فصل 13

RIDERS ON THE STORM

In mad pursuit of their prey and all but taking flight, the two Sith, Master and apprentice for eleven years now, bounded across the grassy terrain, their short capes snapping behind them, vibroblades clenched in their hands and bare forearms flecked with gore blood caked in the humans long hair and dried on the Muuns hairless brow. Twisting and swirling around them was a herd of agile, long-necked quadrupeds with brown-and-black-striped fur identical and moving as if possessed of a single mind, leaping at the same instant, reversing direction, cycloning gregariously over the short-napped savanna.

This is not a chase, Plagueis said as he ran, this is a summoning. You need to get behind the eyes of your target and become the object of its desire. The same holds true when you summon the Force you must make yourself desirable, fascinating, addictive, and whatever power you need will be at your command. Blended into the herd, the animal Sidious had fixed his sight on would have been indistinguishable to normal beings. But Sidious had the animal in his mind and was now looking through its eyes, one with it. Alongside him suddenly, the creature seemed to intuit its end and tipped its head to one side to expose its muscular neck. The moment the vibroblade stuck, the creatures eyes rolled back and grew opaque hot blood spurted but quickly ceased to flow—the Force departing, and Sidious drawing its power deep into himself.

Now another one, Plagueis said in a congratulatory tone. And another one after that.

Sidious felt himself shoved into motion, as if by a gale-force wind.

Feel the power of the dark side flow through you, Plagueis added from behind him. We serve natures purpose by culling the herd, and our own by sharpening our skills. We are the predatory swarm!

The low-gravity planet was known then as Buoyant, its bewildering jumble of flora and fauna the result of an experiment by a long-forgotten species that had tweaked the atmosphere, set the world spinning faster than nature had intended, and encouraged the growth of lush forests and expansive grasslands. The stillfunctioning machines of the ancients dotted the landscape, and millennia later the animals they had imported were thriving. Nothing moved slowly or ponderously on rapidly spinning Buoyant, even day and night, or the storms that scrubbed the atmosphere with violent regularity.

Elsewhere on the planet—in dense forests, in arid wastes, beneath the waves of inland seas—the two Sith had already taken the lives of countless creatures culling, sharpening, marinating themselves in a miasma of dark side energy.

Kilometers from where the quadruped hunt had commenced, Plagueis and Sidious sat under the enormous canopy of a tree whose trunk was wide enough to engulf a landspeeder, and whose thick branches were burdened with flowering parasitic plants. Breathing hard and drenched in sweat, they rested in silence as clouds of eager insects gathered around them. The pulse-beats of the Muuns trio of hearts were visible beneath his translucent skin, and his clear eyes tracked the slaloming movements of the escaping herd.

Few of my people are aware of just how wealthy I am, he said at last, since most of my riches derive from activities that have nothing to do with the ordinary business of finance. For many years my peers wondered why I chose to remain unwed, and ultimately reached the conclusion that I was in essence married to my work, without realizing how right they were. Except that my real bride is the dark side of the Force. What the ancients called Bogan, as separate from Ashla.

Even the Jedi understand that there is no profit in partnering with a being who lacks the ability to understand what it means to be in the grip of the Force, and so the Order restricts marriage by dogma, in service, so the Jedi say, to the purity of Ashla.

But Ashla is a perversion, he went on, for the dark has always preceded the light. The original idea was to capture the power of the Force and make it subservient to the will of sentient life. The ancients—the Celestials, the Rakata —didnt pronounce judgment on their works. They moved planets, organized star systems, conjured dark side devices like the Star Forge as they saw fit. If millions died in the process, so be it. The lives of most beings are of small consequence. The Jedi have failed to understand this. They are so busy saving lives and striving to keep the powers of the Force in balance that they have lost sight of the fact that sentient life is meant to evolve, not simply languish in contented stasis.

