Vjun? Isn’t that just a big, dead rock?

[Jantar Keltainen]

“Ooookay, so it’s a big, dead, important rock.”
― Kyle Katarn

Vjun was a dark, almost lifeless planet in the Vjun system, known for its acidic rainfalls and resultant lack of plant life. It was also renowned for its expensive hand-woven tunics.

In history, iIt was the location of Bast Castle, a fortress used by Count Dooku, and later a place where Darth Vader studied the dark side of the Force. But neither of these facts were the reason Jantar was here.

For Vjun was strong in the dark side.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Back on Coruscant, Jantar’s master had told her of Vjun’s tragic story, and for years Loysia had it in mind as a good place to make a retreat. The planet was heavy with the dark side, which made the study of the Sith ways easier. And more practically, Vjun’s catastrophe – a plague of sudden madness that carried off most of the planet’s population in a year – had left a great many nicely appointed castles empty for the taking.

So they sat in the study of some old chateau that Loysia had located. It suited them, given its remoteness, although Jantar wondered who, other than someone secretive like a Sith, would choose to live in such an inaccessible location.

Beyond the study window it was raining, of course – the same acid drizzle that had nearly eaten through the roof before Loysia had arrived to set things in better repair. In the distance, toward the seashore, a few twisted thorn-trees raised their claws at the dolorous sky, but the real ground cover was the notorious Vjun moss: soft, sticky, venomously green, and passively carnivorous. A two-hour nap on the stuff would leave exposed skin red, welted, and oozing.

Rain ran like tear tracks down the windows, but Jantar was not paying attention to that any more. She was staring at her own reflection.

She was the rose and the thorn together; the sound of a long knife driving home; the taste of blood on one’s lips.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Jantar turned her back on the window and stood before it, now gazing at Loysia.

“Have I served well?”

“Superbly well,” the Sith Lord admitted.

“Then reward me! Teach me more!”

“Have I not taught you many secrets, Jantar?”

“Scraps. Little devices. Lesser arts. Not nearly what I would have expected by now. I know. I am no fool,” she said angrily. She was dutiful as an acolyte but she was also ambitious and had no leash on her tongue. Loysia said it would get her into hot water sooner or later. Jantar, on the other hand, believed it was what had kept her out of trouble.

“I have learned much,” she said, by way of concession. “But not nearly enough. Sith magic. I crave its knowledge.”

“What do you know of natural history?” Loysia asked.

Jantar blinked. “What?”

“The Sith. Consider them as a species.”

Jantars’s lips thinned. “You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly serious. In fact, I have rarely been more serious.”

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Loysia paced over to a shelf of datacrons on the wall, plucked one out, and inserted it into the comm-cube on the desk.

“Behold: a particularly nasty insect, but by no means unique.”

A glowing picture formed in the air over the desk, a glossy red-and-black mantis.

“After mating, the female tears her partner’s head off and lays her eggs in his body. When the broodlings hatch, they eat their way out and then attack one another.”

“Your point,” Jantar said impatiently. “If you have one, make it.”

“It is a tricky business, this making of apprentices,” Loysia said. “A true Sith Lord must find a pupil in whom the Force runs strong.”

Jantar simply glared. To speak now would delay the conversation, which she had already decided was too long.

“But do I really want to make you so strong?” Loysia said softly. “I underestimated you. If I were to take you by the hand and lead you deep down below the black water that is the dark side, then you would grow far stronger.”

Jantar had an inkling where this was going, but continued to hold her tongue – as challenging as that was. But in the end she could not resist.

“What harm is there in teaching me?”

“You would betray me.” Loysia waved a hand in admonishment, cutting off Jantar’s protests. “It is the unhappy hazard of embracing the dark side. I am old, and I have learned the limits of my ambition. You are young, and strong, and those two things have always led to one place in the history of the Sith.”

“You think I would conspire against you? I owe you everything.”

“Not at first. But a day would come when you would disagree with my decisions. When you would start to dream of how much better things would be without me shackling you. I don’t have your appetites. I can wait on my kills, and use them to better ends. And for now, you might disagree, but you dare not disobey.”

And here, with a small smile, Loysia lifted just one finger. Jantar blanched.

“True,” she said, reluctantly.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Loysia let her finger drop. In the hologram on the desk, baby mantises were squirming from their father’s body. They groped blindly about them with their spindly hooked limbs until one, a little larger than the others, chanced to find that the sickles on his hind legs fit like a collar around a sibling’s neck. Driven by primitive instinct, he jerked and tore off his brother’s head.

