Star Wars: Path of Destruction: A Novel of the Old Republic (26 page)

Yet as he turned and left the room, Kas’im couldn’t shake the feeling that Qordis was rationalizing events after the fact. Qordis wanted others to believe he had been in control the whole time, but the haunted look the Blademaster had glimpsed gave evidence to the real truth: Qordis had been scared by something Bane had done or said.

That thought brought a smile to the Twi’lek’s lips. He had every confidence Bane would survive his journey into the Valley of the Dark Lords. And he was very interested to see what would happen when the young man returned.

Sirak was moving gingerly. He’d spent the past thirty-six hours in a bacta tank, and though his injuries were completely healed, his body still instinctively reacted to the memories of the wounds inflicted by Bane’s saber. Slowly, he gathered up his personal effects, anxious to return to the familiar surroundings of his own room and leave the solitude of the medcenter behind.

One of the med droids floated in, bringing him a pair of pants, a shirt, and a dark apprentice’s robe. The clothes smelled of disinfectant; it was common practice to sterilize everything before bringing it into the medcenter. The garments fit, but he knew as soon as he put them on that they had never been worn before.

He hadn’t seen a single being other than the med droids since being carried unconscious from the dueling ring. Nobody had come to checkup on him while he’d floated in the healing fluid: not Qordis, not Kas’im, not even Llokay or Yevra. He didn’t blame them.

The Sith despised weakness and failure. Whenever apprentices lost in the dueling ring, they were left alone with the shame of their defeat until strong enough to resume their studies. It happened to everyone sooner or later … except it had never before happened to Sirak.

He had been invincible, untouchable-the top apprentice in every discipline. He’d heard the rumors and the whispers. They called him the Sith’ari, the perfect being. Only they wouldn’t be calling him the Sith’ari now. Not after what Bane had done to him.

He turned to the door and found Githany standing there, watching him. “What do you want?” he asked warily.

He knew who she was, though he’d never actually spoken to her. On the day of her arrival he’d identified her as a potential threat. He’d watched her, and he’d seen her watching him, each measuring and gauging the other, trying to determine who had the upper hand. Sirak was wary of all potential challengers, or so he had thought-until the one student he’d feared the least had brought him down.

“I came to speak to you,” she answered. “About Bane.”

He twitched involuntarily at the name, then cursed himself for his reaction. If Githany had noticed, she gave no indication.

“What about him?” he asked curtly.

“I’m curious as to what your plans are now. How are you going to handle this situation?”

It was a struggle to summon up his old arrogance, yet somehow he managed a satisfactory sneer. “My plans are my own.”

“Are you going to seek revenge?” she pressed.

“In time, perhaps,” he finally admitted.

“I can help you.”

She took a step farther into the room. Even in that single step Sirak could see that she moved with the sensual grace of a Zeltron veil dancer. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why?”

“I helped Bane defeat you,” she said. “I recognized his potential from the moment I first saw him. When Qordis and the other Masters turned their backs on him, I secretly taught him their lessons in the Force. I knew the dark side was strong in him. Stronger than in me. Stronger than in you. Maybe even stronger than in the Masters themselves.”

Sirak couldn’t see the point of her story. “You still haven’t answered my question. You got what you wanted out of Bane. Why help me now?”

She shook her head sadly. “I was wrong about Bane. I thought if helped him grow stronger, he would embrace the dark side. Then I could learn from him and gain power of my own. But he is incapable of embracing the dark side. Everyone else believes his triumph over you was a great victory. Only I recognized it as a failure.”

She was toying with him. Mocking him. And he didn’t like it. “No one ever beat me in the dueling ring before Bane!” he snapped. “How can you call him a failure?”

“You’re still alive,” she said simply. “When the moment came to strike you down and end your life, he hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was weak.”

Intrigued, Sirak didn’t respond right away. Instead he waited for her to elaborate.

“He plotted and planned for months to take his revenge on you,” she continued. “His hate gave him the strength to surpass you … and at the last instant he showed mercy and let you live.”

“I left him alive at the end of our first duel,” Sirak reminded her.

