Maul: Legacy of Shadows

Chapter 2: Voices of the Dead

***Year 4 BBY***

"You died a long time ago, what could possibly stir your spirit from beyond the grave?" Maul asked the Twi'lek, a sense of unease ran slowly throughout his body.

She slowly walked among the corpses strewn upon the ground, her eyes never leaving Maul's burning gaze. It almost seemed as though her body gained more corporality with each passing second.  Maul stood perplexed as he studied her every motion, prepared to battle the first Jedi he ever slew once again.  Eldra seemed to read his every thought, as she merely rolled her eyes, and Maul's tensed muscles eased at her reaction. She sat next to Maul and motioned for him to sit as well, their backs against the temple walls.

Maul finally took his gaze off her and stared into the distance, accepting that he wasn't having a vision, but that the Force had dragged her back to the realm of the living.  For what reason he wasn't sure. They sat in silence, both staring into the endless void of Malachor's cavernous surface. 

Tired of the awkwardness, she finally broke the silence with a simple question, "what are you searching for Maul?"

He let out a small chuckle, as he figured as a Force spirit she should already know, but maybe her Jedi heritage made her weak. Inside, he desperately searched for the answer to her seemingly simple question. What was he searching for? Was it to have a purpose once again? Maul couldn't come up with an answer and instead chose to simply close his eyes and take in a deep breath.  He could smell the fabric of her robes, further convincing him she was truly next to him and not a hallucination.

Eldra merely smiled and said, "it's okay if you don't have an answer yet, I was just curious if you yourself knew."

Maul tensed at the sound of her voice, and how relaxed and calm she sounded. Finally, his ruined prosthetic right leg sparked and startled him. Eldra giggled and Maul grew intensely angered at her cheerful attitude.

"What do you want?!" Maul demanded, his hands clenching into fists.

Eldra's face turned sour, as she began to stand up, now towering over Maul's sitting body. She walked and stood in front of him, both hands on her hips and her face hardened by a now serious attitude. Maul looked up at her, and their gazes locked as his yellow eyes tried to intimidate the young Jedi.

"You think I want to be here, among all this death?" Eldra asked. "I was asked to come here, to try and help the very person that murdered me."

Asked? That word stuck out for Maul, and his curiosity intensified, as he was unsure who could've asked a Force spirit to come to him. Kenobi? Maul seethed with rage at the mere thought that his most hated enemy would send a Jedi ghost to him.

Eldra let out a long drawn out sigh as she sensed the Dark Side swelling inside the former Sith Lord. The air around him shook from the Force energy he was exerting, and Eldra merely stepped a few feet back, fully aware of her inability to stop him.

Maul punched the ground next to himself with his right fist, and the energy immediately dispersed through the ground beneath them. His fist ached from the force of the blow, and he felt small pebbles imbedded in his knuckles.

"Is your tantrum finally over?" Eldra asked him, trying to hold back her laughter.

Maul simply ignored her as he slowly pulled the pebbles from his knuckles, flicking them away as he continued to ponder over who would send this Force ghost to torment him. Her mere presence was an affront to his Sith heritage.  She was the first Jedi to fall to his blade, and yet here she stood, no signs of revenge or hatred for the former Sith. She wasn't exactly in a cheerful mood, but she seemed to hold no animosity towards him either.

Maul flicked another pebble, and this time it made a sharp sound as it smacked against the small pyramid that still sat next to him on the ground. A low hum began to fill the air around the object, as the writing upon it grew bright with a crimson hue. Maul looked to Eldra, who stood stone faced, merely watching to see what would happen next. Perhaps she knew? Maul couldn't be sure by her expression. He did know something was about to happen and he quickly stood and backed away, bracing himself on the temple walls.

A crimson light beamed upwards from the tip of the miniature pyramid, as a nearly six-foot hologram of a figure began to appear. The image was highly blurred, and the voice was a male's but full of static, surely a sign of the age of the artifact.   After a few seconds the image became clearer, as Maul stood before a male Zabrak clad in robes and with a lightsaber on his hip. The Zabrak's left arm was clearly a prosthetic, though most was hidden inside the sleeve of the robe.

"My name is ... -Dur, creator of this holocron. If you've opened this, then you're my descendant, regardless of how long it's been, only your blood could've activated this recording." the holocron explained.

"The ground you stand upon, was once a great battlefield," the holocron continued, "and the temple was once a Sith training ground, named the Trayus Academy. For years, war raged across the galaxy, and a small number of Jedi felt the call to war, but it would be our downfall. In our haste to end the conflict, I was commissioned to find a way to activate this temple's superweapon and find it I did. Our commander tricked our enemies, and with a simple nod from my general and Jedi Master, I activated the weapon. I will never forget the screams that emanated, as both friend and foe outside the temple walls was drained of their very life force, and the planet itself buckled from the destruction."

Maul glanced at the thousands of bodies that lay in his line of sight, resting his gaze on Eldra, who looked somewhat saddened as her eyes locked onto his. He was so entranced by the recording, that he almost forgot she was lingering in the background, completely silent.

The recording flickered for just a moment, as if trying to regain Maul's attention, "using this weapon changed me forever, and for a brief moment I got to witness true power, the power of the Dark Side. You who share my blood, the Force guided you here for a purpose, and the legacy and fate of this ancient weapon is yours to bear."

As the final words were spoken, the small holocron went silent, and the faint crimson glow of the hologram faded away. Maul noticed another was missing, as Eldra had seemingly vanished along with the hologram. Limping over to the holocron, Maul lifted it to his hand with the Force and placed it within a small pocket in his tattered clothes, as he still braced himself against the temple's exterior. As Maul looked around, an emotion he wasn't prepared for slowly took hold of him.  He was truly alone.