Chapter Four

The next day, Maul and Savage left the bar after paying the bartender and the whore the last of the money in their wallets. They knew their mission was to find the Madness herb and now that they knew how to find it, they would not hesitate to grab one when found. Using threats at the tip of their lightsabers, they managed to get rides to the forest via people who would have sped past it at anyway. Savage pointed out a bush that seemed to match the description given by the drunken smuggler once they arrived to the edge and Maul pulled off one of them immediately.

"Carry it, watch me in action should we encounter any rancors and observe what I do and remember it in case you face one without me. Like any other plant, the Madness herb likely can be crushed if under the rancor's feet so I want you to keep it safe until we find a rancor that can take us to Kycina's home," Maul ordered. "Don't you mean to dominate the minds of the ones we encounter so as to gaze into their memories and see if they know where Kycina is?" Savage inquired, curious. "Yes but if I do not find a hint of Kycina in the mind of the beast I have, I will kill it immediately," Maul answered.

Savage nodded and kept the herb in one hand while carrying his lightsaber in another one. Maul led the way through the clearest path in the forest and though he had to cut some of the vegetation in the forest, they were virtually unopposed. Savage began to question the legend of these forests being infested with rancors but as if the thought itself were a provocation, a massive rancor came rampaging through the forest, devastating everything in its path. It was about to trample the brothers when Maul extended a hand out to it with the Force and began to enter its mind.

Savage watched as Maul intensely concentrated on penetrating the pathetic mental defenses of the beast. He saw the way Maul intensified when the beast resisted and mellowed when it did not. "How in the universe is this even possible?" Savage asked, thinking aloud. Then the rancor dropped as though it was going to die and Maul climbed up its face and over its head before beckoning Savage to do the same.

"Can it take us to Kycina?" Savage asked. "Not all the way but over most of the terrain that would have taken us weeks by foot excluding other rancors. Besides, this one is the biggest in this part of the forest and the others will not want to fight him when they see him coming their way," Maul answered with a smile. Savage did the same and slipped behind Maul as his brother was the one who would know how to guide it near Kycina's domain.

When Savage settled in and Maul had the rancor running its fastest, it seemed as though the world around them was a blur as the rancor sped over trees, bushes, and even small animals. The biggest surprise to Savage was how his brother didn't need reins to control the beast's movements as was normal with a creature like this being used for transportation over vast distances. "Once you completely bend a beast like this to your will, you only need to keep them focused on the course as they will surely try to go for food," Maul said, clearly reading his brother's thoughts rather than just randomly lecturing. Savage was able to better grasp this when the beast made a right turn instead of a left turn and Maul had to bend his mind back under control again.

It was another few hours before they stopped and Savage's stomach didn't have the friendliest response to the sudden change in speed. In fact, it violently forced him to vomit just after getting off the rancor and making sure the Madness herb was still in the pouch he designed for its protection. Maul shook his head in pity and wondered if it was a good idea to show Savage how to control a rancor, let alone teach him how to do it. "We're near Kycina's hut, if she's cooking food right now then we merely need to follow the smell," Maul said.

He let the rancor loose to find food of its own and Savage asked why he hadn't killed it. "Savage, we only need to kill those who are sentient enough to write, speak, or communicate to others in anyway unless we want to be found and are ready to be found. That rancor is barely sentient enough to even have memories thus it poses no threat to us," Maul answered. "Forgive me brother, I understand now and I'm also picking a faint smell of stew," Savage said grimly then lightheartedly.

Maul picked it up too and they both ran in the direction that the smell was coming from before they saw smoke that led them even further up the mountain they had scaled with the rancor. And just when they had expected the barrier of vegetation to keep getting thicker and more impenetrable, it suddenly cleared after several minutes and revealed a hut big enough for perhaps four people at the most. Inside, though they had to squint to see her, the woman Maul had seen in the rancor's memories was cooking a stew and humming a tune that was maternal in its nature. For a change, Savage was the one who was instructor to his brother who impulsively began to approach the hut without caution or stealth.

"No brother, when I found you raving mad I took it easy shortly after you tried to kill me for food. I recommend we do the same in approaching Kycina as we don't know what thirty years here has done to her," he said. "Lead the way then, my brother," Maul conceited. Savage did precisely that and had Maul observe the lack of speed in his approach toward Kycina's hut.

Maul followed his example and both of them slowly crept toward the home of the Nightsister Mother Talzin had banished for giving away one of her sons to a human. But just remembering that made Maul's suspicions of his relation to her thus relating her to Savage as well came back to him. He wasn't so certain that she wasn't a stranger to him and that tune, which he remembered from when he was a baby, only heightened his conviction. Then she looked up just as they were outside the door and retreated back into her room, screaming at the top of her lungs and beating her chest.

