A Sith Lord's Pilgrimage

The Dearg Due settled on the surface of Ziost with the soft hum of deactivating repulsorlifts. Gladiolus had commanded Landren to select a low-slopping knoll in a large, clear area that would hamper any attempt to sneak up on them. Given the rocky surface in several spots across the surface, it ended up being more difficult than she expected, especially with the Force suggesting where her destination awaited.

Gladiolus watched Landren power down her shuttle. He glanced at her once finished and said, "This will make it tougher for that Jedi to track us down. If she manages to guess our heading from Korriban."

"Guess?" she asked, almost distressed. "We lost her at Korriban."

"We only might've lost her. Helps that she didn't have the chance to plant a tracker and guarantee she can hunt us down."

"Ah. So that is what you meant." Gladiolus started from the cockpit but paused before she stepped out. "You should know that she might manage to track us through the Force. My presence in the Force is greater than hers, so I am… easier to find."

"That sounds like trouble."

"In a way, it is. However, I have no reason to believe they can trace me without any prior knowledge of my movements. Their lacking knowledge shall allow me to draw in those weaker than myself and destroy them."

"So then the Jedi who know of you can track you down. And since those who are weaker will be easier for you to hunt, they will perish—and few will be the wiser. Not until they all know about you."

Gladiolus smirked. "You're a quick learner, Landren. I feared I would need to instruct you further."

He sighed and muttered, "Have to be a quick learner if I'm to live long enough to retire from your service."

The Sith Lord paused and stared at the spacer. She was tempted to comment on Landren's desire to retire. But she decided against it with a shake of her head and moved on without uttering a word. Her purpose on Ziost was simple: to lay Lord Salazar to his final rest. She knew his holocron, crafted with some manner of failure or fault, would soon completely fail. It possessed enough power to reach his final resting place and share whatever final thoughts brewing within.

Gladiolus set that annoying Jedi out of mind. Should she manage to somehow discover the destination of the Sith she pursued, Darth Gladiolus would have vanished without a trace. Lord Salazar's holocron would be cold and dead, and the dark side of the Force would cloak her future activities. What those activities would be, she had yet to determine. Her mind briefly wandered to the slaver ring she culled on Ord Mantell. Perhaps she would hunt down more of their ilk. Sith Space happened to be near Hutt Space, and they represented the greatest source of that foul rot in the galaxy. Their race needed to be cast down, forever humbled and humiliated without a single hope of achieving vengeance against the wrath of the enslaved.

She made her way through the Dearg Due to where she stored Lord Salazar's holocron. It sat in a case prepared before she departed Earth. It was modifiable so that she could store and carry any holocrons she discovered. She did not know if she might discover more holocrons. But she harbored a secret hope to stumble upon a cache of forgotten Sith lore or knowledge. It was unlikely following her encounter with Darth Plagueis. He or his senator apprentice would have them stored in a secret cache.

But on Ziost, seemingly forgotten by time and memory, she might stumble upon a hidden element of the legacy she inherited. Gladiolus clung to the hope there might be holocrons on Ziost, lost or forgotten throughout centuries of abandonment and neglect. She thought to question Lord Salazar about what stores remained behind following his flight to Earth or if he had taken all he could from the other Sith Lords of his era and vanished. She would hope for the former, despite the latter being the more likely answer. After all, dozens of holocrons awaited her back in Ziost Hangar, named for her first master's homeworld.

Her nose twitched. How sentimental they had been, granting it such a name.

She sighed and instead focused on what could be. Lost knowledge could always be found, or so she believed. After all, this was a galaxy that measured eras in millennia and experienced so many critical events in the development of its worlds and systems that hundreds of civilizations and cultures were forever lost.

Gladiolus entered a small storage bay. Personal supplies for herself and Landren were stored within. She stepped over cases that had somehow fallen over to reach the case holding Lord Salazar's holocron. She kneeled before it, popped it open, and reverently removed the large crystalline pyramid. The Sith Lord grasped the dark side of the Force. The holocron glowed a faint red, but Lord Salazar did not appear. A few seconds passed before she heard his voice.

