The fate of Exar Kun, the eleventh Dark Lord of the Sith, has always been one of the most unclear parts of the war between the Sith and the Old Republic. The comic book series glosses over Kun's entrapment and instead focuses on Ulic's redemption. This then, is an exploration of Kun's feelings about his own demise and at Ulic's return to Yavin 2 years later. This work of fiction uses characters out of Star Wars: Dark Lords of the Sith, but is not in any way used for private profit. All names and situations copyright of LucasArts. If you want to distribute this, go right ahead.

Dark Lord of the Sith

Dark. Completely, utterly, dark. He had never felt so alone.

He clenched his fists, trying to calm his anger, and instead only felt the strange, tingling sensation of his fingers against flesh that was no longer really there. The darkness pounded against him. He could feel it near. Nearer than it had ever been before...

He swore, shouting, trying to make his voice echo off the temple walls like it had only a short time ago, when he had stood before thousands and proclaimed the end of the Old Republic, the end of that misguided rule and the beginning of a new Golden Age of the Sith. He could still hear the cheers in his ears, echoing back as if in a dream. The temple was silent. He shouted again, heard nothing.

I am the Dark Lord of the Sith.

He closed his eyes, desperately trying to find the Jedi calm that he had not sought for what seemed like an eternity. He felt himself drifting. There! That spot of bright light in front of him. He reached for it...

It was though he had thrown himself onto an invisible wall. The light sparkled, beckoned to him. With all his strength he grasped at it and found himself thrown back again by that wall that separated him from the light.

Opening his eyes, he found himself at the temple's wall, gasping for breath. His hand grazed the wall's cool stone and again he felt that strange tingling sensation. Touching something with a hand that was no longer there.

He closed his eyes again, saw the light but made no attempt to reach for it. He remembered Freedon Nadd taunting him as he lay broken and dying on the ledge of rock. It was the same then as it was now. The light side was blocked to him. Forever.

Master Vodo, what have I done?

I am the Dark Lord of the Sith.

You were, a small voice taunted. You were. No longer.

No!

He glided across the temple floor, moving without touching the ground. For months he had searched the walls, searching for some weakness that he could exploit to break free of the dark, horrible prison in which he was bound. He had found none. The Massassai construction was sound, built to endure for thousands of years.

The dark side was there for him, as it had always been. He could reach out to it, grasp it, but something had changed. Something subtle, but the change was there. He could no longer wield it as he had. He had tried, screaming in frustration and unharnessed anger, but he could no longer even lift a single pebble off the temple floor, a task to simple that it should be able to be mastered by the most novice of beginning acolytes.

The light side was closed to him. The dark side might as well be. He was helpless, abandoned, trapped.

I am...the Dark Lord of the Sith.

He bowed his head, feeling the hatred and the anger swirling around him. The place which had once been his prized work had become his prison. He was beaten. He had failed the Sith who had made him what he had been.

Suddenly he jerked his head up, startled. He had felt something, a slight tremor. It had seemed so familiar...but no it could not have been. Not now, not here.

Yes! There! The tremor in the dark side, once as familiar to him as breath itself. But...it had changed. It was not just the change in the dark side to him. The tremor was weak, so weak...he could barely feel it.

No...there it was. He froze, listening. A sound, like starship repulsorifts. Hope burned feverishly. If he could just get to the door, perhaps through the dark side he could somehow send a message.

He ran across the temple, feeling the tremor coming nearer, though still weak. Anxiety clouded his thoughts. If he missed this chance he would as well be trapped for eternity.

Footsteps sounded outside, crunching through the devastation. He had not been outside since that day, but he could well imagine what it looked like. The footsteps sounded closer. He swallowed, waiting for them to come even nearer.

They stopped. A voice, muffled, yet through the walls, he could hear the despair.

"Exar Kun...what have you done?"

He winced inwardly at the sound, angry at himself for doing so, angry at himself for this foolish hope of salvation, he who had once been lord of the galaxy. He had become so weak. But he had to try. He called out, desperately. "Ulic!"

Silence. He shouted again. "Ulic!" His voice echoed in his own ears, but as before he could hear nothing.

A tinkle outside, as if dropping metal against metal. The voice, again. "This place..."

"Ulic!" He pounded his fists against the walls, hanging on to that weak tremor in the force. "Can you hear me! It's dark, and I'm trapped! I survived, but I'm trapped! Ulic!"

A sigh from outside, heavy and beaten. "There's nothing for me here." Footsteps, crunching, moving away.

"No!" He screamed, felt his feature contort in anguish. "Ulic! It's me! I'm in here! Don't leave me!"

The footsteps faded, and were gone, though the weak force tremor remained. A roar of starship engines. Then nothing.

"No!" He threw himself against the walls again and again, sobbing in pain and rage. "Ulic!"

The force tremor trembled, withdrawing, then faded.

He hardly dared to breathe. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. "Ulic?"

Nothing. He was alone once more.

He swore again, cursing, bellowing his anger to the invisible demons of the dark side that haunted the temple. He felt the dark side, boiling around him, an apparition he could never grasp.

Trapped. Forever.

I am...the Dark Lord...of the Sith.

The words rang hollow in his own ears, empty, unspoken, unheard.