It was, after all, the nature of the dark side.
* * *
Bane watched the Buzzard until it disappeared in the sky before turning his attention to gathering up his camp. He would have to act carefully now. Githany would tell Kaan she’d tried to poison him. When he showed up at the camp still alive things could become … difficult.
He could simply stay away and let events run their course. The Jedi on Ruusan would rally, turning the tide of the battle once again. It was a given; Bane was counting on it. Desperate, Kaan would then turn to the gift Bane had sent him. He would unleash the thought bomb, unaware of its true nature. And then every Force-user on Ruusan—Sith and Jedi alike—would be destroyed.
This was the most likely scenario. But Bane had come too far to leave the end of the Brotherhood of Darkness to chance. When Kaan’s army faltered this time, there were those in his camp—like Githany—who might turn against him. They could flee Ruusan, scattering before the Jedi. And then Bane would have to deal with each of his rivals separately before he could become the unchallenged leader of the Sith.
Better to be on hand, guiding the events to the outcome he desired. That, however, meant he’d have to come up with a plausible story to explain his desire to join the Brotherhood even after a failed assassination.
He thought about it for nearly an hour, considering and discarding a number of ideas. In the end there was only one reason any of them would believe that he had come back. He had to make them all think he wanted to overthrow Kaan and become the new leader of the Brotherhood.
Bane smiled at the subtle beauty of the plan. Kaan would be suspicious, of course. But all his effort and attention would be focused on holding on to his position. He wouldn’t realize his rival’s true purpose: to exterminate the Brotherhood completely; to destroy every last Sith on Ruusan.
Plus, there was the added advantage of having another opportunity to convince Githany to join him. Once she understood what he had truly become—and how he had manipulated Kaan and the other so-called Dark Lords—she might actually accept his offer to become his apprentice. At the very least he would get a chance to see her face once she realized her poison had failed to—
“Ungh!” Bane let out a grunt and doubled over as a vicious pain ripped through his stomach. He tried to straighten up, but his body was suddenly racked with a prolonged coughing fit. He raised his hand to cover his mouth, and when he let it fall it was covered in frothy red flecks of blood.
Impossible, he thought, even as another stabbing pain through his guts dropped him to his knees. Revan had shown him how to use the Force to ward off poison and disease. No simple toxin should be able to affect anyone strong enough in the dark side to be a Lord of the Sith.
Another coughing fit paralyzed him until it passed. He reached up to wipe the sweat rolling down his face and felt something warm and sticky on his cheek. A thin trickle of crimson tears was leaking from the corner of his eye.
He rose shakily to his feet, turning his focus inward. The poison was still there. It had spread throughout his entire body, polluting and corrupting his system and damaging his vital organs. He was hemorrhaging internally, bleeding from his eyes and nose.
Githany! He would have laughed if he hadn’t been in such unbearable agony. He had been so confident, so arrogant. So convinced she was underestimating him. Instead he had underestimated her. A mistake he vowed never to make again … if he survived.
He had read enough about synox to recognize the symptoms. If he had detected it immediately, he would have been able to cleanse it from his system, just as he had done with the rock worrt venom that had concealed its presence. But synox was the subtlest of poisons; the insidious toxin had sapped his strength as it had spread unnoticed throughout his body.
Summoning all his resources, he tried to purge the poison from his body, burning it away with the cold fire of the dark side. The poison was too strong … or rather, he was too weak. The damage was already done. The synox had crippled him, leaving his power a mere shadow of what it had been only hours earlier.
He could dull its effects, slow its progress, and temporarily hold the most lethal symptoms at bay. But he couldn’t cure himself. Not now, weakened as he was.
There was power in Lake Natth, but it was power he couldn’t draw on. The ancient Jedi had been careful to lock the dark side safely away within its depths. The black, stagnant waters were the only evidence of the power that lay forever trapped beneath its surface.
Desperate to find some other way to survive, he staggered over to the land crawler on the edge of his camp. Ignoring the protests of his suddenly weary limbs, he clambered in behind the wheel and began to drive. He needed a healer. If the one called Caleb was still on this world, Bane had to find him. It was his only chance.
He headed for the nearest battleground, a barren plain several kilometers away where the remains of those who had fought and died still lay strewn about the ground. The rough rumble of the land crawler’s treads jarred him with each turn, and he gritted his teeth against the agonizing pain. As he drove, his world became a waking nightmare of darkness and shadow, all tinged with red. He was barely even conscious of where he was going, letting the Force guide him even as he tried to use it to keep his body from succumbing to the effects of Githany’s poison.
The fear of death wrapped itself around him, smothering his thoughts. His will began to falter; it would be so easy to just surrender now and let it all end. Just let it all slip away and be at peace …
Snarling, he shook his head, dragging his thoughts back from the brink by repeating the first line of the Sith mantra over and over: Peace is a lie. He reached back into his training as a soldier, taking his fear and transforming it into anger to give him strength.
I am Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith. I will survive. At any cost.
Far ahead—at the very limits of his rapidly fading vision—he saw another vehicle moving slowly across the other side of the battlefield. Settlers. Scavengers, picking through the remains.