"Wait Kycina, wait! We only wish to speak with you," Savage called. "Savage no, let he come out in her own time. If there's anything I remember from my own madness, it's that those who are insane will only return from the corners they retreat to when they're ready and the approaching people turn out to be friendly rather than dangerous as they thought," Maul said to which Savage nodded in agreement.

"Is there anything I can do to help you, my Master?" Dooku asked. "No nothing, this must be dealt with alone, if you can understand that," Sidious answered. Sidious' heart had been heavy as durasteel when he had sensed a presence he never guessed he feel again. He had been initially surprised when he found out about Maul's survival but when he felt the presence of Kycina, he had been baffled and confounded by the idea.

There was no way that witch who gave Maul to him could have lived all these years without retaliation of some sort from Mother Talzin. The code of the Nightsisters made that impossible and yet here she was, still living and breathing just like him. Could her punishment have been exile instead of death as he thought Mother Talzin would have done to her at finding out Maul had been given to him? It was a possibility he didn't want to explore too deeply but perhaps with his knowledge of her connection to Maul, he could use her to his advantage in finding out whether his former apprentice and new enemy wanted to kill him or not.

Maybe he was just punishing himself with paranoia for having so lightly disposed of Maul after raising him for years. It would make sense and was so easy to believe but he refused to believe it fully as it could easily cause his undoing. Instead, he had Dooku arrange his finest fleet and remain on standby until he found out Maul's intent for him. Once he confirmed Maul was a threat to his plans, he would send Dooku to finish what Kenobi had started more than ten years before on Sidious' homeworld of Naboo.

"Yes Maul, you and Savage have at last found Kycina. Now, it is only a matter of time before you complete my plans for Dathomir," Talzin thought aloud with incredible enthusiasm. She knew that if used properly, Kycina and her sons would be the best pawns she ever had when it came to her plans of power beyond the dreams of any man or woman presently alive. While she thought about this, she heard footsteps in the distance and knew better than to stick around until whoever was approaching arrived to where she was now.

Immediately, she teleported herself onto an opening in the ceiling that led to another floor. She watched and waited for the person who had apparently followed her into this place emerge from the darkness. The face that she would see surprised her briefly as it belonged to Asajj Ventress who Talzin had directed away from Dathomir after Dooku destroyed their Nightsister tribe in revenge for Ventress' attempt on his life. "I swear I heard a voice along here that sounded familiar," she said, cursing under her own teeth.

Talzin shrugged and decided to reveal herself, knowing that since Ventress had become a true Nightsister she could bend the poor girl to her will if she need to do it. When Ventress saw Talzin, she initially activated her remaining lightsaber and placed it in a defensive position. "So surprised to see me that you attack me when I reveal myself to you, are you Ventress?" Talzin asked when she completed her descent from the ceiling above them. "You once told me my life on Dathomir was over, is this why you said that?" Ventress asked, ignoring Talzin's question completely.

"With the Nightsister tribe wiped out and my revenge on Dooku satisfied besides the interference from that droid Grievous, I needed to direct you away from here. Nothing personal, I just needed you out of the way when I resumed my lifelong dreams again," Talzin explained. "You betrayed me and left me when I needed you most just so you could raise this city up!" Ventress demanded, shocked. "Not just to raise this city but to also resurrect my immortal namesake and bring the people of my old world back into this one," Talzin told her.

"What old world, are you claiming you are older than you look?" Asajj inquired, very confused. "Millennia before the Jedi and the Sith, when they were still called the Followers of Ashla and the Followers of Bogan respectively, there was an old Dathomir that was entranced with the magic that the Bogan had discovered. But amongst the most powerful users of this magic was a goddess named Talzin like me. This Talzin grew so powerful, according to legend, that the other goddesses with their husbands united together to imprison her and prevent her from destroying the universe as they knew it then," she explained.

"What happened to all of them?" Asajj asked, deactivating her lightsaber while Mother Talzin told this story. "The people were sealed away on their own planet along with the goddess and this city, which was a median between the first level which is the current Dathomir and the afterlife that is the old Dathomir. Unfortunately, the goddesses and their husbands sacrificed their lives to seal her away and bury this entire city underground so as to let this Dathomir develop by itself. I was one of the privileged few of the old world to find my way back here and begin plotting the return of my namesake to this galaxy and I have been plotting since the day I returned here nearly thirty thousand years ago," Talzin answered, concluding her phenomenal story.

"I have to stop you from doing this, if you succeed then it will mean the end of the galaxy!" Ventress shouted before reactivating her lightsaber. Talzin laughed which stopped Ventress where she was for a split second. "You think a lightsaber is going to do anything to me? If so then you are a fool!" Talzin said then she grabbed Ventress on her bald head.

Then she used her abilities in the Force and her connection to Ventress as a fellow Nightsister to completely dominate her mind. It was quick and painless and when Ventress awoke from the trance Talzin put her into, she would be Talzin's servant and guardian of the city when she could no longer be there. And thinking of it brought a smile to the old hag's cruel face.