Part Eleven: The Boy in the Cave

Olivaw struggled to find his way through the maze of caves hollowed out of the mountain crevice of the Jedi enclave. He walked up then down, took a left turn followed by a right and down again to another left the whole time his footfalls echoing off the stone walls. He stopped to peruse his map and sighed heavily. Kuro created the maze with the intent that should anyone outside of the order find it they could not discover all of the secrets the jedi kept within. Even with his detailed map of the caverns, Olivaw was completely lost. Maybe he should have turned right instead of left? He backtracked to the intersection and followed the tunnel he should have taken. After the meeting in the council chambers, Illiana had come to these same caves and not returned the rest of the day. He knew where she had gone and was concerned with what he suspected she was about to do. This wasn't the first time she had mentioned it, and he had convinced her before that dismantling her father's lightsaber and constructing a new one was a bad idea. He hoped he could find her before she actually destroyed the heirloom. He stopped at the entrance to the cavern that housed the noetikons and their display console that was created by Daneel and Windi Weathergear. He turned around to walk back to the intersection. Perhaps he should have gone up instead of down. The former smuggler traversed the labyrinth for another hour before he finally found the forging room. The elven sith was standing before the large device used to create lightsabers.

"You haven't already done it…have you?" he asked as he entered the room. She didn't turn to face him as she shook her head. "Good. I heard what happened in the council chamber and knew you'd come here."

"I've allowed the past to cloud my judgement," she replied with a shaky voice. Had she been crying the whole time? "I have to let it go before I make another mistake like the one I made today."

"Destroying your father's final gift is not the answer and neither is forgetting the past. You just have to accept what happened and move forward. Look…although I'm probably the last person you want to hear this from because things between us are different now and the love we shared is gone…"

"I've never stopped loving you, Ollie," she said interrupting him. He cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow. "I didn't want to burden you with my grief after my memories were restored. It wasn't fair to you…the man who gave up everything for me and yet didn't realize who I truly was until months later. I'm sorry you gave up your old life for a lie…for my lie."

She raised her hand to her face to wipe away a tear. At least that was what he thought she was doing because she still hadn't turned around to face him. He took a deep breath as he walked up behind her and gently grabbed her shoulders. He could see her father's lightsaber resting on the tabletop of the forge and unblemished. She didn't flinch at his touch nor did she resist when he turned her around to face him. He gazed into her eyes, red from crying, and noticed her tear stained cheeks. He bottom lip was indented where she had been biting it. He said nothing as he reached up with his right hand and wiped a tear from the corner of her left eye.

"What if I want to be burdened by it?" he quizzed softly.

"I am not the same woman that I was when you chose to stay on Azeroth."

"You mean emotional and given to fits of anger? Confused about your place within the jedi order? Conflicted with what happened in your past? Can't say anything has really changed. I don't see a different woman now than I did then, Illiana. In fact I see the same woman who came back for me when others had not despite that the fate of the world hung in the balance. I see the same woman who cared about how I felt and worried about my wellbeing. I see the same woman who was worth more than all the millions of reasons to return to the galaxy I once called my home…and if I were forced to make the same decision now as then…I would make the same choice for the same reason. I would stay for you."

"Despite the fact that I now remember that I am a widow and a mother to murdered children?" she asked. "You would still choose to stay for me even with all of my emotional scars? Even knowing why I did the horrible things that I did after I accepted the deal from the Avatar?"

"Are you kidding?" He grinned and wiped some of her hair from her face. "We've both lost those close to us. You think I didn't commit some heinous acts when I worked for the Hutts? We have even more in common now than before. Of course I would stay for you…you're just like me. So you see...there's hope for you. I mean…look how I turned out." She chuckled and cracked a smile. "Now there's my girl. I've missed that smile."

The elven sith leaned in and embraced him. "I should've never pushed you away, Ollie."

"The important thing is that you came back," he replied as he hugged her. "Let's just not make this a habit. Okay?"

She chuckled again as she tightened her embrace. "Okay."

Daneel walked along a dank corridor with Grogg beside him. After the meeting in the council chambers, the grand master convinced Ciara to open a portal to the facility both she and Jacen referred to during the heated exchange regarding time travel. The room they initially arrived in was a small entryway for one of the tram cars. Once inside and after Grogg had translated the Titan instructions, the miraluka was surprised to discover that the controls were not much different than those utilized by the Rakata in his home galaxy. This only served to strengthen his view that perhaps the Titans and the Celestials were one and the same race since the Rakata would have derived their technology from the latter. He noted that the equipment was designed for use by a species much different than any he had encountered in all of his travels to numerous worlds. That was a matter to examine more closely at a later time, however, because their reason for coming to this facility was to find the sith-trained troll. Inside the tram, Grogg found a record of the various trips she had taken within the facility. Of the three locations listed, the dark apprentice visited one frequently which the jedi chose as their first destination. The orc used the hood of his robes to shield his eyes from the strobing effect of the lights along the tram tunnel, but the miraluka was not bothered by them. During the journey, Daneel stretched out through the Force searching for the presence of their foe should she be located within the strange facility. He could not sense her as they rode the tram for two hours before reaching the section the travel log indicated she visited most.

