Death!
Author's Title : “The Fall of the Jedi - Chapter III - Death!"
Author: Darth En Ghedi
Origin: Portugal
Language: English
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The planet was uncharted and I could hardly define what kind of life it sustained. I looked away into its deep forests and all I could sense was an amalgam of life and the strong influence of the living Force.
I was sitting in the shadow created by the Sith Cruiser and admiring the virgin horizon and guessed few men ever stepped those grounds. But the Force told me some did.
Beside me was a bulge in the terrain created by the remains of my old Master. His lightsaber was marking the spot as if someone would ever seek for him. Not him… not here…
The Force was strong in this planet. And I fed from it. My Master told me about this planet as being as powerful as Korriban or Malachor V back in the old days when the Dark Side wasn’t so strangled by the Jedi everlasting pretentious desire to eradicate it from those planets.
Here the Dark Side was almost palpable and I could almost grab it in the air. It surrounded every living being as if the Force itself generated that life.
Then I felt something more. A presence. The Force was bending and twisting around it.
I stood up and walked towards what appeared to be the source of such disturbance. I was feeling sick and nauseous of the strong influence of the Force. I never felt it so strong. Not even at the tombs of the fallen Sith Lords… not even with my Master’s dark influence.
This was raw… pure…
The dense forest suddenly vanished as I erupted in an enormous clearing. The grassy plain was filled with wild unknown beasts. But as they saw me, or felt me, ran in a stampede and raised a cloud of thick dust that shrouded my sight. But I needn’t eyesight. The Force twirled around me. I was close.
As the beasts all escaped to the forest, silence took over.
The dust was slowly settling and I could distinguish a silhouette in the middle of the clearing. I remembered Korriban and I recalled my Master approaching with his intention to humiliate me.
But this figure didn’t move. Reaching the Force, there was a great shroud covering the person. I couldn’t figure who he was. The sickening became almost unbearable.
I walked down and felt the Dark Side increasing in strength and I approached the cloaked figure. If the Force was palpable when I landed, it was now solid rock.
The crouched person now stood up facing me. The dust didn’t allow me to see his face but I could sense he was a Sith Lord.
I hoped I didn’t have to break the silence, for I was speechless before such demonstration of power. But I never hesitated to walk down to meet him. I need to know who he was.
The figure then finally removed his cloak as I was only some meters away. The man was wearing an armor much like those I recalled watching in the Jedi Archives related to the Sith Empire. I trembled with such idea that I could be looking at someone from that age. But I shrugged that thought recalling it had been thousands of years since those times. Perhaps it was just someone with an exquisite taste for wardrobe.
Whoever he was, though, the Force was agonizingly strong with him.
I stopped at the distance of saber blow.
The man stood still. He was middle aged, human and his face transmitted a strange peace in much contrast to the apparent chaos of the Force surrounding him.
He finally spoke, much to my relief. His voice was surprisingly calm and inspiring me to react.
-You came alone…
-Yes… – I answered as if I knew the meaning of his observation.
He stepped forward and placed his hand on my shoulder. The Force made me shiver and I felt the coldness of the Dark Side taking over. Once again I was surprised how calm his gesture was. But the sickness worsened and I felt nausea taking shape of dizziness.
-It is the Dark Side in its full potential you are feeling. The nausea is due to the fact that no human is capable of enduring it without self-sacrifice. It can make you powerful. But I can also exhaust you. But you know much about exhaustion, don’t you? And how much once can regain strength from the least probable sources…
- Hate… - I whispered. He knew about Korriban.
-Yes, hate. You killed my friend with that much hate.
I was shocked and thought about the words I just heard. “Friend”. If my master was his friend, than certainly he didn’t enjoy my murder. I expected his vengeance, much like my Master once taught me about the vengeance meaning among the brothers of the Sith. Yet I expected nothing. If he wanted to execute vengeance he could have accomplished with a mere whisper of the amount of Force he was controlling and wouldn’t need to lure me here. With that much power he could even have done it while I was in orbit.
-I felt it was the time. There was little more I could have learned from him.
-Yes. The way of thinking of a true Sith.
I felt the urge to ask him who he was, but instead I was speechless with the amount of power I was experiencing. Words were hard to fabric. As if he read my mind, he spoke.
-It’s not really important for you to know who I am. But you will know what I represent.
He removed his hand from my shoulder and I felt a mix of relief and craving for that much power again. When he crouched I did so too, without any instruction from him. He continued.
-I come from a time when Sith were not just warriors or priests of some sort of tradition. The Sith were masters of the Force itself. Owners of its secrets. Controllers of its purpose. They reached a stage that the single thought could mean death or life to many. They also conquered the Force in a way that they could preserve themselves from physical death and endure in the Force.
