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Author Topic: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE October 16!
Date Posted: 3/21 11:27am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE October 16! - Date Edited: 10/16 6:54am (11 edits total) Edited By: JediNemesis
Title: Bad Dreams
Author: JediNemesis
Genre: Horror, thriller, drama, mystery (potential)
Characters: OCs
Era: 7000+ years bTPM (part of the Ythnyn far-past miniverse)

Notes: Written for the fourth not-quite-annual Dare Challenge. My dare was this: This story must have: A Jedi who just happens to be a vampire, a Sith Lord who's been having visions of angels, a young woman named Orpah (no, not Oprah ) who is sentenced to be executed for a crime she didn't commit, and an ancient tomb haunted by the spirits of three vile witches...

More notes: I tried to make this a one-post. Oh, how I tried. It wouldn't go. So it is with deep trepidation that I announce that this story is not over, and will be continued, though I make no promises whatsoever as to length or frequency of updates. (Only this first post counts for the purposes of Dare Challenge voting.)

Summary: 282 years after the founding of the Ythnyn Line by Ionnàs, the throne is held by the sixth Dark Lord of that line, Anedar Aedonnain. The empire is as strong as ever. Yet the cornerstone of that empire, the Dark Lord himself, is haunted by visions he can neither explain nor dispel - visions of angels . . .



DISCLAIMER: George Lucas' sandbox. I just mess around.



The air was stale and dry, and made uncomfortably hot by its proximity to the mountain’s volcanic heart. Dust lay in the angles between floor and walls worn down by the brushing-past of robes and the absent-minded touch of hands. Only the ceiling was untouched by time, its black rock still spined with jagged points that, seen from the doorway, hung down into the light like the teeth of a vast mouth poised to close.

It was a close, claustrophobic space, the slanted walls always seemingly on the point of crushing in.

On the low bunk that was its only furnishing lay a thin figure with a twisted shoulder and withered right arm, forced by its deformity to curl awkwardly to one side rather than lie flat. A rough black cloak was drawn over the sleeper, its hem ragged and pale with dust. One almost fleshless hand clutched at the cloak’s edge, the knuckles white with some nameless terror met in dreams.

The dreamer was Anedar Aedonnain, sixth Dark Lord of the line of Ythnyn and heir to the iron throne of Ionnàs. He was thirty-three years old, far too young, they said, to wield such a degree of power, and there was already a fine tracery of white in his dark hair. Awake, his eyes were grey and watchful. Now he slept, fitfully and uneasily, his thin body shivering despite the oppressive heat.

Sleep was a little too much like death for most Dark Lords to welcome it, and like most of his kind Anedar succumbed to sleep only when his body could no longer physically sustain the demands the Force placed on it. But of late he had stretched his reserves of wakefulness as far as they would go, hating the very idea of sleep, terrified by the visions that haunted the fringes of the dreamworld.

He dreamed of angels: not the smiling, anatomically unlikely golden-haired and swan-winged creatures that fluttered through the pages of children’s stories, but angels, ancient, beautiful, terrible and real.

* * *

For three hundred years the present Sith Line had been lords under the mountain. The name was both hauntingly evocative and utterly useless: the edge of colonised space was advancing every year, bringing into the nascent galactic civilisation hundreds of stars and thousands of worlds. And everywhere there were hot cores and continents, there would be mountains.

Over the course of an adult life spent searching for the Sith fortress, Rahisa had seen more mountains than she cared to remember. Some had lingered in the memory: the jade peaks of Mai Nguy, haunted by the wind; the grey, acid-scarred heights of Rulan Maior and Rulan Minor; the gentle alps of Tausan, so much like the homeworld she did not remember; the endless snows of Cloud Shoulder in Memourneh, twelve thousand metres high. Many more, she had forgotten.

The mountains of this colony - Ythnyn, she reminded herself - were black and oppressive, dark, jagged shapes against a rust-coloured sky. Here and there, the clouds glowed orange in the light of open craters. Menningsheer, the planet’s only settlement worth the title, clung to the lower slopes of the nearest range, a scatter of grounded spaceships and crudely constructed dwellings. It was primitive, but looked to be thriving, and was alive with lights.

She turned away from the stained and scratched viewing window as the Vaza’s engines powered down and the ship settled to a clanking halt. She was the only passenger, unless one counted the collection of mismatched mining droids dormant in a corner of the hold. But the bunk had been clean, the provisions nutritious if inconveniently solid for one of her species, and - most importantly - no questions asked.

