Star Wars: The Old Republic

Marr

~Chapter Eight~

Promises breed hope, but when they are broken, hope falters.

During the weeks following the ritual, it became evident that Taxon had no intention of teaching me; nor did he plan to kill me. At least not overtly. Instead, I was confined to the meaningless purgatory that was the dig.

I toiled from sunrise until dark. Then came the fights—men tearing each other up like akk dogs for food. Those that couldn't fight learned to scavenge. Those that couldn't scavenge grew weaker until they expired in the sweltering sands. After devouring whatever paltry crumbs I could find, I soaked my hands in watered down kolto, wrapped them and slept.

Each morning, the survivors were rounded up and taken to yet another dig site. My sole attempt to return to the temple nearly killed me. The desert stretched for hundreds of miles in all directions. If not for my blood connections, I've little doubt I would've been forgotten and left to die. There was no escape. The dig was all there was.

Every day was the same. I would plunge my shovel into the boiling sand, fill it and cast aside its contents. The hole would collapse and refill. I would begin again. Each time I sank the shovel into the sand was a beginning, and for a few fleeting moments, there was hope, that I would find something under the barren sands that would lead me back to my legacy.

There were treasures to be found, but they came in the form of lizard eggs and occasionally the lizards themselves. Looking back, I realize these meager findings were, in fact, the treasures I so desperately sought, but at the time, I lacked the perception to see beyond hunger and fatigue. I learned hope dies slowly, but it does die.

The temple with its glittering holocrons was a distant dream now, as was the lordly wraith I'd met—the fount to generations of sons of which I was the last. Time tampers with memory until the truth no long seems real. The sithspawn beast I'd mourned had vanished in my arms. My foppish mercurial ally had disappeared as well. How could any of it been real? Perhaps it had been madness all along. Even the guiding voice in my mind had fallen quiet.

The sun turned my flesh to leather—dark and stretched tight over the hardened masses of flesh girding my arms, shoulders, and legs. I stood at least a head taller than my peers. I no longer recognized myself. My time as a scavenger came to an end and I became a fighter—one that few wished to challenge. I tore into the meat I'd won—vicious, wary, and as unrepentant as a wild animal.

I allowed myself to exist in the mind-numbing simplicity that came with the dig. Before long, all that mattered was the shovel. It was a friend, workmate, confidant and weapon. I had nothing to say and the shovel took no offense. It was content in my silence, just as I was. It understood me. It was mine and woe to anyone who sought to borrow it or take it outright.

Every life requires meaning, even if that meaning is as lowly as a well-used shovel. At night I obsessed over it, polishing the durasteel and sharpening the spade edge to a razor's precision. The shovel lay at my side in bed and I kept my hand on it even as I slept.

The mania followed me into my dreams and I woke gasping and horrified when I dreamt the shovel was my partner on Tulak Hord's fertility altar—but with that dream came the realization that I was stuck in an ever-deepening hole, so deep, the sky was a distant light at the end of the growing darkness. The light shrank to a pinhole, along with my hopes of becoming Sith.

Apathy had taken root. I saw no way out of the rut I'd settled into. The dream was an alarm—a call to action—one I would answer even if it killed me. Death wasn't my enemy. I cursed my own complacency and the dwindling spark in me kindled and flared into a blaze.

If I were to become Sith, I would have to do so by my own merit. There was no fate or destiny. I even began to question the Force. And then, as if it were mocking my resolve, I heard a familiar voice outside my tent—a refined voice—one I hadn't heard in almost seven years. Vowrawn.

"Gentlemen…tell me, where do I find Ares Marr?"

"Two tents over, my Lord…he's with his wife," the foreman snorted.

"W-Wife?" Vowrawn stammered incredulously.

"His shovel…bet he kisses it goodnight," one of the men chimed in.

"Given the sounds coming out of his tent at night, bet he does more than that," another howled.

The workmen laughed, Vowrawn laughed, and then the camp flashed purple with the static hiss of lightning and no one laughed.

I stood the shovel against the side of my bed, just as Vowrawn pushed through the tent flaps.

"Sons of the Emperor! Marr? Is that really you, m'boy?" He spread his arms wide as if offering an embrace.

My hand opened and closed and I felt a surge of anger. "Where the hell have you been?" I hadn't heard my own voice in so long its depth and timbre shocked me.

"I must apologize for my seeming abandonment…It wasn't intentional."

"Seven years and not a word?" My fingers curled around the shovel's shaft and I drew it to my side like a staff. "Give me one reason I shouldn't bludgeon you where you stand!"

"Your anger is understandable." His gaze fell on the shovel and he licked his lips, no doubt trying to decide if I was capable of backing up my threat.

Vowrawn held his hands up and patted the air as if calming a wild animal. "I assure you I did all I could. Taxon made it nigh impossible to find you."

"Spare me your excuses!" I snarled through clenched teeth. "Nothing is impossible for you," I swore and hurled the shovel at him.

He ducked, narrowly avoiding impact. "Were I in your shoes, I too would be quite upset, but I promise you, m'boy, I did all I could. There was a time I believed he'd killed you in secret."

"Upset? Upset!?" I punched the tent pole hard enough to dent the durasteel and Vowrawn cringed. "Upset doesn't cover it. You left me here to rot. What do you want, Vowrawn? Why else would you be here now?"

