Sins of the Father/Part 5

A pinch of ryll spice took the edge off Zaella Sabir's aches and smoothed her steps through the warren of underground tunnels at her master's side. She and her master, Izkara Raltadus, were both Twi'leks, but Izkara was a Sith Knight, and garbed in the full black which only Knights and Lords were allowed. Zaella wore her hood down, even though her tattoos only covered the swell of cranium that formed the roots of her lekku; something was better than nothing.

"Don't embarrass me in from of Lady Hadan," Izkara warned, "or your next punishment won't be so pleasant."

The dark side coiled itself inside Zaella, fangs bared, but she got a mental hand around its throat to choke off the attack, recognizing the trap. Rage wanted to say ''Pleasant?! You think it's pleasant spending a week servicing every spacer with enough credits?'' As punishments went, there were far worse than a week in a Kala’uun brothel—Zaella had experienced several, in fact. But few of the clients funneling their hard-earned credits into Lady Hadan's coffers had been particularly pleasant to look at, let alone touch; a few had been aliens so unusual Zaella hadn't known how to handle all their parts, and even three days later she thought she couldn't quite get the taste of one fat Human out of her mouth. Her fellow apprentice Nykan had bought a couple hours throughout the week, and those had been a reprieve, but he could've had her for free—and all to himself. But rage would only invite something worse next time, and at least this one hadn't ended with amputated limbs.

Pride wanted to sneer ''What punishment, Master? I just got back from a week's vacation.'' But that kind of attitude would earn her another few weeks of "vacation" when Izkara called the bluff, and Zaella had never turned off her mind and retreated inside herself for that long. Not without more ryll than Lady Hadan's pimps liked to hand out. Or worse, pride might get Izkara to mete out some real punishment next time.

She said instead, "I won't, Master."

Somewhere above her head, the Twi'lek Clan Council continued to meet in Lessu, the administrative capital of Ryloth, but as little more than a shadow and a rubber stamp, handling logistics and issuing edicts as ordered. True power lay deep beneath Ryloth's unforgiving surface, and as she and her master approached it, Zaella felt scorching heat in the Force that could rival anything the surface could throw at her.

At the back of a room long and wide enough to fit a cargo hauler, every meter of wall hung with trophies of conquests or gifts and tributes offered to stave off the wrath of the Sith, sat Tarni Hadan, Dark Lord of the Sith and Empress of Ryloth. Enthroned on the skull of a lylek, one of Ryloth's deadliest predators, its mouth opened to ninety degrees to accommodate a throne and a few fangs from its lower jaw ripped out to make room for Lady Hadan's legs, she watched Izkara and Zaella approach, her fiery eyes following their movements. Rumors said the Dark Lord had carved the lylek's carapace into a suit of armor for herself, but at the moment she wore only light black silks and a headpiece like a crown out of some torturer's nightmares. Iron latticework stretched the length of both her lekku, affixed to an iron band around her forehead and studded with spikes and serrations along every strip.

Zaella had heard whispers the Dark Lord meditated with a similar device, only with the spikes pointed inward toward the hypersensitive lekku, maddening pain amplifying her hate and the power of the dark side. Zaella had barely endured the tattoos on her lekku without unleashing the shrieks of pain that tried to force their way past her lips; once, when she had dared to strike at Izkara after a particularly degrading training lesson, she had been forced to wear such a device and been driven to run—then limp, and then crawl, sobbing every meter—through Lessu's caverns. She had spent the next day on the floor of her cell, alternating between vomiting and whimpering in agony. That Lady Hadan subjected herself to such pain intentionally—something even Izkara would not do, power of the dark side be damned—usually made Zaella keep a respectful distance between them. Anyone who could endure that was not a Twi'lek to be trifled with.

As if the aura of wrath in the Force—it was like staring at a roaring fire, and every step closer grew less comfortable—and her reputation were not enough, Lady Hadan had a doashim on either side of her lylek throne. Two-legged, horned, sharp-clawed predators taller than the tallest Twi'lek and as savage as any cacodemon Core Worlders could torment their younglings with, they snarled at Izkara and Zaella as they approached. They had no leashes, restrained only by their mistress's whims. Curgos Oldroed stood beside the throne, beefy arms crossed; he was technically Lady Hadan's apprentice, but that very fact spoke of such great power that even the Sith Lords of Ryloth spoke to him respectfully, however they might speak of him out of earshot.

