The space station was bustling with people, even at this odd hour. Ai'lanynn sat in a hard, ugly chair next to him, picking at the end of one of her lekku, while Mordivai took mindless bites from a Bantha burger, not feeling very hungry.
From the corner of his eye, Mordivai saw Ai'lanynn jerk upright and then leap from her chair. When he looked up she was already sprinting across the room towards a matronly female Twi'lek who was also running with her arms outstretched. The two women collided, and the older one began sobbing openly, stroking Ai'lanynn's lekku. Mordivai dropped his burger in a nearby trash can and stood a polite distance away, waiting to be noticed.
Watching Ai'lanynn's happy reunion with her aunt gave Mordivai a pang of regret. His childhood fantasies of reuniting with his parents had looked at a lot like this, but the reality had been far different. Still, he felt a bittersweet satisfaction in seeing Ai'lanynn find freedom again, and knowing he had righted such wrongs.
After some time, Ai'lanynn's aunt approached, a trembling smile on her face. Ai'lanynn's cheeks were shiny with tears, but they dimpled into an enormous smile the moment he caught her eye.
"Auntie Jae," she said. "This is the Jedi who took me away from slavery. He saved my life," she paused to wipe at her eye with a sleeve, "..in more ways than he knows."
Jae beamed at him with such glowing approval that Mordivai felt his face grow hot
"I can never thank you enough, Jedi, for everything." She reached out and clutched at his arm, squeezing it a moment before releasing him.
When she turned away, Mordivai glanced at Ai'lanynn.
"You called me a Jedi. You know I'm not-"
"Shhh, Mordivai," Ai'lanynn said. "I know what you are."
"I went to Korriban, I...I did things…"
"Sometimes we all have to do things to get by," Ai'lanynn said. "That doesn't change who we are-" she stepped forward and tapped him on the chest, "-inside. You will always be a Jedi to me. A Jedi in Sith robes." She laughed, easy and confident, and Mordivai simply stared at her, even as she came forward to give him one last embrace.
The citizens of the Republic had the Jedi to look out for them, to advocate for them, to protect them. Who did the people of the Empire have on their side? Not the Sith, who reveled in their superior station and power, even going to far as to be the very cause of their own people's suffering. The Empire needs its own Jedi, Mordivai thought. Too bad there is no such thing.
00o00
Mordivai's apartment felt too quiet and empty when he returned. He slumped onto the couch, recalling how only a few days before, he and Ai'lanynn had danced through his living room. How long had it been since he had laughed with someone? Danced? Felt carefree and happy? He pulled his comm unit from his pocket and checked that he still had Ai'lanynn's frequency saved. No doubt she would get caught up in her own life now, her new life, but at least he could make the effort to keep in touch. Ai'lanynn was the first friend he could recall having had in a long time. Did Sith have friends? Or did they have only allies and rivals?
Ai'lanynn had called him a Jedi. Jedi didn't kill enemies when their backs were turned, didn't break into houses seeking duels for justice, didn't stalk through hallways murdering other students out of fury and vengeance. Yet, Sith didn't befriend and rescue slaves either.
I am a failure as a Jedi and a Sith. Mordivai laughed aloud, shaking his head. I don't know what I am.
00o00
Mordivai's boots echoed throughout the vaulted ceilings as he and Khem Val entered the ancient Sith temple on the outskirts of Kaas City. For a ruin, the temple was in surprisingly good shape and far better preserved than the remains of Kaleth on Tython. Mordivai expected to see more moss and mildew, being that the temple was so steeped in the humidity of the jungle. Perhaps the thick miasma of dark power here drove out even those hardy forms of life. In some places the walls weeped rainwater, and Mordivai could hear dripping sounds in the distance, so not all of the temple had been spared the elements. It was hard to believe that such a lonely place lay buried in the jungle only a speeder's ride away from the lights and bustle of Kaas City.
Lord Zash was highly interested in collecting ancient knowledge, which Mordivai could appreciate. However, he had yet to become privy to whatever enlightenment she gleaned from the artifacts Mordivai brought her. Getting a position as Zash's apprentice had been held up as such an honor, yet so far Mordivai didn't feel like he was much more than a convenient tool for his master. She had also offered his help to a Sith by the name of Lord Alaric, and now he had two meaningless assignments to complete instead of one.
Lord Alaric wanted Mordivai to use a welding torch to seal shut the tombs of some long dead Sith lords. Mordivai wondered if there was an insult implied in this task, or if he was being tested in some way. What danger could these ghosts truly pose? The temple was said to inspire madness, which Mordivai had no trouble believing, especially after witnessing the dark side power in Kaleth in his days as a Jedi. However, he did not believe that sealing these tombs would keep the bodiless spirits from emerging, nor did he think that the temple's ancient power could be contained so easily. Perhaps this was only a test of his willingness to obey, or as a way to humble him before his betters. Or maybe it was even intended to make him angry enough to seek retribution. He was no mechanic or construction worker. What was he doing lugging around this welding torch?
