Ruin rested his arm across the snow-covered balustrade. He tried to reach out with the other. A dull throb of pain reminded him of its absence. Such indignity. He had made the cut just above the elbow; a stump draped in roughspun tapestry was all that remained. He left me my good arm, at the least. Ruin was curious as to the why of that, but the chill numbed his thoughts.
He had never grasped the immensity of Cronos' power until they met face to face. The result of four thousand years of spite, if he tells it true. The old man was a font of unrealized power. And if it all it costs to unleash it is my arm, then so be it. Soon enough, it shall all be mine.
It was a smaller still price to pay to excise the voice from his head. Gone were the days of screaming headaches, flares of searing pain, and fits of madness. He is free, yes. In a way. Cronos no longer needed to gnaw his way around Ruin's skull. Now, he projected himself when he wished to speak, just as he had done after the parley with Mandalore.
"Though never may we be seen together, Dark Lord," Cronos said the first time he had appeared. "I am invisible to all but your eyes. Should they glimpse our conversations, they will think you well and truly mad."
Ruin had taken those words to head and summoned his Black Guards from the bowels of the Solipsis. They had served him well on Korriban, guarding his chambers. Strong as ornery nerf bulls, they were swathed in cloaks of solid black. They melded with the shadows in his bastion on Korriban; here on Rhen Var, they stuck out like mummers amidst the sea of white. They screened each and every person to enter his chambers, even Eradicus. The fool liked it not a bit.
The din of clattering plate rang out behind him. "We're digging a tunnel through the mountain?" Eradicus was red with frustration after the guards granted him entry. "This is almost as useless as the guards-"
"If I have need of your thoughts, I shall ask for them." Ruin paid him no mind and kept his eyes on the soldiers drilling in the courtyard. Several of them were swaddled in so much bundling they looked more like babes than warriors. This Mandalore is brazen. He will not wait for me much longer. He would have to muster the troops soon enough.
"I tasked you with finding this other citadel," Ruin said. "Excavators with no work are useless mouths to feed." He turned himself around to face Eradicus. "Why do you pester me? Unless you come bearing news of Lady Cinder?"
Eradicus scowled. "Alas, no," he said. "But I do have something to show you, Dark Lord." The racket that echoed as he made his way back across the room was abominable. If we are here much longer, I will have that stupid armor turned to slag for warmth.
Ruin went to scratch his head. He sighed when he only felt his stump wiggle in place instead. This will take getting used to. With his good hand, he lowered his hood as he followed the boy inside.
"No one enters," Ruin said to the Black Guards as he passed through them. A few more steps, and he saw Eradicus was stopped in front of the wall just beside the stair, the same one the boy had been dashed against facefirst all that time ago. "This is a wall, boy." Ruin was a hair's breath short of throttling him when he began to press against the wall with all his might.
"See, master? It moves." Eradicus gave him a stupid grin before carrying on pushing. Sure enough, the grinding of stone against stone was just loud enough for Ruin to hear over the boy's own exertion.
"Out of my way." Before the squire had even a chance to obey, Ruin pulled him aside with the Force. His boots squealed as they ground against the stone floor.
The wall had budged inwards, though only by a bit. Perhaps it needs a greater push. Ruin reached out to the Force again. He curled his fingers just short of making a fist, as if he were reaching out to grab the wall in his hand. When he moved his arm left, the wall did nothing. Moving right produced nothing more than screams and sparks. I have little patience for these games. He growled in frustration, then loosed a Force wave into the wall. The stone loosed from whatever moorings held it in place, and left a trail of dust behind as it went racing down a narrow cave.
"Where do you think it leads?" Eradicus said as he gazed down the passage. It ended in a black abyss, though Ruin supposed there was plenty more beyond that veil.
"Figure it out." Ruin turned away and walked back to his chambers. Once he returned to the balcony, his eyes once again fell to the trainees in the courtyard. A shiver crept up his spine and his skin ran with gooseflesh. "You come again."
"These are your warriors?" Cronos said. He took his place at Ruin's side as a shimmering apparition of solid gold, save for the eye in the center of his head which was a deep bloody red. When he projected, his voice lost its gravelly timbre, and instead he sounded as if he was whispering across the stars. The central eye squinted out at the soldiers in clear disapproval. "They are unskilled. Useless."
