CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 12 page

"Any idea who they were?"

Chet shrugged. "They landed outside our jurisdiction, and they didn't send off an emergency beacon, so nobody bothered to send a patrol to investigate."

She wasn't surprised at the lack of official urgency generated by the unregistered vessel. Ciutric was generally a law-abiding world; as a result planetary security was somewhat lax. It was one of the reasons Bane had chosen to take up residence here.

She was intrigued, however. Did the drop ship have anything to do with the unease she'd felt upon landing?

"You said they touched down to the east?" Our estate is on the eastern edge of the city.

"Yeah. Showed up on the sensors a couple of hours before your brother got back."

"My brother?"

"Oh," Chet said, mildly surprised. "I just assumed you knew. He left the day after you did. Just got back tonight."

"Any idea where he went?"

The customs official shook his head. "Sorry."

Zannah's mind was spinning with a thousand possibilities as the valet arrived with her speeder. Bane almost never left Ciutric. If he had business, people came to him:or he sent Zannah. Something must have come up that was too important for him to wait for her to get back. Either that, or he had business he wanted to deal with personally. And if that was the case, was it possible he had sent her to Doan as a way to get rid of her temporarily?

She could think of only one reason Bane would have wanted to keep her from knowing about his journey: he was looking for someone to replace her!

"Trouble?" Set asked, wandering over to see what was going on.

"It's fine," Zannah replied, not wanting to reveal her apprehension to either of the men.

She climbed into the speeder and nodded at Set to do the same.

"Thanks for the update, Chet."

As the speeder roared to life and took to the air, she began to consider her options. If Bane was alone, she would challenge him as she planned. However, if Bane had found someone else to become his heir things would get more complicated.

If Bane had cast her aside, did the Rule of Two still apply to her? Or would Bane and his new apprentice combine their strength to defeat her as an enemy of the Sith? If that happened, she wouldn't be able to survive alone.

If things went bad, she didn't really know if the Dark Jedi sitting beside her would come to her aid, but she didn't have any real choice. She had decided to confront Bane tonight, and she wasn't about to turn back now. She'd waited too long for this moment, put it off too many times before.

"Be on your guard when we land," she warned Set.

"I'm always on guard," he assured her.

Zannah's apprehension continued to mount as she approached the estate, but as she drew nearer she realized she couldn't sense her Master's presence. Puzzled, she brought the speeder in to land and saw that the front door was wide open.

"Wait here," she instructed Set.

With one hand on the hilt of her lightsaber, she approached the open door cautiously and peeked inside. At first glance the damage was almost more than she could comprehend. The plaster on the walls was cracked and burned in at least a dozen places; the marble floors were scratched and scorched. Sticky strands of synthetic webbing and flakes of ash were everywhere.

Every piece of furniture she could see was either smashed or overturned. Carefully, she made her way upstairs, still wary despite not sensing anyone else in the building.

A quick inspection of the various rooms assured her that there was no immediate danger, and she sheathed her lightsaber. It seemed as if most of the damage had been confined to the foyer and the sitting room just off the mansion's entrance. If there were answers to be had, she'd most likely find them there.

When she returned to the front of the manse, she wasn't surprised to see that Set had disobeyed her orders. He was sitting on a chair that had survived relatively unscathed, his legs crossed and a glass of wine in his hand, casually waiting for her to arrive. A freshly opened bottle stood beside him on the floor.

"Your Master has excellent taste," he said, raising the glass and drinking a toast to the absent host.

It was clear from the evidence that someone had attacked Bane in the mansion, and it was only logical to assume they must have been on the drop ship. Who they were and why they had come, however, were still mysteries she couldn't solve.

"I told you to wait in the speeder," she said, descending the stairs and closing the mansion door.

"I was bored," he answered with a shrug, taking another sip of wine before changing topics. "Looks like that confrontation you were expecting isn't going to happen after all. I guess you're the new Sith Master by default."

"It doesn't work that way," Zannah muttered. "Besides, Darth Bane's still alive. If he was dead I would have felt it."

"Somehow I was afraid you'd say that," he said, bending forward to grab the wine bottle and refill his empty glass. "Any idea who might have done this?"

"None of our enemies even knows the Sith still exist," Zannah reminded him.

"I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me," Set noted. A second later he added, "Master."

