2
Hate: pure, and oppressive. Tahv was a monument to it. Jelph felt it in every alley, at every crossroads. The dark side of the Force permeated this place, as nowhere he had ever visited.
Many times while growing up on Toprawa, Jelph had thought he was going insane. He was beset with constant headaches; each waking moment took a toll on him. Only later did he realize that the cause had been his developing Force sensitivity, responding to the psychic scars Exar Kun and his kind had wrought on the world, years before.
But their evil was past. The psychic acid that coursed through the streets of Tahv was alive. It was everywhere. The building he hid against was home to an old Sith man violently castigating a Keshiri servant. The window across the way, beyond which a young couple plotted the deaths of their neighbors. The sentry down the walk, whose memories held things beyond Jelph’s worst imaginings.
Jelph tried to shut out the impressions coming at him through the Force without attracting attention to his psychic presence. It was nearly impossible. The Sith happily broadcast their hatred and anger, like wild animals baying at the stars.
Collapsing against a wall, Jelph doubled over. Too late, he realized it hadn’t been a good idea to eat before coming here. He rose, gasping and wiping the sweat from his forehead. How many Sith lived here? he wondered. In Tahv? On Kesh? He’d never known. He was ostensibly a scout for the Jedi, even if they didn’t recognize him as such; he’d wanted to deliver a full report on his eventual return. But every time he’d gone near any population center, he’d fallen ill. Including now, when he most needed his faculties.
Jelph struggled to collect his thoughts. Ori. He needed to find Ori. Her name, her face would be his lifeline. She was why he was here—and why he hadn’t left.
He knew her presence through the Force very well, but had no hope of finding it in the sea of harsh feeling that was Tahv. He wondered how she had ever survived here. Her dark nature had never seemed to him in the same class with the other Sith of Kesh, however much she postured. Ori was proud, not venal; indignant, not hateful. He would have recoiled at her touch, had she been otherwise. He had to be right about her.
But what if he was wrong? Was she even here?
Jelph was about to surrender to the despair surrounding him when he saw something that stirred a memory. In one of their first meetings, Ori had bragged about how none of the other Sabers had her knowledge of the city’s aqueduct system. It was her territory to patrol, with her apprentices. Jelph looked up to see one of several towering stone edifices stretching high across the city, bringing down water from the highlands. First constructed by the Keshiri, the system had been improved by the early Sith, who added storage reservoirs dozens of meters off the ground. Ori was right: from up there, all of Tahv could be seen. And hopefully not felt, he thought.
He crossed into the shadows beneath a massive aqueduct support, a pillar nearly the size of a city block. The dark side sensation wasn’t so bad there. Jelph scaled the support, careful to stay constantly in the darkness until he reached the top.
With a wide ledge on either side channeling rushing waters, the stone flume was the size of a city street. Lying prone on the ledge, Jelph marveled that the Keshiri had been able to build, in effect, a river in midair long before the Sith had arrived. What might they have accomplished unmolested? Shaking his head, he reached for his shoulder pouch and removed his macrobinoculars.
Studying the area, he noticed a mountain range looming far to the west. It filled him with dread. He’d heard that the Sith kept their wrecked starship there, in a temple. Would they be able to use materials from his fighter to repair it? Or would one Sith simply try to leave in his fighter, planning to return later for the others? Either way, finding Ori was the important thing now. Turning his attention back to the city below, he set the visor to night vision and scanned the streets leading to the great palace. Would she have gone there, even knowing what Grand Lord Venn had done to her family? Straining to see farther, he dared to stand.
“Ori, where are you?”
Suddenly an unseen hand slammed him backward into the coursing water. The macrobinoculars tumbled from his grasp, bouncing once on the ledge and shattering unseen on a marble rooftop far below. Once he touched bottom in the meter-deep canal, Jelph kicked his work boots against the greasy stone floor and launched himself up—only to go flying back again, pushed by the Force. Unable to right himself, he tumbled down the flume.
