Here is:

"Prologue":
(c: 2000, L. Breman)

He strode into their midst that long-remembered day, aloof and indifferent, as would some darkly fearsome god to whom mortals would be as nothing. The cryptic marks upon his proud face lent him an air of mystery, a seductive beauty that set some to swooning at his presence, flaunting and offering themselves in hopeful abandon, while those more wise quietly and simply hurried out of his way. The gesturing and posturing of those left in the wake of the closing doors did not concern him: his purpose was not in the taking of the body, or even of the heart. Deeper visions bore him onward, until he reached the middle of the village and came to a halt.

Just once, a slow grin curled his lips. Blackened teeth glistened briefly in the waning sunlight, dark-cloaked arms were raised in homage to something unspeakable. Then his arms were dropped, and he whirled with ferocious alacrity upon the huddling villagers, something even darker filling his visage at the fear and anticipation he saw before him. And when he was through with them, they could not even cry out for death to release them. They simply thought it unattainable....

“He’s here, he’s here, he’s here! Get up, get up, get UP!!!” Jha’par pummeled the lump in front of her with as much strength as she could muster, undeterred by the intermittent moans and groans that issued forth from it. “C’mon, Elnin! Would you get up? Please?” She gave the lump another punch for emphasis.

Beneath her ministrations, the lump shifted, snorted, and groaned again. The top of a tousled head proclaimed itself above the bedclothes. “Nrff,” said a muffled voice. “G’way, Booji! Sleeping...”

“Aww-- c’MON, Elnin! How can you sleep now? Didn’t you hear me?” Jha’par lifted the edge of the blanket, peered into the hollow spaces beneath it. “He’s HERE!”

“All right, all right!” With a sudden motion, the lump jerked upright, flinging bedclothes and pillows from it. Elnin yawned, stretched. “Skitterns, but you’re a pest! Okay, I’m up!

“So where’s Uncle Qui-Gon?”

A moment passed in which young Jha’par did nothing more than continue to tug at her brother’s nightshirt. “C’mon, Elnin. You gotta get dressed!” She gave his shirt another yank. “He’s here! He’s here! He’s here! We gotta go to him! I gotta go to him! C‘MON!” Her chest heaved and she began to actually pant from her exertions.

“Hey, Jha’par, quit that!” Elnin protested. He tried to duck as her flailing grew wilder, her breathing heavier and faster. Finally he gave up avoidance tactics altogether, and snatched up Jha’par’s wrists in mid-strike. “Enough’s enough! What’s the matter with you, you’re acting like some kind of -- Jha’par, are you okay? Where‘s Uncle Qui-Gon? Jha‘par?”

Elnin’s hold on Jha’par’s wrists tightened, and he drew them together and pressed them to his chest. For a long moment he looked into his sister’s startlingly violet eyes, concerned by the cloudbanks he read in their depths. His sister held briefly still, then began to wriggle in his grasp. “Lemme go, we gotta go, I GOTTA GO!” She fought against him, her twisting hands still gripped in his own, eyes wide but seeing nothing. “Elnin, don’t you want to come with me to see him? You said you were coming with me to see HIM...”

In the next instant, Jha’par’s voice trailed off into a breathy whisper. With the quickness of a sandcat, she grew entirely limp. She would have fallen to the floor from her precarious position on the edge of Elnin’s sleeping pad if it weren’t for his sustaining grip on her wrists. Elnin released one hand from its hold, to take a new position around her slumping shoulders. “Jha’par? he questioned in a quiet voice. “Booji?” Gently, he caught her up and laid her down next to him. “Aw, Booji...” With surprising gentleness he brushed sweaty hair from her face, laid quiet fingers against her trembling lids. “Not another dream....”

Chapter Two

He stood on the outer balcony, contemplating the night. All around, as far as he could see, millions upon millions of glittering motes proclaimed the presence of life: beacons to incoming landers here, the glow from places of work there; all about, the directing beams of flyers as people rushed hither and yon above the darkened earth kilometers below. So bright were the various lights that the stars in the sky were lost before their brilliance. Indeed, it was as if the very heavens had fallen to earth, leaving behind a velvet tablet upon which some new destiny could be written with the right mind and by the right hand.

He was more than confident that his was that particular mind and hand...

A tweak in the elsewhere alerted him; he whirled, topaz eyes slitted at the intrusion. Then his demeanor relaxed, unconscious tension flowing into expectation at the sight of the dark-cloaked figure which silently glided into his presence. He dipped his own cloaked head in token reverence, his eyes never leaving the almost glowing pair which sought to capture his own.