“In a perfect galaxy,” Loysia said, “One could feed an apprentice just enough to keep her growing – just enough to keep her wanting more. I could develop you until all the Jedi would come looking for you, while I sat safe and sound on Coruscant, biding my time.”

Jantar inadvertently licked her lips. “Let them come,” she said. It was not bravado, just an over-inflated ego.

“Ah, to be young and full of hate!” Loysia chuckled. “You would be a star – of great use to everyone but me. But I’d have to keep you in your place. I’d have to hurt you, provoke you. Every secret you learn, you will pay for dearly. Oh yes, pay…”

Jantar regarded her Master.

“You don’t think I’m worthy.”

“You’re not listening, are you?”

“You’re not karking saying anything I can understand,” Jantar said angrily.

“How strange it is, to know your every thought before you think it.”

“Not even the karking dark side can give you that power,” Jantar said, unnerved.

Loysia smiled. “I have a power greater than the dark side, my young apprentice. I am old. Your fresh furies are my ancient mistakes.”

The insects squirmed and hunted in the vision over the desk. Loysia snapped off the holocron and turned her back on Jantar.

“Don't dismiss my karking needs,” Jantar said coldly.

Loysia looked around. “Or what?”

Jantar’s face went pale. She knew how far to push the conversation but in the heat of the moment, she’d forgotten to check how far she’d already travelled. Loysia lifted that one finger again, and this time she tapped it in the air, as if pushing a needle into a pincushion.

Jantar crumpled to her knees. Her voice came out clotted with pain.

“Stop. KARKING WELL STOP!”

“It doesn't feel very good, does it? Like sharp stones in your throat and chest.”

Loysia made another little patting motion, and Jantar slammed into the tile floor.

A cruel, strange quiet stretched out as Jantar lay panting on the stone floor. Rain ticked against the window glass, and Loysia seemed locked in thought.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Two days passed and Jantar and her master did not speak. The apprentice knew when to leave best alone and fought the urge to engage in conversation. She knew, deep down, it would not end well. Jantar’s tongue would get the better of her and she’d end up as dead as a womp-rat in Beggar’s Canyon. Whatever that meant.

She could sense her master’s mood. Usually the Sith Lord kept her emotions hidden and her power muted. But now? Jantar could smell the dark side on her like wood smoke, like something burning on a wet night.

Right now, Loysia scared her.

But Jantar drew on that fear. Her master used it early in their training and Jantar had responded well. Unlike the other emotions that could fuel the use of the dark side, fear was on another level.

Yes, anger was strong – and even pain could be a powerful ally when channelling the Force. But for Jantar, fear surpassed them by a veritable light year.

Many, her master taught her, shunned fear. For some it was debilitating, it made them freeze. So they did their best to block it out – to different effect. For others, it was a recognition that they were fallible – as if Sith should be above emotions, or able to control them. So they endured and it limited their abilities.

But to embrace fear? To relish it and use it? Not control it, that was a fool’s errand, but to channel it. To ride it like a Krayt Dragon. Never tamed but so very, very powerful.

Jantar practiced and used the fear prudently, driving her lessons and pushing herself to new limits, some she never expected she’d be capable of.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

It was raining again on Vjun, harder than usual. A wind had come up, shaking the blood-and-ivory rosebushes in the gardens outside. Ugly weather.

Jantar watched the acid raindrops hurl themselves against the windows, like the Jedi who every day flung themselves against the Sith across the length and breadth of the galaxy. Each little splotch leaving the imprint of its death on the glass, then dissolving into a featureless wet spill and trickle.

That was the fate of the Jedi in Jantar’s opinion. Selfless sacrifice that amounted to what? Tomorrow the window will be dry, no remnant of today’s rain-drop present. Or it will be wet, and a new drop will replace the old.

Either way, the rain battered the window in vain. The glass was going nowhere. In Jantar’s mind, the Jedi were a distraction as opposed to a target. She knew she did not share the views of all Sith – for whom some, the eradication of the Jedi was their sole purpose. She imagined a Jedi Padawan somewhere. On a planet where it was raining. And they were standing next to a window, just as she was. And they would be musing the same thoughts as she was – just in reverse.