He pointed the nose of his land crawler at them, groaning with the effort required to simply turn the wheel. Reaching out with the Force, he tried to touch the spirits of those who had fallen at this site. Only a few months earlier, scores of beings had died here. He tried to drink in what remained of their tortured ends, hoping the agony of their final moments would bolster his own flagging power. But it wasn’t enough; their suffering was too distant, the echo of their screams too faint.
Glancing up, he noticed that his vehicle had begun to veer off course, listing hard to one side as his grip on the wheel weakened. His arms were numb and tingling; they had become almost completely unresponsive. He could feel his heart laboring with every beat.
The front tread struck a large rock and the land crawler suddenly turned over, dumping Bane out onto hard dirt and jagged stone. He tried to look up again to locate the people he had seen in the distance, but the effort to raise his head was too much. Exhausted, his world went black.
The heavy whump-whump-whump of a land crawler’s treads stirred him back to consciousness. The other vehicle was here. He doubted they would even see him: his body had fallen behind his tipped-over crawler and they had approached from the other side. Even if they did, there was nothing they could do to save him now. Yet there was something he could do to save himself.
The engines cut out and he heard the sound of voices: children’s voices. Three young boys scampered down from the back of the land crawler and began to hunt eagerly through the wreckage.
“Mikki!” came the voice of their father, calling after one of his sons. “Don’t go too far.”
“Look!” one of the boys shouted. “Look what I found!”
The weak must serve the strong. That is the way of the dark side.
“Wow! Is it real? Can I touch it?”
“Let me see, Mikki! Let me see!”
“Settle down, boys,” the father said wearily. “Let’s take a look.”
Bane li
stened to the crunching of his boots across the small stones as he approached. I am strong. They are weak. They are nothing.
“It’s a lightsaber, Father. But there’s something weird about the handle. See? It’s got a strange hook in it.”
He felt the sudden fear that gripped the father’s chest like a vise.
Survive. At any cost.
“Throw it away, Mikki! Now!”
Too late.
The lightsaber sprang to life in the boy’s hand, spinning in the air and striking him dead on the spot. The father screamed; his brothers tried to run. The blade leapt after the eldest, cutting him down from behind.
Bane, drawing strength from the horror of their deaths, rose to his feet, coming into view like an apparition disgorged from the bowels of the planet.
“Nooo!” the father howled, desperately clutching his youngest son to his chest. “Spare this one, my lord!” he begged, tears streaming down his face. “He’s the youngest. The last one I have.”
Those weak enough to beg for mercy do not deserve it.
Still too weak to even raise his arms Bane reached out once more with the Force, bringing the lightsaber up to hover over his helpless victims. He waited, letting their horror mount, then plunged the burning blade into the young boy’s heart.
The father clutched the corpse to his breast, his tortured laments echoing across the empty battlefield. “Why? Why did you have to kill them?”
Bane feasted on his anguish, gorging himself, feeling the dark side growing stronger in him. The symptoms of the poison receded enough so that he could raise his arm without the muscles trembling. The lightsaber sprang to his hand.
The father cowered before him. “Why did you make me watch? Why did you—”
One quick swipe of the lightsaber cut him off, sending the father to the same tragic fate as his sons.
26
Lord Hoth tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The creaking of his cot joined the whining buzz of the bloodsucking insect swarms that followed his army wherever they made camp. The noise was compounded by the whirring hum of small-winged night birds swooping in to feast on the insects that feasted on his soldiers. The result was a shrill, maddening cacophony that hovered on the edges of hearing.
But it wasn’t the noises that were keeping him awake, or the unrelenting heat that left him with a constant sheen of sweat on his brow, even at night. It wasn’t the military strategies and battle plans constantly running through his mind. It wasn’t any one of these things, but rather the sum of all of them together—and the fact that there seemed to be no end in sight to this blasted, cursed war. Minor annoyances that had been tolerable during the first months on Ruusan had been magnified by frustration and futility into unbearable torments.
With an angry growl he cast aside the thin blanket he slept under, tossing it into the far corner of his tent. He swung his legs over the side and sat up on the edge of the cot, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head clasped between his hands.
For two standard years he had waged his campaign against the Brotherhood of Darkness here on Ruusan. In the beginning many Jedi had rallied to his side. And many Jedi had died—too many. Under Lord Hoth’s command they had sacrificed themselves, offering up their own lives for the sake of a greater cause. Yet now, after six major battles—not to mention countless skirmishes, raids, minor clashes, and indecisive engagements—nothing had been decided. The blood of thousands stained his hands, yet he was no closer to his goal.
Frustration was beginning to give way to despair. Morale was the lowest it had ever been. Many of the soldiers grumbled that Farfalla was right: the general had let Ruusan become his mad obsession and was leading them to their doom.
Hoth no longer even had the strength to argue with them. Sometimes he felt as if he had forgotten the reasons he had come here in the first place. Once there may have been virtue in this war, but such nobility had long since been stripped away. Now he fought for revenge in the name of those Jedi who had fallen. He fought out of hatred of the dark side and what it stood for. He fought out of pride and a refusal to admit defeat. But most of all, he fought simply because he no longer knew anything else.
