Chapter 8

Instructors will often teach students to embrace their anger and ignore fears, and why wouldn't they? It is much simpler to draw upon the dark side using anger as opposed to fear. Fear can be dangerous to a Sith, for it often leads to indecision, self-doubt, or paralysis. However, I prefer to have my students focus on their fears and learn to use it as fuel for their anger. Anger burns hot, growing into festering hatred or deep-seated rage, but, like fire, it will extinguish itself without an energy source. Fears are not easily defeated, and the wise student will not suppress them in favor of other, flashier emotions.

--The Holocron of Lord Rommus, a treasure of the Korriban Sith Academy

"I will be sure to mention your hard work to your master, acolyte." It had only taken a couple of hours for me to return to the academy. I was eager to put this chapter of my life behind me.

"I thank you, my Lord," I said. "I am eager to impress Lady Zash."

"Take these tokens as thanks for your service," said Inquisitor Urinth, Zyn nodding approvingly along, "and know that no Jedi can ever threaten Korriban. Now go."

I spent almost 15 minutes in the sonic shower, getting the ash and blood and dirt out of my fur, even though the frequencies made my sensitive ears ring. The stomach-turning smell had subsided substantially, and I knew that it would dissipate as soon as I took the time to groom myself properly. It was late when I finally managed to fall asleep, and my dreams were full of regret and the chill of the dark side.

I flung myself wholeheartedly into my task for Lady Zash. I spent a few days in the valley, reading through each of the maps that the slavemaster had maintained. There were detailed photographs of the entire area from above. There were intricate topographical maps showing the rock features and each different boulder, cave, and chasm. There were even maps of what the subsurface scanners had detected underneath the shifting sands! I took care to mark my obelisks, even detailing which direction each particular side faced, just as I'd had to do as a slave in Lord Myron's excavations.

Interestingly, each obelisk was the same width and height, but the characters varied tremendously in size and spacing. Some were covered with glyphs smaller than my palm, set in meticulous rows that allowed the carver to fit a maximum number on each side. Other obelisks had large characters cut in deep, bold strokes that took up large swaths of the available space. The obelisks themselves were built from a hard, polished rock unlike the sandy, crumbling red and orange stones of the area, which had helped preserve the carvings for such a long time.

My first big breakthrough came when I finally narrowed down the subset of glyphs that the original scribes had used to create the obelisks, which sped up my task. It made the process of translating quicker for the computer, as well as myself, since I was able to research the construction and format of the language. I learned the special symbol that denoted names of people and places, what separated one thought from another, and even just the order in which one was supposed to decipher them.

My next realization came after I spent some time studying the history of obelisks and their construction. They were always affiliated with a location of significance, and their carvings related to that, whether it was a single spire to mark the grave of a powerful sith or a series of obelisks to commemorate a Dark Side nexus or temple. Each one traditionally told a single story, beginning on one side and wrapping around to the next. This discovery lent some semblance of order to the placement of the tens of thousands of characters and let me begin to actually translate the meaning of the text.

It was immensely satisfying when I finished translating my first Obelisk. I'd chosen one with very large, deeply cut characters, which meant it told a shorter story. In basic, it told of a time that Tulak Hord had executed a weaker Sith Lord and made an example of him for trying to pay a lesser tribute than expected. When I consulted a history of Tulak Hord that the archive droids had provided me, I found the same story detailed there, recovered from another monument on some other world. I almost cried with relief. I could do this.

I spent every waking moment in the library, snatching meals and cutting my slumber short in order to make progress on my gargantuan task. Slowly but surely, I was able to translate faster and faster, going from deciphering portions of one obelisk per day to over half a dozen. I started to learn specific groupings of characters and individual glyphs, which saved me time. The deadline of six standard weeks loomed menacingly over me, growing ever nearer.

The most maddening thing was that I knew I was missing pieces. Sometimes it was obvious; many obelisks had portions that had been broken away, obscuring the writing. Others were worn so bare from sand and wind that I could hardly discern what the characters were supposed to be. Sometimes even the powerful scanning equipment that the slaves used to document and tag the obelisks and carvings could not recognize any trace of previous engravings.

My final breakthrough came when I was once again reviewing my maps, trying to figure out any semblance of order among the individual obelisks. I could recognize that they seemed to be roughly grouped chronologically, telling the story of Tulak Hord's life, but it wasn't until I consulted one of the more obscure architectural maps that I realized there was the remains of a very long, twisting path buried deeply under the sands. My obelisks lined the path, placed alternatingly on each side, snaking from one end of the valley in and out of the various wadis until it ended at the grandest cluster of tombs at the other side of the main canyon.