-They were immortal?
-No! They couldn’t cheat corruption. But they managed to remain alive in different ways… as I did…
I felt the urge to interrupt him and placed the millions of questions I had in my mind. But he continued and amazingly answered them all.
-Your master was one of such men. He was my friend, my ally, my brother. I mourn his death, but I knew it would come to this when he told me he had an apprentice taken from the Jedi. It takes much power to lure a Jedi from the Light. Invariably he’s conquered through hatred. Eventually turned back to the one who caused his hate. He knew this. As I knew, too.
-Why would he bring me here to meet you?
He raised his hand to the air, and I felt the awkwardness of such gesture. It was as if I was waving to the sunny skies. But when I tried to interpret it I understood the meaning of his gesture.
The trees around us started to bend and grew impressively fast, until they covered the whole clearing.
-This is not sorcery. This is the Force in action. The planet was not supposed to exist. It was the will of the Force and a few men, who discovered the Force could be used to many deeper purposes, like the power to destroy a life… or to manipulate it…
-Manipulate life? – I was puzzled with such idea, beyond the ideas I had built in my mind, the Force being used to control life itself was an incredible idea.
-Is it so unbelievable that the same power you can use to kill can also be used to preserve life?
-I know how it can kill but…
-Life can be preserved within the Force. – He interrupted me – I was preserved with such teachings. You can be too. That’s why your master brought you here.
The question I now had in my mind was somehow stronger than my respect for the man before me, and I couldn’t hold it much longer.
-I need to know who my master was and who you are.
-You could have asked him whenever you wanted. I am sure he would tell you. But you were too concentrated in killing him.
-I want to know!
He faced me and his face no longer inspired peace but a fearful menace. Still his rage was bur a faint whisper. And when he looked away from me he started to speak.
-I am ageless. I cheated time and the matter. I am one with the Force. I am the Sith.
That was as vague as anything else my Master told me about this planet we were going to. I felt the coldness of hate return to me. I needed answers. But before I could persist, he continued.
-I come from the lineage of Sith Lords, greater than any of the traditions you could ever read in any scroll the Jedi could supply you or any holocron they allowed you to browse. I am a Dark Lord of the Sith from the period that title would inspire fear just to pronounce it… I am Lord Cauro.
The name echoed in my mind. Little was known about Cauro, except he had been a Sith Lord dated well back the Sith Empire. Thus he would be more than 6000 years old. It felt like a sick lie, but the Force told him otherwise. So I asked the obvious question.
-You managed to cheat death?
-I was one of those you took the teachings of the elders to the best possible accomplishment.
-So did my Master…
-And he wanted you to master this power too.
-I am ready to learn it.
-Yes… I would appear so. But you see… you need more than readiness to take this teaching. You need to earn it.
I felt a chill as the first time this Sith Lord spoke to me without the previous calmness he once had. I looked deeply into his eyes. Once again I expected all… and nothing.
-I don’t deserve to know this? After all I did kill the one that was supposed to be greater than me.
-The ability to kill your master does indicate ambition. But to kill him was a coward act.
-Much like his own deeds in Coruscant. Was he worthy?
-Your words are offensive towards my friend.
-Sith have no friends.
-True…
-Why was I brought here?
The Sith Lord rose from his crouched position and closed his eyes stretching out his arms.
I followed his move just to make sure I wasn’t surprised.
-Can you feel it? – He asked.
I tried to distinguish anything beyond the ever shouting Force around us…
-Not beyond… The Force itself… - He added.
I also closed my eyes and concentrated. I felt the nausea return. Still I concentrated to make sure I would understand what Cauro was talking about. I could then hear something.
At first it was a faint scream in the background. Then it became louder as I concentrated. The nausea became stronger as if poison was injected through my veins.
The screaming was of a man’s voice. Then more voices were added in a choir of pain. I felt a tear dropping from my eye and I was surprised to feel the strange shape of compassion forming. And then I could distinguish death itself. My own…
-Now you see Jeedai… - The voice came from within the screams. It was my old Master. Alive, next to Cauro. - You were never complete… never a Sith.
-This planet is a fabrication of the Sith. – Cauro added – It was built with the Force and the death of many who thought they were worthy and perished here in a pursuit for their own vengeance.
The nausea was my own slow death the minute I walked down to this planet.
I reached from the Force to stay alive. To every resource I had learned from the past. Either Jedi or Sith teachings they all seemed feeble to help me stop death.
