Knights of the Old Republic: Dark Forces, Chapter Seven, Part Two

Author Comment: Okay, here's the chapter I meant to post instead of reposting Chapter Six... Don't ask me how I managed to pull off that one.  This is only a short chapter, I had intended it to be longer, but I've got a bit of writer's block with the Revan backstory, and I'm itching to get back to the Exile's story.

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KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC

DARK FORCES

CHAPTER SEVEN

PART TWO

Revan jerked back violently as the first deathly touch reached his mind.  Tentatively, almost shyly, it brushed across his mind, as if unsure of what to do.  An unnamable, unknown part of him screamed in protest and he felt his body cringe with it.  He could only dimly see with his eyes; the wraith hovered next to him, its grotesque masked staring at him.  Dimly, he heard the chanting of the men and women assembled somewhere near him.

The second touch was far from gentle.  Revan screamed as the dark force invaded into him, latching onto and feeding.  White hot pain, pain far beyond the physical, was spreading through him.  The dim sight of the Trayus prison dissolved before him, to be replaced with dull colors.  Every part of him was bleeding. 

A dark shadow moved in front of his vision.

"And so ends the famous Revan," Sion gloated, "I followed you once, did you know?  In another life, I followed in your wake, ready to die for you.  But you and your cause brought me nothing but pain.  Malak, not you, was worthy of the title of Sith Lord.  Until now."

Revan felt himself fade.  Thinking was an agony to him but dimly he realized he was going to die.  With his last vestige of strength, he reached out to his bond with Bastila and let the barrier between their minds fall.

And in an instant he felt the dark presence in his mind repel in fear.  His senses returned in a flash that made him dizzy.  His eyes snapped open.

The wraith had flown backwards away from the table, its head bowed into its blackened mass.  But now the darkness was bubbling and ripping, forming and reforming, becoming solid.  It lifted its head and let out a terrifying scream.  The Sith around Revan bowed their heads in pain. He briefly saw Sion's eyes widen with fear before he fell to his knees.

A swirling mass of light and dust raced around the wraith, like a cyclone, debris and Sith magic swirling around the edges to collect in the middle, building the ghost from the inside out.  Revan dimly saw bones form, covered by muscle, overlaid by skin and finally covered in cloth.  The crude, hacked out mask changed with the body, becoming smooth and polished, and elongating, painted red lines forming onto cheeks.  Finally a metal nose piece formed along the bridge, running up the forehead to disappear into the black hood of the creature's cloak. 

Revan stared at it in horror.  It examined itself in fascination, raising its arms to its face.  Desperately Revan cast through his mind; dimly he noted the barrier over the bond had returned but he forgot it instantly.  Another link now existed, a pathway directly to the newly created Sith Lord.  In the creatures fear and rush to become manifest, it had not broken the bond.  Using all the power of the force he could gather he pushed down the link and into the creatures mind. 

"I know you," Revan whispered in realization.  With all his might he pushed at the creatures newly formed mind and felt it tear. 

Instantly he was propelled backwards into his own head.  Energy exploded from the creatures body, whipping beams of white and purple, bursting from it and into the bodies of the cowered Sith.  Revan saw the woman who had marked him propelled backwards across the room.  Sion climbed to his feet and sprinted to the door, the energy crackling at his heels.  The rest of the Sith were not as lucky; the light arched through their chests.  Within seconds their bodies had combusted, but their clothes and weapons were undamaged and fell into piles on the floor.

The Lord of Hunger trembled slightly and collapsed to his knees.  His mask turned to look upon the bound Jedi.  Revan almost thought it nodded to him before it crashed onto the ground and lay still.

The only sound Revan could hear in the room was his own relieved breathing.  He flicked his eyes around the room, examining the piles of ash and clothing.  Nillihus was still as the grave.  He summoned all his strength, fought through the blanket of the darkside and ripped his arms free from the leather bindings.  He groaned in pain as he pulled himself up into a sitting position and undid the leg restraints.      

"You truly are the heart of the force." A woman's voice noted from the direction of the doorway.

Revan rolled off the table and onto his feet.  A black robed figure stood in the doorway, the hood of her cloak pulled down over her face.

"Who are you?" Revan demanded

"I am your rescuer," the woman noted, "Lord Sion and his hounds have been curbed in their pursuit of you."

"Kriea," Revan whispered in realization. 

"You remember me, even through your amnesia?" Kriea said in mock surprise, "I am flattered." 

"What are you doing here?" Revan asked warily, "Last time I saw you was on Ossus.  And most defiantly not a Sith Lady."

