The Mask of Tulak Hord looked neat and well-preserved. It had a white color, though not entirely. And it looked intimidating… It radiated an aura of the Dark Side, like many other Artifacts. At least I, who had studied sensory perception so much, clearly felt the Dark Side of the Force…
Tulak Hord was the greatest swordsman of his time and was later recognized as the greatest warrior. He could give me answers to my questions. Although I remained a Jedi in the end, I couldn't deny the fact that Sith knowledge was also important. And while there were areas I would definitely not delve into, as they were beyond my rather vague moral code, Hord could help me with swordsmanship and make me stronger…
Though I had no idea how he would behave with me. Placing the mask in a separate neutronium case, I looked at the cripple.
"Well, of all people, I certainly didn't expect to see you here, Set Harth… Which number are you? And what relation does the one from Royiss have to you…"
"You expect me to just spill it all, Jedi…"
"Right," I agreed. "I do. You must know I'm a Shadow. And I don't have excessive sentimentality toward the Order's enemies… And I have no doubt you are an enemy of the Jedi Order," I surveyed the room. "The Order knows what happened between you and Darth Zannah. You escaped and managed to learn an incredible mind-transfer technique. But some parts of your story need clarification… Actually, I'm interested… Roughly speaking: 'What the hell was that?' I definitely killed you on Royiss. You were strong with a lightsaber and the Force… Strong enough. And suddenly I meet you on Veinay. And under such a name… 'The Primordial'… Heh… This is more like a circus than a coherent story."
"That name doesn't belong to me," Set sighed heavily, trying to get comfortable. After all, Scourge had cut off his arms and legs. "That's what Wrath called me. You met him on Royiss."
"Wrath?"
"Correct," he continued. "About seven hundred years ago, I thought about creating a right hand to handle problems with force. By that point, several of your colleagues from the Shadows had already approached me."
"And you created another clone… I see. Cloning the gifted is tricky, but with certain resources, it's feasible. But how did it happen that this Wrath acted not according to your orders?"
"I managed… to upload a part of my mind into him. Everything related to combat. Force techniques, swordsmanship, weapon use… But Wrath turned out to be willful. He found the control chip inside his body and, using his knowledge, burned it out. A duel occurred between us, during which I was defeated and fled, taking refuge here on Veinay. For all that time, he tried to find me and, I suppose, kill me to prove he was the only Set Harth…"
"You created your own problem?" I laughed. "How familiar. I do that kind of crap myself sometimes."
"I wasn't laughing."
"One person's joke is another's insult," I noted.
"But I even thought about inviting you for an audience. Too bad I didn't know which Shadow had eliminated Wrath. I wanted to reward you," he assured me. "A noble knight who rid a King of his problem deserved a reward."
"Yeah… His daughter and half the Galaxy thrown in."
"If you want my daughter, the best I can offer is a female clone. Alas, I preferred not to have children at all. As for half the Galaxy—I hope that's a joke."
"It's all a joke, Set Harth," I said sharply. "Or did you think you could buy me off? All your treasures will be handed over to the Jedi Order. You yourself will stand trial. The documents are ready and sent to the Order. I'll leave you in solitary confinement with the local guards, and the Jedi will come for you."
"So this is my end," the former Jedi said. "To be destroyed by the Order after trial."
"Your fate will be decided in the Order," I waved him off, summoning the Veinay law enforcement officers waiting outside the door. I had managed to negotiate with them on the way to the treasury. "One question. Who were those two? Lady Milena and Bright. They aren't just more mad clones, are they, Set?"
"No," he replied. "They belong to a rather strange organization that traces its origins back to Darth Millennial… They call themselves the Prophets of the Dark Side."
"Is that so?" I stared at Harth in surprise. "Do you know about them?"
"Where their main base is, I don't know. But that they, like the Shadows and me, hunt for Force Artifacts—I do know."
