Chapter 18 - The Hidden Rival

Mist coated the metal corrugated streets and covered Mordivai's robes in a glossy sheen. It was mid-day on Dromund Kaas, and the street lights filled the sky with warm yellow halos to drive back the gloom. Mordivai thought he would be relieved to leave behind the grime and smog of Nar Shaddaa, even if just for a few days, but the gloominess of Dromund Kaas didn't cheer him. He stopped in front of a building marked "2708" and craned his neck upwards, shielding his eyes against the rain. The top of the apartment building was lost in the clouds. Somewhere up there his mother waited. He checked his chrono. He was just in time for their planned lunch.

Once inside, Mordivai found the lift and entered. He keyed in the penultimate floor, since the top was restricted access and required a separate elevator. An elderly Pureblood man stepped inside the door just as it was closing, gave Mordivai a once over, and smiled.

"Good afternoon, young Sith."

Mordivai nodded to him. "Good afternoon, sir."

The man chuckled. "So polite. But it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for, isn't it?" He gave Mordivai a conspiratorial wink. "Smart lad."

Mordivai gave him a tight smile, not knowing what else to say. He was already nervous about seeing his mother again and wasn't in the mood for conversation. It was a relief when the man got off on the 62nd floor and Mordivai was alone for the rest of the trip. The lift sped up as it neared the top, whisking Mordivai up into the clouds with such speed that he felt light headed. When he reached his destination, the doors opened up upon a sumptuous, gold carpeted room, where a security guard sat behind a desk. He sat up straighter as Mordivai stepped out and addressed him immediately.

"Can I help you, my lord?"

"Yes," Mordivai answered. "I am here to see Morda Quinn." In most circles, his mother was known as Lord Wrath, but here, in this private enclave, many residents went by their given names, a simple measure that separated their public lives from their private ones.

"Ah, right," the man said. "Welcome, my lord." A red light flared out from a front panel of the guard's desk, scanning over Mordivai's body. "She is expecting you. You may proceed down the hall to the penthouse lift."

Mordivai rode the rest of the way up and finally found himself before his parents' apartment. As he approached, a camera mounted above the door swivelled towards him, its lens telescoping outward to get a better look. The light on the camera blinked from yellow to green and then a chime sounded from within the apartment.

No need to knock or ring a bell when the automated system was there to do it for you. Mordivai wondered what happened to guests who were not recognized and expected.

A moment passed and the door slid open. He was faced with an empty hallway and no one there to greet him. Mordivai stepped in and quietly passed down the hall. At the end waited a tall, formidable assassin droid carrying a rifle. It looked powered down, but Mordivai suspected otherwise. As he approached the eyes lit up.

"Declaration: Greetings young master. Welcome home."

"I see you've gotten some new upgrades HK. You look good."

"Observation: The young master's memory is well preserved. I have been outfitted with the latest hardware."

"Well, maybe you can tell me all about it sometime."

"Mordivai!"

He looked up to see his mother approaching. She was dressed in a black shirt and pants and her hair was cropped short, just as he had last seen her. Behind her shuffled an elderly twi'lek woman, who unobtrusively slipped off his outer robe and carried it away. Mordivai's eyes followed her as she disappeared down the hallway. Something about her looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. His mother did not normally own house slaves and he was momentarily confused.

"Is that…?" He held out a hand towards the empty hallway where the slave woman had disappeared.

"You recognize her? It's been a long time, but I'm sure she remembers you. That's K'sua."

"Wait. From grandmother's house?"

His mother nodded, then gestured for him to follow. "I had planned to tell you over lunch. Your grandmother passed away four years ago, leaving her estate, and all her slaves, to me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't….I didn't know." Mordivai tried to recall where he had been four years ago. He'd been a training with the Jedi on Tython then. He pushed the thought from his mind. Lord Morella had been a Sith to the core, and every bit the image of old Pureblood money and privilege. Her interests were in politicking and socializing, and her parties were indulgent affairs where the elite came to enjoy illicit pleasures. At age eleven, Mordivai had only just begun to get an inkling of exactly what went on at those parties when the shipwreck had torn him from his family.

