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ItBotL: Forever is Who We Are, Part 2 of 5

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Star Wars: The Old Republic
In the Burning of the Light

"Forever Is Who We Are"
Part 2: The Ethereal Counsel



It went without saying that my meditations were disturbed, and not just as Ashara, the former Jedi, would have it.  Even by the kinder judgment of the Sith, there was no other word for it.  I found it impossible to be still--equally impossible to move, to dance.  Even when one has learnt to thrive on a multitude of diverse passions as I have, it is about bloody well impossible to meditate when one can barely sustain the energy of a particular one for even a minute at a time.  And that is how it is when grief first seizes the spirit: the soul careens from one state to another seemingly at random...about the only thing like meditation I supposed I could manage was to simply taste this turbulence, name it for what it was.  Live with it.  Simply...live with it.

My heart warred between yearning for solitude and a desperate drive to break that same isolation.  Currents shifted within me, without...and it blew almost like a wind behind me, a wind comprised of a strange fusion of lightning and being.  I felt...a bit out of joint all of a sudden, at least by my own peculiar frame of reference: not as cut off from the living world as when I had Force-walked deep into the realms of the Force-sensitive dead, risking permanent severance from the body.  But I still felt as though my displacement had grown ever so slightly, like the redshifting of light in the relativistic universe.

I stood.  The sensation of the Fury's artificial gravity on my bones remained constant, confirming I had not come completely untethered from the material universe...even though what I now turned round to behold might seem to argue otherwise.

"Blood of my blood," boomed the familiar voice from behind its ethereal mask.

Lord Aloysius Kallig--my ancient Sith ancestor, the same one who had guided me free of Darth Zash's snares--there he stood once more, regarding me with what I could only discern by the Force.  Was that...pride?  Even after all the time he'd had by now to see just how different from him I really was?

What escaped my mouth, however, was far from a dignified welcome.  "Oh, no," I growled, folding my arms over my robes.

For it wasn't just Lord Aloysius come to scuttle my meditations.  He stood flanked by two other Force-apparitions: one Togruta, one Sith Pureblood.  Two very familiar spirits indeed--Kalatosh Zavros and Horak-mul, both of whom I had bound to me by blood-agreement during the long fight against Darth Thanaton.  And both of whom had made incredibly inconsiderate houseguests in my mind along with their fellow miscreants, Lord Ergast and Darth Andru.  Those two, however, were nowhere to be seen.  Oh, pity, that.

I had kept my bargain in the end, freeing all four Force-ghosts, trying as best I could to give them some sort of solace on the way out.  For not only had I managed to repair my body on Rakata and wrest my sanity back from them on Voss, but Horak-mul and I, at least, had come to some tolerance of each other by the end.  That said, after the nearly lethal ordeal of trying to contain the power of four cunning and inhospitable Sith Lords within me long enough to end Thanaton's quest to destroy me, I had not exactly pined to see any of them again.  Especially not now, when loss had struck so deep within my heart.  Needless to say, I began this little interaction already on my very last nerve: oh, no, indeed.

"I told you he was going to drive us out," Lord Zavros groused, leaning forward specifically to glare at the Sith Pureblood phantasm without Lord Aloysius blocking the way.  "We ought to leave this to Lord Kallig."  By this he meant Lord Aloysius, not myself.  "I don't think Imperius has forgotten the wild rave we threw inside his head."

"And I'm not about to go back for seconds on that," I snapped, utterly forgetting in the heat of the moment why my accusation was, to put it mildly, wildly inappropriate.  "So don't even think about it."

"What, you think that's what we're here for?" Horak-mul rebutted, looking...rather put out, actually.  He certainly felt it: righteous indignation emanated off of him with far more clarity than I ever had with the living.

"Can you really blame my son for that?" Lord Aloysius reminded his fellow Force-spectres, stepping in between them and me, and leaving me torn between two very distinct sentiments.  This distant ancestor was not my father.  Not the one who had been with me through slavery until the 'recruiters' tore me away from everything I had known, and to whom I had never had the chance to return.  Yet it was also the first time Lord Aloysius had favored me with this sort of warmth.  "You put him through the mental and physical wringer, and I had to feel all of that all the way from Dromund Kaas and not be able to do one blasted thing about it."  Which begged the question: how was he here?  The last time we'd spoken, he had nearly run out of energy to project himself so far from the tomb to which he was bound.