"It is a tale that hardly bears telling," Kriea replied dryly, "and we have far more pressing matters to attend to."

"Enlighten me on the details"

"Lord Sion has been delayed but not for long.  I am afraid his is proving to be more rebellious than I had anticipated."

"Then tell me what I came here to find," Revan demanded, "tell me about the True Sith."

"I know little of them," Kriea admitted quietly, taking a step into room.  "It is not my place to understand, to discover this mystery.  This is not my war."

"But it's mine?" Revan demanded

"Yes"

"Why?"

"Because you're the only one who can,"

"That's not fair," Revan complained, the resentment he'd had building in him for months finally slipping out.  Kriea was unimpressed.

"Your answer is that of a child Revan," she said haughtily, "you have been gifted with a great mind and great power.  It is your responsibility to fulfill the potential I always saw in you."

Revan let out a sigh and gritted his teeth.  He did not have time to argue with her.  "Can you help me, Kriea?"

"Yes," Kriea said simply.  She reached into the folds of her robes and withdrew a datapad.  She walked the short distance to him, the datapad held out before her.  "This academy was built by the True Sith," she said, "and it holds many of their secrets.  Everything that I could not interpret is included in this datapad.  Everything in the academy is here.  Look at me," she said, pulling back her hood, and focusing him with a blank, milky stare.  "Do you trust me?"

"I trust that you have your own agenda," Revan replied, "and that you don't want me to interfere in it.  It is beneficial to you, to act in good faith." 

"I taught you well, Revan." Kriea said, a satisfied smile playing across her lips.  "And now I must take my leave.  My apprentice and his dogs will be arriving soon.  And I believe that friends of yours are on the way."

Kriea pulled her hood back over her face and turned to leave.  Revan caught her arm. 

"You have helped me and I'm grateful," Revan said, "but you get one warning.  If I return and you have waged war, I will end you."

"I would expect nothing less from you," Kriea whispered in reply.  He let her arm go and she slipped from the room.

Revan stood silently for a moment, staring at the doorway.  Questions raced through his mind, the most prominent one being what Kriea's game was.  But in the mean time he had to focus on getting out of the academy.  On a crudely cut stone block he spotted his own lightsaber and picked it up, the weight of it in his hand had an oddly comforting feel.  He scanned the piles of clothes, searching until he found one roughly his own size.  He shook the dust from the black shirt and put it on and, scavenging the cloak and lightsaber in the processes.  During his quest for the Star Forge, he had discovered that he fought better with a lightsaber in each hand but he had never had the chance to craft a second one of his own.  The rather brutish Sith saber would suffice for his purposes.  He jerked his head to the corner of the torture chamber; a small rustling sound had issued from the shadows.  He prepared to activate the sabers but suddenly heard the sound of running feet and the whirl of gears.

"This is a rescue!" Dustil announced, storming into the room, his yellow lightsaber activated and held at the ready.  Behind him T3-M4 beeped threateningly.  "Oh," Dustil said in surprise as he spotted the remains of the Sith and the standing Revan. 

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Revan demanded

"You didn't really think your assassin droid could keep me prisoner did you?"  Dustil replied icily.  "You shouldn't have tried to leave me behind."

"What did you do to him?"

"Shot him a couple of times with my blaster," Dustil said, shrugging, "He's in a few pieces on your cargo hold floor.  Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Perhaps," Revan said evasively, not wanting to get Dustil's hopes up, "but I'm not sure.  We'll have to examine it on the Ebon Hawk."

"You can barely move," Dustil said, moving to Revan and hefting his arm over his shoulder, "lean on me.  Keep a look out T3."

T3 beeped affirmatively and moved out the door.  Dustil followed, half supporting, half dragging the wounded Revan. 

"Thank you Dustil," Revan murmured as they left the room.

*   *   *

The torture chamber in the Trayus academy lay silent for hours.  The clothing of the dead sith lay clumped on the floor like discarded bags of garbage.  The crisp sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor into the chamber as Sion strode into the room.  He gazed around the chamber before spotting the fallen Nillihus and marching to his side.  He knelt next to him, placed his hand on the fallen Sith Lord and closed his eyes, as if to meditate.  After a second Nillihus shuddered at his touch and let out a moan of protest.  Shakily, he pulled himself up onto his feet, the blank mask jerking across the room, his chest heaving.  Sion also climbed to his feet.

"You can understand me?" Sion asked

Nillihus turned his head to look at Sion.  He nodded.

