The Witch of Malachor
II
"You
thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll
be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You’re wrong if you think that I’ll
be just like you"
-Three Days Grace
The Star Map. It was the first of four that had led Revan to find the
Star Forge, and now it stood before her, glowing in the darkness. The
Dark side could be felt in it. In its making and in its power. The
Rakata had trifled with powers they did not understand, and in the end
paid a terrible price for it. Now she would use it to find Revan
somehow. As it was for Revan, it would be a first step, and so she
studied the map before her, noting the corrupted elements of it, the
incomplete coordinates, the missing data. But she was not alone in the
temple of the Builders.
A lesser Jedi might not have noticed the presence stirring behind her,
but when it rushed out of the darkness at her, force pike raised, Kreia
had her lightsaber out in an instant. The beam of it gave the Star Map
a red glow. She swung the blade in a wide arc, blocking the assassin's
stabbing attack. A Force push knocked him on his back and sent the
force pike skidding across the stone floor. It was common with the
younger Force students relying on martial skills instead of on the
Force to guide their hands in combat. It was the undoing of many of
them.
"Do you think me weak because I am old?" she asked him. "Do you think
me completely blind because my eyes do not function as well as they
once did?"
The assassin was ignoring her, attempting to call the pike to his hand
through the Force.
But with a gentle hand motion from Kreia, the pike skittered across the
floor and into the next room. Focusing on the man in front of her, he
was held fast unable to move, trapped in the Force as directed by
Kreia. His body shook ever so slightly as he attempted to free himself
from her grip, but it was in vain. She closed her eyes, switching off
the lightsaber and concentrating ever more deeply..
His mind was laid bare before her, though moving through it was rather
like wading through thick mud. Madness had corrupted it so that it was
broken into unclear images. His proximity to the Star Map had, no
doubt, played a part in that. Dark thoughts, disturbed thoughts lie
there. Hatred, rage, regret all intermixed. And beyond that, the desire
to inflict pain. The desire to kill all Jedi, everywhere. And beneath
that, the frightened fallen Jedi that was at that core of this being,
horrified at what it had become, at what the Dark side had done to it,
but finding it easier to give in to the Dark thoughts, obey its
passions rather than resist. Indeed, there was no more strength left in
him to fight his destiny. His surface thoughts were only of either
escaping or somehow getting the Force pike in his hands. Underneath
those were of his Sith fighter concealed nearby, the Star Map calling
to him, luring him in. And somewhere in the middle of all that, a few
fragmented images of Dantooine has he had once known it.
Kreia perked up sensing this creature's memory of Revan. Revan, in full
armor, standing before a large host of individuals in dark robes, some
of them in garb similiar to this man. Standing in a large room of grey
stone with many doors. On the doors were glowing red circles...
“Where is this place?” she whispered loudly. .
But there was little else to be read from the man who had grown
very still. Pulling off his mask, she saw the face of a young Jedi she
once knew, now horribly twisted by the Dark side, skin drained of color
and showing blood vessels. She placed her hand on his forehead, and
using the Force to put thoughts into his mind, spoke to him. "You have
lost your way, but there may yet be redemption for you. You will find
your way to Coruscant, and there you will find the Jedi where you will
surrender yourself. We shall see. Perhaps there is still humanity left
in you. I am taking your ship, so you will have to find another means
of getting there."
Still she had found an unlikely clue to Revan here. The man’s ship was
somewhere outside the complex, and so she left that dark place, the
Star Map folding back up into itself. And she left him with the thought
in his mind that there might still be a chance for salvation, a way out
from underneath the madness.
Outside it had grown dark, though it made little difference to her.
After a short while of searching, she found a Sith fighter hidden in a
small clearing with camouflage netting. With a wave of her hand, the
netting was removed from the ship, and underneath she found a variant
of the usual fighter equipped with a hyperdrive.