But Lord Zavros gave me no time to ask.  He sighed--for effect, I supposed, or perhaps even force of habit.  "I've come to regret that, you know.  After Darth Imperius opened my eyes, I saw all of that: what it did to him...to you, and to my own descendant as well.  I saw how she worried after him when he was ill, and I was too caught up in my greed for mortal life, too busy trying to overpower him and the other three, to even care about what that meant.  Now?  Well, I can't help but feel it.  I know I can't undo it and it's a waste to try, but it's there now.  That knowledge will always be a part of me.  Oddly enough, I'm more whole with it.  But I do have to acknowledge it."

That gave me pause, just as it seemed to do for Lord Aloysius, if his complete stillness was any indication.  Not once during Lord Zavros' time within me had the turncoat Togruta shown the slightest bit of compassion for Ashara, let alone for me, as Lord Aloysius had.  Even before he and I had struck the blood-agreement, he had been ready to strike the blood of his blood dead until I interceded.  This truly was new.  I could feel it.  And that meant my hopes had been fulfilled in the fullest: something had awakened within them.  What I had done in my antechamber off the Hall of the Dark Council had succeeded.

I forced down the visceral indignation I felt at seeing two of the faces that had tormented my dreams and nearly shattered the very firmament of my mind.  These were...not their true selves--that wasn't the word for it.  For what I had experienced had been true to what they were in the mortal universe.  These were not two distinct entities from the ones I had faced before.  These were rather their full selves: everything they were and everything they could have been, restored to complete integrity.  It wouldn't do for me to further lash out at an incomplete picture of the whole that lived now only within the immutable world of my own past memory.  "So tell me," I finally inquired, after a few deep breaths to shunt my anger to the side, "why you're here."

"I did really blow an opportunity to get to know Ashara," Lord Zavros confessed.  "I didn't appreciate the chance I'd been given--and I made sure she wouldn't appreciate it, with the way I acted.  This confession thing feels good, as funny as it must sound to other people.  It's liberating.  So I was hoping to...well, apologize to her for the things I said and did.  But I think it would be better if you talked to her first.  She is a Zavros Sith, after all--and if I showed up at random in her cabin, I have a feeling 'thermonuclear' would be putting it mildly."

I didn't point out to Lord Zavros that even though Ashara was for all intents and purposes a Sith apprentice, my beloved was still quite far from welcoming the lordship that would someday be her due.  "I'll see what I can do," I said instead, "but I can't make any promises.  You are right: the Jedi tried, but they never doused the fire in her soul.  I'd sooner try to extinguish a star with the Force than push her to do something so incredibly personal against her will."

"Fair enough," Lord Zavros acknowledged.  "If you can, though...there is a lot to be said for coming to terms with things in life instead of after it.  It's so much harder to change once the mortal body dies.  I could never have done it on my own, Imperius, and I know it."

"I...ah...thank you," I stammered.  "I am glad my light could make a difference...whatever it did.  It's so hard to explain, even though it came from me.  Somehow..."  To this day, I still have no explanation for the deep and instinctive knowledge that flooded through me when the possibility of Force-ghost redemption first became real.  The words I'd said on Dromund Kaas had been so inadequate before the truth: Let my light redeem you.  But that hadn't told the fullness of it.  Not by far. 

"All I did...was to name you, in my soul," I continued, fumbling for the explanation as best I could.  "To choose to know you.  To let myself understand that you were still worth that, and to let you experience that for yourselves.  I think it started with the light in me.  That much is true.  But I don't think it finished that way.  Even with the Rakatan therapy--the power that went through me...I don't think I could have ever contained all of that inside me for any length of time, especially while the blood-agreements were still active.  Yet it happened.  That's the only thing I can say for sure."

A smile curled across the Togruta ghost's face, so like Ashara.  It was the first time I had ever seen his eyes filled with friendly mischief rather than the rapacious hunger to wreak havoc.  "Well, however it got finished," he said, "you did start it.  You definitely didn't have to.  Many Sith wouldn't have even kept their word to release us in the first place, let alone tried a heretical Force-healing ritual.  And that decision was all yours."

I dipped my head in a nod of respect...for some had now grown within me.  "I did very much want to be rid of you," I told him, though, with a wry twist of the lip.  "I wasn't about to hang on to you."

