Chapter 51 (Patreon)

“Master?” Windu looked at the head of the Order with concern when he suddenly froze in the middle of their conversation.

“Something has happened,” the little Jedi said uneasily. “Changes in the future, I sense.”

“Changes… for the better?” Master Rancisis asked cautiously.

“Unknown to me, that is. But the fates of billions already living and yet unborn have changed their course,” the green-skinned Jedi said, thoughtfully chewing his lip. “Some will never be born at all. Some will die, while others will not pass into the Force when they were meant to. What is coming… it will be… not as it was supposed to be. The shadow of the Dark Side still conceals the future, but these changes… too vast even for it, they are. And… and now there is something else there. Or someone else. To the Corps of Balance, I must go. Speak with the Stargazers.”

The two Masters watched the head of the Order trot briskly away down the Temple corridor, his cane tapping against the floor tiles.

“Lately, I’ve been hearing far too often that something has changed,” the Korun sighed.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.” The Thisspiasian shrugged, flicking his tail. “Quite the opposite, really. The changes I’ve been noticing have mostly been encouraging.”

“Something new about your friend from Jabiim, Master?” Windu allowed himself a faint smile.

“No, no, unfortunately not.” Rancisis shook his head. “Though I doubt anything will ever top that report about an army of Gungans riding rancors for sheer absurdity and entertainment value. I was thinking more about matters within the Order, albeit ones connected to Master Siith. For example, those amulets we’ve been buying from Jabiim…”

“At those not-so-modest ‘friends’ rates?” the dark-skinned Jedi snorted.

“Well, you have to admit, Master, everyone else gets even more outrageous prices. And I, for one, feel much better about the Jedi we send out on missions.”

“There is that, though I still believe we shouldn’t rely on artifacts. A Jedi should be capable of doing without them. I’m afraid some may grow overly complacent.” Windu frowned. The use of protective amulets and charms purchased from the JMG had already come up before the Council, and the Korun had even managed to draw the others’ attention to the problems that might arise in the future.

“Every coin has two sides,” Oppo Rancisis sighed philosophically. “Risk teaches us caution, but I would still prefer it not to be excessive. The dead learn no lessons. Knight Fe Sun, Master Shaak Ti’s former Padawan, survived her last mission thanks to a little trinket from that rainy world. Master Ti, by the way, is still upset that her teaching methods failed to prove themselves, and she too feels a certain gratitude toward Master Siith. According to her, if not for their meeting on Shili and the doubts her Padawan’s questions about the sorcerer planted in her mind, even the Jabiim artifact might not have been enough to save the young Togruta.

“Besides, the sorcerers’ wares aren’t sold only to us. We’ve merely gained a temporary advantage. Sooner or later, the amulets will fall into the wrong hands, even if they don’t get there directly from Jabiim. The charms are already turning up among criminals, and the Hutts, according to rumor, are actively buying up amulets even at obscenely inflated prices.”

“Jabba outsmarted himself,” Master Windu said, his smile widening this time.

“But he didn’t get burned nearly as badly as our Greens,” the Thisspiasian hissed with amusement. “The Hutts were merely shoved to the very back of the line. Corellia wasn’t even allowed into it at all.”

“Something Rendili, Kuat, and the others couldn’t be happier about.” The Korun nodded. “Though I still think Master Siith went a little too far with the Corellian shipbuilders. The greater share of the blame lies with the Green Jedi, after all.”

“And you have no objections to their ‘punishment’?” Master Rancisis raised his thick eyebrows. “To be perfectly honest, the ‘offense’ committed by our brothers from Corellia… hardly qualifies as an offense at all. In my view, the head of the JMG dug his heels in rather childishly. It feels… immature, I suppose.”

“The Corellian Jedi.” Windu let out a heavy sigh. “Their enclave has long displayed a certain degree of isolationism and disregard for the Council’s decisions. So, in a sense, I’m even grateful to Dziha for giving them a sharp flick on their upturned noses.”

“Hmm? Do I hear a touch of gloating in your words, Master?” Rancisis gave a surprised, hissing laugh.

“You’re mistaken.” The dark-skinned Jedi shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a lesson. If not for the arrogance and dismissiveness of some of our brothers from Corellia, none of this would have happened.”

