Chapter IV

I never knew such bliss, such comfort! I feel as if a heavy weight has been lifted from my chest. I don’t remember what happened, but there was a woman, a very beautiful woman clad in a golden gown with shining black tresses like the night sky. She cared for me and loved me. It was so beautiful and peaceful there, and now I wake up feeling refreshed and energized. I am frightened. I am in my room and I remember the evil writing on the wall, but I look and see that is no longer there. There is not even a lingering feeling of the dark side. I wonder if I didn’t just imagine all the bad dreams and everything.

I haven’t left my room since I woke up. I feel so content that I don’t want to move a muscle. I hope that I shall dream of that beautiful woman again. Ah, the door opens! I feel it might be her, there is so much love… oh, it’s Teppa. I must not look disappointed to see her. I do love Teppa, but this woman…she was so enchanting. She could do more for me than Teppa ever can. She was just a dream, I remind myself, Teppa is wonderful and real.

“Ayani,” she kneels beside my cot and kisses me. “You’ve woken up!” She looks so relieved as she strokes my chin. “I was so worried, you were in a coma for a week!”

“That was you…beside me?” I am confused. It was someone else that I felt. It wasn’t Teppa, it couldn’t have been!

“Yes,” Teppa looks at me adoringly.

“You’re lying!” I suddenly declare, “that wasn’t you, it was her, she was….” I stop at Teppa’s bewildered face and I raise myself to a sitting position. It had been Teppa I felt in my dreams, but it wasn’t…it was the woman from the other dreams, but she was Teppa. It was Teppa’s voice I heard whispering in my sleep, whispering those dark words. I shake my head, it cannot be, my mind is all muddled and I cannot think straight.

“Diola wanted to know when you’d awoken,” Teppa stood up, “I should go tell him. The Council still wants to send us on that mission. We are to leave as soon as you are well enough.”

“I feel very rested,” I get to my feet. “If we must do this mission, we best start now.”

She frowns and knits her brow but a moment later she judges that I am fine, and we head out together to find Diola. I sense fear throughout the whole temple. It feels odd and foreign, I don’t like it and I don’t understand it. Fear has no place here.

A young padawan comes towards us, but he takes one look me at and scurries off in a different direction. I felt such tremors of fear coming from this young boy when he looked at me. Why was he afraid of me? I didn’t do anything…. Teppa feels my confusion, she knows something, I will ask her, but maybe I don’t really want to know. Yet I must.

“Teppa,” I begin, “do you know why I was in a coma? I don’t remember anything before I blacked out. I think that you know, would you tell me?”

“No,” she replies immediately. “Not right know. I don’t know much, I wasn’t with you, but I do know…it must wait until later.”

It was bad; whatever had happened, it was bad. Why else would the Temple reek of fear if it hadn’t been bad? What have I done to make everyone fear me so? Teppa will not tell me, but I begin to feel that I know what it was. I think that I read the script on the wall. I don’t know where it’s gone, but I think that is what I did. I don’t know what the words mean or why they did this to me but it is the only thing of which I can think. Perhaps, Teppa is right in waiting to tell me. I’m not sure that I even want to know or should.

We find Master Diola in the ship hanger, readying our transport. It is a small Jedi transport ship with a capacity of six. There is only a cockpit, small cargo hold, and an engine room. It’s small and practical but at least it has a hyperdrive generator. Some would consider putting a hyperdrive on such a small ship pointless, but the Jedi don’t often have need for a ship much bigger than this.

Diola meets us gravely, briefly inquiring how I feel and then we board the ship. Everything is ready and with Diola at the controls, the ship hovers off the floor and zooms out of the portal into the morning sunshine. I stare out the little window beside my seat and see the buildings grow smaller as we gain altitude and eventually they disappear under the clouds, except for the tops of the really tall ones. The blue sky bleeds into darkness and we’ve entered space. With the hyperspace coordinates set, Diola pulls the lever and the stars turn into white lines and then into nothing.

“Where are we headed?” I ask once we are safely in hyperspace.

“It’s a remote system near Corellia called Handuur,” Diola announced and I sense a strange vibe from Teppa as I hear the word, but it disappears so quickly that I cannot make sense of it. “The Council has felt the presence of the dark side there and they want us to investigate.”

“What’s there?” Teppa asked.

Diola brought up the statistics of the system on the computer for them to read. “There’s only one inhabitable planet, the rest are gas. The whole system is unstable; all the moons have unusual amounts of seismic and volcanic activity, and none of them have enough atmosphere to support life. The one planet had a number of settlements until a strange virus spread through the population and everybody died.”