“My Master.” His whisper was like the kiss of an adder, silkily sibilant and just as deadly.

The figure before him clasped pale hands together, let forth a rasping chuckle. “Ahhh... Lord Maul,” he cackled. “So it is here I find you, lost in your thoughts. They prove transparent, and betray you. You would do well to direct greater effort in masking them, my adept. Seek you assistance or direction?”

The Sith Lord merely kept his eyes steadily upon those of his Dark Master. After a long moment passed between the two, marked only by the sounds of passing wind and flyers, he turned his gaze out into the glittering night once again. Then inward. To passersby he appeared nothing more than a dark and foreboding shadow: tall, cloaked, utterly commanding in his silence, fearsome power surrounding him in a tangible aura. Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, was not taken in so easily by outward appearances, however; what was of greater concern was the inner turmoil he sensed in his Sith apprentice. He reached out a gnarled hand and placed it on the strong shoulder before him.

“Be mindful, my young friend,” he reprimanded in a low voice.

Lord Maul seemed to pull himself out of elsewhere. His gaze grew focused, and a slight frown marred his wildly beautiful features. “Indeed, My Master,” he replied in a soft whisper. “I am only too...mindful.”

Dark Lord Sidious frowned in turn, drew his hand from his adept’s shoulder. “You have become strong, my friend,” he stated in a matter-of-fact tone. “It pleases me to feel the strength of the Dark Side which flows through you. But I must caution you: in turnabout for that strength, the Dark Side must be obeyed. You have a covenant with it; and in that covenant you have your destiny, as I have mine. It is the will of the Force.”

“The will of the Force.” Lord Maul’s reply mocked the wind for the note of haunting certainty it contained. He drew himself up into an even taller shadow, the coiling tension within him revealed only by his right hand which curled into a fist, as if seeking the handle of his lightsaber with which to slash and disembowel some incorporeal adversary. He almost gave a physical start as his Dark Lord’s hand fell upon his shoulder once again.

“Come, my young friend,” the evil voice beckoned him. “Let us walk along and discuss this thing which disturbs you so.”

Maul turned and directed a dark look upon his even darker master. “There is no need to take up your time, my Master,” he purred, bowing his head to soften the seeming disrespect in his words. “It is but a minor... discomfiture.” Lord Maul straightened his head and gazed steadily into the hooded eyes of his Master once again, awaiting his reply. Behind him, a lander droned past, it’s passing occupants as naked to the Dark Lord’s senses as were his adept’s churning emotions. Or so the Dark Lord of the Sith believed....

Darth Sidious stared intently into the feral face before him. “Very well,” he conceded at length. “I will leave you to your thoughts, Lord Maul. But be wary of the path down which they may lead you. The will of the dark Side cannot be disobeyed.”

“I will not disobey the Force, my Master.” Lord Maul emphasized the promise by briefly closing his eyes, and fully bowing before his own Lord. Still as some ebony statue, he remained thus until the rustle of heavy cloth bespoke the departure of Darth Sidious from the balcony.

Maul straightened. “I will not disobey,” he repeated into the night, his voice taking on a steely note. “Far from it....” Once again his thoughts turned inward, and at length he allowed a brief spark of satisfaction to surface. His Dark Lord was powerful in the Force, but not omnipotent. All was proceeding in perfect accordance with his own dark designs.

When he was certain his master was beyond sensing, he let the shadows he had so skillfully been holding at bay rush forth, and dared to remember. That early training flight ordered by Dark Lord Sidious, the unexpected coolant leak in his infiltrator’s hyperdrive, the emergency landing on a far-off and little known world. The cave. And then the Discovery.

His lip curling with absolute belief in himself, Lord Maul reached into the folds of his cloak, pulled out a small object. Harder than diamond, more dense than durasteel, it lay in his gloved palm as would a singularity if one were actually able to be grasped by mortal beings. Difficult to view directly, imbued with incredible unleashed power, it linked the here with the then, the there with the why, the now with eternity. Unthinkable that it actually existed at all after millennia had passed, it was a token that was pure Sith. The embodiment of raw Dark Force. By possession alone it had already revealed far more to him than ever had his Master; had taught him more than he ever thought possible. And it was his to command.

