But this was her Gazzari hillside.
Kerra looked away, sullen. “I don’t even have my shiny stick.”
Rusher remembered. The lightsaber was back on Diligence, where they’d been ordered to leave it. “Well, you broke mine.”
One of Arkadia’s minions stepped around the alga column to address them. “Kerra Holt, you have been invited to meet Lord Arkadia in her museum.”
“Museum? Sounds interesting,” Rusher said.
“And you should await our lady outside, Brigadier, once you’ve finished your work with our engineers.”
Somberly, Kerra began to follow the minion through the crowd. But before she left Rusher’s sight, she turned.
“It’s true,” she said, looking down at the cerulean shadows on the floor. “Arkadia hasn’t asked for anything—yet. She’s only given. And she looks like the best option we have.” She looked up. “But she’s still Sith. And that means something.”
Rusher looked at her. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means keep your eyes open, Jarrow. For my kids—and yours.”
From the balcony of the level above, Bothan eyes watched as the humans parted.
Narsk hadn’t been able to keep track of the Jedi the entire time on Syned; Arkadia had given her surprising freedom of movement. It hadn’t mattered. Kerra had been easy to find, roaming the great ice halls listlessly. She seemed deflated, wholly contained.
But while he knew where the Jedi was, Narsk still had no idea what Arkadia was trying to accomplish with her presence. He didn’t care, despite a personal interest in seeing her suffer. But observing Kerra was part of the instructions he had received in the desert, instructions he would carry out. Thinking back on that short, sunny respite, Narsk shivered. Why couldn’t Arkadia have picked a planet like that for her citadel?
After his work on Byllura, he’d expected Arkadia to bring him into her confidence about her plans. That hadn’t happened, but the fact that he was still in Calimondretta suggested that hope wasn’t lost. Another assignment might be in the offing—and he knew what would more than likely prompt it.
The Bequest was finally happening.
He’d received word of the upcoming event just an hour earlier, via his implant. Seven long pulses, transmitted by a system that remained a mystery to him. They meant that today would be a special day. They always were. How could they not be? When power consorted with power, the galaxy shook.
Walking back from the chilly balcony railing, Narsk imagined the preparations being made in capitals across the sector. The conversations with advisers, the secret side deals already being considered.
The Bequest was on.
And if his eyes could be trusted, Arkadia had just summoned a Jedi to her presence. What was she up to?
Narsk bolted for the escalator. It was time to have a talk with the mercenary.
Kerra had rarely gotten around to visiting Coruscant’s museums. It was always something for another day. She’d hardly imagined that her first museum since Jedi Knighthood would be under an ice sheet in a Sith Lord’s redoubt.
Arkadia’s aide had led Kerra up several flights of stairs into a rotunda, open to the stars above through a small transparisteel aperture. Synedian algae cascaded through fixtures around the room’s circumference, giving the place a cool glow. A heptagonal pylon half a meter high sat at the room’s center, focal point of floor tiling leading to the seven equally spaced exits.
A lot of empty space, she thought, watching her guide depart. More planetarium than museum. The only exhibits were on the walls, sitting in small elevated alcoves between the doors.
She’d expected to see the usual Sith relics—as if there could be anything “usual” about sinister instruments of mayhem. Instead, many of the items seemed commonplace, although their vintage was clearly ancient.
Here, according to the captions, was a translation device used by an aide to Chancellor Fillorean during negotiations with the Duinuogwuin. A diamond bit used by a nameless slave to mine crystals in the Great Hyperspace War. A holorecorder used to interview the philosopher Laconio—but not the famous recordings themselves. A fusioncutter used by a Sith trooper to board Endar Spire. All were critical to history—and yet all seemed mundane, as anonymous as the people who used them.
Looking up at the organic light fixtures, she realized the common element. These things were all tools. Arkadia shared something else with Daiman besides a liking for sevens in interior design: there was no art in her realm. Everything was functional, even the display in the plaza where she’d left Rusher. The pretty tubes simply routed Synedian algae from the pumps to the final destination. Some of Calimondretta’s architecture was remarkable, but as with Daiman, it served mainly to fete Arkadia, rather than soothe the people.
