Jedi Insurgency 146 (Interlude 18)

The wind howled across the red plains of Dathomir as Darth Maul stepped from his shuttlecraft, and onto the scorched earth of his birthworld. The air tasted of soot and ash. Months had passed since General Grievous’ massacre, but the soil still carried the stench of charred flesh, and the spirits of the Night Sisters clung stubbornly to the shattered remnants of their homeland. Foregoing any escort, he made this pilgrimage alone. 

Maul moved toward a ruined temple ahead. It once served as Mother Talzin’s sacred stronghold, now it was little more than a skeletal husk. Vines, blackened and brittle, crawled over its collapsed arches, and wrapped around skeletal remains. Pausing at the threshold to an underground entrance, he recalled those bittersweet moments that he had experienced at this temple. 

Savage Opress. 

His brother’s name rose unbidden, a thorn in his mind. The man embodied loyalty, raw power…and kindness of all things. Maul could almost feel the heat of his brother’s final breath, the sound of his body hitting the cold stone floor as life left those once-fearsome yellow eyes. Savage had been a weapon forged for him, a bond Maul had never asked for but had grown to…value. Unbeknownst to him, a single tear trailed down his cheek at the memory of his brother’s demise. 

Then there was Mother Talzin. Cruel, calculating, she was the source of his woes. The old crone had gifted him “love” the way a blacksmith gifted fire to a weapon. She had forged him, hardened him, then sold him like chattel to Palpatine. He was but a boy, a child ignorant to the galaxy. Thrust into the pitiless crucible of Sith training, he hardly knew who he was anymore. Her affection had been a razor, never once did he receive her praise no matter how hard he tried. 

Maul's lip curled as he stepped inside the temple.

The interior was worse than the exterior. Shattered altars, clawed walls, and a lingering residue of death permeated the stale air. As Maul walked deeper, his emotions began to rage like a boiling pot ready to explode. 

He remembered kneeling before Palpatine as a child, trembling under the Dark Lord’s measuring gaze. He remembered the years of merciless drills, the pain, the deprivation, the indoctrination. He remembered Kenobi’s blade cleaving him in two, his fall into that damned pit. He remembered his exile to that scrap world, and the endless piles of refuse. The years of madness, the crawling, howling, desperate hunger to live, and days spent living like a wretch with no home. 

Again and again, this pain tortured his psyche. And yet, he did not lose his mind, nor did he buckle or break due to the pressure. Instead, these turbulent emotions served to act as his fuel. 

A dangerous focus flowed through him as he prowled the halls of this once vibrant temple. 

Now, at last, he stood not as an apprentice, not as prey, not as a puppet, but as heir. As the last son of Dathomir.

Reaching the chamber at the very heart of the temple, it pulsed faintly, and whispered at him like a long lost lover. Maul approached a cracked obsidian altar upon which rested a lone object. Evil, naked & pure radiated in subtle waves. It was practically begging to be put to use. 

This was it, this was why he had returned after being apart for so long. There was no love lost for his people. Uniting the scattered tribes was nothing more than a pretext, a bonus all things considered. No, what he wanted was this: 

The Book of Shadows.

Mother Talzin had guarded it fiercely. Many Night Sisters had killed to protect it. Countless enemies had died trying to steal it. The tome held centuries of Dathomiri wisdom, witchcraft, rituals, binding spells, and secrets whispered to their ancestors by the dark spirits by the great beyond. 

It belonged to him.

Maul extended a hand, his fingers trembled with anticipation. With triumph. With the certainty of a destiny he had been denied his entire life.

As his hand closed around the Book of Shadows, a surge of cold power rushed up his arm and through his veins. The spirits seemed to murmur their approval, and a shallow breeze ruffled his black robes. 

At last, he thought.

At last, the galaxy would remember what it meant to cross a son of Dathomir.

Maul turned from the altar, the tome secured under his arm, and strode back toward the world above. His path had been filled with mockery, and disdain. 