In one smooth motion he placed the object deep within the concealing folds of his cloak, then began to walk along the immense building’s outer balcony. His vision still focused inward, he strode forward, unseeing, letting the replay of a time and day long past bear him onward. A tiny messenger droid skittered up in front of him, screeched to a halt, servo-repulsors groaning with the strain, then turned and fled, quietly meeping to itself. The little mechanism didn’t warrant so much as an eyeblink from the dark Sith Lord, although he was well aware of the small interruption. It had not been sent by his Dark Lord of the Sith master. It was therefore ignored, completely overwhelmed by the dark memories and even darker suggestions of the future which filled his being.

There was a time in his not-too-distant past where even he, the second-most powerful being in the known universe, would have cowered before the sheer effrontery of his thoughts. Would have offered them openly to his Dark Master, would have actually trembled at the idea that his being was the vessel of such mysteries, unwilling or not, and in the offering would have been content to depart still a Sith adept, still with his life-force intact.

Now, in the depths of his black soul, he knew how utterly naive such an action appeared, how foolish it would have been to have revealed his Secret to Dark Lord Sidious. The Power he commanded was so great it could not be shared, could never be utilized by more than one entity at one time. Though he strained to fulfill his dark ambitions with a total commitment to the Dark Side, sought to strengthen himself and his Master unendingly with the pain and chaos and hatred and fear he could so easily instill in others, he fully recognized the dangers involved if the Power he carried was misused. Proper utilization by one could result in an increase of that sought-after pain and misery more than a thousand-fold, could elevate that single entity to a position absolutely untouchable by any other being in the universe. The conflict presented as two or more strove to unleash the unthinkable energies would result in nothing less than the annihilation of all that was.

And if only one entity could command that Power, that entity would be him.

Lord Maul pulled himself out of his dark reveries with the knowledge that he had reached his destination: his personal landing pad. Hidden away from the view of the billions of beings who occupied this great city-world, the infiltrator awarded to him by his Master awaited his approach, sleekly dynamic, eager to spring into the void at his slightest whim. His thoughts hidden even more skillfully by the muffling effect of the token he carried, Lord Maul strode up the entrance ramp in the rear of his vessel, and disappeared into its depths. After a moment the vehicle leapt into the night sky, becoming nothing more than another glittering mote amongst the millions already in motion there. In its wake, it left a faded and dying destiny.

CHAPTER THREE

Ever since the death of her parents in one of the great firestorms that periodically besieged Tellurak, Jha’par Jinn-Dar had in turn been besieged by the dreams. Though for the most part she could never really recall their content upon awakening, time and again she jerked into wakefulness with the uneasy feeling that her night had been filled with flame-shot darkness, with some sort of seductive promise. Even more disturbing, the waning sense would always leave her struggling with an even deeper reconciliation toward something within herself she would not care to examine too closely, even if she could. The dreams were not a nightly event, but rather came sporadically, keeping her off-centered, off-balanced. In thus a manner, they slowly and insidiously began to gnaw away at her inner reserve, and belief in herself, and in her world. She began to eat less, to grow thin and pale.

Elnin Jinn-Dar, older brother and self-appointed guardian, was not so stupid as to ignore the obvious link existing between the death of their parents and Jha’par’s nightmares. He called in healers of both body and mind, but all their ministrations came to naught. The dreams continued to wrack Jha’par’s nights, growing stronger and more insidious as time passed. And as time passed, they finally began to leave bits and pieces of themselves in Jha’par’s consciousness. It was only after discovering what actually was being created in the depths of his sister’s mind that Elnin realized greater assistance was needed. Not without some reluctance, he called out to his uncle for help.

It hurt to have to make that call. Qui-Gon Jinn, newly appointed Jedi Master, was for all intents and purposes uncle to Elnin and Jha’par Jinn-Dar in name only. They had never met him in person, though their parents had told them as much about him and his exploits as they knew. Even so, Elnin thought for a certainty that he would at least come to Tellurak upon hearing of the death of his sister and her husband, and he looked for the Jedi’s arrival with great expectations. But he had been wrong. The funeral service came and went, and Elnin was left alone with his pain and his anger, seeking to mitigate both his and his sister’s grief as best he could.

What hurt more than this, however, was that even though he was angry with his uncle, even though he didn’t really know him, Elnin nevertheless adored him and his lifestyle. The simple truth was that Elnin craved to become a Jedi Knight, to attend the Academy and perhaps learn from his mysterious uncle, and to one day contribute his own small part in the defense the Republic. But he was simply not Force sensitive; neither was his young sister. Both had been duly tested and bypassed by the Jedi Council when they were toddlers. The summons Elnin sent speeding toward the Spire of the Jedi Council served only to remind him not only of that which he could never be, but that in the affairs of his own household he needed assistance from afar.

