'Will you destroy me, too?' the girl asked.
With a shock, Darovit realized that he knew the voice! He didn't know how it was possible, but there was no doubt in his mind who this was.
'Rain!' he shouted, breaking into a run to meet the cousin he had thought was dead. 'Rain, you're alive!'
The trip to the cave was quick and uneventful. Bane had noticed a few shell-shocked survivors of the final battle of Ruusan staring at him and Zannah as they roared past on their swoop, but he paid them little heed. He doubted any of them would recognize him for what he truly was. And even if they did, their tales of a surviving Sith Lord racing past them with a young girl in tow would seem as ludicrous and unreliable as the accounts of the mercenaries he had let escape back at Kaan's camp.
He brought the swoop to a stop outside the dark and forbidding tunnel that would lead them down to the chamber of the thought bomb. Small pebbles crunched loudly beneath the hard soles of his heavy black boots as he dismounted. Zannah was too small to simply step off the vehicle, but she leapt down from her seat without any sign of fear or hesitation, landing nimbly on the ground beside him.
Neither of them spoke as they made the descent, their way lit by one of the glow rods Bane had found in the supplies back at the Sith camp. The air grew colder and Zannah shivered beside him, but she didn't complain. They moved quickly down the rough-hewn passage; even so it took nearly twenty minutes for them to reach their destination due to the length of the tunnel. And for the first time Darth Bane actually saw what his manipulations of Kaan and his followers had wrought.
The pale, glowing orb floating in the center of the chamber was nearly four meters tall. It pulsed with raw power; it made the flesh on Bane's neck crawl and the hair on his arms stand on end. Dark veins of shadow swirled on the shimmering metallic surface in slow, hypnotic rhythms. There was something grotesquely compelling about it, something fascinating yet repulsive at the same time.
Beside him Zannah gasped, drawing a sharp breath in wonder then releasing it in a slow hiss of fear. He glanced down at her, but she didn't return his gaze-her wide eyes were transfixed by the remnants of the thought bomb. Turning his attention back to the orb, Bane stepped forward into the chamber. Zannah took a single step to follow him, then held back.
Approaching the globe, he reached out with his bare hand and pressed it firmly against the surface. It seared his palm with cold fire, but he was oblivious to the pain, enthralled by the object's mesmerizing call. Beneath his touch the dark swirling shadows within coalesced into a single mass. The thoughts of those trapped inside rushed up to meet him: faint whispers in the dark recesses of his mind, the words unintelligible but full of hate and despair.
Instinctively Bane's consciousness recoiled. He resisted, fighting the urge to pull his hand back. Instead he thrust his awareness forward, penetrating the surface of the orb to plunge into the unfathomable depths of its black heart. The hateful whispers erupted into shrieks of torment. But these were not the screams of sentient beings: they were bestial howls of primal, mindless fury. The identities of those the thought bomb had consumed-Lord Kaan, General Hoth, all their Sith and Jedi followers-had been destroyed, ripped apart by the thought bomb's explosion. Only torn bits remained, broken pieces of what once had been spirits, no longer capable of conscious thought, wailing in the shared suffering of their eternal madness.
They swarmed over Bane's consciousness, cleaving to his still-whole identity like parasites attaching themselves to a fresh host. The keening spirits enveloped him, clutching and clawing at his sanity as they tried to drag him down with them into their dark abyss.
Bane tore free with contemptuous ease, shredding the already frail and tattered spirits as he cast them aside, and let his mind drift back to the surface. An instant later he was free, leaving behind the prison from which the others would never escape.
He let his hand drop from the oblong sphere as he took a step back, satisfied at what he had learned. There were no ghosts haunting him; Kaan was no more. Not in any real sense. The figure he had seen at the Sith camp had been nothing but a delusion conjured up by his own wounded psyche.
'Are they trapped in there?' Zannah asked. She was staring at Bane with an expression of both awe and terror.
'Trapped. Dead. It makes no difference' he answered with a shrug. 'Kaan and the Brotherhood are gone. They got what they deserved.'
'Were they weak?'
Bane didn't answer right away. Kaan had been many things- ambitious, charismatic, stubborn, and in the end a fool-but he had never been weak.
'Kaan was a traitor,' he said at last. 'He led the Brotherhood away from the teachings of the ancient Sith. He turned his back on the very essence of the dark side.'
Zannah didn't reply, but she looked up at him expectantly. The role of mentor was a new one for Bane; he was a man of action, not words. He wasn't used to taking the time to share his wisdom with another desperate to learn it. But he was smart enough to understand that the lessons would have far more meaning if his apprentice could figure out some of the answers for herself.
'Why did you choose to become my apprentice?' he asked, challenging her. 'Why did you choose the way of the dark side?'
'Power,' she replied quickly.
'Power is only a means to an end,' Bane admonished her. 'It is not an end in itself. What do you need power for?'
The girl furrowed her brow. Her Master already recognized this expression as a sign she was struggling to come up with an answer.
'Through power I gain victory,' she said when she finally spoke, reciting the final lines of the Sith Code she had learned only a few hours earlier. From her tone it was clear she was trying to work through her limited understanding of the dark side to arrive at the answer Bane wanted.
'Through victory my chains are broken…' she continued, slowly searching for an answer just beyond her reach. A second later she exclaimed, 'Freedom! The dark side sets us free!'
Bane nodded his approval. 'The ledi shackle themselves in chains of obedience: obedience to the Jedi Council; obedience to their Masters; obedience to the Republic. Those who follow the light side even believe they must submit themselves to the Force. They are merely instruments of its will, slaves to a greater good.
'Those who follow the dark side see the truth of their enslavement. We recognize the chains that bind us and hold us back. We believe in the power of the individual to break these chains. That is the path to greatness. Only if we are free can we reach our full potential.
'The belief that an individual must not bow down before anyone or anything is the dark side's greatest strength ' Bane continued. 'But it is also our ultimate weakness. The struggle to rise above those around you is often violent, and in the past the Sith were constantly at one anothers' throats.'
'Isn't that a good thing?' Zannah interjected, 'The strong will survive and the weak will die.'
'Weak does not mean stupid,' Bane countered. 'There were those with less power, but more cunning. Several apprentices would band together to take down a powerful Master, hoping to elevate their own position among the Sith. Then they would turn on one another, making and breaking alliances until only one remained-a new Master, but one weaker than the original. This survivor would then be taken down in turn by another band of lesser Sith, further weakening our Order.
'Kaan recognized this. But his solution was far worse than the problem. Kaan declared all the followers of the dark side-all the members of the Sith Order-as equals in the Brotherhood of Darkness. In doing so, he betrayed us all.'
'Betrayed you?'
'Equality is a lie' Bane told her. 'A myth to appease the masses. Simply look around and you will see the lie for what it is! There are those with power, those with the strength and will to lead. And there are those meant to follow-those incapable of anything but servitude and a meager, worthless existence.
'Equality is a perversion of the natural order!' he continued, his voice rising as he shared the fundamental truth that lay at the core of his beliefs. 'It binds the strong to the weak. They become anchors that drag the exceptional
