Path of Destruction

by Drew Karpyshyn

  The Army of Light was fractured. Their numbers on Ruusan were dwindling. Valenthyne Farfalla was orbiting the world with reinforcements, but Kaan’s spies reported a rift between Hoth and Lord Farfalla that kept the newcomers from joining the fray. Without Master Pernicar to blunt their sharp animosity, the two Jedi Masters’ mutual antipathy was crippling the Jedi war effort.

  The irony of the situation was not lost on Kaan. For a change it was the Jedi who were split by infighting and rivalries, while the Brotherhood of Darkness remained united and strong. Part of him found the strange reversal troubling. In the long nights when he couldn’t sleep, he’d often walk the floor of his tent wrestling with the seeming paradox.

  Had the armies on Ruusan crossed a line where light and darkness meet? Had the endless conflict between the Army of Light and the Brotherhood of Darkness drawn them both into a void where the ideologies became hopelessly intertwined? Were they all now Force-users of the Twilight, caught between the two sides and belonging to neither?

  However, the arrival of the morning sun would inevitably banish such thoughts with news of yet another Sith victory in the field. And only a fool questioned his methods when he was winning. Which was why he wasn’t sure what to make of the message he had recently received from Darth Bane.

  “Kas’im is dead,” he told Githany, getting directly to the matter at hand.

  “Dead?” Her shocked reaction affirmed Kaan’s decision not to share this news with the rest of the Brotherhood. He had been careful to keep the purpose of the Blademaster’s departure secret until he knew the outcome of the confrontation. “Was it the Jedi?” she asked.

  “No,” he admitted, choosing his words carefully. “I sent him to parlay with Lord Bane. Kas’im thought he could convince him to join us. Instead, Bane killed him.”

  Githany’s eyes narrowed. “I warned you about him.”

  Kaan nodded. “You know him better than any of us. You understand him. That is why I need you now. Bane sent me a message.”

  He reached over and flicked on the message drone sitting on the table. A tiny hologram of the heavily muscled Dark Lord materialized before them. Even though the details of his expression were difficult to make out at that size, it was clear he was troubled.

  “Kas’im is dead. I … I killed him. But I’ve been thinking about what he said before … before he died.”

  Githany gave Kaan a curious look. He shrugged and tilted his head toward the hologram as it continued to speak.

  “I came here searching for something. I’m … I’m not even sure what it was. But I didn’t find it. Just like I didn’t find it in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban. And now Kas’im is dead and I … I don’t know what to do …”

  The projection bowed its head: lost, confused, and alone. Kaan could clearly see the scorn in Githany’s expression as she watched the spectacle before her. At last the figure seemed to compose itself, and it looked up once more.

  “I don’t want Kas’im’s death to be in vain,” Bane said emphatically. “I should have listened to him in the first place. I … I want to join the Brotherhood.”

  Kaan reached out and flicked the drone off again. “Well?” he asked Githany. “Is he serious? Or is this just a trap?”

  She chewed at her lower lip. “I think he’s sincere,” she finally said. “For all his power, Bane is still weak. He can’t surrender himself fully to the dark side. He still feels guilt when he uses the Force to kill.”

  “Qordis mentioned something similar,” Kaan said. “He told me Bane had a chance to kill a bitter rival in the dueling ring at the Academy, but he pulled back at the last moment.”

  Githany nodded. “Sirak. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. And Kas’im was his mentor. If Bane was forced to kill him, it would have been even harder for him to deal with it.”

  “So I should send an emissary to meet with him?”

  She shook her head. “Bane is more trouble than he’s worth. He’s vulnerable now, but as his confidence returns he’ll become as headstrong as ever. He’ll bring dissension to the ranks. Besides,” she added, “we don’t need him anymore. We’re winning.”

  “So how do you propose we deal with him? Assassins?”

  She laughed. “If he could handle Kas’im, then I doubt anyone else will stand a chance against him. Anyone but me.”