“This system is still in the process of formation,” Teppa realized, “perhaps even the planet was not quite suitable yet and that’s why they died, they couldn’t adapt.”

“That is one theory but we’ve always suspected that it was a Force generated virus. Pervious reports about the planet indicate that it was stable enough and the people had been living there for generations. No one has been able to discover the exact cause of the virus, not the Jedi and not the Republic, it has remained a mystery for decades.”

“Haven’t the Jedi sent a team here before?” I ask confused as to why exactly the Council wants us to go to this particular planet.

“Yes, but the Council says that they have detected recent dark side activity here, and they think it has a connection to your dreams.” Diola explains, but I don’t believe him. I don’t know why, but I feel uneasy about the whole thing. “We have believed that a faction of the Sith exists but we’ve never been able to locate it. Handuur was already tainted with the dark side which would draw the Sith there.”

“Yes, I suppose it is a good place to start looking.” Teppa agrees and returns to studying the specs.

It is just like the dreams. The whole place is dead and rotting, the air stinks of darkness, and the wind whispers evil on its wings. I cannot set foot on this place but Teppa bravely pushes past me, unbothered by all the darkness around her. I blink; she is one with the decay. I blink again, Teppa is strong and that is why she can endure this stench. Also, she has not been affected by the dreams like I have.

The structures have fallen down from neglect and dead vines enmesh everything like webs spun by poisonous spiders to catch their prey. There is no sign of life but yet they grow though they do not produce green leaves. Some dark evil gives them strength. I wander through the ruins in a trance, as if I am asleep, I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I try to find those familiar places.

“This is the place,” Teppa looks up at the overcast sky. “The dreams were of this place.” I feel that she realized that more from my emotions than her own memories. “Power is desirable, strength is necessary, and death is required,” she muttered softly as she crouched down to examine the black, dry earth.

Her words stirred a memory in my head and I knew I’d heard those words before, but it was a different voice in a different language. Suddenly, I knew what the writing on the wall had been. It had been a Sith Creed, a sacred oath of the dark side, but how had Teppa come to know part of it? There were a few Jedi that knew it. They were those that had no need and no desire to possess that knowledge. So perhaps she too had accidentally encountered it somewhere. Perhaps, she didn’t even know exactly what it was.

“No,” I whisper to the dark wind, “this is not it.” It looks the same but it is not. I can feel a darkness pulsating somewhere in the void, drawing me away from this place. “This is all wrong,” I turn around frantically. Nothing feels right; it all feels very, very wrong. “We shouldn’t be here, we weren’t meant to come here.” I start backing away from Teppa in the direction of the ship.

Diola turns to me with concern. “Teppa said that this was the place.”

“No!” I cry. I can hear voices inside my head, whispering, taunting. I clap my hands trying to drive the voices from me head. “Thund arinhat morrhin sadyala wefhree collsirg da quesun rhey,” I hear a dark, unearthly voice erupt from my throat. I can feel my lips moving and my throat vibrating, but the voice I hear sounds detached, coming from somewhere else but yet it is inside of me. “Orhar athind cohsvi aghar ahhan da borvin rhey,” I feel myself falling to my knees, my hands still pressed in agony against my ears. I see Teppa and Diola’s horrified faces, and Diola extends his hand towards me. “Movha tohra lesh….”

I feel my throat tighten and I can no longer breath. I fall forward on my hands, gasping for air. My chest hits the black ground and my eyes role back into my head and suddenly I am no longer conscious of time, then it all goes dark.

It was horrible watching him struggle. First with himself and then when those dark words poured from his lips, Diola started to choke him. This was it. He was going to kill Ayani right in front of me. I held my lightsaber tightly in one hand and stepped towards the Master Jedi. He suddenly turned and gave me that piercing look that froze me in my steps.

“He cannot speak that language here, not here!” he uttered fiercely. “I’m not going to kill him, Teppa!” He looked back at Ayani had saw that he had blacked out on the ground. Diola with drew, “when he wakes up, he’ll be in his right mind.” He took a step towards me, “This is a place of evil, and if he had been allowed to finish that phrase everything in tune with the dark side would know exactly where we are.”

I watched him walk away to examine one of the ruins. So, he was only waiting for the right time. Perhaps, when Ayani and I would be separated. In that case, I had to be extra cautious to make sure that I never left Ayani’s side.

Ayani suspected something. His babbling before he went crazy was true. There was something strange about this place. There was some very specific reason why the Council had wanted Diola to take us here and it wasn’t because of the dreams. Perhaps, before I killed him I would find out what that was.