She climbed into the cockpit and checking the navigational computer,
found the last jump coordinates the ship had made. It seemed to be
along a well known hyperspace route. She pulled down the canopy and did
a check on the ship’s systems. All seemed to be in working order, so
she powered up the engines and lifted it off the ground. Clearing the
treetops, she pushed the throttle forward and brought the ship into a
steep climb. It had been sometime since Kreia had last flown a
starfighter, but using the Force to sense what was ahead and guide her
movement, she had little difficulty. The stars rushed down at her, and
the dimly lit features of Dantooine became smaller until she reached
orbit, and the darkened sphere began to become smaller. Shortly
thereafter, she broke free of Dantooine’s gravity well and engaged the
hyperdrive. The stars extended into lines and the ship lurched forward.
While she was in hyperspace, she meditated on what she had seen in the
Sith’s mind. Possibly it was Korriban she saw, though she had never
been to that planet and could not be sure. It would have to be checked
out. There might be yet clues to Revan’s location there as well. She
knew that Revan had gone there at least twice, had found the final Star
Map there, had even confronted and slain the leader of the Sith Academy
there. Revan had not yet fallen to the Dark side for the second time,
otherwise she might have taken the Academy for herself then and there.
Days later, the alert sounded within the cockpit, pulling her out of
her meditation. She was coming up on the coordinates in the computer.
Kreia pushed the hyperdrive lever forward, reverting the ship
back to realspace. The star lines changed back into the blackness of
space with pinpricks of light, but to her surprise, there was no solar
system in sight. Instead, there was the hulk of a Sith warship, listing
to starboard. Her sensors detected power fluctuations through out it,
though atmosphere and artificial gravity seemed to be intact. As
she made a pass along the length of the warship, she stretched out in
the Force, searching for signs of life. But what she felt was weak,
difficult to distinguish. Instead, she sensed anger and death aboard
that ship. Not wholly unexpected in a Sith ship, but yet the sense of
abandonment was strong. So was the sense of watchfulness.
Nevertheless, she made two more passes before deciding on a small
hangar in the bottom of the ship. She lifted it up into the rectangular
opening into a hangar empty of mechanics and with the lighting clearly
ready to give up, sputtering and humming as it flashed on and off. She
brought the fighter to rest next to the entranceway and powered down
the ship. Again she extended her senses into the Force, seeking other
beings, but she sensed none. So she opened the canopy and climbed out
of the ship. All around her were other starfighters, wiring hanging out
of them, controls smashed. The signs of sabotage were clear. The
frenzied attempts to keep the ships in the hangar were obvious. Blaster
marks dotted the walls.
Kreia exited the hangar into the corridor beyond, moving silently, her
tan cloak flowing behind her. That corridor also showed blaster scoring
along the walls leading up to the hangar. But there were bodies here,
grey uniformed Sith officers intermingled with troopers in silver
armor. The bodies were sprawled about, many of them bearing the clean
cuts or neatly cauterized stab wounds of a lightsaber. Some of them
showed normal stab wounds.
Room after room branching off from the main corridor told the same
story, though intermixed with the bodies of the troopers and officers
was the occasional Sith assassin or Dark Jedi. All the way to the
turbolift, there was the signs of battle, but no clear reason as to
why. So she entered the lift and pressed the button that would take it
to the command deck.
As soon as she stepped out of the turbolift, she noticed the main
power was out on that level. Only the faint glow of emergency lighting
in red, gave the corridor any illumination. And just then she heard a
voice spoke inside her head, “Revan is no more, Jedi.”
She had her lightsaber out and activated in a flash, adding its glow to
the existing lighting. She closed her eyes, feeling them to be more of
a hindrance than of assistance, and felt around her through the Force
for a presence, but there was only a faint resonance off in the
distance. So Kreia carefully crept down the hallway, looking in each
room, blade extended in front of her.
“Why are you here, Jedi?” the voice persisted.
“Do you fear an old woman?” she asked in return. “Is that why you
choose to remain in the shadows?”
But it did not answer. Instead, the presence attempted to burrow its
way into her mind. She smiled at its futile attempt, at the untrained
nature of its Force potential. Clearly the threat was less than she
might have expected.
“I see, you are not long out of your apprenticeship. Your attempt is
good for a beginner, but not sufficient. I will help you find your
way.” she said, switching off her lightsaber and hanging it from her
belt. “But first you shall yield to me.”
