Chapter 15
Rend woke, choking and gasping for air. A hazy form hovered over him, hands pressed onto his chest - no doubt as part of his resuscitation. For a second, it looked like …
" … Torio?"
"Tosin, it's me."
Hallie. Finally, his vision cleared and the great hall came back into view. He sat up slowly, Hallie moving back to give him some space.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Why haven't you run?"
"I couldn't just leave. Not without … not without finding out the reason Siphon turned on me. If there's anything to find, it has to be here."
Pain coursed through Rend's body, sharp and unrelenting, as a violent cough overtook him.
"You're in incredible danger," said Rend, as he finally recovered. "I told Siphon you were dead. She expects you to be dead."
"All the better. Nobody will be looking for me. And what better time to infiltrate and snoop around a secure facility than when it's under attack?"
Rend shook his head. "You need to go. The last time I tried anything like this … it didn't end well. You shouldn't be here!"
"Hey, if I hadn't snuck back in, you'd be the dead one alright? Lay off."
She had a point.
"If you really want to thank me … maybe you could help?" asked Hallie. "I could use someone to watch my back."
He shook his head. "I … I can't, Hallie. I have to go help ou- my master. Orthas' power … I don't know if even Siphon can ..."
" - you realize Siphon used you as a human shield, right? She never intended for you to win against Orthas; she just wanted you to buy time for her."
"She's my master. I sacrificed everything to become her disciple. I can't just throw that away …"
"You're nothing to her but a bag of meat! After everything she's done, everything she did to me, to you, you -"
"She is my master. I cannot forsake her."
Hallian let out an exasperated sigh. "She's going to get you killed. And that's if she doesn't kill you herself. I'm not going to be around to bring you back from the dead all the time, you know that right?
Rend struggled to pick himself up, almost slipping a few times. "... she's the only family I have left."
Hallian didn't answer for a long moment, merely watched as he righted himself against a piece of fallen statue. The pain had receded to a dull throb, but his breath still came in jittered gasps. HIs limbs felt enervated, drained by Orthas' unrelenting attack; moving them took an enormous amount of both physical and mental focus. Rend prayed this feeling would subside by the time he reached his master.
Finally, Hallian spoke. "Why didn't you kill me back at New Adasta? Why did you let me go?"
"You didn't deserve to die," he said simply.
She responded quietly. "I'm sure there were plenty who Siphon ordered you to kill that didn't deserve to die. But you killed them anyway."
Rend flashed back to Torio. To Yaraline. To that first family he had been dispatched to kill.
" … what's your point?"
"Only that you didn't answer my question," she said. "Why did you spare me when Siphon ordered you to kill me?"
"I don't know what you want me to say."
"The truth."
The word sparked something inside him, and he could not help himself from bursting out with emotion. "The truth? The truth?! I don't know why! That's the truth! Maybe it's because it's disgusting what we're doing in this Kaggath, destroying ourselves even as we're fighting a galactic war. Maybe it's because I'm sick of killing the people I c- … that I care about. Maybe I'm tired of being an executioner of our own people, a wheel that perpetuates the mistakes from Imperial history again and again, with every cycle, every turn, every conflict."
The necessity for breath forced him to pause.
"Siphon is the one who is forcing the wheel," said Hallie. "Don't you see? If those are your reasons … can't you see that she is the one leading you down that -?"
"She is my master! She is everything that I have strived for, sacrificed for, to achieve! I can't abandon her now, not after everything I've done, the lives I've taken, the blood that stains my hands! If I leave her now, it would have all been for nothing."
His outburst left Hallian speechless for a long minute. Instead, she walked forward to help him stabilize himself, offering one hand while placing the other on his back. Rend pushed her hand away, limping towards the ritual chamber. Hallian didn't follow. It wasn't until he had reached the exit to the great hall that she asked, " … you really aren't like any other Sith, are you?"
"Maybe Orthas is right. Maybe I am just a pretender. Playing at being Sith."
