Chapter 5
When my Lord strode from the cave after completing the ritual, the Force was so strongly with him that I could actually see it as a whirling storm around his massive frame. The dark side bent the light and shrouded him in a cloud of darkness even though it was well past dawn. The ranged weapons of our enemies couldn't penetrate it; even their strongest cannon blasts harmlessly absorbed into the vortex. My Lord Tulak Hord advanced to the Jedi battleline on Yn and tore them apart. His saber shone like the sunset of Korriban as we followed him into the melee. Over a thousand Jedi died that day. My Lord's incredible power made him victorious in a battle that we should not have won. Such a feat will never be forgotten.
--The Holocron of Lord Rorosk, a treasure of the Korriban Sith Academy
For the next two weeks, I spent almost every waking moment with the instructors in the academy archives, trying to learn how to fight. Inquisitor Samus had worked patiently with me, trying to get me a little more competent with my saber, but even he'd grown frustrated after seeing how hopeless I was. He considered it a personal affront that it had taken hours of his personal attention just to reach a point where I wasn't a danger to myself each time I drew my weapon.
"Acolyte," Inquisitor Samus told me, "if it weren't for your other skills, I'd have you thrown from the academy for sheer incompetence." I was terrible with my stolen warblade, but at least I'd learned to sheathe it properly without stabbing myself or getting it tangled in my clothing. "I expect you to spend every second practicing with me. You must learn to wield a blade!"
"Yes, Inquisitor," I promised.
Fortunately, Sith sorcery seemed as natural to me as breathing. Summoning a second force storm had been easy, and Inquisitor Samus had been so delighted to see that I'd figured it out on my own that he hadn't even cared about the charred scorch marks I left in the training room. Better still, he'd taught me how to create a barrier of force lightning to defend myself against physical attacks. I could only maintain it for a few seconds, but given my gross ineptitude with melee weapons, it would be very helpful.
After I'd accidentally cut myself on my warblade, Inquisitor Samus had shown me a few dark healing methods, and I'd only needed the one demonstration before being able to imitate it myself. I was thrilled, even if I could only heal minor injuries. I would improve with practice.
And I'd gotten practice. I'd sought out Overseer Regate in the lower levels of the Sith academy, where she guarded the chambers for the Rite of Blood and Bone. At her direction, I'd gone in, killing a flock of shyrack, and taking a skull from a pile of dead acolytes. I soaked it in a pool of old blood, trying not to gag at the horrific, rancid, rotting stench (which was worse than anything I'd smelled as a slave), and fighting a gigantic k'lor'slug that apparently lurked in its depths. I didn't come close to killing it, but after being burned a few times by my lightning, it decided that it wasn't interested in eating me and fled. I'd needed to heal during that encounter.
"Be wary of the Shadow Killer," said Overseer Regate, staring deeply at the bloodstained skull I'd brought. "When your final trial comes, it can be bound but not controlled." I had no idea what she meant, but she'd seemed very pleased with my results and had called me "young Sith", so I was happy with the outcome. The more tests I could conquer, the more I could demonstrate that I was the best apprentice for Lady Zash.
Overseer Harkun finally summoned us acolytes together almost three weeks after he'd given us our tasks. He was in a bad mood, as always. For once, I wasn't late. I'd been careful to time my arrival with someone else, so while he scowled to see me, he didn't single me out.
"Gerr, step forward." A large male left our ranks and approached the overseer. "Ffon, kill him." Gerr had an instant to decide what to do, and the coward chose poorly. He turned and tried to run. It gave the Sith pureblood the time he needed to summon a burst of lightning. It certainly wasn't as powerful as I could've managed, nor was it as quick, but it was enough to knock his intended victim off his feet. As Gerr lay moaning, Ffon drew his warblade and beheaded him smoothly.
"Let this be an example to you," Harkun said to all of us. "Ffon destroyed him easily, just as he will destroy all of you. Are there any questions?"
"Stop with your taunts and give me my next trial," I said.
"If you wish to prolong your life, you will not make demands of me again, slave!" he threatened. I tried not to sneer at him, I really did. "Listen filth, Lady Zash wishes to test your ability to assist her in her research. You must fetch her a text from the Valley of Tulak Hord. There are dozens of obelisks, each containing a piece of the record. It is a dangerous place, and you will not be the first to die there. If you survive to gather them all, which I doubt, you must then translate it for her. In her mercy, she has given you six standard weeks, but that won't be enough." He smiled directly at me, showing his teeth. "I look forward to finally being rid of you."