He paused to glance at Sidious. No doubt the texts Ive provided contain references to the so-called Potentium theory—that light and dark depend on the intention of the user. This is yet another perversion of the truth perpetrated by those who would keep us shackled to the Force. The power of water and the power of fire are entirely different. Glaciers and volcanoes both have the potential to transform landscapes, but one does so by burying what lies beneath, where the other spews forth new terrain. The Sith are not placid stars but singularities. Rather than burn with muted purpose, we warp space and time to twist the galaxy to our own design.

To become one of grandiloquent power requires more than mere compliance whats needed is obstinacy and tenacity. Thats why you must always be receptive to the currents of the dark side, because no matter how nimble you are, or think you are, the Force will show you no pity. As youve learned, your body sleeps but your mind is never at rest.

Getting to his feet, Plagueis extended his long arms in front of him and loosed a storm of Force lightning that crackled over the landscape, igniting fires in the grass.

A Jedi sufficiently strong in the Force can be trained to produce a facsimile, but not true Sith lightning, which, unabated, has the power not only to incapacitate or kill, but to physically transform the victim. Force lightning requires strength of a sort only a Sith can command because we accept consequence and reject compassion. To do so requires a thirst for power that is not easily satisfied. The Force tries to resist the callings of ravenous spirits therefore it must be broken and made a beast of burden. It must be made to answer to ones will.

But the Force cannot be treated deferentially, he added as a few final tendrils sparked from his fingertips. In order to summon and use lightning properly, you will someday have to be on the receiving end of its power, as a means of taking the energy inside yourself.

Sidious watched the last of the brush fires burn out, then said, Will I eventually be physically transformed?

Into some aged, pale-skinned, raspy-voiced, yellow-eyed monster, you mean.

Such as the one you see before you. Plagueis gestured to himself, then lowered himself to the ground. Surely you are acquainted with the lore King Ommin of Onderon, Darths Sion and Nihilus. But whether it will happen to you, I cant say.

Know this, though, Sidious, that the power of the dark side does not debilitate the practitioner as much as it debilitates those who lack it. He grinned with evil purpose. The power of the dark side is an illness no true Sith would wish to be cured of.

On Hypori they were the prey, standing back-to-back in their black zeyd-cloth hooded robes at the center of concentric rings of droids, retrofitted by Baktoid Armor to function as combat automata. Two hundred programmed assailants— bipedal, treaded, some levitated by antigrav generators—armed with a variety of weapons, ranging from hand blasters to short-barreled burst-rifles. Plagueis hadnt allowed his young apprentice to wield a lightsaber until a few years earlier, but Sidious was brandishing one now, self-constructed of phrik alloy and aurodium, and powered by a synthetic crystal. Made for delicate, long-fingered hands—as much a work of art as a weapon—the lightsaber thrummed as he waved the blade from side to side in front of him.

Every weapon, manufactured by whatever species, has its own properties and peculiarities, Plagueis was saying, his own blade angled toward the ferrocrete floor of the battledomes fabricated cityscape, as if to light a fuse. Range, penetrating power, refresh rate … In some instances your life might depend on your ability to focus on the weapon rather than on the wielder. You must train yourself to identify a weapon instantly—whether its a product of BlasTech or Merr-Sonn, Tenloss or Prax—so that you will know where to position yourself, and the several ways to best deflect a well-aimed bolt.

Plagueis put his words into action as the first ring of droids began to converge on them, staggering the attack and triggering bursts at random. Orbiting Sidious, the Muuns blade warded off every volley, returning the bolts to their sources, or deflecting them into the façades of the faux buildings surrounding them or into other droids. At other times Plagueis made no attempt to redirect the attacks, but simply twisted and torqued his rangy body, allowing the bolts to miss him by centimeters. Around the two Sith, the automata collapsed one after the next, gushing lubricants from holed reservoirs or exploding in a hail of alloy parts, until all were heaped on the ferrocrete floor.

The next ring is yours, Plagueis said.

Rugged, uninhabited Hypori belonged to the Techno Union, whose Skakoan foreman, Wat Tambor, owed his seat in the Republic Senate to Damask Holdings. In exchange, the bionic humanoid had made Hypori available as a training ground for members of the Echani Sun Guard and provided the necessary battle droids. Calling in another favor, Hego Damask had requested a private session in the fabricated cityscape, so that Plagueis and his apprentice could be free to employ lightsabers—though only for the purpose of deflecting bolts rather than dismemberment or penetration.

