And yet, Korsin kept looking up.
What was he expecting?
A crash from behind drew her attention. The limp form of one of her aides rocketed through a skylight and disappeared over the side. So that’s where Gloyd is. He had to be contained, away from the action below. Angered at being robbed of seeing Korsin die, she turned to the shattered skylight—
—only to lose her footing as beating wings soared across the crest of the rooftop. Seelah rolled sideways, avoiding the kicking, clawed feet. The uvak were back!
Tumbling through the gaping hole, Seelah hit the stone floor on all fours. Gloyd’s battle was in the next room, but she scrambled for the window anyway. She had to see. Had the Keshiri returned with the uvak? Or was it someone she had never considered, never counted on?
Looking out, she saw.
Nida.
Chapter Four
Korsin had played his trump.
Nida’s very existence, he knew, was part of Seelah’s game to keep herself and Jariad close to the seat of power. Seelah had “caringly” found a series of Keshiri nursemaids and then tutors for the child, boarding her in one village after another. Officially, it was a gesture of Sith trust in the Keshiri; in truth, it reflected the hole he’d always known was in his wife’s heart.
There was more. Seelah wasn’t just getting Nida out of the way; Korsin knew she was preventing her daughter from receiving anything more than superficial training in Sith ways. Seelah kept the rolls of Sith on Kesh; she knew where all potential mentors were at any time.
But Korsin had several loyal crew members willing to serve him in any role. With Gloyd’s help, Korsin had staged their deaths in remote areas of Kesh and sent them into hiding. All during the nights of Nida’s seeming exile, the girl had secretly been learning the ways of the dark side—even as, during the days, she was winning Keshiri friends and building a network of informants. All in her seemingly meaningless—but very mobile—role as aerial ambassador for the Sith.
While Seelah was striving to portray herself as the model Sith on Kesh, Korsin was crafting a leader, someone with the talents to fight and to govern. An heir—and today, a savior.
The night before, one of Nida’s Keshiri acquaintances had revealed the plot to steal the uvak while the principal Sith were atop the mountain. She’d spent the morning making sure whatever the Keshiri were doing went no further, before joining Korsin here—along with her Skyborn Rangers and several Korsin partisans. Not many, and not as soon as he’d hoped—but enough, and in time. He’d flushed out his enemies by coming here; their surprise was complete.
Nida leapt to the ground, lightsaber glowing, impaling one of Jariad’s thugs as she landed. Two converged upon her position, only to be cut in half. She threw a third into the temple wall, just behind. There wasn’t much fighting ground by the cliffside, but Nida was already dominating it. Jariad himself had backed away before the kill, joining his Sabers in their fight.
A muffled explosion came from the mansion farther up the hill. Gloyd, Korsin knew. Gritting his teeth, he dabbed at the gash on his chest. He wasn’t coming back from this, he knew. The ground faltered beneath him. There wasn’t much left.
But he looked up again at Nida.
So strong. His future for the Sith, battling Seelah’s future. And winning.
Wincing in pain, Korsin crawled back from the precipice toward the fray. Jariad, injured and struggling to stall his sibling’s advance, looked back in surprise.
“You’re right, Jariad,” Korsin said, choking back blood. “It’s time for me to go—but not without my last official act. And it’s overdue.”
Adari should have been more surprised. By nightfall, more than a thousand Keshiri had arrived near the foot of the Spire, leading five times that many riderless uvak. The mob of beasts circling high above the smoking formation had given the appearance of a living, leathery halo. It was stirring, but disappointing: this many would barely have filled the uvak pens in the southern foothills.
Adari had given up scanning the horizon long before her compatriots did. At midnight, a lone rider from Tahv had arrived, breathless and terrified. His report confirmed her suspicion. Tona had fallen under Nida Korsin’s spell and revealed all their plans.
It had been hopeless from the beginning; someone would have betrayed them. Tona was just the weakest. Adari had turned away before she heard whether Nida had rewarded Tona, or killed him. Nothing mattered anymore.
