Star Wars: The Old Republic
Marr
~Chapter Forty-Three~
It is possible to share ideals with an enemy.
The cavern floor was craggy and unyielding against my back. Zho passed his hands over my frame, the light side burning me from within as if I had passed through radiation. The darkness shunned the light at first but quickly rose up against it, in what was interpreted to be a war for control over my body, mind, and spirit.
My fever blazed higher as a third side to the war emerged—the polluted blood of the Dread Masters and the fulgarite's cyanide residue that threatened to kill me. Fuelled by the heat, the poison bloated my blood cells.
"How will this battle meditation of yours protect me?"
Zho opened his eyes and gazed down at me with the patronizing benevolence of a healer ministering to the dying. "Through me, your will to prevail over the Dread Masters will be multiplied and strengthened. So long as you are certain that you will win, you cannot lose. You must believe in your superiority over them and over the one that did this."
"You ask the impossible."
"No, Marr, I'm asking you to believe—in yourself and in the outcome you desire. That is the key."
"Easier said than done—there is a war raging—your light, my darkness and the power of the Masters."
"Then assign a vessel to each side—allow the light to guide your spirit, the darkness your mind, and leave the physical to the Masters. Your body is the weakest of the three."
"If I do that, I will die."
"If that is what you believe will happen, then that is what will happen. Believe, Marr. It is imperative that you believe in your survival. You can win. We will win. Together. You must trust me."
"Hmph. Trust…" I mulled over Zho's instructions. Allowing myself to believe that I could control the whims and powers of the Dread Masters was the sort of profitless arrogance I had avoided my entire life. My grip tightened around the crystals until they ground against each other.
The battle meditation no longer burned and my limbs grew heavy. My eyes closed and with a final surge of light, my awareness became unburdened. Every worry and fear left me, and all that remained was my purpose and the blinding pulse of the light guiding it, willing it ever forward to meet the Masters.
The darkness settled over me like a mantle and my determination sharpened my focus until the awareness of my fevered body faded and with it the influence of the pollution in my blood.
There was peace in unity. There was no light or dark, there was only the Force and it demanded I rise and confront the Masters.
If I carried myself to the neighboring chamber, I did not know—it seemed an illusion rather than a mundane exercise. The temple was no longer the temple. The walls vanished or perhaps I passed through them like a specter, but I stood before the Masters and they stood before me. The bronze masks they wore appeared all the more fierce in the face of my defiance.
Mindful of the crystals in my hand, I separated the first from the lot and held it aloft with my right hand. I called to Calphayus, the most human—and the weakest. His aura detached and snaked toward me in a thin stream. As his essence flowed into the crystal, I saw what he had been.
Calphayus was the child of farmers. Instead of leaving his family behind, he murdered them and drew their essences inside himself and when Raptus tempted him with the glory of the Masters, he murdered his wife and children and gave himself wholly to the Dread Masters to become their prophet.
I felt his shame and guilt and then the maniacal glee that came with his new powers. His dead wife dogged him relentlessly and his guilt became the manacle binding him to the others. The milky clear crystal gave way to the cyan coloured energy that defined him.
Brontes came next. Her instinct led her to resist me, but having sensed the essence of her nature before, I appealed to her greed and gluttony, promising many a civilization ripe for torment. Her crystal glowed with a black and purple energy—a testament to her mastery over the dark side.
The glow in the first two crystals faded as their essence became dormant. My body gained in strength and Zho's influence filled the emptiness of the two inert Masters.
Bestia, like Brontes, resisted me and attempted to draw strength from Styrak.
I released the darkness, allowing it to gorge on Styrak's strength. With her power source depleted, Bestia crumbled.
My mind regained its edge and the vigorous clarity I'd taken for granted before the Emperor's ritual.
The next two crystals in my hand glowed—Bestia's—a bright red and Styrak's, a dull gold.
A deep sinister chuckle wormed its way into my mind and I recognized the will of Raptus.