The current subsided, depositing him in a collecting pool—lower down, but still many meters above the nearby rooftops. He struggled to the shallow end, unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, and lit it. Blue light flashing in the night, Jelph staggered about in the waist-deep water, looking for his assailant.
“Liar!”
The call had originated up the flume. There Jelph saw the silhouette of a woman launching toward him, brandishing a crimson lightsaber. With both hands on his weapon, he deflected the powerful blow, allowing the force of the woman’s attack to carry her into the reservoir with him. She regained her footing quickly and struck again.
“Liar!” Ori repeated, her normally brown eyes blazing with orange.
“You found it,” Jelph said, bringing his lightsaber against hers in a crackling deadlock. It was all he could think to say.
Ori snarled something inaudible and kicked through the water at him. Jelph sidestepped the move, causing them both to lose footing—and causing Ori to lose her lightsaber to the deeper portion of the basin.
Seeing her splashing about, looking for the weapon, Jelph stepped back to give her room. “You found it,” he said, deactivating his lightsaber. “You found it—and you destroyed the garden. I don’t blame you.”
“I blame you!” Standing again, she jammed her hand in the water, fruitlessly. “You’re a liar. You’re a Jedi!”
“I was,” he said. There was no point in denying it. “That was my spaceship you found. Thank the Force you didn’t try to get inside—”
“What? You don’t think I’m smart enough?” Dripping, she glared back at him. “I’m just some stupid groundling to you—no better than the Keshiri!”
“That’s not it!”
“We came from space, you know. And we’ll be going back! Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Yes—among other things.” Suddenly remembering where he was, Jelph looked nervously above. The reservoir was too high for them to be heard from beneath, but he’d seen aerial sentries earlier. At least he’d found her. “What … what are you doing here?”
Ori stomped around in the water, still unable to find her lightsaber. “I came to Tahv to tell them about you! To warn them!”
“Up here?” He’d expected her to head off to see someone of importance. He studied her as she shook the water from her hair. “Wait. You did see someone important. Your mother.”
The Sith woman simply glowered.
“I thought your mother wasn’t in power anymore—”
“That’ll change!” Ori’s face filled with rage. “With what we know now, she’ll be back! I’ll be back!”
Jelph stepped backward, as if shoved by the force of her words. “This isn’t like you,” he said. “The person who stayed with me those days didn’t care about that anymore. That person—”
“That wasn’t me,” Ori spat. “That was defeat!”
“But I liked the other you—and I don’t care what you call it. That was a part of you.”
“That person wasn’t Sith!” She pointed to the stars, peeking out from the clouds high above. “Those belong to us! It’s not just about me. We’ve lived here a thousand years, waiting to get back there. Waiting to get back to what’s ours!”
Jelph began to say something, but stopped. “That’s right,” he whispered, calculating. The Tribe was a remnant from the Great Hyperspace War, more than a millennium before. She didn’t know what had followed.
He had a weapon. History.
“There are no more Sith,” Jelph said.
> “What?”
“There are no more Sith,” he repeated. “They’re extinct.”
“You’re lying,” Ori said, wading toward the edge. “That vessel you were hiding was a warship! Those big … prongs on either side of it. Are you telling me those are for decoration?”
Jelph shook his head. “Yes, we have enemies. And we’ve even fought Sith in living memory. A Jedi, Exar Kun, fell to the dark side and revived the movement. But they were eradicated. Hunted down—all of them.” Carefully, he edged his way toward her. “As far as I know, your people are the only Sith left alive in the galaxy. Feel my thoughts. You’ll know I’m telling the truth.”
Breathing hard, Ori looked back at him. Her anger spent, she hoisted herself onto the edge of the basin and pulled off her boot. Water poured from it. “We’ll rise,” she said, calmer now. “Alone against one Jedi, or a billion. We’ll take our chances.”
“You’ll be crushed by the Jedi.”
“Does anyone even know we exist?” she asked. “If the Sith haven’t been looking for us, I doubt the Jedi have.”
