by George Mann
In making that bleak and startling discovery, in recognizing the true horror of both his and his master’s failure and the terrible acts they had committed, Sol Mogra knew he could never face his Jedi masters, for the shame had already begun to consume him and would burn him up from inside, twisting him into a thing of hate. Instead, he clutched the amulet, holding it close to his heart, allowing the darkness within it to flow out and dominate him forever. He fled into the night, giving in to all his most terrible fears and his rage.
It is whispered that he is still out there, somewhere, a creature of the shadows, forever clutching the amulet that sealed his doom and driven only by his instincts toward the dark side.
THERE WAS ONCE A Sith Lord by the name of Darth Caldoth, whose activities had, during his long and eventful career, given rise to a great number of enemies. Throughout the galactic core, there were many who had just cause to abhor Caldoth and his malign schemes—from Jedi Knights to Serulean assassins, from Muldorean crime lords to the Seven Kings of Illmuth. Of all these worthy enemies, however, none were more cunning and vengeful than the Nightsisters of Dathomir.
The Nightsisters had long before adopted a practice of mummifying their dead and committing them to pods of animal skin, which they hung from structures that resembled trees, decorated with tassels and animal bones. In times of extreme crisis, these dead Nightsisters could be resurrected, stirring from their pods like nightmarish shadowmoths to defend their living sisters.
When Darth Caldoth, intent on learning the secrets of the Nightsisters’ reanimation process, made a daring incursion into their graveyard on Dathomir and stole away with a pod containing the mummified remains of a fallen sister, the witches viewed it as an act of war.
Yet the Nightsisters were patient and knew that the time would eventually come for them to make good their revenge. So it was that they plotted and waited until they believed Darth Caldoth to be at his most vulnerable, having recently suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the Jedi.
Caldoth had become aware of a rare fragment of fresco relating to the ancients and their use of the Force that had been uncovered during a Jedi expedition and transferred to their temple on Bathoris. So it was that Caldoth launched an attack on the temple, intent on causing enough of a distraction that he might steal away with the artifact in the chaos.
The surprise attack went well—for the Jedi had never anticipated such a bold move—and Caldoth had come close to securing his objective. Swathes of Temple Guards had fallen, along with several Jedi Knights, but there was one amongst the Jedi, by the name of Bran Ath’ Morath, who had held his ground, repelling Caldoth from the inner sanctum and locking him in a desperate duel until enough of the remaining Jedi could rally and Caldoth was forced to retreat or else face capture.
As a result, Caldoth was shaken, both from his defeat at the hands of Bran Ath’ Morath and his singular failure to retrieve the object he so desired.
Seeing this—for they had kept an almost constant eye on Caldoth during the intervening time—the Nightsisters enacted the first stage of their revenge.
A gathering was called, during which six chosen sisters were subjected to a series of trials that would test their mental and physical fortitude. After a night of great hardship, bound to stone pillars and assailed by the spirits of their dead sisters, forced to suffer horrific hallucinations and relive the memories of those they had vanquished, one sister emerged victorious. This sister, Zeldin, was cut down from her pillar and taken away to be prepared for all that would follow.
Zeldin was still young, having barely attained adulthood, yet she was strong and had long been marked for greatness by the elders of the coven. Nevertheless, she slept fitfully that day as she recovered from her trials, plagued by dreams of torment—not at the hands of the ghosts that had assailed her but by her fated enemy, Darth Caldoth, whom she feared above all else. Yet she knew there could be no turning back, for the vengeance of the Nightsisters was absolute and failure would lead to terrors of a different kind.
The very next night the coven gathered once again, only this time to add their voices in support of Zeldin as she enacted a ritual to place herself in a deep trance, translating her thoughts into the Living Force. Her task was to inveigle her way into the mind of Darth Caldoth, to breach his mental barriers so she might influence him from afar, coercing the Sith Lord into doing the Nightsisters’ bidding. Ultimately, their aim was simple: to ruin Darth Caldoth from within and, over time, drive him toward his own destruction.