"Yes, yes, you send me to the scary tomb to do the impossible, hoping I die, and I come back and prove you wrong...again," I snarked. A part of me wondered what possessed me to be so reckless as to incite Harkun, but the taste of the dark side rising in me distracted me from the thought.
"I've had about enough of your mockery," said the man. "Get out of my sight!"
"Yes, Overseer, right away Overseer," I goaded, sweeping a deep bow. I spun, tripping over my cloak a little as I left first. Ffon's laughter followed me down the hallway. I stomped past another sith pureblood, my fur raising a little as he stared down at me. They were everywhere! I couldn't wait until I finally got to kill Ffon, but I'd settle for any of them in the meantime. If we were in the tombs...
"Acolyte," said a metallic voice, drawing me out of my musings. I turned to see a droid approaching me. "Your presence is immediately requested by Inquisitor Zyn." I followed the droid back to the jails.
"You sent for me, my lord?" I asked, wondering if this had something to do with Alif. Inquisitor Zyn stood in his office, accompanied by a stern, rigid-looking Sith lady.
"This is Inquisitor Urinth of Imperial Intelligence, acolyte," he said. "She has a problem requiring an unconventional solution, and I believe you are uniquely suited to assist her."
"How may I be useful to you, Inquisitor?" I asked her. It was simultaneously unnerving and flattering that the Sith Lord had recommended me specifically. Her lips curled at my lower-class accent.
"We are holding an important Jedi prisoner, a spy who attempted to infiltrate this academy," she said. "Upon capture, we found his mind easy to manipulate. We have implanted false memories in his mind using a combination of drugs and sorcery. All that remains now is to arrange his escape, so that he can report the lies we fed him to his commanders.
"That is where you come in," she said. "You are new enough, young enough, unusual enough to be a traitor. You will go to him, do as he asks. Earn his trust, and help him escape. Do whatever is necessary to get him out of prison. Take your time; we must avoid arousing his suspicion when he returns to his Jedi friends."
"If I may ask, why not just dump him somewhere and give him false memories of escaping?" I asked.
"False Memories rarely hold up to close scrutiny," explained Inquisitor Zyn. "We cannot give him or his fellows any reason to doubt the validity of his escape."
"I don't want to be accused of treason once he's gone," I said cautiously.
"Prove your strength," said the Sith lady. "Prove that you are truly Sith, and all the accusations in the galaxy will be meaningless." That wasn't very reassuring.
"Yes, Inquisitor."
"You will need to be cautious," warned Urinth. "He's been given a mixture of drugs to keep him confused and unable to properly use the force, but that won't cut him off entirely. Do not outright lie to him, or he may be able to sense it."
"Yes, my lady."
"The jailor droids have been told to follow your orders. Do let us know if you require anything special," said Inquisitor Zyn. "You will find him towards the back of the jail." He nodded a dismissal; I bowed to them both and made my way towards where the Jedi was being held, wondering how in the world I could do this. It couldn't take too long; I still had my task for Overseer Harkun to complete! On the other hand, disappointing not one but two Inquisitors didn't come with a long life expectancy, either.
He was easy to find; the Jedi knelt in a force cage, mumbling to himself. He'd obviously been thoroughly worked over by the jail's torturers, perhaps even by Zyn himself. He wore a basic slave collar, as I had done up until recently. Having seen newly taken slaves before, I wasn't surprised to see how he fidgeted with it, hunching his shoulders as if the thick metal circle were a great burden many times heavier than its actual weight. I had expected to feel contempt at his weakness that allowed him to be captured, but instead, I was surprised by a sense of pity.
As I drew closer, I began to understand his words. "There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is...there is...there is no emotion, there is peace." He repeated the same two phrases over and over. Every so often he twitched his head as though trying to shake something loose.
"I take it you're the spy who was captured," I said finally, once I realized he wasn't going to look up and notice me.
"I'm a Jedi, even here. Even on Korriban," he said hoarsely. He struggled to his feet to look at me face to face. He was much taller than I was, human, with dark skin and a stubble of curly black hair that had been recently singed off by a lightsaber, if the burns were any indication. "What do you want with me?"
"Nothing," I said. "I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. You don't look like much."