"Suffice it to say the new quartermaster is more amenable to bribery…the old one, met with an unfortunate end if you take my meaning."

I folded my arms and glared at him as if he were an insect with pearly white teeth.

"Taxon has only grown more paranoid with time. When I discovered you were still alive, I came to realize that Taxon would never be careless where you're concerned. He knows your every move as well as his own. He controls every detail of your life, my friend. I've come to set you free."

"You're wearing my patience." My fingers rolled over my bicep. "You expect me to believe anything you say…" I shook my head and turned my back to him. "It took you almost seven years to kill a quartermaster and bribe a new one."

"There is somewhat more to it, I assure you, but that is the gist of it. I will say this, the dig has turned you surly, my friend."

I stayed his words with a stab of my index finger. "We're not friends. Let us be clear on that point."

"I prefer friends, but ally will do, m'boy. The anger you've cultivated through the dig is quite stunning to behold."

"It wasn't just the dig…it was the fighting pits. Only the victors ate. We were treated worse than dogs."

Vowrawn looked up at me. "You've grown into quite the strapping young man. From the size of you, I'd say you triumphed often."

"I learned to live off insects…lizards…snakes. Whatever I could kill with my shovel. I'd find clutches of eggs in the sand and ate them too."

"The first time I set eyes on you, I knew you were a survivor, Marr."

"All I've done is survive."

"What if I told you, that I'm here to teach you how to live?"

"I'd have my doubts." I stalked across the tent and reclaimed my shovel.

"But you will hear me out I trust…"

"It costs nothing to listen. Say what you came to say, I don't have all night."

"We are going to lull Taxon into a false sense of security."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"With your death."

"My death…" I raised a brow and stared at him matter-of-factly. I didn't know if I should laugh or beat him to death. "Taxon will demand a corpse…he won't believe otherwise."

"Already taken care of, my friend. I'm not without connections. I happen to be well acquainted with the galaxy's most talented identity forger—a young Anomid named A'tol Dretcher."

"An alien…and you trust him?" I frowned.

"No more than I trust anyone else," Vowrawn quipped. A playful glint turned his eyes to rubies and he reminded me of a rodent. "Aliens have their uses and we would be fools not to take advantage."

"I suppose, I can see the wisdom in that," I conceded. "Then what? Assuming Taxon doesn't kill you."

"The best games have the element of risk. That's what makes it exciting. After your untimely death, you will be free to become Sith."

"How? If I return to the Academy, he'll know."

"Oh no m'boy. You'll be resuming your studies here. You see I haven't forgotten what you said. The temple…isn't empty, but I suspect only you can access whatever it is you saw. It took me some doing, but I've arranged for all your comforts—food…supplies…a slave. Even an instructor."

"I don't need a slave," I barked.

"Never underestimate the value of a good slave. Nights can be cold in the desert."

I waved him off and frowned. "Who's the instructor?"

"An old friend of yours—Lord Silthar."

I turned around slowly. "You brought Silthar…here…"

"He's quite gifted with holocrons—"

"Do you think me a fool, Vowrawn? Did you think I wouldn't figure out what you've been doing all this time?"

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage…prey tell me…what have I been up to?"

"When I said the tomb wasn't empty…Taxon didn't believe me…but you did. You brought Silthar here in the hopes of claiming the contents of the temple for yourself. Between your rituals and his knowledge of antiquities, you thought you'd take it all, didn't you? It's only when you realized you needed me, that I became central to your plans again."

Vowrawn sighed. "M'boy…you've been central to my plans for a long time."

"You need Taxon dead…but you can't kill him yourself. You've been biding your time…you need me."

"It seems that for whatever reason, I can't keep plans secret from you. How refreshing. You'll be a splendid ally…knowing me as you do."

"There's more to this, Vowrawn…Taxon has something on you that keeps you under his thumb. You're a slave to him as much as I am."

"It would appear that the sun hasn't dulled your mind after all. There would be no sense in denying it. Now that I'm transparent before you…I trust you will take me up on my offer?"

I took a long look around the tent, and then at the shovel in my hands. "We have an agreement."

Vowrawn clapped like a spoiled child on Life Day. "Wonderful. We mustn't tarry. Come."

We emerged from the tent, and I took a long look around the camp. The sun resembled a half yoke on the horizon and the sky consisted of ribbons of colour. Bodies lay strewn haphazardly through the camp, their eyes charred open. Vowrawn had been confident of what my response would be.

"You won't be needing that anymore," Vowrawn nodded at my shovel as he slid into the driver's side of his Korrealis speeder.

I considered the shovel for a long time but kept it at my side when I slid in next to Vowrawn.

"Say goodbye to your old life my friend…"

He fired up the speeder and swung it around the camp in a wide arc and then he depressed the detonator remote he'd concealed in his hand.

Fans of sand and stone shot up from the grounds surrounding the camp. The tents imploded on themselves as a great sinkhole opened beneath them. The desert swallowed most of the camp whole, and as we veered in for one last look, a large body furthest from the sunken camp could have doubled as my own.

Vowrawn snatched my shovel and hurled it out of the speeder. It rolled and landed next to the forged corpse. "Forgive me my friend, but we're striving for authenticity. It was necessary to dispose of it."

I glared at Vowrawn. "Pray, you're not next."

((to be continued…))