Zaella prostrated herself on the warm stone floor as Izkara knelt and said, "Command me, Empress, and I obey."

"We've been given an opportunity," the Dark Lord answered; the softness in her voice always surprised Zaella, but there was a faint echo, as if two voices were speaking and not quite in synch. "A kindred spirit offers us the means to show our enemies the perils of underestimating us."

"A kindred spirit, Master?"

"Runganna. We've had only a few dealings in the past, but every tool has a use, and this one is so desperate to make a name for herself that she doesn't appreciate her peril."

"What means does she offer, Empress?"

"A weapon—some device of considerable power. She's going to auction it off on Circumtore.  Be there and ensure we get it."

It sounded good to Zaella, but she wondered how high the stakes would go for some superweapon. Izkara apparently had the same thought, because she asked, "What shall I use to bargain, Master?"

"Judge for yourself how viable this weapon is. If it's as powerful as she says, offer the Hutt whatever she wants—credits, slaves, spice, anything we have here.  If we don't have it, offer it anyway and we'll find a way to get it."

"Information?"

Lady Hadan did not answer at once; Zaella fought the temptation to look up. "If it's necessary."

"Who else will be there, Empress?"

"We haven't been told, but it doesn't matter. Kill anyone who tries to interfere."

"We won't fail you, Master."

Another pause, but this time the intensity of those Forceful flames grew hotter; Zaella thought she could feel them crisping her back through her robes and stinging her lekku. "You're taking the girl?"

"If it please you, Master."

Lady Hadan didn't laugh—and Zaella was grateful for that, because she thought the sound would probably drive her insane—but there was amused derision in her voice as she said, "The spacers at Kala’uun will be disappointed. I'm told the brothel turned its best weekly profit in eight years."

Curgos Oldroed snickered, and Izkara chimed in with an obedient laugh of her own while Zaella pressed her forehead into the dirt, her cheeks and neck on fire with shame and rage. Part of training as a Sith was understanding that she served Lady Hadan with her whole being; no act was beyond consideration, nothing too fantastic to be attempted or too low to be endured. But that mocking, sycophantic braying, as if she would never be good enough to be a Sith Lord…

"Do we wound you, Apprentice?"

The doashim snarled and Zaella froze, hoping against hope that Curgos had done something foolish that she couldn't see, praying that there would be no pain…

"Look at me, Apprentice."

Without warning Zaella was paralyzed. An invisible hand slid under her torso and arched her up, curving her spine and arching her chin so she had no choice but to meet those fiery eyes. Lady Hadan's skin might once have been lavender, but only a hint of purple was left in the waxy, pale flesh better suited to a creature that had hidden for centuries beneath a rock. Only around her eyes did her true coloring linger, between dark veins and vessels, and in the bruising and shadows around her eyes.

"Do we wound you?"

"No, Master," Zaella managed through her teeth; her lips moved, but her jaw was held firmly shut.

Lady Hadan raised a finger off the arm of her throne and Zaella's back arched farther; she squeezed her eyes shut, hissing as her spine strained. "Would you like more, then?"

"No, Master!"

"So easily overcome by pain," the Dark Lord scoffed. "And you would be my voice to the Hutts and the galaxy?"

Zaella didn't recall volunteering, but she recognized the chance that Circumtore represented. "I can do it!"

"You'll bend Runganna to my will?"

"I will!"

"And if her price is beyond my means?"

A terrible pain started behind Zaella's eyes. "I'll feed her lies and have her asking for a second course!"

"What if there are other Sith? Jedi?"

"I'll set them on fire and make them beg me to cut them open just so their blood can put it out!"

"Charming." Lady Hadan dropped her index finger back down and the Force released Zaella; she caught herself before her nose could break on the stone, but new aches lingered in her spasming back muscles. "And you, Raltadus?"

"She's only an apprentice, Master," Izkara said. "Even if she fails, I will succeed."

"I will not fail!" Zaella rasped to the stones.

She knew at once she had misstepped; a sudden spike of fury in the Force said more than Izkara's hiss of reaction, and she felt that searing heat as the Dark Lord's attention returned to her. "No?"