The jedi emerged from the car not into a room as described by Jacen, but a long corridor some fifty yards across and with a ceiling just as high. Large metallic statues of every race native to Azeroth lined the walls for two hundred yards. As they walked the distance to the far end, Grogg noted that of the elven races, only the kaldorei was represented indicating the construction of the facility predated the collapse of the Well of Eternity and the schism that split the race into their modern variations. The corridor emptied into a cavernous room two hundred yards across and with a ceiling almost one hundred yards tall. Along the circular wall were three massive humanoid faces with few details beyond the basic features of a nose, two eyes and ears, and a mouth. The floor consisted of a circular set of twelve downward steps and in the center a large round dais with what appeared to be several types of computer consoles. Daneel remained at the entrance while Grogg stepped down to one of the terminals. After a few minutes, the padawan entered commands that produced a large holographic representation of Azeroth with the single continent of Kalimdor as it was before the Well of Eternity's collapse ten thousand years ago.

"This is fascinating," the orc said as he read the information scrolling across one of the monitors. "The Titans created Azeroth for the sole purpose of imprisoning the Old Gods. We are living on a prison planet. This facility maintained the individual cells with geothermal energy collected from the core. The machinery's exhaust was centered in the middle of the continent, and then they brought life here from all over the universe. Every variety of vegetation…every animal species…all living things and the entire ecosystem on Azeroth was comprised from a collection taken from other worlds and transplanted on this single planet. They knew that the arcane energies of the facility's waste would mutate what life they brought here and apparently all by a very specific design that would evolve and camouflage Azeroth's true purpose from the other Old Gods and their fallen brother…Sargeras."

The grand master walked down the steps and stopped by the orc as he continued reading from the console. "Worry about the history lesson another time. Can you determine what the sith and troll were doing with this facility?"

The padawan continued to peruse the data coming across his readout as he entered more commands into the console. After a minute he looked up to the miraluka. "This is the central command hub for what remains of the facility. According to this, when the Well collapsed it destroyed or rendered inoperative close to sixty percent of it. What does remain is still more powerful…technologically…than everything else on the surface combined. They've used this central command hub to locate which outlying and operational substations can benefit them and learned how to use those devices at each location. That second most visited hub mentioned in the travel log? According to this, there is a device that can manipulate the elements into whatever the mind can imagine. It's what the Titans used to create much of the land structures on the surface not already formed by the planet's tectonic plates…deserts, forests, great lakes…whatever they wanted to create. No wonder our world has so many regions neighboring each other in ways that don't make sense…like a desert of sand bordering with a lush jungle region. I'll wager that it's the same device she's been using to follow Jacen across the surface of the planet. Oh, and according to this only the troll has been here. I cannot find any other log entries for another user for thousands of years. It even lists her as species-troll and nothing about species-unknown…if we were to assume that a sith tried to access the facility. I'm even listed now as unknown-species user access number 11478659263."

"Well…she's not here now and I'm certain that Ciara didn't discover this place on her own," Daneel said lowering his gaze to meet the orc's. "Try to find any entry and exit points besides the one that Jacen mentioned from the Caverns of Time. If we can find out how the troll came here, then we could use that to find where she might be located now. If she's not there it should still provide us a starting point to finding her and discover what she's been planning."

Grogg turned his attention back to the console and keyed in a few more commands before he looked back up to the grand master. "Most points of entry have long been destroyed or are deep under the ocean. That leaves only one left near Kalimdor, but you're not going to like it."

"Why is that?"

"It's listed as a lava tube to a volcanic island just off the eastern shores of Kalimdor. Today it's charted but uninhabited. I've been there and it's nothing but lava flows and volcanic ash with massive plumes of smoke rising high into the sky. It's a dangerous place that every pirate avoids because there is nothing of value there."

Daneel smiled as he reached into one of the pouches on his belt and withdrew two silver bracelets, one of which he tossed to the orc. "I guess we'll find out if Windi's new invention works."