“But that arrogance did not come from the enclave’s senior Jedi.”

“Undoubtedly. But properly training one’s Padawan is a teacher’s responsibility. And if Padawans treat us with disregard, that isn’t a very good sign for the Corellian enclave as a whole, you understand? Even before that incident, I’d noticed something of the sort more than once when speaking with the Greens, and I’d even discussed it with Master Yoda…” Windu didn’t continue. Instead, he simply spread his hands as if to say, and this is where it led.

“Hmm… I still hope Master Siith changes his mind eventually.”

“I’m certain he will,” the Korun said with a faint smile. “As soon as he’s fed his ego with enough apologies and wrung out compensation that satisfies him.”

“Masters.” Knight Kenobi’s Padawan, passing by, respectfully inclined his head.

“Padawan Skywalker.” Rancisis greeted him with a good-natured smile, while Windu gave a slight nod.

“Speaking of which, there goes another thing I’m pleased about,” the Thisspiasian said, turning his attention back to the Korun once the boy had moved farther away.

“Knight Kenobi’s Padawan?”

“That’s the one, that’s the one.” Oppo Rancisis nodded in satisfaction. “Obi-Wan told me his Padawan has grown calmer. And there’s something about him now… Let’s put it this way: I can feel that the boy has come a little closer to the harmony with the Force—and with himself—that a Jedi needs. I don’t think anyone would argue that the hem of our mutual acquaintance’s robe is peeking out from behind all this.”

“Yes, I won’t argue with that.” Windu shook his head thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “I opposed Knight Kenobi’s decision, but Master Yoda was right: a teacher understands his student better. Skywalker really has become calmer since learning that his mother is safe. But I still believe Master Jinn’s decision was a mistake. Chosen One or not… the boy was simply too old to be accepted into the Order.”

“That’s exactly why his upbringing should be different.” The Thisspiasian waved one impressively clawed hand, inviting Windu to continue down the corridor. “Now I simply don’t understand how we failed to arrive at such an obvious solution ourselves: buy the boy’s mother out of slavery and give her a peaceful life on some quiet world… And even before that, think back, Master—not everyone who joined the Order was a child. You could find fully grown sentients among the Padawans as well.”

“But we abandoned that practice…”

“Forgive me, Master Windu,” Rancisis interrupted the Korun. “But let us not forget that a vast Shadow of the Dark Side now hangs over the future of both the Order and the galaxy, clouding the sight of even the strongest Jedi among us. Just imagine that Master Qui-Gon Jinn was right and the boy truly is the Force’s Chosen One.

“Separatist sentiment across the galaxy is growing stronger. Even if the Sith are not behind it—which I doubt—I don’t think the Dark Side will pass up the opportunity to exploit what is coming. And I very much doubt the Sith would have overlooked this child. That Zabrak proved there were dark gifted on Tatooine, and they could easily have taken notice of young Skywalker once Master Jinn showed an interest in him. Especially after the boy’s feat on Naboo.

“Personally, I would rather none of our brothers or sisters ever have to face him in the future, trained by our enemies and armed with a red lightsaber.”

“What a quarrelsome hag! No wonder she called herself Xo-Gnawn… or was it Xo-Kusan?” I muttered, mounting a proper defense against the guardian shadow.

By now, I was practically certain that this undead thing really was an artificially created incorporeal necroconstruct with a pseudo-personality, rather than the spirit of some ancient Sith. Its behavior gave it away: before I opened the hidden door, it had acted more or less harmlessly—relatively infrequent attacks, threats, attempts at psychological pressure.

Not that any of it had been entirely safe. It would definitely have killed any one of my students. At their current level, they simply didn’t have the skill to stand against it.

As for gifted trained in the Force tradition, though, that was another question. With their tricks—precognition, telekinesis, acceleration, physical enhancement—I figured a well-trained Jedi Knight could probably handle her.

But!

Everything changed the moment I opened the door to the hidden cache, and now I seriously doubted anyone short of a Master could stand against Xo-Kusan. The undead thing, which until then had merely been angry and aggressive, completely lost what passed for its mind and turned into a howling engine of death, bombarding me with every Force technique it had and whatever physical objects it could get its hands on.