“That was no act of mercy-it was an act of contempt. You thought you had utterly destroyed him. If you knew he would rise up to one day challenge you again, you would have taken his life regardless of the rules of the Academy.

“You underestimated him. A mistake I know you won’t make again. But Bane does not underestimate you. He knows you are powerful enough to represent a true threat. Yet still he left you alive, knowing you would one day seek revenge against him. He is either a weakling or a fool,” she concluded, “and I want no part of either.”

There was some truth in what she said, but Sirak still wasn’t convinced. “You change allegiances too quickly, Githany. Even for a Sith.” She was silent for a long time, trying to figure out how to answer him. Then suddenly she looked down at the floor, and when she looked up her eyes were filled with shame and humiliation.

“It was Bane who ended this alliance, not me,” she admitted, nearly choking on the words. “He abandoned me,” she continued, making no attempt to hide her bitterness. “He left the Academy. He never told me why. He never even said good-bye.”

Suddenly everything fell into place. Sirak understood her sudden desire to join with him in a partnership against her former ally. Githany was used to being in control. She was used to being in charge. She was used to being the one who ended things. And she didn’t like being on the other side.

It was like the old Corellian expression: Fear the wrath of a female scorned.

“Where did he go?” he asked.

“The students are saying Qordis sent him out into the Valley of the Dark Lords.”

Sirak nearly blurted out, Then he’s dead already! but at the last second he remembered her admonishment not to underestimate Bane again. Instead he said, “You expect he will return.”

“I’m certain of it.”

“Then we will be ready,” Sirak promised. “When he comes back, we will destroy him.”

As Bane marched across the scorched sand of Korriban’s wastelands, he noticed the sun sinking quickly below the horizon. He’d been walking for hours beneath its heat; the small city of Dreshdae and the temple that towered over it were far behind him. They had been reduced to mere specks on the horizon; if he was to look back, he would have just been able to make them out in the fading light.

He didn’t look back. He marched doggedly onward. The blazing heat hadn’t slowed him; neither would temperatures that were about to drop to near freezing with the setting of the sun. Physical discomfort-cold, heat, thirst, hunger, fatigue-had no significant effect on him, sustained as he was by the power of the Force.

Still, he was troubled. He remembered the first time he’d set foot on Korriban. He’d sensed the power of the world: Korriban was alive with the dark side. Yet the feeling had been faint and distant. During his time at the Academy he’d grown so accustomed to the almost subconscious hum that he barely even noticed it anymore.

When he’d left the temple and the starport behind, he’d expected that feeling to grow stronger. With each step drawing him closer to the Valley of the Dark Lords he thought he’d feel the dark side growing in its intensity.

Instead he’d felt nothing. No noticeable change at all. He was only a few kilometers away from the valley’s entrance; he could see the shaded outlines of the nearest tombs carved from the stone walls. And still the dark side was no stronger than a hollow echo, no more than the lingering memory of distant words spoken in the distant past.

Pushing his doubts and reservations aside, he redoubled his pace. He wanted to reach the valley before complete darkness. He had grabbed a handful of glow rods before leaving the Academy; he could use them to find his way if necessary. Unfortunately, their light would act like a beacon in the darkness, signaling his location to anyone-or anything. With his new lightsaber at his side he was confident he could survive almost any encounter, but there were things that lurked near the tombs whose attention he would rather not attract.

The last few rays of light still hung in the air when he finally reached his destination. The Valley of the Dark Lords lay sprawled out before him, hidden beneath the cover of twilight’s gloom. He briefly considered stopping for the night and making camp until dawn, then rejected the idea. Day or night would make no difference once he was inside the tombs: he’d have to use the glow rods no matter what time it was. And now that he was finally here he was too eager to see what he could find to put it off any longer.

He chose the nearest temple, the only one he could actually make out in the dim light. Like all the tombs, this one had been dug out from the high stone cliffs that boxed in the valley on either side. The grand archway at the entrance had been built out from the cliff face, but the chambers that housed the remains of the Dark Lord interred within wound their way deep into the rock.

As he got closer, he could make out intricate designs carved into the archway. Something was written across the top in letters he didn’t recognize. He guessed that the craftsmanship would have been awe inspiring at one time, but eons of desert winds had worn away most of the detail.