Rend turned to face Hallian one last time.
" Maybe … it's all that I know."
Alone with his mortal enemy in the ritual chamber of Twinspire Keep, Orthas watched as Siphon sliced one of his flying lightsabers in two. She switched deftly from the defensive Soresu into the aggressive Ataru, leaping towards him to close their gap, her own crimson blade poised to strike. Orthas countered with swift jabs of his blade in a variant of Makashi, forcing his opponent to redirect her attacks into parries. Simultaneously, he manipulated his remaining flying saber into position to slash at his opponent's back.
She dropped into the diplomat's stance, Niman - Orthas could tell from her arrogant poise that this was the form Siphon favored. A cocky chuckle emitted from behind her mask; the next moment, she unleashed a blast of Force to knock Orthas' flying saber aside while flipping backwards to flee towards the central dais.
So, the impostor had some skill after all.
Not enough though. Not enough to defend against a true Sith.
Siphon kept trying to move towards the inner circle of the ritual chamber, doubtless so that she could seize some environmental advantage from her familiarity with the room, or hide behind the innumerable banners bearing the Imperial insignia that circled the central dais. Deception and treachery, that was all she knew. Nothing of true power. Nothing of what it meant to defeat, to conquer, to dominate.
Orthas wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't stand for it. He would purge the Empire of these heretics and leave only the worthy to stand. His disciples worried that what remained would not be enough to stand against the Republic. Such concerns were beneath the pureblood. If they were to die, they would die with honor, and glory, and the knowledge that they fought to the last as pure Sith.
Besides, the Empire could not claim victory over the Republic if it depended on alien hands to bring it to them, their foul stench tainting everything. Yet their leaders insisted on polluting the ranks, accepting mongrel and impure blood into what should have been reserved for only the mighty. The Dark Council was a circle of fools, all of them; Vowrawn in particular had betrayed all the pureblooded Sith in even entertaining the notion of associating with filth. That traitor would be the last step on Orthas' ascent to purification.
The first would be Siphon.
Orthas directed his remaining flying saber with his free hand, spinning it through the air with marvelous alacrity. Simultaneously, he leaped forward to intercept Siphon's path as she once again tried - and failed - to sneak behind the circle of banners that surrounded the central dais. She hissed from behind her mask, lightsaber brought upwards to meet the one in his hand at only the last second while sending a blast of electricity to throw the second blade off course and force it to careen into the wall behind her.
Laughter poured from his mouth even as they struggled to overpower the other. "Even your apprentice managed to at least graze me, Siphon. You seem only capable of running and hiding."
She returned the emotion from behind her golden mask. "A 'filthy mongrel' managed to wound you? Are you losing your touch?"
Orthas didn't bother to respond, instead slamming his heel into her torso with a vicious kick that knocked her backwards into the stone walls, causing her to grunt with pain and her lightsaber to fall from her grip. Cracks jutted out around her like a halo from her impact against the wall.
The true Sith didn't give her a moment's rest, flinging his lightsaber in a wide arc while simultaneously launching himself forward in pursuit, summoning the blade Siphon had redirected with a pull from the Force.
Just as he was about to impale her upon his blade, Siphon stole the lightsaber he had flung to sever her in two, forcibly redirecting it to parry his attack. A thunderous blast followed, crackling with electrical energy, billowing towards him. He cursed, twisting his body to redirect his trajectory downwards, landing on all fours.
Siphon cackled with mocking glee.
How he would make her pay. His only regret: that none would hear her dying screams as he snuffed out her life.
"You are a relic, Orthas! An anachronism that belongs in museums to be reflected upon with derision, as the enlightened mock the fool notions of their prehistoric ancestors. There is no such thing as purity of blood. There is only power! There is only victory!"
Siphon raised her hands up into the air. Lightning coalesced from above Orthas, bolts striking downwards, forming a static prison from which he saw no escape. Then, one by one, the bolts of lightning struck him in the chest, blasting away his lightsabers, sending surge after surge of power into his body, wracking him from head to toe. Siphon poured all of her strength into this singular attack, while laughter fell from her lips in psychotic waves.