Jacen followed Kai'moira and Adaria through a forested plateau of the Redridge Mountains. After the meeting in the council chambers, he had wanted to spend time with Madelyn. He found her sleeping in her room so instead of waking her, he spent the next hour writing her a letter for when she woke. He composed seven drafts before settling on the one he left behind for her. As he wrote the first versions, he agonized over whether to tell her about the child she was carrying or to let her discover it on her own. Daneel's words about the consequences of time travel worried him, so in his final letter he mentioned nothing about their love child. Perhaps after his awakening then he might know better how to reveal the secret to her, but now as he followed the other two jedi through a mountainside forest he began to doubt that decision. He should have waited and spoke to her when she woke from her slumber. He should have revealed their child growing in her womb. His thoughts were so centered on what he wrote to her that he barely paid any attention to where the two women were leading him, and it wasn't until they stopped at the base of a waterfall that he remembered why they had come to this place…to awaken his jedi powers.

Jacen knew the Alliance held a strong presence in the region, but up this high there were no trails or signs that anyone had ventured this far into the forest. Small birds darted from one evergreen tree to another filling the air with their songs that oddly fit with the rush of the water coming from the majestic waterfall nearby. He pulled back on the hood of his light brown jedi robes as his eyes followed the flight of an orange and white bird that landed on a branch not far from him. Its head darted from left to right before taking flight again. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply enjoying the scent of pine wafting through the region on the calm winds. When he opened them, he looked over at the other two jedi staring at him. Kai'moira wore a white halter top with an angled sash wrapped around her waist. Her dark blue skin seemed more vibrant at this elevation as did the red coloring of her eyes. Beside her stood the kaldorei padawan, Adaria, wearing similar robes as his except dark blue in color. Her long silvery-white hair billowed in the breeze.

"What you seek is in a cave behind the top of the waterfall," Adaria said as she pointed to the top.

"Up there?" he asked following her finger towards the mountain summit. "What should I look for?"

"You will know it when you find it," the night elf replied lowering her arm. "What Aeryn and I discovered up there was so strange and alien that we didn't know what to do…so we returned to our group of druids we were traveling with and reported what we had discovered."

"And they did nothing to investigate further?" Kai'moira asked as she looked over to the padawan. Her black hair was tied neatly into a bun, but she raised her left hand to move a few stray strands from her face and back over her ear.

"What we described…they didn't believe us," she answered. She looked back to Jacen with her silvery blue eyes. "Even now I don't know how to describe it in a way that you would believe me. I can only say that when you find it you will know."

"Any traps that I should know about?" he asked as he gazed at the waterfall. "Anything dangerous?"

"Only what you take with you in your mind," the jedi master answered causing him to look down at the chiss. She too was staring at the summit. "This place is strong with the Force…"

"I can sense it now as well," Adaria added. "I didn't know what it was before, but now that I am a jedi…it explains a few things."

"Like what?" the human asked.

"Aeryn thought I was mad, but…" her voice trailed off for a few seconds. "But I had a vision the last time I was here. I think now I understand it. I saw this moment all those years ago…the three of us standing here…I couldn't see either of your faces but I knew that I had brought a man here to confront something…something from his past. I don't know anything more than that because my brother pulled me from the cave ending the vision. All these years I thought perhaps I was hallucinating from some berries I had eaten…"

"That's not very reassuring," Jacen said with a frown while looking at the night elf still staring at the waterfall.

"Perhaps not, but this moment seems to have been preordained," Kai'moira stated. "What is in the cave to discover was meant for you, Jacen, and no other. Someone or something has foreseen a time when you will come to this exact place, and only you can uncover the secret kept within." She stepped up to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "You must make the rest of this journey…alone."

Illiana led Olivaw through the caverns to where they thought they would find the spy, Scott. Before leaving the forge, the zabrak told her of Celeste's confrontation at the top of the mountain near the gravestones of her parents. When she asked why the human was hunting her, he hesitated before telling her about the relationship between the would-be assassin and a woman from her past, Valeria. A flash of darkness crossed her eyes at the revelation of the connection to her elder son's murderer, but only for a second before she calmed her breathing and squared her shoulders. He thought she took the news quite well, and so he then told her of the man's brother who was also present in the valley. She said nothing as she suddenly strode past him and down the rocky corridor. He had to jog in some places trying to keep pace with her but just before the junction that led to the room where Scott was being detained, Illiana hesitated. He saw the worry in her eyes, possibly concerned about how she would react, but then she rounded the corner to face the brother of the woman who murdered Herion. He wasn't sure what they would find or how the elven sith would react upon seeing Scott, but instead of finding the human imprisoned they discovered the two shaman guards, a tauren male and orc female, lying unconscious on the ground and the prisoner gone. She left in a hurry and Olivaw stayed behind to tend to the fallen guards. He knew not to interfere with Illiana when her deep blue eyes turned red.