Yet if he gave up now, would it make any difference? If he ordered his troops to retreat, to evacuate the planet in Farfalla’s ships, would anything change? If he stepped aside and left the burden of battling the Sith—here on Ruusan or elsewhere in the galaxy—to another, would he finally find peace? Or would he simply be betraying all those who had believed in him?
To disband the Army of Light now, while the Brotherhood of Darkness still existed, dishonored the memory of all those who had perished in the conflict. To press on meant many more would surely die—and he himself might be lost to the light forever.
He lay back down and closed his eyes again. But sleep would not come.
“When all the options are wrong,” he muttered to himself in the darkness, “what does it matter which one I choose?”
“When the way before you is not clear,” an ethereal voice answered, “let your actions be guided by the wisdom of the Force.”
Hoth snapped his head up to peer through the darkness of the tent. A figure was just barely visible in the shadows, standing on the other side.
“Pernicar!” he exclaimed, then suddenly asked, “Is this real? Or am I actually sound asleep in my cot, and all this nothing but a dream?”
“A dream is only another kind of reality,” Pernicar said with an amused shake of his head. He crossed the tent slowly, moving closer. As he approached, Hoth realized he could actually see through him.
The apparition settled itself on the cot. The springs didn’t creak; it was as if he had no weight or substance at all.
This had to be a dream, Hoth realized. But he didn’t want to wake. Instead he clung desperately to the chance to see his old friend again, even if it was just an illusion conjured up by his own mind. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Your counsel, your wisdom. I need them now more than ever.”
“You were not so eager to listen to me when I was alive,” the Pernicar of his dream replied, striking at the most secret guilt and regrets buried deep in Hoth’s subconscious. “There was much you could have learned from me.”
A funny thought struck the general. “Was I your Padawan all this time, Master Pernicar? So young and foolish that I didn’t even know you were trying to instruct me in the ways of the Force?”
Pernicar laughed lightly. “No, General. Neither one of us is young—though we both have had more than our share of foolish moments.”
Hoth nodded somberly. For a moment he said nothing, just enjoying Pernicar’s presence once again, even if he was only here in spirit. Then, knowing there must be some purpose to this elaborate charade his subconscious had created for him, he asked, “Why have you come?”
“The Army of Light is an instrument of good and justice,” Pernicar told him. “You fear you may have lost your way, but look to the Force and you will know what you must do to find it again.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Hoth said with a slight shake of his head. “Have I really fallen so far that I cannot even remember the most basic teachings of our order?”
“There is no shame in falling,” Pernicar said, standing up. “There is only shame if you refuse to rise once again.”
Hoth sighed heavily. “I know what I must do, but I lack the tools to do it. My troops are on the verge of collapse: exhausted and outnumbered. And the other Jedi no longer believe in our cause.”
“Farfalla still does,” Pernicar noted. “Though you had your differences, he was always loyal.”
“I think I’ve driven Farfalla away for good,” Hoth admitted. “He wants nothing more to do with the Army of Light.”
“Then why are his ships still in orbit?” Pernicar countered. “You drove him away with your anger, and he fears you may have fallen to the dark side. Show him this is not so and he will follow you again.”
Pernicar took a step b
ack. Hoth could sense himself beginning the slow climb to consciousness again. He could have fought against it. He could have struggled to stay in the dream world. But there was work to be done.
“Good-bye, old friend,” he whispered. Slowly, his eyes opened, revealing the waking world and the empty darkness of his tent. “Good-bye.”
Sleep did not return to him that night. Instead he thought long and hard about what Pernicar had said to him in his dream. Pernicar had always been the one he’d turned to in times of confusion and trouble. It made sense that his mind would conjure up the image of his dearest friend to set him on the proper path again.
He knew what he had to do. He would swallow his pride and ask Farfalla’s forgiveness. They had to set aside their personal differences for the sake of the Jedi.
First thing in the morning he emerged from his tent, determined to send an envoy to Farfalla. But to his surprise he found that one of Farfalla’s people had come to speak with him.
“I wondered if I had made this trip in vain,” the messenger admitted once Lord Hoth had welcomed her into his tent. “I was afraid you would refuse to even see me.”
“Had you come a day earlier you probably would have been right,” he confessed. “Last night I had a … revelation that changed things.”
“I guess we’re lucky I came today, then,” she replied with a cordial tilt of her head.
“Yes, lucky,” he muttered, though part of him believed the timing of the dream had nothing to do with luck at all. Truly, the Force was a powerful and mysterious ally.
Bane could still feel the poison in his system as he drove the land crawler across Ambria’s vast and empty plains. The rumble of the engine couldn’t quite drown out the rattle and clank of the junk piled in the back. The clatter kept him from pushing the memories of the vehicle’s previous owners completely from his mind, but he felt no remorse over their deaths.
He’d left their bodies lying where they’d fallen—in the midst of the battlefield where they’d gathered their prizes. Their deaths had given him the strength to press on, but already the surge of power he had felt was fading. He had the strength to keep the synox at bay for a few more hours, but he needed to find a permanent cure.