Chapter 3
Nelix's emotions were still a jumbled mess, when he and his father finally reached the spired plateau that marked the entrance to their family's hidden mine. The gateway to the underground cavern, was little more than a slit between two fallen boulders, eternally warring for the right to sleep upon the ground.
Nelix stared up at the rocky outcropping, a menacing shadow against the blinding chaos of the wind-blown sand, and shivered. Normally, such an imposing mound of earth and stone would harbor a clan of Ysanna, an ancient and barbaric race of Force wielders, whom often chose to slaughter outsiders rather risk someone discovering their secrets. But there would be no such peoples here. The forbidding mountain was little more than a speck on the flat and desolate landscape of the Waste. Only orbital imaging, and his family's strong connection with the Force, had allowed his family to discover the hidden treasure buried deep below the fortress of rock.
Tion turned to him.
The aged Sith Lord's dark, terrifying eyes cut through him like a blade. The terror, which had literally gripped him earlier, returned. Nelix wanted to run from those eyes, hide from them, if he could, but such an act would be suicide. Tion was perhaps the strongest force-user ever born into House Kyze, and certainly one of the five deadliest beings existing in the known galaxy. Only the leaders of the three great houses, and perhaps Rallick, lord of House Moff—himself an oddity amongst the lower houses, like Tion—wielded more power and influence over the Force than Nelix's own beloved father. To displease Tion a second time, in the same day, would be a deadly mistake.
So Nelix held his ground, and kept tight rein on his fear, lest his Lord decide to finish what he had begun.
"You understand why we are here?" growled Tion.
No, but for fear of death, Nelix replied, "Yes," anyway.
"You know what you must do?"
He knew that he was expected to travel down into the depths of the mountain, seeking out a new crystal for his blade. He knew that his father expected him to return with a gem of supreme quality, despite the fact that they had an entire vault dedicated to just such crystals back on Lianna. And he knew that if he failed to bring back such a prize, his father would kill him, without a second's hesitation. What he could not grasp, though, was why?
No other Sith house put their heirs through such nonsense. In fact, each ruling family owed most of their crystals to House Kyze's generosity. Only the great red crystals were an exception. Those perfect gemstones could not be found in nature, rather they had to be forged, by their users, through power and sheer will—the final step in an apprentice's journey, and proof he or she had risen to the rank of Sith. As far as Nelix was concerned, without his family's crystals, every force-user in the galaxy would still be relying upon twigs, bones, or other similarly useless trinkets. Which is why it made no sense for Tion to send him down some dark hole, on some isolated desert planet, to find a new crystal. If his father really thought he needed one, he should be allowed to pick from his family's stockpile, just like every other apprentice in the galaxy.
"I will do as you have bidden, Father," Nelix replied.
"Of course you will," said Tion, stepping away from the cavern entrance. "May the Force be with you, my son."
And with his father's blessing, Nelix plunged into the waiting darkness.