Caidan stepped from behind a boulder and ignited the golden blade of his lightsaber. Several yards ahead of him and crouched near the base of a fallen tree, Scott turned his head slightly at the sound of the snap/hiss when the jedi weapon was activated by his brother. He sighed deeply before standing and turning to face the half elf. The younger twin with pointed ears recognized the object in the other's hand, the hilt of a lightsaber once owned by their father. Another snap/hiss and the newly ignited crimson blade cast an eerie glow on the snowy landscape.

"Why do you continue to stand against me, Brother?" Scott asked as the winds picked up speed whipping the dark red robes about his legs. "All I want is justice for our murdered sister!"

"You do not seek justice…only vengeance!" Caidan retorted as he mirrored his twin's stance. Standing legs shoulder width with lightsaber pointed to the ground in his right hand and wearing black robes in the same style as Scott's, his dark hair flowing in the wind as opposed to his brother's bald head, he appeared almost the exact opposite of his twin facing him. "True justice was served when our sister was defeated. A life was given for a life taken…that is the code. Give up this lust for retribution, Brother!"

"You didn't know Valeria like I did," Scott replied. "Her life was not for the abomination to take!"

"You delude yourself," the younger twin stated as he moved to his left causing his brother to counter. "I was kept a slave to ensure our mother remained loyal to Drakus while you were sent to Dalaran because you appeared more human. I only ever first saw our sister that day when Illiana faced the dark lord. She rarely spoke to me in the following years, but I still saw her more than you ever did. I saw the darkness she kept in her heart…I know the scars she kept after Illiana's escape. You never saw the red of her eyes as she lost herself to the dark side of the Force! I was there…I know what it took from her…what it led her to do to a woman who did nothing but befriend her. She took the child's life not as payment for our father's death but to hurt the elven sith…to scar the woman as she had been scarred. Our sister acted counter to justice and her life was given as payment to return the scales to balance."

"Do not speak the abomination's name in my presence! I loved our sister more than you ever did! She wrote to me all of the time and told me often how much she wished I lived back at the fortress instead of the mage's city. She told me about the half breed's mewling and how much she hated being in her presence day after day after day feigning a friendship with that beast!"

"Do you not hear yourself?" Caidan asked as he stopped now where his brother once stood by the fallen tree. "You sound just like him…like Drakus! The same man who enslaved our kind for centuries!"

"Your kind, Brother, not mine! You were left where you belonged…with the long ears while I was sent to live amongst humans…just like me!"

"Our mother was an elf!" Caidan shouted.

"I had no mother!" Scott cried out as he leapt through the air at his twin with his lightsaber raised above his head. Caidan countered to his left, and as their blades clashed he spun on his heel to the right trying to counter the aggressor. The elder twin spun in the opposite direction blocking the golden blade. Sparks flashed in their faces as Caidan stared into the red and yellow eyes of his brother, one fully embracing the hatred of the dark side. He pushed his brother away with the Force and was about to follow with an attack of his own, but the human recovered too quickly. The younger twin was not prepared for the lightning that arced from his brother's fingertips. The bolts of Force electricity engulfed his body causing him to drop his lightsaber into the snow. He writhed in agony and fell upon the still ignited blade of his weapon. The pure energy cut into his right shoulder almost severing his arm. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the sneering countenance of his brother standing over him and the red blade pointed at his throat.

Zirani stood about a hundred yards from a lava tube in the middle of a field of volcanic rock and ash. The heat in the region was oppressive, but for this moment she could think of no other place to face the jedi grand master she sensed approaching her from behind. She reached up to lower the hood of her black robe and then pulled it all the way to let it fall to the ground at her feet. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She only wore a halter top and thin skirt beneath the dark robe leaving most of her upper torso bare. She could feel the warmth of the nearby lava flows on her skin. Most would call this place a fiery hell, but in her mind it was the perfect place to face a foe unlike any other she had ever met. She didn't flinch when she heard the snap/hiss of his lightsaber.

"I've been waiting for you, jedi," she stated calmly before turning around to face the grand master. He approached cautiously with his green blade pointed to the ground in his right hand. "At last I will face my destiny."

"Give up your hatred and embrace the light," Daneel answered. She could see in the distance the orc just now emerging from the lava tube. "This is a fight you cannot win."

The troll ignited the crimson blade of her lightsaber causing the jedi to stop his advance. "If it is my destiny to die this day…then so be it." She pulled her lightsaber up before her chest in both hands assuming the opening stance of the Ataru form. "I must know if I am capable enough to face my sith master. If I can best you, then I am ready to take her place as the dark master of this world. No more games with the human mercenary…no more riddles to confuse your order…just you and me on this field of fiery ash…just as the old masters foretold."

"You planned this…all of the conflicts…the taunting of Jacen…everything was to force this confrontation?"