Then she closed her eyes once more, letting her arms fall to her sides
and focused on the Force and on the presence which began to withdraw as
it sensed her seeking it out. She extended her senses down the hallway,
feeling it grow stronger as she drew nearer to it, and finally to the
last door leading to the bridge. There in meditation, a figure kneeled
before the main viewscreen. It fought the invading presence the best it
could, squirmed and attempted to slip out of Kreia’s grasp. But it had
no place to retreat to, and soon she was inside its mind. It struggled
and then became calm, the futility of its struggling being realized by
it.
She walked down the corridor and entered the darkened bridge, lights on
the consoles blinking, the blackness of space visible through the
viewport. More bodies lie here and among them, faces of former Jedi
that she recognized.
Against its will, the figure stood and walked toward her in black robes
and a Sith mask. Shaking ever so slightly from the tiny wisps of fear
growing in it at her greater power, it kneeled before her. She
reached out and pulled the mask off. He made no attempt to stop her.
She was stunned to see the face of her former Padawan, Kol Namr beneath
it. His features were twisted by the Dark side, his skin having grown
ashen and blood vessels visible beneath the skin. His eyes had gone a
smoky black. He stared up at her with a blank look on his face.
She put a hand on his shoulder and focused on drawing on the Force.
Feeling it extend out from her, she entered into his mind unopposed.
He was a newly graduated Sith master, having bested his final trial at
the Academy on Korriban. But things were not well on that planet.
Bastila had recently left in search of Revan. There had already been
much infighting amongst them ever since Revan departed, but when
Bastila left, chaos ruled. Sith killed Sith in a frenzied spree of
death. The merchants and officials of the nearby Dreshdae starport were
murdered. Very few lucky ones escaped as he did, with several
apprentices of his own. They’d captured enough Sith fighters to make
their way off to the planet and rendezvous with the warship. But once
there they attempted to take it for themselves and the ensuing battle
left everyone but himself dead. The warship was crippled in the
fighting, as the Sith officers attempted to force the Dark Jedi into
discontinuing their attacks. His apprentices were all slain, the
starfighters likewise sabotaged by the command of the Captain of the
ship, and he was trapped on this damaged vessel.
“Where did Revan go? What of Bastila?” Kreia asked aloud as she probed
his mind, but the answers were not to be found there. He, like the rest
of the Academy was left uniformed about the nature of Revan’s mission,
and neither did they receive any information from Bastila before she
left. Kreia’s brow furrowed in annoyance at reaching yet another dead
end in her investigation.
But then the man stood up, her hand slipping off his shoulder. He
leered at Kreia, and took a step back and drew a lightsaber out of the
folds of his robe. “And now Master, we finish it.” Twin beams of red
light extended out from either side.
She stared at him momentarily stunned. “Don’t be a fool, Kol. Your
destiny is still in your hands. There is time yet for you to turn from
the Dark path. Neither your death nor mine serves any purpose."
“Oh, but you are wrong,” he said, spinning the lightsaber in his finger
tips. “My choice is my own. This the way of the Sith. The strongest of
us must survive to reunite the others. My time is at hand. But if I
cannot even defeat my former Master, than I have little hope of leading
the Sith. Therefore, I must test myself in this way. If I am not strong
enough, than perhaps you are. But know this. As you have looked into my
mind, I also have looked into yours. You are a Jedi no longer. As such,
you should not hesitate to strike me down....if you can.”
“It is true, I have been cast out. But I will not fight you, Padawan.
We have much to discuss. I can take you away from here. There is a
wiser choice than this though it may not be clear to you. Did you hear
nothing I said on Dantooine? Did you learn nothing from your training
there?”
“I am your padawan, no longer,” and as he said the words, he lunged at
her with one end of the lightsaber. “If you will not fight, then you
will die.”
She extended a hand and delivered a force push that sent him sprawling,
lightsaber clattering across the floor plates. “Desist, Kol. You must
listen to me one last time. You must trust me as you once did."
But he extended out a hand at her and force lightning sprang out toward
her, momentarily engulfing her and sending wracking pains through her.
She gritted her teeth as the energy crackled across her, but she forced
herself to keep her mind clear. She drew on the Force more heavily,
erecting a barrier between her and the lightning, and finally absorbing
its energy harmlessly. Her breathing had become slightly more labored
with the effort.
While she did so, Kol had once more risen with his lightsaber
activated, and advanced toward her. “Now will you fight?”
