"Encircled ad nauseam; an enemy to define ourselves, an enemy to refine our hate... No one knows my enemy like I do."
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You can't shut me out forever, you know, Calum heard a voice whisper in his mind. Or was he just imagining things?
The air had turned chilly with nightfall, the breeze that stirred the grasses no longer a welcome cool from the heat of the sun, instead a miserable icy breath on his face. The dark around him was oppressive and the dim sights of the ruined garden had never reminded him so much of skeletons picked clean by scavengers. He felt like he was but a single mote of life in a dead sea. Had he not known she was there, Juhani in her red robes would have been all but invisible in the dark twilight.
As it had done for the last six months, the onset of nighttime cast its cloak of misery and loneliness on Calum. It was so much easier to think back on what he could only dimly remember when he was denied the light of the sun, more at the mercy of the dark parts of his soul when he was shrouded in darkness.
It was worse than ever tonight, because he knew in his heart that someone had taken Bastila from him, and he didn't know what to do.
I am still here. I have always been here, let me help you.
For a moment, Calum's vision was skewed, as if seen through a mask--Revan's mask. Shutting his eyes did not help, it only increased the vision's intensity. He clenched his fists tightly, fingernails drawing blood from his palms as he tried to will the images away.
Why are you still fighting me?
The voice would not go away, no matter how hard he wished it gone. Calum recognized it, but his mind asked the question anyway.
"Who are you?"
I am you.
Calum put a fist to his face between the eyes, felt the blood between his fingers, and cried silently to himself. He remembered too much, and not enough. Lightning-fast, the images flashed by, presenting him with scene after scene of senseless carnage, merciless torture, and brutal executions; some by his own hand, some not. The deeds he could recall, but not the purpose, though he knew a purpose existed. Sometimes he thought he knew, but was then overcome with too many doubts to hold the conclusion and had to go back to his frantic search for an answer.
Let me help you, Revan said as more images flashed by.
Masks, white masks, were all he saw. Men without faces, without life, just mindless drones in the infinite hive of a heartless society.
"I hate you," Calum cursed the voice in his head.
Hate me if you wish, but don't close your eyes to the truth just because it is unpleasant. There is no future without the truth. You and I are one and the same, and the both of us are weakened without the other.
"You're a murderer, why should you speak the truth?" Calum asked.
Sometimes the galaxy needs murderers. That killing is murder is an inescapable fact, and yet legions of murderers are cultivated throughout the galaxy and lauded for their bravery and abilities to commit murder with ever greater proficiency. Millions cheer when they murder, and tremble in fear when they do not murder enough.
"Don't confuse a soldier with a murderer, Revan!"
Dead is dead. What comes before death is what matters. The galaxy needs murderers who kill to protect life. A soldier fighting to defend the lives of his family and his people knows this, but in our darkest hour the Jedi willingly chose to turn aside from this truth.
"Well, I don't care. I don't ever want to have to rationalize killing again."
You are a fool. You are free to turn your eyes away from reality, just as the Council did, but when you fall to ruin it will be because you ignored truth and reason and refused to deal with the reality of what is. Killing is evil. The Jedi rightfully interpret it as so. But it is sometimes necessary. You understood when you killed Aleksie, when you fought your way across the galaxy to get to him. Don't think to hide your head in the sand and willingly blind yourself; it will only bring greater harm to you and those you care about.
Against his will, Calum recalled fighting Darth Malak, remembered the insatiable blood lust and his hunger Malak's pain and suffering for what he'd done to Bastila. His own life had meant nothing to him and he threw every ounce of power he possessed into that sole drive. The totality of his commitment still horrified him.
Looming in his mind, he saw again the faceless masses. Understanding dangled tantalizingly close, but just out of reach.
Calum sighed in defeat; he just wanted Bastila back. He couldn't do this - fighting Revan constantly - anymore, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to.
I'm not your enemy, Revan said, I am you...