That gave me a pattern to follow, and more crucially, helped me identify the locations where obelisks were missing. I had 11 days left of my task, so I headed back out to the Valley of Tulak Hord to search for the ones I still needed. At first, I tried to move the sand with the force, pushing it to the side and trying to reach down with my feelings to see if I could sense the stone where it was buried and lift it free. It was fruitless, but I was desperate, so after an hour of failure I returned to the mouth of the canyon.

"Slavemaster," I said, ready to defend myself if the guards attacked me again. The man glanced up, saw my face, and sprang to his feet to bow deeply. He did remember me, then.

"My lady, how may I be of service?" he asked. The soldiers stood even straighter in response to his obsequious manner.

"I am translating the texts on the obelisks within the Valley for my master, Lady Zash," I said. Strictly speaking, that wasn't quite true, but it would be, once I beat Ffon and the others for the position. "I have identified several locations where I believe obelisks are still buried under the desert, and I want those areas completely excavated. Have the slaves stop their general operations in other areas and concentrate their efforts on locating the missing artefacts. Is that clear?" I tried my best to speak clearly, avoiding the slurring and slang of a lower class-accent, but I could still hear the twang of a slave come through my speech.

"We cannot reassign all of the slaves," the Slavemaster said, cringing a bit, "but I shall certainly redirect a sufficient force to meet my lady's and Lady Zash's requirements," he hurriedly assured me. "Where are these obelisks that have yet to be uncovered?"

"I shall mark them on your map for you," I said haughtily. "Lady Zash requires this work be completed no later than 9 days from now." I hoped that would give me time to translate the missing 16 obelisks before reporting to Harkun. In the interim, I could finish interpreting the texts I already had and compile the entire project into something semi-organized to present to Lady Zash.

"I am always happy to serve the sith, my lady." I took my datapad and copied my annotated map onto his. He examined it closely. "I shall get to work on that immediately," he promised.

"Good," I said. "I'm glad to see that I made the correct decision, those weeks ago."

"You did, my lady, and I am very grateful for your mercy," he said, bowing again.

"Inform me whenever an obelisk is uncovered," I ordered, feeling a heady rush of power as this man, the slavemaster, continued to defer and accept my commands without question.

"Of course, my lady."

But things didn't go quite to plan. Seven days in, the slaves had only uncovered 9 of the missing obelisks. Six were still unaccounted for, and I was running out of time. I had finished everything I could do, and the waiting was starting to become overwhelming. I knew Harkun would take any excuse, anything at all, to get rid of me, and I couldn't risk that he would kill me when I was this close and had done so much to earn my place while he spoonfed his pet pureblood.

"Tell me that you're going to find the last obelisks within the time Lady Zash has allotted," I said when the slavemaster looked up from his work and realized I was standing before him. "Tell me that you're close, that you've found them and that all that remains is moving some dirt."

"We've had some...problems," said the slavemaster. He seemed nervous, but not nearly as anxious as he had been before. "Four days ago, some of the slaves overpowered a squad of soldiers and stole their weapons, and they've been inciting the other slaves to rebellion. The entire area is in chaos right now. It's all the army can do to keep them contained in there; our work has come to a complete standstill in this area, and by order of Darth Rikam of the Imperial Reclamation Service, all efforts to continue the excavation of this area are halted until the military has it under control." Ah, so that was it. His orders from Rikam protected him from responsibility for the failure, and anything I did would be interpreted as going against the explicit orders of a high-ranking sith.

"What a shocking display of incompetence by the military," I snarled, my cathar accent getting stronger as my emotions rose. I couldn't afford this delay! My claws began to extend, and I clenched my fists and tried to force them back. I couldn't kill him, not really, no matter how much I wanted to. Too much time had passed since his initial offense of attacking a sith acolyte, and I was not important enough to defend myself if someone took umbrage with my actions.

"I know that additional soldiers are expected to arrive soon from offworld, but then they'll have to clear out everything before another batch of slaves can get to work again," offered the slavemaster, eyeing me warily. "We have requested assistance from the academy, but the masters there feel that it would be more beneficial to have various acolytes test and prove themselves against additional enemies, so they have refrained from sending in sith in any large numbers."

"That's disappointing," I said, my fur rising. "Lady Zash still needs these texts. When this mess is cleaned up and the slaves have found the obelisks, have detailed scans taken and sent to me so that I can prepare them for her at her convenience."

