Chapter Six

Walking along the landscape of Tund reminded Arden much of wandering Columus before the Jedi struck on the day her husband was killed. Only disappointing part of it was that she could see the illusions of the plants, the buildings, and even the ground on which she walked. And some of the people eyed her and her Vahla warriors with suspicion as though Arden had come to destroy them. "Captain, perhaps you can tell me why they view us with the sneers that they do?" Arden asked a Vahla next to her.

"According to rumor, the Sorcerers of Tund look on outsiders with naught but contempt as they believe outsiders taint the sanctity of the 'True Sith'," he said. Only thing true about the True Sith is that they're extinct and have been for millennium Arden thought with disgust. But as she thought this, she also observed how some looked at her with fear and her warriors with disgust. "They fear you because they cannot see your face beneath that black hood, milady," the Captain stated.

"Unfortunate but predictable," she replied. "Milady?" he asked, confused as to how she could've anticipated this. "People have always feared what they cannot understand or describe, it is the will of the Force, after all. The stupid fear the intelligent, the weak fear the strong, and children fear adults; these people are stupid, weak, and are children compared to me," she answered.

He nodded, chuckling at the wisdom and truth of the response and asking if she was a mortal mold for the Goddess of Wisdom. "The very same rationale that has allowed me to become such a figure to you is the same that prohibits belief in deities that have no basis in reality," she stated. "What about your Chronicler that you mentioned before?" he inquired. She had forgotten that she had mentioned the Chronicler to the Vahla before and smiled.

"I actually saw him not too long before the Jedi were about to kill me. He stated that I was not yet to die in my then-present time but instead I was live into this one. Protecting me from what would have killed me, he gave me the knowledge to wield my Talisman as a means of survival," she explained. He knew better than to question whether or not it was hallucination since that vision had not gone unseen by the Jedi unlike a hallucination or even just a premonition.

Arriving at the Palace of the Sorcerers of Tund, Arden requested entrance to speak with the leaders. "Wait, your aura reeks of the death of Apollo about you! You are the killer we have been searching for! How nice of you to come before us to turn yourself in," one of the guards stated.

"I am here to do no such thing," Arden said as she grasped the throat of the men in a Force Choke. Then she ordered her Vahla to open the gates while she held the guards in the lock that would kill them the moment the gates opened. When they did, she snapped the necks of the men protecting it, deeming it more honorable for them to pay for their failures with their lives than live to tell about it.

Besides that, they are expendable compared to their leaders who I desire to speak with more than them she thought to herself. Her intrusion was not met well with the rest of the sorcerers and soon, she and her Vahla found themselves fighting their way to their targets. Arden herself hardly broke a sweat when she dispatched thirteen herself but her troops weren't so fortunate. Though they all survived, none would have it easy with killing three or four, never mind as many as she did.

I am not worried about their performance against their equals nearly as I am about their performance against the leaders. If it becomes necessary, and I am confident it will, they will be forced to face down twelve of the leaders while I handle the remainder she noted silently. As if the thought had been spoken, a chamber appeared before her where fourteen figures clad in the traditional robes of Tund leaders were seated a rectangular table. Her warriors gathered around her as they faced down the Council that led the Sorcerers of Tund and guided its policy.

"Why do you come here, murderer of Apollo?" one of them asked. "I seek an army in which I foresee your inclusion. Tell me, which of you call themselves the Nero brothers a.k.a. the head of this Council?" she replied. "That would be us, my name is Lear Nero and this is my brother Macbeth Nero," said a man who looked almost directly at her as he indicated another on his right.

"I assure you two that the journey I plan to take you and my Ember of Vahla on will be most worth your while. After all, we will venture past the Unknown Regions and possibly into the Great Void," she said when she saw who her targets were. "No one who has ever ventured there has returned alive, we of all people should know that!" Lear retorted as he threw the table at her. Arden did not budge and ordered her warriors not to budge as well and caught the table with telekinesis.