But I know where that pair comes from. Their central base is Dromund Kaas, once the capital planet of Vitiate's Sith Empire. I just didn't plan to go there yet. Those individuals influenced the balance across the entire Galaxy too much. And now stirring up their hive could lead to unpredictable consequences. Besides, this was far from a bifurcation point, and the Prophets were hardly the kind of opponents who could change everything in the direction I wanted. Unless… They might turn their attention to me due to the elimination of Milena and Bright. But now something else occupied me. I wanted to meet Tulak Hord. I had been through so much for this event, so many losses… But how could I summon him? Celeste might not betray me, but Jaro was not a student loyal to my ideals. He was a faithful follower of the Light, wanting to become a "knight without fear or reproach." Maybe I could send both Celeste and Jaro on some mission, and then my Padawan wouldn't be able to interfere. I could pass it off as Jaro also needing to help Celeste adjust to new realities.
"Gh…" I grabbed my head. A sharp pain pierced it and then vanished instantly.
"Dear knight, are you all right?" one of the guards asked me.
"Ah, yes," I sighed, sitting down on one of the tables where a set of armor lay—judging by the coloring and emblems, a Jedi of the Old Republic. "Just a little tired…" Although that was a poor lie. I had definitely sensed something strange. A strange feeling… Emotions that couldn't belong to me or Celeste—at least, it didn't come from my bond with her. "Can I be alone?"
"Yes, of course," the guards carried Set away after injecting him with a powerful tranquilizer. They would keep him unconscious until the Jedi arrived. I wasn't worried about him betraying me for stealing the Mask of Tulak Hord. Using Force Forging, I had long since crafted a substitute. That it didn't radiate the Dark Side wasn't a problem either. Great Artifacts have many forgeries of various kinds, especially masks of famous Sith, which some craftsmen across the Galaxy try to fake, hoping the Jedi Order would buy them for exorbitant sums from an unexpectedly obtained relic. That's how a couple hundred masks of Revan had already been "found." But the Order wasn't stupid—they could spot forgeries easily. However, something else troubled me.
What was happening? Lately, my head would suddenly start hurting and then stop just as quickly. Besides… I recalled the last time I used Force Lightning. It had seemed strange, as if it had increased in power tenfold.
"Hmm," Scourge's voice came. "Interesting collection. I saw some of these Artifacts back when I was the Emperor's Wrath. Too bad there's nothing connected to Vitiate here."
"Well, you destroyed his lightsaber," I said to the Sith.
"As I have many other things," Scourge replied. "For the last few thousand years, I've been moving across the Galaxy and destroying everything that could be connected to Vitiate. Even the slightest chance of his resurrection must be eliminated. Including that toy of yours that Arrogant once created."
"You knew Arrogant," I flinched. He had revealed the existence of my medallion. I began channeling the Force through my body, initiating first preparations for battle.
"Yes. A rare, arrogant bastard," Scourge characterized him. "Nevertheless—talented. His research on Force Ghosts and immortality amazed even Vitiate."
"Even him? But fine… You figured out I have Arrogant's medallion. What now? Will you try to eliminate me?"
"Try?" Scourge replied with a question. "Who do you think I am? I'm not Set Harth or that clone you once met. And not even a 'Prophet of the Dark Side.' To eliminate you, I wouldn't need to try."
And he was right. The demonstration of abilities he had shown was enough. It seemed he could do everything I could, but an order of magnitude better. Too big a gap in levels… I was sure that if I worked hard, I would someday become as strong as a legend like Scourge… The main thing was not to die in the process.
"But what now?"
"What do you need that medallion for, boy? Who do you summon from the Force with it?"
"To be honest—you can summon many with it. But initially, my master and I intended to use it to gather forgotten knowledge of the Force…"
"By summoning unique gifted who possessed it," Scourge finished for me, also sitting down on one of the tables. "I see… Show it to me."
I didn't resist. It was pointless anyway. I had only one way out here—Scourge was stronger. So I pulled the medallion from the inner lining of my suit and levitated it to the Sith.
