(Extended Edition)
Episode VIII: The Black Temple of Ttaz
“He is a sorcerer, a wizard of the Inner Lands, seeking the amulet of Erreth-Akbe.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
A battle raged on strangely colored grasslands beneath the light of multiple moons. An army of the finest warriors from almost all the Clone clans watered the grass ankle-deep with its blood. The exhausted soldiers of the Republic’s battered armies rejoiced in victory.
But their cries of joy were muted, for the venerable Jedi Master, Bail Highsinger, had perished in the battle.
On the rocky desert planet of Ttaz, where red sands stretched beneath an emerald sky, stood the Black Temple.
It had stood there for millennia. Its priestesses expected that it would stand for millennia more.
The heart of the Black Temple was the White Stone: a massive piece of marbled white rock, instinct with power, which whispered to those who stood in its presence, and offered visions of the future to those high in its service.
The priestesses of Ttaz were virgins sanctified to the service of the Outer Ones, nameless beings who had been worshipped for longer than the Republic had existed. The White Stone, they said, was the means by which the Outer Ones spoke to Men.
Some noble Houses still followed the old customs, and they sent their younger daughters to the service of the Temple. Increasingly, however, this custom was dying out, as other forms of religion prevailed in the galaxy at large, and the Republic government had officially outlawed such bound servitude.
Breha Thorpe was one of the priestesses of the Black Temple. Aged sixteen, with blonde hair and blue eyes, she had served the Outer Ones since her consecration ten years prior.
No one was supposed to enter the precincts of the Temple without the permission of the Mother Superior… certainly not any man.
Yet one day, walking through the inner cloisters adjoining the Temple proper, Breha stumbled upon a man—a Jedi Knight, no less.
This was remarkable, because the Jedi deemed that the Outer Ones were dark spirits, evil beings who should not be worshipped, but rather feared and resisted. For that reason, the priestesses forbade Jedi to set foot within the grounds of the Temple, on pain of death. It would have been inconceivable for a Jedi to visit the Black Temple of Ttaz.
Yet here was this one, quite handsome overall. A man of twenty-three he appeared to be, with dark hair and blue eyes. He was clad all in black, highly unusual for a Jedi Knight.
Breha Thorpe, who could barely remember life on her homeworld, was fascinated by this visitor from the stars, and against her better judgment refrained from reporting his presence to the Mother Superior.
Instead, Breha brought the Jedi to the very heart of the Temple, for the White Stone of the Old Ones to stand in judgment upon this intruder.
In the innermost sanctuary of the Black Temple, the Jedi Knight stood before the legendary stone… and nothing happened.
Breha was astonished.
The Jedi introduced himself to her as Annikin Starkiller, and explained why he had come.
Annikin said that three years previously, during the First Clone War, the Clone King, Xerxes Valorum, had kidnapped Princess Alexa, the fiancée of Prince Carl of Organa Major.
Carl’s father had since died, and he had been compelled to take up the crown of his homeworld, abandoning the Jedi Order. Bail Highsinger, meanwhile, returned to duty to serve his erstwhile Order once more, but was slain in the war’s final battle.
The fighting had ended, but Xerxes Valorum was still at large, and the Lady Alexa was likewise unaccounted for. Alexa’s disappearance and his foster father Bail’s death were the reasons why Annikin now wore Jedi robes of mourning black.
Annikin had been sent by the Jedi Council to track Alexa and Xerxes down if possible, and so far he had traced their movements to the planet of Ttaz.
Annikin believed it was quite possible that Xerxes had had Alexa consecrated to the Black Temple, as a convenient means of disposing of her before continuing his flight from the Republic’s justice. That was why Annikin had infiltrated the Temple grounds.
When Breha heard Annikin describe Alexa, a blue-eyed redhead now nineteen years old, she told him sadly that no one of that age and description lived in the Temple.
Annikin thanked her for her help. Breha Thorpe, who by the laws of her priesthood should have given him over for execution, escorted him out of the precincts of the Temple to safety.
But when he had gone, Breha found herself accosted by the Mother Superior, who had been alerted to the Jedi’s presence through visions sent to her by the Stone.
Breha was accused of having spared the Jedi’s life in order to lie with him, violating her sacred vows of chastity. The punishment for such oath-breaking was to be sold at auction in a slave market—for on this remote world, where the Republic’s laws held little weight, slavery was still practiced despite the outcome of the First Clone War.
