Private Dark Side of the Moon [Xeykard]

[Darth Carnifex]

The castle arose from the icy peaks of Khar Shian like a gangrenous tumor, a bloated edifice of blackened steel and gnarled vines of glossy volcanic stone. It was old, ancient, weathered by millennia of existence. Perpetual darkness wreathed the spires and flat terraces, for the side of the moon it was built upon never once received the warming light of Khar Delba's sun. Light only came from the sparse illumination dotting the various rises and valleys of the fortress, but even this was fleeting; for the Lord of the Castle demanded that the fortress be shrouded against all prying eyes -- so they resided in darkness.

In this umbral land, only the Sith held sway.

Within sat the Dark Lord of the Kainate, Darth Carnifex, upon a throne of malevolent radiance. It had been built in the time of Naga Sadow, the very mortar mixed with the blood of the slaves who toiled to build his fortress here on Khar Shian. Their bones were pulverized and reconstituted into the brick of which the throne was chiefly constructed, the vitality they once possessed in life seeped into the brickwork. When one listened, one could hear their scream and cries echoing through the Force; forever staining the land with their doom.

The throne room itself was no less grand, spanning the length of an entire star destroyer. The floor was entirely smooth marble, featureless except for a glossy black sheen that cast one's reflection as though it were a shimmering water's surface. The far walls and cavernous ceiling were reliefs carved in the high style; where the subjects protruded out from the surface. The history of the Sith was depicted upon these walls, a storied saga reaching back to the days before the three-hundred reign of Adas the Red King. It showed the Rakatans descending from the sky, nearly enslaving the red-skinned Sith, and the resistance of Adas and his kin against the foreign conquerors. The centerpiece at the throne's back was the ascension of Adas into eternal divinity upon his martyrdom.

One would need to traverse this grand chamber in silence, the distant throne forever looming in the distance. Naga Sadow had designed it this way. When one would reach the end of their journey, they would kneel before the Dark Lord; exhausted from the journey and the Dark Lord's own withering gaze. But the one who came before Him was no mere serf of those ancient days, it was an Inquisitor of the Sith; one who had returned from a harrowing journey into the very bosom of the enemy.

Carnifex looked at Xeykard and smiled softly, for He knew that His disciple had succeeded.

Xeykard ​

 

[Xeykard]

Darth Carnifex ​

Xeykard's appreciation for Sith aesthetics was minimal. Strange as it was, given his combat history, he was closer to the Imperials in that regard; cold functionality and its accompanying grey steel and effective cuts and corners was what he preferred, purely for simplicity's sake. The lavishness with which so many Sith lived and their love of particular motifs and architectures was beyond him.

But he understood function. Walking down the great hall, formerly Naga Sadow's, he felt this massive space enclose in on him, the silence only broken by his boots on the marble. He had time to think on what awaited him at the end of the hall; it was so large that he couldn't truly make out the figure that sat on the throne until he'd walked for over five minutes.

In that time he was not even truly aware of the pressure that normally emanated from the Dark Lord. Instead it was a progressively growing force; by the time he could see the Dark Lord, he was inundated in it, drowning in that vortex of strength and darkness.

Xeykard was no less exhausted than the peasants who would travel to meet Sadow, if only because he had rushed here directly from Coruscant. In his hands was his prize; still wrapped in the Jedi funerary cloth, the unsullied corpse of a Jedi Master, taken from their grandest Temple.

When he finally arrived at the foot of the throne room, he knelt, using his remaining strength to raise the corpse to his lord.

"Your prize, my Lord. As you have bid of this one."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The Dark Lord looked upon Xeykard, His imperious gaze bearing down upon the reptilian Sith. To any other, such intensity would unbalance them; rending all of their being bare to be pulled apart like the wings of a butterfly. But the Dark Lord looked not upon Xeykard with anger or cruelty, but with the warmth of acknowledgement.

"Very good, Knight Xeykard. You have done all that I have asked and more."

Darth Carnifex arose, His shadow preceding Him as He descended the steps. The shadow seemed to move all on it's own, writhing back and forth down the steps like the winding oscillations of a gargantuan serpent. Accompanying it was a bone-gnawing chill, as though even the memory of heat had been stolen away. When He reached Xeykard, the water molecules in the air around them had begun to crystalize, leaving a greasy film of frost upon the ground and the dead Jedi's shroud.

But none on either Xeykard or the Dark Lord.

With a gingerly grasp, the Dark Lord took the Jedi's corpse from Xeykard. Once the body had traded hands, an altar began to arise from the floor between the two. As it came to it's full height, Carnifex placed the body upon it. From the periphery, red-robed priests with masks of hammered gold appeared. These Kissai bowed reverently as they walked, never raising their heads high enough to show anything other than abject reverence to the Sith; even Xeykard was afforded such admiration and worship.

They converged around the body, and began to undress it of it's shroud and whatever garments yet remained. They would strip them all away, tossing them aside as they burst into brief flames and danced as ash upon the air. Studying the body, the Kissai began to make preliminary incisions along the torso, peeling away skin and muscles before slipping delicate fingers within. As they withdrew, they carried in their blood-stained grasp the various organs. They quickly transferred them into clay canopic jars, each bearing the likeness of an animal native of Korriban.