-There is no hope, Jeedai! I said you couldn’t fully destroy me. I did fail you as a Master, but only to serve the purpose of feeding this planet with another life… another death.
I tried to grab my master’s ethereal body but I was too weak to even reach for it. I concentrated in the last thing I felt when Cauro had lured me to focus on the Force… The compassion…
Cauro suddenly grabbed my shoulder again and yelled so violently I felt each word snapping my skull.
-Don’t let go of the hatred you hate me and your master! Give in to your anger and die!
I knew their plans were being deviated… And I concentrated even further. I felt the faint Light turn into a bright supernova engulfing the dark side. Black turned to grey and Light simply took over.
Cauro screamed even louder…
-No, let go of the light!
My Master suddenly vanished as if he was destroyed into tiny bright shooting stars.
I opened my eyes to Cauro to see his face suffering and with the rage of the hundreds of Sith who had built this planet.
I concentrated with all my strength not taken by the drainage of life I was inflicted.
I let go of the Dark Side… I was free from its bonds. From the Force.
When I finally let go of the last trace of the Force within my mind and body. A large explosion was heard and the shockwave was felt in a tremendous blast that sent both me and Cauro through the air.
When I landed, it was as if I landed in the hot sand of Korriban again…
I felt Cauro’s body land beside me. And when I look I saw he was lifeless. So much for his attempt to live forever.
The Dark Side was now but a faint whisper around me.
I felt it drain away from the life forms that once fed on this dark power.
The twisted trees were now but mere bushes.
The grass was dry and yellow.
There were no animals.
I used my strength to absorb the last traces of the Force before I expired…
When all the turmoil had stopped I felt nothing.
But the Force was with me…
I looked at my mechanical arm as it was hurting me.
I took the glove off and to my amazement I had my physical arm again.
“Force could be used to many deeper purposes, like the power to destroy a life… or to manipulate it…”
I smiled and felt the Force, but a whisper, but there, talking to me…
It said that I hadn’t failed… I had used its potential engulfed shadows into light in a way not even the greatest Sith Lords ever thought possible.
That was enough for me.
Now was the time to reborn.
I had touched the very core of the Force and had earned the right to live… I had learned to cheat death from those who had thought they could do it eternally.
I wasn’t immortal, but I was Sith.
From that day on… I was to become the Sith itself... the Sith'ari…
Author: Darth En Ghedi
Origin: Portugal
Language: English
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The planet was uncharted and I could hardly define what kind of life it sustained. I looked away into its deep forests and all I could sense was an amalgam of life and the strong influence of the living Force.
I was sitting in the shadow created by the Sith Cruiser and admiring the virgin horizon and guessed few men ever stepped those grounds. But the Force told me some did.
Beside me was a bulge in the terrain created by the remains of my old Master. His lightsaber was marking the spot as if someone would ever seek for him. Not him… not here…
The Force was strong in this planet. And I fed from it. My Master told me about this planet as being as powerful as Korriban or Malachor V back in the old days when the Dark Side wasn’t so strangled by the Jedi everlasting pretentious desire to eradicate it from those planets.
Here the Dark Side was almost palpable and I could almost grab it in the air. It surrounded every living being as if the Force itself generated that life.
Then I felt something more. A presence. The Force was bending and twisting around it.
I stood up and walked towards what appeared to be the source of such disturbance. I was feeling sick and nauseous of the strong influence of the Force. I never felt it so strong. Not even at the tombs of the fallen Sith Lords… not even with my Master’s dark influence.
This was raw… pure…
The dense forest suddenly vanished as I erupted in an enormous clearing. The grassy plain was filled with wild unknown beasts. But as they saw me, or felt me, ran in a stampede and raised a cloud of thick dust that shrouded my sight. But I needn’t eyesight. The Force twirled around me. I was close.
As the beasts all escaped to the forest, silence took over.
The dust was slowly settling and I could distinguish a silhouette in the middle of the clearing. I remembered Korriban and I recalled my Master approaching with his intention to humiliate me.
But this figure didn’t move. Reaching the Force, there was a great shroud covering the person. I couldn’t figure who he was. The sickening became almost unbearable.
I walked down and felt the Dark Side increasing in strength and I approached the cloaked figure. If the Force was palpable when I landed, it was now solid rock.
The crouched person now stood up facing me. The dust didn’t allow me to see his face but I could sense he was a Sith Lord.
I hoped I didn’t have to break the silence, for I was speechless before such demonstration of power. But I never hesitated to walk down to meet him. I need to know who he was.