The Nightsisters were well aware of Darth Caldoth’s formidable power and had plotted accordingly. Zeldin’s influence—once she had eased the tendrils of her thoughts into Caldoth’s mind—was to be only the lightest of touches. She would make no move that he might detect, for to give herself away would lead to ruin, both for the plan and for the coven. To incur Darth Caldoth’s wrath would be to rain devastation on Dathomir.
Carefully, then, empowered by the support of her coven yet filled with trepidation, Zeldin extended her thoughts. To the delight of her sisters the first tentative fingers of influence proved more than successful and Darth Caldoth easier than anticipated to steer.
For some time Zeldin continued in this way, nudging the occasional decision in a different direction and subtly altering the course of Darth Caldoth’s life. As time went on Zeldin’s influence grew, as did her confidence, for even as she became more active in her interference, it appeared to pass unnoticed by Caldoth, whose attentions remained distant. Soon the time came for a more concerted step.
Thus, the coven gathered to enact a ritual of prognostication, reaching out into the Force to seek a furtive glimpse into the future, to identify the alternate paths along which they could encourage Darth Caldoth, leading him ever closer to ruination. In such a way the Nightsisters identified a young Twi’lek named Ry Nymbis, who might appear to Caldoth as the perfect candidate for a new apprentice but who the Nightsisters divined would eventually turn on his master and seek to claim Caldoth’s power as his own.
So it was that Zeldin set to work infiltrating Caldoth’s thoughts, insinuating and suggesting, leading him most gently into the orbit of the youth. Satisfied with their work, the Nightsisters watched from afar as the apprentice was schooled in the dark side, learning to harness his rage and fear as he assisted Caldoth in the quest to recover ever more knowledge of the ancient arts.
Yet as Ry Nymbis grew, so did his ambition until such a point that—as the Nightsisters had anticipated—the Twi’lek began to covet the power of his master. Thus, much to Zeldin’s delight, Ry Nymbis stole a ritual from his master’s books, lured Caldoth to a lonely outcropping, and enacted the ancient spell.
The ritual misfired, however, reflecting back on its caster and turning Ry Nymbis to stone. Caldoth, amused by his apprentice’s miscalculation, left the calcified figure where it stood as a warning to all those who might attempt to cross him in the future.
The Nightsisters raged, for their patience had borne no fruit. Yet still they were not to be dissuaded from their plan, for their memories were long and their hunger for vengeance even longer. Thus, another ritual of prognostication was enacted, and this time in the vapors the elders of the coven glimpsed the possibility of another trap, which Zeldin was soon tasked to lay.
Caldoth’s hunger for the knowledge of the ancients was well-known—for he sought in such knowledge the means of achieving long-forgotten mastery over others—and he had dedicated many years of his life to searching for the relics left behind by those races that had long before breathed their last in the galaxy. Such finds were exceedingly rare and often dangerous to acquire, protected by curses, traps, or guardians, and the Nightsisters had become aware of one such relic—a totem dating back many thousands of generations—which they knew lay amongst the shattered remnants of a temple on the storm-racked moon of Obsidia. More than that, though, they had seen in their vision that the relic was protected by the guardian spirit of one of the ancient monks who had once attend
ed the temple, and so powerful was this spirit in the Force that if Caldoth visited the moon he risked obliteration at its hands.
Once again, Zeldin carefully extended her influence, leading Caldoth on a journey of discovery—for the Nightsisters’ plan would only work if Caldoth truly believed he had uncovered the existence of the relic through his own divination and research. Much time passed as she guided him on this course, stirring his passion for the quest, encouraging him down particular routes in his research, until at last the breakthrough occurred and Caldoth found an ancient tablet that pointed to the existence of the relic. Overjoyed, he at once made plans to travel to Obsidia to retrieve it. Yet his research had made no mention of the guardian spirit the Nightsisters had witnessed in their vision, so Zeldin encouraged him on, hopeful that Caldoth was finally about to walk into her trap.
So it was that Caldoth made the arduous journey to the wastes of Wild Space, taking his shuttle deep into the Unknown Regions, through the Straits of Hibrath and beyond, until at last Obsidia appeared before him.
The small moon orbited a tempestuous gas giant that in turn circled a weak sun, bloated and dying from the extremes of age. The gravitational pressures were slowly tearing the gas giant asunder, and the resulting storms caused the moon—formed of a glistening black rock—to judder constantly, its orbit slowly decaying as it tumbled ponderously toward its mother planet.
