Chapter 23: Knowledge is Power

There was a great deal of curiosity about Mordivai's Jedi guest, and Mordivai had to politely shoo away the onlookers as he got Praven situated in a clean bed in an empty room. There was nothing to do but wait until whatever drugs he'd been given in Shadow Town wore off, so Mordivai set out to find suitable clean clothes that were in Praven's size, and had them folded and left on a nearby bedstand. Ai'lanynn suggested some towels and one of the "welcome kits" they gave to newly arriving refugees. The kits had a toothbrush, some soap, nail clippers and other necessities. Mordivai left Praven sprawled on the bed, his breathing steady and even.

When Mordivai got up early the next morning, he found the door to Praven's room ajar and the bed empty. As he approached the dining room, he heard voices, first Ai'lanynn's - friendly, casual, even laughing - and then Praven's - calm, subdued, ever confident and slow. Mordivai's chest constricted and he paused outside the door. He thought of the last time he had seen Praven, back on the passenger ship when he was just a Padawan. Praven soaring through the air to his rescue, yelling for him to run. Praven had sacrificed himself for Mordivai's escape. And for what? Mordivai had still been captured. Had still become a Sith.

Slowly he entered the room.

Ai'lanynn appeared in his vision first, her beaming face filled with gentle mirth. She was leaning forward, looking expectantly at Praven. "So?"

Mordivai saw Praven next. He was drawing a teacup to his lips. After taking a protracted sip he let out a sigh and smiled. "I never thought having tea again could taste so good." He looked up then and met eyes with Mordivai.

"Master Praven." Mordivai give him a brief bow.

Praven's gaunt face broke into a smile. "Mordivai. So good to see you. I have you to thank for finding me in Shadow Town. I hoped the Force would guide us together again someday." Praven had pulled back his hair and bound it in a single braid down his back, leaving his face starkly exposed. His cheeks were sunken which made his chin seem longer. Mordivai's last glimpse of Praven surfaced again in his mind, of his master when he was muscular and fit, his lightsaber raised into the air as he came down upon the Sith who had attacked them. It pained Mordivai to see Praven looking so frail now.

Ai'laynn slid out of her chair and moved towards the door, giving Mordivai an encouraging smile as she left. Mordivai felt a moment of panic at being left alone with Praven, and he envied Ai'lanynn's easy manner with strangers. He sat a few places away from his former master.

"Ai'laynn has made me some exquisite tea. And she told me how you two met." Praven's face turned grave. "A lot has happened since we parted."

"It has." Mordivai swallowed. "I thought you were dead."

Praven's smile was kind. "I can't be killed so easily. And I'd be sure to come back and haunt you if I had."

Mordivai blinked at him until Praven broke into a laugh. Praven paused to take another sip of tea. Then came the bomb that Mordivai had been waiting for.

"The people here call you "lord."

Mordivai felt a painful surge of shame and he looked down at the table. "I am no longer a Jedi, Master Praven."

"I will not judge you, Mordivai. Just tell me what happened."

Mordivai straightened in the chair. "I was captured. Sold into slavery. Then, later...I was sent to Korriban."

Praven merely nodded. Feeling exasperated at Praven's lack of reaction, Mordivai continued. "I graduated Korriban. And I killed three acolytes to get there."

"You survived Korriban," Praven corrected. "You did what was required of you."

"I have a Sith master."

"Do you want to be a Sith?"

"I…" The question had taken Mordivai by surprise. "I cannot be a Jedi."

"Why not?"

Because killing those acolytes felt good. Because I reveled in their fear. Because while on Korriban I found a power within me that I never knew I had.

"The Jedi want me to deny a part of who I am."

Praven's eyes missed nothing and Mordivai felt keenly aware that Praven was studying him now.

"So you think you can not be a Jedi. But I also asked you if you want to be a Sith."

Mordivai stared at the tablecloth. "I don't know what I want sometimes." Why couldn't there be a third option?

Praven finished his tea and sat back in his chair. "Ai'lanynn tells me that you rescued her from slavery. That you spared a man who had tormented you when you were a slave. She said that you even gave a second chance to a member here who attempted to betray you. To me, those sound like the actions of a Jedi."

"It was the right thing to do. But there is more to being a Jedi than showing mercy."

"True." Praven's eyes roved the room. "You have quite the operation here. I understand you are protecting these people from being sent to Korriban. What do you plan to do with them long term?"