Silent footsteps across the blackened earth draw near and I can feel her presence and hear her soft voice in my ear. Her voice is smooth like honey and I can smell her sweet fragrance. She beckons me to follow as she tenderly wraps her arms around me and her black tresses tickle my neck. I am a slave to her will and so I get up and follow her across the starry expanse. She leads me to a rickety old staircase that goes down, down into the earth for eternity.

When I emerge from the darkness, I am on a sun kissed hill with sweet wild flowers underneath my feet and there she stands, the goddess of nature, so lovely and gentle like a silky rose petal. I kneel before her and look up into her gentle, beautiful face. She runs her hand tenderly through my hair.

“I can give you everything that you ever dreamed of and more,” she tells me. “I am the wind and the sea, the earth and the trees.” She looks heaven ward and says, “I am the sky and the rain.” She returns her loving gaze upon me and kneels down so that we are eye to eye. She takes my hands. “I will give myself to you and then all of this will be yours. You will have power beyond your imagination. The heavens and the earth will be at your command and you will even have power over life and death. If you love me, if you will have me, all this will be yours.”

My heart is racing and her words resonate in my soul. I can already fell the power pulsating through the veins in her hands as she holds mine in hers. She is willing to offer me everything. She will give me the greatest gift in the universe: her love. I can see her love in her eyes and I caress her cheek with my hand as I lean forward to seal my love with a kiss.

Suddenly, she vanishes and the hill and sunlight is gone and I am thrown into murky darkness. I feel a cold hand on my forehead; I slap it away and sit up, coming face to face with Teppa. I want the woman who is my love. I want her. I look at Teppa’s concerned eyes, but she is right her. Her gentle face and loving eyes have never left me. Impulsively, I kiss her. It is not the same. I do not feel different. Where is the power that I was promised? No, Teppa is not her, not yet.

What am I thinking? I never know what I am thinking anymore. I feel all twisted and confused. Teppa and the black haired woman, the woman and Teppa, are they the same, are they different? Who is she? Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? I feel like I’m losing my mind!

“Are you alright?” Teppa touches my shoulder gently.

“Yes,” I look around, trying to get my bearings.

I am in the space shuttle. I get up, my head hurts and my neck is sore. Diola is outside still exploring the ruined city. No, this one is different, we’ve moved. This one is bigger and there is an avenue lined with dead trees. A shiver runs down my spine and I hear the dark words whispered on the wind.

“This is my dream,” I whisper.

“It is?” Teppa is startled.

“There!” I point to a rather large building with the entire front still standing. “Through there are stairs into a dark chamber. That’s where the Sith will meet us.”

“What are you talking about?” Teppa follows close behind me and for the first time she is scared.

“They know we’re here and they are luring us to them,” I say and approach the building.

Diola sees us and runs towards us. “No, don’t go in there. It’s unstable!”

I step inside the doorway and I feel as if I am in a dream. Diola grabs me and yanks me out of the dream as part of the roof falls in. Teppa jumps and looks at Diola in surprise and then at the rubble that fell where I was just standing.

“There’s a cave back there in the hillside,” Diola points towards the other side of the city. “I think we should go check it out.”

I look into the dark ruins. She’ll wait; she’ll wait as long as she needs. She knows that I will come to her eventually. It is inevitable for she is my destiny. I turn and follow Diola and Teppa down the boulevard of dead trees.

Tainted: Chapter III

If mediation does not ease my spirit, rigorous exercise does. I have been in the training center since dawn. Stretching my physical limitations gives me focus and determination as I seek to improve myself. It always takes my mind off troubling thoughts. And for a time there is nothing else but the sheer power of my muscles and sticky sweat trickling down my back.

It is after midday and Teppa has not come to me. I thought that we would see the Council this morning, but I have not heard from her or seen her since sunrise. I am getting impatient; exercise is not diverting my thoughts as well as it usually does. I will go seek her out.

As I leave the training rooms, I see Master Diola approaching. He is my mentor, I have not spoken to him in some time, and I amazed to see him coming to me. He entreats me to speak with him on a matter of urgency and leads me away to a private mediation room.

“First, I have to apologize, Ayani,” he starts gravely, “I feel that I have abandoned you but I now understand that just because you are no longer my apprentice does not mean that I cannot still act as your mentor.”

I do not know what to say. I must confess that sometimes I feel lost without Master Diola’s guidance. He sees my thoughts so all I need to say is, “Thank you, Master Diola.”

“The Council was made me aware of the situation, they felt it wise that I give my insight considering how well I know you.”