Morella's entire estate had been run by her twi'lek house slaves. Mordivai had never considered the practice unusual during his childhood. Morella's slaves had always appeared content to him, and he had never witnessed any abuse. But he knew that his mother had a close friend who had been a former slave, and he was surprised now to see her using slaves in her home.

"There's no way you could have known." His mother led him through the apartment, which was immaculate and understated in its wealth. Unlike his grandmother, who had relished grandiosity, his parents exhibited simpler tastes.

"When did you get this place?" Mordivai's parents had always had their primary home on Dromund Kaas, but Mordivai had not grown up in this building. He passed a guest room, with a neatly made bed and a piece of abstract sculpture visible through the door. He had had his training sabers decorating the walls of his own bedroom once, and a window that had looked out on the distant jungle.

"Six years ago." They paused in a long, elegant dining room, with a blue chandelier decorating the ceiling and eight soft, cushioned chairs tucked in around the table.

"Lord Morda." It was K'sua again, bowing politely from an opposite doorway. "The meal is ready. Just say the word."

His mother nodded. "Go ahead and start serving." She pulled out a chair and gestured for him to do the same. "So, I inherited seven house slaves and twelve grounds keepers when your grandmother passed. I gave them the option to disperse to our other houses. A few we kept on at her estate to do upkeep and maintenance for when we visit. K'sua elected to stay with me personally, along with two others, and I offered to free the remaining ten. Some accepted, but three asked to be reassigned to new masters, so I sold them to some officers your father knew and could vouch for."

"Three didn't want to be freed?"

"They'd been a part of our family all their lives. The thought of starting anew can be frightening." She shrugged.

Mordivai found that thought surprising. He tried to image living as a slave for so long that he no longer knew how to direct the course of his own life. He remembered the despair and hopelessness he'd endured under Shastine. If he had been born into that life, perhaps he never would have had the confidence to know what he could accomplish on his own.

K'sua entered then, carrying a carafe of wine, and a serving droid rolled along behind her with two trays.

Mordivai sat patiently while a bowl of soup and a fish fillet covered in a pink sauce was set in front of him. He had gotten so used to the minimalism and austerity of the Jedi that to be surrounded now by such opulence, even understated opulence, made him uncomfortable. He recalled that once, a long time ago, he had had meals like this every day and had been driven to school by droids in a private transport. The self-denial the Jedi professed had been hard for him at first, but eventually he had come to accept their humble meals as just as fulfilling, and had found their simple lives to be compelled by a deeper purpose. What use was all this wealth? It was wasted here in finery and pretty things. How many houses did his family own now? He thought of the remaining homes, sitting empty like his grandmother's estate, filled with expensive furniture that was dusted every day by lonely slaves.

He tasted the soup. It was exquisite and subtly flavored. He wondered what K'sua ate. It had never occurred to him before to think about the lives of his family's slaves.

His mother was cutting up the fish and waving away K'sua's attempts to refill her second glass with water. If anything, his mother would be considered progressive for a Sith. In spite of her traditional family background, she had nonetheless thought to free the slaves she had no use for, and had gotten assurances ahead of time that the sold ones were going to kind masters.

Morda looked up at him. "How are things with Lord Zash?"

Mordivai swirled his spoon in his soup. "Boring, honestly. I fetch artifacts for her, but all she does is send me on new errands for more."

There was a loud clink as his Morda's utensils were set against her plate. Mordivai looked up to see her leaning forward, her red eyes bright and daring.

"Lord Zash is dangerous. Don't get complacent. She doesn't include you in her plans? Then you need to find out for yourself what she's up to."

"Does it matter?"

"You tell me. Did you know that Zash has taken on a new apprentice?"

"What?"

Morda fetched a datapad and set it on the table between them. A small holoprojector flared to life, spitting out the slowly rotating image of a human female.

"Ciela. Twenty-four years old. She goes with Zash everywhere. Some say they are so close that they must be mother and daughter. Your father hasn't turned up anything that proves that though."

"When did this happen?"

"Two months ago. In my experience, when a master takes on a new apprentice there is only one interpretation. You are being replaced."