Zaella sat up onto her heels, though she bent to keep her palms on the ground; she hadn't been commanded to rise, but she wouldn't make the mistake of appearing to ignore the Dark Lord of the Sith twice. "Never. We'll bring you back that weapon!"

Zaella had to imagine Lady Hadan could sense Izkara's fury; had she not been in the Dark Lord's presence, she'd have been flinching away from the heat of it. Curgos narrowed his eyes, but ultimately looked at his master, holding his reaction in reserve for hers. Lady Hadan rose from her throne, and as she advanced on Zaella, her two doashim followed, their blood-red eyes fixed on her, the ground trembling from their steps.

"I'm sure Izkara has taught you the many prices exacted for failure, Zaella Sabir," Lady Hadan said. Zaella had never been this close to her; she could see the Dark Lord had fine features, but her pale skin stretched tight over her skull and the veins around her eyes looked painted on. "And I'm sure they've been varied enough to hone you from every side. Izkara was always…creative."

It seemed safest to agree; Zaella nodded.

Lady Hadan nodded back. "Fail her, and I'm sure she can be quite unpleasant. But fail me…"

The Force drove a blade between Zaella's eyes and into her mind, so sudden she could prepare no defense, so agonizing that she only half-heard her own bloodcurdling shriek. She arched back onto her heels as the pain amplified, but even as she screamed, she felt the Dark Lord digging into her mind, slithering into her secrets places and pulling before her mind's eye every thought and memory she'd had the audacity to consider private. She imagined herself reaching out to catch them only for them to turn to smoke in her fingers as they flitted away into the Force, even though she was in too much pain to move her real hands. She heard Curgos and Izkara laughing and knew they had seen everything, known every secret joy and hidden shame she had concealed all these years.

The pain and violation pushed her to the edge, but the laughter was too much—the spark that lit the blaze. Zaella's rage erupted, and as her screams bled into the Force, glowpanels overhead shattered, trophies on the wall splintered, and the doashim fell sideways, howling. Somewhere in there was clarity, pain funneled into a channel of hate, hate crystalized into a blade that could cut deeper than any lightsaber…

The pain vanished; Zaella scrambled to keep hold of her newfound power, but it escaped. She realized she sweating and heaving, and she wrapped her arms around her ribs, hunching forward and tasting the foamy saliva in her dry mouth. She became conscious of Izkara standing over her, lightsaber poised to strike, but Lady Hadan had raised a hand to stop her. Izkara returned the weapon to her belt with an expression like disappointment.

"Interesting," Lady Hadan said. "Perhaps you'll be fit for the black someday after all. Well, Zaella, if you fail me, that's but a single taste of what you can expect when you return.  But succeed, and we'll have a conversation about the next steps in your training."

Zaella tried to respond, but her dry tongue stuck to her teeth; she bobbed her head instead. Lady Hadan nodded, her metal headpiece clanking, then said, "I leave it in your hands, Izkara. Go at once and bring me my weapon."

"Yes, Master," Izkara pledged. When Lady Hadan turned, Izkara kicked Zaella sharply in the thigh. "Get up!"

Zaella limped along at her master's side as quickly as she could, each vertebra throbbing individually and pain lingering behind her eyes, but a strange, heady sense of triumph driving her on. She had never felt such pain…but never had the dark side been so with her, either. She understood now why Lady Hadan would wear a crown of spikes on her lekku; Zaella herself wasn't about to volunteer for that, but…

When they were a few corridors away and the scalding feeling in the Force had receded, Izkara stopped. "Pack clothes and weapons, we're leaving within the hour."

"Yes, Master."

"And make time to take yourself down to Guldroq."

Zaella's eyes widened. "Why?!"

Izkara's yellow eyes glinted. "You don't speak out of turn to the Dark Lord. You don't speak to her at all unless she commands you to.  One moment of temper doesn't make you a Sith, Apprentice; remember that."

The dark side didn't like that, and Zaella bared her teeth. Izkara's eyes narrowed, and she pulled her robe back from her lightsaber. "Are you ready, then? Think you've learned all there is to learn?  You're ready to wrest your knighthood from my cold, lifeless fingers?  Draw your blade, then, and let's see."

Zaella's fingers twitched, but she curled them into a fist before they could betray her. Part of her longed for it, to flay the flesh off Izkara's lekku while she wailed for mercy, but the rest of her knew she wasn't ready. Not yet. She could take Izkara's torments for another few months…another few years…if she had to. But death…

She swallowed and lowered her head. "No, Master, of course not."