Calum opened his eyes, took his hand away from his face and straightened. He was not going to get any answers by standing around feeling sorry for himself. His feeling of terrible apprehension still remained, but the self-pity had passed.
Bastila was gone, and his mind could offer only one explanation.
For the first time since the Star Forge, Calum didn't fight the tendrils of Darth Revan he felt lurking in the back of his mind. He welcomed the presence, knowing he was going to need it if what he suspected were true.
"I can't wait anymore, Juhani," Calum told his Cathar companion. "We have to go in and find Bastila."
"Did she not say it would be best if the Masters not know of your presence?"
"I'm afraid they've done something to her. And if they have..." Calum trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid. He still didn't want to think about what he might do if anything had happened to her. "I know she trusts Master Vrook and Master Vandar, but I don't. Let's go."
The interior of the academy was pitch black under the darkness; the tiny sliver of a moon that had risen in the sky was insufficient to pour its cold light on the ruins. Calum didn't bother drawing his lightsabre to provide light, sensing his way through the maze of collapsed buildings, devastated hallways, and vaporized rooms with the Force instead. He supposed it was only appropriate that as the darkness gathered in his mind he should walk in darkness. From every shattered wall and fallen ceiling he felt nothing but the reflection of life-rending pain and deathly terror, and despite what he knew, he felt as if he were responsible.
His temperament had turned from lonely misery to numb acceptance of what he couldn't change. There was nothing to balance against the dark side of him he felt lurking, as if just behind the thin veil of his consciousness.
It was as good a time to fall as any.
"Something is wrong," Juhani said from behind him. Calum grunted an acknowledgment.
He agreed. The mist of deception lay heavy in the atmosphere, thickening the farther into the ruins they ventured. Calum was not surprised, it only further cemented his fears that Bastila had been betrayed by the ones she thought she could trust.
Anger boiled up inside him. There would be a reckoning, he promised himself. Revan demanded it.
A light caught his attention, diverting his mind back to reality. He could see a small circle of light up ahead, illuminating what had once been the Council Chamber. Master Vrook and Master Vandar, the two objects of his ire, stood within the pool of incandescence.
Everything inside Calum screamed at him to run forward and shout at them, to unleash the fury of the Force at them, to slice them open with his lightsabre--anything. But he knew satisfying any of those urges would only exacerbate the situation and make finding the truth all but impossible. No Jedi Master was ever more evasive than one confronted with someone they considered 'irrational.' Calum knew none of those actions were things a rational, thinking man should choose.
With great strength of will, he forced himself to consider the possibility that he could be wrong. He intended to find the truth, not make unfounded accusations.
The truth is both your greatest ally and your greatest enemy. It can either aid or hinder you, deal victory or defeat in a single hand to what you strive for. But it is always better to know the truth, no matter how horrible, than to hang your hope on lies.
From the darkest parts of his mind, Calum found wisdom. Revan knew the value of the truth; it was his highest value.
Calum gripped the lightsabre at his belt in determination, and strode forward into the glowing circle, Juhani at his side.
"Ah, yes, it was only a matter of time before you returned, Revan," Vrook said in greeting, fixing Calum with an unfriendly expression. "And I see you still keep Juhani on the same short leash as you did when you came here before."
Juhani's golden eyes for a moment flashed with indignation. "I follow him because I choose to, and because he is a friend."
"So you may think," Vrook muttered darkly.
"Where is Bastila?" Calum demanded, unable to keep his voice neutral.
"Bastila is not here," Vandar answered. "Leave us, she did."
Vrook narrowed his eyes in a bitter frown at Calum. "She forsook the Jedi Order for you, Revan. She came to us one last time so we might know the full extent of her abandonment of the Jedi."
"She came to you because she trusted you!" Calum couldn't help raising his voice in anger, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "She sought guidance from you. What did you do with her?"