"Yes," she said as she circled to her right. "My sith master thinks I have done all of this because of her bidding…but she is unaware of the secret beneath the surface of this world…unaware of the power it can give the one who can control it. Her desires are unobtainable, but I know the secret to keep the demon lord at bay…and with it I can rule this world. It is what the true master demands…"

Daneel countered her opening stance by assuming the one for the soresu form. "One cannot serve two masters and emerge unscathed."

"I have never truly served Nyrexia," the dark apprentice replied still circling with the jedi. "She would see the world destroyed in her lust for the power of the demon lord, but I would rather preserve it as it was…Zhamul has shown me the way to return the Alliance and Horde to fighting with each other with no more Burning Legion, Iron Horde, or Lich King uniting them under a single banner. When they are at war, then I can stand between them controlling their forces like a puppeteer. I will control the destinies of all life on this world…a true master of their fates. You stand in my way of accomplishing that goal."

Zirani leapt through the air at the jedi. He blocked her attack as she expected, and she reacted to his counter that again she had anticipated. The troll allowed a small smile to cross her lips as they exchanged blow after blow and each as she knew it would happen. The jedi swept low at her legs, and she jumped high and over him to strike at his neck and, as she knew he would, he blocked her blade with his. Their lightsabers crossed and the two combatants facing each other, her smile widened. It was all happening just as the old spirit had shown her it would. If she remained true to the vision, the jedi would succumb to her power. From the depths of that old castle in the Alteracs to this remote volcanic island, her path to power was becoming less of an ambition and more of a reality. She pushed back at him with the Force and took a backwards step to reassume the opening stance of the ataru. The jedi recovered quickly and tilted his head at her apparently confused by her retreat. Again the fight was transpiring just as it had in the vision. Then she felt the push in the Force and flew to the ground several feet from where she was facing the jedi. With a growl she looked to see the orc padawan standing a few yards away with his hand outstretched. She had forgotten about him…he had not been in the vision.

Jacen walked along the path beside the waterfall and under it to the cave Adaria had discovered in her youth. Knowing that a normal torch would be useless, he pulled an artificial light device from his pouch and activated it illuminating the entrance. The moisture was thick and the floor slick with slimy mud. He took a deep breath before carefully walking further into the cave. After about fifty feet it sloped downward and after a hundred more he noticed the once thick mud near the entrance had lessened to reveal a smooth metallic floor. He held up the flashlight to one of the walls and gasped when he saw that it was not stone but scorched metal. He followed this for another twenty feet to where an explosion had ruptured the wall and created an opening into another room of the cave. His connection to the Force was much stronger here, and he remembered that Kai'moira warned him that he could possibly see visions in this nexus. He had to crouch through the hole in the wall, and when he stepped through his foot touched down on the streets of his childhood village. He could feel the heat of the fires burning around him, hear the roaring of the flames and crackling of the wood buildings as they burned, feel the smoke choking his lungs, and he straightened to look directly at his father's smithy ahead of him. He spun on his heel to look back at the cave entrance, but instead of the ragged hole he just walked through he saw the rest of his burning village all around him.

"She told you this would happen," a boy's voice said and he turned back to see his younger self standing just outside of the entrance to his father's forge. "Why didn't you listen to her?"

"Who? What woman?" he asked.

"The one who said the Scourge was coming," he heard himself say. Jacen looked to his left to see a slightly older version of himself dressed in shining armor like he wore when he rode with Teagus the Red. "She told us about the arrival of the younger jedi and then about the return of the sith daughter he defeated in Northrend."

"The same one who warned us about the Burning Legion's presence in Desolace just before the jedi intervened." He turned to his right see himself again only this time older like he was as a mercenary in Silithus."The same one you met again at the jedi temple."

"The woman with no eyes," the boy said causing Jacen to return his attention to the original speaker.

"You mean Cipher?" he asked.

The two older versions of himself walked to the boy and merged with him. "That is not her name," he said now as only the boy and yet with a voice resonating of all three versions of himself. "She has always tried to show us and yet you did not listen to her. Since this day you have avoided the sensations you felt…feared what you could unleash when you watched Arthas murder our family. It was there that day…it's always been there…and yet even now that you remember what it is you still resist."

"I have never felt the Force but just a few days ago," Jacen protested. "But I am ready to embrace it now."

"You still deny the truth," the boy stated as he turned to walk into the burning smithy. "You are blocking it now just as you did then…as you have always done…you are afraid of who you are."

Suddenly there was a blinding white flash causing the jedi hopeful to close his eyes. When he opened them, Jacen saw not the burning village or the boy but an empty corridor leading further into the cliff of the waterfall. He inhaled deeply before taking his next steps.

