"If some lost truth about the Force lies hidden in the Old City, then I pray none of us ever learn it." Lanoree Brock, Je'daii ranger, 10,660 TYA
11,340 TYA
Even before it was ravaged by its children, Tython had been a place of uncontrollable danger. Though the Je'daii had spent millennia on its surface, they had been unable to solve its persistent mysteries. There had been the great Chasm on the continent of Talss, which was said to have driven anyone bold enough to enter into madness. The Moon Channel Sea, before its water were poisoned by dark Je'daii, had hosted creatures both beautiful and dangerous. On Thyr remained the Silent Desert, where bright sands devoured every sound.
Most mysterious of all was the Old City, which rose from the Red Desert of Talss like an eruption. No one had ever determined the builders of its cyclopean ziggurats and arches. Based on their scale, it seemed like a city built for giants. When the ancestors of the first Je'daii arrived on Tython in the berths of their Tho Yor, the Old City had stood in ruin for some ten thousand years. Ten thousand years later, resilient against even the storms that periodically ravaged the planet as echoes of the Force Wars, the Old City endured amidst crimson sands.
Immortal, immemorial, inconceivable, like the Force itself.
It was no wonder that Essan had been drawn to it. As an apprentice she had collected stories from the few Jedi who'd attempted to explore the timeless labyrinth. As soon as she received her knighthood, restrictions barring her from this planet had been removed, and so she had sought out the Old City. That descending to Tython was dangerous only heightened the urgency. In this place, she had thought, one could truly understand the power of the Force.
She returned to the Old City on the eve of her departure to worlds beyond. Her partners-to-be, young Erakas and venerable Master Talyak, were on Ashla, which at this moment was the palest disc in Tython's blue sky. But Essan had decided to come here, and just as before, no one had the authority to stop her.
Before coming the first time, eight years back, she'd felt pent up with restless energy and unquenchable yearning; when she'd finally perched herself atop one of the City's colossal walls she'd been certain she belonged no place else. Despite everything, she felt the same now. Tomorrow she would leave the Tythan system, probably forever, and if she did not come back to the Old City one last time she would regret it for the rest of her life. Yearning had filled her to the bursting, but now she was here, at the object of her dreams, and she felt certain this was where she belonged.
So much had changed and nothing at all. Hot wind howled around timeless stone. Sand drifted over smoothed flagstones, each as long as Essan was tall. Massive bricks, each weighing twenty tons, piled atop one another and reached for the merciless sun. This was as it had been before the Je'daii been brought here, before the Kwa and the Gree and Rakata that had ruled the galaxy in eons past. This place was what the Je'daii had claimed to be: immortal in the Force.
And Essan could feel the Force in this place. It was like echoes ricocheting around her, and as she stood against the howling wind she struggled to hear the Force's words. The million whispers brushed her mind, eluding understanding, but she felt vague intimation of their desires. And she tried to follow where the Force led her.
She had done this last time. Compulsion came like the wind, sometimes strong, sometimes so soft you barely noticed. Sometimes it pushed her along the tops of the giant crumbling walls and something it urged her toward ancient depths. Essan ran with it. She leaped dangerous gaps, sprinted along narrow ledges, clambered up crumbling walls of titanic brick until her bare limbs were scraped and her lungs raked in breath. She felt the Force flow around her and through her as it did no place else.
This was what she'd come here craving the first time. The Jedi, as they were now, stressed that one must be loyal at all times to the Force's Light Side, as embodied by the bright moon Ashla, and avoid the Dark Side as signified by Bogan. Theirs was a dualistic vision, but it had not always been so. For ten thousand years preceding the Force Wars, the Je'daii had aimed for balance between light and dark. They had lived on Tython, exploring its timeless mystery and challenging its depths, communing with the Force on a level beyond that of living, exiled Jedi.
The Masters, including Essan's own teacher, insisted that this had been the fatal error. Countless Je'daii had allowed themselves to fall under Bogan's sway, and the damage they'd done to the Force was plain as Tython's ravaged surface.
There was wisdom in this. Essan acknowledged that. Darkness held danger. But she could not believe it was the whole truth. For that reason she'd come to the Old City the first time. She'd wanted to explore the Force in a way she'd never had before; to unlock shades the Masters forbade. To experience the greatest power in the universe in all its totality.