"We did nothing to her. She left of her own free will, we did not hinder her. Perhaps you should ask yourself if the reasons she told you were the true ones. If she has not returned to you, then perhaps she has come to enlightenment and realized her duty, and exiled herself."
For a moment, the thought that Bastila had gone off on her own without him crippled Calum with hopeless dread. Maybe it was too much for her to deal with his pain on top of her own, maybe she couldn't handle the heartbreaking stresses anymore. Maybe, maybe, maybe...
"What did you tell her?" he asked finally, the fire gone from his voice.
"She wished to know why we were opposed to intervention in the Mandalorian War," Vrook responded. "You forced our hand by doing as you did, Revan. What happened to you was of your own making."
"Indeed," Vandar concurred. "Come close to fulfilling a disastrous prophecy, you did."
"Master Vandar!" Vrook shouted in alarm. "Prophecy is not meant for the unlearned!"
"Should we keep even this from him, Vrook? Is not the deception we put over him enough?"
Vandar's argument only angered Vrook further. "There is no one more dangerous to prophecy than the man who stands before us! What catastrophe might he bring if told the words?"
Calum had read the histories; prophecy brought nothing but trouble. The Jedi ?Order had massacred thousands of innocent Padawans once in order to avert a prophecy, only to fail to kill the one that mattered. Prophecy was a seething pot of ruin and destruction.
Calum's quiet voice bristled with threat. "You gave her a prophecy?"
"She demanded it, but it is not for your ears, Revan."
He felt his tenuous hold on objectiveness and reason slipping away by the moment. He was getting nowhere in this foolish game of words with the Masters. Vrook, at least, obviously had no intention of giving a straight answer. The man would rather continue feeding him half-truths and rationalized lies than let him know the reason behind his perpetual deception.
Darth Revan, just beneath the surface, waited to be released.
"What we told Bastila is not your concern. And we have told you quite enough." Vrook suddenly snapped his fingers.
Calum could then finally sense them coming out of the dark. A dozen Republic guards, heavily armed and equipped like a riot squad. They held their powerful rifles pointed at him and Juhani, all wearing sternly somber expressions.
Juhani had her lightsabre out in a flash, trying to place herself in front of Calum and ward away the Republic guards as they surrounded them. Calum's hand tightened around the hilt of his own lightsabre.
"What is the meaning of this?" Juhani demanded of Master Vrook.
"You are ordered to stand aside, Padawan Juhani," Vrook commanded, ignoring her.
"Never!" she hissed.
The Republic men locked in closer around her and Calum.
Instead of panic, a resigned calm came over Calum. As he looked down the condemning guns of those he had worked tirelessly to save, he felt the veil in his mind being slowly withdrawn. The Republic had become his enemy once again, and the person inside him willing fight the Republic had to come out of the shadows and into the light once more.
Calum closed his eyes as he felt resolve enter into him.
One of the soldiers spoke in a monotone. "Darth Revan, you are under arrest for high treason against the Republic Senate, coercion of Republic military and civilian authority into committing treason, genocide, and quite a long list of other war crimes."
The man who spoke the accusations was immaterial. They were all his enemies now.
"So," Calum said, "everything I have done counts as nothing, then? It doesn't matter how hard I strove to defeat Malak, nor does the pain and horror of what I went through to destroy the Star Forge matter. In spite of all I have done to preserve and protect the Republic, I am granted not even a pittance of forgiveness for crimes I cannot even remember?"
"Clever words to evade the hands of justice, fallen one," Vrook sneered. "Nothing you can say or do will bring back the millions who died because of you, or the millions who will yet die because of what you have wrought. Your very existence is a crime we indulged in only out of necessity. We gave you the chance to make up for just the tiniest amount of the evils you have caused, and now it is time for you to pay for the rest; with your life."
"Don't do this," he pleaded one last time. "Don't make this mistake."
"We do not make mistakes. The one who has erred is you."
With that, all restraint was lost, the veil was rent. Darth Revan lived.