'Do you think I will be so easily defeated as my brothers and sisters? You are mistaken, Marr, as is the Jedi. I will relish destroying you both with my nightmares. Suffer!'
My body convulsed and shuddered. An icy tempest whipped my body and I was forced to endure the pointless deaths of my adoptive parents—my mother's murder in the arms of another man as she paid in flesh for the opportunities bestowed upon me and then my father's execution for murders he did not commit.
Zho's light glowed brighter, tempering my anger.
The vision faded and Raptus pummelled my senses with a new nightmare—that which I feared above all things—the one thing I never spoke of or shared with anyone—not even Liaseph.
Old and decrepit I lay upon a bed, disease ravaging my body. Aches of every depth and persistence tormented my joints and if this were not enough, open oozing sores framed in putrid flesh glued me into the bedding. My legs wouldn't move and my fingers twitched with no purpose.
I had no concept of time—it mattered not if it were day or night or what season reigned. Nothing mattered. I was forgotten. I could no longer form the words to speak and when by some miracle I managed to begin, my words left me before I could say them.
What was my name? Who had I been? I couldn't remember and that made me no one.
Ruled by pain and loneliness—there was nothing of use to be done in my life and each day was spent waiting for death to carry me into the abyss. Death is our solace.
Zho's focus fluctuated at the revelation of my deepest fear. A surge of pity and anguish replaced the light. I feared his empathy would be our undoing.
Raptus laughed maniacally and Tyrans, the strategist, stood at his side.
The battle meditation faltered and doubt seeped in. My nightmare faded long enough to glimpse Zho's fears.
His nightmare mirrored my own. Wizened with age, he outlived the younglings he'd trained.
He stood over their bodies as they fell over the years—first Syo Bakarn, then Jaric Kaedan, and Bela Kiwiiks the alien, and finally his favorite—the one with whom he formed the deepest bond—Satele Shan. He mourned her broken body wasting at the foot of some faraway cliff in another life.
Tears streamed from his eyes as he examined the deep lightsaber cuts bisecting her body. "The future—is always in motion," he murmured. His gaze shifted between me and the assailant's silhouette in his vision. For the briefest moment, I thought I detected hate in him.
Before the hatred could take root, his nightmare veered sharply away from the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order to the sleeping youngling by his side. The boy would be the last he trained and would be like a son to him. A wave of failure and misery welled up in Zho and the echo of my words tormented him.
'You will make no Jedi of that one.' The words were mine but the voice belonged to Tyrans.
Silence passed between us and all was lost.
The Masters had won.
Tyrans's dread power—the death mark—formed and gathered momentum to wither our bodies. My skin tightened and grew dry, flakes of it swirling up before me. A vision of my body turning to ash and disintegrating in the wind ruled my awareness. The crystal traps vibrated and clinked together.
Zho staggered across the cavern toward the Masters. His meditation fluctuated around his body, mine, and the infant's.
He stopped less than an arm's length away from Raptus and Tyrans. Zho's bravado disquieted the most powerful of the Masters and the masked pair exchanged a glance.
Zho smiled and gazed fondly at the infant. "I believe in him—andI believe in myself." Zho turned to face me last. "And I believe in you, Marr."
I sensed the foreboding pass between the two masters and smirked. "Zho is right. Your time here is finished. There is no place for you in this galaxy."
I thrust the final crystals toward Raptus and Tyrans. Raptus searched for more he could use against me and a new vision began to form—that of Liaseph.
"Not her," I growled and banished her image to the place in my mind where I keep my deepest secrets.
The darkness clamored for my anger and I allowed it, feeding it as the meditation grew in strength. Raptus and Tyrans's essence filtered into the Rakatan crystals until they were trapped. Raptus's energy glowed purple and Tyrans, a blend of black and white. Both crystals blinked and I feared that their resistance would allow them to break free.
The crystals grew still and faded as they became dormant. I crumbled to my knees and panted to catch my breath.
