Danse Macabre/Part 1

1,387 BBY

Eviar Seldec swept down the corridor toward the heart of the Purity, a pair of Vanguardians at his side. He feared no being aboard, but the presence of the Dark Vanguard at his beck and call served to reinforce his station and condition the ship's crew with the necessary respect. He was the apprentice of the Dark Lord; to see one was to see the other, and should the worst ever happen, he would have charge of all this and require the system to continue without interruption.

By his lord's policy, no aliens served aboard the Purity, so Eviar was free of that blight. But as he passed along he caught stray, sulfurous thoughts and errant, sullen glances—too quick for confirmation, too real to second guess. Conscripts, he thought with distaste. He understood the necessity; with the Jedi and the false Sith making inroads into the empire, it was better to have a full crew with some dissension than a steadfastly loyal flagship that went down in flames for lack of gunners. But if he started punishing thoughts and looks with the severity disloyalty merited, he would only multiply dissent, and being forced to endure the unfaithful here, where ironclad loyalty should have been the order of the day, set the dark side to gnashing its fangs inside.

Two more Vanguardians waited at the door to his lord's sanctum—perfect matches for his own, save the red-trimmed black cloaks they wore. Both bowed their heads but moved to obstruct the door. "Lord Aresh is at work, General. He has commanded us not to disturb him."

"I must speak with my master," Eviar answered. "It can not wait."

It took a moment, and Eviar set his face in that slight pause to make his point clear. Then the sentries stood aside, Eviar's own bodyguards took up stations beside them, and he proceeded alone into Lord Aresh's sanctum.

The door sealed behind him and plunged the circular chamber into gloom. The throne was vacant, the only light coming from a staircase that wound down around one curve of the room. Seldec took the stairs down, his bootsteps ringing on the grated metal steps to herald his coming. Below he found the laboratory half-lit, as it usually was; some experiments and chemical syntheses were running on their own, darkened until they finished, and medical droids analyzed tissue samples. Seldec walked past a humming centrifuge and row after row of shelved syringes before he found his master facing a wall of screens, all showing genetic data and experiment results. He knelt and waited.

"What is it, General?"

The voice was a harsh rasp, controlled but ungenerous. Head lowered in deference, Eviar answered, "A communication, Master. From the forces of Darth Saleej."

Aresh's breath whistled down his throat through his open mouth. "Does the beast call to gloat?"

"To make a proposition," Eviar corrected. "A pact for our mutual benefit."

The wait was long and uncomfortable, with only the dry sound of the Dark Lord's mouth breathing. Eviar's knee started to ache on the durasteel, but he held his place with dignity until Aresh said, "Rise, my friend."

He did, raising his head to behold his master as Aresh turned to face him. The Dark Lord wore only his sleeveless chimere and loose-fitted pants, lightsaber resting on a computer console within reach. The durasteel that made up his left arm below the elbow was muted black; it was his hairless body that shone strangely in the light, his already sallow skin bleached to the color of milk gone bad a few days. A new vein showed in his bald head, curving from above his right eye to the temple. In the eyes below, though, Eviar saw all the malice and genius the man had possessed since the day they met, and that pale body was still hard with muscle and scarred from a hundred close calls, none of them ever close enough.

"Darth Saleej believes I would lower myself to consorting with such filth as an equal?" The shrewd eyes narrowed. "Can he have become that desperate?"

"I'm not certain it's desperation, Master," Eviar cautioned. "But their boldness surprises me."

Aresh's eyes tightened. They were red-and-yellow today, as they were more often than not of late. "What do they propose?"

"To assassinate Supreme Chancellor Phnyong."

Another rattling breath that might have been a gasp in a less disciplined man. "Impossible. Even that creature Ko Davad could not reach the Jedi on Coruscant."

"I said as much, my lord. Their representatives assure me they have a plan."

"Their representatives. You did not speak with Saleej?"

Eviar shook his head.

"Who, then?"

"A Koorivar. A being called Targere."

Aresh's upper lip curled. "Do you see how they insult you, apprentice? The beast himself will not even humble himself to beg directly, he sends his own lackeys to do it for him."

They both knew that Darth Saleej would speak to no less than Aresh, if Saleej would even humble himself that far, but it was a foolish notion to venture. "And yet they ask, my lord. It suggests they have a plan."

"Suggests? They did not deign to share it with you?"

"They ask a parley, Master."

Aresh snorted once. "Let them come aboard the Purity, then. Let us hear their words."

"And so I said, Master." Eviar allowed contempt to twist his expression. "It will not shock you to learn they declined."

From another man the sound Aresh made might have been a cough, even cause for alarm; it was something like a laugh, though not quite. "And so?"

"They propose neutral ground."

"And who will they be sending?"

"Targere himself…and the Mirialan assassin. Darth Alecto."

Seldec worked to purge his tone of hate, but his efforts failed him; Aresh's eyes narrowed. "Ah yes. The one on whose shoulders you hang…the failure at Toprawa.  I can feel your loathing, apprentice."

Seldec sensed the courtesy Lord Aresh had done him in not speaking the words your failure at Toprawa, but instead they hung unspoken in the air like a foul humor. "I loathe the idea of consorting with aliens, Master, however profitable the alliance may be."

"Particularly an alien who slipped your grasp," Aresh needled.

