision?

The black armored figure did not reply. Instead he began to morph right before Jamous's very eyes. He morphed into an old familiar face.

"Delroth?" Jamous said in surprise.

Delroth only said one word. "Wake." And Jamous found himself back in the central chamber of the Monastery of the Fallen Arts, before Mal'Li. The other monks had stopped chanting. All was silent.

"You have seen," Mal'Li said, looking deep into Jamous's eyes. "You have seen the Harbinger."

"The Harbinger?" Jamous asked.

"He who has accepted Bogan in its purest form. He who is the Harbinger of our teaching. He who will one day be the embodiment of darkness."

Jamous's head throbbed. "I saw him. I also saw someone I knew."
"The light, Jamous. It called to you. It tried to reach out to you one last time. In the form of someone who was once close to you. Be wary." Mal'Li turned his back to Jamous. "And now for the final trial." He clapped his hands. "Bring her in."

Two monks came into the chamber from a side door. They each held one arm of a small girl. She looked to be no older than fourteen. Her hair was ashen colored. They dropped her on her knees before Jamous. The girl did not talk or look around. She stared at the ground, as if in a trance. She was skinny, starved. Her face and all other exposed skin was covered in soot. Her ashen hair was stringy and lank. She obviously hadn't bathed in quite a while.

Mal'Li walked behind Jamous and stripped his robe off, revealing Jamous's bare torso. The old Je'daii master then took the blood of the latherine beast and began to draw ancient bendu runes on his skin. "The final challenge, my student."

Jamous looked down at the girl. She looked scared. Her simple tunic and pants were torn and dirtied. She was barefoot. "What would you have me do, my master?"

Mal'Li stood before him once again. He summoned a monk with his hand, and he brought forward a sword in a velveted case. "This sword is the most sacred weapon of our order. And you, you are our last and greatest student." He took the case from the monk and turned it toward Jamous.

Jamous looked down at it. It was a Je'daii sword, but it had many differences. The metal of the blade was a dull gray, almost black. The handle of the blade was made with deep black obsidian. There was a slight curve to the blade—it was more of a katana than a sword.

"Blackened Night is a blade that was forged from the metals found on the moon of Bogan," continued Mal'Li. "The metallurgist who forged this was a Je'daii that believed wholeheartedly in the way of Bogan. Before we had been exiled to this monastery, banished to a hard life on Kato Zakar, this Je'daii forged Blackened Night. He sacrificed his own soul, using a rare form of blood magic that only he knew, and imbued every last bit of dark energy he had into this blade."

Jamous took the sword from the case. He felt a sinister and dark pulsating energy vibrate up his arm and echo around in his chest cavity. This blade was strong in the dark energies of the Force. "What does the girl have to do with this?"

Mal'Li smiled sinisterly. "It has been many years since Blackened Night has had it's share of blood. Quench the blade's thirst with the blood of this young woman."

Alarm bells went off in Jamous's head. No, this wasn't right. The drugs that the monks had used in the ritual began to push him to raise his blade and strike down at the girl. He had to clench his fists to keep himself in the control. "Who is she?" he grunted.

"It's not who she is," Mal'Li explained, "but who she's from. This girl is the daughter of a thief and a murderer, a rapist. She was born from the rape of an innocent woman. She is the consequence of that unholy union. Her father's wicked blood runs through her veins. She will be like him."

Jamous's head swam. His mind felt clouded and his judgement skewed. "But she's not done anything wrong."

"Not yet." There was an evil glint in Mal'Li's eyes. "But she will. We must nip it in the bud now."

Jamous felt his body step toward the girl. What have they made me ingest? It was as if he had no control of himself. "I will not do this." He struggled against himself.

"You will," Mal'Li stated menacingly. "You will."

Jamous felt his arms lift up, raising Blackened Night above his head. The ashen haired girl knelt before him. She did not look up, but Jamous could see her lips quivering in fear. The monk's chants grew louder and louder, as if they were inside Jamous's skull.

No, no. Stop! Stop! This isn't what I want.

Mal'Li began to chant with the other monks, a maniacal grin on his face. He lifted his hands into the air and chanted louder, his voice almost a shrill.

Jamous's arms burned as he tried so hard not to do what his body was about to do. He could feel the effect of the drugs; the chants of the monks seemed to be the strings that moved him like a puppet. Jamous closed his eyes.

I will not allow this to happen.

"You won't." Jamous heard Delroth's voice in his ear. It was the steel that he needed. A new resolution washed over Jamous, and his face set with determination. He still held the katana above his head and over the young girl. But instead of bringing it down upon the child, Jamous opened up to his right and brought the blade down on Mal'Li. The old Je'daii let out a gutter shriek as he was cut diagonally in two.