As he moved deeper into the temple, Mordivai was surprised to encounter another apprentice. He came upon her hunched over a fallen slab of stone, which she appeared to be trying to decipher. He stepped toward her cautiously, and gave her a nod as he passed by.
Her head snapped up with a feral hiss, and that's when Mordivai noticed that her clothes were stained and ragged, and her hair hung in greasy ropes around her face. She was more of a vagabond than a Sith, and she was clearly not sane.
Mordivai made to back away, but the apprentice shifted on the balls of her feet and then sprang at him with a guttural cry. Her lunge hit him with the full force of her body, knocking him off his feet before he had a chance to ignite his lightsaber. For a flashing instant, Mordivai got a close-up view of her dirt-smeared fingers as they clutched at his throat, and then Mordivai's weapon came alive in his hand. He swung, taking her forearms clean off. She toppled forward, and he rolled away from underneath her. He came to his feet in time to see Khem stomping her head repeatedly into the stone floor. He was crushing her skull like a melon, and his feet were already slick with bloody pulp. Mordivai looked away, sickened.
"That's enough!"
The smashing sounds ended. Mordivai breathed slowly, but the air reeked with the tang of the apprentice's blood. He glanced at her body once more and noticed that she had not even been carrying a weapon. She had tried to attack him with her bare hands.
"She's dead. Let's go." He moved away quickly, not checking to see if Khem followed.
As he ventured deeper into the temple, Mordivai spotted other figures scuttering about the dark temple hallways, and he took care to avoid them. He checked the rough map Lord Alaric had given him, and made his way to the first tomb door. It was a monstrosity of reinforced metal nearly twice as tall as he was. Mordivai climbed the short series of steps to get close.
The door shuddered and an unearthly roar erupted from behind it, startling Mordivai so badly that he nearly fell backwards down the stairs. There was no way any natural creature could still be alive in there after all these centuries. But Sithspawn could survive. Mordivai waited a few moments, breathing slowly until the rumbling on the other side of the door subsided. Whether the creature behind the door was there to guard the tomb or to be the occupant's jailor was a mystery, and not one that Mordivai felt the need to solve. He welded the door shut quickly and moved on to the next.
He came to a spiral staircase made of huge blocks of stone. The central, supporting pillar drove through the multiple levels of the temple like a twisted spine, leading both up and down. Mordivai hesitated, unsure of how to interpret his map. Upwards, the air was lofty and dotted with cobwebs, while the steps leading down descended into a darkness that smelled thick with damp and mold. Mordivai instinctively wanted to go up, but something else, some primitive intuition perhaps, urged him into the bowels below. He set his feet against the sloped and pitted steps and headed down into shadow.
His eyes adjusted as he descended, revealing a basement area with a low ceiling. He had expected it to be a wide open expanse like the upper levels, but instead it appeared to be a network of hallways and small rooms. The stone floor here was chipped and broken, and strange iridescent mushrooms huddled against the corners of the walls, providing specks of glowing light. Mordivai walked onward, choosing the corredor directly before him, and was surprised when, after a time, the floor began to slope downward even further. He saw a dark patch in the middle of the floor up ahead which Mordivai took to be a puddle. But when he got close, he saw that the floor had instead fallen away, revealing a black pit from which even damper, mustier smells were wafting. Could there possibly be yet another basement level below this one?
Mordivai carefully stepped around the hole and continued on. Khem was a comforting presence at his back, and Mordivai reminded himself that the creature's penchant for violence had always been used protect his master. It was good to not be alone in a place like this.
Mordivai passed another dark hallway that intersected with his. He peered down it. Blocks of stone had fallen from the ceiling, making the corredor a jumbled mess of debris. For a moment, he thought he saw a human-like shape standing just past the debris pile, but then Mordivai's eyes adjusted and it faded away. He moved quickly on.
A scream ripped through the darkness then, and Mordivai spun around to look behind him, his lightsaber already in his hand, certain that the noise had come from the hallway he had just passed. His heart pounded in his ears.
"What is it, master?"
"Didn't you hear it?" Mordivai was afraid to raise his voice above a whisper. "That scream." He stared at Khem but the Dashade just looked back at him blankly.
"I heard nothing. The ghosts of this place are getting to you, little Sith."
"Well," Mordivai said, feeling more disturbed by the second, "that was some lively ghost."
He hurried ahead. In the aftermath of the scream, the silence of this place felt oppressive, and Mordivai realized that even the faint sounds of dripping water had stopped. Mordivai listened to the rise and fall of his own breathing, and the steady clop of his boots against the stone. What was he here to find again? He rubbed his temple. The tomb, yes, that was it. He had to be close by now.
As Mordivai walked on, his surroundings began to feel familiar. He couldn't imagine how that was possible, but something about the place pried at his memory, and whenever Mordivai tried to capture the thought, it skittered away and was lost again. Perhaps it reminded him of his trials in the underground tunnels of Kaleth, he decided. Like then, he had an important job to do here. In fact, he realized, they might have even started without him. He picked up his pace.
