In the center of the temple a pit of fire awaited Ayli and in the center of the pit lay a maw of darkness.

“This was the first atrocity, wasn’t it?” she asked, aware of the mortal peril she was in and being very careful to hide all of the other things she was aware of.

“An attempt at perfecting a society,” Paralus said. “A failure only in resolve though, not intent.”

“What was it supposed to be?” It hurt to look at the maw directly. So twisted by the Dark Side the maw was, the very fabric of space and reality was rent asunder at its center.

“Not what. Who,” Paralus said. “This was the first man on this world to attempt a true Ascension to the Force.”

“And the statues of misery and pain around the room were a component of that?” Like many temples the central one on Praxis Mar bore iconography of various modes of suffering its architects had endured or could imagine. The archeologist in Ayli was itching to begin a comparative analysis of the room she was in with other planetary temples around the galaxy. The common elements would illuminate some phenomenal discoveries, she was certain. That it would also fill enough papers to guarantee her tenure at the university of her choice was an amusing concept as well, but with her lust for recognition temporarily offline by the beating her Dark Side has taken, she wasn’t quite as consumed by the idea as she might have been.

It was still quite appealing of course. Dark Side or no, she was still an academic.

“Those are not statues,” Paralus said. “Nor are they quite dead.”

Sensing any life within the statues was beyond Ayli’s talents with the flood of darkness she was wrapped within coupled with the brutalization by the Dark Side which the statue people had been subjected to for centuries, but she had no reason to doubt Paralus’ word on the matter.

“Ah, they were sacrifices then?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“The dearest and most cherished the Ascended could find.”

“And this struck him as a good idea?” The stupidity of evil never failed to amaze Ayli, but given that she was banking on it to see her through her present ordeal she was forced to hope it was as reliable as the rest of the galaxy’s stupidity.

“As a necessary one,” Paralus said. “Holding onto the things which tie us to one life denies us the capacity to transcend that life and become true Masters of the Force.”

“And that’s the secret to lichdom? Toss everything away?” Ayli asked, curious if she could get Paralus to reveal anything of his own origin.

“Not everything,” Paralus said, his ego incapable of not making others aware of his greatness. “To become as I am, you must hold tight to what truly matters.”

“Which would not be the people I care about and who give my life meaning?”

“Dependency on others is the undoing of all who cling to their weakness. The strong must stand alone. Power, that is what must be placed above all else. To believe in anything but oneself is to abandon the ability to command the Force to be as you desire. Only someone who had truly mastered themselves, and who controls their desire can control the Force and make the galaxy what they know it must be.”

Debating Paralus might have been fun. His arguments were the sort of childish logic constructs that first year philosophy courses were meant to help the students get out of their systems.

True, following that philosophy had led Paralus to an existence which few were capable of attaining. And he did have a vast amount of Force driven might to call on. His projections across the galaxy and his battle with Ayli’s Dark Side proved that. Ayli wondered if he ever thought to ask the question of whether the constraints on that power were worth the price he’d paid.

His might, for instance, was largely stolen from Praxis Mar. His sacrifices, whatever they’d been, had done nothing to grant him that. The insights he believed he had all relied on only the worst of all possible interpretations of events being true. Even his longevity was questionable since he was both not immortal, nor truly free to live as he chose, being restricted to existing only in the galaxy’s darkest corners.

Had it ever occurred to him that the existence he attained was one that few would have any interest in once the costs were known, and which denied him the freedom he believed he’d won for himself?.

He’d claimed that as a Master of the Dark Side, he’d transcended fear, but in every action and every word, Ayli could see Paralus’ fears steering him away from an end to the suffering he’d inflicted on himself.

“You know where you will go next,” Paralus said, indicating the maw with a twitch of his head.

Ayli knew she wasn’t seeing his real form, or even the physical body he wore as his own. That was hidden away far from where she could reach him.

I’m not a fool, he had clearly thought. Why expose himself to the smallest measure of danger when eternity awaited him? He’d set his wheels in motions and could watch the                                    future play out as he command. Or he had been the unwitting servant of the core of madness which lay at the heart of Praxis Mar, and it was the crumbling darkness of the planet which had commanded him as its tool, but subtly enough that Paralus never need to be aware of the leash around his neck.

Either of those could have been true, but from the glimpse of the outside world Ayli could see through the darkness around her, the truth was something very different indeed.

“I’m curious,” Ayli said, wondering if there was anything at all to save in the Lich. “If I were to adopt your beliefs, you wouldn’t be gaining an ally. I’d be more your enemy then than I am now. But you don’t strike me as the type of person who guides his enemies into existence when smiting them before they discover the secrets of true power is more likely to lead to your continued existence.”