This time I actually had to work up a bit of a sweat, adjusting to the guardian’s changed behavior. My spellcasting speed was nowhere near that of combat mages with their “narrow” pool of memorized spells, but I was very good at rapidly modifying and restructuring magical constructs that were already in place.

Good thing I sent the Mandos back to the ship, the thought flickered at the edge of my mind.

My vision was swimming with flashes of lightning, chunks of shattered wall, and all kinds of smaller debris whipping through the air. A dozen or so Force constructs had latched onto the multilayered shield—some vampiric in nature, while others, apparently, were trying to break through the defenses.

Good.

Excellent, even.

You couldn’t really get much proper practice against Jedi on Jabiim, after all. I didn’t want to reveal some of my own tricks, and they never went all-out either.

Though even if they had…

For all my fondness for Knights Nema and Allie, the two of them together still didn’t amount to a truly serious opponent.

“Well… I think that’s enough,” I muttered once I’d gathered the information I needed and was already countering the guardian’s entire arsenal without much effort.

I suspected the rag could have unleashed something more serious, something more powerful, but neither of us did. Probably for the same reason I hadn’t: she didn’t want to wreck her creator’s tomb. She was a guardian, after all, not part of a demolition crew.

I found the phylactery.

The vessel-projector stood right there in the hidden chamber, and I was already about to start constructing a seal around the area…

“Indeed. It is time to stop.”

The aggressive rag vanished an instant before a rather beautiful female voice, carrying only the faintest trace of otherworldly overtones, rang through the tomb. All the lingering “Force spells” dissipated with it.

“Not Jedi, not Sith, not Je’daii… unexpected. Come inside. I wish to speak with you.”

“Hmm…”

I’ll admit, I felt a little disappointed again. I was curious to see how the ghost would behave once it lost its connection to its vessel.

Oh well.

As far as I could tell, the woman who had just spoken to me was the creator of that scandalous little monstrosity, so if our introduction went well, there would still be a chance to test it all properly.

I stepped into a fairly spacious chamber done in the same style as the rest of the tomb: gloomy desolation.

Near the center of the hall stood a stone pedestal, and atop it rested the little pyramid I had glimpsed from the corridor and identified as the guardian’s phylactery.

Quite a beautiful piece, I had to admit.

Blood-red, with gold inlays, covered in unidentified symbols and ornamental flourishes. It gave off a faint glow… if you could even call it that. The pyramid’s dim radiance was more like the light of darkness, though it didn’t stop me from seeing everything clearly.

A rather interesting effect. And, I had to admit, the contrast of crimson, gold, and darkness was impressive in its own way.

“Curious…” I drawled, studying the legendary holocron itself while inwardly rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

“Curious,” the female voice echoed from a sharply defined, translucent figure that looked nothing at all like the gray rag from before.

“Pee-peeee!” the Quartermaster, poking out of my pocket, chirped with obvious disappointment as he looked around. My pet was clearly upset by the absence of piles of gold and precious gems.

“Because knowledge is the true treasure,” I said with a smile, scratching the hamster under the chin before giving the incorporeal woman of a species I didn’t recognize a polite bow. “My name is Siith’khara’Dziha. I’m glad to finally behold the mistress of the tomb, and I apologize for my persistence in seeking an audience, esteemed Xo-Kusan.”

“Lady XoXaan,” the mistress of the complex corrected me, her voice carrying mockery, a trace of irritation, and a generous helping of undisguised curiosity. “Who are you? You were not supposed to be here. In none of the futures the Dark Side showed me was there a man with a rodent so… persistent”—a slightly malicious smile cut across her white face, marked here and there with black patterns—“in securing an audience.”

“My apologies, Lady. The tomb guardian’s diction was somewhat… difficult to make out,” I said with a polite, apologetic smile, earning nothing more than a raised eyebrow in response.

Interesting! That smile of mine had unsettled liches before.

“As for me, I’m a sorcerer, a researcher, and the head of the Mages’ Guild. I’ve long been interested in, uh… the Dark Side, so when I finally got some long-awaited leave, I decided to visit Korriban. There are plenty of legends surrounding this world, so I was hoping to find something interesting here.”

“Interested in the Dark Side?” A faint infernal chuckle carried a touch of disdain and a small measure of curiosity. “And what is it that draws you to it? Strength? A thirst for power? Freedom?”