There was a clatter from the cockpit, the sound of indistinct cursing, and a moment later Aki Hayuketake ducked through the connecting door into the main living quarters. The Vaza’s captain was a seven-foot, milky-skinned Aminu, massive eyes clouded and white hair beginning to darken in his old age. ‘Old age’ in his case was some four hundred years or more, and had evidently not impaired either his flying skills or his sharp eye for a deal. Rahisa rather liked him, even if the sum she had ended up paying for his ship’s services still made her wince.

“We’re down,” Hayuketake said succinctly, and hit the panel that opened the main exit ramp. “Welcome to the Sheer.”

She shouldered her travel bag and followed him through the antechamber and out of the hull doors. The mining robots trundled past her feet as she went down the ramp, beeping and blipping to one another. Hayuketake was exchanging pleasantries with another spacer, this one with flashes on his shoulders that almost looked official.

“My passenger,” Hayuketake said bluntly as she reached them.

“Aisal Lanisch,” Rahisa said. She’d been using the identity for six months now; she felt she knew Aisal Lanisch, starfarer, and was quite happy to be her until it was necessary to become someone else. She hadn’t been Rahisa al i’ Nazr, Jedi Knight, for more than four years, except in the privacy of her own head.

“Welcome to Ythnyn, Miz Lanisch,” said the other spacer, and offered a hand. “Radim Maxin, portmaster. Are you expected? If not, I’ll be more than happy to help you settle in.”

He kissed her hand, rather than shaking it, and Rahisa thought that Aisal Lanisch would be rather flattered by his attentions. She smiled. “I’d be delighted, portmaster.”

Hayuketake snorted. “I’ll leave you to it.” He nodded companionably to Maxin, and returned to his ship.

“You’ll need somewhere to stay,” Maxin said a moment later, “and something to eat, and that’ll do for tonight. We can look round town tomorrow, see who’s hiring. I’m assuming you’ll be wanting work?”

“Can’t live without it,” Rahisa said, sighing, and hefted her bag. “After you, Mister Maxin.”

“Call me Radim,” said the portmaster with a grin, and set off across the grubby duracrete towards an exit.

* * *

From a slitted window high in the mountain’s side, Anedar watched the Vaza come down and its occupants disembark. It was unlikely to be a coincidence that a window had been cut in the rock at precisely the place where its narrow view would overlook both the main landing pad and most of the road up the slope, and Anedar briefly pictured his predecessors standing at the same window, watching as summers came and went, ships landed or left, and the town that had begun as only a clutch of shacks grew into a straggling shanty and then into the prosperous mining town it was now.

Satisfied that the ship had landed safely, Anedar turned from the window and went back to the throne room, picking his way through winding tunnels and claustrophobic shafts whose walls were blood-hot to the touch. Failtemadh had not erupted in millennia so far as could be determined, but it was not extinct, and the deep caverns were always hot: dry, harsh, crushing heat. The air tasted of metal and dust.

He waited in the throne room, considering this and that, while night fell over Ythnyn. A little after the sun had gone down, there were steps in the cavernous passage, and Aki Hayuketake, master of the Vaza, came to deliver his report, as he had done with every landfall for more than two hundred years.

“Highness,” the Aminu said, and half-bowed. From any other it would have been unforgivably perfunctory, but Hayuketake was talented and loyal, and had licence. “Médou’s quiet, Sionléad too. Wouldn’t let us land on Diurnat. Anrete’s barely trading; trouble with the succession. Again.” A tightly-rolled cigarillo appeared as if by magic in one heavy-clawed hand, and he lit it from one of the braziers that gave the chamber its yellow, flickering light. “Nothing from Sheyari, nothing from Zhezn. It’s been a quiet winter.”

Anedar nodded. “As expected. Who was your passenger?”

If Hayuketake was surprised by the enquiry, he showed none of it. Rather, he took a drag on the cigarillo, breathed, and a moment later said “A woman. Looked human enough but didn’t eat solids. I’d guess one of the cousin species, maybe Carmil. Called herself Aisal Lanisch.”

“Called herself?” Anedar queried, quietly.

Hayuketake shrugged and took another drag. “She’s a Jedi. I doubt she’s here for the scenery.”

The Dark Lord said sharply “How do you know?”

“I’ve been round Force-sensitives for two hundred and eighty years,” Hayuketake said flatly. “I know. She’s got the aura. Find her yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Anedar leant back in the iron throne, and shook his head. “Oh, I believe you.” Pain shot through his malformed back as he stood up; he ignored it. “I am . . . indebted. Go.”