The monks immediately stopped their chanting and leaped into action. Jamous scooped up the young girl in his arms and performed a Force-augmented leap out of the center of the chamber and away from the monks' charge. They landed on the fringes of the room, and Jamous set the girl down. "Run." She bolted out of the room without another word.

Jamous gathered the Force in his hand and launched a powerful wave at three monks standing at the back of the room. They cried out as they broke through the painted chapel windows and fell down the mountain to their death.

A monk charged at Jamous with nasty looking daggers. He parried the attack and pirouetted to his left, cutting down two more monks in the process. The knife-wielding monk charged again, and Jamous matched the attack with physical power of his own. He dislodged one of the daggers from the monk's hand and then cleaved his head off. The monk's body fell to the ground, blood spurting from the stump of his neck.

"Deceiver!" a monk cried out, letting a strong blast of Force lightning escape from his hand and launch toward Jamous, a Force technique that he had never seen before. "You will pay!"

The attack caught Jamous off guard, and he barely had time to put Blackened Night in the way of the lightning. The energy knocked the katana from Jamous's hand. He put his other hand up and began to collect the energy that the monk was throwing at him. Jamous had no control of what he was doing, and the lightning that he was collecting in his hand shot out in random bolts, hitting the walls, the furniture, and even three monks, vaporizing them completely in an instant.

The adrenaline of the fight and his survival instinct had somehow allowed Jamous to collect the lightning being thrown at him and augment it tenfold with his own power. But there was not time to think about that. There were seven monks left who still wanted him dead. Many of the monks were stunned in awe by the raw power and ability that Jamous had displayed, but he wasted no time. He cut down three more monks in the time it took for them to regain their composure, his body and mind increased in speed due to his connection to the Force.

It wasn't long before all was over: the chamber was littered with corpses of the monks who had trained Jamous in the Force for the last fifteen years. The Monastery of the Fallen Arts was no more. Jamous walked over the corpse of Mal'Li. The man's upper half stared lifelessly at the ceiling. "I will never kill an innocent," he said to the corpse. "Never."

—

Jamous had gone back to his room and packed up his belongings. After all these years, there still wasn't much: two changes of clothes, his wooden pendant from Delroth, and his two swords, the one Delroth had given him and the Blackened Night. Jamous had showered away the blood of the latherine beast and that of the monks. Before returning to his chambers, he had searched high and low for the ashen haired girl, but she had seemed to have disappeared.

Jamous took in the surroundings of his small stone room one last time. This had been his home for the last fifteen years. He had delved into the dark arts of the Force: rage and passion, power and sorcery. He had completed his training (besides the final challenge), and yet, he did not feel complete like he thought he would. Something was still off; something was not right. He had felt that the study of Bogan was the way that he wanted to learn the Force, but after what he had just witnessed in the monastery's chapel, he was no longer sure.

Jamous left his room and walked the empty halls of the monastery. They would forever remain this way. He came to the entry hall of the monastery and was just about to push open the big two wooden doors and leave the monastery when there was a voice behind him.

"Hey."

Jamous turned around. Before him was the ashen haired girl. "Hey," he said gently. "Are you all right?"

The girl scrunched her face in an arrogant look. "Of course I am. I was about to get myself out of that mess."
Jamous suppressed a chuckle. "Oh, really now?"

"Yes!" she said as she folded her arms across her chest.

"What's your name?" Jamous asked the girl.

She hesitated, then replied. "Lana."

"Well, Lana, it's nice to meet you. My name is Jamous."

The girl's arrogant facade finally fell. "Thank you. You really saved me back there."

"Don't worry about it." Jamous looked the girl up and down. She was ragged. "Do you have anywhere to go."

Lana looked down at her bare feet and tried to fight the tears welling up in her eyes. "No, not really."

Jamous bent down and put his hand on her shoulder. "Come on. Let's see if we can find you a change of clothes and something to eat."

And that's what they did. They found monastery robes that were too big with sandals that were also too big. For food they found dried crackers and salted meat. Jamous observed the girl as she ate the food voraciously. She looked up in between mouthfuls and smiled at him, food in her teeth.

"I'm going to get you out of here, away from Kato Zakar. Once we're somewhere safer, we'll figure out what to do with you."

"I'm not a kid!" exclaimed Lana. "I can take care of myself."

"I'm sure you can," Jamous said with a smile. "But everyone needs help every once in a while."
Lana looked at her food in thought. "Okay, fine. You did help me before, and I . . . I trust you."

"Well, where are you from, Lana? Where can we go to get you back to where you need to go?"

"I'm from Thyr."

Jamous stood up from the small table that they sat at. "Well then, the continent of Thyr it is."