When it came Sidiouss turn to demonstrate his skill, Plagueis spoke continuously from behind him, adding distraction to the distinct possibility of inadvertent disintegration.

A being trained in the killing arts doesnt wait for you to acquire him as a target, or establish him or herself as an opponent, as if in some martial arts contest. Your reactions must be instantaneous and nothing less than lethal, for you are a Sith Lord, and will be marked for death.

The droids continued to converge, ring after ring of them, until the floor was piled high with smoking husks. Plagueis issued a voice command that brought the onslaught to an abrupt end and deactivated his lightsaber. The pinging of cooling weapons, the hiss of escaping gas, the unsteady whir of failing servomotors punctuated the sudden silence. Alloy limbs spasmed and photoreceptors winked out, surrendering their eerie glow. The recycled air was rotten with the smell of fried circuitry.

Feast your eyes on our handiwork, Plagueis said, gesturing broadly.

Sidious switched off his weapon. I see nothing but ruined droids. Plagueis nodded. Darth Bane advised One day the Republic will fall and the Jedi will be wiped out. But that will not happen until we are ready to seize that power for ourselves.

When? Sidious said. How will we know when the time is right? We are close to knowing. For a thousand years the Sith have allowed themselves to be reduced to the stuff of folklore. Since it serves our purposes weve done nothing to counter the belief that we are perversions of the Jedi, evil mages, embodiments of hatred, rage, and bloodlust, capable even of leaving the residue of our malefactions and dastardly deeds in places of power. Why have we not yet visited those places, Master—instead of worlds like Buoyant and Hypori?

Darth Plagueis gazed at him. You are impatient. You see no value in learning about weapons or explosives, Force suggestion or the healing arts. You hunger for power of the sort you imagine is to be found on Korriban, Dromund Kaas, Zigoola. Then let me tell you what youll encounter in those reliquaries Jedi, treasure hunters, and legends. Of course there are tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords, but they have been plundered and now draw only tourists. On Dxun, Yavin Four, Ziost, the same is true. If its history that has caught your fancy, I can show you a hundred worlds on which esoteric Sith symbols have been woven covertly into architecture and culture, and I can bore you for years with tales of the exploits of Freedon Nadd, Belia Darzu, Darth Zannah, who is alleged to have infiltrated the Jedi Temple, and of starships imbued with Sith consciousness. Is that your wish, Sidious, to become an academic? I wish only to learn, Master.

And so you will. But not from spurious sources. We are not some cult like the Tetsus Sorcerers of Tund. Descended from Darth Bane, we are the select few who refuse to be carried by the Force and who carry it instead—thirty in a millennium rather than the tens of thousands fit to be Jedi. Any Sith can feign compassion and self-righteousness and master the Jedi arts, but only one in a thousand Jedi could ever become a Sith, for the dark side is only for those who value self-determinism over all else that existence offers. Only once in these past thousand years has a Sith Lord strayed into the light, and one day I will tell you that tale. But for now, take to heart the fact that Banes Rule of Two was at the start our saving grace, putting an end to the internecine strife that allowed the Jedi Order to gain the upper hand. Part of our ongoing task will be to hunt down and eliminate any Sith pretenders who pose a threat to our ultimate goals. Sidious remained silent for a long moment. Am I to be equally distrustful of the lessons contained in Sith Holocrons?

Not distrustful, Plagueis said gravely. But holocrons contain knowledge specific and idiosyncratic to each Sith who constructed them. Real knowledge is passed by Master to apprentice in sessions such as this, where nothing is codified or recorded—diluted—and thus it cannot be forgotten. There will come a time when you may wish to consult the holocrons of past Masters, but until then you would do better not to be influenced by them. You must discover the dark side in your own way, and perfect your power in your own fashion. All I can do in the meantime is help to keep you from losing your way while we hide in plain sight from the prying eyes of our enemies.

