The howling winds of Rhen Var clawed at Ruin's face with a malice that threatened to cleave him to the bone. He stepped off his flagship, his boots clanging bright on the cargo ramp. Snow crunched underfoot, and fine white mist flew up as he trudged on towards the grey stone arch. It joined two stone towers, each wearing proudly the scars of age as they stood vigil. They were wracked by crumbling cobbles and fissures that ran deeper than wrinkles ever could. Walls. He thought to spit, but relented when the searing cold kissed the inside of his mouth.
Two Sith soldiers edged behind him as Ruin passed beneath the arch. They were shrouded head to toe in blacks that had long gone white. The snow continued pounding as they walked. Just as Ruin finished passing through the arch, two officers in parkas emerged at once, seemingly out of the aether. The soldiers that had followed left him to replace the officers at their posts.
"Report," Ruin said to neither of them. The wisps of his breath crackled in the air before him.
"We have twenty men scouting the caves, Darth Ruin," one officer said, tugging at his sides in a desperate attempt to stay warm. "They are at work as we speak."
Ruin kept his eyes straight ahead. He denied himself a smile. "And?" The cold stabbed at his tongue.
"First Captain Myrm sent a squad to scout the central spire atop the wall." He pointed at the looming tower just ahead, peeking out just above a rime-coated wall of solid stone. "They've begun to clear out living quarters."
"Stop here." Ruin stopped in front of them, bringing their striding pace to a screeching halt. He turned at last to face them, an arc forming in the snow as he turned on his heels. They fear me. He sucked in the tension as he laid them bare, their black scarves and blacker armor fading away like facades to reveal a nest of doubt and fear. Anywhere else, he would have reveled in it.
"I shall see my throne room before you bring me to the dig site," he continued. "Stay put. I shall see myself the rest of the way." When one of the officers shifted some snow underfoot, Ruin crooked a finger. "Stay, I insist. Else I might splash some much needed color on this place." He swung around on a heel and left them there.
He approached the wide staircase before him and trotted up each rugged stone step without a care. The only sound was the howling of the wind and the constant crunch of snow beneath his boots. It was a nice change of pace from the constant beeping of computers and whirring of machinery inside the Solipsis. He took a look around as he passed the final step. To his left sat a terrace, its earthen ground glazed over with frost. The single tree in its center was clad in a dress of rime. Its branches stood still as death, frozen in place so that not even the wind could move them. To his right was a decaying building of glazed stone. Open passages littered the side with not a door in sight; it was completely exposed to the elements.
A place of worship more than like. Ruin shook his head. The natives of Rhen Var had been nowhere to be found. He wondered if there had ever been any at all.
He passed through a postern gate nestled in a narrow slit against the wall. Just beyond, a path stretched ahead, leading to the looming tower. A great oaken door was at its end, cradled in place by smooth stone. He reached out to the Force and pushed it open. Once he was through, a sudden gale howled behind him, and the door slammed itself shut.
Inside was a single stairwell that traced its way up the leftmost wall, ascending to the top of the spire. The room was awash in an orange glow from the candles that still burned in each of its sconces. There was no darkness to be found here; it was all drenched in light. He drank it all in and then began his climb.
The door at the top was a slatted wooden slab of wood wrought in deep brown. The handle numbed his fingers as he pulled it open. The terrace was the first thing to catch his eye. Bestia and Kaos were there, tossing detritus over the railing. They offered him no acknowledgment. Do they not hear, or do they choose not to hear? The room was spartan at best: a giant square of grey walls, grey floor, and grey ceiling. A rusted chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, creaking and groaning as the wind caught in its throes. Spindly candles were cradled in each of its six branches, each one overflowing with curdled bubbles of wax.
"Supplicants," he called out to the two on the terrace. They were bickering, but stopped when they heard his voice. Bestia entered first, with Kaos slow behind her. They each took a knee before him.
"This place scant befits a Sith Lord, let alone myself," Ruin said. His voice was hoarse from the frostbitten winds that chafed at his throat. "Make it so."
They rose without a word and he let them move about their work. Bestia sifted through clutter on one side of the room. Kaos eyed the cavalcade of stones that entrenched the other. Ruin eased his way out to the terrace. The blanket of white on the ground beneath him offered respite from the sea of grey.
Some variety, finally, he thought as he leaned over the balustrade. The metal was slick and bitter cold to the touch. The linens of his robe dulled the bite just enough. Just as he hoped, the two officers he had left behind were still standing in the courtyard below. Perhaps they've frozen by now.
"Men," he called down at them. The wind carried his voice farther, sending it echoing off the icy walls. The officers looked up to him and stood at attention.
"Dark Lord?" The left one shivered and spoke in a quavering voice. "We await your command."
Ruin sneered at them from above. "Walk a bit, captain," he said to the one on the right. "Keep the hoarfrost at bay."
The captain looked up at him, gave an affirmative nod, and inched forward.
"Good." Ruin brought down his hood and let the snow fall on his bare blue scalp. It felt oddly satisfying on his skin, as if it tingled all his nerves. "Your legs still work." For a moment, he contemplated jumping headlong over the balustrade and joining his officers sooner rather than later.
No, that wretched voice echoed in some deep corner of his skull. Use your senses. Take the long way to me.
The impact would see them torn apart like dolls anyhow, Ruin's own inner voice retorted.