What had surprised Adari was what had happened next. She’d expected everyone to leave. To fly away, free their uvak, and melt back into Keshiri society before the Sith found them. Instead, when she’d somberly taken to the clouds on Nink and headed for the dark river of air, she’d found the entire entourage in her wake.
She’d fallen asleep, assuming Nink would surrender to gravity in the night. So many others had already fallen away. Her turn would come.
But she awoke to something else.
From above, the spit of land was no more than a seam between the waves, a chain of reefs adjoining a mucky surface barely larger than her old neighborhood. Nothing about it suggested a haven. But the jet stream had given out—and so had Nink. Of the riders who had begun, fewer than three hundred remained. It was this, or nothing.
And this is close to nothing, she thought as she padded across the salty grime of the beach. The mainland had provided everything the Keshiri needed to thrive. Here, bare necessities would have to be clawed for. Infrequent rains pooled fresh water on concave reefs. The uvak, useless in these doldrums, would have to be culled dramatically to give the scant vegetation a chance. Their flesh was barely edible; their carcasses yielded the only building materials.
To her intellectual pursuits, the island offered nothing at all. Just the same volcanic rubble from beach to hillcrest. Years in a purgatory of her own making weren’t enough, it seemed: now she must be bored to death. All she’d found was an ancient Keshiri corpse—another lonely victim of the oceanic air currents.
Why couldn’t the Sith have landed here?
She knew the answer. The Sith had been trapped in such a place. To save herself—from them, and from the elders—she had set them loose. Korsin had been right, those years ago. We all do what we have to do.
They were doing it now. Adari looked at Nink, dying of exhaustion, forked feet barely responding to the caresses of the surf. She couldn’t simply bury him when the time came; he’d be needed, just like the rest. The uvak were integral to their survival—but disposable when necessary.
The Sith had looked upon the Keshiri in exactly the same way.
Adari studied her people, toiling mutely on the island. They expected they wouldn’t survive the year. Worse, anyone who came looking for them would not be a savior.
Perhaps Korsin’s Sith worried about the same thing, she thought. Perhaps the tales were true. Perhaps the real Skyborn, the true Protectors of legend, were out there somewhere, hunting for the Sith.
She didn’t believe it.
But then, she never had.
Seelah awoke on a slab in her old sick ward. There wasn’t any difference between the patient accommodations and the biers in the morgue; it was all cold marble, just as everything in the accursed temple was.
She was moving now—only her legs weren’t. She remembered it all. Seconds after she saw Nida arrive, Gloyd brought the fight into her chamber. Gloyd had always bragged that whoever took him out wouldn’t live to celebrate. Indeed, cornered by Seelah and her confederates, Gloyd had activated something he must have had literally up his sleeve since the crash: a proton detonator. The Houk’s insurance policy had brought the room down on the entire party.
The Force had helped free Seelah from the rubble that pinned her from the knees down, but nothing could make her walk again. She didn’t need her medical training to recognize that. She’d worked tirelessly to become a perfect specimen of humanity, something for the Tribe to aspire to. Now, sitting up and surveying her cuts and bruises, she knew she would never
live up to her old example again.
“You’re awake.” came a soft female voice. “Good.”
Seelah craned her neck to see her daughter in the doorway, wearing her outfit from Dedication Day. When Nida didn’t move to enter, Seelah used her aching arms to turn herself.
“You’re going to be doing a lot of that,” Nida said, stepping inside and dipping a cup into a basin. She drank deeply and exhaled. “Oh, when you need it, the water’s over here.” She looked away.
Nida explained how she had learned from Tona Vaal of the plan to steal the Sith’s uvak, timed just when as many important Sith as possible would be on the mountain. It had taken her more time than she expected, but she had foiled the plot in Tahv and hurried to her father’s side. “I guess you can feel it—Father’s gone.”
Seelah licked her lips, tasting her own dried blood. “Yes. And Jariad?”