That assistance was not so easily summoned. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had just been appointed a young apprentice of his own. He could not simply abandon the road he was placed upon in favor of family and its misfortunes. Indeed, throughout his career he had been actively cautioned to avoid doing so. Such was not the Jedi way, as harsh as it might seem to some. First and foremost was the allegiance to the Light Side, then to the common good. Family was placed a far and distant third in the hierarchy of Jedi responsibilities; thus, although painfully aware of it, he did not attend the funeral of his sister on Tellurak. But when the call for help came from his nephew, something urged him to seek the conjoined wisdom of the Jedi Council. So it was that he found himself before them, high inside their citadel which towered above this glittering galactic center, upon a world called Coruscant.

“I seek the indulgence of the Council,” Qui-Gon stated, his words as simple on the surface as was the homespun Jedi robe he wore. Behind him, a young Obi-Wan worked very hard at not fretting, although his every instinct warned him that his master approaching the Council with this particular request was perhaps not the best of ideas he had ever had.

Ki-Adi Mundi slid yellow eyes to meet the calm gray-green gaze of Yoda, who leaned thoughtfully forward in the chair he was perched upon. “Go on, Qui-Gon,” the gnomish figure chortled in his sing-song manner. “The attention have you of the Council in this matter.” His fellow Jedi Masters, ringed in a circle around Qui-Gon and his apprentice, murmured a quiet affirmation.

For a hair’s-breadth the Jedi Master hesitated. The apprehension he felt was so vague as to be almost non-existent; how was he to get across to the Council the fact that, vague though that apprehension might be, it ran deep and insidiously strong within him, lacing together a forbidding sense of danger with his most primal of instincts. Somewhere deep down inside he sighed at himself. My Padawan; think of my padawan... he told himself sternly; then he took a calming breath.

“I have received a request to return to Tellurak, the home of my late sister and her children. It seems that my niece has been suffering some... odd dreams...” He stopped in spite of himself, momentarily annoyed by how ridiculous his opening statement sounded.

His discomfiture was interrupted. “Aware of this are we,” Yoda stated, settling matter-of-factly into the depths of his chair. He closed his eyes and nodded to himself, as though that gesture settled the matter entirely.

Ki-Adi Mundi slid his eyes to look with calm assertiveness upon Qui-Gon’s young apprentice. “You think there are perhaps more to these... dreams... than meets the eye,” he said quietly, never once removing his gaze from Obi-Wan. “You seek our permission to place matters of family ahead of your obligations.” Obi-Wan flushed, a brief and irrational feeling of guilt surging through him. He was holding back his master from something important.... Abruptly, he gave himself a mental shake for drifting off into assumptions. Focus, he told himself sternly. Focus... Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Obi-Wan directed his full attention toward the Council again.

“Sense something, we do,” Yoda was saying. The Council nodded as a whole at his words. “What it is, we cannot fully see. Clouded is this moment; not of the now nor then or yet-to-be.

“Concerned are we.”

Obi-Wan’s ears perked up at this unexpected remark. The Council, concerned? By a girl’s dreams? His heart began to beat a little faster with expectation; with great effort, he turned his gaze down upon the circle mosaic on the floor of the Council Chamber. Letting the eternal symbol act as a guide for his feelings, he began a hurried and quieting meditative exercise. It was shattered by the words Yoda spoke next.

“Most serious is this matter, this the Council does agree. To Tellurak you must go, to seek your niece and her demons to resolve. Else much is threatened; that much do we foresee.”

Qui-Gon, still wrestling with how to present his request, stood momentarily stunned by the Council’s rapid consent. For a long second he stood, his mouth open to speak words of persuasion; blinking his eyes, he closed it before those words ever formed on his tongue. “My gratitude,” he at last said simply, bowing before the Council members. “I shall do my utmost to discover what it is that is causing these dreams, as well as what it is that is making them so disturbing.

“Come, Padawan.” This last was directed to Obi-Wan, who could not quite contain his growing excitement. His heart thudding once more, the young Jedi apprentice hurried to catch his master. Behind the departing pair, the Council members cast worried glances at one another. That which their combined powers sought to reveal was not merely clouded. It was totally nonexistent, a blank in the very fabric of being. Wrapped in constricting coils around Qui-Gon’s niece, it did however deign to let one scrap of a clue worm into existence: a deeply growing and voracious hatred toward all that was. And a deep commitment to destroy all that it was not.