She focused on remaining calm, a more difficult task than she had ever
faced before. Being attacked by one’s former student with Force
lightning had sent a mixed feeling of anger and despair through her.
Anger at her failure to protect Kol from the Dark side, despair that
her efforts had not been good enough. And this was Kol. What of Revan?
This exact situation might be played out when she finally met with her,
only she was much stronger than Kol. If she could not be turned from
the Dark side, she might well destroy Kreia. Death was something a Jedi
learned not to fear, but failure remained difficult. Having to strike
down a former student would be the ultimate failure, she decided, as
she looked upon him.
But he gave her only so long to think, rushing at her once again and
launching into a furious attack. She only just got her lightsaber out
and up in time ward off the blade. He spun attacking with the other
blade, but she parried that as well. He followed it up with a series
attacks, Kreia remaining on the defensive, unwilling to kill him. She
threw one force push after another at him, trying to convince him of
the futility of it, keeping him off balance, throwing his attacks off
and parrying those with her lightsaber that came too close. She counted
on the fact that her endurance was greater through her stronger
connection to the Force.
At a pause in the action, as Kol stared at her, his own breathing
becoming heavier, she spoke to him again. “Kol, you must not persist in
this. There is another alternative to the road you have chosen. You
have only to trust me.”
“I cannot, but moreover, I do not wish to. The power the Sith offer is
too great to be ignored once you have been immersed in it. You may yet
find this out for yourself if you strike me down.”
“The Sith teachings hold no value for me,” she answered. “I do
not desire power, only knowledge.”
“True knowledge of the Force comes only from walking both paths,” he
told her, and then allowing himself to give in to his anger, he
attacked ever more viciously, spinning the twin blades ever faster,
stabbing and slashing at her with reckless abandon.
As she fended them off, she suddenly became aware of what his true goal
was. He thought to turn her to the Dark side before she killed him. No
doubt he already expected to die, but thought to leave a legacy behind.
But being aware of it only made her failure seem all the more enormous.
Feelings intruded in her mind where serenity was meant to be. She felt
her concentration slipping ever so slightly, and one of his attacks
came close to striking a fatal blow. She spun away from it, and lashed
out with her own blade thinking to knock his away. But instead, he
threw himself in the path of her blade and it buried itself into the
chest of her former padawan. He smiled before he died, thinking himself
victorious.
Immediately, she switched off the blade, dropping the lightsaber to the
ground. She caught him as he fell, gently lowering him to the floor.
Placing a hand on his wound, she attempted to begin to the healing
process, but her attack had been too well placed. There was no life in
him left. Kreia bowed her head, feeling the regret washing over her in
great waves that threatened to drown her. And she was left alone on a
ship full of corpses, many former Jedi lying amongst them. The battle
here had been one of the last of the Jedi Civil War.
It was a much subdued Kreia that finally walked to the navigational
computer. From there she pulled the coordinates for Korriban. The next
step of her journey was clear then.
She retrieved her lightsaber and stared down at her fallen padawan once
more. So disconcerting was it that his blank eyes stared back up at
her, then she paused to kneel down and close them. "I regret that I did
not train you well enough. Your failure is mine as well. The failure of
all Jedi, yet another reminder that our teachings are incomplete." With
a heavy sigh, she rose to her feet again and walked to the turbolift.
A short while later, she was lifting the starfighter up and then
dropping down out of the hangar back into space. As she lined the
fighter up on course to make the jump to hyperspace, she watched the
dead warship drifting, thought of her former padawan and then wondered
what had become of some of the others. Several of the faces on that
ship she had seen on Dantooine in better times. Such a treacherous road
the Jedi walked. So terribly dangerous to the younger of the Order.
Many Jedi spoke of killing the Sith, but she knew this to be the wrong
approach. They had been cast of out of the Order millennia ago, and
their need for revenge fueled them and those who picked up the
teachings they passed down. Removing that need was what would end the
conflict. Somehow, there needed to be reconciliation. They needed to be
encouraged to abandon the Sith teachings rather than simply to be
struck down or have their minds altered as had been done to Revan.
It was with these thoughts in mind that she pulled back the lever and
once more entered hyperspace.