  “You?”

  Githany smiled. “Bane likes me. I wouldn’t say he trusts me, exactly … but he wants to trust me. Let me go to him.”

  “And what will you do when you find him?”

  “Tell him I miss him. Explain that we’ve considered his offer, and we want him to join the Brotherhood. Then, when his guard is down, I’ll kill him.”

  Kaan raised his eyebrows. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “Unlike Kas’im, I know how to handle him,” she assured him. “Betrayal is a far more effective weapon than the lightsaber.”

  She left the tent a few moments later, taking the message drone and the coordinates Bane had sent along for the meeting. Kaan had every confidence she’d get the job done. And he saw no reason to share with her the small package that had arrived in the message drone’s storage compartment.

  Bane had sent it to Lord Kaan as a peace offering; a way to atone for Kas’im’s death. It wasn’t much to look at: text written on several sheets of flimsi, the writing cramped and hurried as if it had been recorded while listening to someone else speak. Yet within its pages it contained a detailed description of one of the most fearsome creations of the ancient Sith: the thought bomb.

  An ancient ritual that required the combined will of many powerful Sith Lords, the thought bomb unleashed the pure destructive energy of the dark side. There were risks involved, of course. That much power was highly volatile, making it difficult to control even for those who had the strength to summon it. It was possible the blast could annihilate the entire Brotherhood along with Hoth’s Army of Light. The vacuum at the center of the blast could suck in the disembodied spirits of Sith and Jedi alike, trapping them side by side for all eternity in an unbreakable state of equilibrium at the heart of a frozen sphere of pure energy.

  Kaan doubted he’d actually have need of such a weapon to finish off the Jedi here on Ruusan. After all, he was winning the war. Still, as he began his pacing for another long and sleepless night, he couldn’t help studying the ritual of the thought bomb over and over again.

  25

  From a distance, Ambria looked beautiful. An orange world with striking violet rings, it was easily the largest habitable planet in the Stenness system. Yet anyone landing on the world would quickly realize that the beauty faded soon after entering the atmosphere.

  Many centuries earlier, the failed rituals of a powerful Sith sorceress had inadvertently unleashed a cataclysmic wave of dark side energy across the surface of the world. The sorceress had been destroyed, along with almost all other life on Ambria. What survived was little more than barren rock, and even now plots of fertile ground were few and far between. There were no real cities on Ambria; only a few hardy settlers dwelled on its surface, scattered so far apart they might as well have been living on the planet alone.

  The Jedi had once tried to cleanse Ambria of its foul taint, but the power of the dark side had permanently scarred the world. Unable to purify it, they succeeded only in concentrating and confining the dark side in a single source: Lake Natth. The homesteaders brave enough to endure Ambria’s desolate environs gave the lake and its poisoned waters a wide, wide berth. Of course Bane had made his camp right on its shores.

  Ambria was located on the fringes of the Expansion Region, only a quick hyperspace jump away from Ruusan itself. The evidence of several small battles that had been fought here between Republic and Sith troops during the most recent campaign was everywhere. Fallen weapons and armor littered the stark landscape; burned-out vehicles and damaged swoops were visible from kilometers away on the hard, cold plains. Apart from a few of the local settlers scavenging for parts
, nobody had bothered to clean up the remains.

  The ringed planet was an insignificant world: too few resources and too few people for the Republic fleets that now controlled the sector to worry about. Bane had heard that a healer of some skill—a man named Caleb—had come to the world once the fighting had ended. An idealistic fool determined to mend the wounds of war; a man not even worthy of Bane’s contempt. By now, even that man might have forsaken this world once he’d seen how little salvageable remained here. For all intents and purposes, the world was forgotten.

  It was the perfect place to meet Kaan’s envoy. A Sith fleet would be quickly detected by the Republic vessels patrolling the region, but a small ship and a skillful pilot could sneak in without any trouble. Bane had no intention of setting up a meeting someplace where Kaan could send an armada to wipe him out.