The figure then finally removed his cloak as I was only some meters away. The man was wearing an armor much like those I recalled watching in the Jedi Archives related to the Sith Empire. I trembled with such idea that I could be looking at someone from that age. But I shrugged that thought recalling it had been thousands of years since those times. Perhaps it was just someone with an exquisite taste for wardrobe.
Whoever he was, though, the Force was agonizingly strong with him.
I stopped at the distance of saber blow.
The man stood still. He was middle aged, human and his face transmitted a strange peace in much contrast to the apparent chaos of the Force surrounding him.
He finally spoke, much to my relief. His voice was surprisingly calm and inspiring me to react.
-You came alone…
-Yes… – I answered as if I knew the meaning of his observation.
He stepped forward and placed his hand on my shoulder. The Force made me shiver and I felt the coldness of the Dark Side taking over. Once again I was surprised how calm his gesture was. But the sickness worsened and I felt nausea taking shape of dizziness.
-It is the Dark Side in its full potential you are feeling. The nausea is due to the fact that no human is capable of enduring it without self-sacrifice. It can make you powerful. But I can also exhaust you. But you know much about exhaustion, don’t you? And how much once can regain strength from the least probable sources…
- Hate… - I whispered. He knew about Korriban.
-Yes, hate. You killed my friend with that much hate.
I was shocked and thought about the words I just heard. “Friend”. If my master was his friend, than certainly he didn’t enjoy my murder. I expected his vengeance, much like my Master once taught me about the vengeance meaning among the brothers of the Sith. Yet I expected nothing. If he wanted to execute vengeance he could have accomplished with a mere whisper of the amount of Force he was controlling and wouldn’t need to lure me here. With that much power he could even have done it while I was in orbit.
-I felt it was the time. There was little more I could have learned from him.
-Yes. The way of thinking of a true Sith.
I felt the urge to ask him who he was, but instead I was speechless with the amount of power I was experiencing. Words were hard to fabric. As if he read my mind, he spoke.
-It’s not really important for you to know who I am. But you will know what I represent.
He removed his hand from my shoulder and I felt a mix of relief and craving for that much power again. When he crouched I did so too, without any instruction from him. He continued.
-I come from a time when Sith were not just warriors or priests of some sort of tradition. The Sith were masters of the Force itself. Owners of its secrets. Controllers of its purpose. They reached a stage that the single thought could mean death or life to many. They also conquered the Force in a way that they could preserve themselves from physical death and endure in the Force.
-They were immortal?
-No! They couldn’t cheat corruption. But they managed to remain alive in different ways… as I did…
I felt the urge to interrupt him and placed the millions of questions I had in my mind. But he continued and amazingly answered them all.
-Your master was one of such men. He was my friend, my ally, my brother. I mourn his death, but I knew it would come to this when he told me he had an apprentice taken from the Jedi. It takes much power to lure a Jedi from the Light. Invariably he’s conquered through hatred. Eventually turned back to the one who caused his hate. He knew this. As I knew, too.
-Why would he bring me here to meet you?
He raised his hand to the air, and I felt the awkwardness of such gesture. It was as if I was waving to the sunny skies. But when I tried to interpret it I understood the meaning of his gesture.
The trees around us started to bend and grew impressively fast, until they covered the whole clearing.
-This is not sorcery. This is the Force in action. The planet was not supposed to exist. It was the will of the Force and a few men, who discovered the Force could be used to many deeper purposes, like the power to destroy a life… or to manipulate it…
-Manipulate life? – I was puzzled with such idea, beyond the ideas I had built in my mind, the Force being used to control life itself was an incredible idea.
-Is it so unbelievable that the same power you can use to kill can also be used to preserve life?
-I know how it can kill but…
-Life can be preserved within the Force. – He interrupted me – I was preserved with such teachings. You can be too. That’s why your master brought you here.
The question I now had in my mind was somehow stronger than my respect for the man before me, and I couldn’t hold it much longer.
-I need to know who my master was and who you are.
-You could have asked him whenever you wanted. I am sure he would tell you. But you were too concentrated in killing him.
-I want to know!
He faced me and his face no longer inspired peace but a fearful menace. Still his rage was bur a faint whisper. And when he looked away from me he started to speak.
-I am ageless. I cheated time and the matter. I am one with the Force. I am the Sith.
That was as vague as anything else my Master told me about this planet we were going to. I felt the coldness of hate return to me. I needed answers. But before I could persist, he continued.
-I come from the lineage of Sith Lords, greater than any of the traditions you could ever read in any scroll the Jedi could supply you or any holocron they allowed you to browse. I am a Dark Lord of the Sith from the period that title would inspire fear just to pronounce it… I am Lord Cauro.