“Situation?”

“You and Teppa and your dreams. The Council feels that your feelings for Teppa are dangerous and with the combination of your dreams…your future appears very dark, Ayani.” I cannot help but tremble at his words. “Do not fear this, Padawan. I have heard tales of Jedi that were destined to fall to the dark side, but I do not believe it. If you desire to stay in the light and escape this dark fate, you can. It will not be easy and you must not do it alone.”

“And will you help me?” I feel hopeful, I would be glad of his guidance.

“I will try, Ayani, but already you’re dreams have become something far more dangerous than anything the Jedi have seen. Teppa reported your latest dream to the Council. It has them all very unsettled.”

“Teppa went to the Council without me?”

“She said that you were too unsettled to go yourself. She is very worried about you.”

“Should I be worried about myself?”

“No,” Diola shakes his head, “you know who you are, hold to that and you will be fine. Your mission will be challenging but as long as you remember that, you shall triumph.”

“What mission?”

“The Council believes that it is a powerful Sith who is causing these dreams, they think that perhaps you and Teppa, because of your shared dreams may be able to track down the Sith. It is very dangerous, the Council knows that and so they have decided to send me along to help guild the way and make sure you stay in the light.”

“How could they know that?” I ask skeptically. “Why might these dreams not just be visions of my future?” I don’t like the idea but somehow it seems more likely. Why would a Sith want me to dream these things and what would they want with me? However, neither option is very comforting.

“Teppa says that in her dreams she feels as if she is not alone as if they are originating from some place outside of her mind.” Diola reveals.

“I have never felt that,” I reply even though I am unsure it is true, but I feel angry that the Council is solely listening to Teppa and not me. I have forgotten that Teppa was inflicted by the dreams but she did not have this last one, she did not write in Sith script on the wall of her room. I feel that I am suffering more than her.

“If you are suggesting that you projected your dreams to her, that is a possibility except that she has consistently had the same dream a number of days before you.” Diola studies me thoughtfully. “This writing on the wall is a good indication that your dreams are coming from somewhere else. There is no possible way that you could know how to write it.”

“If it was a vision from the Force….” I start.

Diola nods understandingly. “It is a very frightening thought that a dark lord of the Sith could be inside your head, but we must consider this as a very likely option.”

“But tracking down this Sith?”

“The Sith might already be trying to lure you to him.”

“That is very risky…”

Diola nods, knowing my thoughts, “the Council believes that with my help you and Teppa will stay in the light.”

“I do not like this but I suppose that we have no choice, and if I must wager my life to destroy the Sith than I suppose that is a worthy cause.” I decide, still feeling uneasy about the whole idea.

Diola nods again, “I am quite in agreement. We leave in the morning. Get some rest.” He advises and I feel like I am still his pupil, then he leaves me and I wonder why Teppa went behind my back.

My master said that she wanted to protect me, I understand this, but Teppa knows me. She would have known that this would upset me. I would have told the Council everything, I would have been honest, not that I could have lied without them knowing anyway. Why did she go to the Council without me? I must find her and demand an explanation. I don’t understand why she did this.

I cannot find Teppa. I’ve searched the Great Hall, the Library, and ship hanger but she is not there. I have tried to concentrate upon her with the Force but I feel this strange resistance, it is almost like this physical block that will not let me get near her. I think she is hiding from me, but she need not hide. I am not angry with her. I understand what she did, I do wish that she had not done it, but that cannot be helped now. I suppose that will just wait until she is ready to come to me.

Waiting makes me restless; it is the afternoon and still no sign of Teppa. I’ve spent my time thinking about this mission that the Council is sending us on. I feel there is something more behind it, something that Diola hasn’t told me or perhaps something that the Council hasn’t told him. This is a dangerous mission but yet there was no fear in Diola. I would expect that the prospect of hunting a Sith would be some cause for anxiety. I know that I am terribly apprehensive about it. I don’t think this is a good idea, but I must trust the judgment of the Council. If only it wasn’t so hard for me, I know that I have much to learn, and the Council is wise. I know that they are, but it’s so hard not to feel a little skeptical at times.

If the Council had allowed me to become a knight this might not be happening to me. I was very angry for some months after they told me that I’d failed the Trials and that Diola had been assigned to a new Padawan. Members of the Council had sessions with me to deal with my anger, especially Master Avoosi. I think that my anger disturbed most of the masters but not her. It was soon after my failure that I began to have these dark dreams. I don’t really remember those ones, they were very vague, simply manifestations of my frustration or so I thought. With Master Avoosi’s counseling the dreams ceased and I came to accept the Council’s decision. I do not feel as I did then, but the dreams are worse then before, I do not understand it. They say that a Sith is in my mind and giving me these dreams, but I don’t know if I believe it. I think that I would have had some notion that these dreams were not a manifestation of my own consciousness. Even so, how could I possibly be able to read the Sith script?