"I see," he said, spinning the medallion in front of him.
"Are you going to destroy it?" I asked the Sith.
"There's no point," he returned it to me. "It doesn't have long left anyway. You might not have noticed, but Revan, whom you summoned with it, was systematically destroying the medallion. Apparently he wanted you to stop using its power."
"Revan?" I was surprised. I hadn't understood that. His intervention must have been so subtle and imperceptible.
"Yes. You don't know the Sith language the runes here are written in, but I do. He was damaging the medallion's structure little by little. So it won't serve you much longer. So—your games with Hord are the last thing you'll be able to do with it. Don't make a surprised face—I noticed that the mask, the only one among all the items here, is a fake. You can't fool a collector like me, but someone from your Order—easily…" he approached the mask. "Perhaps I'll add some details for authenticity." Touching the mask, Scourge closed his eyes. I felt the Dark Side. He was literally saturating it with darkness. "This should help," Scourge stepped back. "I suppose my former ally probably wanted you to stop chasing the past and use your time and energy to build the future."
"Well, that's something he would do," damn, Revan had tricked me. Yes, he had trained me and quite decently. No joke—I managed to deal with Muur too. I was satisfied with the fruits of my training, even though I understood this wasn't the end of the path—I hadn't reached the peak. But still… To deceive me like that.
"But it's clear the training with him didn't go to waste," Scourge noted. "You're at a decent level… For this era."
"That's not enough…"
"It's always been that way," Scourge said. "You feel a lack of abilities and strength because, as a rule, the challenges thrown at you are slightly stronger than you. But that's exactly how you become stronger, Jedi. If you crush challenges easily, you'll stay at the same level, or even weaken. I'll tell you something else you should know. When I said," he stood up from the table, "that you don't know how to handle Sith Artifacts—I didn't mean the medallion. I don't know who you've met, but I clearly sense a Sith woven into your aura. And it's neither Arrogant, nor Revan, nor anyone else. I've never felt an aura like that, though I've encountered beings with something similar."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about something in your aura—just a tiny bit—that reeks of rakghouls," Scourge said.
"Rakghouls? Karness Muur…"
"Karness… I've heard of him. Under normal circumstances—you understand that what I sense from you shouldn't be there?"
"I understand," I nodded. "Apparently, I made a mistake on Jebble."
"Well, tell me what happened there."
I sighed heavily and told Scourge everything I knew about Karness, as well as the situation on Jebble and Taris.
"It's perfectly clear," the Sith said finally. "You simply cut the Artifact with your lightsaber, probably thinking that would be enough. Most likely, Muur turned his spirit into something like data at the last moment and launched it into your body. He couldn't pass his spirit inside you directly—you would have noticed immediately. But if, how should I say… he archived himself and hid himself from your perception as much as possible, he could seep in unnoticed. And begin unpacking. Due to the microscopic changes, you wouldn't have noticed until it was too late, when he fully unpacked inside your body and took it over."
"Shit," I cursed. "What do I do? Fight a Sith in my subconscious again?"
"You'll have to, unless you want to be taken over by a half-mad old man obsessed with creating diseases," the Sith replied. "Otherwise you'll disappear forever. His data will simply overwrite yours… Karness Muur is a Sith sorcerer, by classification. He's a genius in everything related to the Force. And you're not a fool, but you lack the necessary experience. Give it another ten years, and you'll make fewer mistakes—at least ones like this."
"Yeah," I snorted. "Only in those ten years, I might spawn new, even more terrible ones."
"Hah," the sith sighed. "As long as you haven't freed Vitiate, or the power behind his appearance, there's nothing to fear."
"Power? What kind of power could create such a monster?" Even the Order's chronicles don't fully grasp how dangerous Vitiate was or what exactly he wanted. Though everyone knows he, like Nihilus, fed on planets, no one seems to understand that Vitiate wanted to consume all life in the galaxy to… "travel to other galaxies," study them, and wait for a "new cycle"…
"I can't exactly describe the being that made him, and I don't mean the first, biological shell. No, I know who his father is, who his mother is… I mean his spirit, his consciousness… All of that was shaped by what can be called 'Primordial Chaos'… She is an incredibly strong Gifted, who appeared with three others like her. Alas, I'm not sure I can overcome her, even if I know where she is."