"I shall do that, my lady," said the slavemaster. I left, trying not to run as the fear surged through me. I stewed on things during the speeder ride back to the academy. What could I do? Nothing. I couldn't put down an entire slave rebellion by myself. I could barely block a basic sword stroke with my vibroblade without hurting myself--I was nowhere near ready to try blocking blaster bolts with it. My force barriers wouldn't stand up to any repeated assault. Even if I could get into the valley safely and find the missing obelisks, I couldn't get them out of the ground alone, and with all excavation operations halted, there was nobody I could enlist to help me. I was stuck.

I obsessively checked my datapad for any updated information, but nothing arrived, day after day after day. The fear was almost all-consuming now. I tried my best to keep it from crippling me, tried to turn it into rage at the unfairness of it all, but I kept slipping into the bone-deep terror that I would be walking to my death when I presented my research to Harkun.

At the appointed hour on the appointed day, I was early to the overseer's office. I entered with two other former slaves, twins, so Harkun wouldn't be able to accuse me of being late. We waited; Ffon arrived just before the Overseer himself.

"And now there are four," said Harkun with relish. "The weak are falling one by one. How much longer until you all die and only Ffon is left?" I met his gaze but said nothing. I didn't really want to draw his ire, particularly with the state of my task.

"Let's have it, then," he said. "Wydr, step forward." One of the large twins walked over to his desk and presented a satchel of metal cylinders.

"The scrolls of Uldun," he said. "I have verified their authenticity with the authorities in the Imperial Reclamation Service." He bowed quickly and returned to his place in line, eyes averted. How like a slave, I thought.

"Balek?"

"I located and retrieved the holocron of Lord Kennik the Whisperer from his tomb," said the other twin, placing the artefact on the overseer's desk with a bow before slipping back to stand beside his brother. I knew of that place; I had flown past it on my desperate speeder ride out to the Lower Wilds, those weeks ago. Some tomb raiding was all he'd been asked to do? Was that truly worthy of six weeks of effort? And Wydr only had to locate experts and get them to authenticate something? But at least they'd managed to finish their tasks, simple as they were.

"Ffon," said the Overseer, gesturing with one hand.

"Overseer, I have retranslated an obscure text detailing the dealings of one Lord Ortan Cela," said Ffon. Retranslated? He had been provided the text, and all he had to do was translate? My fury was rising, but even so my fear left a literal sour taste in my mouth. I was glad that none of the others were Cathar or other alien species with powerful senses of smell; they would have been able to tell how afraid I was as my turn came to present.

"And you, Slave," finished Harkun. "Tell me, did you enjoy digging in the sand? It's all you'll ever be good for." Ffon laughed. I glared.

"I located one hundred three obelisks in the new excavation called the Valley of Tulak Hord," I said bitingly. "I translated each text and cross-referenced it to any known stories of Tulak Hord. Here is my report." I placed a cheap datapad on his desk and stepped back in line with the barest hint of a bow. He didn't really deserve the gesture, and I certainly didn't respect him, but no matter how angry I was, I didn't dare antagonize him further.

"I shudder to imagine what mangling of language this contains," said Harkun. "I'll make sure to inspect it before forcing Lady Zash to suffer through such atrocities."

"I'm certain Lady Zash will be pleased with my efforts," I said, trying to sound confident. Harkun sensed the lie through the force, and it pleased him. He laughed at me too.

"You're just digging your own grave, Slave. Get out of my sight. As for the rest of you, you're all dismissed. Go. I'll summon you when it's time for your next task."

I spent the next several days waiting for the vibroblade to drop. I filled my days with training with Inquisitor Samus and his apprentices, knowing that I was definitely the weakest of the acolyte group as far as lightsaber combat was concerned. Most of them still sneered at me, but at least it was because I was incompetent, not because I wasn't human.

Almost two weeks later, the slavemaster at the valley of Tulak Hord excavation sent me the missing scans. I quickly translated them as best I could, but it was harder since I couldn't seem to find any story from the Dark Lord's life that matched them. It was all about artefacts that represented wrath, hatred, fury, and despair and using them to enter his path towards...something. The obelisks had sustained some damage over the millenia, and great chunks of the stone had been torn away at some point.

Then came the more pertinent question: what to do with them? I certainly couldn't take the rest of my project to Harkun now, so late after the due date. He would seize that as another sign I was a failure and I would definitely be killed. On the other hand, I couldn't very well search the academy until I found Lady Zash's office and just hand her my results--I hadn't interacted with many full sith lords or ladies, but I knew that would be a bad idea.

I continued to wait. On the fifth day, the summons came. Harkun wanted me in his chambers immediately. I gathered my nerves, tried to squash the doubting certainty that I was walking to my death, and made my way towards the small downstairs office where my fate would be announced.