"No." Calum's green lightsabre ignited, glowing in glorious compliment to Juhani's blue. "I will not give in to this."
"So be it, then. You will die here, Dark One." At Vrook's signal, the Republic guards opened fire.
Calum had given himself completely over to Revan; there was no hesitation on his part. Lightning-quick, he threw up a barrier shield with the Force to deflect the encircling rifle fire and leaped forward with Juhani, their lightsabres bared. As blaster bolts ricocheted in every direction, Revan swung the green blade in fast chopping motions, slicing arms off the nearest two soldiers.
The battle was like adrenaline pumping in his veins. It excited him, made him hunger for its continuation. He knew it was a fight to the death, yet the fact only seemed to make it more exhilarating, for it meant he was coming to know once again what it was to truly be himself.
In that moment Calum and Revan were one.
As more soldiers trained their weapons on him, Revan retaliated by hurling a twisting rope of blue-white Force lightning at them. It sizzled as it hit flesh, hissed its electric fury amidst the soldiers' screams of pain. Hot with Revan's fury, the lightning cooked them alive as they dropped. There was no thought in his mind except for the next kill.
Revan whirled about to slice apart the weapon of another soldier who had lunged for him. With a few deft slices, he brought the Republic man to his knees. He could see nothing but where he was about to strike; the man's open chest. The fear and hopelessness on his opponent's face meant nothing to him once the commitment to kill was made. He drove his green blade forward, the point seeking flesh.
He was surprised to find his lightsabre blocked and turned aside by another. Revan's determined eyes met Vrook's. He grimaced and turned his attention to the old man, leaving the stunned Republic soldier on the floor, wondering why he wasn't dead. As he rose to meet Vrook's challenge, he heard Juhani continue dealing death to the soldiers.
Clashing blades with Vrook was immensely refreshing, a true test of his skills. It was something he'd wanted to do for a long time.
He looked into his opponent's eyes, saw nothing but grim, dogged determination, and threw himself forward.
Revan lunged low, stabbing down for the Jedi's knees, and his green blade was quickly turned away by an elementary parry from Vrook. In response to the block, he cut upwards, throwing his momentum into a sudden drive at shoulder level. Again, Vrook's blade was there, blocking his. Revan leaned into the parry, locking their blades together as he pressed forward.
He forced Vrook to yield ground, and once he did, the battle was his. He struck out repeatedly against the old man's guard, and was almost pleased when he did not cave in under the force of his attack. He tested Vrook's tenacious defense with blow after blow from his green lightsabre. Every last vestige of respect and reverence he'd once had for the Jedi Master had been stripped away, leaving but nothing but pure aggression.
Revan didn't allow the Jedi Master any breaks, he pushed on relentlessly, spinning, lunging, cutting, chopping, swinging furiously. Steadily, he pressed Vrook back, out of the little circle of light, until they fought in darkness by only the glow of their sabres. Revan's confidence grew the longer the battle progressed; he could feel his power rising, sensed victory at hand.
Suddenly, flying out of the dark, came a grim-faced Republic soldier wielding a vibrosword. Yelling ferociously, he swung the scintillating blade at Revan's head. In the space of a split second, Revan ducked low and grabbed the man's wrists, flinging him forward at Vrook as he dove.
The Republic man gaped in surprise as Vrook's lightsabre cut him across the chest.
For an instant, taken by utter surprise, Vrook hesitated. As the mortally wounded soldier collapsed to the ground, the Jedi Master just stood there. But Revan was already on the move. Sidestepping the fallen Republic man, Revan cut low and cut hard against Vrook's flank.
Belatedly, Vrook reacted to the threat, turning his green blade down to deflect Revan's as it scored a deep but nonlethal wound along his side.
In a matching maneuver, Revan cut upwards again, and his blade destroyed the hilt of Vrook's weapon.
Injured, his lightsabre gone, Vrook fell to his knees, wincing in pain. Revan wanted to kill him.