And they needed soothing. They were all so frantic. Kerra thought back to the family of Gotals she had seen parting in the hallways of the academy. She’d thought there was something missing from the scene at the time, but she didn’t realize what it was—until now.
Joy.
The Arkadianites didn’t suffer from the same kind of oppression that Daiman’s slave laborers did, but they lived under a cloud nonetheless. People didn’t have to be threatened with physical danger to be afraid. And Arkadia’s system kept them fearful. Fearful of loss of status, should they underperform. Fearful of being shifted to occupations they didn’t know anything about, should they perform too well. Arkadia kept them in perpetual motion. Perhaps they were happier than Darkknell’s hopeless residents; certainly, they weren’t as bad off as the drones of the Dyarchy. But in their own way, the people here suffered.
Kerra’s eyes fixed on a single item, just over a meter long. It was another implement, but different from the rest. A branding tool carved from the bone of some monstrous creature, it had a metal tip worked carefully into hand-polished grooves. Carvings in its curved length depicted the story of the owner’s family.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Arkadia asked.
Kerra looked to see the Sith Lord behind her. She was in her war regalia again, just as she’d been when aboard her flagship. “It’s very nice work,” Kerra said.
“Even I can see that,” Arkadia said, stepping past her to the display. “The crafter who made it toiled thirty long years at creating such pieces. They were signs of status, prized by heads of households.” She lifted the branding tool from its stand. “This was from the end, near the apex of the woman’s skills.”
“The end?”
“Trading vessels from one of your Republic corporations arrived on Odryn to launch a trade in prefabricated goods. They were able to replicate existing tools at a hundredth of her price. The artisan, who knew nothing else, threw herself into sea and drowned.”
Arkadia’s hands clenched, snapping the branding tool in half. “Beauty is meaningless against the wave.” She threw the fragments to the floor.
Kerra looked at the broken tool, dumbfounded.
“Such a thing would never have been allowed here,” Arkadia said, “because the craftswoman would have had other skills to rely upon.” The idea of spending a lifetime in a single pursuit was a recipe for stagnation, for obsolescence.
“But the cost is the masterpiece.”
“Then it is worth paying.”
Kerra knelt and picked up the pieces. “There’s more cost than that,” she said, gently replacing the fragments on their stand. “Your people. You keep them running. But you’re going to run them to death.”
“What about the Republic?” Arkadia said. “Your society—even your beloved Senate—is driven by commerce. You create occupations, but you don’t guarantee them. You allow competitors and new technologies to disrupt them, without so much as a thought to those whose livelihoods are impacted.”
“But we choose to face those challenges,” Kerra said.
“Do you?” Arkadia walked to the pylon at the center of the room. “With me, they know change is coming. But that change has meaning. It
serves a cause. It happens to be mine.”
Kerra stared, perplexed. The woman wasn’t anything like she’d expected. Misguided as she was, Arkadia was … logical.
Noting her expression, Arkadia laughed. “Did you expect all Sith Lords to be murderous, knuckle-dragging villains? You can’t run a galaxy that way.”
“Then let the students go.”
“I can’t do that,” Arkadia said. “Understand, Kerra. If I seem reasonable, it’s because I value reason. But I’m still Sith—and I am not going to release lives I control just to gain the trust of a Jedi.” She walked behind the pylon and touched a hidden control. “But I will offer them refuge—and I have something else that I think will be of even greater value to you.”
Around them, the living lighting dimmed—and above, the skylight went opaque. The sides of the heptagonal pylon slid down, revealing projectors that cast images of stars and nebulae around the darkened rotunda. Kerra looked up, straining to find a point of reference. She couldn’t.
“You came here to strike a blow against the Sith,” Arkadia said, “and perhaps to help some of the people under our sway. But I sense that you also want something else. Something you haven’t been able to get from anyone, on any of these worlds.”