"After you put down our little insurrection on Voss...you could easily have changed your mind," Lord Zavros pointed out.  "I've seen that often enough when a Sith truly brings a new power source under his full control.  You stayed true to the blood-agreements, though.  Admirable...but Imperius, it will only get harder from here."

"No kidding," I muttered, half to myself.  Hearing even the Force-ghosts call me by that name...the name of not just a Sith Lord and a Darth, but that of a Dark Councillor--it drove that point all the deeper.  I glanced over now at Horak-mul.  "I get why they're here," I said, indicating Lord Aloysius and Lord Zavros.  "But I'm not sure about youDo tell me you're not somehow another long-lost relative of mine--"

The Sith Pureblood positively roared with laughter.  His entire ethereal frame shook with it.  "No, no, certainly not, Imperius--no!  True, there's a real irony in calling people like me Purebloods--our forebears did all have human genetics spliced into them, but no...there were no Kallig genes in me.  No Revel or Drellik ones, either," Horak-mul added, "though I could certainly see how I might have been accused of having some Revel in me...or Revel having some Horak-mul in him!"

There was something of a wild, tightly-coiled energy I'd felt in Horak-mul, to be sure, that reminded me of my carousing pirate-turned-pilot.  But to think the two of them were related somehow?  Balderdash.  "I do thank you for not testing the limits of my suspension of disbelief," I smirked.  "Even for the few species that can actually interbreed, the galaxy isn't that small.  So...what does bring you here?  I would've thought you'd have had enough of the living world after finally getting free of your tomb on Hoth."

"What," Horak-mul retorted, another laugh shaking his great shoulders, "you thought I was simply going to sit still in some other place after all of that sitting somewhere else?  When have I ever sat still, when something wasn't pinning me down by force?  I haven't sat still since I was a little boy made to listen to tutor-droids droning on and on about this poem or that equation--what makes you think I'm about to start now?  I thought for sure you of all people would get that redemption does not equal stagnation!"

I couldn't help myself in spite of everything going on outside the meditation chamber: I smiled again.  "Point scored," I conceded.  "I suppose you do have ample time to poke around this realm, on top of any of the other ones out there.  But why here and now?  Why did you choose to come in this point of time to me?"  The smile and all other vestiges of mirth faded--reality invaded once again.  "Has Lord Aloysius told you what I'm on the way to do?  What I have to do is for family.  And you yourself said it: you have no ties to me or to any of my family, whether biological, or kinship by choice."

"I suppose there is still one vague tie: the apology I owe."  I raised one skeptical eyebrow.  What apology other than to me, and how could this have to do with my family?  "Drellik wasn't your brother then," Horak-mul specified, "but he is now.  And I certainly put him through the gauntlet.  He took it far more bravely than most of the Forceless ever would, but to weather all of that--and then the petty destruction I demanded in the tomb...desecrating my rivals' relics seemed like the most important thing in the universe to me.  Drellik knew better.  I didn't.  And I see that now.  Do give Drellik that message for me."

"I will..." Still, I could feel it: there was something quite a bit more than that.  "That doesn't resolve the question of time and place, though.  What else is happening right here and right now, to bring you here, when your message for Talos could have waited for later?"

"Your task may be for family right now," Horak-mul intoned, "but nothing you do occurs in isolation.  Not anymore, Imperius--not as a Dark Councillor.  Even now on the most private of errands, you must stay vigilant.  We have made observations, all three of us--things you dare not lose sight of your first time out into an unsecured area since your accession."

One thing was for sure: being made Dark Councillor meant a sudden cottage industry in target-practice drones with holos of my face on them.  I'd dealt with threats before--specific ones, identifiable dangers: Zash and her lunatic quest for immortality, Thanaton and his Kaggath challenge.  This...death wasn't exactly blasting down the hatches anymore, but it hung out there like a nebular haze--ill-defined, but very much there, and ready to ignite as soon as something crushed it down to critical mass.

But this I certainly hadn't seen coming.  I tried my best not to gape like a stunned Hutt at the Force-spectres.  "You...did opposition research for me?  All three of you?  Why?"  Lords Aloysius and Zavros--their interest was readily apparent, but surely Horak-mul's wanderlust wouldn't have favored his return to well-trodden territory...that remained beyond my grasp.

"This is something new in the Empire," Horak-mul replied, "something that may save it from another cycle of destruction, even if for a time.  I learned how committed you were during my time with you--even through adversity, some of which was of our making.  It would be something extraordinary to see it all through."