So he knows about Abeloth? Though over so many millennia, he must have found not only hints about the Celestials but also located them. Maybe he even knows about Mortis.
"Her?" I decided not to reveal my knowledge. "A woman?"
"Yes," Scourge confirmed. "I searched for everything that could help me defeat Vitiate, even after his seemingly final death. And I managed to understand how such a powerful… creation was made."
"But doesn't Force talent depend on midi-chlorians?"
"The number of midi-chlorians can be increased by improving your affinity to the Force. You've undergone a similar procedure yourself. Though training to increase Force affinity is difficult in itself, if done correctly it can elevate you to new heights," Scourge snorted. "And I can clearly sense that you've definitely modified yourself. Not Karness, but you changed something in yourself."
"Yeah," I confirmed. And denying it here was foolish. Over so many years, he'd developed into a monster of Force Sense.
"Manipulating midi-chlorians is among the abilities of those beings. And she managed to create Vitiate, who did all those things. The one who created that monster certainly doesn't deserve to live… However… I won't go after her now, because I'm not ready. I'm not a Jedi who rushes headlong at everyone stronger than me."
The threat of Abeloth and the so-called Family was something that worried me, though not on par with Sidious and Plagueis, but close to it. The strongest Gifted can cause problems. Though the Family problem was practically solving itself — no one left Mortis alive — but Abeloth… You can't just prepare for her. And defeating her alone might be impossible. But with powerful allies, it's quite possible. Plus, there's the Dagger, which was created to kill such beings. But it's on Mortis… Come to think of it, I was rightly afraid of Mortis, and although I considered it as a possible training ground, along with Drongar and the Valley of the Jedi, I later decided that those beings, given my outsider origin, might pose a threat to me. Better to leave that turn of history alone for now.
"Then, Scourge, I'd like to propose an agreement," I told the sith.
"And what would that be?" he asked, tilting his head. "If you're talking about going after that creature right now, forget it. Your strength isn't enough to match mine, and my level is the minimum needed to challenge her. You're a talented boy, I won't argue, but you haven't reached your peak yet."
"But I'm not suggesting we attack her right now. Besides, she's not affecting the galaxy at the moment. Think about it — her past intervention resulted in the emergence of Vitiate."
"She doesn't interfere also because there are beings that stop her from overt intervention. The so-called 'Celestials'… Vitiate wanted to become the only one of them, destroying the galaxy, 'experiencing other lives,' he wanted to become the God of new life in our galaxy. And several similar in power — the Celestials — hold back Chaos."
"They hold her back, but don't destroy her, though I'm sure she can be killed… Anyone can be killed; everyone has their weaknesses."
"So what are you proposing?" Scourge asked. "What do you want? Training? Alas, that's impossible. To wield the Force like I do, you'd have to become a sith. Your path is a completely different one, I understand. You've already experienced the Fall…"
"Your Force Sense is terrifying," I stated, interrupting the Lord. "But I don't need training from you. I understand that you could teach me little without indoctrinating me in the sith ideology, which, let's be honest, I consider a dead end. Consumed by endless greed, anger, passions, and ambition — the sith are doomed to self-destruction…"
"You're mistaken," Scourge remarked. "The sith are not the Jedi's philosophical nonsense. The sith are those who use the Force to achieve something practical, material. Power, wealth, personal strength… Goals are different, but they never lead to the self-destruction you speak of."
"Not lead to self-destruction?" I said in surprise. "Then what happened to Vitiate? He was one of you. Just another sith forging his path in the galaxy. Didn't his ambitions lead to his fall, including at the hands of other sith? Or the thousands of other Dark Lords who killed and schemed against each other even in the Empire where you were the Emperor's Wrath? Everything each Sith Lord achieved was somehow destroyed… And not only by Jedi."