"The ritual was a success," he growled, his eyes calculating "you have been restored to the physical plain.  You owe me your life."

Nillihus did not respond but continued to stare at Sion.

"Your power could have been complete had it not been for the escape of the Jedi.  They were harbored by our master.  She can no longer be trusted to lead us.  You owe me your allegiance in the coming rebellion."

Sounds issued from behind Nillihus's mask, an unknown, hideous language.

Sion nodded now.  "We have work to do.  We shall share the throne of Lord of the Sith in time."        

*   *   *

Revan felt the surge of the hyperspace engines die as he lay in the medical bay of the Hawk.  The pain stims he'd injected into himself had taken away the stabbing pain, leaving only the dull ache of his joints.  Revan heaved himself into a sitting position just as Dustil entered the room.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, taking a seat next to the bed

"I've felt better," Revan shrugged, "but I'll survive."

"I looked at this while you slept," Dustil said, handing Revan the datapad.  "I didn't recognize the language, and neither did T3.  A ran a scan of the language through the computer system.  It's not a recognized language in the Republic."

"I can read it," Revan said, surprising himself as he read through the lines

"What?" Dustil exclaimed, "How?"

"I'm not sure.  It could have been the ritual they performed on me," Revan mused out loud, "Sion said that it came from the academy; perhaps it's somehow given me the ability to understand the language."

"Well what does it say?"

"There's too much here," Revan said, "it could take me weeks to read it all.  If I translate a portion of the text, T3 should be able to adapt a program to decipher the rest of it so you can read it."

"You do realize the only reason I came with you was to get away from my studies," Dustil said wryly, "but it seems that the theory follows me wherever I go."

"Believe me, the studying will follow you like a hungry kath hound."

"I hear you."    

*   *   *

Dustil was slumped in the pilot's chair in the Ebon Hawk, the datapad he'd been reading from laying abandoned on the floor.  Revan sat on the other side of him, sunk deep into the chair, his bloodshot eyes scanning over his own datapad.  He stifled a yawn and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before continuing to read through the pages of information Kriea had provided him.

‘In silence undisturbed...'

The words barely registered in Revan's mind as he let his thoughts wandered.  Dimly he wondered what time it was on Courasant.  It must have been nearly dawn; Bastila would still be asleep. 

‘This place is our kingdom, our paradise.  He that is everything leads us to glorious salvation...'

She always looked so beautiful when she slept.  The way the morning light warmed her face; it almost made her glow.

‘We exist apart, alone, distant, removed from the weak, harbored by the strong...'

The way her hair was always tousled in the morning, Revan thought, a smile playing across his face at the image in his mind, and the way she held her hand to her cheek when she was asleep.

‘The dark places of their galaxy are our gateways.  Retriv Var leads the way...'

Revan jerked his thoughts back to the datapad.  He knew that name.

Dustil jerked awake suddenly.  "Miblle ruffle," he mumbled.  He rubbed the back of his neck and blinked in confusion as he remembered where he was.  "Any progress?"

"I think so," Revan said breathlessly, reading through the next paragraph of the datapad.  "It makes reference to places throughout the galaxy, ancient strongholds of the True Sith Empire.  It calls them gateways to, well this is nice and cryptic," Revan grumbled, moving the datapad closer to his eyes, "our lands, our domain... our prison."

"Prison?" Dustil asked, his brow furrowed in confusion

"I'm not sure," Revan admitted, "but it mentions places where these gateways exist; Malachor is one, Korriban another.  It mentions Yavin too, and Dagobah, Duxun and Retriv Var."        

"Retriv Var?  I've never heard of it."

"You wouldn't have.  It's in the Unknown Regions, not far from here."

"How do you know this?"

"I found it," Revan murmured, sifting through the newly awaken part of his old memory "during the Mandalorian Wars.  When we established ourselves on Malachor I went searching for more planets of the True Sith.  It was the first one I found.  And it's the closest one to us know."

"How convenient," Dustil commented

"Believe me Dustil," Revan said somberly, "I think this is the last bit of ‘convenient' that we're going to have for a long time."   He shifted in his seat to face Dustil, fixing him with a serious gaze.  "We've come this far together and I I'm more grateful than I can say that you agreed to come with me.  But this is where things become deadly.  If we find these True Sith, the chances are we will die.  But not before we've been beaten, broken and tortured until death is the preferable option.  You might never go home Dustil.  And you'll probably never see your father again.  If you want to leave now, I won't stop you.  But you only get this one chance."

Dustil surveyed Revan for a few moments before asking, "When do we leave?"