"I have seen the effects on the people beneath you," Lord Zavros added.  "There will be those to watch, of course--Darth Achelon's gratitude for sparing him may not last forever if he starts thinking he could serve your Sphere better than you.  He'll be an invaluable source to learn more of Thanaton's work as you set your priorities.  But watch that you never approach him with a plan that hasn't already been well framed out and tested for soundness.  For the earlier stages of research you would do better with the Moffs: Pyron, Drellik, and Chairos, for example...but even then, you should maintain your own back-channels.  Ways to reach loyal experts whenever you want, but with less risk of eavesdropping.  Your brother would be helpful for that.  Don't let his rank fool you; he's likely to have cultivated quite a network over the years.  And there will be plenty of people who see working with you as being in the Empire's best interests.  They won't want to go back to a more capricious, self-interested Councillor.  You can give them structure and sanity.  That respect will turn more people to you than terror ever did.  The Jedi were partly right in that...though they didn't understand that sometimes you do have to use fear when nothing else works.  If you stay tough and reasonable like you have so far--that may well lower the threat a bit.  There may even be allegiances you've sown without even knowing it at the time.  Consider those you have given their due along the way..."

The image of a Chiss officer took shape in my mind unbidden--the strategist from Hoth, whose superior had been so ready to deny the non-human the credit he deserved for their victory.  "Yudrass," I recalled.  "Those species-obsessed fools would've been perfectly willing to throw him under the landspeeder if I hadn't said something."  The Togruta ghost smirked when I hit the word 'fools.'  "He's been on the rise ever since I got the truth out."

"The truth--that's served you better than most Sith would think," Lord Zavros commented.

"You would never have convinced Darth Serevin of that," I remarked.  "He may have hidden it fairly well, but I could tell he wanted to tear my entrails out with the Force right there in front of the Voss diplomats, for telling the Voss the truth Talos and I found about their origins!  It wasn't the convenient, manufactured, backwards little 'truth' he wanted to feed them, some nonsense that their Gormak enemies were the ones the Jedi unnaturally created.  Did he really think no one on Voss was going to fact-check that little lie, if I'd let him get away with it?  Someone would have found the real truth--if Talos and I could do it, then it could and would have happened again!  Serevin may have thought I undid all his 'hard work'--but what might some successor of his enjoy someday?  The Voss learning that the Empire told them the truth, even when it was painful.  Even when it hurt our short-term interests.  If they are worth anything, they'll come to grips with that in time.  And the treaty the Empire strikes will be the stronger for it."


The gaze with which Lord Zavros regarded me in that moment was...disconcerting.  "There are certain decisions we make that reverberate into the future in ways we never anticipate at the time.  That, I believe, was one of them."

A chill slid down my spine.  "You know something.  What is it you aren't telling me?"

"I don't know anything."  Nonetheless, Zavros' tone echoed low, ominous.  "But I do see one thing.  Someday--in the future, but sooner than you think--you will return to Voss, and your course on that day will hinge on the path you took before."

"Are you saying you've seen my future?"  I crossed my arms.  "I don't place stock in visions.  I didn't on Voss, I didn't with Zash, and granted...you may be in a better position than any of them, but those things are easily proven wrong.  Or unfold terribly different to how we think we will."

"No, Imperius."

My patience was beginning to wear thin.  "Oh, good, that's settled, then."

Zavros took my vexation in stride, though.  "You're right to be skeptical.  Time takes on a different perspective once it stops whittling away at you.  The connections--those are easy to see.  Those are the chances we're given, but it says nothing about the chances we take.  The outcomes--those are always shifting, and even the act of observing may twist future one way or the other.  The Uncertainty Principle of Quanta...the Observer Effect.  Those apply to time just as they do the elementary particles.  That's the part that so few understand.  Never let any visionary convince you that they know the answers to your future...for they can't control them.  And even you, if you see it for yourself--the effect of your seeing in and of itself is so strong that either it will invalidate the vision...or you will surrender your will to it entirely.  Better the former than the latter.  You can control the unknown far more than what you believe is known and fixed."

Was it me, though, or had I just seen a silent, absurdly pantomimed yawn from the Force-ghost of the ancient Sith Lord Horak-mul at all of this?  Don't look over there, I chanted to myself, don't look over there.  Lord Aloysius, for his part, hadn't budged an inch.

