Cinder felt the sand underneath her. The fine dust sat in her hair, filled the creases in her tunic, and chafed her skin. One hand still clasped tight against Bestia's; she did not know why. The fingers on the other writhed, clawing up grains of sand and letting it slip out of the gaps in between them. Errant strands of hair clung tepidly to her forehead, still masked in a thin film of sweat. The putrid smell of death filled the air; fire, ash, soot, and rot in equal measure. It was sweet enough to make her sick.
The terentatek's smouldering body was far off in the dark, thin wisps of smoke still pouring out of the blackened shape. She crooked her free hand behind her back and craned herself upright much as she could to get a better view. Her eyes had adjusted well enough to the pitch black, but it still wasn't enough. Only a dark lump and its grey will-o-wisp companions were visible against the wall of darkness.
Bestia had saved her life, for better or worse. And yet, Cinder had steeled herself to die against the wretched thing. She did not ask to be saved from a death she'd earned herself. Nor did she ask for the kiss. She could not tell which was more wretched: the act itself, or the broken promise she made to herself. But she had no choice in the matter, lying broken in the dirt, with her savior dragging herself on broken legs to be at her side. To seize the advantage in such a way was Sith through and through. Perhaps in the deepest recesses of her heart, there were the tinges of admiration. Elsewhere, it was scorn in the name of promises broken or left unsaid.
I must deal with this in time. After she has led the way to Ruin. She let go of Bestia and pushed herself all the way upright. Bristles of pain shot up her side like a thousand quills. Wretched beast. She laid a hand atop her thigh and started to slide it down to her knee. She stifled a yelp when her fingertips landed atop it, and choked back tears when she dug them into the joint. She sat there, digging her fingers deep into skin, into bone, waiting through grinding teeth and wet eyes for the Force to do its work. When she heard a wet pop instead, she caught herself before she cried out. Even to the void I cannot show weakness. She stretched the leg out and dug her heel into the ground to try to force herself up.
It worked well enough, she supposed.
The pain was sharp and constant, beading up and down her side like rats through gutters. But she could stand and walk well enough. She called her saber to her from the ground. The hilt found its way into her palm caked in dirt and dust. It fell off in patches as she shifted it around in her hand. Her thumb set the blade ablaze, basking the room in a deep orange glow. It seemed almost brighter now that the terentatek had perished. That was not something she recalled from the lessons on the Great Hunts.
She approached the body on staggered steps. She limped heavily on her left leg; the foot felt like a heavy club beneath her despite the fact she could feel it working. Relief covered her in a shroud when she could finally stop and stand. The standing didn't hurt near as much, only sending sharp tingles down through her ankle and heel and down into the sole of her foot. It was a mere bothersome sensation; nothing like the pins and needles that seemed to shoot up from the floor at every footfall.
She held her lightsaber up above the beast's corpse. The face was a smoking ruin, little more than a black blister popped like a grape. The whole of it had turned a solid black, its features torn away by a virulent necrosis. The rest of its skin was black, too, but with a glossy, purplish sheen that looked slippery to the touch. She had no idea where its arms wound up after hacking them off in the heat of the fight. The stumps where they had once been were glazed over orange where she severed the limbs. The spikes on its head were stained dark black and brown with blood. Mine? She could not be certain. How long did Durgulla have this thing?
The lectures in the Jedi Temple always stated the terentateks were all but extinct. When the Dark Side of the Force grew in power, they would reemerge from whatever depths to which they slunk and terrorize beasts and people alike. Scores of Jedi were sent to hunt them, though precious few ever returned. After these Great Hunts, the terentateks would disappear once again for a time, until the cycle repeated. Conjecture said they fed on dark side energy. She recalled a lecture where one of her classmates cracked wise about the dark side of the Force sending terentateks into heat. Given the way this one had fought, she wondered if it were true.
She did not know when she started walking, but soon enough she was at the opposite end of the room, her lightsaber igniting a black hole in the wall. She could make out the faint outline of stone steps in the void. It had to be the way out, if there was one at all. She almost took the first step...
Then a groan dragged her attention back to the room behind her. Bestia's whimpering bounced around the void, redirecting in a single pointed spear back at her.
"Lysara," Bestia said, somewhere between a whisper and a shout, "don't leave me." She moaned in pain. Soft sobs followed.
Cinder chewed on her lip. A million thoughts crashed down upon her at once. Each screamed at her almost in unison. The din was almost unbearable. Leave her! Help her! She's useless! What if she can be healed? She should never have gotten hurt! She betrayed you! She is Ruin's pawn! She broke your promise! One rose above the others, shriller than even the hideous music the Hutt had been playing during their parley.