Mordivai was getting tired of these difficult questions. How should I know? he wanted to yell. Instead, Mordivai shrugged. "Many of them just want to live normal lives, free from the influence of the Sith or the Jedi. A few of them are strong enough to become Sith themselves." He glanced at Praven. "Or Jedi."

"You have been kind to them."

Mordivai leaned forward on his elbows. "Would you take some of them back to Tython with you?"

For a moment, Praven looked surprised, but then he nodded. "If they express an interest in the Order, I will talk to the Grand Master and see about bringing them to Tython."

"Thank you."

Praven stood up, slowly, as if the motion pained him, and nodded to Mordivai. "Enough discussion for this early hour. Time to see to other things."

He left Mordivai alone in the dining room. Mordivai sat for a moment, waiting for his frayed nerves to knit back together. Praven had not condemned him at least. Could he go back to Tython? To being a Jedi? He thought of how easy it had been to Force choke Destris, how quick and effortless the motion had become. He thought of the new recruits here, who were still counting on him to take out Paladius. He thought of his parents, expecting him to carry on a legacy going back centuries. He thought of things he still had not experienced. He had been in love with Zayla, he had shared in physical pleasures, but both at the same time? Never. He wondered if Praven missed loving someone, and being loved back.

Most of all, he thought of the Imperials he would have to fight as a Jedi. His own people.

His mind tired of such thoughts, and he rose and made himself some toast. There would be time to ponder this more later.

00o00

That night he dreamed of Korriban. He was back in the tomb, fighting for his life, pushing against the enormous stone slab as it closed him in. The darkness smothered him, and as his tiny space grew smaller, his panic rose ever higher.

"Good bye and good riddance, freak." It was Ffon's voice, calling through the crack in the door. "You were a terrible Jedi, and an even worse Sith."

Mordivai screamed and threw himself at the door. Ffon's bright eyes appeared at the door's shrinking crack, his laughter fading as the tomb grew quiet. Mordivai pressed his face against the remaining sliver of light, his breathing loud in the cramped space, the blood rushing through his ears. Another voice reached him, but it was not Ffon's.

"It had to be done, Mordivai. You cannot walk both paths."

As the door slid into place and utter darkness descended, Mordivai saw that it was Praven now standing outside the tomb, hefting the last of the stone slab into place.

Mordivai tore himself awake, his heart pounding in his ears. He was drenched in sweat and tangled among the blankets of his bed. He climbed out of bed, surveying the now familiar room. A sliver of light stabbed its way across the floor from a narrow row of windows, illuminating a dresser and chair. Normal objects in a normal, unremarkable room.

Mordivai rubbed his damp shirt across his skin, trying to dry the remains of the sweat from his body, then gave up and peeled it off in favor of a fresh shirt instead. He wandered out into the hallway on bare feet.

Next door, in the room he had started referring to as his "study," Mordivai collapsed on a couch and stared morosely at Ke'leth Ur's holocron sitting on a nearby table. Ke'leth Ur had been a Sith trying to walk the path of the light, and what had they done to him? They had sealed him away in a tomb in the dark temple, burying him and all his ideas with him. Such was the fate of Sith who towed the line between light and dark. Maybe he really was a freak.

There was a rustle, and Praven appeared in the doorway. He was dressed for bed, but did not appear as if he had been sleeping.

"May I sit down?"

"Of course." Mordivai gestured to a chair opposite him and Praven settled into it.

"Do you suffer from nightmares?" Praven asked.

Mordivai nodded, feeling self-conscious and wondering if Praven had felt the emotional fallout from his dream through the Force. "Of Korriban."

Praven stared ahead at nothing. "Sometimes I dream I am back in the dungeons of the Citadel in Kaas City, enduring their torture all over again."

"You are stronger than I would have been," Mordivai said. Would Praven have given in to anger and killed those acolytes if it had been him sealed into a tomb on Korriban?

"Don't be so sure." Praven looked up and gave Mordivai a sad smile. There was something haunted in his eyes, a pain that had not been there in Mordivai's days as a Padawan. "When you found me yesterday in Shadow Town, I had given up. I decided that being one with the Force was preferable to life as a mindless lump in a cell. I was in the middle of a hunger strike when you came along. I was trying to die."

Mordivai shook his head. "I…" he wasn't sure what to say. "That's terrible." Leave it to Praven to find a way to take control over his own death. Didn't he realize that Mordivai admired him even still for that?

