Who You Are in the Dark/Part 8

Tirien was escorted into the largest cavern he had seen yet; the stalactited ceiling was some twenty meters up, and various holes and sloping rock bluffs sank at least that far down again. He could not see the end of the cave, and not for gloom this time. The Sith had strung mining lights across some of the stalactites, but half the glow came from lambent crystal formations jutting from the cave walls and poking out of the recessed floor. Somewhere deep below, Tirien heard water flowing and the sounds of laser discharge and labor; he could feel many lives below. The place was still miserably humid, but the air was less foul.

They dragged him onto a wide bluff from which another Human surveyed a group of laboring slaves. He wore the black and gray armor of the Dark Vanguard, but more ornate, and with hood lowered, no mask, and a medallion dangling around his neck. His gray hair made Tirien falter for a moment; had Valin Aresh come here in person? But when the man turned, Tirien saw the beard and mustache framing his mouth and jaw and relaxed slightly.

Only slightly, though. The man wore a red cloak fastened to his armor, and that meant…

"Ah, yes, the alien Jedi," the Human said in an emotionless voice tinged with a Core accent. "Do you know who I am?"

"No mask and a red cloak, so a man of higher station than these," Tirien said, gesturing with his head to the Vanguardian who had brought him in. "But I don't think you're Valin Aresh, either."

His escort punched him yet again, this time in the ribs, and Tirien gasped through his clenched teeth. The Vanguardian said, "Lord Aresh."

Tirien bit back a caustic reply, studying his captors. He saw two more of the indistinguishable Dark Vanguard lurking behind the unmasked Human, and had a brief moment of wonder. Aresh had sent three of his elite, plus this commander? What did this superweapon do?

The older man had watched the beating without a change of expression. "I am General Eviar Seldec. I am Lord Aresh's right hand, and Commander of the Dark Vanguard."

Tirien's eyes narrowed. "I've heard of you. Traitor."

Tirien's escort made to strike him yet again, but this time Seldec raised a hand. Stepping forward, he studied Tirien coolly; they were nearly of a height. "In abandoning the empty strictures of the Jedi Order, I embraced the true power of the Force. To forsake the power to reorder this galaxy is the true betrayal."

"I can just imagine the reordering you and your master have in mind."

Before the older man could reply, Tirien caught a sudden wave of darkness in the Force, strong enough that he could feel it even with General Seldec and three of the Dark Vanguard only meters away. He saw at once that the Humans had sensed it too. Seldec peered at the ground as if he could see through it, then looked at the Vanguardian who had brought Tirien in. The masked Dark Jedi nodded and jogged off the way they had come.

Had Alecto gotten away, then? Gotten free of her captors? Probably killed them, too, knowing her, but Tirien found it hard to feel much sympathy for them, given what they had been planning. He was still torn about interceding on her behalf. She was an enemy, and it would have been easy to let her die, but…

"Is this your doing, alien?" Seldec demanded, a hint of annoyance finally marring his robotic tone.

It took much of Tirien's Jedi restraint not to roll his eyes. Shaking his chest-mounted cuffs, which left almost no room to move, he asked, "What do you think I did? I've been here."

Seldec studied him in silence. It was impossible to say whether he was satisfied, but after a moment he turned and stepped back to his vantage point, and the Human guards grabbed Tirien by his restraints and dragged him forward to Seldec's side.

Below, Tirien saw slaves hauling rocks and debris away from what looked like a mechanical insect’s head, though larger than a tank. Its armored hull was corroded and stained, but not nearly as badly as Tirien would have expected from an artifact of Exar Kun's time. Two enormous forelegs stretched the length of the cavern at odd angles, and after a moment Tirien realized this was merely the head and part of the thorax of a much larger vessel. There were a few overseers managing the slave crew, but Tirien's eyes were drawn to yet another Vanguardian pacing in their midst.

So it was that they'd found the thing; the search was ended, they merely needed to get it out. And it was dangerous enough to justify enough of the Dark Vanguard to conquer some worlds.

"The Architect of Betrayal," Seldec drawled. "The instrument that will change this war."