Eviar swallowed. "I can't say whether Saleej chose her for that purpose, but if their plan has merit…"

"Yes, the Chancellor," Aresh nodded, his expression growing bored as he turned back to his monitors. "And why should we assist the false Sith in their war on the Republic? Let the Jedi exterminate Saleej—if his own incompetence doesn't drive the Council of Five to that same end.  So much the better for us."

Many beings in Lord Aresh's employ had suffered for voicing their critiques in a manner that suggested weakness, but from his own apprentice, his chosen right hand and heir, Lord Aresh demanded honesty. "And what of the Crusader and its fleet, Master?"

Aresh grew still, save for the squeal of the sharpened, clawlike digits on his durasteel hand clasping the edge of the console. Eviar winced at the sound, but pressed on. "Our flanks are pressed from all sides, Master; we can not sustain our defense indefinitely. Saleej, Cazars and Darakhan, and now the Crusader restored…  The Chancellor's death would throw the Republic into disarray and buy us room to breathe.  And insight into the workings of Saleej's forces might provide vital intelligence."

"And if Saleej surges forth to capitalize on the Republic's weakness? We risk him growing too strong to be countered."

"Saleej can do nothing without his masters on the Council of Five; you are not so constrained, my lord. The Empire's Sith have discipline after a fashion, but they lack inventiveness."

Eviar chose the word deliberately, for the dark side of the Force was not his master's only genius. The cold eyes turned up the monitors, examining the data, and Aresh's mouth twisted. "I need more time…" he said, perhaps to himself. "They aren't ready yet, there must be more time…"

"If Saleej does attack the Republic, he may give us that time," Eviar offered. "With the Chancellor dead, the Jedi would surely recall Darakhan and Cazars. Time enough to put an end to Shadeez's 'crusade' once and for all."

Aresh was silent for a long time, and Eviar waited him out. The Dark Lord studied his data, then walked to a medical readout terminal beside an immersion tank, his bare feet slapping on the metal floor. Eviar could smell his master's passage, although perhaps only because the rest of the lab was almost painfully sterile. Aresh bowed his head over the terminal monitor; a medical droid was monitoring the tank, but it wisely did not speak to either of them.

Eviar took the lightsaber Aresh had left behind on the console, offering it pommel first. "My lord, in these times, nowhere is truly safe." He thought of the mental grumbling of their conscripts. "You should not leave yourself unarmed, even for a moment."

Eviar waited for Aresh to take the weapon, but the Dark Lord just kept staring. Then a sharp, sudden pain erupted at the back of Eviar's head, as if a spike had been drilled into his brain stem without doing him the courtesy of killing him. He managed to confine himself to a gargle of pain in the back of his throat and stayed on his feet, though he had to spread them for balance, his arms and legs trembling. The lightsaber slipped from his grasp, but before it could impact the floor, it flipped up through the air, clink-ing into Aresh's metal hand.

"Does it appear to you that I have, Apprentice?"

The pain vanished, and Eviar tried not to gasp, straightening himself with slow dignity and smoothing his coiffure.

"Sometimes, the ends justify whatever means are necessary, Apprentice," the Dark Lord mused. He looked down at the hand holding his lightsaber. Then his tone hardened and he said, "Communicate with the animal and meet his emissaries. If their plan has merit, you have my leave to proceed, but ensure our forces don't fall into their hands.  And do not deploy the Vanguard without consulting me."

"Yes, Master," Eviar pledged. He walked to his lord's side. "The experiment, my lord?"

"Failure. Again." Aresh curled his hand of flesh into a claw. "I must have more material. New material."

Eviar compelled himself not to take offense. "You could more easily conduct experiments with the facilities on Ciutric IV, my lord. And keep those experiments under better supervision."

Aresh snorted. "It vexes me to no end to leave the Arkanian alone to his meddling." The Arkanian—or, to the alien's face, just Arkanian—was all Aresh ever called his other collaborator, whom the boldest and most foolhardy dared to call his 'second apprentice', though not in Eviar's hearing. "But the demands of war don't allow it, you know this."

"The Vanguard is fearless, Master, and our forces have strength in them yet. And I can command them to victory."

Even as he made the pledge Eviar braced himself for the rebuke that might whittle his pride into a shape more conducive to the Dark Lord's design, but Aresh surprised him with a half-smile and a cybernetic hand laid on his shoulder. "I know you can, Eviar. But there are things a Dark Lord must do for himself, or he's merely an empty shadow on a rusted throne.  I must conduct what experiments I can here until things become…more stable."

He squeezed, though his claws did not dig in enough to be painful before he drew the cybernetic hand back. Eviar's pride rebelled at where his thoughts drifted, but he saw his master stretched thin between the demands of war and the needs of his research and found himself saying, "Master…what about Darakhan?"

"What about Darakhan?"

"A great warrior, for all his flaws."

"A Jedi," Aresh spat.

"As was I, once."

Aresh stared, his red-and-yellow eyes two bloody, pustulant sores in his milky face. "You think Darakhan can be turned? You think Darakhan should be turned?"

"No," Eviar said firmly. "But I think Darakhan can be used. I've never known your experiments to require informed consent, my lord."

Humor was always risky with Valin Aresh; a glib tongue was easily lost if the Dark Lord wasn't in the mood. Just now, though, a dark smile curved his pale lips. "Just so, General. An intriguing notion, I confess it.  Let us explore this notion further."

He gestured down the length of the lab toward the stairs and padded away. Eviar gave the body floating in the tank one look, then followed.