The landing rattles her bones and sends her crashing face first into the locker's door. Thank the Force. There's only so much time one can spend inside those things, especially when all they're filled with are adult-themed holomags and dirty socks. In fact, come to think of it, the cargo hold would have been a far more comfortable hideout. Yet for all its staleness, the changing room has its perks, and, as boorish as the mercenaries can be, they're still more talkative than a few crates of inanimate cargo, especially when they don't know that they're being listened to. An artifact could never have told her they were going to Dxun, but these poor sods? Oh, they've told her that and much more. Such as which planet they planned on visiting next, and most importantly, what for. Or rather, what they've understood of what they're here for, which, admittedly, isn't nearly as enlightening as the actual story would have been. But still, she knows they're on Dxun because "the Sith" wants to perform "a ritual of some sort, and that's what the cargo must be for", so that's progress. Besides, now that they have landed, all that she has to do is wait until the coast is clear to get out of here and start investigating. Well, maybe use the fresher first, and then investigate. Anyhow. Progress.
Several minutes go by before Revan finally slips out of the ship and finds herself standing in a dark clearing, lit only by a distant, dying campfire. At first, she wonders where all the mercs might have gone. After all, it's only been minutes since they left the ship… and then she looks up. In front of her stands an imposing obsidian structure, and she can feel sentient life flickering beyond the walls, on and off, like a moribund flame in a stormy night, faint and stubborn all at once. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. She shouldn't have come alone, but alone is all she has right now, and this might be her only chance to figure out what's going on, so she presses on – slowly, tentatively, but she does, sinking ankle deep in mud until she reaches the paved area. The feeling doesn't abate. There's something dark beyond these gates, and it's a small comfort to find them unguarded. A shiver runs down her spine as she progresses deeper into the tomb, and darkness engulfs her in spite of the torches that line the path, until she comes in sight of the atrium. It is then that she sees them. It is then that she feels it. She ducks behind a pillar, just in time to avoid the glance of the cloaked figure that turns around.
No. NO. Not here. Not now. Not what? She's never felt this before. Not that she can remember. And yet the void, the hunger, it's… Malachor. But it can't be. She can't know. How could she? Malachor's dead, and so is her memory of it. Unless… unless there's something of her past here. Something that was with her when she destroyed it. Something she's seen or touched before. Oh, come on. She doesn't have time for another trip down memory lane! Revan reminds herself to keep her shields up, and not a moment too soon. Both the man in the room ahead and the masked figure above his holocomm have stopped talking, and already, she feels dark tendrils probing at the edges of her consciousness, trying to worm their way into the cracks, coiling around her and pressing, pressing, pressing until her mind feels ready to burst. And just as suddenly, the presence retracts.
"Strange," the cloaked man says, "how the wildlife's drawn to this place."
And then, she hears it. The voice… if it can be called a voice… the voice that answers him. No, not a voice. A hiss. A rasp. A wound. Devoid of words. Devoid of life. But the veiled figure understands and answers it anyway.
"No, I can't see them being of any use. The holocron was very clear. Force-sensitives only."
The voice speaks again, and she still can't understand a bloody word of it. All she knows is that her ears are about to bleed and that she wants it to stop. No, more than that. She wants silence. Complete and utter silence.
"A test? Very well then."
In spite of all common sense, in spite of all prudence, Revan hazards another look at the scene. The mercenaries are busy emptying some crates, paying no attention to the conversation. But what she hadn't noticed at first was the glint of a dozen well-polished Sith uniforms, each of them standing behind a prostrate Sith acolyte. There should be fifteen of them. Yuthura said fifteen.
Before she can process what is happening in front of her, the torches are snuffed out, and the room goes dark. A cold, cold wind blows, chilling her to the bone, and when the lights flare up again, the charred bodies of the mercs lay beside the lifeless husks of the half-melted Sith armours. Revan holds back a gasp. This… this is impossible. There's no way it can be… the ritual. This, she realises, is the ritual she's heard about. She has to stop this. Warn the Jedi, free the acolytes, do something, anything. But not now. Now all she can do is wait. Wait, watch, and listen.
"It's worked to perfection, my lord. I feel… stronger. And hungry for more. But these twelve are yours. I will await your arrival."
The cloaked Sith bows to the holo, and stalks away towards the hallway Revan came from. Shields up, she reminds herself, up! If she gets caught, she's toast. Perhaps quite literally so. Which is why the best alternative remains not to get caught. She feels his gaze land on her as he walks past the pillar, his hand hovering slowly towards his weapon. Oh, this doesn't look promising. If he doesn't pull his magic trick, she may yet stand a chance. Maybe. If she's lucky. She unhooks her own lightsaber, and braces herself. She's not dying without a fight. But before she can pull out her blade, the man turns around and walks away. Thank the Force for stealth generators. She waits for the sound of his footsteps to die out and rushes towards the atrium, immediately setting one of the acolytes free. The kid is shaken, but alive.
