Having arrived back at the Jedi Temple long after the other Jedi were in bed, I had been able to return to my room unnoticed. A Sith Sorcery spell I had learned years before, unbeknownst to my master, had allowed me to conceal the Dark Side energies emanating from Darth Bane's holocron.

I now lay in my bed, tossing and turning the hours away. Over and over in my mind, I saw the image of Darth Bane and heard his message to me. I also could hear my master's words of warning to me, said just hours before I was to partake in the Jedi Trials:

"Remember that your desire for power is your greatest weakness. Jedi serve others, not themselves."

Throwing the covers back in frustration, I sat cross-legged on the floor, hoping to find the answers I sought in the calm of meditation. In my mind's eye, I saw a churning black sphere. Darth Bane's voice came to me again.

"Touch it, and you will achieve your destiny!"

As I reached out, I heard my former master's voice calmly speak to me through the chaos in my mind.

"The Dark Side is offering something you need, but it will destroy you in the process."

I jerked myself out of my meditation. If the two entities vying for my allegiance would follow me into my meditation, then I would contemplate this on my own.

For three days I pondered and agonized over the decision that would decide my fate. On the evening of the third day, I made my choice. After the other Jedi had retired, I packed a small bag with food, grabbed the holocron, and left the Jedi Temple, never to return.

But my journey did not end with that decision. I took a transport to a remote planet called Tatooine, and traveled into its unforgiving desert. I had once been on Tatooine with my master when I was just a Padawan, and had found its deserts to be the perfect place for meditation when one's mind needed peace.

I sat, once more, in the cross-legged position of meditation and let my mind travel into the Force. It was not the warmth of the Light Side which met me this time, but the churning cold of the Dark Side. I found it strangely rejuvenating. Focusing my mind, I spent several hours trying to identify anything that would help me find the "Darth Congnus" of whom Bane had spoken. It took several days, but the Dark Side finally gave me the information I sought.

Not wanting to walk up to a Dark Lord of the Sith unannounced, I sent a messenger drone to Darth Cognus asking him or her to meet me in Tatooine's desert, where I now resided. It would show my sincerity, as it would be impossible to stage an ambush in the middle of this barren nowhere.

I did not have to wait long. Before the week was out, I felt the unmistakable Force-dampening feeling. I was in my shelter at the time, and I called out that I was alone.

"Come out unarmed with your hands up," a female voice hissed.

I did as instructed and came face-to-face with an Ikotchi female. Her horns curved down, framing her head, and she had tattoos on her face.

"So," she said, "you are the Jedi who wishes to become my apprentice." It was not a question, but I nodded anyway. "How did you know of my existence? The Sith have purposefully been nothing but myth since the Battle of Ruusan."

"I seem to have stumbled across Darth Bane's Holocron," I responded. "A man was holding it when he died."

"Ah," Darth Cognus replied. "So it was in your arms he died. I am glad the holocron did not fall into the hands of any other Jedi. I killed him because he had taken the object of which you speak." Her eyes flashed as she said this, and I wondered if she had taken pleasure in his death.

"Your timing could not be more perfect," she continued. "I recently had to disown my apprentice for disobeying the Rule of Two. I would have destroyed him, but he fled beyond my reach. Had you come to me a year earlier, I would have killed you." She smiled at me, and I saw that her tattoos on her chin looked like fangs when she did so. Once again, I wondered if it was the pleasure of the kill that animated her.

"What is the Rule of Two?" I asked, confused.

Darth Cognus tilted her head slightly to the side as if deciding whether or not to explain. She then shrugged her shoulders and expounded to me Darth Bane's mighty destiny, which I will not put into detail here. Those who wish to be enlightened must search for themselves.

"One to embody the power, and the other to crave it," she had said. If Darth Cognus took me as her apprentice, I would one day have the power she now held - the power that rolled off of her toward me in waves. Everything Darth Cognus had said was spinning in my brain. This was amazing! I had always craved power. Now it was, seemingly, being dumped in my lap.

"Do you still want to become my apprentice?" she asked me, smiling once again.

"Yes, I am ready to learn at your feet until such time as my power is equal to or greater than yours."

"Perfect," Darth Cognus replied. "Now, take a new name for yourself. Be reborn as a Sith! What name do you choose?"

I thought for a moment, and then the answer came to me. "I choose the name 'Callidus', for it is through cunning that we will defeat the Jedi." "You have chosen well and are reborn," Darth Cognus replied. "Retrieve the holocron and follow me."