Drowning in a sea of stars under Sith domination, Kerra closed her eyes. There was something she wanted.
An explanation.
“An explanation,” Arkadia repeated. “An explanation for all the wars, all the destruction you’ve seen. How brothers came to war. The strange ending to events on Gazzari. And how all this chaos rests within a larger order.”
Arkadia stood before dual projector lights, shadows falling before her. “I need something from you, but for you to help me, you have to know something no one outside Sith space knows. You have to know why.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kerra sat, a student again in stellar cartography just as in the Jedi academy. Only this was a lesson no Jedi Knight ever had—from a teacher none would suffer to live.
And yet she was spellbound. The stars above had meaning now, painted in colors and outlined. There was Chelloa, where she’d arrived. There was the winding path to Darkknell. And there was the refugees’ flight path, leading through Byllura to Syned. Symbols hovered in the air, marking Arkadia’s best guesses at who controlled what.
The Jedi rubbed her eyes, unbelieving. She wanted to memorize it all as quickly as possible. But there was so much. Far more systems were under Sith control than anyone in the Republic imagined. And from the snaking maze of territories and the jangle of colors and emblems, it was clear there were far more players, too.
“You know of the Sith Lord Chagras,” Arkadia said.
Kerra nodded. Chagras had controlled Darkknell before Daiman.
“Chagras and Xelian were brother and sister—two of the seven children of Vilia Calimondra.”
Kerra hadn’t heard the latter name. But Xelian, she knew, was Daiman and Odion’s mother. Chagras was Odion and Daiman’s uncle? That was something the Sithologists of the Republic had never heard. The researchers she’d studied under weren’t clear on who Odion and Daiman’s father was—just that he had been out of the picture for many years. But neither brother acted or looked much like the popular image of Chagras. His empire had been reasonably orderly.
“I think you’re going to have to start at the beginning,” Kerra said.
“The fountainhead,” Arkadia said, teeth glinting in the shimmering light, “is Vilia. My grandmother. Over the years, my grandmother acquired several dead husbands—and a sizable empire.” Above, large blocks of space blinked into icy blue, one section after another.
“The dowager,” Kerra whispered.
“Well, I hope you didn’t think that was me,” Arkadia said, smirking. “But Vilia had a problem. Each of her marriages produced offspring. And those seven children, grown, each claimed the right to be her sole heir.” Above, seven worlds dripped red. “So she proposed a contest. The Charge Matrica. Whichever child expanded her holdings the most would have her whole legacy, when the time came.”
Kerra stood up, mesmerized by the display. “When—when was this?”
“Thirty-four years ago. Before you, or I, or the so-called creator of the universe was born,” she said. “So the challenge began.”
Above, the blue areas swelled, sprawling across sector borders and filling in gaps. Every world, Kerra realized, was one of the many that lost its freedom—one of the planets Vannar Treece had fought to save.
“It worked,” Arkadia said, “for a while. But Sith don’t play fair. When her bid began failing, Xelian—Odion and Daiman’s mother—declared war on Chagras. My father.” Arkadia clasped her hands together and looked down at them.
Kerra looked at her, stunned. Chagras’s daughter.
“That broke it,” Arkadia said. “All of Vilia’s children went to war against one another. My grandmother seemed … strangely unwilling to referee. And our joint cause suffered.” In the holographic display around them, the blue mass of space stopped growing and began to fragment, breaking into multicolored zones. “For years, Sith conquests in this region stalled due to the infighting. Until only Chagras was left from his generation—and peace came.”
“I know,” Kerra said. She had been born into that island of relative silence. No one had ever known why the internecine violence had stopped. Her parents were simply glad that it had, so they could stop fleeing. “Did your father win Vilia’s legacy?”
Arkadia stiffened. “Yes. And no.” She began pacing around the flickering pylon. “He was sole heir. But Vilia yet lived, and so retained most of her holdings. All my father was guaranteed was the cooperation of his many nieces and nephews in restoring all that had been damaged. Ten years ago, Chagras was ready to face the Republic anew.”
