Star Wars: Slave Of Darkness

I could feel Darth Rictus' presence the moment I set foot on the steps leading up to the academy, his ethereal gaze following my every movement.

No longer was he hiding from my senses. Now that his game was over, he no longer had a need to conceal himself.

The Dark Lord's power washed over the entire academy. Every shadow in every corner seemed just the slightest bit darker. Every small movement seen out of the corner of your eye seemed just a hair more threatening.

Though they were no more empty than they were when I had left, there was a hushed silence in the stone and metal halls, broken only by the constant beating of Korriban's blackened heart in the background. Footsteps that should have echoed loudly were nothing more than dull thumps that disappeared quickly.

If this was the unrestrained presence of one member of the Dark Council, I shuddered to imagine what a full meeting with tempers raised felt like.

As I walked, I could feel more eyes than just Darth Rictus' on me. I did not hide my face behind my helmet or hood, so the cooled air in the academy stung at my burned eyelids.

My injury could be seen plain as day. But it was not a declaration of weakness. It was a challenge.

Come at me if you dare. I do not need eyes to kill you.

Tellingly, I was not stopped by anyone, soldier or Sith, that happened to cross my path.

The Imperial Guards stationed on either side of the elevator leading up to the higher floors turned their helmets towards me in eerie unison as I approached. I could feel their gazes examine me for a moment before sliding downwards and to the left.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

A small puddle of blood had begun to accumulate in the silence, leaking through the thin material of the sack held in my left hand.

After a brief pause, both Guardsmen took a step to one side and knelt, removing their forcepikes from my path. I stepped past them without a word and entered the lift. A flick of a thought was all that was needed to start its ascent.

Before long, I found myself before the door to Rictus' chambers, his eldritch presence oozing through and infecting the metal and stone with his corruption. The barrior hissed open quietly to reveal its occupant.

The Dark Lord was seated behind a large gray desk, muscular arms crossed over his chest and eyes staring unblinkingly in my direction. Power oozed from him like a dark fog, seemingly obscuring his form just enough to show that something was there.

Seeing through Force Sight was quite different than normal sight. For one thing, I couldn't tell what the light level in the room was. Likewise, color was also impossible to determine, as everything was dyed in varying shades of blue, white, and gray.

It was entirely possible that he was trying the same intimidation trick that Ragate had before she sent me after Qiv: sitting in a pitch-black room waiting for me to enter before closing the door and springing at me with a drawn lightsaber.

Of course, that idea was quickly dismissed. He wouldn't need a plebeian thing like a darkened room to kill me.

It was a strangely reassuring thought.

Perhaps emboldened by that, I stepped through the doorway. The door had hardly begun to shut before I tossed my prize into the space between us.

The loose top of the sack provided no resistance as the five bloodied hearts spilled out onto the floor.

Darth Rictus' eyes followed them as they slowly rolled across the tiles, lingering for just a moment on the largest. Then, the corners of his mouth began to quirk up into a spine-chilling grin, tugging at the ugly scars that marred his face.

"It is done." He said.

It was not a question, but a statement of fact.

The Sith Lord stood to his full height and stepped around his desk, ignoring the hearts as they oozed the last of their contents onto his office floor. To him, they were no longer important.

With each step closer that he took, the animalistic part of my brain wanted to run in the other direction. Instead, I forced myself to stay in place.

A hand roughly grabbed my face in an iron grip, turning my head from side to side as he examined the lightsaber wound.

"You are fortunate." Rictus commented after a moment, "Your helmet partially deflected the blow that inflicted this wound. Your vision is likely impaired, but only temporarily. Unless, of course, you allow the burns to become infected."

Satisfied that I was not permantly damaged, he stepped back.

"Kneel, Acolyte."

It was not a request. It was a command, a demand to submit to his authority enforced by his power. I could feel pressure pushing down on my shoulders.

I didn't fight it. I was already resolved.

Rictus retrieved his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it.

"Once, you were a free man…until that freedom was taken from you, whether it was destined or simply by chance. You were held fast by chains, both physical and spiritual. In darkness and stone, you were sustained by rage, tempered by patience."

The hum of the lightsaber grew louder in my right ear as he began to circle around me. The heat of the plasma blade was uncomfortably close to my face, heating the metal of my cybernetics.

"Through adversity and sacrifice, you have broken each link in those chains, one by one. With each drop of blood shed, whether your own or that of others, you slowly forged yourself into something new."

Rictus' footsteps continued, tracing a line of heat across the skin of my neck. It was an uncomfortable feeling, knowing that at any moment a single twitch could send my head flying.

Of course, that was the whole point. The entire reason for this little ceremony was establishing control. A reminder to an ambitious apprentice exactly who held the power.