"Is that really so bad? I have been learning combat training from another Sith, an Overseer Kryos. Can't I just be apprenticed to him now instead?"

"Traditionally, you must wait until he makes the offer. Until then, you are not under his protection. You have a rival now. I trust you know how to handle this? You graduated Korriban after all."

His mother was staring him down, her eyebrows pulled together in a look that could curdle milk. She blinked then, looking away suddenly. "There is so much I never got to teach you."

Mordivai tried to imagine killing this young woman in cold blood, when they had not yet even met, and knew he couldn't. But then Ffon's face appeared in his memory, and Mordivai heard his voice again, echoing those last taunts as he had locked Mordivai in the tomb. When pressed, Mordivai knew what he was capable of.

He looked his mother in the eye. "I know what to do."

"Good." She went back to the food, the matter now settled.

The conversation turned then to what was occupying Mordivai's time now. He did his best to explain his plan to get Lord Paladius's attention, and gently hinted at the abuses he suspected the cult members were enduring under Paladius's rule All the while, he watched his mother's face carefully to gauge her reaction.

"This Paladius sounds like he could use a swift knock off his pedestal. Why don't you just go in there and finish him. Why all the subterfuge?"

Mordivai explained that they still did not know where Paladius had his home base, or even if it was a fixed location at all. If he owned a pleasure barge, his location could always be moving.

His mother nodded and grew thoughtful. "So calculating of you. What happened to the bold, impatient boy I used to know?" She smiled and Mordivai saw genuine affection in her gaze. "You have become more like your father than I realized."

Mordivai finished his meal and K'sua brought out dessert, a dainty concoction with berries ringing his plate. Mordivai told his mother about his training under Overseer Kryos, and how he was back to using a double-bladed saber again, like he had preferred as a child. A long time ago, Jaesa, his mother's apprentice, had been teaching him.

"How is Jaesa anyway?"

Mordivai watched his mother's face grow dark. "She is no longer my apprentice. She was zealous and so eager to learn, but her appetites became more and more...exotic as time passed. She reveled in violence without purpose or direction. We parted ways."

"Amicably?" Mordivai had only heard of apprentices moving on after challenging their masters and he wondered if an altercation had occurred between the two. Jaesa was obviously still alive anyway, which must have meant something. "We still keep in touch on occasion," was all his mother would say about that.

As K'sua cleared their plates, Morda steepled her fingers and gazed at him across the table. "We have so many years to catch up on, but it's a start. Maybe next time, your father can make it too."

Mordivai nodded. His mother had not pressed him for details of his past Jedi training, but perhaps his father would. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was a fraud. Not Sith enough for his parents, but not Jedi enough for his old masters either. Where did he belong?

"There is one last thing I wanted to share with you. Lord Morella left you a piece of her inheritance. No small amount of credits. I will send it over, but wanted to let you know before the money appeared in your account." Morda smiled. "Use it wisely."

Mordivai left the apartment after a brief and awkward hug from his mother. That she loved him he had no doubt. But would she be proud of him? A long legacy of Sith lords hung heavy in his past. He could not possibly live up to his family's reputation.

His comm unit chimed, and Mordivai stepped under the awning of a nearby cantina to answer it.

"My lord," It was Rylee. She gave him a brief bow. "I hope your trip is going well. I just wanted to report in."

"Go ahead."

"News of your doings has begun to travel. People are talking about the ghost who brings vaccines in the night. Best of all, we have gotten a few more defectors from Paladius's compound."

"Any sign of Paladius himself?"

"Not yet. But one of the defectors reports that Paladius is fuming at your interference. It won't be long now. But there is something…"

"Yes?

"We could really use a headquarters of some kind. Doesn't have to be big, but if we expect to siphon off followers we need a place for them to stay. And many of the sick and homeless have been asking how to find you."

Mordivai thought of the money that would soon be fattening up his account. "I'll leave that to you then. Find us a location. I'll send the funds when you need them."

"You...you want me to…? Of course my lord! I'd be happy to." The tiny image of Rylee was beaming.

Mordivai closed the call and stared into the rain. This was becoming more than just a way to rankle Paladius. He was acquiring a cult of his own.