“Aquilaris,” Kerra said. “Chagras sent Odion to conquer Aquilaris.” My homeworld. She glared at Arkadia.
Arkadia returned her gaze. “You lost your family, I take it. Well, we are joined in sadness—for before many more worlds fell, Chagras died suddenly, eight years ago. And eight years ago …”
“A second Charge Matrica began,” Kerra whispered. “Among the grandchildren?”
“Among the grandchildren.”
Arkadia let the words sink in as, above, the star map showing took on a leprous aspect. The Chagras Hegemony shattered into five shards. Then ten. Then more.
“Daiman and Odion went to war first,” Arkadia said. “They barely needed the excuse. On Byllura, where my father had placed my troubled brother and sister for safekeeping, Calician took control and began to build a state around Quillan and Dromika. There are others,” she said, almost somberly. “I can’t even remember them all, sometimes.”
Kerra’s head spun. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me every Sith Lord who’s warring out here is related?” It was just too fantastic—and something no one, not even Vannar, had ever heard. “You’re all cousins?”
“No, not by any stretch,” Arkadia said. “Not even all the human Sith Lords trace back to Vilia. But it is a big family. There are also half-breeds—and some outsiders, like Calician, who try to figure in,” she said. “It’s all about impressing Grandmother.”
“So she’ll remember them when she dies?”
“She favors them now, too,” Arkadia said. “Vilia doles out assets from her holdings occasionally as rewards.”
Flabbergasted, Kerra sagged against the wall. Looking at the patchwork of color suspended in the air, it seemed too incredible. “Who would believe this?”
“You will,” Arkadia said. “It’s time.” Pressing a control on the pylon, she watched the starfield disappear. The Sith Lord walked through the darkness toward Kerra, stopping in a semicircle on the floor. “Stay in the shadows,” she said. “Watch—and say nothing. If you’re noticed, I’ll have to kill you immediately.” She looked back. “And your students.”
Chilled, Kerra looked toward the pylon. In place of the floating star systems,
a constellation of images flickered into being. Odion, as large and hateful as life. Daiman, in his gaudiest fineries. And there were others. Men. Women. More teenagers. Robed or in battle dress. Mostly human, but some strange faces. More cyborgs, like Odion. A figure in a chair. An odd wraith-like entity in a hood. Kerra’s eyes jumped from one to the next. She didn’t know where to look.
And every one of them postured, trying to look as menacing—or regal, or wise, or aloof—as possible. Daiman seemed completely disinterested, not even deigning to look at the others. Which was hard, given how many there were. Kerra had seen seven markings on the floor: locations for standing. She assumed there were similar rooms elsewhere. But there were far more than seven images sharing the circle.
It was like the Jedi Council.
A council of hate.
“Greetings, my children,” came a soft voice from the center.
Kerra looked past Arkadia. There, hovering above the pylon, was the image of a white-haired woman in a gossamer yellow gown. The Dowager. Vilia.
Human, and in her seventies, at least—wrinkled, but not worn. Kerra watched as the woman caressed a strange alien flower; she appeared to be in a garden, somewhere.
Clearly enjoying her retirement, Kerra thought. Just letting the star systems roll in.
“I wish to offer you all my congratulations on the liquidation of Lord Bactra,” Vilia said.
“Us all?” Odion smoldered.
“Yes, Odion,” the woman said. “The Quermian was an outsider. He was a friend to our family for many years—but he couldn’t change what he was.” She turned, as if seeing all the dozen-plus Sith Lords in virtual attendance at once. “I felt the need for Bactra was past—and he gave us the opportunity to do something about it.”
Kerra clasped her hand tightly over her mouth, muffling her gasp. Of course. Daiman and Odion had truly been fighting on Gazzari—until they suddenly stabbed Bactra in the back. She’d just never imagined they’d done so on command.
And least of all at the behest of someone who looked so kindly. Vilia swept her hand gracefully through the air. “You have all done very well since we last spoke,” she said. “And the time has come for the assignment of bequests.”
Star Wars: Knight Errant Page 27