His Master had laughed, and belittled him at every turn, and became the subject of many a nightmare. Yet the old man had said it best they were rivals! 

His birthright had been reclaimed, and he would wield it without mercy.

As Maul was imagining this bright future, the Book of Shadows dissolved like smoke the instant Maul’s tried to open the cover. One heartbeat it lay solid and cold in his palm, and in the next, it was nothing. As if it never existed to begin with. 

Maul stared at his empty hand. His disbelief was quick to contort into a raging fury. His breath hitched, then exploded from him in a guttural, feral growl that reverberated through the Force like the roar of a starving beast. The temple walls trembled, causing dust and stone to collapse everywhere, threatening the building's structure. 

Seconds later, someone approached from the darkness up ahead. Lithe of frame, pale of skin, and sporting short white hair, she slow-clapped as she approached. 

“Well.” A familiar voice drawled from the darkness, “That was dramatic even for you.”

Maul jerked, and lifted his head with a sharp snap. 

“YOU!”

Ventress stepped into the half-light, her pale skin was ghostlike within the charred ruins. Her expression carved in equal parts amusement and disdain. 

“Me.” She darkly smirked. 

Maul began to pace toward her in a predatory arc, each step built up a kind of momentum that reminded one of a coiled serpent. He was ready to strike. 

“Where is it, Ventress? Give it to me.”

She crossed her arms, weight shifting onto one hip, and raised an eyebrow at his advancing figure as if he were a presumptuous servant. 

“I think you should hand over the Book of Shadows, since you’re clearly too…unstable to handle it.”

Maul’s snarl echoed off the walls. He was done playing games. However, he was no fool. Age, loss, victory, these things had taught him patience. Slowing in his step, he gave her a look. 

You had better give me a satisfactory answer. He all but projected violently into the Force. 

Ventres maintained her smirk, then delivered a sharp glare, rebuffing his psychic assault. Her voice turned venomous, and yet was soft, like a freshly laundered sheet. “You know, all of this-” She gestured at the scorched ruin. “The massacre, the loss of the Night Sisters…it’s on you. If you’d been here instead of chasing your delusions of vengeance, we could’ve taken Grievous together. Maybe Mother Talzin would still be alive. Maybe my sisters would still breathe.”

Maul stiffened at the accusation, and almost launched himself at her right then and there, but his rage no longer ruled him. As a monarch, and man who had managed subordinates, he knew that Ventress would make a fine addition to his collection. 

“I was sold, Ventress. Torn from this world by the caste system that you benefitted from. Palpatine took me, forged me, used me, and cast me aside like yesterday's waste. I owe him nothing. I owe the Night Sisters even less.”

He stepped closer, but this time, was not acting like the frothing animal full of rage that he had presented himself as moments ago. Ventress held her ground, but her fingers drifted near the hilt of her saber. The more calm he acted, the more danger he radiated. 

“We are not enemies by nature, you and I. We are weapons sharpened by betrayal… discarded by masters who feared our potential. The Sith used us, and yes, even Mother Talzin used both of us.” Maul’s tone softened, and was almost tender, yet was laden with a coiling darkness. His whispers were like the temptations of a devil. 

He reached her at last, close enough that his whisper brushed her ear like a cold breath.

“Joined together, we could be unstoppable. You and I could overthrow the Sith, crush the Jedi…and rule the galaxy in the ashes of those who wronged us.” His lips then twisted into a wicked, conspiratorial smile, and his hot breath fell upon her neck. “Emperor…and Empress. It has a ring to it, don't you think?”

After a moment of temptation, Ventress slapped his hand aside, and took a hurried step back. Maul’s fingers curled into a fist, but he noted that her eyes had softened, if only by a fraction. Some part of her heard him. Some part of her considered his proposal as viable. 

“Maul…” Ventress began, and looked him up and down with uncertainty. 

At that moment, as unsaid feelings seemed to manifest, the air grew icy cold. 

A low, rasping laughter seeped from the darkness of the temple. It was everywhere and nowhere at once. The voice crawled along the walls, down their spines, and lit the halls with green, spectral light.