"Do you like my little birds?" Darth Phobos' voice rattled within her skull. "The seeds of doubt sow the garden of fear. Why not reap them?"
Get out of my head, witch, Cinder said back to her, catching herself before she almost spoke it aloud. Her head throbbed as if it were on the brink of exploding. She clutched it and staggered almost into a wall, stretching out her arm to catch it just in time. Her lightsaber slipped from her other hand, switching off as it rolled off into the dirt.
"Why should I?" Every time Phobos spoke, Cinder felt sharp tendrils of pain course through her bones. "You call upon me so often, I figured I would call upon you myself."
Cinder grimaced as she slumped against the wall. She craned her head back against it as she slid to the ground. What do you want?
"Last time we spoke I was concerned you would not recover. I have come to care about your progress a great deal, Lady Cinder." She laughed and the echo bounced around Cinder's skull like a swarm of mynocks. "Tell me, how did you like your own Great Hunt?"
"Speak what you mean to say and begone," Cinder said aloud. She heard Bestia whine something off in the distance, but she paid it no mind.
"I have told you already what I want." Suddenly, Phobos appeared in front of her, sitting before her with an armored knee raised to her chest. She was glowing, Cinder saw, enveloped in a corona of white. It could not be real, surely. Or could it? So much had happened, she had been pared down to her barest wires, all her secrets laid bare for all but Fell to see. Nothing was beyond impossibility anymore.
Cinder tried to reach out and touch her, but Phobos slapped her hand away. "Nuh-uh-uh," she chided with a wagging finger. "The other." She waved a hand over at where Bestia was, though Cinder couldn't see her in the dark. "You should seize the opportunity, Lady Cinder. Guarding your back against one knife is difficult enough; why make it more so?"
The air turned cold and she felt her flesh begin to chill, running amok in gooseflesh. She started to shiver and fought the want of her tongue to wag. The discomfort would have been enough to make any other woman scream, but Cinder let herself turn to steel.
Phobos leaned in closer, until she was almost against Cinder's ear. Her breath was hot against Cinder's cold flesh, and the overbearing scent of rosebuds that came with it was saccharine enough to gag her. "Tell me Lysara, do you love her?"
"Keep my name out of your mouth, bitch," She was trembling all over. She had to force each word up through her throat, which felt so dangerously close to sealing shut.
"The tongue on you," Phobos said with an impish smile. "Perhaps I should have it out." She reached a hand towards Cinder's mouth. It only passed through, but the fear brought tears to her eyes just the same. "Only kidding. For now." She drew her hand back and clasped them both together.
Cinder sniffled. "What do you want from me?" Her eyes stung; she could feel the sockets turning red and raw. Tears hung heavy as they caught her eyelashes. "Tell me what you need and leave me be. I have a monster to kill."
"Seems to me the monster's dead." Phobos waved over to the terentatek. Unless you mean your Lord Ruin, though I fear he might prove a tad bit unworthy of the term. He is more man than gundark I'm afraid."
"Man or monster, it makes no difference. I will kill Phanius."
Phobos grinned. "You don't even need me to haunt you, milady." She laughed. "I ask you one small favor, to chew on at the very least. If you must save the girl, hand her over to me."
"I will do no such thing." Cinder tried to rise but she felt something push her back down. The air overhead hovered damp and heavy like a black cloud ready to burst. "Tell me why."
"Think on it, Countess." Phobos stood up and stared down at her with a sneer. "I'll stay out of your head, as you wish. You know where to find me."
With that, she was gone, and the chill with her. Cinder drew her legs up against her breast and held them tight for a while. The frigid cold outside had gone with the dead woman, but the chill inside her threatened to snap her bones. She did not care one bit for being haunted, but the only way to stop it was something she feared more than the Sith witch. There is more to be learned from her holocron. So much more. It would not be the first time she dove headfirst into the mouth of hell for the sake of learning.
She heard the shifting sand beside her accompanied by the sound of labored grunting. She reached for her lightsaber, switched it back on, and pointed it headlong toward the source. Bestia's shattered form was illuminated underneath, basking in the a net of orange light. Her fingers had gone raw and bloody from dragging herself across the floor. Her legs dangled helplessly behind her, misshapen and twisted like knots. She buried her head in the ground, as if to hide herself from Cinder.
If you leave her alive, she will kill you. Cinder got to her feet, though not without difficulty. Instead of pain wracking her leg, she was now plagued by an inscrutable numbness. She made careful steps over to Bestia, the one good foot guiding her path, the other following its lead weightless and cumbersome all at once. She stood over the Mirialan girl, her lightsaber pointing down just above her head.
