Chapter 12
The dark side of the force will offer you power, strength--even purpose. The more you immerse yourself in its ways, the more easily it will come to you. It is a pathway to success and triumph. It exists to serve us, to help us achieve our victories, and the more powerfully you exert your will, the clearer its whisperings will become.
--The Holocron of Darth Ravage, a treasure of the Korriban Sith Academy
It was a bit alarming how quickly Khem Val regained his strength after consuming the hapless acolyte that I'd ambushed in the halls. Within minutes, he was able to stand and make his way to the edge of the room, where he pulled a terrifyingly large sword from a chest and slung it over his back, ready to draw it with one beefy three-clawed hand at an instant's notice.
I almost felt bad for him as he exited the stasis chamber and saw the changes that had occurred because of the ravages of time. For a long while, Khem just stood in the meditation chamber, staring around. Then, glaring back at me, he led me through the halls towards the entrance. He kept groaning and growling in his guttural language, clutching his face and touching the walls. I was as patient as I dared be--I needed him, and I didn't know exactly how far his vow of service would extend. We did encounter a few droids on our path, and I got to see the first example of a Deshade's combat prowess. He tore through the attackers, his sword slicing through metal as though it were flesh with the strength of his blows. I knew that if he came for me, my only chance was to run and run and pray that he wouldn't catch me and that I wouldn't tire before I reached a transport.
Khem Val had another moment of shock when I led him out of the catacombs via the crack in the mountain instead of the main door, which had apparently been buried sometime since he was placed in stasis. He gaped at the distant academy as we came around the bend.
"How long have I been sleeping, little sith?" he asked me.
"Tulak Hord died over two thousand years ago," I said, remembering what I'd learned during my translation research. He threw back his head and howled at the sky like some kind of tuk'ata, the sound echoing across the stones and valley walls. The soldiers guarding the catacomb startled into a ready position, prepared to fire if he turned on them, not that they'd stand a chance against him.
Khem Val continued to mourn as he led me down the narrow, winding path to the bottom of the cliff where the entrance to Naga Sadow's tomb was located. Two enormous statues stood flanking the door, their sharp features long softened by the wear of wind and sand. I couldn't read the inscriptions, but Khem Val clearly understood them, pausing a moment to decipher the stone glyphs and scowl and curse in that language of his.
"What?" I said eventually. The monster looked incredulously at me, as though he couldn't believe I was even asking such a question.
"In the days of Tulak Hord, there would never have been statues raised to such a failure," said the deshade, spitting on the ground. "This pretender to My Lord's legacy couldn't even destroy his enemies or defend his people from almost complete destruction! Such weakness is a disgrace to the Sith." He gestured broadly to the tomb in front of us. "My Lord Tulak Hord discovered the starmap within these caves, an ancient artifact of a powerful ancient race. It is the height of disrespect to dishonor his memory by burying this Naga Sadow here."
"It is," I agreed haughtily, wondering what he was talking about. I had no idea who Naga Sadow was, beyond knowing that he was some dead Sith Lord with a map of some kind. It made me uncomfortable that a creature trapped in stasis for thousands of years still knew more than I did because he could read an ancient language. I resolved to study more once I was Lady Zash's apprentice.
The starmap was at the very back of the tomb. Khem Val stomped his way inside, sneering at the various sarcophagi. We passed another Sith apprentice inside, but he took one look at me and the deshade and retreated back inside whatever room he'd been exploring. I ignored him; he didn't matter as long as he didn't try to interfere with my goal. The starmap was made of some strange reddish metal that seemed to absorb the light around it; Khem Val pressed his palm against the activation panel, and the pyramidal structure lit up and opened, displaying a sequence of star maps, planetary maps, and coordinates. Once everything had been recorded on my datapad, we left the tomb.
We were making good time heading back, even though we were climbing up the steep path, when Khem Val came around yet another bend and froze. I prepared to summon lightning, thinking that some enemy must be upon us, when he dropped to his knees in front of a random rocky outcropping. Oh, I thought. Another one of his memories. He actually banged his head into the ground in his sorrow. I waited as patiently as I could for the fit to subside. He moaned something again, and I was abruptly done. I was minutes from beating Ffon and rubbing Harkun's flat, ugly face in his failure as Lady Zash made me her apprentice, and I was not about to wait an instant longer.
"Enough, beast," I said in Basic, shoving past him and heading towards the academy. Even though he didn't comprehend my words, he understood my tone.
"I serve...for now," Khem Val said, falling into step behind me.
Our appearance at the entrance caused quite the stir. Aliens were uncommon already, and one as large and menacing as Khem even more so. The red honor guards at the door seemed unsure how to handle our arrival. For a moment, I was afraid they would try to stop us. Then they knelt, bowing their heads in respect as we passed. People were staring. I beamed in triumph and led the way to Harkun's office, the Deshade trailing dutifully behind me.
"I'm telling you overseer, it cannot be done!" shouted Ffon from within as I came near to the door of the office. "I went to the catacomb, I saw the door, but I could not open it, and no matter how much I searched, I couldn't find another entrance!"
"But the map, the map!" growled Harkun. The two of them bent over a diagram of Naga Sadow's tomb. Cheating after all, I mused. No matter. "Lady Zash is adamant--she will not take an apprentice without that map!"
"I'm telling you, Lady Zash wants the impossible. No one is ever going to get that map." Ffon's voice was just as low as Harkun's, and for a moment I wondered if they were going to fight. As entertaining as that would be, I decided that the opening was too good to miss.