"Good. Ten lashes on tchun or tchin should remind you of your place before the Dark Lord.  You may choose which one."

Bile rose in Zaella's throat, but she forced out the words. "Thank you, Master."

A Pacithhip slave was scouring the stones to a gleam inside Zaella's chambers. It bowed as she entered and said, "I'm sorry, Mistress, I was just cleaning and—"

"'I'?" Zaella snapped.

The heavy, trunked creature bowed, folding its hands before its body. "Your slave apologizes, Master. Your slave meant to say 'Your slave was just cleaning'."

Zaella was barely listening as she lugged a suitcase out of her closet. She might have punished the slave—her wrath needed to be vented on someone—but instead she said, "I'll be back in a few minutes. See that my things are packed by the time I get back."

"Yes, Mistress. Your slave will pack."

Lady Hadan's throne room occupied the lowest level of Lessu, but on the penultimate floor, if one followed a winding, guarded tunnel through a series of gates, deep into a rock quarry mined who knew when, she could find her way to Guldroq's abode. If the misery in the Force hadn't drawn Zaella in, the screams would've done it. Apart from Lady Hadan or her Sith Lords who needed something particularly gruesome, only the Dark Lord's enemies and apprentices who had earned their masters' ire found their way to Guldrog's dungeon; of the two, only the apprentices came back out, and not always as the same people who had gone in.

A beefy Twi'lek whose fat-thickened earlobes hung to his chin, itself just a series of rolls merging into his chest, Guldroq still had bands of muscle through his arms and across his torso—"a barrel chest and a keg belly", Zaella had heard people say. The big Sith wore only crossed leather straps over his swell of torso, displaying the scars that crisscrossed his flesh—the ridged marks of durasteel and the darker, permanent burns of lightsaber blades. Guldroq had been an apprentice once, Zaella knew, but he was not strong enough in the Force to be a Sith Knight. But he had other talents, and so Lady Hadan had channeled him into another role. He never seemed resentful about it; on the contrary, it always seemed to Zaella that he had found his passion and was living it without regret.

"Zaella!" he called as she entered, a big grin showing his sharp teeth. He raised his left hand in greeting; today's choice among his interchangeable cybernetic prostheses looked like a set of hooked scissors, though they were as long again as his forearm. "Izkara send you down for some fun? Are we cutting something off this time?  Hope it's not your tongue, I hear you make good use of it."

Zaella swallowed, but let it go. "My master sent me for ten lashes. Tchun or tchin, I can pick."

"Baaah," Guldroq said, waving his hand of flesh in dismissal. "That's no fun."

"We're leaving on a mission for Lady Hadan," Zaella answered, raising her head high. "She can't have me too damaged."

Guldroq's eyes glinted. "A mission for the Dark Lord, is it? Moving up in the world.  A few years and you'll be sending your own apprentice down to old Guldroq."

"It'll make them strong," Zaella replied. Men liked flattery about the things of which they fancied themselves experts, and in this dank, bloodstained place, Guldroq's expertise was more than mere fancy.

Guldroq grinned. "That's one of the options. Well, orders are orders, I suppose.  Shall we get to it?"

As he brushed his fingers along a selection of whips hung on one wall, a faint groan issued from the corner. Screams echoed from the dark corridors that led off to Guldroq's special cells, of course, but Zaella saw what looked like a standing sarcophagus; it issued another moan as she stared.

"I think this one'll…" Guldroq saw her staring, tossed his whip on a table, and strode to her side. "Ah, found my prize, eh? I usually keep him all nice and tight down in my special cells, but I brought him out here for something new.  Mix it up, you know."

Zaella knew better than to ask, but her eyes found the multipronged whip waiting for her, and a childish desire to delay the pain won her over. "Who is it?"

"Well, you remember last year, we had a bit of trouble with one of the Dark Lord's servants? Got big ideas about him running the empire?" When Zaella nodded, Guldroq traced one of the lightsaber scars on his side, then pointed his scissor hand at the sarcophagus. "The Dark Lord appreciated me doing my part in the battle, so she decided to reward me."

Zaella's eyes widened. "You mean…that's—"

"Ah ah ah," Guldroq cautioned. "No names down here, pet."