"'Control the unknown'..."  I snorted.  "That sounds like an oxymoron.  But there's sense in it.  You can control what you do in each moment that leads there."

Lord Zavros flashed a crooked smile.  "There's hope for you.  Bear that in mind--and always watch your back and remember the immense political skill some of your followers may have cultivated in place of actually doing their jobs like you do...and you may yet have a chance."

"I won't lose sight of that," I promised.  Easier said than done--watching my back with so many politicians and lying sycophants flitting about the Empire could well be a full-time job in its own right.  At this rate, I was wondering if I might need to keep a book with all the names of my enemies, like the Sith Lords I'd heard of in bedtime stories as a boy.  Perhaps now that I had expelled Zash from Khem Val, and offered Val the chance to go his own way--one he'd inexplicably refused after all this time--I could assign some of that work to Andronikos Revel.  He certainly had experience tracing webs upon webs of enemies and malcontents...most of which he'd stirred up himself back in the old days, but still.

"Good.  And watch over Ashara.  If you believe she'll see me...let me know.  I'll recognize the summons."  With that promise, Lord Zavros faded from my senses off to who knew where, leaving Horak-mul and Lord Aloysius.

"I had some fun sneaking around the Dark Councillors,"  Horak-mul said as soon as Zavros disappeared entirely.  Then he flashed a toothy grin.  "Present company excluded, of course."

I returned a smirk of my own.  "I should hope."

"No sneaking with you.  You'd know it straight away, first of all.  And second--it's you.  So no.  I kept it to the other Councillors."

"Wise choice."

"Hah.  Indeed."

Other choices though...my brow furrowed, diadem seeming to multiply in weight.  "But were the other choices so wise?" I pointed out.  "I should most certainly hope you went undetected--Thanaton warned the whole Council that I am a Force-walker.  That...for whatever reason unbeknownst to all of us...I am closely aligned to the dead."  Lord Aloysius' helmeted head whipped towards me at that.  He held his tongue, but something about that statement had rattled him.  That I sensed without question, and I dared not forget, even as pressing as it was to find out exactly what Horak-mul had done.  "If the Councillors ever even suspect you were there--and with their Force-mastery, that's a good bit more likely than it was with Zavros...your activity will be traced back to me.  Which will undo this 'new thing in the Empire' you wanted to see so badly.  And of course kill off your protagonist.  Which means that you'd be bored and I'd be dead." 

I pretended to think, then flashed my best impression of an evil grin.  "I take back 'you'd be bored.'  Not with the chase I'd give you for your troubles!"

"Hah!  I knew there was a reason I liked you, Imperius.  Even in my most bloody-minded days, I had to admit your mind was never a dreary place--"

"So pleased that you found my misery so entertaining," I retorted--this time very much minus grin.

"As I said...bloody-minded."  Horak-mul shrugged--not so much to minimize it, I sensed, but a concession that there was nothing to be done about the past.  "Anyway, as to chasing me across the afterlife--an opportunity you'll never get," the Sith Pureblood proudly proclaimed, "not a one of them spotted me.  Certainly an interesting--and dangerous--cast of characters there, though.  Dangerous to you, anyway.  Darth Ravage--no mystery where he stands.  He's as opposed to you as he was to Zhorrid.  Your youth works against you even more than it did with her."

I nodded, recalling his words to me after Thanaton's fall.  "He certainly didn't make that hard to spot."

"No--but that's only the obvious threat.  Those are the easy ones.  There are others that don't tip their hand so easily.  But you have to know who your greatest threat is--and I can confirm it."  The guardian of the Sphere of Sith Philosophy, the master of propaganda and ideological purity, and the safeguard against goodwill towards Jedi and their heresy.  If he only knew the extent of my own heresy...it would matter not that I drew it all straight from the Sith Code itself: passion--strength--power--victory--freedom.  To know I understood the Light as well as the Dark would be enough for him.  I shivered once more.  Our lips formed the word as one.  "Darth Aruk."

I let that sink in.  "Just lovely."

"He took Thanaton's charges against you seriously," Horak-mul warned.  "And though it's perfectly permissible to take on former Jedi, that does always draw his scrutiny."

"Has he opened an inquisition?"