"Stay warm. I'll be down shortly." He turned around and headed back into the room, straight to the door.
"Have this place clean and ready within the next week." Ruin offered Kaos nor Bestia so much as a passing glance before he made his way down the stairs.
Once he was out into the courtyard, he fell in behind the two officers, drawing up his hood as they led the way. The three of them marched down into a crevasse that tucked behind the terrace he had spied earlier, through a hollowed out section of the wall.
The path was long and narrow. Jagged icicles dangled like crystal spears overhead. Several score others rested underfoot. With every step, it seemed as if a hundred screamed as they smashed whatever ground lie below.
The trio eventually reached a pile of snow that blocked the path. Ruin called upon the Force to move it aside while the officers bickered over which of them should return to the ship for a vibroshovel. They exchanged gasps when they turned to see the path was clear. Ruin led the way from then on. Useless layabouts. He never deigned to look back at them.
Hours passed, and the pale white sun had been replaced by an alabaster crescent moon. Occasionally it eked its way out from behind the clouds and the torrent of fat snowflakes that spewed from beneath them, shining its light down on Ruin and his officers. They were now at the bottom of the winding path, deep in the bowels of the pit they had squandered the daytime hours walking beside. Ruin scrunched his face, beading his eyes to focus his vision. It was no use; there was only snow, fresh and old alike, all amassed in a colossal mound in the pit's center. The mound glistened with wetness, as if there were something warm within. On all sides it was surrounded by mammoth cavern walls of hard rock glazed over with crystalline sheets of ice.
"You are so close and yet so far." That damnable voice spoke at him yet again. But there was something peculiar about this time. It sounded closer, as if it were tonguing the inside of his ear.
Ruin exhaled, his breath turning straight to frost before him. "Dig it up. With haste."
The officers obeyed and scurried back up the treacherous winding path up into the crevasse, and Ruin made a careful advance towards the great gleaming pile of snow. Suddenly, there was a rumble inside his skull, as if his brain were scuttling around inside its housing. He staggered forward, clutching at his throbbing temple, and almost buried his head into the snow. He caught himself, one hand into the white slush. He felt something hard beneath it. Hard like stone. He squinted, the pure white of the snow ravaging his sight, and tried to focus on what he felt as he moved his fingers along. A raised bump here, a pattern of stonework there, a jagged gouge in another spot.
What is this? he asked himself. He expected an answer, but this time the voice did not oblige him. That cleared his mind at once.
He began to swipe madly at the thing with both his hands, trying in some fruitless endeavor to brush the snow aside the hard way. He would have called upon the Force had he not been fearful to damage what lie frozen underneath. He grunted first, then he growled, and then he screamed in frustration. He stuffed a hand inside his robe and produced a holopad, then dialed in a frequency with the other.
A miniaturized version of one of the officers in sheer blue popped up. Unsightly scan lines marred his image.
"Dark Lord?" the officer said, his voice garbled and limned with harsh static.
"Don't waste your time with just a shovel," Ruin said, panting. "Assemble the crews, and bring all the machinery and droids from the ship. We've found it."
The officer began to question him, but Ruin turned off the holopad and let it fall to the ground. He would have laughed, but the voice chimed in:
"Set me free," it repeated until it echoed in a maddening cacophony.
It stopped when his holopad beeped back to life at his feet. A frothy voice was made frothier by the mounds of snow seeping into the holopad's speaker.
"Darkth Lorth."The sound came muffled out of the machine until Ruin picked it up, cupping it in one hand. "Dark Lord, Kaos speaking."
"Speak." Ruin said impatient
"I have received word from the cadet I tasked with calibrating our tracking beacon," Kaos said, his holographic form shifting impatiently. He was even more grotesque in miniature. "Lady Cinder is on Ossus."
Why there? No matter. "Good, good. Go and fetch her."
"Right away, Dark Lord."
"One more thing, Lord Kaos," Ruin said, raising a finger.
"Lady Bestia is abed already," Kaos said. "I will set off before she wakes, and she'll be none the wiser to your plan."
"I shall remain here at the excavation site for a time." Ruin shot a glance back at the mound of snow. The secrets you hide will be mine yet. "Have the officers send Lady Bestia to me when tomorrow comes. This will be her place soon enough." If she wishes to stay away from me, so be it, but I will not foster uselessness.
"Yes, Dark Lord."
Ruin thought for a moment about shutting off the device and leaving what he felt obvious unsaid, but decided against it. "And nothing has changed, Lord Kaos. Return Lady Cinder to me alive."
Kaos' face morphed into some unrecognizable expression, scrunched up beyond all compare underneath the striations of the scanlines tracing him up and down. Does this fool laugh at me?
"Our will be done," he said at last. The device shut off with the click and pop of a transistor shutting down, and Ruin placed it back inside his robe pocket. Or does he yet grow ambitious, after all these years?
"Why do you bring her here?" the voice whispered from inside Ruin's skull. "What makes this one so special, Darth Ruin? What cause do I give you to not heed me in this? Her coming will ensure your demise."
No, specter, Ruin's own mind barbed back, she will only help me free you. There will be no betrayal. Not from her.
"Leave her behind as she has done you. Free me. Forget your Lady Cinder."
I can do both, voice. The needs of the living come before the wants of the dead.
The voice grew sharp and dragged talons across his grey matter.
"Then 'tis a good thing I am not dead, Dark Lord."