Hayuketake nodded and left, the thin trail of cigarillo smoke lingering in the hot air.

The Dark Lord sat alone in the throne room a while, then rose and took a seldom-used passage down through the mountain, winding through rock in a wide, low spiral, until he reached the level given over to confinement for those unlucky enough to be the prisoners of the Sith.

He stopped at the third cell; the door slid back with a touch. Against the back wall lay a figure curled awkwardly in chains, the heavy collar around its neck visible even in the dimness.

Anedar closed the door, leant against it, and waited until the woman uncurled herself in a clatter of metal and said, sleepily “My lord?”

“How long has it been?” Anedar said ruminatively. “Nine months? A year? It’s been a long while since I saw your face, Orpah.”

“Your time is wholly your own, my lord,” the woman said meekly.

“Still insisting on your loyalty, then,” the Dark Lord commented.

“Highness, no acolyte is more devoted than I,” Orpah said, and Anedar thought he saw the glint of tears on her cheeks. Clumsily, weighted by the restraints, she moved towards him. “Let me only prove my worth, my lord -”

Anedar snapped his fingers. One by one, the chains snapped back from her limbs, until at last only the collar was left. Wide-eyed, as if doubting her own senses, Orpah lifted her hands to and looked at them, seemingly amazed.

Before she could speak, he gestured to her to stand, and said “A Jedi has just landed on this planet. Find her. Bring her to me. And if you do, perhaps I’ll finally believe that you weren’t colluding with the last one.”

“You honour me,” Orpah breathed, and stood up, eyes shining. “I shall be the instrument of your vengeance -”

The Dark Lord cut her off mid-sentence, saying “This is a slave collar, Orpah. If you try to take it off, you die. If you leave Ythnyn, you die. And if you haven’t brought me the Jedi in the next three days, you die. Am I clear?”

Orpah’s eyes blazed. “Have no doubt in me.”

“Go,” Anedar said, half-disgusted by her grovelling, and stood aside. She slid past him into the shadows of the passage, and was gone.

* * *

Few worlds were truly undiscovered. Even barren Ythnyn, black and volcanic, had been visited at some time in the deep past: the visitors had left rings of crumbled stone that had once been walls, and shafts sunk through the black stone in search of the ores congealing below. There was no telling how many thousands of years had passed since the workings had been abandoned.

Neither was there any telling whether the crude tomb in a cleft in the mountains behind Menningsheer had belonged to that long-dead colony, or to one still earlier. The entrance was no more than a crack in the rock, easily missed even by one searching for it, lost amidst the jagged shadows. The rocky passage was suffocatingly narrow, and only after what seemed like an eternity of crushing, claustrophobic darkness did it open out into a cavern with gritty sand underfoot, and the taste of decay in the stale unmoving air.

Some hours after he had seen the prisoner Orpah, Anedar stood with his back to the narrow gap, and kindled a glowcube between his fingers. The light was frail and wavering, and threw strange shadows, but it was enough to illuminate the contents of the tomb.

Three slabs of Ythnyn basalt, each more than a metre long and a hand’s-breadth thick, lay parallel to one another on the floor of the cave. Carved into the upper surface of each block was the same row of crude symbols, unmistakably words, but words resembling no alphabet Anedar had ever seen.

They looked like tombstones, until a watcher’s eyes grew accustomed to the dimness and began to pick out the broken and yellowed bones that surrounded each slab: skulls lolling back from splintered vertebrae, twisted and broken feet, and contorted arms, fingers curled tight in death.

Anedar waited, breathing the dead air, until a glow that did not come from the cube in his hand began to gather far back in the chamber, taking on a spectral, bluish tint as it grew. The form it assumed was little more than a human-sized, blurred streak, its species and sex impossible to distinguish.

It wavered and settled, and a moment later said faintly “Sssss. I remember you. The crippled Dark Lord. Oh, they should have drowned you when they had the chance . . . ”

In the half-dark behind it more lights were beginning, one on either side, growing less swiftly. Anedar ignored them, and said to the first presence “Hello, sister.”

There were three flickering ghosts now, pale clots of light in the dusty shadows, and the one on the right-hand side said “Yes, drowned you, or crushed your soul out under a stone and locked you away in the dark . . .”

And the third indistinct shape whispered “We were invincible too, Dark Lord.”

Anedar said simply “You were wrong.”

The one on the right-hand side said sardonically “And you? What makes you so sure of your own strength, little dreamer?”

And the one on the left-hand side asked “What have you seen that brought you here, little dreamer?”

And the one in the centre said “What have you found in your beloved darkness, little dreamer?”

