Chapter 47 (Patreon)

Tension. Fear. Anger… Curiosity. The girl’s emotions shifted and churned no matter how hard she tried to pull herself together. Talli had devoted a great deal of attention to honing her body, her abilities, and her control over the Dark Side, so she had long since understood and accepted the principle that “emotions should serve the gifted, not the other way around.” A Dark gifted who couldn’t rein in their passions was little more than a dumb animal, as their commander and her closest lackey had so clearly demonstrated today. Pride, arrogance, stupidity, and underestimating the enemy had landed them in captivity. At least it hadn’t gotten them killed. But for all that Talli considered herself restrained and cunning, their current situation was doing no favors for her control over those passions. Even the comfortable cabin, lined with bookshelves and furnished with a small table and two comfortable armchairs in the middle, did little to help. If anything, it only left her more confused.

The man sitting across from her wore a faint smile. An unpleasant one. His red eyes studied the Dathomiri woman with open interest, and every so often the sheer brazenness of his stare sent a surge of anger through her. A man was shamelessly gawking at her, and only the understanding that Dathomir was not the whole galaxy—and that she was this man’s prisoner—kept her from putting the red-eyed brute in the black robe firmly in his place.

What irritated her even more was that Talli had last bathed three days ago, while the cabin was spotless and everything in it smelled pleasant except her. No, it wasn’t embarrassment—the very thought of looking pathetic and filthy disgusted her. The realization that once she got up from the comfortable light-gray armchair, she’d leave a mark from her dirty ass on the upholstery was both infuriating and, in a small way, satisfying. A tiny bit of revenge.

“I am Siith’khara’Dziha,” the red-eyed man finally said. “Not Sith. Siith. It’s a name. I’m the Director of the Academy of Magic and head of the Jabiim Mages’ Guild. I have nothing to do with the Dark gifted.”

The man fell silent, looking at the girl expectantly. Talli spent a few seconds digesting what she had just heard, then decided not to make the situation any worse. Talking while sitting in a comfortable chair was far preferable to screaming out answers while strapped to a torture table.

A witch had to know when to bend if she wanted to survive among the Nightsisters. Grudges against those stronger than you were meant to be stored away until the right moment came—then unleashed all at once, with the revenge properly savored.

The man had already demonstrated his strength when he had “invited” her to this conversation aboard the ship. The memory of her “friends” writhing beneath arcs of electricity snapping from the red-eyed man’s fingertips warmed her heart, while their groans after the “lesson” filled her with deep satisfaction.

Just as satisfying was the thought that she had been right to hold herself back and wait to see how the Sisters’ attack on him played out.

“Talli V’arna. Nightsister, assigned to a Long Patrol group,” she said, allowing herself a cutting smirk. “Dark gifted.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Talli.” The red-eyed man smiled unpleasantly again, though his friendly tone matched the words. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine the smile itself being pleasant. Rather strange. Mother Talzin, for example, could play the role of a loving elder relative so convincingly that after speaking with her, you could spend the next week remembering her with awe and adoration—even knowing full well that Mother was a dark, vicious female rancor gone rabid.

“Likewise,” the Dathomiri woman lied. Truth be told, the girl was confused. So she decided to test the waters and see if she could clear things up a little. “Why am I here?”

At that moment, the door opened, and a silver protocol droid entered carrying a fairly large caf pot with two cups and a small dish of something on a tray.

“Your caf, Master Dziha,” the protocol droid announced as he set the tray on the table.

“Thank you, Threepio,” the red-eyed man said with a nod.

Once the door had closed behind the droid, the man who had introduced himself as Siith poured the steaming drink into the cups and pushed one of them closer to the girl. A pleasant aroma reached Talli’s nose. She liked caf, but unfortunately drank it only rarely: the beans were brought to Dathomir by the occasional trader or smuggler, and only a small fraction of them had the courage to deal with the Sisters. In short, it was an expensive and rare indulgence even for the elders, let alone for her… And the quality was usually downright poor.

“Go ahead, Talli. Help yourself.” That unpleasant smile again, and he nudged the little dish toward her. It seemed to hold some kind of sweets. The girl had never seen anything like them before, but they looked extremely tempting.

“Uh… thanks.” The whole situation was only getting more confusing. The uncertainty still had her tense, frightened, and angry, but a small sip of the hot caf made it all a little easier to bear.