Jantar was out for herself. She was always going to be loyal to the Sith – their ideals as much as their organisation. Actually not. The ideals were permanent, the command structure less so. She had no time for the Jedi and saw them as unworthy of sharing the same air as she did. But to devote her entire life to hunting them down and exterminating them? She could think of better things to do with her time.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Outside, the wind picked up another notch, shrieking and groaning. On a good day, Jantar was convinced her Master could walk between raindrops.

The young Sith was brought out of her musings by the door of the room she was practicing in opening. Loysia swept in, as if the past few days had never happened and there had been no bad blood between them.

“I have been thinking,” Loysia started and Jantar had to bite her tongue. Literally.

The Sith Master raised an eyebrow, as if taunting the young woman to say something. But convinced her young apprentice was keeping her emotions in check, she continued. “And I have a confession.”

Jantar’s saber deactivated with a hiss, snap and she clipped the hilt of the borrowed weapon to her belt. “Yes, Master,” Jantar said, enquiringly. She felt she needed to say at least something.

“There is a very good reason I have not taught you Sith magic.”

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

“A rare few have a natural affinity for the dark side itself. So a great Sith Lord once stated. Amd he was right. Few are truly capable of delving into the depths of the Force and summon arcane energies to twist and warp the world around them. Not just anyone can invoke ancient rituals of the Sith; unleashing dark magics.”

“Do I lack aptitude, or an I just scared?”

Jantar stood dumbfounded. Whatever she thought her master would share, this wasn’t it. This was a revelation.

“I was always told that he Force can be bent to your will. But at a cost. There is always a cost. And the more powerful the rituals of the dark side? Yes, these exact a toll few are willing to pay. Not only in ways that only a Sith can understand, but in what it denies you. Nobody can be a master of all. Sith magic opens up a world of immense power, but leaves you vulnerable elsewhere.”

“I suspect I was not capable of great things, but I was never going to find out. I crave power and through the things I have learned I can achieve all of my ambitions. Why take the risk. The risk of failure and, perversely, the risk of success.”

“But you dance to a different drum-beat. I know that. I will show you the basics of everything I know and allow you to then make decisions. If it is enough, develop and practice these skills. If not, and I suspect not – decide what you wish to spend your time on. If it’s Sith magic, then devote your study time to these things.”

Then Loysia handed over a datacron. “There are no secrets contained within, but there is information, more than you would find out publicly. Read, digest and decide. I owe you this much at least.”

And with that, Loysia left the room.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Jantar pored over the datacron, covering its contents many times before she was satisfied. She could recite the content verbatim by the end of her studies and the key information was uppermost in her conscious mind.

Traditionally, Sith magic was an arcane expression of Force ability. Sith magic, while as much a part of the dark side as abilities, was accessible only to those Force-sensitives who possessed an intrinsic relationship with the dark side.

Through the recitation of spells, execution of hand gestures, and or the handling of various artefacts, darksiders were able to channel the raw power of the Force’s malignant side to warp minds, alter the environment, and obliterate whatever obstacles stood in their way.

Sith magic was prevalent at the time of the ancient Sith Empire, and its disciplines were adhered to throughout the span of galactic history. Proponents of Sith magic revived its practice briefly during the New Sith Wars, but it became something of an oddity following the reformation of the Republic.

Still, the allure of Sith magic survived and curious Force-sensitives learned to harness its power from obscure temples on long-forgotten planets and moons.

And the datacron emphasised over and over the fact that Sith magic was an innate gift.

Some referred to Sith magic as the full destructive power of the dark side of the Force. Like any use of the dark side, strength was derived from negative emotions, and grew stronger and more corrupting with each expression.

The magic of the ancient Sith was a complex power that assaulted an individual’s psyche in ways that were both difficult to comprehend and defend against. Only beings with considerable strength of will were able to resist its psychological effects. However, a Sith sorcerer’s concentration was able to be interrupted by Force-users skilled in the art of Jedi Battle Meditation, and their magical creations could be undone by pure manifestations of the light side of the Force.

A true master is able to use simple thoughts or complex hand gestures with minimal effort to perform spells and rituals.

Having finished, Jantar remained stunned at her master’s admission. She was still unsure if she saw this as a positive or a negative. On one hand, she would be trained fully on aspects of the Sith that her master knew of. That was more than she had now. But she would have to find a new teacher to discover the secrets of Sith magic. Finally, Jantar came to a pragmatic approach to the news.

Better a live womp rat than a dead dire cat.