Ahead of him, there was another cry, but this one was weaker, and ended in a choking sob. If they broke the prisoner before he got there, he was going to be very angry. Hadn't he told them to wait? Voices echoed from the rooms ahead of him, someone barking out a laugh, followed by a female voice whimpering pleas for mercy.
"Lord Varusin will make you talk," the male voice said.
Yes, Mordivai thought, I will make sure of that. And I will do a better job of it than you clumsy idiots.
He hurried into the room at the end of the hall.
He had barely stepped foot inside when a tight band jerked around his throat, cutting across his windpipe and yanking him backwards off his feet. Treachery! he thought, it has come at last!
"You were about to step off the edge, little Sith."
Mordivai spun around just as Khem's three-clawed fingers released the back of his robe.
He was standing in a dark and empty room, lit only by a preponderance of glowing fungus around the edges of the walls. In front of him the floor had completely collapsed. Mordivai tugged at his collar, taking in deep breaths. His toes were practically touching the edge of the last broken stone, and far below he spotted more crushed and broken blocks. The level beneath him was slick with mud and sludge. Mordivai shuddered.
"I thought I was someone else. A Lord Varusin."
"We are far from where we were," Khem said. "Finish your task and let us leave this place."
"Agreed."
By the time Mordivai reached the staircase that had brought him to this basement level, his spine was crawling with the ever growing realization of just how close he had come to becoming one of the crazed souls here. Or worse yet, just flat out dead. Even more perplexing though was that Khem had chosen to save him rather than let him fall to his death. Surely Khem would be free of his bondage if Mordivai were dead. Why had he acted to save him?
Mordivai reached the top of the steps and paused to look at his map. The tomb he sought was clearly marked as being on the upper level above this one. How had he ever thought otherwise? How easily the madness in this place had slipped into his mind.
The level above was a wide square balcony that ringed the entire temple. Mordivai wandered around but quickly lost his bearings at to which direction he was facing. Once again, it took Khem pointing out the tomb's door before Mordivai saw it. Somehow he had walked right on past.
He pulled out the torch and approached the door. The air shimmered and a holograph of a man appeared, floating directly in front of him.
"Am I going mad again?" Mordivai started to back away.
"On the contrary," the man said. "You are first sane individual to have found my tomb in nine hundred and sixty-three years. Even the Sithspawn that once guarded it have long since perished. Have my contemporaries truly lived in fear of me for so long?"
"Lord Alaric said you were the source of the madness here in this temple."
"In my time, my ideas were considered heresy by the Emperor, but no one ever called me mad." The man in the holo image rubbed his chin and shook his head before continuing. "I am Kel'eth Ur. I created this interactive holoimage before I died to preserve my secrets...and to someday transmit them to whoever was bold enough to find me."
"This temple is feared even by the Sith themselves now. Few ever come here, and I suspect even fewer ever leave."
"That is a shame then," Kel'eth Ur said. "The Sith still elevate fear above all other passions? They say it brings them strength, but see how it hinders and controls them. Real strength comes when one is no longer afraid."
"That makes sense."
"It is no accident then that you were the one to find my tomb. The Sith must let the Force guide them. There is no fear, no passion, no power that is greater than the Force. I am one with the Force now, and I am at peace."
"There is no death, there is only the Force," Mordivai said quietly, the Jedi mantra coming easily to his lips.
"Yes. You understand."
"I see why the Sith were afraid of your ideas."
"Take my teachings to the Sith, to those that will hear them. They will find power there. Not of darkness, but of light. The Sith must know that there is another way."
"I can try, but-"
"My message is concluded then and I will depart. Thank you." Kel'eth Ur's image disappeared.
"Wait!"
There was a clicking sound, like of a clamp releasing, and a holocron embedded in the door, which Mordivai had initially taken for a mere decoration, fell out and hit the floor. Mordivai bent and scooped it up.
Should Mordivai take this back to Lord Alaric? He stared at the little box in his hand. This was exactly the type of knowledge that the Sith wanted to erase. And what had changed since Kel'leth Ur's days?
Mordivai was eager to leave the temple and return to the comforts of civilization. As he approached the archeological camp where Lord Alaric was waiting, however, he slowed his steps. If Mordivai handed him the holocron, would Lord Alaric see fit to bury it so deeply in some hidden library that it would never be seen again? Or worse yet, would he simply destroy it? The little holocron glowed faintly in his hand, all the knowledge of Kel'eth Ur stored safely inside it, preserved all these millennia in the hopes of some intrepid explorer finding it. Mordivai carefully tucked the holocron into his robes, making his decision. He rode the Kaas City speeder home with his hand pressed against the holocron in his pocket all the while.
He returned to his apartment to find a digital message waiting for him in his mailbox. It was encrypted in such a way that the sender's name had been obscured and all that it contained was a set of coordinates, a date and time, and three sentences.
You have impressed me. I wish to meet you. Come alone.
A/N: The events of this chapter were inspired by the side quest "Buried Power" on Dromund Kaas. Next chapter: A Dangerous Offer