"Bane just arrived back on Ciutric tonight." She saw no reason not to tell him what she had learned. "And Chet told me an unidentified drop ship touched down near the estate a short time before he arrived."

"You think the two are related?"

"I don't believe in coincidence," she replied. After a moment she decided to come clean with Set. "I think Bane might have sent me to Doan just to get me out of the way for a while. I think he was actually interested in something completely unrelated."

"Don't be so sure," Set replied, holding up what appeared to be a small blue button.

"Where did you find that?"

"Wedged into the wreckage of what used to be a couch over there in the corner," he replied, tossing it to her.

She reached out with one hand, easily snatching it from the air. A splash of dried blood was smeared across the surface, partially obscuring the gold insignia.

"That's the symbol of the Doan Royal House," Set told her as she studied the button.

"Doan?" Zannah was more confused than ever. "Why would someone from Doan come here? How would they even find us?"

Set shrugged. "You're the Master. You tell me."

Zannah didn't answer right away. Chewing on her lower lip, she analyzed the situation carefully, examining it from every angle. There were still too many unknowns for her to come up with a perfect plan, but she knew what had to be done.

"We need to go to Doan."

"Hold on a second," Set protested, holding up his hands. "Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, even if your Master's still alive it looks to me like he's probably a prisoner."

"Yes:a prisoner on Doan."

"So, what? We're going to rescue him just so you can try and kill him yourself?"

That would be in accordance with the Rule of Two, Zannah thought. But there were other, more practical, reasons to go.

"My Master is smart, powerful, and cunning. He's too dangerous to ignore. If they're holding him prisoner, he might find a way to escape. If he does, he will come after me:but it will be at a time and place of his choosing, not mine.

"Even if he never escapes, it's likely whoever took him will interrogate him for information. He may reveal something that exposes my existence to the Jedi:or some other enemy. I'm not willing to take that chance.

"Plus, I want to know who attacked him, and why. And if they did capture him, I want to know how they did it. What tactics did they use to bring down such a formidable opponent, and how can I make sure it never happens to me?"

"So this is all about you tying up loose ends?"

She heard reluctance in his voice-the same reluctance she'd sensed when she'd first offered to take him on as her apprentice. Set had spent much of his life running from problems rather than solving them. She knew he'd rather avoid his enemies than seek a way to destroy them. In time, she would cure him of this. As his Master, she would teach him the ways of the Sith.

For now, however, she simply needed his help.

"I have to go meet with someone," she said, remembering that Chet had told her Bane had met with Argel Tenn only a few days before all this had begun. It was possible the collector had found some interesting Sith manuscript that had prompted Bane to leave Ciutric.

"Am I coming with you?"

Zannah shook her head. "You need to find out everything you can about Doan. If the royal family was involved, where would they take my Master? And how can we find him?"

Set gave a dissatisfied snort. "So now I'm a glorified librarian?"

"Meet me back here in two days," Zannah said, ignoring his complaint. "By then I'll have figured out what to do next."

* * *

When Zannah returned to the mansion after meeting with Argel Tenn, she was mildly surprised to find Set there waiting for her. She had half expected him not to show up. The mission she had sent him on had been important, but it had also been a test of his commitment. If he was having second thoughts about becoming her apprentice, sending him away would have given him the perfect opportunity to try to disappear. The fact that he had come back was a sign that maybe he was a suitable choice after all.

She was relieved to see that things seemed to be improving with Set, because her meeting with Argel Tenn had not gone well. At first he had refused to discuss his business with Bane, claiming discretion was the cornerstone of his business. Zannah had done her best to persuade him to make an exception through nonviolent means; she knew Argel had access to rare Sith manuscripts, and she didn't want to throwaway a potentially valuable resource.

However, much to her dismay, he had shown a surprising integrity when it came to protecting his clients' confidentiality. In the end she'd had to turn to less pleasant methods to make him talk. Of course, by resorting to brutal interrogation she had revealed herself as something more than just an interested collector, and after that she couldn't leave him alive.

The risk of Argel telling someone about her was too great; the information might make it back to the Jedi and cause them to investigate. Above all else it was critical that the Sith remained hidden, so Zannah was left with no choice but to eliminate Argel.