"Do you know why the Jedi burn their dead, Xeykard?" The Dark Lord's voice was sudden and piercing, tearing the silence to shreds in an instant.

Xeykard ​

 

[Xeykard]

Darth Carnifex
​

Though the frost did not touch him, Xeykard was still as the corpse as it was taken from his hands. When the Dark Lord withdrew, the Inquisitor rose stiffly, taking a step back from the altar. To be privy to the Dark Lord's work in this way was an honour given to few.

Or at least, he assumed as much. The arriving Kissai startled him; Xeykard, ever controlled, showed no sign of it. Yet the reverence they showed him was unsettling. He spent little time around bowed heads and slaves. Even in the time of the Empire he took no part in its decadence; his assignments had been on the fringes, dealing with the many enemies of the Empire rather than its most devoted. And yet, was he not its most devoted?

He watched the body be stripped. The Jedi, a wizened Duros, at first laid peacefully on the altar. In time his eyes, his heart, his lungs were removed. He looked more dead than he'd been before. Somehow there was pain in his expression now. Xeykard felt fear, too. Whether his own or the Jedi's, he could not say.

"This one does not know, my Lord," he said. "This one assumed it was some sort of tradition long passed on." Already he began to dread the Dark Lord's answer.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

As the last organ was removed, the priests began to fill the Jedi's chest cavity with small rounded rocks. By handfuls they placed them inside the open incisions, each stone glossy and black. They all looked to be volcanic in nature, but from what planet they had been taken from was impossible to say. Each stone seemed not to reflect light off of their surface, as might normally be the case, but seemed to rather absorb light entirely. But above all else, one thing was for certain.

Each pulsated with the Dark Side's radiance.

When the last stone had been laid inside the body, the priests then began to sew him up. Then, they took cloths damp with oil, and meticulously scrubbed the body from head to toe. There was great ritual significance to their actions, muscle memory honed through years and years of repetition. Under their breaths, they chanted ancient words; blasphemous words. Words long forgotten.

"Despite the Jedi's teachings and adversity towards the material universe, they understood that there was power to be found residing in flesh. The strongest of our orders are energized with power, perfect synergy between all the midi-chlorians in our cells. When a Jedi is burnt away, that energy is redistributed into the Cosmic Force. But in that brief time before, a Jedi's lifeless body is still charged with the energy they'd accumulated all their life." The Dark Lord looked down at the Duro's corpse. "A long time ago, the Jedi started to burn their dead because an ancestor of our order found the secret hidden within. The Jedi have all but forgotten this fear that compelled them to cremate their dead."

The Dark Lord pulled forth a dagger from His robes, the blade wickedly sharp with faint discoloration along the edge. "But I have rediscovered it, and the Jedi will again know a fear that only their most ancient forebears knew." He bent forward and brought the tip of the dagger towards the Duro's forehead. The first few cuts were small, made seemingly at random. But as the Dark Lord continued, a pattern began to emerge. He continued, across each cheek, the neck, the upper chest, creating a more and more elaborate tapestry of short, quick cuts.

"A fear that will paralyze them like stone."

Xeykard ​

 

[Xeykard]

Darth Carnifex
​

Every time he watched the Dark Lord, the more he was awed and terrified. Xeykard's own stature was impressive compared to most of his opponents, but it was his decades of training that kept him comparable in speed and dexterity. The Dark Lord towered over even the Inquisitor. Here, Xeykard watched a master at work, moving perfectly in all things. Precise in his speech, his cuts; the Dark Lord was perfection in all ways.

As he watched the Dark Lord work, his stomach churned. Like the decadence of the old Empire, Xeykard had also not taken part in the sorcerous ways of many Sith. Ritual and magicks seemed immaterial to him, only so useful as their ultimate effects. Xeykard had never taken an interest in such things. He was a man of action.

Yet the ritual was inflicted on the body. The Duro was still now, emptied of any semblance of what he may have been in life -- and yet the body was still there, still being sectioned, cut, rebuilt. He felt dwarfed again, felt his entire body clench and unclench. He was wholly present and it hurt.

"What will your ritual do, my Lord?" He had to know now, even if the answer would manifest soon.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"It will bring forth the darkness that only the desecration of light can yield."

The knife angled down, splitting flesh. It continued along a winding path, revealing a circular pattern writ into the chest by His previous incisions. As He pulled the blade away, the complex tapestry seemed to be at last complete. It not only covered the entirety of the corpse's chest, but ran up the neck and covered the face, and also ran down each of his four limbs; connecting every part of him.

Carnifex returned the blade to the priests, who took it with careful reverence -- making sure not to touch the blade. It was sacred, it had to be treated with the utmost worship. The priest with the dagger withdrew, while the others moved forward swaying heavy braziers filled with acrid incense. They swung the ornate thuribles over the body, whispering words of potent ritual significance.