For all my accomplishments, for all my determination, it could all end in an instant, if he so desired.

It was demeaning. But I would endure. I endured Apatros, Korriban, and Corbos. I endured the trek into the mountain and the monsters in its depths. I endured Graush's fury. I endured Garsh.

Darth Rictus would be no different.

His little show of force done, he extinguished his lightsaber, returning the weapon to his belt as he stepped back in front of me. However, he did not instruct me to stand, leaving me to continue kneeling in silence.

"It is tradition for Sith to choose a new name upon ascending to our ranks. While not all Sith ascribe to this practice, the majority do, seeing it as a way to further disconnect themselves from who they were before and embrace who they have become."

For a moment, I wondered who he had been before he became Rictus of the Sith and how many had died in the crucible that forged him.

"So tell me. Who is here, presenting himself to me? What is the name of the Sith that shall rise when I command it of him?"

The name Aldrex Zare was not a name I had chosen for myself. It was the name of the body I inhabited when I woke up that day, belonging to someone that wasn't me. 

I used it because I didn't want to cause a stir. It was the name that was known and attached to me by others, when they deigned to use it.

Because of that, I had little care for it. A thing of convenience at best. Perhaps I would use it again in the future, but as of now, I no longer had need of it.

I didn't need long to think of a name. Ever since I'd landed on Korriban months ago, it had been floating in the back of my mind. Longer, actually.

"Tesser."

It was derived from the Romanian word ţese, a verb meaning to weave or concoct. It also referenced the tesseract, the fourth-dimensional geometric shape that symbolized impossible knowledge.

Appropriate, all things considered. It was a name I gave to a villain once. I'd be using it as such again.

Darth Rictus nodded slowly, "Very well. Rise, Tesser of the Sith. My Apprentice."

The finality in his voice was accompanied by a release of the pressure keeping me on the ground. My legs ached from the uncomfortable position, but I didn't voice a complaint as I regained my feet.

As I stood up to my full height, the Sith Lord was already circling back around his desk, his eyes no longer on me as he reached for a datapad.

"Being the apprentice of a Dark Council member is a position of great prestige, with more opportunities to gain power, wealth, or glory. And possessing more privileges than a normal apprentice." He explained in a less formal tone, seating himself once more.

"But such opportunities come with equally high expectations and far greater risks."

He typed something into his datapad. Moments later, my own let out a chime.

I raised a questioning brow.

"I have just provided you with a set of security codes that will give you access to my estate on Dromund Fels. Your training here has been sufficient for dealing with monsters and neophytes, but it will need to be accelerated if you will have any hope of surviving the tasks ahead. You will go there and await my summons."

Dromund Fels was not a name I was familiar with. Obviously, it was a part of the Dromund system, but beyond that, I didn't know anything. Guess I'd have some reading to do on the trip over.

The dismissal in Rictus' words was easily understood, but I stayed put.

It was his turn to raise a brow, "Is there something else, apprentice?"

"I want to take my soldiers with me. The Second and Fifth platoons of the Korriban Regiment."

There was cold amusement in his eyes as he slowly replied, "Only an apprentice for a handful of minutes, yet you are already making demands. While it is true that you are entitled to a cadre of personal soldiers if you wish, there are better choices than that rabble. Murderers, thieves, and incompetents, the lot of them."

Interesting. I swear I felt a hint of something leak out from him, but it was restrained before I could identify it.

"Perhaps there are. But they are men that have little left to lose and much more to gain working for me."

And most importantly, they weren't yours.

There was a long moment of silence as we stared each other down.

"Very well," He hissed at last, "But you will be responsible for arming and transporting your soldiers. And they will not be garrisoned in my manor."

There was little doubt in my mind that he had missed what I really wanted. An individual Sith was only as powerful as the power base they had access to. And I could hardly rely on his.

For all that it seemed to irritate him however, it was still strange that he didn't deny it outright.

"Of course, milord." I replied, keeping my face neutral. No matter how much I wanted a victorious smirk to show, "I expected no less."

Both were matters I could easily deal with.

"Go. Collect your soldiers and leave Korriban immediately." He ordered, brooking no further argument, "I have other matters than you to deal with."

Whatever good mood he had managed to accrue from establishing his dominance over me had been thoroughly soured. Rather than bask in my temporary victory, I decided to follow orders and quickly vacate the premises.

As I walked out of the room, I felt the presence of the Dark Lord recede before finally vanishing entirely.

I hated that man. One day, I was going to kill him. That was a promise.

It wouldn't be tomorrow. Or the day after. Weeks. Months.

Maybe not even years or decades.

But the day I had learned everything he had to teach and wrung every last bit of usefulness out of him?

He would die.

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The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.

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