Anedar waited until the echoes died, and then said softly “Angels.”



Feedback much appreciated as always happy

Nem

 

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Date Posted: 3/21 11:57am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
Interesting story, about the ancient Sith. Great names and characters.

And a great response to the dare.

What will a Sith and an angel do? thinking

 

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Date Posted: 3/21 8:23pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
Great work, as always, Nem.

I don't know if I should admit this or not, but this was the dare that I made up. I don't know if you're happy with the inspiration or if you'd just like to slap me a few times or both tongue However, the truth is I wanted you to get this one (or anything that I'd have come up with) because I knew you'd do well with it. Really, what were the chances? So you can blame/thank me, along with the fact that I was watching my DVDs of the Dark Shadows revival series the day I came up with it.

 

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Date Posted: 3/23 8:57am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
Terrific opening chapter. I can see why you found the challenge daunting. However, you've ensnared me with your plot, and I find I cannot escape. wink grin I especially love your descriptions of this desolate world. A perfect home for an ancient Sith. Please PM me when and if you update.

 

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Date Posted: 3/27 5:59pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
applause applause Great opening, very strongly written, all of it, landscapes, characters, thoughts applause

Totally captured me, so if you truly go on with this story I'd liked to be pm'd as well happy


 

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ratna 
Date Posted: 3/27 10:03pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
It's so disturbing to care about characters who are evil, callous and cruel. *shiver* I can't help it, I am hooked by this world you are creating. Please pm me if/when you post another chapter.

 

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 Date Posted: 3/28 11:47am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
I completely adore Anedar. Dunno -- I have this thing with the bad guys. tongue

I love this fic and if you do decide to continue this, would you please PM me? batting

 

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Date Posted: 3/31 7:22am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
Intriguing... I likes! grin
Many main characters in one story confuses me, but in good stories I can deal with it.
A vampire Jedi... I wonder where that idea came from? tongue

 

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Date Posted: 3/31 11:59am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
He dreamed of angels: not the smiling, anatomically unlikely golden-haired and swan-winged creatures that fluttered through the pages of children’s stories, but angels, ancient, beautiful, terrible and real.

Oooh, I really like this line.

This world and these characters that you've created are so rich and dark and complex, and just fascinating to read. Excellent work! applause

 

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Date Posted: 4/1 8:45pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
There's a chilliness that's very palpable when reading the story that comes off very well. There's plenty of mystery and intrigue, too. That keeps me very much wanting to know what comes next. There's also a bit of a fairytale aspect to it. Not the Disney kind, though, the more classical kind. You do a wonderful job of cultivating a means of talking and storytelling that fits the idea of "far past" too. I really, really enjoyed this! Count me on board for the ride. happy

 

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azizah 
Date Posted: 4/7 5:57pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
This is really intriguing and well written. I can't decide which character I am most interested in, they are all so compelling. I am hooked in one post!

This was beautiful

He dreamed of angels: not the smiling, anatomically unlikely golden-haired and swan-winged creatures that fluttered through the pages of children’s stories, but angels, ancient, beautiful, terrible and real.

Great challenge response applause

 
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Date Posted: 4/9 2:23pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - for the Dare Challenge
Hi there everyone happy It's brilliant to see so many replies, and also thanks to those of you who voted for Bad Dreams in the Dare Challenge. Unfortunately I missed my two days of colours owing to being offline (being introduced to bf's family . . .) but I'm very flattered grin


earlybird-obi-wan Interesting story, about the ancient Sith. Great names and characters. Thanks - I do especially like concocting names for them all. I spend way too much time on it, actually. And a great response to the dare. I'm glad you think so - it was a tricky set of requirements. What will a Sith and an angel do? I don't know . . . this is part of what I'm now trying to work out . . .

the_wandering_shadow Great work, as always, Nem. Many thanks, TWS tongue I don't know if I should admit this or not, but this was the dare that I made up. I don't know if you're happy with the inspiration or if you'd just like to slap me a few times or both. I did kind of suspect it was you after seeing the list of entrants. But very many thanks for the inspiration - I've been kicking around the idea of an Aedonnain story for ages now (he's been part of my mental furniture for years) but it took the Dare Challenge to poke me out of the slough of letharge and actually start to write. So thanks. However, the truth is I wanted you to get this one (or anything that I'd have come up with) because I knew you'd do well with it. Really, what were the chances? So you can blame/thank me, along with the fact that I was watching my DVDs of the Dark Shadows revival series the day I came up with it. Aww. Thanks. I'm glad you like it, and I only hope I can carry on at the same standard.