"Dromund Kaas was a nightmare, but at least there I knew I was alive."

"I'm glad you didn't succeed, Master Praven. How long were you in Kaas City before they moved you to Shadow Town?"

"Seven months." Praven tugged on the hem of his shirt, pulling it down to reveal bare skin. A grid of lines was drawn across Praven's chest, wide, evenly spaced rows of scars painted like stripes. "After skinning strips off of me didn't make me repent my treacherous ways, they eventually gave up and sent me to Nar Shaddaa."

Mordivai was shocked. "I'm sorry."

"We all have our trials."

"I'm surprised they didn't just kill you."

Praven smirked. "Being a Pureblood has its benefits. Or curses. To kill me would have been an insult to my family's name."

Praven waved away any more questions and gestured to the table that sat between them. "I see you keep a Sith holocron. Whose is it?"

Mordivai took a moment to shift mental gears. "Ke'leth Ur's. He was killed and buried in the Dark Temple on Dromund Kaas. He believed that fear was not the only route to power, and that even Sith had something to learn from the light."

"Interesting," Praven said. "I can see why he was persecuted. Have you been studying his teachings?"

"Actually," Mordivai admitted reluctantly, "I can't open it."

"What have you tried?"

"I realized early on that it could only be opened by the Force, so I have been meditating on it, trying to find its trigger."

Praven chuckled. "You can open a Jedi holocron that way, but for a Sith holocron to show you its secrets, you must command it."

"Oh." Of course, Mordivai thought. Then, what was he supposed to do? Yell at it? Say some magic words over it?

Praven leaned forward, studying the holocron with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped before him. He looked up at Mordivai. "Would you like me to show you how to open it?" His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

Mordivai nodded, surprised at Praven's offer. Praven grew still, a look of concentration crossing his face. "I haven't done this is a long time," he murmured. He raised his hand, lowered it again, then raised it once more and held out it out before the holocron. His arm shot forward like a striking snake, a movement so fast that Mordivai twitched in surprise, and lightning broke from Praven's fingertips. It engulfed the holocron in a glowing web of light. Mordivai watched, transfixed, as Praven's familiar face transformed and grew hard. Mordivai thought he saw fire behind his eyes moments before the lightning ceased. Everyone knew that Praven had once been a Sith before converting to a Jedi, but now Mordivai caught a glimpse of the Sith Praven had once been. It was a frightening visage, but it faded just as quickly, and Praven slumped back against the chair, looking spent.

The holocron had broken apart, and its pieces hovered in the air. In the center of the floating remains appeared the tiny holo image of Ke'leth Ur.

"You have questions? Ask," it said.

"Thank you," Mordivai breathed.

"You're welcome. Though I think I will pass on doing that again anytime soon."

"It's hard for you now?"

"It...weakens me," Praven answered.

"I am grateful for your help then."

"Does your own master keep knowledge of these things from you?"

There it was again. First his mother and now Praven. Of all the artifacts he had fetched for Lord Zash, she had never deigned to show him how to use any of them. "Lord Zash uses me as her errand boy."

Praven looked up at him. "Be careful. Do you remember all the artifacts she has been collecting? Perhaps a visit to Dromund Kaas or Korriban is in order to research these things. You need to find out what she is up to."

"I know." Mordivai sighed. "I will."

"Lord Zash...I'm surprised she's still around. She was a fixture on Korriban already when I was an acolyte. She must be practically ancient by now."

"Well, she doesn't look it," Mordivai said. "She's looks a lot younger than you."

"Creating that illusion must take a lot out of her."

Mordivai wondered if that's what Zash was using all those Sith artifacts for, to fuel her youthfulness. It all seemed rather petty. Was Mordivai putting his life in danger just to indulge his master's vanity?

Praven gathered himself and rode to his feet. "I'll leave you to enjoy your newly opened holocron." He smiled and Mordivai nodded.

"Thank you," Mordivai called again as Praven left the room. Praven kept asking him why he couldn't resume his life as a Jedi, yet he had made the effort to open this Sith holocron. Mordivai understood the importance of this gift. He gently pulled the holocron closer. The tiny figure of Ke'leth Ur hovered over the holocron, and there were questions to be asked and answers to seek.

A/N: Sorry for the gap in posting! RL has been keeping me busy. Thanks for reading everyone!