The real tragedy was that she never did manage to get anything more than a single name out of him: Darth Andeddu. Argel hadn't known why Bane was interested in this particular Sith Lord, and without more to go on Zannah was stuck.

"Welcome back, Master," Set said by way of greeting. "You'll be happy to hear that I've learned everything one could possibly ever want to know about a miserable little pit of a world like Doan."

"Too bad I didn't send you to find out about Darth Andeddu," she muttered, letting her frustrations boil up to the surface.

"Did you say Andeddu?" Set asked, obviously startled. "The immortal God-King of Prakith?"

Zannah's jaw nearly hit the floor. "You've heard of him?"

"Ah, so now I have something to teach you," Set said with a grin, recovering from his initial surprise. "Does that make me the Master?"

Zannah was in no mood for his jokes. "Tell me what you know about Andeddu." To his credit, Set picked up on her tone and took on a more serious demeanor.

"My last few years with the Jedi were spent serving under an Ithorian Master named Obba," he explained.

"I've heard of him. He's on the Council of First Knowledge."

Ever since their battle against the Jedi on Tython, Bane had insisted they both know the name and reputation of every Master in the Order.

Set raised one eyebrow. "Impressive."

"Consider that your first lesson. Know your enemy as well as you know yourself."

"Noted. May I continue?" Zannah nodded.

"While under Master Obba's insufferable tutelage, much of my time was spent researching the histories of the ancient Sith. The hammerheaded old fool had this grand idea he could best serve the light by making a catalog of every known Sith Holocron, then sending out his agents to round them up and bring them back to the Jedi Temple for safekeeping.

"In my research, I happened on several references to a man named Darth Andeddu. The Jedi had worked hard to remove all mention of him from the galactic record, but as a member of the Order I had access to the original confiscated materials."

"Get to the point," Zannah warned him.

"Of course. Andeddu ruled over the world of Prakith as a god. At least, he did until the hyperlanes into the Deep Core collapsed, effectively cutting the planet off from the rest of the galaxy.

"There was, however, some evidence to support the theory that Andeddu created a Holocron during his reign. Master Obba believed it was still on Prakith, though he felt a journey into the Deep Core to retrieve it was too dangerous. To be honest, I kind of agreed with him."

"What's so special about Andeddu's Holocron?" Zannah demanded. "You nearly swallowed your tongue when I mentioned his name."

"If the legends are to be believed, Andeddu's Holocron contains the secret of eternal life."

Zannah cursed under her breath as all the pieces tumbled into place. Somehow Bane must have learned of Andeddu's Holocron and gone to Prakith to claim it. He was trying to become immortal!

That's why he had sent her off to Doan: so she wouldn't find out what he was up to. Despite everything he had taught her about the Rule of Two, he wasn't willing to accept the idea that his apprentice would one day surpass him. He actually thought that if he could find a way to stop the ravages of time and age, he could rule the Sith forever.

This is a betrayal of everything you taught me. You said you were teaching me all your secrets; you said the legacy of the Sith would one day be mine to carry on. You lied to me!

"Do you think it's possible your Master actually went to Prakith and found Andeddu's Holocron?" Set asked, making no effort to conceal the naked hunger in his voice.

"Bane's journeyed into the Deep Core before," she admitted, remembering his trip to Tython.

"So you finally decided to tell me your Master's name."

Zannah uttered another silent swear. She had meant to keep that information to herself as long as Bane was alive. But the realization of what he had done, of how he had betrayed the Rule of Two, had her rattled.

"I still don't understand how this ties in with Doan," Set wondered aloud.

That was one piece of the puzzle Zannah hadn't figured out yet, either, though she had a feeling it was all connected somehow.

"Whoever attacked him must have come for the Holocron," she guessed. "Whoever took Bane would have taken the artifact as well."

"So you think it's on Doan?"

It was obvious Set was more interested in claiming the Holocron than in finding and dealing with Bane. But Zannah had no idea who or what she would face when she went back to the mining world, and she suspected she'd need all the help she could get.

"You may not have been willing to risk a trip into the Deep Core to claim Andeddu's Holocron, but are you willing to travel back to Doan one more time?"

Set graced her with another of his extravagant bows.

"Lead the way, Master."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Serra sat alone in the small, windowless office, trying to gather her courage. The only furnishings were a simple desk and the chair she currently occupied. The unadorned walls were a depressing shade of brown, their stone surface rough and unfinished. A small safe had been built into the rock wall, and a single door led out into the hall beyond.