Revan wanted to kill him, but there was something in his mind now holding him back, some last remnant of restraint that told him not to cross this line. In his heart, Revan knew the killing sickened him.
Calum hated that he had to kill.
Instead of bringing his lightsabre down on the wounded Jedi Master, Calum shoved him into the darkness with a mild Force pulse, unwilling to kill him. Already the reality of all the Republic soldiers he'd just killed was beginning to sink in. It appalled him that it had come back down to this.
Calum turned away from the dark and back to the little circle of light where stood still Master Vandar. Juhani, panting with exertion, stood waiting for him. She had deactivated her lightsabre, but he left his on. He knew this was not over.
When he approached, he saw Vandar holding an expression of such profound sorrow that for a moment Calum's determination faltered. He saw in Vandar's peculiar eyes not only sorrow for the men Calum had killed, but also what seemed almost like an empathy for how Calum felt inside at the deed.
"We have to go, Juhani," Calum said, not taking his eyes off the silent Master Vandar. "The Republic has betrayed me again." In that moment, he remembered every last detail of how it had felt the first time; the disbelief, the twisted logic behind the treachery, the inner strength he mustered to carry on. It was all the same.
Without speaking, Juhani bowed and came to his side as he turned to leave, hopeless thoughts filling his mind. One way or another, he had lost Bastila to the Jedi Council. They themselves might not have done anything with her, but he'd come to them needing help in finding her and they'd betrayed him.
In that moment, Calum had gone beyond feeling the remembered blood on his hands. He deactivated his lightsabre and stepped into the blackness of the ruins.
"Wait," Calum heard from behind him. He turned to see Vandar walk toward him, holding up a hand in placation.
"Deserve to hear what we told Bastila, you do," Vandar said. "A prophecy concerning you, it was. In times past, such disaster has been brought by prophecy that Vrook feared the implications if tell you we did. I fear know this prophecy you must, for truly understand it we do not. Perhaps you will."
"What is it?" Calum asked, suddenly breathless with dread.
Vandar spoke, but it was not his words that Calum heard; he felt them in his heart:
The war hero of the Jedi will save his people from the hordes of honor and turn himself to break upon the jaw of the ravenous Destroyers and the founding Forge. Should he seek a path out of destruction, he will lead those who follow into the darkness, and return to seize all rule of Government and Order.
Things flew past him in a rush, dizzyingly fast but strangely comprehensible. Calum remembered with frightening vividness the brutalities of the Mandalorian War, remembered feeling his friend Aleksie's jaw break under his fist, remembered the majesty of the Star Forge and its terrifying purpose. More startling, the visions kept rushing at him, not stopping after the searing explosion of Malak's betrayal. He saw a planet eclipsed by a ghostly blue glow, an unholy alliance between the survivors of the Jedi and Sith Orders, the implacable, unstoppable might of the white horde. Suddenly, in his mind's eye, it made sense.
"Thank you," Calum whispered. At last, he understood what he had to do, why he had to leave.
Vandar nodded. "Go now, you should, Darth Revan."
Aliid absently rubbed his fingerless hands together against the unexpected chill of the night. The breeze from the plains whipped back his long hair and dark mantle as if he were standing in the face of a coastal tide. With a sharp face and eyes like piercing slits squinted against the wind he watched the dead garden, his gaze roamed the twisted, contorted trees and withered vines hung from broken trellises, searched the flower beds where grew only weeds among the ashes of the former beauty.
They would return there. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the next twelve hours. He would return. He had no choice but to return, Aliid knew. It had been part of the pact, inviolate and sacred to all involved.
Darth Revan would not dare break the accord with what was at stake. He would return to the garden, seeking the answer that eluded him. Just as Revan sought his answers, he would provide them to the one Aliid served.
Revan's promise had gone unfulfilled, and the wages would come due.