Horak-mul narrowed his eyes and for once, paused to consider.  "Doesn't look like it to me," he soon answered.  "You did stand your ground against Thanaton.  You answered the Kaggath--you didn't shy away from it like a Jedi.  And you know how to make Dark power serve you--your lightning was a statement of your anger in the duel, and no Jedi would even dare contemplate binding spirits.  Not even by blood-agreement.  For all Thanaton's love for tradition, he was the one who broke it in the end by begging for help from the Dark Council--whereas you proved you were ready to live or die on your own worth.  And your actions at the Academy...Aruk is completely in the dark as to why you killed Harkun and took on Xalek.  From what I heard him tell Lord Caliqu, he doesn't plan to go beyond observation with you right now.  That could all change in an instant, of course.  And he knows he'd have Ravage's support at a minimum, no questions asked, as soon as he made the accusation."

"So I suppose the general lesson where the Dark Council is concerned is to never turn my back or I'll end up with a saber in it.  I'd say that meets with all my loftiest expectations."  Oh, the things I've got myself into, I thought to myself.

"Mostly," said the ancient Sith.  "But not entirely.  You have attracted the attention of a few Councillors who may see the benefits of having you alive and in your Council seat.  Two of them in particular could well be a powerful deterrent against some of the people who might want to try something.  You impressed Darth Vowrawn with your first policy address to your Sphere, for starters."

The most tenacious, longest-surviving member of the Dark Council--that would be something if true.  But the Sith Pureblood Councillor of the Sphere of Production and Logistics had seemed just as thrilled at the prospect of witnessing my demise as anyone--the look of disappointment on his face when Darth Mortis struck the wounded Thanaton down had been as blatant as could be.  "Vowrawn loves the thrill of intrigue...and blood-sport," I told Horak-mul.  With the amount of time Vowrawn had had to cultivate a legend, even the smallest slave child knew that.  "Would he not have been just as glad to see Thanaton defeat me as the reverse?  I don't think he cared for seeing the contest cut short.  There'll always be that doubt in the back of his mind as to whether I could really have bested Thanaton."

"Smart suspicion," Horak-mul commended.  "Vowrawn does love the thrill of the duel.  But I can tell you what he despises even more than he loves a fight to the death.  And that is other Councillors wasting what he's gone to such lengths to procure, in senseless berserker rages.  And he also loathes wasting talent with anti-alien policies.  Another Councillor who would support him in taking the chance of assigning people where their skills, and not their species demand--he may well see dividends in you.  He may even maneuver certain threats away from you if he sees you as a resource to be preserved.  Never let him think you need or want it.  Never act as if you fear the threats against you.  But remember what you told your followers, and he may well become a bellwether to youRemember it well."

I hardly even had to remember it.  There were holorecordings of it everywhere.  It had even made the bloody HoloNet News, in censored form to remove the words spoken specifically to the Sith under my command.  And the analysis was rather limited, of course, given the Sphere of Sith Philosophy and its enforcement of political orthodoxy, but still, there I was, the subject of political commentary for all to see.  There were even fashion designers puttering over the possible significance of my robes and diadem, for crying out loud! 

Utterly surreal, that.

But yes: I well remembered that speech in its uncut form, especially the concluding words...

As I said on my accession day--we are the guardians of the Empire's heritage. 

But we are also guardians of its progeny.  Never forget that.  Any recklessness that may have gone on in the past--it ends now.  I will be far quicker to forgive the asking of an intelligent question that ends with nothing, than I will a foolish assumption that leads either to blindly rushing in,
or to holding back too long for fear of the risks that were 'common knowledge' but never properly challenged and verified.  We will not squander time and knowledge on those things.  That is not to say loyalty to our great Empire goes out the window.  In fact, it is our loyalty that motivates this.  The path to securing our future is both by preserving our past and launching off of its firm foundation to innovate our future.

Furthermore--let one more thing be known.  I answered Thanaton's Kaggath against me not only to preserve my standing and that of my people, but to stop him from destroying the materiel--
and the manpower--of our Empire for a personal vendetta.  I had the option on my victory of obliterating his name from history and forbidding our citizens from speaking about him.  I chose not to, because it would be foolish to deny what we all know took place, for one, and I will not insult your intelligence.  It would be even more foolish to deny us all the opportunity to learn from the consequences of his actions.  That is part of what being the guardians of the past entails.  Thanaton was ready to throw away victory on Corellia to defeat one man!