The princess wasn't naive. She understood that the room reflected the opinion most offworlders had of Doan; they saw it as an ugly, grimy pit. She knew that those who lived in the strip mines on the planet's surface felt the same. But she had seen the planet's true beauty.

Built on the plateaus atop the rock columns towering high above the choking clouds of dust and pollution, the cities of the nobility were blessed with bright blue skies nearly every day of the year. Each morning the rising sun reflected off the burnished spires of castles built on plateaus hundreds of kilometers to the east, lighting them up like candles in the gray of the early dawn. In the evening the sand-storms rolling across the desert seemed to dance on the horizon, alive with flickering bursts of color as the setting sun flashed off quartz chips caught up in their swirling embrace.

Even after all these years, it could still take her breath away:just as it had when she first came to Doan. After leaving her father's camp on Ambria she had traveled the worlds of the Outer Rim, using what he had taught her to help the less fortunate and establishing her reputation as a skilled healer. When the crown prince contracted a mysterious illness, the king had hired her to tend to his son.

She had instantly recognized the symptoms of Idolian fever, a deadly but treatable infection. For three months she nursed him slowly back to health, and by the time Gerran recovered the two of them were in love.

You saved his life then. But you didn't have the power to save him from the terrorists. If you were stronger, he might still be alive.

Serra shook her head in momentary confusion. The thought had been in her own voice, but it had somehow seemed alien:as if someone else was speaking inside her head.

Except for herself, the office was clearly empty. The door was closed, and with the sparse furnishing there was no place for someone to hide. She cast a wary glance at the small, four-sided pyramid sitting on the edge of the desk.

It had been stashed away almost carelessly in a small duffel bag the mercenaries had brought back to her. Serra's connection to the Force was strong enough for her to feel the power inside the artifact, trapped beneath the surface, just waiting to be released.

Why didn't the Iktotchi claim this for herself? She should have sensed its power, too-even hidden inside the bag. Something else must have drawn her attention. Picking up the pyramid and holding it at arm's length, she crossed the room to the wall safe. Punching in the combination, she unlocked it and placed the pyramid inside then closed the door, sealing it safely away. The man in the dungeon was a Sith Lord; anything he possessed was an instrument of the dark side. Serra wasn't interested in exploring its power; she was only interested in him.

He had arrived three days ago, yet she still had not gone to speak with him. As per her instructions, he had been kept drugged and helpless the entire time. Now she knew she couldn't put it off any longer; it was time to go face her demons. Her face set in grim determination, she left the office and marched through the twisting halls of Doan's infamous Stone Prison, heading for the interrogation cells.

When she had first learned about the vast dungeon complex built into the rock several kilometers below the castle, Serra had been horrified. Historically, the nobility had used the Stone Prison to make political opponents vanish. Trapped at the heart of a rock column several kilometers high and hundreds of meters in diameter, any prisoners inside would be shielded from detection by scanners. A person could disappear forever in the underground labyrinth, spending the rest of their years in shackles, tortured for information or simple sadistic pleasure without any hope of salvation.

In the event a rescue was somehow attempted, the entire complex was rigged so it could be collapsed with a series of explosions that would kill not only the prisoners but their would-be saviors as well. The carefully engineered detonator charges would activate in a precisely timed sequence, destroying the dungeon room by room while allowing the guards time to escape. The Royal Manse and other buildings on the surface thousands of meters above would suffer only a few mild-though unmistakable-tremors as the entire complex below was reduced to rubble.

Gerran had still been alive when Serra learned all this. He had explained that the Stone Prison hadn't been used in over forty years; it was a relic of a more brutal and repressive era. In response to public pressure brought to bear by the Senate, it had been closed down. It wasn't even staffed any longer. Yet at the urging of his betrothed, he swore that once he was king he would have the infamous dungeon permanently sealed: a gesture to symbolize the new relationships he wished to forge between the nobles and the miners.

But Gerran was dead now, just like her father. And she was the one who had hired mercenaries to capture her enemy and bury him forever inside the Stone Prison's cold, dark cells. She couldn't help but wonder what they would think of what she had done. What would they say if they were here right now?