What celestial body is more luminous than a singularity, Sidious recited, hiding in plain sight but more powerful than all?

Plagueis grinned. You are quoting Darth Guile.

He goes on to compare the Sith to a rogue or malignant cell, too small to be discovered by scans or other techniques, but capable of spreading silently and lethally through a system. Initially the victim simply doesnt feel right, then falls ill, and ultimately succumbs.

Plagueis locked eyes with him. Consider the mind-set of an anarchist who plans to sacrifice himself for a cause. For the weeks, months, possibly years leading up to the day he straps a thermal detonator to his chest and executes his task, he has lived in and been strengthened by the secret he carries, knowing the toll his act will take. So it has been for the Sith, residing in a secret, sacred place of knowledge for one thousand years, and knowing the toll our acts will take.

This is power, Sidious. Where the Jedi, by contrast, are like beings who, as they move among the healthy, keep secret the fact that they are dying of a terminal illness.

But true power neednt bear claws or fangs, or announce itself with snarls and throaty barks, Sidious. It can subdue with manacles of shimmersilk, purposeful charisma, and political astuteness.

The location of the planet known to the Sith as Kursid had been expunged from Republic records in distant times, and for the past six hundred years had been reserved for use as a place of spectacle. Masters and apprentices of the Bane lineage had visited with enough regularity that a cult had come into being in that part of the world based on the periodic return of the sky visitors. The Sith hadnt bothered to investigate what Kursids indigenous humanoids thought about the visits—whether in their belief systems the Sith were regarded as the equivalent of deities or demons—since it was unlikely that the primitives had yet so much as named their world. However, visiting as apprentice and—more often than not —as Master, each Sith Lord had remarked on the slow advancement of Kursids civilization. How, on the early visits, the primitives had defended themselves with wooden war clubs and smooth rocks hurled from slings. Two hundred years later, many of the small settlements had grown to become cities or ceremonial centers built of hewn stone, with social classes of rulers and priests, merchants and warriors. Gradually the cities had become ringed with ranged weapons of a crude sort, and magical guardian symbols had been emblazoned on the sloping sides of defensive walls. At some point previous to Darth Tenebrouss visit as an apprentice, replicas of the Sith ships had been constructed in the center of the arid plateau that served as a battleground, and enormous totemic figures—visible only from above—had been outlined by removing tens of thousands of fist-sized volcanic stones that covered the ground. On Plagueiss first visit, some fifty years earlier, the warriors he and Tenebrous faced had been armed with longbows and metal-tipped lances.

That the Sith had never demanded anything other than battle hadnt kept the primitives from attempting to adopt a policy of appeasement, leaving at the ships perpetual landing site foodstuffs, sacrificial victims, and works of what they considered art, forged of materials they held precious or sacred. But the Sith had simply ignored the offerings, waiting instead on the stony plain for the primitives to deploy their warriors, as the primitives did now with Plagueis and Sidious waiting.

Announcing their arrival with low runs over the city, they had set the ship down and waited for six days, while the mournful calls of breath-driven horns had disturbed the dry silences, and groups of primitives had flocked in to gather on the hillsides that overlooked the battleground.

Do you recall what Darth Bane said regarding the killing of innocents? Plagueis had asked.

Our mission, Sidious paraphrased, is not to bring death on all those unfit to live. All we do must serve our true purpose—the preservation of our Order and the survival of the Sith. We must work to grow our power, and to accomplish that we will need to interact with individuals of many species across many worlds. Eventually word of our existence will reach the ears of the Jedi. To refrain from senseless killing, they wielded force pikes rather than lightsabers. Meter-long melee weapons used by the Echani and carried by the Senate Guard, the pikes were equipped with stun-module tips capable of delivering a shock that could overwhelm the nervous systems of most sentients, without causing permanent damage.