Of course, he could have slipped something into it, but she wasn’t exactly in a position to be picky. Even if it was laced with psychotropics, there was nothing stopping them from simply forcing the stuff down her throat if the Dathomiri woman decided to be stubborn.

“Getting back to your question,” the man said, taking a sip from his own cup and narrowing his eyes in pleasure. “You’re here because your group attacked us, and we took you prisoner.”

“That’s… obvious.” Was he serious? Was he an idiot, or was this supposed to be some kind of joke? Anger stirred inside her again, threatening to spill out in a biting remark, but Talli held it back, remembering the Sisters writhing in the pen.

“Yes, but that’s not all,” the red-eyed man said with a chuckle, confirming her suspicion that he was mocking her. “Out of your whole group—which, I have to admit, was remarkably reckless to walk out into the open with bows drawn and demand our surrender—you were the only one who kept quiet. No insults, no taunts, no boasting. You just stood there with a look on your face that said, ‘This is a stupid idea.’”

Talli snorted despite herself. She really had thought that pathetic excuse for a plan was idiotic, and had even tried to talk some sense into the group, only to be told to go sit on a rancor’s cock until she popped.

So at the time, the girl had been frantically figuring out how to make a run for it… unfortunately, everything had happened far too fast.

A dense barrage of stun bolts from three blurred figures came with deadly accuracy. Even precognition was little help: the professionals led their shots and often saturated the places the Dathomiri women might try to dodge into. Their own arrows simply burst apart in pretty showers of sparks when they struck some incomprehensible force field.

And the red-eyed man with that vile smile of his, along with his floppy-eared companion, simply stood there behind some unknown protection and watched with perfect calm.

“Honestly, right up until the end I thought it had to be some kind of clever plan,” the man said, scratching his neatly trimmed beard and giving a small, disapproving shake of his head. “I figured either you were illusions, or your Sisters were hiding in the bushes and trees, somehow concealed from me. You didn’t see it, but when my guards knocked you all out, I was genuinely surprised.”

“Our commander… made a mistake,” the Dathomiri woman said, barely managing to keep her thoughts about that idiot to herself and answering as neutrally as possible. If the reason she was being treated gently was her self-control, then Talli had no intention of disappointing the bastard.

“Definitely,” the man laughed, popping one of the sweets from the dish into his mouth. After a brief hesitation, Talli followed his example.

Delicious. Very delicious. And after what she’d been eating for the past month, it was insanely good!!!

The man, meanwhile, continued. “And once you woke up after we got here, you were still the most restrained of the lot. That’s why you’re sitting here now in a comfortable chair, drinking caf and having a conversation with my charismatic self. I prefer talking to people who have brains inside their skulls rather than a vacuum.”

“Flattered,” the girl said, unable to keep a crooked smile from tugging at her lips. It was satisfying to know she had read the situation correctly. And being judged sensible, unlike those four idiots, did her pride no harm either. “And the point of this conversation?”

“Yes, yes, straight to business.” The red-eyed man nodded. “You look like someone I can actually come to an agreement with, so I’d like to make you an offer. You see, I’m a sorcerer. Not a shaman, like in your local tradition, and not gifted in the Jedi or Sith sense. A sorcerer. I’m interested in new knowledge. I enjoy learning what I don’t yet know. By nature, I’m a researcher. And you gifted people interest me.”

Talli relaxed a little more and even found herself looking at her host with a trace of sympathy. The so-called sorcerer’s words struck a chord with her. She, too, was drawn to knowledge. If the red-eyed man wanted information, she had no objection to sharing it. The alternative would be torture, wouldn’t it?

She herself would have started with that, of course, but the red-eyed man had five witches at his disposal and could try a different method on each of them. Which meant… she needed to be more useful than the others.

Talli had no positive feelings whatsoever about torture when she was the one on the receiving end.

“So,” the red-eyed man continued after another sip of caf, confirming Talli’s suspicions more and more with every word. “I want you to be my guest, not my prisoner. What I’ve seen, together with what I know about the Dark gifted, is enough for me to suspect that you’re… mildly indifferent to the others. Am I right?”

That’s putting it mildly, she thought with dry amusement. At the very least, Talli would have been delighted to see her commander dead, along with that sycophantic little friend of hers. As for the rest… she couldn’t care less.

