• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I think it’s the burial chamber of an ancient Sith Lord,” Revan answered. “Like the tombs on Korriban.”

“Why would they bury him here in this frozen wasteland?”

To his own surprise, Revan knew the answer to that question. “He was an exile. He fled here with a handful of his fanatically loyal followers many centuries ago. When he died, they carved out this secret chamber to inter him so his enemies couldn’t find and desecrate his remains.”

“How do you know that?”

Revan shrugged. “I just know. Malak and I came here looking for this crypt. Someone must have told us about it.”

“You mean someone like Mandalore?”

Another memory came crashing in on Revan, triggered by the words of his friend.

Mandalore the Ultimate lay dying at his feet. Coughing on the blood welling up in his lungs, he reached up and peeled off his Mask, the most sacred symbol of his people.

“It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” he said, his voice soft and low. “They promised me victory. Only now do I see how I was betrayed.”

Revan tilted his head to the side, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“They tricked me. We were never meant to win this war. They used me and my people to test the Republic’s strength.”

“Who used you?”

“The Sith.”

The recollection ended abruptly, slipping quickly back into Revan’s subconscious. But in bubbling up to the surface, it had released a host of other trapped memories, and they crashed over Revan like a wave, staggering him.

“I remember,” he muttered, placing his hand on the wall for support. “I remember.”

“What?” Canderous asked anxiously. “What do you remember?”

Revan didn’t answer. Instead he crossed the chamber to the sarcophagus in the center. Carved into the granite sides was an interweaving pattern of circles and diagonal lines, most likely a family crest or seal. The tomb’s heavy stone lid was smooth and unadorned, but as Revan drew closer he could see marks and scratches along the edges, signs that it had been moved several times.

Reaching out to the Force, Revan focused on the lid. After a moment it began to move, the edge grating along the lip of the lower half of the sarcophagus as it slowly rose into the air.

Careful not to let the heavy lid drop, he moved it off to the side and gently lowered it to the floor. Then he stepped up to the sarcophagus and peered inside.

There were no remains to be seen. The enemies of the anonymous Sith Lord in the tomb must have found him after all, stealing his mummified corpse for some dark and twisted purpose. The missing body didn’t come as a surprise to Revan, and he suddenly remembered that he and Malak had also found the sarcophagus empty.

But they hadn’t left it that way. Inside was a datacron—a small cube similar to the holocrons used by the Jedi and Sith to record their teachings for future generations. However, unlike those powerful artifacts, the datacron was not created using the Force; it was simply a repository of information.

But Revan barely looked at the datacron. His attention was gripped by the object that lay beside it: Mandalore’s Mask. And as he reached in and picked up the sacred relic, his mind flashed back to the moment he had left it there.

“So Mandalore was telling the truth,” Malak said.

“Did you really think his last words would be a lie?” Revan asked.

“Now what?”

“We have our proof,” Revan said. “The Sith are not extinct. They have to be stopped.”

“What about the Mandalorians?”

“Without the Mask, they are nothing,” Revan said, placing the Mask inside the empty sepulcher.

The memory ended, rudely snapping Revan back to the present. He lifted the Mask and held it aloft so Canderous could see.

The big man walked slowly toward him, as if in a daze. He didn’t speak, but as he approached, his hands came up almost involuntarily, his fingers reaching out toward the lost symbol of his people.

Neither noticed Veela and the others enter the chamber.

“How dare you defile Mandalore’s Mask with your filthy Jedi hands!” Veela shouted, breaking the spell that had momentarily enthralled the two men.

Revan looked up to see her standing