That sort of insanity
will not occur on my watch!  If you have a dispute, Darths and Lords of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge, and there is no resolution for it but blood, understand that it shall be resolved strictly amongst yourselves!  If you think you'll advance yourselves on the backs of our own military, or our civilian subjects, that will be the last mistake you ever make!  Anyone who destroys the physical or personnel resources of the Empire to defeat their rival will answer once and for all to my Force.  Choose wisely!

I wished I could end the disunity amongst us altogether.  But to rewrite the whole of Sith tradition--that lay far beyond my power indeed.  Horak-mul had been most clear on the reasons for that.  All I could hope to do was contain certain aspects at least a little, and hope to hell that example had an effect.  But I knew I could never hope to back that on rhetoric alone.  I dreaded that day, but I knew it would come when I would have to make good on my threat.  As for Vowrawn--I knew he would be watching and waiting to see if my strength and my will would hold.

"Vowrawn has eyes and ears everywhere," Horak-mul said, as if he could hear my thoughts.  "And they have brought him a promising report where you're concerned.  You would be wise not to disappoint.  But he is not the only one.  Marr and Acina--they respect pragmatism as well.  Don't ask for favor--but if you have a discovery within your Sphere that will do well for the Empire, approach them first.  It's the four of you who are most likely to find common cause."

"I had heard that about Darth Marr as a slave," I confirmed.  "That of all the Dark Council, he was the Empire's truest defender.  Acina...I never heard much of her.  But it's encouraging to know that the Council's technological research arm may be under some sort of reasonable management as well as our military defense."

Horak-mul nodded, closing his eyes for a second.  "I saw the first interstellar Sith Empire rise...and then die after me.  Your Empire still stands a chance to head off the same fate, if enough of you can gain control.  Naive idealism won't do that.  But pragmatism will."

"Maybe this is just naive idealism," I mused in the moment, "but maybe it might even show the Republic that there's something truly worthwhile in the Sith way.  That we deserve to exist, to be heard.  That we offer something far more complete than the Jedi could ever have."

"Good luck getting through to fanatics," the ancient spirit quipped, "whatever side of the border they come from."  It wasn't just Thanaton, Aruk, Caliqu, and their ilk.  I had had my run-ins on the Republic side of the border, all right: Nomar Organa, Ryen and Ocera, all talk of peace until they saw the wrong robes and saber, no matter what one said or did.  There was where peace became a lie, and honesty itself went out the window in favor of zealotry.  They weren't all like that, of course.  My beloved Ashara was proof enough that Jedi indoctrination could be overcome, one bit at a time.  So maybe there was more hope than in just a single shining star. 

"Still," Horak-mul admitted, "I never thought I'd see you live through all that you have, Imperius.  So perhaps it might just be time for me to shut up and let you get to work on doing more of the impossible."

 I took the bait.  "Ahh, well, when you put it like that..."

"Very well, then!" he huffed in mock indignation.  "I have a whole universe of other things to stick my nose into.  I'll be back sometime or another--it's not like I don't have all eternity to spare!"

And with that, the boisterous Force ghost faded from my senses, leaving me alone with one last spectre: that of my own ancestor, Lord Aloysius Kallig.

The end of one threat against his life has only catapulted Tarssus Kallig into an even more dangerous world of intrigue: the Dark Council of the Sith Empire, where he now rules as Darth Imperius, Councillor of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge.

There is much strangeness about the new young Councillor, though--and not just the heresy of Light that he must hide at all costs.  Among those is how, in the lack of the sophisticated senses of the mind most Sith at his level possess, he discovers he will occasionally receive needed counsel...


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Welcome to my collection of short stories from my vision of the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic!  I hope you will enjoy these tales of my Light Sith Inquisitor, Tarssus Kallig!  (Note: The Sith Inquisitor and many of the situations and people I have him react to are either inspired by or directly played out on SWTOR; this is my personal take on them and who my character was as I played the game.)

For more background, links to other vignettes as they are posted, and the soundtrack to these vignettes, please visit "In the Burning of the Light: Opening Crawl."

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A canon note for this story: If you're wondering why my version of Lord Kallig/Darth Imperius considers Talos Drellik a member of his family, see the previous story, "A Brother's Tale."
© 2017 - 2024 RensKnight
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FoxxyCandy's avatar
For once, I was actually drawn into something to read on this website. You have an amazing talent for strong writing, very good and proper grammar (few slip ups here and there, likely typoes), and very good taste in story. Keep going, you're doing great!