p_stotts Terrific opening chapter. I can see why you found the challenge daunting. However, you've ensnared me with your plot, and I find I cannot escape. I especially love your descriptions of this desolate world. A perfect home for an ancient Sith. Ythnyn is one of my favourite of the worlds I've created - I'm very glad you like it, and the story. Thanks for reading! Please PM me when and if you update. No problem happy

Seremela Great opening, very strongly written, all of it, landscapes, characters, thoughts Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it grin Totally captured me, so if you truly go on with this story I'd liked to be pm'd as well Can do. I'm hoping to continue (despite multiple failed attempts at long stories).

ratna It's so disturbing to care about characters who are evil, callous and cruel. *shiver* I can't help it, I am hooked by this world you are creating. If I've made you care about this bunch then my work here is done devil In all seriousness, I'm very glad you're enjoying it (if one can enjoy shivers) and hope you continue to do so. Please pm me if/when you post another chapter. Of course.

Ceillean I completely adore Anedar. Dunno -- I have this thing with the bad guys. I can sympathise - I like writing the villains. You should be seeing plenty more of him. I love this fic and if you do decide to continue this, would you please PM me? No problem at all.

DarkPowerUnlimited Intriguing... I likes! Haha, I'm glad. Many main characters in one story confuses me, but in good stories I can deal with it. I try not to make things too complicated because then I can't follow it, so hopefully you shouldn't have a problem. A vampire Jedi... I wonder where that idea came from? Blame the_wandering_shadow - it was her idea, I just followed it up.

amidalachick Oooh, I really like this line. Thanks! This world and these characters that you've created are so rich and dark and complex, and just fascinating to read. Excellent work! I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for reading happy

Bri_Windstar There's a chilliness that's very palpable when reading the story that comes off very well. There's plenty of mystery and intrigue, too. That keeps me very much wanting to know what comes next. I must confess I don't entirely know where it's all going myself . . . There's also a bit of a fairytale aspect to it. Not the Disney kind, though, the more classical kind. I've read and studied fairytale and myth, and I really love the way that kind of story works. I think fairytale influences get into a lot of my stories. You do a wonderful job of cultivating a means of talking and storytelling that fits the idea of "far past" too. I really, really enjoyed this! Count me on board for the ride. Do you want me to let you know via PM or not? Either's fine and I'll be very happy to have you along grin

azizah This is really intriguing and well written. I can't decide which character I am most interested in, they are all so compelling. I am hooked in one post! Awesome. I just hope I can do all the characters justice happy Great challenge response. Thanks for reading!

Thanks again to everyone who read. About 5000 more words of this story currently exist; I should have a next post done in a few days, as soon as I've sorted out what's happening in what order and how many people are going to die.

See you soon!

Nem happy

 

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Date Posted: 4/10 9:43am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - Replies April 9
woohoo! there will be more ... there WILL be more!! woohoo!

 

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Date Posted: 4/10 9:47am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - Replies April 9
Ooh, you can add me to the PM list! I don't pop into Before too often and I would hate to miss an update.

Lovin the solar power colors, btw. cool Congrats! grin

 

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 Date Posted: 4/10 10:37am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - Replies April 9
Please add me to the PM list! grin

 

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Date Posted: 4/13 8:36am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - Replies April 9
Afternoon, all!

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, Passover ditto, and hopefully everyone's having/had a bit of a holiday.

The PM list currently stands at: p_stotts, Seremela, ratna, Ceillean, Bri_Windstar, and VaderLVR64. If you're not on the list and would like to be on it (or are on it and would like to be off it) please let me know, either in-thread or via PM.

And now, picking up where we left off, we return you to Bad Dreams . . .



A faint breeze rustled his hair, as if the whole cavern had drawn breath, cold and laden with fine black dust.

“Angels,” one of the ghosts said, at last.

The word seemed to take too long to die away, hanging almost tangibly in the air between them: a thickening, a chill, a shift in the texture of perception from something that had not been said, to something that had been said, and would always have been said, and would always be.

“And what interest have you in that ancient race?” a ghost said. They were moving closer together, becoming one triple-centred blur. “Or, for that matter, they in you?”

“How old are the angels?” Anedar asked quietly.

“Old enough,” said the first ghost, her voice like the rasp of stone on stone, “to have been old before the Dark Lords showed their faces.”

“Old enough,” said the second, in a voice like winter, “to have been old before humanity crawled out of their stinking seas.”

And the third, though which it was Anedar could no longer tell, said in a voice that was only the whisper of dry wind through dry dust “Old as fire. Old as ice. They are older than words. They are older than gods.”