"Lord Gladiolus. Are we…" He breathed out slowly. "Are we finally on Ziost?"

"Yes, Lord Salazar. I have brought you home."

She could feel his joy and pride. A troubled feeling fluttered within her. Gladiolus thought, if only for a moment, that he felt content. He had accepted that he would pass on from this world, and that disturbed her as a Sith Lord. He should damn her for bringing about the events that would finalize his demise and his legacy.

But then Lord Salazar had become more than merely a Sith Lord before his mortal form perished. He had become a wizard and a teacher, a master of mystical arts, and a man bound to three others who did not hold to the Sith ways. They had been different enough that they split their students into quarters, failing to recognize those differences would forever affect a people to their sorrow.

Darth Gladiolus closed the case and started for the ramp. She found Landren waiting on her there, rubbing his stubbled jaw with a troubled furrow between his brows.

"You are in my way."

He glanced at her, masking how she startled him. They both knew she sensed that feeling shoot through him, and they both recognized how she permitted the fiction of ignorance to linger between them.

"I am." His gaze fell to the holocron. "That's a mighty fine thing you have there, Your Lordship. What is it? And why are you taking it with you?"

"This? This is the holocron of my first Sith Master. He was born on this world over a thousand years ago, and he died on mine after decades among a… backwater people."

"That's the first time I've heard you speak about your homeworld. I assume you're from a world the Republic has never heard of."

"…you would be right," Darth Gladiolus whispered. A fear of discovery raced through her. "My world is distant enough I doubt the Republic would have ever found it if given ten thousand years to continue exploring the cosmos."

"Will you return home? Or will you remain out here with us?"

She snorted and smiled slightly. "I have always intended to return home. How can my world advance without the knowledge and technology of the galaxy beyond?"

"You court enemies that could destroy your world."

"And that is why I will set some against each other before I return home. Plagueis. This Jedi. Both will perish before I gaze upon my world once more."

"And what of the remaining Jedi?"

"Their time will come. If they are wise, they will focus on the Sith among them." She smiled then, sharp and threatening. "And if they move against me, then they will taste despair and terror. I will burn the Republic from the Outer Rim to the Core, and all will know it is the Jedi's fault. The 'people' their Republic stands for will turn against them.

"And once that comes to pass, I will sweep them into my hands. They will believe me merciful and gracious, and they shall love me."

Landren sighed. "I hope your silly plans don't backfire, Gladiolus."

"As if they ever have," she said with a smirk.

He did not respond. Landren merely stepped aside and permitted her to disembark without issue. While she could have forced him out of her path, she found, more and more, that having him willingly act on her behalf brought about better results than force or fear could ever accomplish. Gladiolus believed that particular trait could be used to her advantage. He was her first ally in Republic space. He knew the worlds and peoples that would be necessary to her plans to overthrow the Jedi and their Republic. One day, she would send him as her herald or emissary to those peoples, and thus build her strength swiftly. She might prefer to handle everything personally, but she had already learned she could not be everywhere at once. She would maintain a final say on every matter. But a man like him, loyal and slightly cunning, would be useful toward her future aims.

She stepped onto the surface of Ziost. Her shuttle sat atop a grassy hill as desired, surrounded by more grass with grey stone emerging here and there. Gladiolus held Lord Salazar's holocron close to her side as she started forward, following the whims of the Force. A cold breeze cut across her as she left the Dearg Due behind on its hilltop. With a touch of power, she warmed her body to fight off the harsh bite of the gusting winds.

The Force guided her from the hill, across a narrowing plain of grey, sparse grass, along a tricking stream in its stony bed, and toward a forest of tall pines like one might find in the great alpines of Earth. Ferns covered the ground, interspersed with saplings of varying heights. Game trails ran through the wood, but anything manmade had long since been reclaimed by nature. Gladiolus hesitated before pressing into the wood. She sensed Lord Salazar's feelings. They matched the guiding sense she felt in the Force, working in tandem to lead her where she must go. Typically, she would be hesitant to follow the Force so. But Lord Salazar agreed with the Force. Thus, she would follow both the Force and her former master.