"I am a Jedi," he repeated. "There is no emotion, there is peace. The Jedi code will guide me." He shifted, wincing as the heavy metal slave collar rubbed against open sores. Watching him, I got an idea.
"Here," I said, pulling a minor medpac out of my bag. "Put it on your neck. It'll ease the chafing." I placed it on the delivery tray; at the press of a button, the tray slid inside his force cage where he could reach it.
"Why do you care?" The Jedi fumbled a little as he rubbed the kolto salve onto his wounds. The drugs made his movements clumsy, but he didn't get frustrated, as I would've done. He took one deep breath, centering himself, and then continued rubbing the last of the medicine onto the worst of his burns. "Why did you do that?"
"I just wanted to help," I shrugged.
"You came to help me?" I felt him try to reach out with the force, but it was like he was trying to catch a flow of water; it slid from his grasp each time he clutched at it. "Why am I thinking in circles? What's wrong with me?!" I felt contempt rise, but I squashed it down, focusing on my pity for him, on the despair on his face. I knew what that despair, that fear and helplessness, felt like. We had that in common.
"You need to calm down," I said. "Take a deep breath!"
"You're right, I apologize." The Jedi did as I suggested. "Thank you for the medpac." He dropped the empty container back into the delivery tray, and I pressed the button to return it to my side of the force field, where I discarded the remains. "That was kind of you."
"That's not a compliment here on Korriban," I said wryly. "But you're welcome." There was an awkward silence for a few long seconds. "I have to go, but I'll visit you again next time the Inquisitor's away," I said.
"Goodbye, Sith," he said.
I spent the rest of my day preparing for my new trial. I'd started in the academy archives, trying to get information on the ancient languages of Tulak Hord's time and what I would need to translate the obelisks. I loaded a cheap datapad with images of every type of hieroglyphics I could find. I hated feeling grateful to my old owner, but if Lord Myon hadn't felt his slaves would be more useful and valuable if they could read, I wouldn't have been able to even decipher Basic! As it was, I was painfully aware of how long it took me to read a simple paragraph without trying to translate an ancient language, too. Still, Harkun wanted me to fail, expected me to fail, so I would succeed to spite him and win my place as Lady Zash's apprentice. Luckily for me, the Valley wasn't that far away from the academy, so I would be able to travel there and back by speeder each day and wouldn't have to spend nights outside of the relative safety of the academy walls.
Early the next morning, I gathered up my supplies and packed them in my bag. After grabbing breakfast at the mess hall, I waited impatiently in the predawn light for a taxi to take me to the Valley of Tulak Hord. It was only a 30 minute speeder ride; I arrived right as the sun crept over the horizon. Instead of being situated on the side of a mountain, the "Valley" was actually a series of enormous cracks in Korriban's desert that stretched for miles.
I descended through a series of well-lit tunnels, following a path until it opened up to a wide expanse, almost a kilometer across. The walls rose steeply, curving in again so that the sky was only visible through a narrow gap in the stone. It was clearly a new excavation project. There were teams of slaves still working steadily to remove sand and crumbled debris from around the various obelisks, statues, paths, and structures built millennia earlier, although most of the major clearing projects had been completed. Soldiers were posted at regular intervals to protect the slaves against wild beasts and discourage thievery.
It was odd, entering the area as an acolyte and not a slave. I wore my long cloak, so it wasn't obvious at first glance that I was an alien or a former slave, but I still felt the urge to cringe away from the soldiers. Nobody paid any attention to me as I began taking holos of every obelisk I could find. And they were everywhere. Harkun had said dozens, but I'd hoped he'd been exaggerating again. Each side was covered with etchings, some deeper than others. Being buried had preserved most of the carvings, but some had been worn away by wind or sandstorms or lay in broken shards on the ground. I only hoped that whatever I could find would be enough.
As the day dragged on, I started getting more and more frustrated. A couple of times I'd been forced to backtrack, unsure if I'd scanned an obelisk or if I'd missed it. There was a labyrinth of smaller canyons on either side, and too often I'd have to go back and forth, trying to make sure I found everything. There was only a small patch of direct sunlight, which was simultaneously pleasing and irritating. On one hand, the area was much cooler. On the other, the deep shadows and sharp contrasts made searching even more difficult.
Eventually I headed back to the academy, sweaty and sore and discouraged. I needed a map. I'd wasted too much time wandering, and several obelisks had large portions crumbled away, obliterating entire sections of the text. I needed to be able to keep track of my findings. There had to be an order, I thought. There had to be a pattern. The ancient sith wouldn't have just plopped the obelisks down randomly.