The next few hours will test the limits of your agility, speed, and accuracy, Plagueis said, as several hundred of the biggest, bravest, and most skilled warriors—their bodies daubed in pigments derived from plants, clay, and soil— began to separate themselves from the crowds. But this is more than some simple exercise in proficiency it is a rite of passage for these beings, as they are assistants in our rise to ultimate power, and therefore servants of the dark side of the Force. Centuries from now, advanced by the Sith, they might confront us with projectile weapons or energy beams. But by then we will have evolved, as well, perhaps past the need for this rite, and we will come instead to honor rather than engage them in battle. Through power we gain victory, and through victory our chains are broken. But power is only a means to an end.

To the clamorous beating of drums and the wailing of the onlookers, the warriors brandished their weapons, raised a deafening war cry, and attacked. A nod from Plagueis, and the two Sith sped across the plain to meet them, flying among them like wraiths, evading arrows, gleaming spear tips, and blows from battle-axes, going one against one, two, or three, but felling opponent after opponent with taps from the force pikes, until among the hundreds of jerking, twitching bodies sprawled on the rough ground, only one was left standing.

That was when Plagueis tossed aside the stun pike and ignited his crimson blade, and a collective lament rose from the crowds on the hillsides.

Execute one, terrify one thousand, he said.

Hurling the warrior to the ground with a Force push, he used the lightsaber to deftly open the primitives chest cavity then he reached a hand inside and extracted his still-beating heart.

The keening of the crowd reached a fevered pitch as he raised the heart high overhead then it ended abruptly. Following a protracted moment of silence, the fallen warriors were helped from the battleground and the crowds began to disperse, disconsolate but emboldened by the fact that they had discharged their duty. Horns blew and a communal chant that was at once somber and celebratory was carried on the wind. In the principal city, a stone stele would be carved and erected for the dead one, and the day-count would commence until the return of the Sith.

Plagueis placed the still heart on the primitives chest and used the hem of his robe to wipe the blood from his hand and forearm.

At one time, though I recognized that Muuns are a higher class of beings, I puzzled over the fact that beings would relinquish their seats for me, or step into the muck to allow me to pass. But early on in my apprenticeship I came to realize that the lumpen species were making room for me not because I was a Muun, but because I was in fact superior to them in every way. More, that they should by all rights allow me to step not merely past them but on them to get where I needed to be, because the Sith are their salvation, their only real hope. In that we will ultimately improve the lives of their descendants, they owe us every courtesy, every sacrifice, nothing short of their very lives.

But there are dark times ahead for many of them, Sidious. An era of warfare necessary to purge the galaxy of those who have allowed it to decay. For decay has no cure it has to be eradicated by the flames of a cleansing fire. And the Jedi are mostly to blame. Crippled by empathy, shackled to obedience—to their Masters, their Council, their cherished Republic—they perpetuate a myth of equality, serving the Force as if it were a belief system that had been programmed into them. With the Republic they are like indulgent parents, allowing their offspring to experiment with choices without consequence, and supporting wrong-headedness merely for the sake of maintaining family unity.

Tripping over their own robes in a rush to uphold a galactic government that has been deteriorating for centuries. When instead they should be proclaiming We know whats best for you.

The galaxy cant be set on the proper course until the Jedi Order and the corrupt Republic have been brought down. Only then can the Sith begin the process of rebuilding from the ground up. This is why we encourage star system rivalries and the goals of any group that aims to foment chaos and anarchy.

Because destruction of any sort furthers our own goals.

Plagueis paused to take the warriors heart back into his hands.

Through us, the powers of chaos are harnessed and exploited. Dark times dont simply emerge, Sidious. Enlightened beings, guiding intelligences manipulate events to bring about a storm that will deliver power into the hands of an elite group willing to make the hard choices the Republic fears to make.

Beings may elect their leaders, but the Force has elected us. He glanced at his apprentice. Remember, though, that a cunning politician is capable of wreaking more havoc than two Sith Lords armed with vibroblades, lightsabers, or force pikes. That is what you must become, with me advising you from the dark.

Are we grand enough? Sidious said.

You should ask, are we crude enough? Plagueis quirked a smile. Were not living in an age of giants, Sidious. But to succeed we must become as beasts. Taking a bite from the warriors heart, he passed the blood-filled organ to his apprentice.