“As I have said, I have moved beyond fear. In grasping the truth, you would not be my enemy but my apprentice.” Paralus loomed close to Ayli, though still not quite within arm’s reach.

“I believe you just said relying on others denies a Force user ‘True Mastery’,” Ayli said. Playing for time was a key element for both of them she noticed when Paralus turned to her.

“Apprenticeship and master arrangements between those who had embraced the true nature of the Force are not as you imagine them to be,” Paralus said and Ayli could see he was waiting for the same thing she was.

For Nix to arrive.

They both knew she was coming, and her arrival was the key to both of their plans.

“A True Master does not support their apprentices. A Master must use their apprentices and the apprentices must survive the tests their Masters set upon them.”

“So the master gains a minion and the apprentice gets a self-directed study course that’s all pass or die? What happens when the apprentice doesn’t have anything more to learn from the master?”

“Its in on the apprentice to learn how to use their master,” Paralus said. “A weak master will invite a challenge which may be their end or may result in the loss of an apprentice, but a True Master who raises another to True Mastery will have inculcated in the apprentice their own beliefs and desires. Conflict occurs when there is disparity in desire and will. Two True Masters will have no need for such conflict as the apprentice’s will and the Master’s will be as one. A victory for either is a victory for both. This is the true path to peace and the only means of manufacturing eternal harmony in the galaxy.”

Ayli turned away from Paralus to ‘gaze upon the maw’, though it was more so that he didn’t see her roll her eyes and suppress a groan at his arguments.

‘If only everyone thought exactly like I did, the galaxy would be a perfect place!’

It was the basis of the Empire’s philosophy and so many other regimes and religions. In a few cultures it had even come close to being implemented. 

And even in those it had still fallen apart.

How Paralus and those in his position never thought to add together the notions that ‘I wanted to be the only one who matters’ with ‘everyone should think like me’ and not see the unresolvable contradiction presented there was mind boggling to Ayli.

Even in hive mind species, the central mind was rarely an all powerful, singular will. Each drone had their own focus and initiative and pursued their tasks under their own recognizance. The central mind was something they all contributed to and which gave overall broad directives for each member to enact, like a captain on a ship choosing the destination and allowing the crew to implement how the ship arrived there.

But then people like Paralus rarely studied actual histories or had any appreciation for facts which weren’t relevant to making themselves seem more important.

“So I’m going to go into the maw and come out as your newest mind-wiped servant then?” Ayli asked, staring at the maw without flinching despite raw grating feeling it left at the back of her eyes.

“I very much doubt that you will come out at all,” Paralus said. “We both know you think you can endure that schism at the maw’s core, that you will somehow pass through unscathed and confirmed in the beliefs you carry. I know that you will not, despite how much your delusion insists it is how your fate must go.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Ayli asked.

“Then I shall indeed have a new apprentice, but not two I would imagine,” Paralus said. “Those futures were lost the moment you sinned against the harmony of this world. The moment your unleashed hope like the cruelest of blades to torment those who had long since been consumed by the truth of creation.”

“And why wouldn’t Nix and I emerge together if we go in together?” Ayli asked.

“This spot is primed for Ascension, but only one may achieve it,” Paralus said. “Within the maw, you will die unless you can transcend the life which holds you to your mortality and to do that, you must be more pure that the failure who became the maw was. Only in doing what he could not, only in slaying the last bit of love and compassion which you carry can you escape the shackles they place on you and be truly free.”

“And in doing that I’d play right into your hands, gotcha,” Ayli said.

“No, I already hold you in the palm of my hand,” Paralus said and Ayli felt a vast bestial tide of storm and storm moving underneath her. “You don’t know it yet, as your kind never does, but I have already won. All has transpired as I have foreseen and my victory is complete.”

“You do seem to have me in a difficult spot,” Ayli admitted. “I suppose even if I turned and left now, this place, this moment would always live within me. It would grow and consume my imagination, my dreams, and my waking thoughts. Could I live not knowing what the answer was? Whether I was truly lost? Would I have to run away from everything else because there might be too much peril in it and this memory stood as a hallmark that my courage would fail me? Is death really so much worse than that?”

A long, slow breath.

The feel of a familiar presence, drawing so close and giving Ayli strength.

The increasing rage of the storms outside and the shattering of the earth beneath her, heralding a devastation which she was certain Paralus was not ready for.

And lastly, from the maw, a single wordless cry.

That was all it took.

Ayli walked forward and into her destiny.