“Father tried to throw him over the side with the Force,” Nida said. “He tried … and when he failed, I did it.”
Seelah looked blankly at her daughter.
“I hated to use poor Tona like that,” Nida said, “but he thought he had something I wanted.” She took another sip and dropped the cup. “We had something in common, you know. Our mothers had no use for our fathers.”
Tona had revealed that the conspirators were taking the uvak to the Sessal Spire, but he knew nothing beyond that. “There’s no sign of them there,” Nida said. “Our guess is they plunged themselves into the lava pit. In spite—or fear. It doesn’t matter.” Sith or Keshiri, dissent was finished on Kesh. It had been a productive day.
“I came here because we just had the reading of Father’s final testament,” she said. It existed—in her care. “He commends his legacy to me—and the three surviving High Lords have ratified it. So you see? You are the mother of the new Grand Lord. Congratulations.” Nida beamed. At her age, she could expect to rule Kesh for decades to come. “Or until the Sith come to rescue us.”
Seelah sneered. “You are a child.” She slid from the slab, only to brace herself against it with her hands when her feet failed to respond. “No one’s coming for us. Your father knew that.”
“He told me. It doesn’t really matter to me, one way or the other.”
“It should,” Seelah said, struggling to straighten. “If I tell those people out there …”
Nida casually replaced the cup and stepped back toward the doorway. “There’s no one out there,” she said. “Perhaps you should hear the rest of Father’s final wishes.” Henceforth, she explained, on the death of the Grand Lord, that person’s spouse and household laborers, too, would be sacrificed. “Technically, to honor him or her—but you and I know what it’s about.” She ran her gloved fingers through her hair. “I imagine it’s going to put a crimp in my social life, but I’ll cope.”
Seelah caught her breath. “You mean …?”
“Relax,” Nida said. “Henceforth. No, I’ve ordered that all Sith remove themselves from this mountain, in honor of Father’s passing. While I live, none may return here. This is your new home—again.” And with that, she stepped out into the courtyard.
It took Seelah painful minutes to follow, dragging herself across the stonework. Nida was stepping onto the stirrup of her uvak, surrounded by hejarbo-shoot crates of fruits and vegetables. More would be dropped by regular uvak overflights, Nida said; the only creatures, wild or trained, to be allowed in the airspace above the temple. Elsewhere in the compound, access to Omen’s shelter had been cut off. Below, the path up the mountain was being barricaded, even now. It had been painstakingly carved, but it would now be blocked forever.
What remained, Seelah saw as she looked around, was the cold temple she had come to despise living in. A home fit only for a goddess on high—forever. Alone.
“Nida,” Seelah coughed as Nida began to take flight. “Nida, you’re my child.”
“Yes, that’s what they tell me. Good-bye.”
Read on for an excerpt from
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies
by Christie Golden
Published by Del Rey Books
Aboard the Jade Shadow
Ben wondered if he’d be his father’s age before things started going right for him on any basis other than what appeared to be happy accidents.
Then he wondered if he’d be older than his dad.
True, he’d had a couple of uneventful years after the war. But then his father got arrested and exiled for a decade. Jedi who had spent formative years on Shelter in the Maw—and yes, Ben was among that number, how reassuring was that little fact—started going crazy. Ben and Luke had learned about some creepily powerful being with dark slithery mental tendrils of need who was probably responsible for the crazy Jedi, and had been going to pay her a visit inside the Maw when they abducted a Sith. One that was definitely easy on the eyes, but who was nonetheless a Sith, from a whole planetload of them, no less. A Sith who was still with them right now, standing and smirking at them while nearly a dozen frigates crammed with her pals surrounded them.
Yeah. He would definitely be older than his dad.
Luke had followed the instructions given by the unnamed, unseen Sith commander of the Black Wave, placing the Shadow in orbit around Dathomir. There was no other choice, not with eleven ChaseMaster frigates ready to open fire.
“A wise decision,” Vestara said. “I’m fond of my own life, so I’m glad you’re cooperating, but if you had attempted to flee they most certainly would have destroyed you.”