  He waited patiently in his camp for Kaan’s emissary to arrive. Occasionally he glanced up at the sky or looked out across the horizon, but he wasn’t worried about anyone sneaking up on him. He’d see a ship coming in to land from several kilometers away. And if they came to him in a ground vehicle—like the land crawler sitting on the edge of his camp—he’d hear the grinding of its engines or feel the unmistakable vibrations of its heavy treads as they churned their way over the uneven terrain.

  Instead all he heard was the gentle lapping of Lake Natth’s dark waters against the shore not five meters from where he sat. And all the while, his mind wrestled with the only question he still had no answer for.

  Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. Once he had rid the galaxy of the Brotherhood of Darkness, where would he find a worthy apprentice?

  The whine of a Buzzard’s engines pulled him away from his thoughts. He rose to his feet as the ship dropped from the sky and circled his camp once before touching down a short distance away. When the landing ramp lowered and he saw who came down, he couldn’t help but smile.

  “Githany,” he said, rising to greet her once she had crossed the distance between them. “I was hoping Lord Kaan would send you.”

  “He didn’t send me,” she replied. “I asked to come.”

  Bane’s heart began to beat a little quicker. He was glad to see her; her presence awakened a hunger inside him he had almost forgotten existed. Yet he was troubled, too. If anyone could see through his ruse, it was her.

  “Did you see the message?” he asked, studying her carefully to gauge her reaction.

  “I thought you were over this, Bane. Self-pity and regret are for the weak.”

  Relieved, he bowed his head to continue his charade. “You’re right,” he mumbled.

  She stepped in closer to him. “You can’t fool me, Bane,” she whispered, and his muscles tensed in anticipation of what she would do next. “I think you’re here for something else.”

  He held his ground as she leaned in slowly, poised to react at the first hint of threat or danger. He let his guard down only when she brushed her lips softly against his.

  Instinctively his hands came up and seized her shoulders, pulling her in closer, pressing her lips and body hard up against his own as he drank her in. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and neck, returning his insistence with her own urgency.

  Her heat enveloped them. The kiss seemed to last for all eternity; her scent wrapped around their entwined flesh until he felt he was drowning in it. When she at last broke away he could see the fierce eagerness in her eyes and still taste the sweet fire of her lips. He could taste something else, too.

  Poison!

  Bedazzled by her kiss, it took him a second to realize what had happened. Whether Githany believed him or not hadn’t mattered. She’d asked Kaan to let her come here so she could kill him. For a brief second he was worried … until he recognized the faint tricopper taste of rock worrt venom.

  He laughed, gasping slightly for air. “Magnificent,” he breathed. Secrecy. Guile. Betrayal. Githany may have been corrupted by the Brotherhood’s influence, but she still understood what made the dark side strong. Was it possible she could be his one true apprentice, despite her allegiance to the Brotherhood?

  She smiled coyly at his compliment. “Through passion we gain strength.”

  Bane could feel the poison working its way through his system. The effects were subtle. Had his growing strength in the dark side not made his senses hyperaware, he probably wouldn’t even have noticed its presence for several hours. Yet once again, Githany had underestimated him.

  Rock worrt venom was powerful enough to kill a bantha, but there were far more rare—and lethal—toxins she could have chosen. The dark side flowed through him, thick as the blood in his veins. He was Darth Bane now, a true Dark Lord. He had nothing to fear from her poison.

  The fact that she had thought he wouldn’t detect it on her lips—the fact that she thought it would even harm him—meant that she must have believed his performance. She suspected he had fallen away from the dark side again; she thought he was weak. He was glad: it made her decision to side with Kaan more forgivable. Maybe there was still hope for her after all. But he had to be sure.

  “I’m sorry for abandoning you,” he said softly. “I was blinded by dreams of past glory. Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Darth Revan—I lusted after the power of the great Dark Lords of the past.”