Anedar’s back ached, a hard-edged, deep-set pain that was not entirely the prickling of his spine and the rigid tension of his shoulders. It was the pain of a body imperfectly formed, of fused bones and twisted sinew, and it had been at his side, silent, since the day he opened his eyes on understanding.

The moment passed in a shiver, and to the now-wavering blue form he said “I have dreamt of angels. Of seeing their shadows over me, protecting. Of hearing voices I cannot understand and seeing faces I cannot describe.” He clenched the glowcube between his hands, the withered and the whole, and said “I have never seen an angel. Few living sentients have. And yet they plague my dreams.”

Spectral laughter rattled briefly on the edge of hearing, and one of the ghosts - they were barely distinguishable now - said “Oh, little dreamer, little dreamer, can you remember that which you have never seen?”

Then the ghost of the three sisters began to dwindle, collapsing in on itself until there was only the faintest point of bluish light and then not even that, and left behind only the word remember, cold and lingering in the air.

Minutes passed, the blue light fading into utter darkness, and after a little while Anedar stepped out of the narrow cleft in the rocky wall, his cloak streaked with pale lines of dust, and with his head bowed against the black wind walked, without a backward glance, away.

Perched in the rocks over the cave entrance, hooded and cloaked - no more than a shadow among shadows - a solitary figure watched him go.

* * *

Orpah Kell slept a few hours, because she would be in no state to hunt Jedi with the muscles of her arms and back still aching from the weight of chains, but rose in the small hours of the morning, stretched, and went padding down the twisting corridors of the mountain in search of first weaponry and then information.

Her first port of call was a low-ranking acolyte, barely more than a servant, she met scurrying along one of the passages near the surface. They came to a stop when she stepped out in front of them, nervous eyes - all that was visible under the hood - flicking from side to side, looking in vain for a way out even as they said uncertainly “Yes, mistress?”

The voice was female. There were more female acolytes at Ythnyn now than there had been under any of Aedonnain’s predecessors; still not many, but more. Some of the older Sith, particularly those who had trained under Aedonnain’s master Kauainen, had muttered darkly that the Line was being diluted, but not for long.

“Do you have a weapon?” Orpah demanded of the younger acolyte.

The hood nodded mutely.

“Give it to me.” The girl fumbled at her belt, and produced a worn but serviceable vibro-dagger; she was evidently too much of a novice to have yet built herself a lightsaber. Orpah took the blade, tested the heft, and tucked it into her own belt. “Now. Has there been a landing in the last two days?”

The girl looked confused, but said “Only the Vaza, milady.”

Orpah nodded to herself. “Good. Now get about your business and -” she took hold of the girl’s chin “- forget you saw me.”

Coming from one practised with the Dark it was more than a mere injunction to stay silent. The acolyte’s eyes glazed briefly and then she continued on her way, her eyes flicking over Orpah as if there was nobody there.

It took her another precious hour to find Aki Hayuketake. When she finally found him it was in the Traveller’s Star, one of Menningsheer’s many bars, and he was sitting talking animatedly to a circle of other ageing starship pilots. A haze of cigarillo smoke hung over the table. There were no other customers left in the room; Yelena, behind the bar, was leaning over a drink of her own and listening to the soft buzz of conversation from the other end of the room.

All of them looked up as she entered, and in the Force she felt a faint but distinct edge of hostility in the air. The Sith seldom left their mountain, and the ones who did had their own haunts in the town. Any found outside their own space would be . . . resented, quietly but unmistakably, even though only the very new, very stupid or very drunk would have the courage to make any protest.

Orpah joined the table of spacers and said, with forced politeness “Captain Hayuketake, a word?”

The Aminu tapped the ash off his cigarillo against the edge of the table, and said “His Highness finally let you out of that box, then?”

“I have instructions from the Dark Lord himself,” Orpah told him coldly, and clenched her fists at her sides. “Will you speak to me in private?”

“No.” Hayuketake took a long drag on the cigarillo, paused, and breathed out a cloud of blue smoke, staring at her all the while. “If you’ve got a message, tell me here.”

“I need to know about your passengers,” Orpah said through gritted teeth. “The Dark Lord -”

“Granted me the freedom of the mountain, like the five before him.” Hayuketake shifted slightly in his seat, and a tarnished metal pendant slid out of the neck of his shirt. “You so much as inconvenience me, and I don’t think you’ll get let off with another spell in prison.”