Scott stood above his brother still pointing the crimson blade at his throat. Caidan groaned at the edge of consciousness. The elder twin was about to end his brother's life when a bolt of lightning struck his back flinging him over the other's body and into a snow bank several yards away. He recovered almost immediately and turned to see Illiana walking from the jedi temple. Arcs of Force lightning crawled along her arms as she closed the distance between them. He reached out through the Force and felt her power and staggered backwards a step. She was stronger than he had imagined, and her power even rivaled the jedi grand master. Scott swallowed hard as he thought of what to do next for he was not powerful enough to face the murderer of his sister, at least not yet. He only had one option, and with a flick of his right index finger on a band at his wrist, he signaled the only person who could save him at this moment. Illiana continued to stalk towards him until she stood next to his moaning brother.

"You wanted to find me so here I am," the elven sith taunted. She reached out with her left hand, and suddenly Scott could not move as she held him with the invisible grip of the Force. "There was no need to harm the shamans in the caverns…no need to fight this man…if you wanted to face me all you had to do was ask."

"You murdered my sister," he struggled to call out.

"After she murdered my son," Illiana retorted as she stepped closer to him. "My son! A boy who was only four years old! An innocent and helpless child she had never met!" She stopped just in front of him and stared at him with red eyes. "I should kill you for what you have done, but there has been enough death. The cycle ends here and now for you are not strong enough to face me. Give up your hatred…I have."

"It will never be over," he spat at her. "I will avenge my sister's murder or die trying!"

He glowered at her as her eyes changed from red to deep blue. "Have you nothing else to live for?" she asked. He squirmed against her hold of him through the Force. "I was angry with you for what you had done to those in the cave below, but now I can only pity you. Vengeance will only leave you hollow, dark one. Trust me…I know…and so did your sister at the last moment." She lowered her arm and turned away from him. "Your friend has arrived…I suggest you join her and contemplate what I have told you."

As soon as he felt the release of her grip on him, Scott raised his lightsaber and struck at her. He was shocked to discover that she had protected herself with an invisible barrier that he could not penetrate after he struck at her again and again and again. She finally turned to face him with an expression of deep compassion which only infuriated him more. He was prepared to strike a fifth time when he was suddenly pushed back almost thirty yards by her through the Force. He struggled to gain his footing, but the snow was slick and he slipped. When he felt hands on his shoulders, he ignored his rescuer as he scowled at Illiana still standing so close and yet so far from him. When Mayu, his contact that he had signaled, pulled him to his feet, he grudgingly allowed her to guide him further away from his quarry. When the couple had reached the gangplank to her airship, Illiana leaned over the comatose form of his twin brother.

"Give up your hatred and lust for retribution," the elven sith called out as Mayu pulled him further onto her vessel. "Find another purpose for your life…I will never allow you to realize your vengeance…you are not strong enough to face me and I will not submit. Let the past go."

Scott gripped the railing of the goblin styled airship as it floated from the temple summit. He watched as his brother's wife and the alien with horns on his head race from the temple tree to join his nemesis by Caidan's comatose form lying in the snow. Hatred for the elven sith swelled in his heart as did anger at himself for his failure. She was right that he was not powerful enough to face her, but he would continue to train and strengthen his connection to the Force so that when they faced each other again he would be ready to end her life. He continued to stare at them long after they were gone from his sight. Finally he turned and watched as Mayu, a human with flowing brown hair and steel blue eyes, commanded her crew of two male goblins, an old orc warrior with bad eyesight and graying hair, and a dark haired sin'dorei woman. He started to head belowdecks when his rescuer called out to him.

"She's right, you know. Maybe it's best to let go of your need for justice against your sister's murderer."

He stopped at the top of the steps but didn't look back. "I cannot. My sister does not rest while the abomination lives." He started walking down the steps. "The only way this feud will end is with her death…"

"Or yours," Mayu finished his statement as he disappeared belowdecks. She walked to the airship's railing and stared back towards the tree of the jedi that she could still barely see in the distance. "Either way…my heart will be broken if it ever comes to that." She looked up to the sky and closed her eyes. "Light…please help me convince him to see reason…to give up this need to avenge his sister. If he meets that woman again, I fear I will lose him forever. Either in life or death…I will lose the man I fell in love with."

Zirani raced across the ashen field fleeing from the orc and miraluka. The padawan's presence was not something she had counted on nor had he been in the vision given to her by the ancient sith ghost. Her success depended on that foretelling because it was the last warning Zhamul had told her before he disappeared. She refused to face either jedi unless the battle conformed to the prediction of the Force otherwise she was denying herself the destiny she was promised. Several plumes of smoke rose high into the air where the lava ran into the ocean, and just at the water's edge rested a giant bat tethered to a rock outcropping. She hoped she could reach it before the pursuing jedi caught up with her.