Breha Thorpe was sold to the agents of Faramond, ruling Duke of Ttaz. Her first nights in her new master’s household were unpleasant.
In her captivity, she was befriended by a woman three years older: the long-lost Princess Alexa, now another slave of the Duke.
It was not long before Annikin Starkiller unexpectedly showed up once more, in the women’s quarters of Faramond’s ducal palace.
At first Breha was furious at him, because Annikin’s intrusion into the Temple had led to her disgrace and defilement.
What he said next made her even more outraged.
Annikin confessed that he knew what had happened to Breha, but he had not dared to intervene—because Breha’s enslavement provided the best lead for him to track down Alexa.
His honesty did nothing to help Breha’s temper, and her slaps smarted on his cheek. But Annikin offered to take Breha with him and Alexa, when they made their escape. Seeing no other way out of her prison, she accepted.
Sneaking through the Duke’s palace at night, as they passed through the treasure vault, Annikin made a curious discovery: an identical copy of the White Stone from the Black Temple.
Unlike the stone in the sanctuary, this Stone felt alive with an evil menace. Even as Annikin approached it, he knew that dark powers watched him through it, and that it was working for his destruction.
Sure enough, the Mother Superior came then into the vault, followed by a phalanx of guards.
The Mother Superior explained that the Outer Ones had warned her of the coming of a stranger, a Jedi, who would defile the sanctity of the Black Temple. Thus she had had the Stone moved to the Duke’s Palace to protect it.
For it was a prophecy of the Outer Ones that a stranger clad in black should one day destroy the White Stone, and that his lineage would in time end their power.
At the high priestess’s urging, one of the guards fired a blaster at Annikin, set to burn and stun but not kill. The priestess wanted to ensure that Annikin’s death would not be merciful.
But Breha leaped in front of the bolt. It struck her in the face, blinding her in one eye.
The delay was all Annikin Starkiller needed. Darting forward, Annikin shouted at Alexa and Breha to close their eyes, and he himself did likewise.
Then the Jedi Knight brought down his lightsaber with a furious blow, and split the White Stone in two.
A terrible bright light filled the room, and a furious rumbling began to shake the ground. The Mother Superior and the guards were all momentarily blinded. They cowered in fear, realizing that the prophecy had been fulfilled. But when their vision cleared, they realized they could still slay these interlopers.
Unfortunately for them, Annikin, Alexa, and Breha were already off and running. They sealed the door of the treasure vault behind them to hinder pursuit.
But at the gate of the palace, the Duke of Ttaz stood blocking their path, with lightsaber ignited.
While the ducal palace shook itself to bits, Annikin and the Duke dueled. The Duke, a formidable duelist, severed Annikin’s right arm at the elbow. But Annikin in turn used the Force to summon the Duke’s blaster from its holster on his belt. Firing it with his left hand, Annikin shot the Duke square in the eye, killing him.
So the three fugitives continued their flight. They managed to reach Annikin’s starship, where Ben Kenobi was waiting for them.
As Ben piloted the ship up into space, they watched as, below them, the Black Temple was swallowed whole by a gaping rent in the earth, and the Duke’s magnificent palace collapsed into a heap of rubble.
In after days Annikin did not replace his lost right arm, following the Jedi tradition of learning to compensate for such a bodily disability without the aid of mechanical prosthetics.
Soon after their escape, a plague struck the citizens of Ttaz, which spared few. Not only children and elders were struck by it, but previously healthy men and women in their prime. The Mother Superior and her successor both died.
Only those few who did not honor the Outer Ones in their hearts were left entirely unafflicted. Many of the Jedi said it was the vengeance of the Force. But the wiser among them wondered if the Force’s vengeance was truly something to be praised.
The survivors of the plague in large part departed Ttaz, leaving behind them the bones of a sinister, dark, corrupted world.
On Organa Major, King Carl and Princess Alexa were married at last.
Annikin Starkiller and Breha Thorpe (now sporting a silver prosthetic eye) were also wed.
Annikin had previously been engaged to Beru Highsinger, his beloved foster sister. When Annikin asked to break off the engagement, Beru gave him her blessing on one condition.
Beru, who was infertile, asked that, if he and Breha had more than one child, they would let her raise one of their children as her own. The newlyweds agreed.
Thus, it seemed, peace had returned to the Republic at last.
But Xerxes Valorum was still hiding somewhere in the outer reaches of the galaxy… and he bided his time, knowing that revenge tastes best when served cold.