Something lurked and crawled through the forest. Gladiolus sensed creatures lingered nearby. They followed her but never dared interact. Their wariness of her and her power kept them at bay, despite the touch of the dark side she felt upon them. They should have attacked her at the first opportunity. But they had not acted as she expected. She wondered if they knew she was a Sith Lord and retained enough loyalty to the departed figures of the past. That would explain why they dared not assault her.

It sounded unlikely in her, head but it explained their queer behavior better than any other idea that passed through her mind.

The forest remained around her as the ground began sloping upward. Gladiolus cut a path through the wood, focused on Lord Salazar's guidance over the Force. She sensed the resonance emerging from the holocron. It comforted her ill feelings concerning the fact she followed the Force so closely.

She tried to not be surprised by Lord Salazar's sentimentality. He had grown old, left to wither under one legacy forgotten and another betrayed. And while Gladiolus understood the desire to maintain control over one's life up to the final moment, she could not stop how her stomach roiled with dismay at her first master's choice.

I will not flee death like Voldemort, but neither will I accept it so casually. A day will come when an apprentice of mine believes themself powerful enough to strike me down. Gladiolus smiled fondly. Perhaps they will be right. But I will challenge them, and make them prove their true strength.

She reached the end of the forest shortly before midday on Ziost. A pale sun hung high in the sky, illuminating the plain before her in soft greys. Gladiolus stood atop a cliff, granting her a wide view of the distance before her. Large, misshaped stones sat here and there across the plain below, embedded violently into the grassy field. The failing walls of an ancient city sat at the far end of the plain, tucked into a valley amongst the foothills of distant peaks.

Gladiolus worked her way down to the plain, following a craggy goat trail to the plain floor below. She kept Lord Salazar's holocron on whichever side faced the cliff, regardless of direction as she snaked down the stone way.

She glanced up into the sky upon reaching the plain. The sun had barely moved. She frowned. Was it summer, when the sun moved sluggishly across the sky, like on Earth? Or was the relationship between this world and its star different? Gladiolus knew not which. She cared only as far as the present season permitted her return to the Dearg Due before the sunset. She wanted to avoid camping on Ziost this night, even if she might learn more of the Sith or the dark side of the Force by remaining on-world longer.

Gladiolus took a step forward, followed by another. Whatever she might discover within the strange walls of the city before her meant nothing compared to the draw of the Force, and Lord Salazar's burning desire to pass through the barrier before them.

Whae Rynn's shuttle dropped out of hyperspace about four hundred kilometers from the world of Dromund Kaas. She knew she could have emerged closer without spooking the Sith she pursued. But she did not know which of the abandoned verdant worlds of the Sith said monster had fled to, and so she wanted to ease her return to hyperspace.

She closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. Her jaw clenched tightly as she sensed the taint of the dark side. It remained potent around Dromund Kaas, despite the many centuries of being unoccupied.

Shows what prolonged occupation by dark siders can do to a world, even one as filled with life as Dromund Kaas, Whae thought bitterly. How could anyone suffer this feeling? She shivered and tried to not scratch her arms. A fierce itch threatened to overtake her. How could anyone give themselves over to the dark side?

Unfortunately, Whae knew the answer to that question. Power. That was why all who dared embrace the dark side of the Force made that choice. Yes, many Jedi had brushes and encounters with its foul power, but they had resisted the dark side's corruption. Even the great Jedi general Revan had managed to remain in the light—and he had fallen so far that he became the fearsome Dark Lord of the Sith. His story remained one engraved into the memory of the Jedi. Never would they forget his traumatic legend.

Whae sighed as she reached out further, probing Dromund Kaas for signs of the Sith Lord she pursued. Nothing came back, leaving her with growing dread.

She had guessed wrong.

She had guessed wrong.

She had guessed wrong.

Whae immediately plugged in the coordinates for Ziost into her navigational computer. The moment she could make the jump to that other Sith world, she activated the hyperspace motivator and closed her eyes, entering a strengthening trance.