Then, using the very same power, she bent it in half and threw the pieces in separate directions. "What makes you so confident in your knowledge of the Unknown Regions and the Void beyond?" she asked. "We have spent much of our ancient lives acquiring knowledge of all the galaxy's regions and making sure we know where to venture and where not to," he answered. "Besides that, there is nothing worth the trouble in those areas, anyway!" Macbeth agreed.

"So you will not be joining me and the Vahla on our crusade for knowledge?" she inquired. "The hell with you and your crusade! Friends, let us unite to eliminate this filth before our eyes!" Lear snapped. "This is your last opportunity to join us freely and I assure you that we do not desire bloodshed on any level," she said sincerely.

"Quiet, we have lived for thirteen thousand years and have dealt with much worse than you and your band!" Macbeth snarled back at her. "I have lived twenty-five thousand years and I have seen better than you and your cowardly sorcerers who practice dead magic," she answered calmly. Time to enact the final stage of my more manual recruitment of the Sorcerers: challenging them to single combat. They will not deny me seeing as it is in front of fellow Councilmen instead of alone she thought.

"In that case, I challenge both Lear and Macbeth Nero, one warrior to another. And only the strongest shall live to rule over the Sorcerers of Tund and the Ember of Vahla," she said aloud. Lear and Macbeth initially hesitated, knowing that their strength was being called out on in front of their comrades. But as predicted, they did not deny Arden her desire nor did they waste a moment in fulfilling it by also making the first move against her.

Lear summoned fire that shot from his staff, directly at her though she absorbed this with the hand that originally held her sheathed sword. Suspending it in telekinesis, she absorbed the fire into her body with the Force while noticing that Macbeth was readying his own attack. Instead of allowing him the chance to utilize it, she opened another portal of the Force in her other hand and reflected Lear's fire at Macbeth. This action forced Macbeth to throw up a deflective shield such as Apollo had done but Arden had not intent in burning the brothers up like him.

Instead, she planned to exhaust their magics enough to force them to resort to making swords from their staffs with their remaining energies. And since she would not be using her own power thanks to this absorption spell, she would be ready to beat them with her bladework. She sensed the rapid draining process and merely sat back, enjoying the sounds of her Vahla performing their own bladework on the other leaders of the Sorcerers, leaving her with only these two. They have done well so far, even if they die, I must say I admire their respect for me and my husband's memory she thought as she continued her artificial barrage.

Soon, Lear stopped in his relentless attack, his magic being only enough to create a sword as she predicted. Macbeth's was equally low and his next move was identical to his brother's after he dissipated the shield he had used for his own protection. Arden smiled and withdrew her own sword before then using some of her power to turn the scabbard into an identical duplicate of the blade. "It is obvious, gentlemen, that I have you wearied in your knowledge of the Force," she said.

A moment's pause but they spent it readying themselves to attack her when she had done the same. "But perhaps your skills with swords might prove to be the better of me," she stated sarcastically. Then she positioned both her blades in a manner that signaled her enemies to attack her if they wished to. Lear attacked first but she spun in a manner that allowed her to use her blades to propel her across the chamber whilst spinning in circles.

This lasted seconds and Lear was to her right while Macbeth lunged from her left, their blades crossing for several brief moments. Smiling and even laughing, she broke off the crossing of their blades and spun left and right, hacked here and slashed there in manners that kept the brothers on edge. The brothers replied with some of their own hacking and slashing until it forced her to give ground to them. But this was all part of her plan to wear them out even further until she was ready to dispatch them with relative ease.

The fighting continued until they arrived to a balcony that overlooked an elevated sparring ground a couple meters below. She spun until she had enough space between herself and Macbeth to then turn her attention to Lear, once more. Slashing from the side, she saw as he jumped and backflipped to the edge of the balcony's rim. Then Macbeth surprised her by Force-Pushing her over the balcony but this surprise was not enough to cloud her judgment.

As the Captain of the Vahla called out to her, she assured him that there was nothing for him to fear. She proved it by using the Force to propel herself back onto the balcony and mocked the brothers by asking if that was the best they could do. For a couple minutes after that, they exchanged blows until Arden bent down and swung one of her blades over her head in time to meet one of Lear's strokes. She had decided to make it more interesting by reincorporating the deflection magic she had used to recruit the Vahla and watched as Lear was thrown over the balcony.