  “We all crave power,” she replied. “That is the nature of the dark side. But there is power in the Brotherhood. Kaan is on the verge of succeeding where all those before him have failed. We are winning on Ruusan, Bane.”

  Bane shook his head, disappointed. How could she still be so blind? “Kaan may be winning on Ruusan, but his followers are losing everywhere else. His great Sith army has crumbled without its leaders. The Republic has driven them back and reclaimed most of the worlds we conquered. In a few more months the rebellion will be crushed.”

  “None of that matters if we can wipe out the Jedi,” she explained eagerly, her eyes blazing. “The war has taken a heavy toll on the Republic. Once the Jedi are gone, we can easily rally our troops and turn the tide of war. All we have to do is wipe them out, and the ultimate victory will be ours! All we have to do is win on Ruusan!”

  “There are other Jedi besides those on Ruusan,” he replied.

  “A few, but they are scattered in ones and twos across the galaxy. If the Army of Light is destroyed, we can hunt them down at our leisure.”

  “Do you really believe Kaan will win? He has claimed imminent victory before, then failed to deliver on his promise.”

  “For one who claims to want to join the Brotherhood,” she noted with some suspicion, “you don’t seem particularly devoted to the cause.”

  Bane’s arm shot out and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her in close for another savage kiss. She gasped in surprise, then closed her eyes and gave in to the physical pleasure of the moment. This time it was she who finally pulled back with a faint sigh.

  “You were right when you said I came back for something else,” he said, still holding her close. The treacherous poison on her lips tasted just as sweet the second time.

  “The Brotherhood cannot fail,” she promised. “The Jedi are on the run, cowering and hiding in the forests.”

  He let her go and stepped away, turning his back to her. He desperately wanted to believe she was capable of becoming his apprentice once he’d destroyed Kaan and the Brotherhood. But he still wasn’t sure. If she truly believed in what the Brotherhood stood for, then there was no hope.

  “I just can’t accept what Lord Kaan preaches,” he confessed. “He says we are all equals, but if all are equal, then none can be strong.”

  She stepped up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, applying gentle pressure until he turned to face her once again. Her expression was one of amusement.

  “Do not believe everything Kaan says,” she warned, and he could hear the naked ambition in her voice. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. “Once the Jedi are destroyed, many of his followe
rs will discover that some of us are more equal than others.”

  He swept Githany up in his mighty arms with a joyful roar, spinning her around and around as he gave her another long, hard kiss. This was what he wanted to hear!

  When he finally set her down she stumbled back half a step, unsteady after his unexpected outburst. She regained her balance and gave a startled laugh. “I guess you accept,” she said with a sly smile on her poison-slicked lips. “You pack up your camp. I’ll go ahead to let Kaan know you’re coming.”

  “I can’t wait to see the look on his face when you tell him about this meeting,” he replied, still pretending he was unaware of the poison raging unchecked through his blood.

  “Neither can I,” she replied, her voice giving nothing away. “Neither can I.”

  As the surface of Ambria fell away beneath her and the glorious rings came into view, Githany couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret. The passion she’d awakened in Bane had given him a sudden, surprising strength; she’d felt it in each of his kisses. But it was clear Bane was interested in her, not in joining the Brotherhood of Darkness.

  She punched in the coordinates for the jump back to Ruusan and leaned back in her seat. Her head was spinning from the poison that had coated her lips. Not the rock worrt venom; that was only there to lull Bane into a false sense of security. But the synox she had mixed in with it—the colorless, odorless, tasteless toxin favored by the infamous assassins of the GenoHaradan—was having an effect despite the antidote she had taken. She had no doubt Bane would soon be feeling much, much worse than she did. A single kiss would have been enough to kill him, and he had received a triple dose.

  She was going to miss Bane, she realized. But he was a threat to everything Lord Kaan was working for. She had to side with one or the other, so naturally she had chosen the one with an entire army of Sith at his command.