"I…but…they said he died. They said the Dark Lord killed him."

"Oh, he's good as dead," Guldroq agreed. He took hold of her arm with his scissor appendage, pinching just tight enough that it hurt. "Tell you what—since I like you, I'll show you."

And before she could respond, he dragged her over, pulling a set of old-fashioned durasteel keys out of a pocket and opening a series of locks on the sarcophagus. When he was done he threw open the doors, and Zaella didn't know whether to vomit or scream. There was too much to take in—the hooks, the needles, the patches of exposed muscle, the colony of nesting insects—that her mind couldn't process all of it at once. But the choked, voiceless wail wrenched her eyes up to what had once been a face, and the staring, pleading eyes nailed her to the floor until Guldroq closed the doors.

"Some of my best work," he said, locking it up tight again. "Been over a year now and I've kept him alive! Bet you've never seen anything like that!"

Zaella made several sounds trying to speak, all of them between gasps and little hiccups. Desperate not to vomit on Guldroq's floor, she just shook her head. "Mmm-mmm."

"Too right you haven't," he proclaimed. "Well, I just wanted to share that with you, being as I'm fond of you. But you've got a mission to get on!  Shall we get to it?"

Zaella swallowed hard, but firmed her face and nodded. There was power in pain, she remembered, and in the hate it generated. She knelt on an unstained spot of floor.

"So what'll it be? Tchun or tchin?"

Squeezing her hands into fists until she was sure they wouldn't shake, Zaella raised them to her head and brushed them along her lekku. The sensation was something like a tickle, though the tingle sent a little shiver of anticipation down her spine. The left seemed a little less sensitive today, though, so she said, "Tchun."

"Good choice." Zaella sensed him behind her and braced herself, but the pain didn't come, and after a moment he asked, "Mission for the Dark Lord, eh?"

Someone new to this dungeon might have hoped he would go easy on her to keep her in fighting trim, but Zaella didn't like the calculating tone in his voice. "That's right."

"Sounds like a big job. Got enough ryll to get you through?"

Zaella thought about what little she had been able to stash, and how little of that was left after the last week. "I…I'll get by."

"I could give you some," Guldroq offered. "The Dark Lord always gives me a hefty supply—keeps my friends going when they're having a rough day down here, you know?"

Her stores were getting low…Zaella grimaced. "How much?"

"Oh, let's see…ah, kriff it, because it's you, and since you're one of my favorite friends, I'll give you a discount. We'll say ten on each side, and I'll give you a gram."

Zaella's thighs squeezed together as she imagined the pain… "So ten on each side total, including Izkara's ten?"

"Look at you, learning from your last visits! You're a crafty one, and no mistake." Zaella heard the grin in his voice. "You drive a hard bargain, pet, but you've got yourself a deal."

Zaella tried to compose herself as she draped her lekku over her back. She remembered the power the Dark Lord had shown her, remembered that hideous torture in her mind, far beyond anything Izkara or Guldroq had ever inflicted on her. This was going to hurt—Guldroq wouldn't enjoy it otherwise—but it could never rival that. When Guldroq brushed the tails of his whip over her lekku, Zaella even managed not to shudder. He couldn't waste too much time toying with her; he wouldn't risk Lady Hadan's wrath if he was late for—

Snap.

The first lash on tchun caught her by surprise and pain overtook her so she hissed, but she had been right—it didn't compare to Lady Hadan's torments. She could do this. Ten lashes each and she'd have enough ryll to drown out the—

Snap.

Lower on tchun this time, and from farther away—raking her sensitive flesh with just the tips of the whip prongs. Zaella focused on Lady Hadan; the Dark Lord endured these sorts of torments voluntarily, and look how powerful she had become! Zaella focused on the pain, embracing it, letting it fill her with anger as she reached for the Force.

Snap.

The lash bit the sensitive tip of her lekku, and Zaella whimpered before she could stop herself. She felt Guldroq's excitement and heard his indrawn mouth breath, and they gave her the hate to fight through her pain. I'll be a Sith Knight, she told herself, the dark side will be mine to command, and when I am, I'll take anyone who tries to hurt me and make Guldroq's dungeon look like a spa.

She took the fourth lash with that in mind, and she was grinning through her tears on the fifth. She made it to the sixth before she started screaming.