"Help me untie the others."
The Sith nods blanky and complies.
"Who are you?" a zabrak girl finally asks.
Well, that's the million-credit question, isn't it?
"Not important. Now listen, we don't have much time. There's an unmanned freighter just outside the tomb. Try not to get spotted, and if I don't meet you there in ten minutes, take off. Go to Yuthura Ban, and tell her everything you saw. Tell her the Ebon Hawk and its crew are awaiting her transmission. She will know what it means."
"What about you?"
"I'm looking for answers, and these artifacts may have them. I'll meet you at the ship. Hopefully. Now go!"
Revan takes a look around the altar. Most of the items look too heavy to try carrying with her, and she can't take the risk of studying all of them here, so she has to choose carefully. Surely the pyramid-shaped one in the middle must be the holocron the Sith mentioned, and if that is the case then it might be her best bet at understanding what she saw. She shoves it into her satchel. The other artifacts – twelve, to be exact – have been arranged in a circle at the foot of a gigantic statue. Her gaze settles on the smallest one. A rock. It's just a rock. A tiny, blackened rock. Yet as her fingertips make contact with the stone, the atrium fades away and her breath quickens. A ship. She's onboard a ship. Before she realises what's happening, a purple blade falls down and slices clean through her opponent's neck. Her blade. This is her blade. Revan can only stare as the helmeted head falls to the ground, paralysed and transfixed. She's won. At last, she's won. Let the invaders die. Let their headless army flail. And as she contemplates her long-awaited victory, a cry of agony tears through the Force and sends her reeling back, her ears ringing, her lungs flat in her chest. She barely has enough time to take off her mask before a hot wave of acid rises up from her stomach. Outside the viewport, ships are falling, inexorably drawn towards the collapsing planet below. Malachor. She's reliving Malachor.
"Hey! You there!"
Through the tears that burn her eyes, Revan makes out the shape of another Sith soldier. Suddenly, the soldier rises over the atrium, and Revan looks in horror as the man writhes in the air, kicking and screaming, until the crack of bones becomes louder than his screams. Then silence.
Revan braces herself, ready to engage the assassin. But there's no one else. And as she looks down at her clenched fist, she understands. No. No. It can't be. She drops the rock, and runs. Such a stupid, stupid move. There is nothing to be done, nowhere to run to. The assassin is here, with her. She was always with her. And she always will be. This is what it means to be Darth Revan. Always, and forever. No matter how badly she wishes it were not true. No matter how badly she wishes Malachor hadn't happened. But it is true, and it has happened, and this man? this man is just one more victim among the millions she's killed. And that's the truth about the dark side, isn't it? It is never truly gone. Because no matter how hard one strives to gain redemption, no matter how many times the Sith are driven from the galaxy, darkness always, always comes back. And you can push it back, of course, cut the tree and pretend there's no seed in the ground. But it will never, ever relent. And at times… at times it feels like a hopeless quest. Like fighting an uphill battle with a boulder tied to one's foot. How easy it would be to rest and let the boulder drag her down. But she mustn't. She can't. She has already let the galaxy down once. It can never happen again. And so she runs and runs, away from the edge, away from that place that feels so dangerously close to the abyss she's just crawled out of. One day, perhaps, she will be strong enough to face it again. But not today. Today she is tired, and she wants to go home. Wherever 'home' might be.
Perhaps that's why she's not ready for another fight. Perhaps that's why she wants to hide, like the coward she doesn't want to admit she is. Perhaps that's why, when they see her, she doesn't stop to try and defend herself. She just runs and runs and runs, faster and faster, until she disappears into the thicket at the other end of the lake, where she narrowly avoids stepping onto a snake. She doesn't slow down yet, or barely… not until she trips over a root and feels two sinewy arms catch her in her fall. Revan squeezes her eyes shut and prays it's not one of the Sith.
"Please, the students…"
Before she can finish, a deep, metallic voice interrupts her.
"Took off safely a minute ago."
Revan's eyes pop open. Behind Malak, who still hasn't released his hold, Juhani, Canderous and Mission look at her with confusion.
"Thank you... thank you, I..."
Canderous makes a shushing sign. In the distance, a boma roars. On the banks of the lake, the squelching sounds of steps grow louder, and the voices of the Sith squad get closer and closer.
"She can't have gone far. I want the whole area searched until that Jedi schutta's found! And if there's a corpse I want it identified, understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
It takes a long time for the squelches to die out, and an even longer time for any of them to start moving again. Two minutes. An hour. She doesn't know. All she knows is that she hasn't stopped shaking, that she's freezing in spite of the sweltering heat, and that, were it not for Malak holding her up against a large gnarltree, she would have collapsed long ago. She supposes at least she has that to be grateful for.
"It's alright. They're gone. It's alright now."
"No, Malak, it's not."