Aliid's keen eyes picked up movement in the dead garden, by the dormant landspeeder where he expected. Stealthily he moved through the dark, in his absolute element with only the light from the stars and thin sliver of moon illuminating his way. Even since losing his fingers, he excelled at feeling his way through blackness, often relying on nothing else but the sensitive touch of his palms. Over the years, his senses had gotten stronger than he knew was normal, and the loss of his fingers had almost been worth the trade. Even so, his fingers weren't all he'd lost.
With no more noise than the wind that blew through the grass, Aliid came close enough to see the faces of the two figures in the garden. One, a woman dressed in tight-fitting red Jedi robes that appeared pitch black under the cover of night, was Cathar. He didn't recognize the man she followed, but there was little doubt in Aliid's mind that it was Darth Revan. He knew the Dark Lord now traveled with a Cathar companion, and it could not logically be anyone else. Revan was the only one who would be drawn to the dead gardens, lured by the tantalizing scent of purpose.
The Cathar suddenly tensed, and Aliid knew she'd discovered him. She couldn't see him - he doubted anyone could see far enough into the darkness where he hid to catch him by sight - but she could sense him nonetheless. She looked Jedi, but Aliid doubted she'd detected his Force signature--what was left of it was indistinguishable from the random currents one would expect to feel in the Force. Her heightened Cathar senses had most likely detected either the sound of his breathing, the smell of the sweat on his face and hands, or both.
Aliid stepped out from his hiding place, presenting himself to Darth Revan and his servant, stealth abandoned.
Instantly, the Cathar sprang in front of Revan, drawing her blue lightsabre. "Identify yourself!" she hissed in warning. Aliid saw fierce loyalty reflected in her golden eyes from the blue glow of her sabre.
He held his hands out to his sides, useless, fingerless stumps. "I am Aliid," he said to Revan's servant.
"The man is unarmed, Juhani, he hasn't even any fingers," he heard Revan say from behind her. The Cathar, Juhani, held an arm out to hold him back when he tried to approach Aliid.
"I do not trust him. He makes my hair stand on end." She was glaring frighteningly at him.
Aliid was unmoved by her deep suspicion, he didn't care what she thought of him. She might have run him through and he still would not have blinked an eye.
"What is your purpose here?" Revan asked him.
"I come to you as a messenger from Master Izayus," Aliid responded. "He requests an audience with my lord."
Revan frowned at him and Juhani took a menacing step forward. Aliid didn't flinch as she put the tip of her lightsabre at his throat. He boldly met her fierce eyes, silently waiting.
"I don't know your master, and I don't have time for this," Revan said. He laid a hand on Juhani's shoulder, trying to ease her away from Aliid, but she did not turn away.
"We have to find Bastila," he whispered into the Cathar's ear, not knowing Aliid could hear it perfectly.
Reluctantly, the Cathar lowered her lightsabre and deactivated the blue blade, sending the garden back into blackness. She and Darth Revan started to leave.
"Your wife is a guest at the house of Master Izayus," Aliid said to them as they turned away from him.
Instantly, Juhani whirled about and leaped for him, wrapping her hands around his throat as they crashed to the ground. She landed hard on top of him, a knee on his chest and her sharp Cathar claws around his neck. "What did you say!" she snarled, her face inches from his.
Lying perfectly still, Aliid answered calmly. "Jedi Bastila is at the house of Izayus. He wishes to speak with Lord Revan concerning our agreement."
Revan abruptly seized the Cathar by her shoulder and pulled her off Aliid, her claws nicking his neck in passing. He shook her with urgency.
"This man is not the threat, Juhani! Not him!" he yelled. "I know you're upset for me, but this will not help!"
Wordlessly, Aliid rose to his feet. Under the starlight, he saw Revan's face had gone pale as the moon.
"Take me there," Revan said to him.
Aliid was surprised at what he heard in Revan's voice. It was fear. Revan was afraid.
The song quote is taken from the Dark Tranquillity song "The Enemy" and remains the property of Henriksson, Nicklasson, Jivarp, and Stanne.