Rule of Two

by Drew Karpyshyn

  Zannah was studying him closely, absorbing every word, seeking enlightenment in the murky logic of the dark side.

  “Since we cannot hide the fact of our survival,” Bane continued, “we must obscure it with half-truths. We must encourage the rumors, spreading them so thick they blind our enemies until they cannot separate myth from reality.”

  A glimmer of understanding illuminated Zannah’s face. “A rumor is only as reliable as its source!” she exclaimed.

  Bane nodded in satisfaction. “The survivors will spread the tale, but who will believe the likes of them? Everyone will know they are self-serving mercenaries who fled the final battle to save themselves, then came to loot the camp of their former allies. They will be spit upon as traitors and thieves. Nobody who hears their story will believe it, and the truth will be dismissed as a worthless rumor.

  “And if there are any other witnesses to our presence on Ruusan,” Bane added, spinning out the final thread of the convoluted tapestry of deception, “their accounts are now less likely to be believed. They will be tainted by their similarity to the so-called lies spewing from the mouths of cowardly looters.”

  “No use or purpose in their deaths,” Zannah muttered, half to herself. She didn’t say anything else, seemingly lost in thought as she mulled over all that she had been told.

  Bane turned his attention away from his apprentice and focused on the items the looters had gathered in the center of the camp. He was the last of the Sith. If there was anything here of value, then by rights it should belong to him.

  Most of what they had collected held no interest for Bane. Some of Kaan’s Brotherhood had hoarded items of immense value, believing that the greed and envy they inspired in others could feed the power of the dark side. The mercenaries had grabbed these trinkets—ornate rings and necklaces fashioned from precious metals and set with glittering stones; ceremonial daggers and knives, their hilts inlaid with gleaming gems; intricately carved masks and small statues of remarkable skill shaped from rare and delicate materials—and thrown them haphazardly in a pile.

  Surveying the invaluable treasures that were worthless to his purpose, Bane felt another jolt of pain at the back of his head. In the same instant he saw a figure flicker at the corner of his right eye, then vanish from his field of vision.

  He snapped his head around in the direction of the movement, but saw nothing. It hadn’t been Zannah; this figure was much taller. He reached out with the Force, but felt only himself and his apprentice within the perimeter of the camp.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, noting his sudden unease. “Is someone coming?”

  “It’s nothing,” Bane replied. Was it nothing? he wondered. Or is this another side effect of the thought bomb?

  Zannah made her way over to where he was standing, her eye drawn by the sun reflecting off the jewelry dumped on the ground. “What’s this?” she asked, stooping to dig out something almost completely buried at the bottom of the pile.

  She emerged with a thin, leather-bound manuscript. She turned it over curiously, examining it from all angles until Bane extended his hand. In response, she came dutifully forward and presented him with her find.

  He recognized the style of the manuscript. There had been several similar volumes in the library at the Brotherhood’s Academy on Korriban, though Bane had never seen this particular work before. The volume was thin, a few dozen pages at most, and the cover inscribed with arcane words traced in blood-red ink. Bane recognized the language. He had become familiar with the tongue of the ancient Sith during his studies at the Academy, turning to the wisdom of Masters long dead rather than trusting the fools who sought to instruct him in the tarnished “New Sith” philosophy of the Brotherhood.

  He opened the volume and found that the same blood-red ink had been used to fill the pages with delicate script and elaborate illustrations. As with the words on the cover, the language inside was that of the ancient Sith. However, the margins of each page were filled with handwritten notes in Galactic Basic. He recognized the handwriting as that of Qordis, the former head of the Academy on Korriban and one of the many so-called Sith Lords serving under Kaan. Unlike the rest of the Brotherhood of Darkness, however, Qordis hadn’t perished in the thought bomb’s blast. He’d actually died several hours earlier when Bane had used the Force to crush the life out of his former teacher.