Ventress stiffened, and Maul made an ugly face, as if he had smelt something foul.

A swirl of emerald fire coalesced into a twisted, thin, hunched figure. Draped in tattered clothes that resembled ceremonial robes, her skin was pallid like chunky cement. Her fingers were long and clawed, and she sported a rotten, blackened smile. 

Gethzerion.

Grandmother of Ventress. Exiled matriarch. First keeper of the Nightsisters’ darkest traditions. Author of the Book of Shadows.

She hovered above the temple floor, dressed in a red robe, and adorned with red ritualistic tattoos, her presence was the epitome of rot. Not even the stones could escape her putrid aura, as they slowly crumbled into black slime. A nearby colony of insect eggs hatched prematurely, and out climbed grotesque, mutated flies. 

“Well, well…” She crooned in a wet, and giddy voice. “Two little vipers, hissing at each other in my tomb.”

“Grandmother-!” Ventress exclaimed, all of her bluster in the face of Maul seemingly disappeared as her clear eyes met the cloudy, turbid orbs of her ancestor. 

Gethzerion’s head snapped toward Ventress at an angle that would kill any normal person. It was as if she was wired with marionette strings. 

“Child, you disappoint me. Letting this male speak to you as his equal.” Gethzerion rasped. “Subdue him. Bind him. Males of Dathomir are fit only to serve as studs and laborers. You know our law. Do it.” 

Maul eyed the two of them, and gathered himself. The time to strike would be soon, he could feel it. 

Gethzerion drifted closer to Ventress, whispering like a serpent tempting the succulent flesh of an apple's fruit. “Do this for me, sweet one. Take him. Break him. And I shall name you my heir. I shall teach you every secret I ever bled into the Book of Shadows.” Her cracked tongue flickered across her teeth, and a rotten rust-brown spittle acidified a nearby stone step. “Power awaits you, power the likes of which was beyond even Talzin’s reach.”

Ventress faltered, as her ambitions stirred. Her lightsaber hilt quivered at her hip. Torn between the legacy of her people, and the loathing at herself for her failures, torn between the duty to Mother Talzin to resist this witch, and the bitter, warped love of a grandmother she had feared all her life.

Maul sensed this hesitation, and moved.

He lunged forward at super speeds, the Darksaber ignited with a feral shriek of black light as he moved towards his target. The blade cut down in a murderous arc toward Gethzerion’s floating form, but Ventress did not remain idle. 

Her blades snapped to life with twin hisses, and she threw herself between them on pure instinct. Crimson and black clashed as their blades locked. 

“Stand aside, Ventress! We are better than this! Beyond such petty manipulations!” Maul snarled, and used his superior physique to press her back. 

“Don’t force my hand. You wouldn't understand the importance of family!” She spat back, pushing against his blade even as her heart hammered with confusion and fury.

The temple rang with the violent hum of their locked weapons, and resounding telekinetic shocks shook the already unstable structure as they tested one another. 

From above them, floating in the air, Gethzerion watched with a smile crawling with maggots, her eyes glowed sickly green with spectral fire. 

“Yesss. Fight, children. Destroy one another. All the better for me.”

The battle that followed was nothing short of apocalyptic.

The temple they fought within faced oblivion as these two titans of the Darkside dueled. Stone pillars lay shattered every which way, great slabs of obsidian were reduced to smoking fragments, and the night sky above was choked with rising smoke and flame. The earth itself was split in places where their powers had collided, leaving great fissures, and rubble piled high. 

At the center of the devastation, Maul stood shirtless. His chest was heaving, his skin was streaked with blood & soot, and exhaustion coated his form. Standing atop the collapsed temple dedicated to his mother, the rains of Dathomir poured down upon him, cleansing him of this filth, and birthing him anew. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning flashed, revealing a tattooed face that burned with savage triumph. 

Ventress lay on her back in the rubble, gasping for breath. One arm lay limp at her side where Maul had finally wrenched her lightsabers away.