“No, no. I already have all of that.” I waved a hand dismissively, dispelling the faint, almost imperceptible pressure on my mind and watching my conversational partner raise an eyebrow once again. “Research interest. I’m curious about the principles by which the gifted—Jedi and Sith—interact with mana, or the Force, as you call it. I’d be interested in questioning the Je’daii you mentioned as well, but as far as I understand, they’re even harder to find in the galaxy than living Sith.”

“Je’daii,” XoXaan corrected me. “I’d say they’re impossible to find.” A faint smirk touched her lips, though most of the disdain had vanished from it by now. “Those who followed the Balance… ceased to exist a very long time ago. Time proved that Balance was a dead end.”

“Hmm…” I fell silent in thought.

Probably best not to point out that practitioners of the Dark Side had nearly vanished from the face of the galaxy as well.

“That is temporary.” The woman’s smile turned anticipatory. “The day is not so far off when the Baneites will demonstrate both the power of the Dark Side… and the failure of Bane’s own teachings. And after that… well, that hardly concerns you, my uninvited… guest.” This time her smile was awash with sarcasm, and it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “No, I’m not reading your thoughts…”

“It’s just written all over my face?” I finished for the translucent figure with a restrained smile.

“Correct, sorcerer. That hesitation of yours was rather eloquent.” A short chuckle. “The cycles of endless war between Sith and Jedi follow one after another. These days, though, the scale of the conflict has dwindled considerably. Especially disappointing is this pathetic scurrying of two rats… Always two there are. A Master and an Apprentice.”

Now my conversational partner’s smirk twisted into a genuinely vicious sneer, her face showing open disgust.

“You don’t agree with their teachings?”

“That much is obvious.” The woman snorted, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “And I don’t give a damn about their justifications. Master-apprentice, master-apprentice… Killing one another over and over again, they only lose strength and knowledge.”

“But…” I glanced toward the holocron.

“Nonsense.” The woman’s cheek twitched. “With rare exceptions, a Sith will never teach an apprentice everything they know. Some knowledge and experience will inevitably be lost. Repositories of knowledge can be damaged, hidden away, or deliberately destroyed. Back when our Order was numerous, that wasn’t critical. But over the last millennium…”

Well, someone had clearly been stewing in this for a few millennia. Or maybe the old fossil was simply starved for a living audience—she’d already forgotten all about that solemn this doesn’t concern you from a moment ago.

Old people. The sky used to be bluer, the grass greener, and today’s Sith couldn’t hold a candle to the “real ones.”

To be fair, this particular fossil had actually been there.

“Still,” XoXaan went on, neatly confirming my thoughts, “the Jedi have sunk as low as they can go. For a thousand years they’ve failed to notice the Darkness right under their noses. They’ve grown weaker, gone soft, lost their authority… Pathetic. Those sanctimonious prigs were weaklings even in my time, and now they inspire nothing but contempt. Turns out all it took for them to start degenerating was to lose sight of the Sith.”

“Ahem… maybe.” I shrugged, trying not to provoke a negative reaction from my conversational partner. “I haven’t been around here long, so my information is limited. Just the broad strokes: Jedi good, Sith bad, Jedi won, but somewhere out there the resistance is still scurrying around.”

“Exactly—scurrying around. Excellent choice of words.” The woman laughed, though a second later she frowned. “But I wouldn’t call what the Jedi achieved a ‘victory,’ either. The war between Darkness and Light has raged for so long that the confrontation a thousand years ago could be called little more than a skirmish. I know. I am XoXaan. I was one of the first Sith Lords—one of those who left the Jedi Order to seek the truth through the Dark Side.”

“Oooh…” I barely stopped myself from rubbing my hands together in anticipation. “Then I really got lucky!”

“I would…” She gave me an ironic look. “…not be so quick to celebrate, sorcerer. Incidentally, I’m curious about something as well. That is the only reason you’re still alive, and why I have graciously deigned to give you my attention.” The ghost’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “Tell me, you who calls yourself Siith: why is your fate a blind spot? Why do your manipulations of the Force look so utterly alien? Satisfy the curiosity that has unexpectedly awakened in me after thousands of years, and perhaps I’ll allow you to leave this place unharmed.”