She hoped she would not be late. The Sith Lord needed to be stopped before she could cast the specter of death and terror across the galaxy.

Lord Salazar's holocron pulsed a deep crimson as Gladiolus entered a striking gap in the city walls. Pipes and wires hung from both sides, terribly eroded but still present. She paused in the gap's center and stared at the broken walls. She wondered what transpired to bring ruin upon the city of Salazar Slytherin. She knew that in her bones. Ziost felt like a world in decay, slowly returning to whatever natural state it existed in before the first band of dark siders landed on its surface and established a settlement.

The holocron pulsed again. Her gaze flickered to the holocron, back to the walls briefly, and then to the city stretching out before her.

Gladiolus breathed out slowly. After a moment, she treaded onward into the city before her. She followed the wide avenue just beyond the wall's inner structure, crumpled and broken in places. Grasses and weeds already emerged from most breaks. Several crevices happened to be lifeless. No bones littered the way before her, nor did crashed or hollowed-out speeders. Gladiolus frowned at the lack of signs of panic or war. Had the city been abandoned before whatever fate brought about the destruction of its wall? Or had that disaster swept through so fiercely that any sign of destruction had vanished in its wake?

She disliked both options. Lord Salazar's holocron continued to pulse, growing insistent as the living Sith Lord pressed on.

The avenue widened as the Sith Lord delved deeper into the abandoned city. Massive, blooming trees grew in the center, their roots pushing outward and up. The duracrete roads and sidewalks became increasingly broken the further she ventured. The durasteel buildings lining the avenue were broken or slumped. Shattered windows covered most fronts, though a few panels of transparisteel persisted. Yet there was no graffiti. Nothing boarded up. Not even the appearance of broken signs or lighting.

Gladiolus continued along the path outlined by the Force and the insistent pulses of Lord Salazar's holocron. Soon, she would reach her destination. Soon, Lord Salazar would slumber for eternity.

She reached a massive roundabout. Some twenty or thirty streaks of traffic could enter it. The holocron guided her to the right, past the first two turnoffs, and finally down the third. She found a narrow street lined with thick pines and overgrown flowerbeds. Gladiolus glanced at the pulsing holocron in her grasp, then down the street once more.

"If you're certain," she muttered with furrowed brows. Still, her feelings told her they were nearly there. She was merely… surprised.

The holocron glowed painfully. Gladiolus glowered at the pyramid once the flash dimmed. Lord Salazar remained tucked away, conserving his remaining power despite displaying his annoyance with her murmur. She struggled with the temptation to draw him from his holocron and demand why he reacted so. Perhaps she offended the ancient memories from his life long before he ventured across the stars and came to Earth. Nostalgia was a drug, an illness of the mind that clouded one's vision. She tried to not be disgusted. Darth Gladiolus owed much to Lord Salazar Slytherin.

She followed the narrow street until she found a section filled with tall stone buildings. Coated in grey and blue moss, the doors she spotted were left open. They had a strangely familiar feeling, despite the fact she had never seen their like. They were pyramidal, with harsh rises and falls like a staircase. All but one only had three rises; the odd one out possessed five. Despite the onslaught of time, they remained strong and firm, resistant and resilient against the forces destined to lay them low.

The holocron flushed a bright crimson.

Nearly there, thought Gladiolus. Nearly there, Lord Salazar. Hold on, and then pass on however you see fit.

The holocron guided her to the tallest stone pyramid. A slashed curtain of ivy hung across the doorway. Gladiolus half-considered drawing her lightsaber, but it would be a waste of time and energy to wield her weapon against something as harmless as a curtain of ivy. She instead passed through, pushing aside the ivy with a wave of her hand and the power of the Force.

Though given how dark she found the pyramid's interior, she changed her mind concerning her weapon. She summoned her lightsaber with her off-hand, thumbed the ignition, and held the crimson blade aloft.

Its glow revealed the room she entered. Two benches lined the far wall, placed on each side of a wide, arched doorway. There were some stools to her right, while the left-hand wall sloped away toward what she suspected was a long corridor.