  Why did Qordis bring this manuscript with him to Korriban? Bane wondered. Qordis had always been more concerned with hoarding wealth than studying the ancient texts. He wore only the finest silks and most expensive jewelry; each of the long, cruel fingers on both hands had been adorned with rings of incredible value. Even his tent on Korriban had been decorated with rare woven tapestries and ornate rugs. If he had carried this manuscript with him all the way from the Academy, Bane realized, it must contain knowledge of tremendous value

  “What’s it say?” Zannah asked, but Bane paid her no attention.

  He flipped quickly through the manuscript, skimming both the original text and Qordis’s notes. It seemed to be a compilation of the history and teachings of Freedon Nadd, a great Sith Master who had lived over three thousand standard years ago. Bane had read previous accounts of Nadd, but this one had something the other versions lacked: the location of his final resting place!

  For many centuries the tomb of Freedon Nadd had been lost, hidden by the Jedi so that the followers of the dark side could not seek to gain guidance or power from the Sith artifacts sealed inside. But on the last page of the manuscript Qordis had made one final note, underlined for emphasis: Seek the tomb on Dxun.

  How Qordis had come by this information signified little to Bane; all that mattered was that he now knew the location, too. The war on Ruusan had prevented Qordis from attempting to find Nadd’s tomb on Dxun. Now that the war was over, there was nothing to keep Bane from making the journey and claiming Nadd’s legacy as his own. But first he had to get off Ruusan.

  The all-too-familiar jolt of pain shot through his skull, and once again he caught the flicker of a figure from the corner of his eye. This time the image seemed to sustain itself for nearly a full second. Tall, broad-shouldered, and clad in the robes of the Sith, it was a figure Bane recognized—Lord Kaan! And then, as before, it vanished.

  Is this real? Was it possible that the leader of the Brotherhood of Darkness had, in some form, survived the thought bomb? Was it possible his spirit now haunted the world of his death?

  He closed the volume and looked down at Zannah. She gave no indication that she had seen or sensed anything. Just a trick of the mind, Bane thought. It was the only explanation that made sense. Zannah would have felt the manifestation of a dark side spirit so close by, yet she had been oblivious.

  The realization brought him an odd mix of relief and concern. When he had seen Kaan looming beside him, Bane had thought for an instant—just an instant—that he had failed in his quest to destroy the Brotherhood. But the affirmation of his mission’s success was tempered by the awareness that the thought bomb had done even more damage than he’d first suspected. Hopefully the delusions and agonizing headaches were only temporary.

  Zannah was still staring up at him, barely able to contain the flood of questions she had about what he had discovered inside the pages of the treasure she had found. Her expression of expectant curiosity turned to disappointment when he slid the manuscript into the folds of his clothes without offering any explanation. In time Bane would share all his knowledge, present and future, with her. But until he had a chance to explore Nadd’s tomb himself, he was reluctant to tell anyone—even his apprentice—of its existence.

  “Are you ready to leave this world?” he asked.

  “I’m sick of this place,” she answered, a hint of bitterness in her voice. “Things have gone bad ever since I got here.”

  “Your cousins,” Bane asked, remembering a remark she had made earlier about the two boys with whom she had first arrived. “Do you miss them?”

  “What’s t
he point?” she replied with a shrug. “Tomcat and Bug are dead. Why waste time thinking about them?”

  Her words were indifferent, but Bane recognized her callousness as a defense mechanism. Beneath the surface he could feel her passions burning: She was angry and resentful over their deaths; she blamed the Jedi for what happened, and she would never forgive them. Her rage would always be a part of her, simmering below the surface. It would serve her well in the years to come.

  “Come with me,” Bane said, reaching a decision.

  He led her over to an abandoned swoop bike near one of the tents. He climbed aboard, and she clambered up onto the seat behind him. Her slim arms wrapped tightly around his waist as the swoop’s engine roared to life and it lifted up into the air.

  “Why are we taking the swoop?” she asked, shouting into his ear to be heard above the thrusters.