Except…

“Of course, we treat our guests with the utmost care. They’re always welcome at our table, and we can provide a comfortable cabin with a shower, a refresher, and a change of clothes. And I never vivisect my guests in order to explore their inner world.” The man’s ever-present smile somehow became considerably more unsettling.

“Ahem…” She had to take another sip of caf; her throat had suddenly gone dry. Well, there was some incentive to stay cooperative. To her own surprise, Talli realized the sorcerer was beginning to earn a certain amount of respect from her. “And guests are expected to…”

The girl trailed off pointedly, waiting to hear the terms imposed on those who wouldn’t be opened up on a surgical table.

Or simply opened up… wherever happened to be convenient.

“Why, of course, they’re expected to enjoy the company of such a charismatic and pleasant conversationalist as myself!” The red-eyed man winked, stroking his beard. “You and I are going to talk about the Force and Dathomiri sorcery! You’ll show me a few interesting things while standing inside the pattern of an analyzer ritual, I’ll satisfy my curiosity, and when we leave, I’ll thank you with something valuable and useful. You can tell your people you tricked and deceived me into letting all of you go! Make up some story about how you wormed your way into the confidence of poor, foolish me and explained all the trouble I’d be in if I killed you or refused to release you. I’m sure you know better than I do what you need to say. How does that sound?”

“And what about the vivisection? Wouldn’t that leave corpses?”

“Pff.” The sorcerer snorted and leaned back in his chair. “No one has ever died on my table unless I wanted them to, so don’t worry.”

The girl fell silent, thinking. It all sounded… very good, actually. Spending her captivity in decent conditions… with a shower, proper meals, and a real bed, even if it was only a shipboard one… Very tempting.

Of course, it could all be a lie, but why? Talli couldn’t see the point. Then again, she couldn’t quite understand the excessive leniency and generosity of the offer either. And there was even the promise of a reward…

Though he could always say, I’m giving you your life, and honestly, she’d be fine with that too. This man was clearly no Jedi, so deliberately provoking him into violence seemed like a very bad idea.

Hmm… As for that reward… maybe…

“What if I asked for some of your knowledge as my reward?” the Dathomiri woman ventured, holding her breath. Knowledge was the most valuable thing on Dathomir. Because knowledge was power. Power meant authority! And authority opened the way to even greater knowledge!

The man who called himself Siith fell thoughtful. He popped another sweet into his mouth, chewed it carefully, took a sip of caf, gave Talli a considering look, and nodded.

“Hmm, why not? I’ve never been stingy with knowledge. If you want to learn and I have the time, it’s nothing but a pleasure for me. But I’ll be honest: we won’t be here long. Two or three weeks at most. Showing you things, explaining them—no problem. Actually teaching you, though… well, perhaps the equivalent of telekinesis: aura manipulation.”

Under the girl’s astonished gaze, the caf pot, the dish of sweets, and the sorcerer’s cup rose into the air. No, what surprised her wasn’t the fact that the objects were floating—she could do that herself—but that she felt no ripple in the Force. It was as though the objects had simply lifted off on their own.

“I want to make one thing clear from the start,” the sorcerer said, looking at her seriously. “This is a skill you’ll have to keep refining constantly, because at first, the most you’ll manage is dropping all of this on the floor. But if you devote even an hour a day to it, then in a couple of years you’ll effectively have an extra pair of hands. Strong hands. With good control over aura manipulation, they’ll be perfectly capable of snapping a person’s neck from up to five meters away. Interested?”

“And the training? In two weeks, I mean…” The Dathomiri woman hesitated. It all sounded very tempting, especially considering what he had laid out as her side of the bargain, but…

“I’ll show you. The important part is understanding the principle. A couple of days should be enough for that; after that, it’s all persistence and practice. It’s like physical training, except there’s no upper limit. Progress gets harder, of course, but you won’t hit a wall the way you do with muscles once you reach peak condition. You can keep strengthening your aura indefinitely, until you get sick of it. And I’ll think about what else I can throw in on top, as long as there’s enough time.”

“Then…” The girl thought for a couple of seconds. Dozens of possible uses for a skill no one could sense flashed through her mind. For the first time during the conversation, Talli smiled broadly—though the smile was anticipatory… and probably a little malicious.

“I agree, Teacher.”

The red-eyed man tilted his head to one side and studied her face for several seconds before breaking into open laughter. The laugh was genuine, the smile unsettling, and his eyes full of amusement.