After she recovered from Grogg's Force push, the troll leapt to her feet and began running for the distant shoreline. While Daneel followed directly behind her, the former pirate pursued her by taking a tangent path to the island shoreline. He recalled that there was only one place on the island where a ship could be moored, and although several years had passed since his last visit to the volcanic isle he doubted the shoreline had changed much. The problem with the active lava flows into the water was that it created huge plumes of smoke and ash that obscured most of the island when seen from the sea. Even Kuro would have difficulty landing on the island from any other approach. He arrived just as Zirani was beginning to mount the large bat. He cursed under his breath as he hurried his pace knowing that she would take flight before he could reach her. She was twenty feet up when he stopped and reached back with his lightsaber preparing to throw it when she turned around and pushed him to the ground with the Force. He vaulted back to his feet quickly, but the bat was faster and out of reach. The troll was well out to sea when Daneel emerged from the smoke wall and stop beside the orc padawan.

"I'm sorry, master," Grogg said as he watched their adversary fly away. "I thought I could cut her off, but she was too quick."

"It's alright, Grogg," the grand master replied. "She's given us more information than we had before. There is a sith still alive on this world, but this troll schemes against her. Whatever this Nyrexia is planning, it has nothing to do with the hotspots around the globe."

"I've heard that name before," the orc said still watching the troll who was now a dot on the horizon. "I'm pretty sure I have heard Illiana mention that name before when talking about her father."

"Then we should return to the temple," Daneel stated as he placed his hand on the orc's shoulder. "If this is the same woman, then Illiana might also know something to help us ascertain what she is planning."

"And the troll?"

"I sense that she is waiting for something else. Just after you arrived I heard her mention a vision. Those who utilize the dark side rarely have visions." He reached into the pouch at his belt with his free hand and pulled out a holocommunicator. "Either way we'll find no more answers here."

"Then I don't suppose I could…well…return to that central hub?" Grogg asked with a tusky grin.

"Yes…but not alone," Daneel replied as the image of Demira appeared above the holocom. "First we return to the temple." He turned his attention to the image of his wife. "Hi hon. Bring us home?"

Jacen continued to walk down the metal corridors of what he assumed was a crashed alien ship that nature had reclaimed and camouflaged long ago. His footfalls echoed off the walls and his flashlight provided the only source of illumination. He passed several rooms that appeared to be sleeping compartments, and in one large room he found several tubes with clear sides lined along the walls. During his trek through the wreckage, the voice of the boy continued to speak to him.

"The Force is neither light nor dark," the ethereal voice of the boy said. Jacen stopped and searched around him for the boy but saw nothing except the corridor. "It is the Ashla and the Bogan…the life and the death…Teloran taught us this truth years ago…explained it to us in ways we never understood from our studies with our father. Millennia of knowledge passed on to us and yet you refuse to recognize it…still refuse to realize what you are."

"What do you mean?" Jacen said as he walked along the dark corridor. "What studies with Father? Is Teloran the name of the miraluka? Is she jedi or sith?"

"She is Luka Sene," the voice answered as Jacen came to an intersection. Following his gut, he took the path to the right. "She was with our father when they pursued them from Alzoc…when they were pulled through the vortex…she has been with you since the beginning…"

"The beginning of what? I don't understand." The corridor took a sharp left turn taking him further into the ancient ship. At an intersection of short corridors the boy stood waiting for him bathed in a white glow and almost transparent like a ghost. "She couldn't have been with my father. He died in the village…"

"Defending it as a jedi should," the boy answered as he crossed his arms behind his back. "The two of us arrived from our studies too late to save him or the others."

Suddenly Jacen was back in the village, but this time he saw his father standing in the center of the town square facing an armored Arthas Menethil. The death knight was holding a sword that appeared to be made of steel and ice while his father held the blade that had been in their family for generations. Or had it been? This was not the way he remembered that day at all. He looked to his right to see hordes of undead circling the two combatants. Then his father reached out as if to push the death knight with the Force like he had seen the jedi do, but the animal didn't move and simply laughed.

"Malcolm relied too heavily on the Force that day," the boy version of himself said as it strode up beside him. "It is created by all living things…but the Scourge does not live and so exists outside of the Force. Today the ways of the jedi failed our father…and Arthas slew him as easily as he had any other opponent." Arthas ran his sword through his father's chest. He didn't cry out as the blood poured from his wound. Jacen wanted to scream, but he couldn't. "The Scourge consumed our village just as it did countless others."

Jacen then found himself standing on the hill overlooking the burning village. In the distance he could see the undead army marching towards its next conquest, the land dying under their feet. He was fully grown and wearing the same clothing he did that day he met Madelyn in Silithus. Beside him stood Cipher, or more accurately Teloran, wearing a strange set of black and silver armor. Over where her eyes should have been, she wore a black headband and her dark hair billowed in the breeze.