The next morning, I didn't bother going down to the dig site. I headed straight for the archives. I tried to compare ancient writing styles to the glyphs on the obelisks, but as hours passed, I grew more and more frustrated.
"May I be of assistance, acolyte?" asked an electronic voice. One of the research droids rolled up beside me.
"Yes," I said haughtily. Was I allowed to use these droids? I'd only seen full sith apprentices and lords speaking to them before, but if they were available to me, I would be a fool to turn it away. "Translate this for me." I held out a scan.
"I am not a translation droid," it said to me. I scowled, and it continued quickly, "but I can assist you in identifying the proper language. The terminals will translate anything if you provide the parameters."
"Show me," I said.
Thus began the most arduous part of my task. Each rune had to be painstakingly drawn into the terminal, at which point the computer would search its considerable databanks for matches. It gave me the potential choices, and I had to decide from there what it meant. Eventually, I threw my hands up in disgust and went off to visit the jails. I had not forgotten my other task. It was almost as important as my work for Lady Zash.
"Sith," the Jedi said, standing up again. "I remember you. My mind's clearer now." It seemed that spending a day chanting his Jedi code mantra had improved him, regardless of the drugs he was receiving. A young twi'lek slave watched us from across the room, but when she caught me looking at her, she disappeared through a doorway.
"I brought you something to eat, Jedi," I said, placing the ration bar into the delivery tray. "I know they don't feed you much here." I'd made sure of that.
"Thank you," he breathed, eagerly tearing into the protein supplement.
"Slowly!" I cautioned, but he was already pacing himself. I leaned against the wall as I watched him.
"I didn't expect you to come back," he said, eyeing me sideways.
"I wanted to," I said. "I've been thinking about you a lot."
"I've been thinking about you, too," he said. "Why are you here?"
"Putting a slave collar on you--they didn't need to do that," I said. "You can't escape from the cage, and you'd certainly not make it out of the jail or the academy past all the guards, not to mention the Sith everywhere. They're just being cruel."
"A Sith with a conscience?" His face screwed up and he clutched his head with both hands. I could feel his confusion through the force. "Gah! It's so hard to think straight. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion, there is peace," he repeated. "I can focus."
"Why did you come to Korriban?" I asked as he ate.
"I won't tell you anything," he said.
"I wasn't trying to interrogate you," I said, rolling my eyes. "I was just curious. It's not like you ended up here by accident."
"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion..." If he wouldn't trust me to answer simple questions, why would he trust me to help him escape? And he had to trust me, he had to believe that I was sincerely trying to help him, or I would fail my task.
"How often do they drug you?" I asked. "You can tell me that at least!"
"I don't know. Time seems strange here," he said. "Mostly the Sith just leave me alone." That gave me an idea, a terrible, good idea.
"It's better that way, Jedi," I agreed. A sick feeling was rising in my stomach. It felt an awful lot like guilt. I pushed it away.
"My name is Quorian Dorjis," he said. "What's your name, Sith?"
"You can just call me Acolyte," I said.
"You don't want to tell me your name?" he asked slowly. The force shifted uneasily around us. Could he sense my thoughts? I had to distract him! He would know if I lied...
"It's not that, it's just complicated," I said quickly. "Look, Quorian, I grew up a slave here on Korriban, and I'm a Cathar, which made it harder since I'm not a near-human. It...I didn't...They didn't call me anything good. When my master realized I could use the force, he sent me here. Maybe I'll find something appropriate to call myself someday, something I like, but for now I prefer to just go by Acolyte."
"I apologize. I didn't know," he said. He seemed sincerely sorry, which was strange to me. Had I revealed that to anyone else, they'd have used it to mock me as a matter of principle.
"It's not like it matters," I said bitterly. "Most people call me slave or alien scum anyways. But I'll prove them wrong. I've passed every test they've given me, and I will do anything to become Sith."
"What happens to you if you don't pass your trials?" he asked.
"Same thing that'll happen to you when the Inquisitors get tired of you," I scoffed. "Failures don't survive long here."
"That's terrible," the Jedi said. "We don't do anything like that in the Order." He seemed really sad. "I hope you succeed," he added quietly.
"I'll be back soon, Quorian," I said eventually. How else was I to respond to something like that?
"Be careful, Acolyte," he called after me.