His brother, surprised and angered by that move, slapped her with the side of his hand and it sent her over the balcony's edge as well. Luckily, she was not injured by either the blow or the fall as she used the Force to slow her ascent and to regenerate from the hit. By this time, Lear was waiting for her at the sparring chamber and Macbeth had also plummeted down to join them. For sorcerers whose specialty is magic, their bladework is not too shabby but it will not save them from my power she said to herself.

Turning her attention back to Lear, she barely dodged Macbeth trying to stab her from the head down and briefly pinned his sword to the ground with both of her own. When she no longer could, she kicked Lear in the chin to force him back a ways from her. Using more deflection magic, she armed both of her blades and watched as Macbeth attempted to strike her down yet again. He was repelled by the magic which sent him flying into the air and hitting the wall hard enough to almost break through it.

Arden exchanged blows with Lear until Macbeth began charging back and she charged at Lear in a manner that allowed her to jump and diagonally spin over him. She kicked him into Macbeth and watched as they initially remained side to side but spread out to divert her attention. But it was Macbeth who attacked first and she watched as he hacked from his head down before catching it with both swords. She pushed him off her and kicked him in the chest before seeing Lear jump over her and try to attack her from below her diagonally.

However, Arden saw this coming and went on the offensive with stronger slashes than before. Macbeth returned once again to try and kick her but she dodged and he ended up kicking his brother and sending him farther away from them than her magic had done. Smiling, she was glad that the brothers were finally isolated in a manner that allowed her to finish one of them off. As an added bonus, she had seen Macbeth kick Lear in the face which would undoubtedly black him out for a little bit.

Macbeth shook his head to ward off the effects of the dizziness caused by his fatigue catching up to him. Then he continued to randomly hack and slash at her randomly before crossing blades with her for one last time. After breaking the cross, she front flipped and kicked him in the chin hard enough to enhance his dizziness and turned around, readying her blades for the finishing blow. With both of their tips facing a tired Macbeth, she plunged them into his abdomen and listened as he groaned painfully.

She yanked the blades back out and let the magics clean the blood off them before she turned her attention to Lear as he came back. Carefully, she made scrutinous notes of how he took his brother's death to a personal level and even used the very last of his Force power to summon Macbeth's blade. An interesting change of tactics but not one I have not been anticipating, this whole time she said silently.

The two of them then continued the duel, now that it could actually be considered a duel without the third wheel that was Macbeth. "You killed my brother, you little bitch!" Lear shouted when he also crossed blades with her. "Watch it, this bitch will kill you too," she replied with a smile. Since she was kneeling when he crossed blades, she used kneeling leg to propel her bent one into the air to kick him again.

Then she finished the duel forever more when she went on a full offensive and beat him down until they crossed blades one last time. Concluding this, she turned her blades in such a manner that it allowed her to push her blades out from her body so that she looked like a T. As a result, his own blades were sent flying from his hands and beyond his reach, the duel now lost to him. She finished him off by first bringing the blades back down and slashing him across the abdomen.

Her arms crossed in the fashion of a very tight hug but this was undone when she brought her blades back down to form an X on his body. Smiling, she watched as he gazed at her in shock, the spark of life in his eyes disappearing forever as he did so. When he fell on his back and exhaled for the last time, she knew he was dead and thus, restored the blade on her left hand into her old scabbard. Sheathing the blade on her right hand, she used the Talisman to teleport herself back onto the balcony to rendezvous with her Vahla who had long since killed the other twelve leaders.

As she managed all of this, she suddenly realized something that she might have previously overlooked whilst dueling with Xendor. During the entire fight, the hood had not once fallen back to reveal the upper half of her face to anyone. But she didn't really care for this informality seeing as the brothers would still have perished before her bladework anyway, thus securing her identity. Besides that, those who were alive today did not know who she really was or what she looked like which would have made it even more insignificant of a difference.