How could she want anything less?
She felt it now as she sprinted across the Old City's walls and leaped its crevasses. She was alive here like no place else. And when she paused, looked northward, and saw the dark marshaling clouds of a Force Storm on the horizon, she felt the thrill of a challenge.
Literal wind, a hot dry gust, nearly blew her from her perch. Essan dropped to a protective crouch, then lifted her head to watch the storm once more and track its path.
That was when she saw, standing atop a ruined pillar five meters away, another figure. One young woman, a brown Jedi's tunic, green skin, cheeks marked with geometric Mirialan tattoos.
Then she blinked, and Correa was gone.
Essan stayed crouched atop the wall and shuddered despite the heat. An intrusion of memory, or the Force reaching out to her? She had expected something like this, but it was still unwelcome. It jarred her from the Force's flow and compelled her to look the last place she wanted: inward.
When she'd come to Tython the first time, she had not been alone. Correa had been newly-knighted, curious and ambitious, driven to explore the hidden depths of this world. In short, just like Essan. When she'd asked Correa to accompany her to the Old City, Correa had immediately said yes. But Essan had still been the one to ask, which meant everything that followed was ultimately her responsibility.
And her fault.
Essan sought no companions this time. Over the past eight years she'd come to prefer being alone. It was simpler that way, easier. She needed only concentrate on herself. Responsibility and danger were hers only.
She stood up and looked again at the Force Storm. This one seemed to be holding in the northern distance, for now. She calmed herself, breathed deep, attuned herself to the Force, and began to move across the rooftops and walls and pillars of the Old City once more.
The Force flowed through her again, but not as easily as last time; not as strong. Memory was a burden she could not shake. She remembered Correa's confident smile, the way her black hair furled in the wind, the way she'd grasped that Forcesaber tight.
It had been Correa's idea to bring that; even Essan hadn't been so bold. During the Force Wars, Je'daii on both sides had wielded mysterious swords with blades of pure Force energy. Most of those Je'daii, it was said, had summoned their blades by drawing on their desperation and anger; by touching Bogan. A handful, it was said, had found the Ashla within themselves to power their Forcesabers, but the Dark Siders had been far more capable with the weapon. For that reason, the Light Siders had nearly lost the war and Tython had been devastated.
Only a handful of Forcesabers had survived to the present day. They were kept carefully guarded, and the knowledge of how to build them was supposedly gone. Knights were taught to use swords made of the keenest metal, like the Je'daii since time immemorial. Forcesabers were just too dangerous.
But Correa had procured one. From the master of a friend of a friend, she had told Essan, with a light in her eye that was both mischievous and determined. She'd wanted to see if, standing on Tython, submerging herself in the Force at its most raw, she might be able to wield the Forcesaber as their ancestors had.
And she had succeeded. Essan remembered Correa dancing atop the ruined ramparts in wordless ecstasy, weaving the luminous, formless blade through the air. Their dreams had been realized eight years ago; both of them had touched the Force as never before.
Essan didn't need hallucinations or phantoms to see that. When she closed her eyes she could summon the sight perfectly. Correa dancing, the Forcesaber's beautiful, dangerous blade like an extension of her body. Correa in the Force, a fountain of desperate joy.
And looming behind her, seen with the eyes, felt in the Force: a black and gathering storm.
Eight years later, and it was happening again. When Essan pulled herself to the top of a pillar she was flushed with the Force and adrenaline, but she paused to look northward. The storm was drawing closer; its shadow darkened the horizon and its clouds piled halfway up the sky. They churned constantly, like no normal storm could. Flashes of lightning were never visible themselves, but light cracked unseen inside the billows.
It was happening again. Was Essan doing this herself? In drawing on the Force so deeply, was she calling the storm to her? Was it some manifestation of herself writ large and violent?
She was faintly hopeful it was, only because that meant this storm would be half as powerful as the one eight years ago.
It was drawing toward her quickly but Essan hesitated to leave her perch. She remembered more, preserved after eight years: Correa standing atop a ruined pillar (maybe this very one) holding both arms wide, the Forcesaber blazing from her right fist. Correa more powerful than ever, calling on the Force to hold back the onslaught. Essan had joined her and raised both empty palms to push away the black and crackling clouds.