"Change it how?" Tirien asked.

"You don't know what this is, do you?"

"Some weapon of Exar Kun's," Tirien answered in a deliberately dismissive tone.

Seldec rose to the bait as Alecto hadn't. "This is the great equalizer, alien.  That which will render the sheer numbers of your Jedi and the Empire's false Sith inconsequential.  It is the body that moves with the beat of its heart."

He tapped the medallion around his neck. Close enough now that he might have touched Seldec had he been unrestrained, Tirien could sense it had its own aura, separate and apart from the Human's malevolent Force signature. Feeling it in the Force gave him an unusual sense of vertigo; he spread his feet wider for balance.

"Yes," Seldec nodded. "You can feel it, can't you? The Betrayer's Heart.  Allow me to demonstrate it for you."

He took the medallion from around his neck, clenching it in one hand. His pale gray eyes turned yellow and red, and the medallion glowed orange in response. At once Tirien squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body pricked with microscopic pain; it was not the tingle of pins-and-needles, but more like someone was shoving actual pins and needles all the way into his flesh. He became conscious of his own blood flowing through his veins.

As he opened his eyes, the Force obeyed a command he had not given it. At their feet, a pebble levitated off the ground and swung through the air like a buzzing insect. The medallion glowed brighter, and below a Gamorrean slave squealed, clasping his throat as Tirien's power sealed his airway shut. Tirien tried to free the choking alien, but the Force refused to respond. Tirien saw a Mrlssi pat the Gamorrean's back helplessly, and he sent a spear of psychic agony into the little avian's mind. It shrieked, collapsing back and howling until the Gamorrean accidentally stomped on it and drove all the wind from it. Tirien's power levitated three rocks out of a cart full of them, tapping them rhythmically on the edge of the cart.

"Stop!" he hissed; his voice was still his own. He kicked at Seldec. His limbs were apparently joint property, because he wobbled unsteadily and missed the kick. But when Seldec calmly dodged and slapped him, it turned Tirien's attention completely away from the slaves below. He dropped to the ground, and was distantly away of porcine gasping.

"Hmm," Seldec mused as the guards dragged Tirien to his feet, helping him stand as his legs shook. The medallion was no longer glowing. "It will require the Architect for amplification, but at least the results are consistent."

"Amplification?" Tirien rasped, his forehead beaded with sweat. He shuddered from the feeling of invasion, of his powers being turned loose to hurt defenseless people while he himself was powerless to stop it.

"That is the purpose of the Architect," Seldec explained. "The Betrayer's Heart is a powerful instrument, but its range is limited and its user exposed to the Forceless around him. But channeled through the Architect, an entire battlefield worth of Jedi will unleash their powers at random.  Imagine it, alien.  A Jedi General who suddenly rends his men limb from limb with his mind.  A false Sith Lord who Force crushes the reactor core of his destroyer.  Such is the power of the Architect of Betrayal."

Tirien's mind painted the horrific picture as Seldec described it. He gritted his teeth. He wanted badly to tell Seldec he would never get away with it, but he could envision the condescending twist of the Human's lip. Powerless defiance had not helped him so far. Instead, he said, "Speaking of betrayal, why give Lord Aresh this thing as a gift? Isn't this your Malak Moment?  Your time to shine?"

It turned out his imagined picture of the Human's condescending look was not far off the mark. "Exactly the honor and decency I would expect from an alien."

"You know Pantorans are near-Humans, right?"

"Not near enough," General Seldec answered.

Tirien watched him drape the Betrayer's Heart over his neck again. "It's a Sith amulet, isn't it? The Old Sith, before Kun's time."

"Very astute."

"You know they weren't Human either, right?"

"Nor was the slave who wove this cloak," Seldec said, tugging on the red garment. "Yet the maker's inferiority does not mean its creation is without use."

The mining lights flickered, then came back. A ripple of unease passed through the slaves below; Tirien saw the bright flare of a shock whip and heard an overseer barking orders. Then they went out completely, leaving only the eerie glow of the crystals to light the cavern.