Make an end of it, a voice echoed within her skull. She has shamed you with her failure, said another. The cacophony became unbearable. There was a fleeting moment where she wondered if killing her here and now make it all stop. The voices grew louder. Some were deep, thunderous and bellicose. Others were shrill shrieks. They meshed seamlessly with anguished wails and tortured screams, mournful sobs, and a torrential downpour of whispers. It was as if she were accosted at all sides by wraiths, Darth Phobos the Witch chief among them. Shameshameshameshameshame...
Her lightsaber hissed at her when she switched it off. She thought it like to turn into a snake and coil at her facefirst, planting twin metal fangs into her brow. She notched it on her belt, ginger and slow. The louder voices stopped, but the din of the whispers remained. Their wretched pitter-patter was a ceaseless torrent on the windowpane of her mind.
Shameshameshameshameshameshame... They grew faster and more dissonant, warbled and distorted. When she stooped down, they vanished at once.
She scooped Bestia up into her arms, lifting her up and cradling her against her chest. Her legs dangled lifeless and broken well off to the side. Cinder clutched her tight and made slow footfalls towards the stairs. There was still no light to be had in the pit, and without her lightsaber she was blind. She let the Force guide her way.
"You're lucky you're tiny," she muttered beneath her breath. Bestia stirred at the jest, but only offered a grunt in response.
She felt the sand turn to stone beneath her boots. The numbness was dissipating now. She nearly found herself thrown off balance when she felt her other foot hit the ground for the first time in what seemed ages. The stone walkway was dark and unfamiliar, but the sharp corners of the first step stuck out just well enough for her eyes to catch. Fear is weakness, she told herself as she took the first step. She went slow and steady. There was no sense in hurting herself any more. Or bringing more harm to Mira.
She found that thought more intrusive than the torment Phobos unleashed upon her psyche. She was a Sith, Shadow Hand to the Dark Lord and soon to be Dark Lady herself. She had turned on the Jedi alongside her master. She had all but abandoned their teachings, swearing fealty first to the Code of the Sith and then, later, to the Code of Ruin. By all accounts, Cinder thought herself supposed to be fiendish and cruel, foolishly honorbound to the idea of rule by the strong. At least, that was always how the Jedi presented us.
Us. She scoffed and let out a snort, looking down at Bestia. This is us. She remembered what Phobos told her once: "Your empire will be only that of the taste of ashes in your mouth." Her legacy was a tortured maiden consumed by the fires of hate, and a boy who was more rogue than warrior, who seemed to fail her in all except martial expertise. This whole ordeal with the Hutt had been his doing, after all, though it wasn't Fell who popped into her head. Ruin... his very name was the greatest irony of all. He who meant to restore the Sith to greatness sunk them instead to their nadir.
She heard a noise coming from the higher sets of stairs, the clattering of metal mixed with the whining of servos and motors. She did not know how many she climbed or how long it had even been. Another hallucination. The stairwell seemed infinite. A trick such as that would have befit a more cunning Hutt than Durgulla the Fat.
The noise grew louder, each metal clack bouncing off the stone walls and rebounding back at her head. There were shafts of outside light coming through slits in the walls. The reddish rays of dawn lit up Bestia's face as she stirred in Cinder's arms. Her big doe eyes fluttered open.
"You... you saved me," she said, squinting to shield her eyes from the streams of light. She was smiling then, but her brow furrowed and then her lips curled into a frown. "Why? That makes twice."
"You deserve better," Cinder said. She couldn't bring herself to look at her too long, otherwise the flashes of anger overwhelmed her. I told you no, that I could never love again. YetCinder couldn't bring herself to scorn her. Not now.
"What's that sound?" Bestia's face scrunched up as she heard the clattering grow louder. Cinder stopped in her tracks, almost falling forward as the toe of her boot smacked against the next stair. "Are they sending someone to check on the beast?"
"They'll find only tears and death," Cinder said. She waddled to the right, shuffling across the narrow step until she heard Bestia's boots clap against a wall. "Did you feel that?" she asked, but the girl in her arms shook her head. Broken. She sighed and set Bestia down against the wall. "I'm not leaving you, so no crying." She drew her lightsaber up into her hand, her thumb resting on top of the ignition switch.
She took a step up and switched on her saber, the sound bouncing off of every wall. The mechanical footsteps were getting closer. She pushed her back into the nearest wall, flattening herself and pressing her lightsaber as close against her as she could. The heat coming off the blade was miserable, but she would have been a fool to be without it at the ready. Closer and closer, the clattering came, accompanied now by the creaking of age and the whining of ancient parts. Could it be?