Only one of them had survived, and it had taken Essan months to recover from her injuries. She could still remember, so vividly, finding Correa's body in the dusty aftermath. Cradling the body, speaking to it, though Correa herself was gone.
This second storm approached and Essam remained atop her pillar. A dry laugh escaped her throat. She'd known it was dangerous to come back here, but she'd not expected her last encounter to be repeated so perfectly, so perilously. If she had known…
...she'd have still come. The Force was testing her and she was testing herself. Conviction filled her. Tython's storms had defeated her the first time and robbed her of her best friend. She could never face the worlds beyond if she couldn't face the storm before her.
If she hadn't grown stronger since Correa's death, then what was the point of being a Jedi at all?
The wind that rushed her was cold and it crackled with dark energy. She could feel sparks bite her cheeks but she faced the storm head-on. The Force flowed through her like dual streams; the light of her hope and lust to live crashed into the darkness of her regret and anger, and together they created a torrent.
She unleashed that torrent as the stormclouds fell upon her. She pushed back against their immense power with her own she had faith in her power; in the Jedi she was now and might become in the worlds beyond. She was no one's student anymore and she was no one's friend. She was herself alone, obdurate and unmatched. She was what the Je'daii of old had aimed to be: the revealing fire of light and mystery of darkness, in balance with chaos and harmony.
Was she immortal in the Force? She dared believe it, right before the storm swept her away.
Essan only knew that she was falling. She curled her body into a fall and called on the Force still, not to push back the storm (Because how could she refuse Tython itself? Eight-year-old shame filled her.) but to soften her fall.
She slammed into a hard brick wall.
Then she fell further, down and down, into the depths of the Old City.
Yet when she landed, it did not break her. The Force Storm no longer touched her. Still lying in the dust she opened her eyes, looked up, and saw the crackling clouds rush above the ravine into which she'd fallen.
Essan remained where she was, breathing deep, staring at the unconquerable storm until it finally swept past. Red dust stained the sky at first, then settled slowly like snow, revealing the blue sky and the faint white of Ashla.
She stared at the moon for a long time before she dared stand up. That she could stand up was a good sign. She examined herself; burns on her cheeks and forearms, a bleeding scratch on her right bicep, bruises that would darken and hurt all over in the days to come.
But she had faced the storm and survived with less injuries than eight years ago. And this time she had dragged no one into her foolishness.
Against everything, Essan bared her teeth in a smile. When she left the Tythan system forever tomorrow, she would feel at peace.
At least until the next great challenge arrived.
She began to scour this ravine, looking for places where she could crawl or jump out. As she did so she walked it up and down, eyes always on the slopes above, and was therefore surprised when she kicked something smooth instead of rugged, something lighter than rock, something that clacked like metal as it rolled into a small ditch.
It glinted like metal too. Essan couldn't believe it. She hurried to the ditch, bent down, reached out, and pulled it from between two rocks. It was a cylinder smaller than her forearm, blunt on one end with a round nozzle on the other and a modest hilt-guard. There was no switch on its side, nothing that might indicate to an outsider what it was for or how to use it.
But Essan knew. Oh, she knew.
She'd held Correa's Forcesaber eight years ago but never been able to ignite it, even when she'd tried on Tython. Unlike Correa, she hadn't been able to summon the requisite power.
Essan was no longer the woman she'd been. Her heart ached with hope and regret. Holding her friend's lost Forcesaber she called on the great power. The fullness of it flowed through her and reverberated in her soul. All her light (hope, wonder, a craving for communion with beautiful eternity) and, yes, all her darkness (so much darkness; regret, anger, ambition and fear), together they twined into a sword of energy. Bright and deadly, chaotic yet in harmony with itself, so very beautiful. All this time it had waited in the Old City for her to rediscover it and claim Correa's parting gift.
When the blade winked to nothing, Essan had tears running down her face: tears of joy, tears and sorrow, more opposites united. After she wiped them clean, after she stuck the Forcesaber's humble cylinder inside her pouch, she began her final climb out of the depths of the Old City.
There was nothing left for her but the worlds beyond.