“They’re looking for me,” he said. “And believe me, the Jedi are looking for you.” He didn’t know what had become of all the members of the Covenant since he’d fled—but he knew as long as Lucien Draay lived, someone would be watching for the Sith.
Ori rubbed her forehead, exasperated. “If I can’t save my family—and I can’t save my people—then what am I supposed to do?”
“Supposed to do?” Jelph laughed. “You’re the one that always says you set your own course.” He waded toward her perch on the edge. “Just decide what you want.”
For a long moment, Ori looked at him, standing in the starlit water before her. Finally, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “We’ll never be able to trust each other,” she said.
Jelph looked at her searchingly.
She opened her eyes and glared at him. “I can feel it in your thoughts. You think I’m beautiful. You think you want me. You want to trust me. But you’re looking behind every word I say, trying to find me out, trying to trap me. Because of who I am.”
Jelph looked down at the water. He hadn’t known why he had come all this way when so much was at risk. Not until now. “I think I know who you are, Ori.” He stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. She shrank at his touch.
“Jelph,” she said, grabbing at his hand but not pushing it away. “I can’t be the person I was back at the farm. If the only way to be with you is to be weak, I just can’t do it.”
“You can be strong,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her off the ledge, down into the water before him. Her feet touching the bottom, she looked up at him. “You are strong,” he said. “You just don’t have to rule the galaxy.”
She looked away from him, down at the pool. “It’s what we’re born to do, you know. To rule the galaxy.”
“Then the Tribe is built on a trick,” he said. “A deception. Everyone is fighting over something that only one person can have. Just one. Which means that to be a Sith—is to be an almost certain failure. Almost everyone who follows your Code is doomed to fail, even before he starts.” Jelph chortled. “What kind of philosophy is that?” Nudging her chin upward with his hand, he looked into her eyes, brown again. “Don’t be tricked. You can’t lose if you don’t play.”
He kissed her, uncaring what any Sith aerial sentry saw. Ori returned the embrace before pulling back. “Wait,” she said. “We’re already playing. It’s in motion. I can’t stop it.”
“What do you mean?”
Dark brow furrowed, Ori explained what her mother had suggested she do. “I’ve already sent word to the rival High Lords,” she said. “They’re going to meet me at your farm to see the spaceship.”
Shocked back to reality, Jelph released her. “What … what did you say to them?” Stunned, he climbed out of the reservoir.
Ori followed, appealing to him. Her mother had given her a phrase to use—code within the tiny High Lord community for a discovery of Kesh-shaking importance. “I didn’t tell them about the spaceship, but they know it’s important,” she said. “They’re supposed to meet me there tomorrow at sunset.”
“Sunset!” Jelph sagged. It had taken him a full day and night just to get here on foot. “How were you going to get there?”
“I was going to steal an uvak,” Ori said, standing atop the ledge and pointing up to a dark figure in the sky. “It’s why I came up here—I knew from the aqueduct, I could lure one of the aerial sentries down here.” She looked back at him petulantly. “Of course, that was when I still had a lightsaber.”
“Lucky thing you made a friend,” he said, standing on the ledge beside her and looking up at the hovering sentry. He smiled. “You know, Ori, you’re the first Sith I’ve ever fought.”
“You may need to try harder against this one,” she said, watching his lightsaber come to life. “We’re not all so easily charmed.”
3
It felt good to fly again. Ori looked down at the countryside slipping away beneath the uvak’s beating wings. Every so often, she turned back to see Jelph, clinging to her as she pulled the reins. He was still smiling. Flight was no mystery to him, she knew—but he’d lived for three years on the ground, looking up at flying Sith. This was a welcome change.
She wondered what flying in his spaceship would be like. She knew now why he hadn’t simply flown away in it earlier—but now that they’d found each other, they needn’t be bound to Kesh any longer. They’d be an uncomfortable fit in the one-seat vehicle, and she knew he wanted to reinstall some kind of communications system before departing. But even though they hadn’t discussed it, she fervently hoped for that escape.