The last shreds of her patience gone, Orpah snarled “You’d still be dead.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that, either,” Hayuketake retorted. He crumpled the stub of the cigarillo between two clawed fingers, and said “Go dig somewhere else.”

Orpah flirted with the possibility of crushing his throat, but fought it, knowing even through the fog of impotent rage that she could do nothing. Hayuketake had the freedom of the mountain, and a word from him to the Dark Lord would lead, swiftly and inevitably, to her death. Aedonnain had graciously spared her life once; she could scarcely expect such a concession again.

“The Dark Lord will hear about this,” she ground out finally.

“My conscience’s clear,” Hayuketake said with a shrug, and lit another cigarillo.

Despising the Aminu more with every passing second, Orpah spat pointedly on the table in front of him, turned on her heel, and walked out of the bar.

The collar sat on her neck, not uncomfortably tight, but close-fitting enough to slither constantly against her windpipe, making her skin crawl. It was horribly heavy, dense with the mechanisms that would, when some ticking chrono deep inside it finally ran down, take her from consciousness to hellish oblivion in an instant.

It might be explosives. It might be a cutting laser, or a hypodermic loaded with chemical death. It might be a loop of monofilament wire set to tighten, able to pull through flesh and bone as if they were butter, or an interlocking iris of razored blades. There were as many models of slave collar as ingenious minds had been able to devise modes of execution, and Orpah knew that the Dark Lord would shrink from using none of them.

She knew her next step, but unlike Aki Hayuketake, portmaster Maxin - assuming Maxin was still portmaster; it had, after all, been a year since she had walked through the Sheer last - could not be relied upon to be awake and about in the small hours of the morning. She would have to wait, wasting more precious time as the hidden chrono ticked the seconds away.

Rather than go back to the mountain, she walked down through the sleeping town, noting what was new, what had changed and what had stayed the same. There were few lights left on: a few bars, the doctors’ clinics, a couple of all-purpose stores. The streets were empty. A year had left little mark on Menningsheer: the buildings were greyer with another year’s worth of dust, some of the signs were different, small things were in different places. By and large, though, the colony had simply continued to exist as it always had, life winding on through the months when she had lain in the black cell.

She resented it for that, and vowed that when she had delivered up the Jedi, and once more had the ear of the Dark Lord, she would suggest - deferentially, of course; to do more would be both heretical and unwise - that the Sith had, perhaps, allowed the town on the black rocks too much independence. It had started as only a servants’ shanty, after all, a township of people who lived and worked only to serve the Dark Lords. For it to exist in its own right was dangerous.

After a while she walked back up the winding path to the mountain’s entrance. Had she thought to look behind her she might have glimpsed, in the distance, the figure of the Dark Lord coming back across the plain.

* * *

The watcher did not move, nor stir so much as a muscle, until the Dark Lord was only a dot in the distance, all but lost in the darkness. Moonless Ythnyn’s nights were black, the only light the rusty glow against the clouds of open craters, and, further, the faint hard light of the stars.

The watcher’s name was Saarz. She had come to Ythnyn as a teenager, hitching a ride on one of the colony’s small fleet of starcraft, drawn by a shipmaster’s promise that on this small, inhospitable, distant world there were people who could train her. She knew she was powerful even then; once she had spent a little while under the mountain, watching and mimicking the older acolytes, she had finesse as well as power.

That had been some years ago, and she was no longer a girl. She had fought her way up through the hierarchy, from green would-be to respected acolyte to a feared teacher in her own right, learning the Sith way as she went. There were plenty of acolytes who shied from embracing the deepest code of the Sith, content to mimic their art; but Saarz had known as soon as she first heard the Sith creed recited that it was . . . something she understood.

And then six months ago the Dark Lord himself had abruptly declared that he was inclined to take another apprentice, to train as ambassador, agent and - perhaps - heir, and he had chosen her.

He had chosen her. Her skin prickled deliciously at the mere thought of it.

She loved to watch the Dark Lord. Aedonnain’s power was the height to which she aspired, and to be present when he bent his full ability to some task - like laying open and then taking apart, piece by piece, the mind of the latest of the acolytes to turn rebel, until the would-be usurper had been no more than the merest shreds of sentience teetering on the edge of a howling void - was enough to bring her close to ecstasy.

It was made all the better by her private certainty that one day (one day) her own powers would surpass his, and she would be able to turn her carefully practised skills (the delicious irony) on the master from whom she had learned them.