She brought herself out from the wall and pointed her saber forward. The orange light mixed with the rays coming in through the wall slits. HK-47 stood before her, basking in the odd combination of colors. His red plating clashed with it garishly. It made him look clad in motley. He stood still, swiveling his head left and right as he did, his rifle held one-handed up against his shoulder.
"Greeting: Hello, master, how wonderful it is to see you again," the droid said. His voice drifted down into the abyss below, sending a dolorous, monotone echo throughout the stairwell. "I was able to break away in the chaos and find this path leading underneath the palace. Clarification: I was hoping to find you. I worried for a moment you might have perished, and that I had failed in my mission. Conjecture: I suppose being forced into the service of that meatbag apprentice of yours would be a fitting punishment for failing you, master."
Cinder switched her lightsaber off and fastened it back to her belt. "HK, am I glad to see you." She moved forward and embraced the droid. The metal plating was so cold against her, but it paled against the relief of learning he survived. "Where is Lord Fell? And what of Marcus Kregg?" She let go of him and awaited his response.
"Apology: Master, I am woefully sorry, but I was separated from your apprentice in the midst of the fighting. I do not know where he is, or if he survived the chaos above. Commentary: The kajidics took Durgulla flushing you and the meatbag girl down into the beast pit as provocation, and started their assault at once." The droid's voice teemed with as much excitement as his monotone vocabulator could convey. "Explanation: The denizens of the sentient suet's court were mercilessly hunted and eviscerated by several score of Evocii. I hid in an alcove to get a better look at the carnage. Continuation: That was where I found the entrance to this stairwell. Your presence here confirms it has a bottom."
"What else is in here? Lady Bestia is here with me, but her legs are broken. She will need to be carried back to the ship."
"Statement: Master, you need not even ask." There was a hint of contempt in HK-47's voice. "These fleshy appendages that your species has are much too prone to breakage. Resignation: I will carry her best I can, and lead the way back up."
The droid did as he said and carried Bestia up the rest of the stairway, with Cinder close on his heels. Eventually, they found themselves at the top. Passing the last step was a relief Cinder did not even know she needed. The sigh that left her made her smile.
The top of the stairs spilled out into a flat, rectangular room lit by white panes of neon nestled high in the ceiling. Rusted chains hung low around them. Most coiled around on slatted wroshyr wood tables, but others were so long their links scratched the floor, rattling as the outside breeze caught them. The windows were bigger here, opening a gate to the purple sky outside. Daybreak was spreading across Nar Shaddaa's horizon, and it made for a beauteous sight.
But the smell wrested it away from her as it made her gag. It was the foul stench of rot and decay. The droid kept walking, but Cinder stopped to take a look around. The right side of the room was all cages. Their bars were stained dark red, though not from rust, and warped beyond measure. She thought it a torture chamber at first, doubtless where Durgulla's minions would have interrogated his enemies and played sadistic games with their bodies. But there were no people to be seen. The stench of death mingled with gamey meat and animal sweat. Heaps upon heaps of dead bodies littered each cage, numbering almost every type of fauna conceivable. The common and exotic alike were scattered in droves, most of them in pieces.
"Statement: These cuts are too primal to be manmade," HK-47 said from beside her. She had been too focused on the wretched scene she hadn't heard him come over. "Query: Tell me master, what manner of beast did you face in the pit?"
"Terentatek," she said, still incredulous at the whole affair. "Where do you think a Hutt got one of those?"
"Answer: Unfortunately, master, I have nary a clue. But I can tell you that this sordid affair is the result of trying to feed it."
Her eyes narrowed. "You know more than you let on, HK. Speak."
"Recollection: Revan encountered several, from what little my memory banks recall. They consume Dark Side energy. Observation: It seems our corpulent friend was not so knowledgeable."
"Surely he didn't try to feed it with these?"
"Answer: Of course not, master. Look at the gouges and tears in their flesh." He swiveled around, laid Bestia upon one of the tables, and stooped after turning back to Cinder. He pointed out bite marks and tears in the flesh of a tuk'ata. "Observation: It would not eat any of this meat. Yet, it reigned as apex predator."
The droid turned to pick up Bestia once again. As he started on his way towards the exit door, Cinder shook her head and stood up. As she turned around, she heard a rustling noise from within the pile of dead creatures. She paid it no mind at first, but when it continued, she looked back over her shoulder. Nothing. She took a few more steps after HK, then she heard it again. This time, it was accompanied by snickering. Obnoxious snickering.