  “We will travel faster this way. Time grows short,” Bane called back over his shoulder. “Soon the Jedi will return to claim their dead and seek out the survivors of Kaan’s army. But there is still one last lesson you must learn before we go.”

  He didn’t say any more; some things could not be explained, but had to be witnessed to be understood. Zannah needed to see the remains of the thought bomb. She needed to see the true scope of Kaan’s madness. She needed to grasp the finality of what Bane had accomplished here. And he needed to assure himself that the figure he had seen was nothing more than an aftereffect of his exposure to the thought bomb. He wanted to see with his own eyes undeniable proof that Kaan was truly destroyed.

  4

  Darovit lay huddled on the cold cavern floor, bathed in the eerie light emanating from the egg-shaped silver orb hovering in the center of the underground chamber. He hadn’t moved for nearly two hours, paralyzed with the wonder and horror of it all. It was as if time had no meaning here at the epicenter of the thought bomb; as if Darovit himself were now suspended between life and death, trapped like the tormented spirits of Kaan’s followers and the Jedi who had dared to face them.

  Eventually, however, his shock began to fade. Slowly sanity crept back in, dragging the reality of the physical world with it. The air in the cave was damp and chilled; his body was shivering almost uncontrollably. His nose was running, and he reached up to wipe it away with a shaking hand, his fingers clumsy with the numbing cold.

  “Come on, Tomcat,” he said to himself. “Time to get moving. Up and at ’em.”

  With a great effort he managed to get to his feet, then fell back down with a cry as his calves and thighs cramped beneath him. The pain helped break the last lingering vestiges of the spell he was under, snapping him back to the present and focusing his mind on the here and now.

  Frantically he massaged each of his legs, trying to restore the blood flow. He was anxious to leave this place now, desperate to get away from the evil presence of the silently pulsing bomb. Glancing up at it made his skin crawl, yet as repulsive as it was, he found it strangely compelling.

  “Don’t look at it,” he berated himself in a sharp whisper, redoubling his efforts to ease the pain and tightness in his lower limbs. After another minute he dared to stand up again. Pins and needles shot through the soles of his feet, and his knees buckled briefly, but he stayed standing.

  He looked from side to side, scanning the cavern by the light of the orb. There were at least half a dozen entrances leading out from the chamber, and Darovit swore when he realized he had no idea which would lead him back up to the surface.

  “You can’t stay here,” he muttered.

  Picking a tunnel at random, he made his way with slow, uneasy steps out of the cavern. The darkness quickly enveloped him once he entered the passage, until he drew out the lightsaber the Sith had given him. Using the faint glow of its ruby blade, he was able to pick his way along the uneven terrain.

  It didn’t take him long to realize he’d made the wrong choice. He remembered the sharp incline he had tumbled down on his arrival, but the floor here was relatively flat. It would have been a simple matter to head back and take one of the other exits. But the thought of returning to the main chamber—and the orb of trapped spirits—prevented him from turning around.

  “This tunnel’s gotta come out somewhere,” he told himself. “Just follow it to the surface.”

  The plan sounded simple, but it became more complicated when he reached a fork in the passage. He hesitated for several moments, studying the branch heading off to his left and then the one heading off to his right. Neither offered any clue as to which—if either—would lead him to freedom. With a resigned sigh and a shake of the head, he chose the one on the left.

  Forty minutes and three more branches later he was regretting his decision. He couldn’t go back to the cavern now even if he’d wanted to; he had become hopelessly turned around in the subterranean labyrinth. His stomach grumbled, and the realization that he might never find his way out began to creep into the corners of his mind.

  He pushed on, his pace increasing with his rising panic. He was running now, his eyes darting from side to side, hoping that the dim illumination of the lightsaber’s blade would reveal something—anything—that might show him the way. He darted down another side tunnel, stumbling along in his haste until he tripped and fell.

  As he threw his hands forward to break his fall, the lightsaber flew from his grasp. It scored a gash along the wall, then bounced away from him across the uneven floor, extinguishing itself and casting all into total darkness.