Maul loomed over her, wild and unstoppable. The Darksaber crackled in his hand, and setting it to a less than lethal level of energy, he struck her across the face, leaving a red mark on the bridge of her nose. 

“Submit!” He roared, voice raw, and animalistic. “Submit, Ventress!”

He pinned her with a boot to her chest, and held the tip of his blade at her neck. 

Ventress coughed out a thick wad of blood, and spat on his boot. Yet Maul merely grinned. “The witch has been buried in the temple, our people are on the verge of extinction. I need you Ventress, just as much as you need me! Why can you not see that?!” 

Ventress lowered her eyes, and happened to see his chiseled muscles, and tattooed form. Feelings unknown began to stir, and a question began to form unbidden. ‘Would it be so bad? By the end of the week, this man would be dancing to the tune of her finger.’ 

Yet as she had this thought, a figure emerged from a swirl of rotten leaves in a puff of green smoke. 

Gethzerion.

Her rotten smile stretched much too wide.

“Poor little Maul. Clinging to a hope that never will be.” She whispered, and then blasted him in the back with a torrent of searing green lightning.

Maul screamed, his body convulsed as he was hurled forward. The Darksaber fell from his grip, clattering on the stone beside Ventress as he fell face first into a pile of mud. He hit the ground on his hard, and clawed at the dirt, wriggling like a worm as the pain spread through his body like a plague. Boils formed on his face, and the pallor of his skin faded as if he had aged 50 years. 

Gethzerion cackled in a high pitched, shrill, delighted tone that was beyond sanity. She poured more power into the blast, watching with sick joy as Maul writhed. 

“Dance for me, little male! Beg! Cry! I want to hear it!” Gethzerion shrieked. 

Maul’s voice broke as the pain tore through him.

“PLEASE-!”

Ventress felt pity grip her heart as she couldn't look away. 

The word hung in the ruined air for a moment, and Ventress recalled the times when she had been on the receiving end of Force Lightning. 

She looked between Maul and the deranged specter of her grandmother. Her jaw tightened; the muscle beneath her cheek twitched. Something old and ugly twisted inside her-fear, resentment, humiliation-and above all else, the feeling of being a broken girl who yearned for love and belonging. 

Then she exhaled sharply.

“Enough.”

Ventress snatched up the Darksaber, and walked behind the old crone. Mesmerized by her torture, Gethzerion didn't register her presence until it was too late. 

“You-?”

Ventress plunged the black blade through her grandmother's chest, a single tear trailed down her face.”I am sorry.” 

The scream that followed was not human. A howl of magic being violently unraveled exploded towards the heavens as if a thousand old women had cried out at once. Gethzerion’s eyes bulged, and her body cracked, with green fissures of leaking spirit-fire. She staggered backward, clawing uselessly at the blade impaling her, then collapsed into the mud of Dathomir. 

“V-Ventress…child…I-I would have-”

“You would have destroyed me. Like everyone else who entered your clutches.” Ventress replied in an icy tone. 

The spectral fire then consumed Gethzerion, her form collapsed inward until she burst apart in a shockwave of green dust and ghostly embers.

A gentle breeze flicked her hair, and the distant thunder came near as several ear-splitting booms hovered directly overhead. Slipping out of the witch's tattered robes was the Rancor-skinned leatherbound book. The Book of Shadows. 

Ventress stood breathing heavily, the Darksaber dimming in her hand, and she picked up the ancient tome. She looked down at Maul, who lay trembling on the ground, his back was scorched, yet already, the curses from Gethzerion's lightning were already disappearing. 

With a small, irritated huff, she extended her hand.

“Don’t misunderstand, I didn't save you because I have feelings for you. You're obnoxious, reckless, and you smell like bantha shi-.”

Maul lifted his head slowly, meeting her eyes with a lopsided, bloody grin. He took her hand, letting her pull him upright, and placed a finger on her lips, silencing her. 

“Of course.” He murmured with unexpected smoothness, bowing his head slightly.

“My Empress.”