The holocron pulsed. Gladiolus glanced down. It pulsed again, drawing her gaze to the archway. A faint red light had activated in its keystone.

So that way, then.

Gladiolus crossed the room and passed under the arch. The room she entered appeared to be an extended antechamber. Tapestries once hung on the walls, reduced to stains and thin bits of thread left over after the insects that devoured them finally departed for fresher grub.

Her gaze stopped on an odd crack about a little beyond halfway down the antechamber. She approached it, reaching out with the Force. Something existed behind the crack, despite every appearance to the contrary. With a sly smirk, Gladiolus used the Force to expand the crack. She clenched her jaw thanks to the power required. The moment she popped the sealed passage open, a chunk of that wall barreled across the antechamber and slammed into the far side with a rattling thud.

"Whoops," she said, greatly pleased by her power. Gladiolus entered the newly formed passage. She found stairs within and without hesitation started up them.

All the while, the holocron warmed, pleased by where she trod.

The stairs spiraled in a janky, polygonal manner up to the moment she reached a trapdoor. Gladiolus opened it with a wave of her hand. Strands of sunlight poured through the opening, so she deactivated her lightsaber, returned it to her belt, and leaped up into the chamber above.

She stood in the topmost chamber of the pyramidal structure. From her perch, she could gaze upon most of the ruined city. Buildings encroached upon the foothills before her. A glance over her shoulder revealed several gouges in the great wall she had passed through. She had failed to spot most gouges from the forested cliff beyond. The trees had blurred into a green line, like the Forbidden Forest from the Astronomy Tower—

No. Do not think of that place. That life is behind you.

Yet Gladiolus knew in its own way, Hogwarts would never remain behind her. Hermione Granger rotted away in a cell beneath the castle. Yes, she had already set her mind on finishing her training as a witch once she returned to Earth. After all, her apprentice, Darth Myrddryn, had managed to finish her education before embracing the dark side of the Force and becoming Gladiolus's Sith apprentice. A day would inevitably come when she would acquire the true powers destined for her as a Sith Lord born as a witch.

Until then, she would not think on that matter.

The holocron shone brilliantly when Gladiolus approached a stone perch. Four stone wings, fluffy with feathers, rose from a plinth around the height of her hip. She stepped forward, holding out the holocron. It vibrated in her grasp, already knowing the site of its final resting place.

She carefully set the holocron on the plinth's winged perch and then turned her head aside as a bright crimson flash momentarily blinded her. Gladiolus blinked away the flash. Lord Salazar hovered before her, looking much as he had so many years ago when she had been a weak, pathetic girl.

"Lord Gladiolus," he whispered fondly. "Thank you, for delivering me home."

She nodded stiffly. "Is that all you desired, Lord Salazar? For me to place you here? Or do you have more wisdom for me?"

"Perhaps one final lesson." His gaze rose to the stone roof above them. Gladiolus's gaze followed—and then she sensed a presence far from the planet, on the edge of the system.

The Jedi, she thought angrily. That fool dared follow me here!

"You have already destroyed that pretender descendent of mine," Lord Salazar said. "Go destroy that Jedi. Only then will you truly be my heir."

Gladiolus stiffened. She recalled the year when the Heir of Slytherin haunted the halls of Hogwarts. It had been a shade of Voldemort, but that shade had ruined her image and broken down her worldview. She owed it a fair deal; after all, without him, she would have never discovered the holocrons beneath the Chamber of Secrets.

In a way, this Jedi was much like that shade of Voldemort. She would owe her a great deal. After all, her death would help grow Darth Gladiolus's power. It would help deepen her training as a Sith Lord. Another confirmation of her powers as the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"I understand," she whispered. "I already declared myself to be the Dark Lord of the Sith. But there is still much I must learn. Ways I can still grow." She smiled maliciously.

"Wait here, my friend. I shall bring you the Jedi's head—and only then will we part ways."

And as she turned her back on the Sith holocron that began her dark journey, Gladiolus added a single word to her statement: Forever.