"Milady, we've killed off the other leaders and we have ensured that upon your imminent return, they were bowing to us. The Sorcerers of Tund are ours to command now that you have smoothly completed the transaction of powers that be," the Captain stated. "And you have done well for yourself despite the wounds on your face from whence, blood leaks," she replied. He wiped it off and asked her to make nothing off it as he would seek a medic for all of his wounds once they were on the cruiser again.

"Where do we go to now, milady?" he asked after a brief time. "We go to Malastare where I will request a shuttle to pick up my apprentice. From there, we will sit and wait until the army my ally wants us to fight comes along. Once that is finished and we are victorious, we will go into the Unknown Regions and the Great Void beyond from there," she answered.

"Sounds like a most excellent plan, excellency. I will see to it that the Sorcerers make haste in their preparations for their departure from this world," he said. "You do that and be sure to have your brothers and sisters come down to assist you as well. I will also need to speak with your chieftain in order to commend the twelve of you on your bladework," she replied.

"Thank you milady, I could not have asked for more than that," he stated with a deep bow. Nor will you if you value your life she thought but didn't say. "You have done well enough for now, seek out a healer here and rest when you have called for your fellow warriors. Then do so until I command otherwise: the twelve of you have earned it as have I," she said aloud, meaning it too.

Then she had a minor sorcerer guide her into a chamber where she could rejuvenate and relax after that long duel. It is good that I get a chance to exercise my bladework with each warrior or sorcerer race I recruit but must I do this every time? she asked herself. She admitted that she was most likely going to do good enough with the Vahla and the Sorcerers but still... Twice, she had tried to recruit powerful Dark Side cults diplomatically and twice, she had to fight them into submission.

It reminded her much of the Jedi Masters of the First Schism's final days, when the news of Loki the Destroyer's demise. They had all sworn an oath never to rest until Arden was brought down with the rest of her advocates and did just that. Only difference from what happened and what they had intended was that she was placed into hibernation rather than the death they wished for her. Some fates are worse than death but I am truly beginning to wonder if this is one of them she asked herself.

But she decided it was best not to let herself be bother with any of that for the moment. She needed to tell her apprentice of her success in recruiting allies and that she would arrive soon. Fortunately, Depa Billaba's comlink still worked and when she was informed, she voiced her enthusiasm in her Mistress' arrival. "The counterforce has not yet arrived but I will be vigilant for signs of their possible pre-attack presence in the meantime," she added.

"Good idea and make sure to crush those signs of pre-attack presence where you see it. Remember that while mercy has its place, we cannot allow it where Yuuzhan Vong in our galaxy is concerned," Arden stated. "I will remember Mistress but I will also have to lay low in case the Jedi decide to come along Malastare. It will not be long before a good samaritan of the Republic spots me and decides to ask the Council to investigate," Depa said with a nod.

"Do what you can until I arrive, I will let you know when we are about to make the hyperspace trips so as to give you time for preparations but not too much. When I make the report, be sure to begin preparations immediately: I will have no tolerance for delays of any kind," Arden warned. "Yes Mistress, I will remember that and something else that I must tell you," Depa said. "I'm listening," Arden stated, which wasn't very far from the truth.

"While you have been busy recruiting clans of the Dark Side, I stumbled across someone I thought might be interest in joining us," her apprentice said. "And what happened?" Arden inquired suspiciously. "He refused the offer and we even had a brief scuffle though I did use your teachings to overcome him eventually," Depa explained. "And just what is his name?" Arden asked.

"His name is Quinlan Vos and by the time the duel was over, I had wounded him too badly for him to be of any use to us. I tried my best to make sure it never happened but it did anyway," Depa answered. "You did the best you could under the circumstances, do not worry too much about it. Search for others with similar abilities to him if you wish but keep a low profile as much as possible," Arden said.

"Yes Mistress, I will do that," Depa said before disconnecting the transmission. Looks like my luck also applies to my apprentice she thought. But she shook her head and thought no more of it.