"We have arrived too late, Jacen," she said, and as she spoke he began to remember her voice from long ago. "My friend…your father…has perished as we have felt through the Force. The Bogan has taken him."

Jacen closed his eyes as the memories of that day flooded his senses. He recalled running to his father's body and feeling the ancient jedi's life ebb away through the Force. Tears ran down his cheeks as he gazed upon the dead. People he knew all of his life. A short distance away were the bodies of his mother and sister frozen in a deathly embrace as the woman tried in vain to protect her child from the Scourge. Then he returned his gaze to his father lying dead under his hands now resting upon the fallen jedi's chest and bathed in his blood. The Ashla and the Bogan, the life and the death, and his father had passed into the latter. He closed himself to the Force as his father died not wanting to feel his departure from the Ashla. Since then he tried to forget what he had learned under his father and the miraluka woman afraid that if he did then the sensation of his father's death through the Force would return. Odd that of Malcolm's children only Jacen was Force sensitive. As much as he tried to ignore the power within him, the nightmares persisted as a reminder of what he was and who he was meant to be. When Jacen opened his eyes he found himself again looking ahead to the image of the boy standing in the corridors of an ancient jedi vessel.

"The Ashla and the Bogan are a part of our existence that cannot be ignored," the boy stated.

"But they are more than life or death," Jacen replied as he began to recall the teachings of his father. "The ancient jedi on Tython believed that Ashla was the light and the Bogan the dark as represented by the moons of Tython."

"Two beliefs sharing the same names…which one is correct?" the boy asked.

"Neither is correct and yet both are accurate," he answered. "The Force cannot be simplified in such a way. It is neither light nor dark yet it has light and dark aspects…it is life and death…it unites the universe and yet tears it apart…it has a will of its own and yet needs to follow a guide…it is a paradox that cannot ever be fully understood…only acknowledged and embraced."

The boy smiled as he began to disappear. Jacen continued forward until he reached what appeared to be the central command center of the ship. Standing in the center was the miraluka he knew until a few moments ago as Cipher. In her hands she held a small cube about the size of a fist. He stopped near the entrance, and she smiled as she raised the device towards him.

"This was your father's holocron," she said. "It will remind you of what you have forgotten."

"How did you know to come here?" he asked.

"I have always known, son of Malcolm. Since the first day we arrived on this world thirteen hundred years ago I have known that this day would come. Always in motion is the future, but some visions given by the Force are never wrong." She stepped towards him still holding the cube in her hands offering it to him. "It was why he made this so many centuries ago."

"You had a vision about this day?"

"Not mine…your father's," she replied. "He foresaw that his own child would witness his death and only his voice from beyond the grave would enlighten the path for this child. He did not know at the time if you would be a son or daughter or how many years would pass, but he always knew that this day would come. When the Scourge claimed his life, I knew you were the child in his vision and this was the time. And now I fulfill my role as he foretold."

"Why the deception?" he asked as he took the holocron from the miraluka's hands. "Why not just tell me who you truly are?"

"Because in his vision you were led here by a jedi," Teloran answered as she withdrew her hands and lowered them to her sides. "I am Luka Sene…not a jedi. It was Daneel and his order who would lead you here. When I found his wrecked ship years ago, I boarded it and learned about my home and what had happened in the centuries since I left it. I assumed the identity of an Imperial spy so that I could more easily enter their compound and find you. As far as Daneel knew, he was the only one of our species on this planet, so just introducing myself was not an option for he would have never believed my true identity. The deception fulfilled its purpose to get me close to you once more."

"Why did you wait so long? You were there when father was killed."

"I left you to grieve," she replied. "When I returned…Teagus had already arrived and taken you under his wing. By then you had already refused to listen to the Force and forgotten what I…and your father…had taught you. I tried to keep up with you, but after a time you didn't want to be found. It wasn't until I felt your tremor in the Force once again that I was able to find you…amongst the same jedi I had hoped to bring to you. The rest should be pretty clear now." She sat in one of the chairs and patted a hearthstone lying on the console beside her. "A small gift from an old mage I met centuries ago, and a way to always return to this place when the time came." She looked down at the floor. "I know that the sith survived the purging in my home galaxy…the wars that have erupted since our departure centuries ago. I cannot change that, but with your help I can finish what your father and I set out to accomplish on this world. There is one sith remaining here." She looked up to him wearing a determined expression. "I can finally finish what we started. Together we can purge the evil of the sith from this world once and for all. After so many centuries I will finally fulfill my destiny and join your father…my friend…in the Bogan."