The pain felt excruciating … but it only brought him more power.
Orthas screamed, letting loose a shockwave of Force energy amplified by his rage and agony, completely dissipating Siphon's sorcery. It shattered all the windows in the chamber, sending torrents of glass shards careening to the ground and slammed Siphon backwards and downwards to the ground; a cry of shock and surprise replaced her cackling. Immediately, Orthas summoned from his boundless well of strength, seizing hold of Siphon through the Force, slamming her body into the ground over and over, lifting her into the air and then driving her back into cold stone. Again and again, until there was nothing but a battered pulp.
The sound of metal clattering against the stone floor pierced the cacophony of the Force in turbulence; Siphon's mask had fallen from her face.
Orthas looked upon the visage of a female human, stray strands of wispy auburn hair draped over a sweat-covered visage. She was but a feeble pretender after all. She had no true power. She was done.
He had won.
His arm outstretched, Orthas lifted Siphon into the air one last time, watched as fear pierced her unmasked eyes as she felt her throat being crushed, the air drained from her lungs, the power - his power - choking the life from her.
The exhilaration was so intense, he almost didn't feel something cold and metallic press against his back.
Crimson light erupted from his chest.
He didn't understand at first what had happened; why he suddenly felt all his strength siphoned away, why he could no longer compel the Force to kill the woman he had defeated. The corpse that waited for its final rest. The Sith he had proven false. Why? Why did his power abandon him?
Orthas looked down. The brilliant red energy blade of a lightsaber jutted outwards from his chest, its hilt, nowhere to be seen. He gasped for air that did not come, drowning in confusion, watching as the battered Siphon slipped from his grasp and collapsed onto the ground.
The lightsaber in his chest withdrew into its hilt. Pain, searing, overwhelming, pierced his very core. He staggered forward and back, trying desperately to face his assassin.
Slowly, he turned.
Before him, a woman wearing a familiar golden mask, dressed in the same robes that Siphon herself wore. It was impossible … he glanced back to gaze upon the woman he had defeated. The golden mask still lay at her side, cracked from their battle.
But they were the same.
"You … you are Siphon? The real Siphon?"
Even her voice was identical. "No, Orthas. We are Darth Siphon. And you are defeated."
"How?" The words choked from his lips. Why were they so hard to speak?
"Simple." The woman removed her mask, revealing the same face that Orthas had uncovered moments ago … the same, save for the burn scars that covered her left cheek and forehead.
She smiled, wicked and with delight, pulling toughened and leathery skin into a cruel contortion.
"My sister warned you. Vestral was your best chance. Even then, it would not have been certain. I had masked my presence through the Force from the very beginning, you see. Vestral never knew our nature. So masterful am I at this art that even you were unable to detect me. And so while my valiant sister did battle … I waited for my opportunity to strike."
She smiled, continuing. "While one Siphon occupied your attention … the other readied the noose around your neck."
"… no. No. You are impostors … " Orthas breathed. "You … you are no Sith. You have no right to defeat me! You have not the right!"
Siphon chuckled, cold as frost. "Haven't you learned yet? There is more than one kind of power, my lord. I am so glad we were able to show it to you before you perished."
With two fingers, Siphon made a tapping motion. Instantly, Orthas felt himself topple over, collapse to the ground, the last of his breath seeping away. More than the pain now, he felt something … a pit in his stomach. A tingling in his mind. Fear.
He was afraid.
Darkness devoured his vision slowly, swallowing everything in oblivion. His breath came slower and slower. Only the Force sustained him, and it too would soon abandon him. Part of him didn't understand, didn't comprehend, how this could be.
He had lost.
"So ends the reign of Darth Orthas. The fool that dared challenge Darth Siphon. May he be remembered for his folly."
The last thing that Orthas saw was a solitary figure limp into the chamber.