"But I'm not asking you to argue with me; I only want one thing from you. What to do with Hord and whether I need him — I'll figure out myself, I already have a plan. I found an interesting mission that I can assign Celeste and Jaro. A routine investigation that should lead to smugglers of Gifted artifacts, a Shadow's routine. But this mission will let Jaro see the shadow side of the Republic and keep him away from where I'll be committing another crime… I want you to help me deal with the piece of Karness Muur inside me."
"And in return?"
"In return — I promise to help you fight Chaos-Creating, as you called her. But not now, of course… And hardly within the next forty years."
"Hardly within the next forty years? I've lived for thousands of years; a hundred years is insignificant to me, yet you name a specific time frame… Has the Force revealed the future to you?"
"To some extent, Scourge, to some extent," I agreed. "If everything is as you describe, then we'll need allies. Many allies. Not just the Gifted… Sometimes, to defeat a warrior armed with the latest technology, a simple stone thrown at the right time by the right hand can suffice."
"And in forty years everything will change and you'll find enough strength to challenge her? I'm not a Jedi; I don't need your philosophical drivel backed by self-reflection and drinking caf with Corellian whiskey. I need an answer."
"Forty to a hundred years, give or take, I suppose. I'm Sephi — I can live much longer."
Scourge stood up, then quickly approached me and looked into my eyes. The sith's crimson eyes inspired fear.
"You'll live much less than your due, Light Flyingstar, if you aren't ready within a hundred years. Revan helped you… The one I sincerely respect. He trained you, even though he had enough power to stand against that creation of Arrogant… So I'll trust you. But know this — you'll end up worse than Set Harth if you think to deceive me. I'll help you with Karness… Moreover, I'll make you stronger from the situation with him… But that means nothing until you keep your promise."
"I understand you, Scourge." Abeloth is still on my list, even if after Sidious. The galaxy won't leave me alone so easily. Not with Sidious, not with the threats after. So it's not just about creating a worthy state as I envision it, but also securing its future. "I accept the deal and will fulfill everything."
"Then let's begin. You'll send your annoying little padawan and the lady far away, right? They'll only get in the way with their hopeless stupidity. Celeste shouldn't be near because doubts could transfer to you through the Force Bond, or he might somehow move to her… This is still Karness Muur after all. And Jaro Tapal, that's his name? He'll be constantly shouting that we're doing something fundamentally wrong, and such idiots have always annoyed me."
"Yes, it's all planned."
"Then get ready. We need a secluded planet, far from hyperlanes. And I have one in mind. But I won't trust you with the coordinates; I'll enter them myself. If you want to back out, you can," the sith smiled.
"Yes, it sounds strange… Flying somewhere that Scourge himself wants to take me… And what guarantee is there that you won't betray me?"
"My word is your guarantee. So?"
"Alright, I agree." There was no choice anyway. Apparently, Karness had come up with something more unique in terms of transferring into my body than Arrogant. So I'd have to accept it. Or did I really believe that I could at least escape? I had formed a report like this: three dark Gifted appeared on Veynae at once. Two were eliminated, the third escaped. Set Harth, who turned out to be the 'Primordial,' was defeated by the third, who then escaped. And that's how it looked, because Celeste and Jaro didn't detect Scourge, who left after our conversation and hid on my ship. I ordered Celeste and Jaro to go on the next assignment. Before that, I gave the lasat a good thrashing on the floor, because he needed it. I spent a whole day analyzing his fight against Bright. That would help him in the future… Some experience, anyway.
I ordered Celeste not to sulk, but to hold training spars with Jaro. And it seemed she heeded my request. After making sure they boarded the designated transport, I flew off myself on my ship, with Scourge. We were in no hurry to jump into hyperspace. Scourge deliberately ordered me to move farther from the planet and only then jump to the coordinates, so the jump vector couldn't be tracked.