I have not returned to my room all day. I do not wish to look upon that darkness on the wall, but I begin to think that I should. Perhaps it will give me some insight into the cause of all this. I tremble as I enter my room, I can feel a shadow here, some terrible darkness. I turn and look at the lines of foreign script on the wall. My eye goes to the upper left corner and strange words from in front of my eyes, I press my tongue against my teeth and a strange fluid sound pours out of my mouth as I begin to read.

“Thund arinhat morrhin sadyala wefhree collsirg da quesun rhey,” I feel light headed and my knees feel week. What have I said? I cannot stop. I must continue reading, “Orhar athind cohsvi aghar ahhan da borvin rhey.” What’s happening to me? I fall to me knees, my heart is pounding so hard, I think the walls are shaking. “Movha tohra lesh da quesun, lesh da ahhan borvin, sadyala lesh er sarshoon wheh lhen rhey.” My voice begins to sound strange to my ears; it is much deeper and colder. The words echo inside my head with a ferocity and maliciousness that is strange to my ears. The words bombard me from all around but it is not me, I am not speaking, and yet I hear the words and see nothing as the world turns dark. “Esuh amha lesh da rhey, lesh vher quesun da Sith!”

It felt as if the sun had suddenly imploded and the whole world was left in darkness. I felt a sharp pain across my forehead as if I’d been stabbed with a needle. I felt an urgency to get up but as soon as I did I fell to the floor on my knees. The pain in my head was growing and the ringing in my ears blocked all other sounds. I felt the ground tremble like an earthquake. My head felt like a weight on my shoulders as I struggled to raise it and I saw the other Jedi around me on the floor in agony.

The pain seemed to last forever and I eventually blacked out. When I came too, I was still on the floor and the other Jedi were picking themselves up. I remembered the earthquake and jumped to my feet, ready to help incase some one had become stuck. Everything looked as it had before and I realized that the shaking had been all in my head. The other Jedi looked just as mystified as I felt and I knew that we had all experienced the same pain. It was a tremor in the Force, something very terrible and evil had just happened.

“Ayani,” I whispered. Instinctively I knew that he had something to do with this. “Oh, no!” I took off sprinting down the hall. I had to get to him before one of the Masters did. He must have read the script, why did he do that? He should have known not to do that.

I sensed a few masters coming my way and I immediately slowed down and tried to clear my mind. They were in a big hurry and seemed very disturbed. They were Council members heading to meet with the rest of the Council to discuss this recent event. As soon as they were gone, I resumed my quick pace.

When I got to Ayani’s chamber door, I tried to open it but the mechanism was blocked. I reached out with the Force but when I tried to probe inside the room, a black hand reached out and slapped me. I was pushed against the wall. I felt dazed for little bit, but quickly picked myself up off the floor. I threw myself against the door and pounded my fists upon it, but it was no use.

Dim voices jumped into my head, and as I began to concentrate on them the Council room suddenly sprang up before my eyes. I could see each of the Council Members as well as Master Diola. They were all very troubled.

“This is a very strange and dangerous situation,” Gorron was saying. “We may have a Sith in our presence.”

“He should be taken care of immediately,” Master Limzeek, a twi’lek, declared.

“It’s not all that easy,” Avoosi replied calmly. “I believe that he was an aware of what he was doing.”

“Nevertheless,” Gorron continued, “he has brought darkness into this temple and that is unforgivable. First with dreams and then this script…No, it is enough.”

“His mission ought to continue,” Brey proposed. “He is never to come back,” he eyed Diola.

Diola had been looking down the whole time but when he felt Master Brey’s eyes, he raised his head. “Nuuco is dangerous and must be killed. I will do my part.”

I opened my eyes and inhaled sharply. They were going to kill my Ayani! What could I do? I’d done so much already just to protect him, I couldn’t just step aside a let Diola kill him. There was only one thing to do. I had to stop Diola at all costs, even if it meant that I had to kill him. Kill him? I could never kill a Master, the Jedi Council would expel me from the Order, but I could not live without Ayani either. I could not imagine life without him. I had sacrificed so much. I had done things that none would dare to do and all for his sake. Before, I had only been concerned with saving him from the dark side but what did that matter if he was dead? I would kill Diola if it came to that.