“Good, then, Apprentice,” the sorcerer said, laughter still dancing in his red eyes. And why did Talli suddenly have the feeling that her little joke had been a mistake? “Come on, I’ll show you to your cabin. By the way, that smile of yours has a lot of potential.”

“Get yourself cleaned up. Once you’re done, contact Threepio.” The sorcerer set a communicator down on the table. “He’ll bring you something to eat. You’ve already missed lunch, and dinner is still a long way off.”

He watched her face with a hint of amusement while the witch tried to keep her expression neutral. But the prospect of taking a—miracle of miracles—hot shower, changing into clean clothes, and stretching out on that inviting bed made it very hard to maintain her composure.

Once the sorcerer left the cabin—after honestly warning her that she would still be watched—the young witch swore. Filthily and with feeling, invoking rancors and the various forms of sexual intercourse her team ought to engage in with the beasts.

But there was no anger in it.

If he had simply left a Dark gifted woman completely unsupervised, she wouldn’t have understood it at all. She would have felt nothing but contempt for such idiotic trust—if something that stupid could even be called trust. No, Talli was cursing because she was impressed.

It seemed she had even developed a tiny bit of gratitude toward her idiot commander, whose stupidity had landed her here.

Talli had expected some cramped little cubbyhole, but the sorcerer had brought her to a genuinely comfortable cabin. It was even larger than her cell back home. A convertible bed: single, double, or sofa; a table and armchair made of real wood, though fitted with magnetic fasteners; a wardrobe built into the wall with a pull-out vanity table for doing makeup; a private refresher; a large stack of clean, good-quality clothes… Even the underwear, though plain, felt very pleasant to the touch. “Guest quarters,” the sorcerer had said simply, sweeping a hand around the room. If these were the guest quarters, she’d really like to see the owner’s.**

Impatiently stripping off her stale clothes, the witch hurried into the shower. First she needed to get everything she could out of the situation right now; she could think afterward. With this many temptations dangling in front of her, her mind was going to keep drifting in the wrong direction until the Dathomiri woman satisfied her immediate wants.

Bliss… yes, that was the word for it. Right now, she would have turned down even a handsome slave in her bed. Laziness and contentment had settled over her like a heavy blanket. She was clean, full, satisfied, wearing fresh underwear, and for the first time in a month she didn’t have to worry about some creature trying to eat her.

And the food… mmmm. Not military rations, but proper cooking from a good chef. Soup, a main course, a little salad, caf, dessert. If all of the red-eyed man’s apprentices lived like this, she would really like to…

Talli froze for a second. The gears in her mind creaked, clicked, then suddenly spun into overdrive. She thought she finally understood what the sorcerer was up to.

“I have nothing to do with the Dark gifted,” he had said!

Red-eyed liar! May she be “treated” to arterial worms injected into her veins every single day*** if this black-robed, sly Sith-bred bastard wasn’t trying to seduce her in the most obvious way possible.

Not in the sense of trying to fuck her—though that was possible too; Sith often had no objection to enjoying the charms of their apprentices—but in the sense of studying a gifted Dathomiri witch. Ha-ha! Two weeks weren’t enough for him, so now he wanted her to ask, willingly, to be taken along.

Comfort, convenience, training, politeness… In two weeks, she’d be howling at the mere thought of going back to her cell, never mind the Long Patrol, and probably start dropping hints herself that she wouldn’t mind continuing her studies under the sorcerer—forgetting all about the fact that he was an obnoxious male brute. For benefits like these, she could afford a little hypocrisy.

She would never get anything remotely like this from the elders, even if she let them do whatever they wanted with her. Everyone could be bought if you offered the right price—one high enough to make them shove their pride as far up their ass as it would go.

“Clever bastard,” the girl murmured, unable to keep the admiration out of her voice.

Still, she needed to think it through properly instead of rushing to conclusions. She might be wrong. His sorcery might not even work for her…

Fine. She still had time.

Author’s Note:

** The Consular-class cruiser is a modular design that can be configured as a diplomatic vessel or a comfortable luxury yacht—which is, in part, what Siith had done with the Rung.

*** A very painful form of torture that kills everyone except Dathomiri witches. A worm is introduced into the victim’s bloodstream, producing, to put it mildly, extremely unpleasant sensations.