"These are the last of our clans," Ruin said. "The survivors of Korriban." They were the remnants of Hopel's tribe, mostly. Others came from the scant other Sith clans he and Cinder had found, but Hopel had brought with him the lion's share of their militia.
Cronos turned his gaze to Ruin. "Nonsense," he said, twirling the end of his beard. "Wherever there are shadows, we lurk. You chose not to seek more of our kind."
Ruin scowled. "They are unknown to me."
"Ignorance does not mean a subject ceases to exist. You of all people ought understand that well enough." Cronos' projection vanished and reappeared at Ruin's other side. "You went only after the Sith orders of which your Jedi Archives held knowledge."
"True as that might be," Ruin said, his eyes turning to a set of soldiers attacking target dummies in a one-sided melee, "what good are they to me?"
"You know nothing of controlling a galaxy." Cronos clasped his hands together inside his sleeves and strolled forward, through the railing. He stood in front of Ruin atop thin air, like a floating spirit. "This rabble would be no match for a peasant revolt, let alone the Republic. Even in its darkest days, wailing in the throes of decline, the Republic will wipe you out if you send this sort to face them." The red eye opened wide. "Or they will send the Jedi to finish what they started on our homeworld."
Ruin had been busy with the business of escape during the massacre on the ground. "I am told they slaughtered all that remained on Korriban, save my Lady Cinder who escaped."
"As well they should have. How little do you know of strategy? They would have struck Korriban first in any case; that is why I sent you there."
Whenever Ruin felt the eye resting on him, it set his nerves to writhing. "I understand enough of it to know when to defer to those more experienced," Ruin said. He blinked snow out of his eyes and the wind stabbed his eyelids like needles. "I also know well the appearance of a total defeat will lull the Jedi back to complacency."
Cronos nodded at that.
Ruin seized the chance to continue. "We will use this as a staging ground to train proper troops to strike back when the time is right." Ruin heard clanging footsteps from the room outside his chambers. The boy returns.
Cronos shook his head. "'We'. The future is always in motion. Do not be so certain." He vanished at once, leaving behind wisps of yellow smoke. The clattering grew closer.
"Master," Eradicus called out. Even shouting, his voice was quiet compared to the rattle of his plate.
Ruin grimaced. "Speak quickly."
"No need to burrow through the mountain." He took up post beside the Dark Lord. Ruin's eyes turned to daggers as Eradicus leaned both his arms on the railing. "The path leads out to a summit. Clear as day, the citadel's visible from there." He rattled on and on about a labyrinthine maze of tunnels that spanned glacier to glacier, mountain to mountain, and tower to tower, but Ruin found himself caring precious little.
Ruin smiled, though his brain had gone to fog. He told me I had to go there. But for what? He opened his mouth and felt his heated breath turn to frost against the wind. "Send a scouting crew at once." Yellow wisps were still floating amongst the wind. Can the fool even see them?
"Our will be done." Eradicus clapped a hand against his breastplate and bounded off.
The trails of smoke coalesced back into Cronos' form the second Eradicus was gone. "Good, you've found it." It was hard to tell, but there was little doubt he was smiling. "He may have done you this kindness, the fool, but I would watch that one closely."
"I see no reason to be wary of that one." Ruin said. "He is a loathsome wretch. Insolent. Boorish. Simple. But he is a good enough sort, even with his lofty ambitions. Thankfully, he wasn't blessed with the intellect to realize them." Cinder would be dangerous should she turn against him, as would Lady Bestia. Hopel would have been the most dangerous of all; that was why he had taken him off guard aboard the ship. Eradicus was a whelp, fit only for polishing boots. Even the greenest of the students at our little academy could have made a stuffed frogdog out of him.
"You underestimate him; that is hubris." Cronos waved his hand. "No matter. Your Lady will return to you soon. I have seen it clear enough."
"How soon?"
Cronos closed his eyes. When the great red one in the center of his head ripped open, it still caught Ruin off guard.
"I cannot say," Cronos said as the pupil of his third eye flitted around like a mosquito. When wide open, the thing looked like little more than a gibbering membrane oozing with blood. "Just as you cannot say if you are ready."
Ruin stood silent for a moment. His eyes slipped close and he swallowed hard. Could I kill her if I had to? My Lady, the one who has been beside me in all my trials?
"I will be ready when she comes," he said at last. He spoke only to the wind.