The name echoed in my mind. Little was known about Cauro, except he had been a Sith Lord dated well back the Sith Empire. Thus he would be more than 6000 years old. It felt like a sick lie, but the Force told him otherwise. So I asked the obvious question.
-You managed to cheat death?
-I was one of those you took the teachings of the elders to the best possible accomplishment.
-So did my Master…
-And he wanted you to master this power too.
-I am ready to learn it.
-Yes… I would appear so. But you see… you need more than readiness to take this teaching. You need to earn it.
I felt a chill as the first time this Sith Lord spoke to me without the previous calmness he once had. I looked deeply into his eyes. Once again I expected all… and nothing.
-I don’t deserve to know this? After all I did kill the one that was supposed to be greater than me.
-The ability to kill your master does indicate ambition. But to kill him was a coward act.
-Much like his own deeds in Coruscant. Was he worthy?
-Your words are offensive towards my friend.
-Sith have no friends.
-True…
-Why was I brought here?
The Sith Lord rose from his crouched position and closed his eyes stretching out his arms.
I followed his move just to make sure I wasn’t surprised.
-Can you feel it? – He asked.
I tried to distinguish anything beyond the ever shouting Force around us…
-Not beyond… The Force itself… - He added.
I also closed my eyes and concentrated. I felt the nausea return. Still I concentrated to make sure I would understand what Cauro was talking about. I could then hear something.
At first it was a faint scream in the background. Then it became louder as I concentrated. The nausea became stronger as if poison was injected through my veins.
The screaming was of a man’s voice. Then more voices were added in a choir of pain. I felt a tear dropping from my eye and I was surprised to feel the strange shape of compassion forming. And then I could distinguish death itself. My own…
-Now you see Jeedai… - The voice came from within the screams. It was my old Master. Alive, next to Cauro. - You were never complete… never a Sith.
-This planet is a fabrication of the Sith. – Cauro added – It was built with the Force and the death of many who thought they were worthy and perished here in a pursuit for their own vengeance.
The nausea was my own slow death the minute I walked down to this planet.
I reached from the Force to stay alive. To every resource I had learned from the past. Either Jedi or Sith teachings they all seemed feeble to help me stop death.
-There is no hope, Jeedai! I said you couldn’t fully destroy me. I did fail you as a Master, but only to serve the purpose of feeding this planet with another life… another death.
I tried to grab my master’s ethereal body but I was too weak to even reach for it. I concentrated in the last thing I felt when Cauro had lured me to focus on the Force… The compassion…
Cauro suddenly grabbed my shoulder again and yelled so violently I felt each word snapping my skull.
-Don’t let go of the hatred you hate me and your master! Give in to your anger and die!
I knew their plans were being deviated… And I concentrated even further. I felt the faint Light turn into a bright supernova engulfing the dark side. Black turned to grey and Light simply took over.
Cauro screamed even louder…
-No, let go of the light!
My Master suddenly vanished as if he was destroyed into tiny bright shooting stars.
I opened my eyes to Cauro to see his face suffering and with the rage of the hundreds of Sith who had built this planet.
I concentrated with all my strength not taken by the drainage of life I was inflicted.
I let go of the Dark Side… I was free from its bonds. From the Force.
When I finally let go of the last trace of the Force within my mind and body. A large explosion was heard and the shockwave was felt in a tremendous blast that sent both me and Cauro through the air.
When I landed, it was as if I landed in the hot sand of Korriban again…
I felt Cauro’s body land beside me. And when I look I saw he was lifeless. So much for his attempt to live forever.
The Dark Side was now but a faint whisper around me.
I felt it drain away from the life forms that once fed on this dark power.
The twisted trees were now but mere bushes.
The grass was dry and yellow.
There were no animals.
I used my strength to absorb the last traces of the Force before I expired…
When all the turmoil had stopped I felt nothing.
But the Force was with me…
I looked at my mechanical arm as it was hurting me.
I took the glove off and to my amazement I had my physical arm again.
“Force could be used to many deeper purposes, like the power to destroy a life… or to manipulate it…”
I smiled and felt the Force, but a whisper, but there, talking to me…
It said that I hadn’t failed… I had used its potential engulfed shadows into light in a way not even the greatest Sith Lords ever thought possible.
That was enough for me.
Now was the time to reborn.
I had touched the very core of the Force and had earned the right to live… I had learned to cheat death from those who had thought they could do it eternally.
I wasn’t immortal, but I was Sith.
From that day on… I was to become the Sith itself... the Sith'ari…
1 Messages:
Very good, as always.
Tank you Master.
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