"Not to sound condescending, Marr, but well done. I knew you could do it. Now, to contain the poison they left behind."
Zho levitated the seventh crystal over me. The poison residue and what remained of the Dread Masters lifted from my body in a sickly yellow fog and filled the crystal. The fever in my blood cooled and bit by bit, my strength returned.
"Marr are you all right?"
I nodded and gathered the dread crystals. After nestling them into my pack, I tested my grip and flexed my arms. I exhaled heavily and nodded. It was as though the episode with the Emperor and the Masters had never occurred.
Zho passed the impure crystal to me. "Take this…take it and destroy it. Make sure no crumb of it survives."
I took it and said nothing for a long time. Zho collected his mat and the various items he'd set out for the ritual, including a small brazier and the ashes of the herbs he'd crammed into it.
The boy slept in his basket and I shook my head incredulously, that he'd slept through it all, oblivious to the terror warring with us.
Zho poured water from his canteen into a metal cup and passed it to me. "Drink."
I turned away from him and drained the cup.
"I am curious about one thing, Marr—I saw a woman in your nightmare—your wife?"
"Not yet."
"I sense your impatience and I'm confused. You are impatient to return to her and yet you are just as impatient to leave her when you're with her. You're devoted, but you don't love. Would it not be wiser to let her go—it's no life for her."
"What do you know of these things, Jedi? Have you had a woman? Have you loved?" I hurled the empty cup at his pack and he packed it away with no reaction.
Zho didn't answer and I thought I had bested him, silenced him—and then he proved me wrong.
"I did once," he began. "I loved her fiercely and she loved me, but we both came to understand that it wasn't meant to be. I had sworn vows, given myself to the Jedi—I just hadn't realized until then, that I hadn't given myself to them fully. Because of her, I learned my greatest lesson—one that my Master could never teach me—and I finally understood what he meant when he said, 'some lessons you must learn on your own.' I believe it was my true trial as a Jedi, so perhaps, I understand a little." Zho smiled placidly and strapped the infant to his back.
The boy yawned, stretched, and returned to sleep.
"My life is my own business, not yours. No Jedi will tell me how to live." I stood and paced the chamber and found myself standing before the stasis containers holding the spiritless bodies of the hibernating Masters. I stood before each one and glared at their levitating forms inside.
I was certain of one truth: I never wanted to see any of them again.
"Forgive me, Marr. I've overstepped. Can't fault an old man for being curious…"
"What now?"
"Dispose of the contaminated crystal—I think the lava would be best. The heat will destroy the crystal and the sickness within. After, I would be most grateful if you returned us to civilization so that we can see about chartering a ship and then I will meet you on Voss, yes?"
"Agreed, but what of these husks?"
"I will have the Jedi Order move them further into the prison, where they will never be found."
"Everything is eventually found," I grunted, but the Jedi paid me no mind.
After Zho collected the last of his things, we left the temple. As we crossed the thin land bridge over the lava, I tossed the crystal into the sun-gold magma and after a moment of reflection, I led the old man and the boy outside of what I guessed had been the shell of a once mighty volcano.
After taking my bearings, I revealed the stolen speeder I had secreted behind a mound of snow-covered stone.
"The speeder is fuelled and the saddle packs are filled with ration bars, a blaster, ammo, and the like. Set the navigation setting due south and you will find yourself at your base before nightfall."
"What about you, Marr? Surely you don't mean to hike all this way to who knows where?"
"I can manage."
"I'm sure you can." He smiled.
The boy snuffled in the cold, the winds ruffling the dark brown stripe of hair running the center of his scalp. He wriggled his arm free of his carrier and reached for me.
"Hmph. Mind your master, youngling."
"To Voss then."
"To Voss," I agreed.
Zho fired up the speeder and I watched the old man and his charge until they disappeared into the southern horizon.
I hailed the Erinyes. "Lieutenant Kayle, dispatch my shuttle to these co-ordinates. I'm finished here."
((to be continued…))