  Darovit had hit the ground hard. He lay facedown in the utter blackness of the tunnel, surrendering to the hopeless despair that crashed in on him. There was no point in going on; he would never find his way out. Better to just die here, forgotten and alone.

  He rolled over onto his back, blind eyes staring up at the ceiling. And then he heard a sound. It was faint but unmistakable. A voice coming from a great distance, cutting through the oppressive silence.

  Now you’re hearing things, Tomcat, he thought. But a second later he heard it again, echoing through the tunnel. Someone else was down here!

  He didn’t know if it was a Jedi come to witness the fate of his fallen comrades, a minion of the Sith who had fled the final battle, or someone allied with a completely different group. He had no idea if whoever it was would welcome him, take him prisoner, or kill him on sight. But he didn’t care. Even the fear of going back to the chamber and the unnatural, unholy silver orb didn’t hold him back this time. Anything was better than dying of exposure or starvation in these dark tunnels beneath the planet’s surface.

  Crawling forward through the gloom, he felt around with his hands until his fingers closed around the hilt of the lightsaber. He thrust it triumphantly up in the air as it ignited, allowing him to see once more.

  He had no way of knowing how far away the owner of the voice was. The acoustics of the tunnel were strange and unfamiliar. Sounds and echoes were unnaturally distorted as they bounced across the irregular stone walls of the underground maze. But he was certain the voice had come from somewhere up ahead, in the direction he had been going.

  With the glowing blade to guide him, he moved with an eager confidence. Every minute or so he would catch another snatch of conversation coming to him from somewhere up ahead. He could tell there were two speakers now, each with a distinct voice: one a deep bass, the other a much higher pitch. Each time he heard the voices, they were slightly louder, and he knew he was headed in the right direction.

  He noticed that the darkness of the tunnel was fading; he no longer needed his lightsaber to see his surroundings. But it wasn’t the yellow light of the sun streaming in as he neared the surface; it was a cold silver glow. With a start he realized he had somehow circled back and was once more approaching the chamber of the thought bomb. Whoever the voices belonged to—friend or foe—he’d find them there.

  The chamber was close, so close he could make out the words the next time the voices spoke.

  “The Sith are only two now—one Master and on
e apprentice,” the deeper one said. “There will be no others.”

  “What happens if I fail?” the other replied.

  Sounds like a woman, Darovit thought, too focused on following the voices to pay much attention to the actual words. No, not a woman, he corrected himself a second later. A girl.

  “Will you destroy me, too?” the girl asked.

  With a shock, Darovit realized that he knew the voice! He didn’t know how it was possible, but there was no doubt in his mind who this was.

  “Rain!” he shouted, breaking into a run to meet the cousin he had thought was dead. “Rain, you’re alive!”

  The trip to the cave was quick and uneventful. Bane had noticed a few shell-shocked survivors of the final battle of Ruusan staring at him and Zannah as they roared past on their swoop, but he paid them little heed. He doubted any of them would recognize him for what he truly was. And even if they did, their tales of a surviving Sith Lord racing past them with a young girl in tow would seem as ludicrous and unreliable as the accounts of the mercenaries he had let escape back at Kaan’s camp.

  He brought the swoop to a stop outside the dark and forbidding tunnel that would lead them down to the chamber of the thought bomb. Small pebbles crunched loudly beneath the hard soles of his heavy black boots as he dismounted. Zannah was too small to simply step off the vehicle, but she leapt down from her seat without any sign of fear or hesitation, landing nimbly on the ground beside him.

  Neither of them spoke as they made the descent, their way lit by one of the glow rods Bane had found in the supplies back at the Sith camp. The air grew colder and Zannah shivered beside him, but she didn’t complain. They moved quickly down the rough-hewn passage; even so it took nearly twenty minutes for them to reach their destination due to the length of the tunnel. And for the first time Darth Bane actually saw what his manipulations of Kaan and his followers had wrought.