E Z E K Y L E
The Kha’Sherhan
Book One.
‘Strength without wisdom breeds nothing but savagery…
Wisdom without strength promises nothing but extinction.’
Book One.
‘Strength without wisdom breeds nothing but savagery…
Wisdom without strength promises nothing but extinction.’
Raust used those words. He would come to this place of fire and stone, smelling of the blood spilt in the name of the Empire and the dust of whatever world he had come home from. Each of these times I would see the chips in his armour, the fresh scars on his face and every time I would tend to him. Like a good servant.
He would ask me to retell the stories of his telling as I worked. Tales of when the wars of the Empire were still just wars, when the Sith were at their rise rather than in the state that stands before us now.
When he held back the light of the Jedi.
Raust forever would cling to these tales as his legacy. A dark calling of words that he insisted were his to hear and mine to tell. I knew no different, for his words all I knew and all I wanted. But so much was held from me, there was glimmers of teachings here, promises of power there. The darkside endures within me because of him. How little did he expect what would come.
As I speak I can hear the scratching of a quill against parchment. My words etched onto the means to pass the knowledge. I know not the name of my scribe or what he seeks, yet it amuses me so that in this day of technology he still admires the art of paper and ink. A life skill long forgotten by many of my order or indeed the galaxy as a whole.
As I talk I know as much as he does that these words are likely to be my last I ever commit. My time is coming as I have been told by the sages of Vaelarii, words that I shall enact to paper later in this tale. I have sought to slow this time, to war against it as best as I can but even I at my prime cannot escape fate it would seem.
And so I shall tell you the story that starts with Darth Raust and I shall warn you now it is a tangled one. It crosses paths between soulless wanderers and shadowed death. It stirs the ashes of history, rekindling the memories of broken factions and the treachery of planets and the very Force itself. It is a story of war, of death, of victory or loss.
There may be lessons to be learned throughout these pages. You may understand it, you may not, but I insist you carry on. For this chronicle are the last days of my life. Before I become what I am at the end.
This, then, is the tale of Ezekyle Vadhán and the Sith Empire. It is a tale that has yet to end. However now I shall finally ensure that it does end told...