Serra pushed the thought from her mind. They weren't here. Her father and her husband were both gone, forever taken from her. And she was left to deal with the Sith Lord alone.

It took her nearly ten minutes to make her way from the office through the maze of passages and rooms to where the prisoner was being held. Although the corridors she traveled were illuminated by pale lights in the ceiling, many of the halls led off into darkness-her mercenaries had only reopened one small section of the complex. The rest of it was still deserted.

The man she was going to see was being held in one of the maximum-security cells, accessible only by a single staircase guarded by locked durasteel doors at the top and bottom. The mercenaries standing guard on the other side of the door at the top unlocked it at her approach, and she quickly made her way down the steep stairs.

The door at the bottom similarly opened for her, revealing a small ten-meter-by-ten-meter guard station. Another locked durasteel door on the far wall led into the prisoner's cell; a small viewing window had been built into the door. There were two tables in the room. The larger stood off to the side of the door Serra had just entered. The smaller was on wheels; measuring only a meter by half a meter, it had been pushed against the wall beside the cell door.

Six of the soldiers she had sent to apprehend the prisoner were here, along with Lucia and the Huntress. The guards were seated in chairs around the larger table, playing cards. The two women were on opposite ends of the room, distancing themselves from those at the table and each other. Lucia was leaning against the wall for support, while the Huntress sat on the stone floor, her legs crossed, hands in her lap and her eyes closed. It looked as if she might have been meditating.

As Serra entered, the guards jumped up to stand at attention, as did Lucia. The Huntress opened her eyes and looked up at the princess, but otherwise made no move. Serra wasn't even sure what the assassin was still doing here; she had already been paid for her services. But for some reason she had chosen to stay, as if she had some vested interest in the outcome of events.

The princess shook her head. She had more important things she needed to worry about than the assassin.

"The prisoner is still sedated?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," one of the guards replied. "He was given another dose an hour ago."

She nodded and made her way over to the wheeled table in the corner. Atop the table were nearly three dozen hypodermic needles, color-coded by label according to their contents. Serra had prepared each of the needles herself. The ones marked with a green sticker contained senflax; they needed to keep the prisoner drugged at all times to prevent him from escaping. The others-red, black, and yellow-were filled with various compounds she would need during her interrogation.

From the corner of her eye she saw Lucia making her way from the wall toward her. Once at her side, her friend spoke in a whisper soft enough that only she would be able to hear.

"This isn't like you. Why are you doing this?"

"You wouldn't understand," she replied just as quietly.

"Hiring this assassin was one thing," Lucia continued, her voice rising only slightly with carefully held-in-check emotion. "But hiring mercenaries to secretly reopen the Stone Prison? What if the king finds out?"

"He won't," Serra assured her. "This has nothing to do with Gerran, or Doan."

The dark-skinned woman refused to let it go. "Holding someone for torture and interrogation? It's not right. You know that."

"He's a Sith. Not a soldier like you were. A Dark Lord. He doesn't deserve your pity. Or mine."

Lucia shook her head and turned away, but not before Serra clearly saw the frustration and disappointment in her face.

"Open the door," the princess called out to the guards. "I want to speak with the prisoner. Alone."

At her words the Huntress sprang to her feet, causing Lucia to step forward protectively.

"I want to come with you," the Iktotchi explained.

"Why?" Serra demanded, suddenly suspicious.

"Who else could have captured him for you?" she replied, avoiding the question. "Have I not earned the right?"

"If she goes, I go, too," Lucia insisted, crossing her arms.

Serra could have refused them. But deep inside she still didn't want to face the monster from her past alone. And what harm was there now if they learned her secrets? She had concealed her true identity all these years only because her father feared retribution from this man. With him as her prisoner, she had no reason left to hide.

"The three of us, then," she conceded, grabbing the little table and wheeling it into position to bring it inside with them. "Lock the door behind us," she instructed the guards.

* * *

Lucia was worried about the princess. Ever since their visit to the Jedi Temple she had sensed something different about her, but she had never suspected she was capable of going to such extreme lengths. She hadn't known mercenaries had been hired to reopen the Stone Prison; if she had, she would have tried to talk Serra out of such a foolish and dangerous plan. The princess must have known she would object, however, and so she hadn't told Lucia what was happening until after the prisoner was safely secured in his cell.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 686