What would life be like for her, a child of the Tribe in a Jedi-dominated galaxy? Much like Jelph must have felt these past years, she imagined. She was beginning to think that way now. Empathy was a trait the Sith understood only as a means of better knowing one’s enemy; it had no practical purpose otherwise. Ori had begun to see things differently.
Take Candra, for example. There were many reasons Ori had wanted to restore her mother’s past position—but most revolved around pride, vengeance, and shame over her current state. It was more important, she now realized, to simply improve her mother’s life by getting her out of Venn’s clutches. The four High Lords could do that, Gadin Badolfa assured her when she’d contacted him. She just needed something to give them in trade instead of Jelph’s spaceship. Jelph had suggested the four functioning blasters he had hidden at home; she could claim to have discovered them in a grave somewhere. All the weapons they had from Omen’s crew were long since exhausted. The discovery of charged ones could make a difference in the violent politics of the High Lords.
“We’re not going to make it in time,” Jelph said. Their uvak hadn’t wanted to carry two strange riders and had fought them all the way. “What’s that up there?”
Ori looked up to see a flying V of uvak—a lone figure trailed by three more on either side—soaring through the air high above them. “Blast it!” They’d found the jet stream, she realized. “They’re going to get there first!”
“Steady,” Jelph said. His hold on her tightened. “But faster!”
Ori allowed Jelph to leap free out of sight of the farm before touching down. She watched as he nimbly hit the dirt and rolled into the cover. It was so surprising to see him in action, as physically able in every way as a Sith Saber. And stealthy, too. The visitors, their creatures parked behind the farmhouse, hadn’t seen a thing.
Taking a deep breath, Ori dismounted. The sack of blasters was right where Jelph had said it was, beneath the mixing trough. They looked much like the ones she’d seen in the museum. Hopefully, they’d be enough to buy her mother’s redemption—and to make the visitors leave.
Under her breath, she rehearsed what she would say as she rounded the farmhouse past the destroyed trellis. She knew which four of the High Lords to expect. Sensing familiar dark presences, she
called out. “My Lords, I have what you’re looking for …”
“Yes, I think you do.”
Ori turned ashen at the sound of the croaking voice. The Grand Lord!
Pale and shrunken, Lillia Venn emerged from the stable. Raising a mottled hand, she grasped Ori through the Force, immobilizing her. Four of her loyal guards appeared from behind the barn and took physical hold of Ori. Turning, the Sith leader called into the barn. “Lords Luzo!”
Ori felt her spine turn to jelly as Flen and Sawj Luzo opened the stable doors behind Venn, revealing the metallic mass of the Aurek strikefighter inside. She’d heard from Badolfa that Venn had elevated Flen and Sawj Luzo to Lordships for their loyalty. Now the conniving brothers had returned to the farm—with her worst enemy. “How did it happen?” Ori asked, struggling against the guards. “Did Badolfa betray me?”
“Oh, we let Badolfa deliver your messages,” Sawj Luzo said, squeaky voice high with delight. “Your mother made another deal.”
“What?”
“Yes,” Venn said, turning and hobbling back inside. “She didn’t think your discovery existed—and she didn’t think the other High Lords would come. So she alerted us to the meeting here.”
Ori looked horrified. “In exchange for what?”
Venn licked her dry lips. “Call it … improved working conditions. Had any High Lords arrived, I would have had them for treason.” She gestured to the space vehicle. “But this is a much better prize.”
Straining against her captors, Ori looked around. Jelph was out there, she knew—but there were so many of them. And now the elder Luzo brother was helping the Grand Lord through the partially dug manure in the stable toward her discovery.
“I did it,” Venn said, triumphantly. “I’ve lived to see the day.” She released her hold on her escort’s arm and leaned against the starfighter. “Life is a cruel joke, Lord Luzo. You spend your years reaching the pinnacle of power—only then everyone thinks it’s time for you to die.”
Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories Page 15