Luke eyed her thoughtfully. Clearly, he wasn’t so sure.
“So,” Ben continued, “what are they going to do with us? Are we going to be the main attraction at some kind of Sith ritual party?”
“I’ve no idea,” Vestara said. She might be lying through her teeth. She might be telling the truth. Ben simply couldn’t be sure.
“Your cooperation is appreciated, Master Skywalker,” came the voice that had first hailed them. Ben and Luke exchanged puzzled glances. Of course Vestara had told them who was holding her captive, but why the courtesy and respectful title?
“I am High Lord Sarasu Taalon, commander of this force,” the voice continued. “Your reputation precedes you. We have studied you, and your son, a great deal.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Luke said. “I know nothing about you and your people, High Lord Taalon.”
“No, you don’t. But I am prepared for that to change … somewhat. Your vessel carries a Z-95 Headhunter.”
“It does,” Luke said. “I presume you’re about to ask me to come over to your flagship and chat over a nice glass of something.”
“You and Vestara, yes,” Taalon said. “You will have to turn her back over to us, of course. But there is no reason we can’t be civilized about this.”
“No thanks,” Luke said. “Anything you have to say to me can be said at a distance. Vestara isn’t the worst companion I’ve ever traveled with. I think I’ll let her stay here with us for a while longer.”
Ben looked again at the Sith girl. His father was right. She wasn’t the worst companion he’d ever traveled with.
“Let us revisit that subject in a moment,” came Taalon’s reply. “As I’m sure you know by now, Apprentice Vestara Khai has done a commendable job of keeping us informed of what has transpired. We are aware that you are having … difficulty with certain Jedi who were fostered inside the Maw. We believe this is due to the intervention of a being known to us as Abeloth, whom Vestara encountered. Many of our own apprentices are displaying the same symptoms as your younger Jedi.”
“Your younger Sith were in the Maw as well?”
“No. But such identical displays of aberrant behavior cannot be attributed to anything else.”
Ben was skeptical. But there was so much they didn’t know yet. His father’s blue eyes met his and he shrugged slightly. It was possible.
“We are many. You are only two,” Taalon continued. “We have a common cause.”
“Are—are
you proposing a formal alliance?” Luke was so surprised he didn’t even bother to hide it. Ben, too, literally gaped for a moment. Vestara seemed more shocked than any of them, judging by her expression and her feeling in the Force.
“Precisely.”
Luke started to laugh. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound like a very Sith thing to say.”
The voice was cold when Taalon spoke again. “This creature, this … Abeloth … has the audacity to reach out and harm our apprentices. Our tyros. To toy with the Tribe—the Sith. The insult cannot be borne. It will not be borne. We are going into the Maw to teach her a lesson.”
Ben glanced at his father. “That, however, is a very Sith thing to say.”
Luke nodded. To Taalon, he said, “It may be that we do not need to teach her a lesson, as it were. We may simply need to find out why she is doing this.”
“And ask her nicely to please stop?” Ben thought Han Solo could learn a thing or two from this Sith about infusing one’s voice with sarcasm.
“You just asked me nicely to help you out. Clearly you’re capable of good manners,” Luke replied, unruffled. “If it accomplishes the goal with fewer or perhaps no casualties, how is that not the best solution?”
There was silence. “It is possible she may not be amenable to … polite conversation. What then, Master Skywalker?”
“I will do whatever is necessary to free the ill Jedi from her control,” Luke said. “I assure you of that.” His voice was not harsh, but there was a tone in it Ben recognized. The deed was almost as good as done when Luke Skywalker spoke like that.
“You agree, then?” Taalon asked.
Luke didn’t answer at once. Ben knew what he was struggling with. And he was surprised that it was even a struggle for the Grand Master. Luke was a Jedi. These were Sith. There couldn’t possibly be an alliance. Everyone would constantly be watching one another’s backs.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith # 4 Savior Page 3