There was the resting place of the totem the Nightsisters had seen during their ritual, and it was there Zeldin had led Caldoth to die in his attempt to retrieve it.
Demonstrating great skill in his piloting, Caldoth took his shuttle down to the moon’s surface and landed it amongst the sprawling temple ruins—for his research had been thorough and he knew for what and where he looked. Zeldin was all too aware of the risks of allowing Caldoth to obtain such a powerful relic, yet she knew also that as soon as Caldoth attempted to claim it, the guardian spirit would show itself and strike down the unwary Sith Lord.
Sure enough, the totem was housed in a decorated alcove inside the shell of the ruined temple, in which plant life had run wild, pushing up the flagstones to overrun the entire structure. Caldoth passed unhindered, causing the vines and boughs to part in his wake as he approached the totem, his eyes shining at the sight of it.
It was then that Zeldin sensed something was wrong. Caldoth, upon reaching the alcove, twisted on the spot, drawing a large vial from his robes and chanting the words of an arcane binding ritual in the ancient language of the Nightsisters—a ritual that should have been unknown to all but the Dathomirian witches themselves.
The guardian spirit—a huge phantasmagorical entity formed of swirling mists, with a gnashing crocodilian face—had seeped through the temple’s ceiling to manifest behind Caldoth, reaching out for him just as it appeared that Caldoth had been about to snatch up the totem. Caught off guard, however, and entrapped by the binding words in Caldoth’s ritual, the entity wailed as it was drawn into the vial in the Sith Lord’s hands, its vapors swirling behind the glass walls of its new prison. Smiling, Caldoth stoppered the vial and slipped it back inside his robes. He returned to his shuttle with his prize, leaving the ancient totem sitting in its alcove, undisturbed.
Zeldin raged in frustration, for once again Darth Caldoth had overturned her expectations, seeking not the relic but the guardian spirit itself, which he might interrogate for clues to its original form and bind to do his bidding. In this he had made use of the Nightsisters’ own rituals, although it remained unclear to Zeldin exactly how the Sith had acquired that knowledge.
The Nightsisters’ impatience grew thin, for their nemesis continued to grow in strength and power despite their continued interference. A final ritual was performed to grant further insight into Caldoth’s possible fate, and to their glee, the Nightsisters’ were granted a vision of Caldoth being run through with a lightsaber. The weapon belonged to none other than the Jedi Knight Bran Ath’ Morath, who had been one of the few to defeat Caldoth during the time of the Nightsisters’ observations.
It was decided, then, that Zeldin would seek to steer Caldoth toward one final trap. If the Nightsisters could lead the Jedi to unwittingly enact their revenge for them, then all the better. All that remained was for Zeldin to inspire in Caldoth a desire to destroy the Jedi who had beaten him at the temple on Bathoris all those years before.
This proved a simple task, for Zeldin knew all there was to know about revenge. She infiltrated Caldoth’s dreams, stoking the fires of hatred, planting the seeds of a vendetta that took no time at all to bloom.
Before long, Caldoth had concocted his plan. He would lure Bran Ath’ Morath away from Bathoris through a campaign of activity on the neighboring world of Kizan. If he revealed his own hand in the proceedings, then surely Bran Ath’ Morath would come to seek him out, to finish what they had begun all those years before.
So it was that Caldoth made haste for Kizan, where the glass towers of the cities scratched the undersides of the very clouds and all was peaceful, for it was a place of knowledge, where students traveled from all across the galaxy to learn the philosophies of different cultures. There Caldoth set about his campaign to lure the Jedi, and within hours of his arrival, Pundith, the central city on the subtropical peninsula, had been reduced to nothing but glass shards and debris. Yet Caldoth had been careful to be seen during this terrible assault, knowing well that word would soon reach the Jedi temple on Bathoris, and knowing who would be the nearest and most ready to respond.
Sure enough, the Jedi ships soon appeared in orbit, and Caldoth—who had remained amongst the ruins of Pundith to await them—grinned, knowing that the hour of his revenge was upon him. Secretly, Zeldin allowed herself a smile, too, confident that Caldoth’s death was a certainty, for had the Nightsisters not seen Bran Ath’ Morath run the Sith Lord through with his lightsaber?