She had watched the Dark Lord tirelessly for those six months, trying to gauge the character behind the expressionless grey eyes, and searching, searching, for the weakness he surely had. None had revealed itself: Anedar Aedonnain was clever, ruthless and horribly powerful, and more lethal with his one good hand than any two-, four-, or six-handed opponent Saarz had ever sparred with.

But she continued to search: always watching, always listening, alert for any crack in the absolute self-control, and quick to examine anything out of the usual.

And so, when he had left the mountain late that night, hurrying down the secret stairway with a travelling cloak concealing his face, she had followed him: across the black plain, through the wind, until they reached the row of crags that jutted up like broken teeth. In one of the rocks was a cave, barely more than a crack, and the Dark Lord had gone inside.

She was not sure how long he had stayed there. After a while, though, he emerged, and without looking back set his head into the wind and set off back towards the distant lights of Menningsheer and the looming bulk of Failtemadh.

With the swiftness and silence of a shadow, Saarz let herself down from her perch, and scrambled down from rock to rock until she was looking into the crack in the stone. For a moment she hesitated - it would by no means have been beyond Anedar Aedonnain to lay appalling traps in any place he did not want casually visited - but then closed her eyes, groping ahead with her farsense, and with a hand on either rocky wall went in.

The passage was suffocatingly narrow, and bent sharply partway along, forcing her to slide awkwardly around the corner; she wondered how Aedonnain, taller and with his malformed back, had ever managed to get through. Soon, though, it opened out a little, into what felt, from the texture of the space, like a cavern.

There was no living presence in it, and yet the Force shifted and rippled in a way that suggested something almost alive, or that had once been alive, whose essence still hung in the air. Saarz stretched her senses, trying to discern any sliver of sentience that might have been the object of the Dark Lord’s visit.

And then abruptly there were presences, where before there had simply not been, and Saarz opened her eyes on faint but pervasive blue light.

The dim blue sheen illuminated, on the cavern’s rocky floor, three massive slabs of black stone, and - around each stone’s edge - pale, twisted fragments that might have been bone. Saarz thought of the weight of the stones, and wondered how long it had taken for the life to be crushed wholly out of whatever lay beneath.

The blue light thickened - there was no other word - and acquired centres: three patches of brighter radiance, evenly spaced and dancing like flames.

The light danced this way and that, silently, and a faint, husky voice said “Sssss . . . I do not remember you.”

Chilled, Saarz asked levelly “Who are you?”

“Three sisters they killed.” There was the faintest of ghostly laughs, and the voice took on a mocking edge. “Who are you, little stranger?”

Was the voice slightly different, and did it come from a different place in the light? Saarz stared into the clots of blue-white luminance, eyes beginning to water. Uncertainty prickled her spine: who were ‘they’?

“My name is Saarz,” she said, at last. She clenched her fists, digging her fingers deep into her palms until she was able to centre herself on the pain. It anchored her in reality. “I am a Lady of the Sith and heir-elect to the Dark Lord Anedar Aedonnain, sixth of the Ythnyn Line.”

“Are we to be impressed by titles?” said the voice, or the third of the voices, and one of the clots of blue light jumped and wavered. “Your Dark Lord must die, today or tomorrow or someday. Your little Line is a candle fading. We lay in the dark long before the Sith rose on Ythnyn, and we will lie here when you are dust, little stranger.”

“You spoke to the Dark Lord,” Saarz said quietly, ignoring the insolence in the disembodied words.

From the faint blue light there was a distant chuckle, and one of the voices said mockingly “And would you have us tell you what was said?”

“Tell me.”

Saarz put every ounce of power she could muster into the words, clutching at the insubstantial minds of the ghosts, forcing them to answer -

There was a long silence, and the blue lights began to shrink and fade again, contracting in on themselves.

The left-hand voice - she was beginning to distinguish them - said distantly “Are you too a dreamer, little Dark Lady?”

“I have dreamt,” Saarz said, into the grey silence, without quite knowing why she answered it. “I dream things. I see them in the darkness. Ever since I was a child.”

Childhood dreams, black and crimson and then white, the faces of her family ash-pallid as they tried to ignore a daughter who saw the future behind her eyes. Childhood nightmares.

And the right-hand voice said, as if an answer were dawning on it, “Of course you dream. The crippled Dark Lord chose you, chose you because you are like him, you dream . . .”

“Anedar dreams true?” Saarz breathed, half-shocked, half-delighted.

And the central one laughed and said, very quietly, “Oh, little Sith, there is always truth in dreams.”



I have a little bit written beyond this point, but not a lot. I make no promises about frequency of updates, but I think I know where this story is going and honestly intend to keep it up. Really. grin

Nem happy

 

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