Marr

Chapter Forty-Three

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Marr

~Chapter Forty-Three~

It is possible to share ideals with an enemy.

The cavern floor was craggy and unyielding against my back. Zho passed his hands over my frame, the light side burning me from within as if I had passed through radiation. The darkness shunned the light at first but quickly rose up against it, in what was interpreted to be a war for control over my body, mind, and spirit.

My fever blazed higher as a third side to the war emerged—the polluted blood of the Dread Masters and the fulgarite's cyanide residue that threatened to kill me. Fuelled by the heat, the poison bloated my blood cells.

"How will this battle meditation of yours protect me?"

Zho opened his eyes and gazed down at me with the patronizing benevolence of a healer ministering to the dying. "Through me, your will to prevail over the Dread Masters will be multiplied and strengthened. So long as you are certain that you will win, you cannot lose. You must believe in your superiority over them and over the one that did this."

"You ask the impossible."

"No, Marr, I'm asking you to believe—in yourself and in the outcome you desire. That is the key."

"Easier said than done—there is a war raging—your light, my darkness and the power of the Masters."

"Then assign a vessel to each side—allow the light to guide your spirit, the darkness your mind, and leave the physical to the Masters. Your body is the weakest of the three."

"If I do that, I will die."

"If that is what you believe will happen, then that is what will happen. Believe, Marr. It is imperative that you believe in your survival. You can win. We will win. Together. You must trust me."

"Hmph. Trust..." I mulled over Zho's instructions. Allowing myself to believe that I could control the whims and powers of the Dread Masters was the sort of profitless arrogance I had avoided my entire life. My grip tightened around the crystals until they ground against each other.

The battle meditation no longer burned and my limbs grew heavy. My eyes closed and with a final surge of light, my awareness became unburdened. Every worry and fear left me, and all that remained was my purpose and the blinding pulse of the light guiding it, willing it ever forward to meet the Masters.

The darkness settled over me like a mantle and my determination sharpened my focus until the awareness of my fevered body faded and with it the influence of the pollution in my blood.

There was peace in unity. There was no light or dark, there was only the Force and it demanded I rise and confront the Masters.

If I carried myself to the neighboring chamber, I did not know—it seemed an illusion rather than a mundane exercise. The temple was no longer the temple. The walls vanished or perhaps I passed through them like a specter, but I stood before the Masters and they stood before me. The bronze masks they wore appeared all the more fierce in the face of my defiance.

Mindful of the crystals in my hand, I separated the first from the lot and held it aloft with my right hand. I called to Calphayus, the most human—and the weakest. His aura detached and snaked toward me in a thin stream. As his essence flowed into the crystal, I saw what he had been.