Four of the Jedi deployed, and three were dealt with in short order by Caldoth’s red blade, for they were no match for his skills or for the power of his anger and the burning blasts of ferocious energy that would burst from his fingertips. Yet one proved less easy to snare, for Bran Ath’ Morath had indeed come to Kizan to face his old foe, and his abilities were more than a match for those of the Sith Lord. Caldoth seethed with a hatred stoked by the intruder in his mind yet fueled by the power of the dark side. As the two masters clashed amongst the glittering ruins they fell into the thrust and parry of an elaborate dance, wheeling and striking with their lightsabers in a momentous battle that saw the landscape around them ripple with the outpouring of their power. So evenly matched were they that their duel raged on and on, sending them diving and soaring amongst the despoiled rooftops, clashing in the narrow alleyways, weaving in and out of the shattered remnants of buildings.
As the light began to fade and the day gave way to dusk, Zeldin knew that the killing blow was close, for both Sith and Jedi had begun to tire. She, too, had grown weary, as if the simple act of witnessing the battle had sapped her strength and fortitude—as if, in some strange way, her own well of hatred and fear was somehow replenishing Caldoth.
Yet Zeldin could not have anticipated how deep Caldoth’s anger ran or how assured he was of his own superiority, for seeing there would be no end to the battle unless he was able to surprise his opponent, Caldoth lowered his blade and thrust himself forward, piercing himself through the shoulder with Bran Ath’ Morath’s yellow blade.
The Jedi looked down in shock to see his lightsaber jutting from Caldoth’s back, but it was the last thing he saw, for Caldoth had anticipated the Jedi’s shocked response at his supposed victory and removed Bran Ath’ Morath’s head with a sweep of his red blade before falling back, wounded but nevertheless alive.
On Dathomir, Zeldin screamed in frustration, and the Nightsisters flocked around her, offering comfort, for they knew what must be done and how much it would tax their sister’s abilities to do it.
Following the battle on Kizan, Zeldin and her sisters prepared. For what felt to her an a
ge, a small part of herself had existed with Darth Caldoth’s mind, the lightest of presences, observing, nudging, and influencing. But the patience of the Nightsisters was exhausted, and the time had come for more drastic measures. She would attempt to increase her presence in Caldoth’s mind and assert full control over both his mind and body through the act of possession. She would make him a prisoner of the Nightsisters and effect his complete and utter ruin.
So the ritual began, and the whole coven gathered in the caves to lend their strength to Zeldin. She reached out with her mind, at first gently, then more fully, probing deep into the crevices of Caldoth’s thoughts as he rested in his floating laboratory complex on Athamar.
Darth Caldoth’s mind, however, was well-tempered and strong, and Zeldin was forced to push harder and harder to meet her ends, until such a point that she had almost entirely given up possession of her own physical form to better influence his. He fought back, engaging her in a duel of the senses, attempting to push her away, but Zeldin had come to know Caldoth well, and she understood his weaknesses better even than she understood her own. Slowly she pushed for dominance, and to her relief, Caldoth began to give way as his mental barriers crumbled. She rejoiced as his mind finally buckled and bent to her will and she found herself in full possession of his body and mind.
Yet Zeldin’s triumph was short-lived, for even as she seized control, she sensed that all was not as it seemed. Inwardly, Caldoth drew a wicked smile, and Zeldin recoiled.
It was then that he acted, for in truth Darth Caldoth had been mindful of Zeldin’s presence all along, ever since her first tentative engagements all those years before. He had drawn on her strength and knowledge, first making use of the binding ritual buried deep in her consciousness to trap the spirit on Obsidia and then calling on her reserves to fuel his own battle with the Jedi. Indeed, he had manipulated her, allowing her to grow increasingly confident and push deeper into his mind until the point where she became vulnerable. For Darth Caldoth’s mastery of the Force was far superior to that of the Nightsisters, and with it, he drew a gilded cage around Zeldin’s disembodied presence in his mind, trapping her there, separated from her body and unable to influence the actions of her terrible host.