"HK, do you hear this?" she called after him, taking her lightsaber hilt in hand.
"Answer: Oh yes master, I do hear the irksome chortling of a tiny, fleshy creature. Query: Shall I blast it for you?"
"Stay with Bestia," Cinder said as she stepped towards the cage. She heard him affirm, but paid him no mind. She was approaching the bars then, so stretched and warped by the terentatek she wondered how they had not broken off entirely. The snickering stopped as she got closer to the pile of dead beasts. "Come out," she said.
An ochre orb burst out of the mound of flesh, tumbling down from the pile and landing on two clawed feet. In its beaked mouth, it held a scrap of rotting flesh that flopped around like its oversized ears. Tufts of auburn hair girdled its neck and dotted the crown of its head. Its swollen belly dragged against the floor. It was a monkey-lizard, a carrion eater. And a particularly loathsome creature besides. The thing pointed and laughed when it saw her, before snapping up the rest of its meal and letting out a hearty belch.
"Query: Shall I vaporize it for you master?" She heard HK ready his rifle.
Yes, please do. "No, we're taking it." Why did I say that? She returned her lightsaber to her belt and stretched out her arm. "Come here." The monkey lizard looked at her, cooed, and let out a stupid laugh that would put half the jesters in the galaxy to shame. It waddled forward, its feet clacking against the ground as its uneven claws scratched at the floor, and sauntered up her arm before perching on her shoulder. Despite its bloat, the thing probably weighed no more than five kilograms.
Bestia laughed when she approached, but HK-47 groaned. "Disgust: Master, I would prefer we vaporize the impish fleshy thing here and now, but if your wish is to keep it alive-"
"Yes, it is," Cinder said flatly. "Lead the way."
The way spilled back out into the palace foyer where they stood the night before. The droid was right: bodies were littered everywhere, each in various states of decay. Some were in pieces, others whole. Most were marred by blaster scars; others had been gutted side-to-side by wicked-bladed knives. The cuts were more like gouges uneven and jagged. The Evocii were hard at work piling bodies and moving them into the alcoves out of the path of the main foyer.
The Hutt himself was slumped over on his dais, his face gone purple and blue with a chain clasped tight around what passed for his neck. The slave chain, she recalled. One slave still stood there, the Lethan Twi'lek who had in truth been no slave at all. Another Lethan ushered her behind him when he saw Cinder and the droid pass by.
"Hold there," he said in rough-accented Basic. The words came out sharp and serrated, like the knife that hung from his belt. He pointed a gun at both her and the droid, aiming between them instead of at them. "You're leaving right before the Grand Council of the Hutts."
We have no time for this, Cinder thought. "I see Durgulla lies dead." There was another Hutt positioned behind him, slick and grey, and of a much more reasonable size. Compared to Durgulla's dead body, he could have been thought a dwarf. "I see another takes his place."
"Not quite yet, little lady," said the Twi'lek. He traced his fingers down the lekku he wore draped around his neck. "I am called 'Nem', in your tongue. I serve Urga Masidii the Elder, who stands at my back. You are familiar with my daughter, Twyla, yes?" He acknowledged the girl standing next to him.
Cinder nodded. "Of course." Sending your girl to do your dirty work. Wretched huttspawn. "I never made her acquaintance."
"Let's keep it that way. I met your boy. Sith." Nem adjusted the gun ever so slightly so it pointed directly at her. She kept her eyes on HK-47 to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.
"There won't be a problem unless you intend to make one," Cinder said as she raised her hands. "I only came here to fulfill a bargain. I think it goes without saying I won't be coming back."
Nem eyed her up and down for several long seconds. He scoffed. "Fine." His thin lips twisted into some approximation of a smile. "I would get going. You might miss your ship. The crew seemed quite intent on leaving." He reached into one of the pouches that littered his armor. "I think you might wish to have this back." He tossed a silver object towards her.
Cinder caught it in her hands. Bestia's lightsaber. She clipped it to her belt. "As you say," Cinder gave him a curt nod and turned around, beckoning HK to follow. The droid lingered behind a moment to glare at Nem, but ultimately did as he was told.
Crew? Fell must have retrieved Kregg at least. So long as they were together all would be well. Surely her apprentice would not be so stupid as to leave her behind on this backwater. No. She caught herself. I should have more faith. He has done right by me.
Outside the palace was an endless cascade of Evocii pouring out from cargo ramps, marching blank-eyed into the palace. Cinder waded first into the wave, followed closely by the droid carrying her other apprentice. The trio lost themselves among the rushing torrent and left the Hutts far behind them.
Only he lies ahead now.