"No one except me, you mean," I drawled, strolling through the door. Harkun's greedy eyes fixed on the datapad on my belt, but his face paled comically when he spotted Khem Val having to duck through the doorway to follow me inside.
"The Deshade!" he stuttered, stumbling backwards. "Get that monster out of here this instant!" Harkun regained a bit of his composure once he had Ffon and the desk between us. "And give me the map!" I placed the datapad on the desk and the overseer activated it, seeing the recordings I'd made.
"No, that's not possible, you filth, you wretch, you..." Ffon spluttered with rage. "How did you do it? How did you release the monster?" He gestured sharply at Khem Val.
"He wants to know how I freed the monster," I told the Deshade in Catharese.
"I am not a monster," Khem Val snarled back, his fangs catching the light. "I am Khem Val, servant of Tulak Hord, devourer of the rebels at Yn and Chabosh, consumer of the Drummond system, and I am hungry."
"He says he's hungry," I said sweetly to Ffon.
"R-right," said the sith pureblood, stepping away. "You--you must have cheated, you must have. You'll pay for this!" he threatened weakly.
"Ffon!" interrupted Harkun. "Patience. You will have your chance at this whelp--after you personally deliver this map to Lady Zash." He held my datapad out to the Sith Pureblood. I was not about to let that happen.
"I worked hard for that map, and I'll kill both of you if I have to," I hissed, the swirling dark side within me causing a red haze to form at the edges of my vision.
"Protest all you want, slave. You'll die just the same. Hurry, Ffon!"
"Eat them both, Khem!" I snarled in Catharese, stepping to the side to more fully block the door as he drew his massive blade.
"My pleasure," he replied. I'd never seen Harkun fight, but based on what I'd seen in the tomb, I was confident that between my ranged attacks and Khem's powerful sword strikes, the overseer would die quickly. Ffon cowered away as Harkun fumbled for his lightsaber. I had just begun to summon lightning, when Lady Zash touched my arm. I hadn't seen her come in, but there she was, standing next to me.
"Call off your pet for just a moment, acolyte," said the blond sith.
"Hold, Khem," I said, hoping that he would obey. The deshade stopped and reluctantly stood aside at my nod.
"Lady Zash!" said Ffon in surprise and relief.
"Yes Ffon," she said. "Now where's my map?"
"H-here, Lady Zash," he said. "R-right here."
"You found it for me, Ffon? How wonderful!" Her tone was vicious. I didn't think for a second that the sith lady believed him. After all, she knew that the deshade obeyed me.
"He couldn't have found it if he tried," I muttered under my breath.
"Silence!" she ordered me sharply. She'd never spoken to me that way, and I was abruptly reminded that she was a Sith Lady for a reason. I resolved to be more cautious around her. "Ffon will tell me what happened, won't you, Ffon? You wouldn't dare lie to me, would you?" I smirked at him. "Because it would be a shame for me to discover that you lied to me. Now, one more time--did you bring this map back from Naga Sadow's tomb?"
"I--I--n--no. No, I didn't. I didn't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he stuttered, unable to meet her gaze. Once again, I was reminded of the groveling of a slave. My disgust grew, and so did hers.
"Harkun, you fool," she said quietly. The overseer clenched his fists helplessly. "In any other group, for any other Lord, this young man would have torn the other acolytes to shreds. What were you trying to prove? That you could outsmart me? That you knew better than me what kind of person I wanted for an apprentice?" She pursed her lips. "You fool!" She was scary quick. Her hands had barely begun to raise before white lightning lept to strike Ffon. It was powerful, overwhelming, effortless, and he shrieked as he suffered for one long second. She dropped her arms, but it was far too late.
"There's your pet, Harkun," she spat. "Clean this mess up. Apprentice, follow me to my chambers upstairs." I briefly savored the way it felt to be called 'Apprentice' by the Sith Lady, especially in front of Harkun, but I didn't dare make my new Master wait in the temper she was in. Khem Val and I left the overseer standing broken and furious over the body of his favorite acolyte.
"And now, my magnificent new apprentice," said Lady Zash as we entered her private chambers and found ourselves in her office. She sat down behind the desk, which was on a little dias so I had to gaze upwards at her. "Congratulations are in order!" She beamed down at me, her previous anger gone.
"Thank you for giving me this opportunity," I said respectfully.
"You've earned it, my apprentice," she said. I nodded. I had, in fact, earned it. I deserved this.
"This is the lightsaber I had as an apprentice," said Lady Zash, removing a small box from her desk. "I want you to have it." She placed it on the edge closest to me, so I ascended the steps and opened it. I felt a thrill as I drew the saber from where it nestled in soft cloth and ignited it. I carefully swung it in a few practice passes. It wouldn't do to accidentally cut something the first time I used it. It was similar in size to the others I'd seen, but holding it, I could get a sense of calculating ambition and fear and hatred from its previous wielder.
"I am honored," I said. She nodded approvingly.
"Excellent. I'm glad you like it," she said. "It served me well. We have a lot of work ahead of us after all." I grinned back.
"Murder and mayhem await!"
The End
A/N:
Thanks for joining me in this journey through Korriban. I'm working on the Sith Inquisitor's journey through Dromund Kaas right now, but the next installment of this story, "Interlude: The Hate Machine", will be coming soon!