"There are some who see the Force as a song, Inquisitor Xeykard. All beings in their perception contribute their own melody to the song, with both the Light and Dark emitting their own unique frequencies. It is possible for one so attuned to these melodies to twist and distort one frequency until it becomes polluted with the other. To twist the Light into Dark." The Dark Lord gestured to the body, "What I have done is created an amplifier, one that will radiate a new song. One that will cause discord in those attuned to the Light Side of the Force, reducing them to nothing more than a husk."

In truth, what the Dark Lord had done was artificially replicate the abilities of the Shrii Ka Rai, the Eaters of the Force. The Shrii Ka Rai had all but disappeared from the galaxy millennia ago, nor would the Dark Lord attempt to trifle with their kind even if they did persist. But through this complex ritual, He could turn such power against the Jedi and their cursed ilk.

"With this, shall the doom of the Jedi be sung."

Xeykard ​

 

[Xeykard]

Darth Carnifex
​

The animated corpse's presence disagreed with Xeykard. The Barabel's scales were thick enough to stop blaster bolts, but this... creature... pricked at his nerves, seized his muscles. He averted his gaze to the Dark Lord's feet, managing, stiffly, to kneel once more.

"This one is honoured to watch you work, my Lord," he said. "The Jedi will surely fall at the hands of your creation. This one will work tirelessly, as to not fall behind."

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Your conviction is noticed, Inquisitor Xeykard. Your reward will be substantial."

As the last of the rites were given, and the corpse was slowly bound together by bandages marked by runic inscription, the Dark Lord turned to fully face Xeykard. Power radiated out from the Dark Lord like radiation from an exposed reactor, but it was not heat that assailed the reptilian Sith -- but absolute frigidity. The Dark Side always manifested itself as a frightening chill, especially when it was strong, and it was enough to freeze particles in the air around the Dark Lord.

But even Xeykard could tell that this was a fraction of the Dark Lord's true power, what now emanated from the Butcher King was mundane compared to what lay beneath the surface. Xeykard could sense that the tattoos inked upon the Dark Lord's flesh had something to do with it, but it was not something related to empowerment or the bolstering of existing strength; but rather a suppression of it. Even then, what was allowed to peak through was enough to send shivers down the hardened Inquisitor's spine.

"Behold the strength of the Dark Side, made manifest in my image. Witness it's transmutation from within my flesh into yours." The Dark Lord reached out, hand inches away from Xeykard's skin. What happened next was power flowing out from the Dark Lord, and coming to settle within Xeykard. The Inquisitor would feel his own connection to the Dark Side strengthened, his power in the Force bolstered tremendously. The disturbance this transfer created would ripple out through the Force, coming to be sensed throughout the galaxy as a terrible sensation of foreboding doom.

"And arise again, Inquisitor Xeykard, and know renewed strength."

Xeykard ​

 

[Xeykard]

Darth Carnifex
​

Xeykard rose again. Normally he would not move another inch without the Dark Lord's permission, but he found himself bringing his hands up. From his heart to the ends of his claws a new power coursed; it set him off balance, as though his muscles were too powerful to keep him standing. He wanted to jump, draw his saber, test himself.

Without an outlet, that energy brought forth a confidence, spurred by this new strength. "My Lord," for the first time, looking at the Dark Lord's face, "this is truly a monumental gift. This one is without words for your magnanimity.

"If this one may be so bold -- when this one first returned to you, the leadership of the Saaraishash was among the positions that this one was thought suited for. This one has fought Jedi, traitors, rebels, all as promised. This one humbly requests your consideration for such an honour and duty." Finding some of that discipline again, he bowed his head once more.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"You have done well in my sight," intoned the Dark Lord of the Kainate, regarding the Inquisitor curiously. "The counterfeit Inquisitors of the Eternalists have been daring to tread where they should move most cautiously. They lack the experience and discipline of those instructed in the old ways, both of which you carry in abundance. My last Grand Inquisitor has been found lacking, and I have been considering suitable candidates for their replacement."

There was a moment, a pause, one of anticipation. "Would you make a suitable Grand Inquisitor, Xeykard? Perhaps so. We shall see what such authority makes of you. Today you came to me an Inquisitor, one of many, but you shall leave here today as Grand Inquisitor. The Saaraishash shall be yours to direct in my name. Destroy our enemies and ensure our survival, Grand Inquisitor. Seek out these faux inquisitors among the ranks of our adversaries and ensure that they do not pry too deeply."

And just like that, strength and authority was vested upon Xeykard in just a few words. Such was the power of the Dark Lord of the Kainate, who could make and unmake life as He saw fit. His magnanimity was not infinite, nor was His forgiveness. Some failures could not be overlooked, and the pressure was placed on Xeykard to prove his worth.

To show that the Dark Lord had not made a mistake.

Xeykard ​

 

[Xeykard]

Darth Carnifex
​

His bow deepened. "This one will not fail you. Your enemies will fall, at this one's hand."

He gave a supplicant gesture, and with the Dark Lord's permission, took his leave. Fear and power both coursed through his body. But power was the goal, and power he had gained.