He paused on the threshold, taking in the air of forbidden mystery that surrounded the entrance to the tomb. He still sensed no change in the Force, however. Stepping up to the entrance, he was shocked to see that the great stone slab of a door had been split asunder. He ran his fingers along the edges of the fissure. Smooth. Worn. Whoever had broken the door had done it long ago.

Bane stood up straight and marched boldly through the shattered portal. He made his way down the long entrance tunnel, moving slowly through the gloom. Half a dozen meters in, the darkness became absolute, so he pulled out a glow rod and activated it.

An eerie blue light filled the tunnel, sending a small swarm of deadly pelko bugs scurrying for refuge beyond the dim circle of illumination. They had been stalking him, closing in from all sides. He could still sense them there, lurking in the shadows all around him, but he wasn’t afraid. After all, it wasn’t the light keeping them at bay.

Pelko bugs, like many of the creatures indigenous to Korriban, were attuned to the Force. They would have sensed Bane’s arrival even before he entered the tomb; his power would inevitably draw them in. Yet it also kept them and their paralyzing spines at a safe distance. Instinctively, the pelko bugs could sense the sheer scope of his power; they were wary of him. They wouldn’t come close enough to actually attack him, making them nothing more than a nuisance. Larger predators, like the tu’kata, might pose a real threat. But he’d deal with them if and when the time came.

Right now he was more concerned with the potential dangers the builders of the tomb might have left behind. Sith mausoleums were notorious for their fiendishly lethal traps. Bane reached out with the Force, carefully probing the walls, ground, and ceiling in front of him for anything out of the ordinary. He was relieved-and slightly disappointed-to discover nothing. Part of him had hoped he would stumble across an undiscovered chamber, something the Jedi had missed.

He continued down the tunnel, winding his way past various chambers where the wealth and treasures would have been buried with the deceased Dark Lord-along with his still-living lesser servants. The rooms held no interest for him; he wasn’t a grave robber. Instead he continued deeper and deeper until he reached the burial chamber itself.

The pelko bugs matched his progress, endlessly circling just beyond the blue illumination cast by his glow rod. He could hear the high-pitched clicking-skreek skreek skreek-of the frustrated swarm: powerless to assail their prey, yet irresistibly caught up in the wake of his passing.

The burial chamber was easily identifiable by the enormous stone sarcophagus in the center of the room, resting atop a small stone pedestal. It was little more than a blocky shadow on the fringes of the glow rod’s light, but it filled him with a sense of both fear and awe.

Still using the Force to scan for traps, he cautiously approached the tomb, his trepidation growing as the blue light washed over it to reveal more and more details. The stone was carved with symbols similar to those on the crypt’s entrance, but these hadn’t suffered untold centuries of erosion. They stood out starkly, brutal and sharp. He couldn’t read the unfamiliar language or identify the Dark Lord from the crest, yet he knew this was the resting place of an ancient and mighty being.

He reached the platform; it stood a little higher than his knee. He put one foot on it, then reached out to grip a protruding edge of one of the carved symbols on the side of the sarcophagus itself. He half expected to receive a sharp jolt or shock, but all he felt was cold stone beneath his palm.

Using his hold to maintain his balance, he hauled himself up so that he was standing with both feet on the platform, looking down at the top of the tomb. To his horror, he could now see that the stone slab sealing the sarcophagus had been virtually destroyed. Whatever had been inside was gone, replaced by rubble, dust, and a few bits of broken bone that might once have been the fingers or toes of the Dark Lord’s skeletal remains.

He stepped down from the platform, frustrated but still not willing to give up. Slowly, he turned in a great circle, as if he expected to find the stolen remains lying in a corner of the burial chamber. There was nothing: the tomb had been robbed and defiled.

Bane hadn’t been sure what he expected to find, but it wasn’t this. The spirits of the ancient Dark Lords were beings of pure dark side energy; they were as eternal as the Force itself. The spirit would linger for centuries-millennia, even-until a worthy successor came along. Or so the texts in the archive had led him to believe.