Medd's killer might not have been an assassin sent to avenge my husband's death. It could have been someone interested in finding the talismans.'
'I have considered that possibility,' the Jedi Master confessed. 'Though I had hoped it was not so.'
The Ithorian turned his back on them, clearly troubled. He began to pace slowly back and forth in front of his plants, as if to calm himself before speaking again. Once again Lucia was amazed at how easily the princess had controlled and directed the encounter.
Obba had commented on Serra being strong in the Force. That might help to explain the commanding presence she seemed to carry. But, Lucia wondered, was it possible the princess was so powerful she was able to manipulate a Jedi Master?
'Those who are trained in the ways of the Jedi are taught to live by the rules and tenets of our Order,' Obba said at last. 'We believe in self-sacrifice, and we believe that the power of the Force must only be used when it serves the greater good. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, there are those who fall away from our teachings. They give in to weakness. They succumb to ambition and greed. They use the Force to satisfy their own base wants and desires. They reject our philosophy and fall to the dark side.'
'You're talking about the Sith,' Serra whispered. Lucia thought she heard fear in the princess's voice, but she couldn't tell if it was real or simply part of the game she was playing with their host.
'Not the Sith,' he corrected. 'I am speaking of the Dark Jedi.'
'What's the difference between a Sith and a Dark Jedi?' Lucia asked.
The Ithorian stopped pacing and turned to face them, instinctively addressing his audience like a teacher giving a lesson.
'The Sith were the sworn enemies of the Jedi and the Republic. They sought to wipe us from existence; they sought to rule the galaxy. They united their strength in the Brotherhood of Darkness, drawing countless followers to their cause with false promises. They amassed an army of individuals foolish and desperate enough to believe their lies, and they plunged the galaxy into a war that threatened to destroy us all.'
Lucia remained silent as Obba spoke, though she tensed involuntarily at his description of her and her fellow soldiers.
'A Dark Jedi, on the other hand, has much smaller ambitions. He-or she-thinks only of himself. He acts alone. The ultimate goal is not galactic conquest, but personal wealth and importance. Like a common thug or criminal, he revels in cruelty and selfishness. He preys upon the weak and vulnerable, spreading misery and suffering wherever he goes.'
'And you think such a one might be involved here,' Serra noted. 'You have someone in particular in mind.'
Obba bowed his head in shame. 'Set Harth. As a Padawan he lost his Master to the thought bomb on Ruusan. I took him under my wing, and eventually I recommended him to the other members on the Council of First Knowledge. Like Medd, he became one of our agents, scouring the galaxy for dark side artifacts and lore.
'But the temptation of the dark side proved too strong for Set. He rejected the Jedi teachings to pursue wealth and personal gain at the expense of others. Too late we learned that he had kept many of the artifacts he uncovered for himself. By the time I realized what he had become, he was gone, vanished into the galactic underbelly of lawless mercenaries, bounty hunters, and slavers.'
'So you fear that Set Harth, this Dark Jedi, may have killed Medd Tandar on Doan?'
'If the killer was not an assassin hired by someone on Doan, then this seems to me to be the most likely possibility. If Set somehow learned about the artifact cache on Doan, he would have sought to claim it:and he would have killed anyone who got in his way.'
'He sounds like a dangerous man,' Serra noted.
'Now that the Sith are extinct,' Obba proclaimed, 'Set Harth may be the most dangerous individual in the galaxy.'
Serra stared at him. She thought of the black-armored man who had haunted her dreams for the past twenty years, and remembered the words of her father:
The Jedi and the Sith will always be at war. They are each wholly uncompromising; their rigid philosophies make no room for mutual existence. But what they fail to realize is that they are merely two sides of the same coin: light and dark. You cannot have one without the other.
'How can you be so sure the Sith are gone?' she demanded. 'Weren't there rumors that some of the Sith Lords survived the thought bomb that destroyed the Brotherhood of Darkness?'
'That is true. One did survive,' Obba explained. 'But now he, too, has fallen:though his defeat came at a terrible cost.'
'I don't understand.'
The Ithorian sighed, an anguished, mournful sound. 'Come. I will show you.'
With slow plodding steps he crossed the room and opened the door leading back out to the hall. The three Jedi who had escorted them there were all sitting cross-legged on the ground, silently meditating. They scrambled to their feet upon seeing the Ithorian emerge.
'You may return to your regular duties,' he informed them.
'Yes, Master,' they replied, bowing in unison. Dismissed, the Jedi headed up the stairs to whatever tasks awaited them in the higher floors of the tower.
Moving at a pace so languid it bordered on maddening, Obba led the way back down to the base of the tower and out into the gardens where, at long last, he stopped.
They stood before one of the many monuments raised in the garden. This particular one was a white block of stone a meter and a half high and nearly twice as wide. The handles of five lightsabers were inlaid on the face of the stone; beneath each was a small engraved portrait-presumably an image of the lightsaber's owner. Beneath this, in larger letters, was the following:
In honor of those who fell beneath the blade of the last Dark Lord of the Sith. May their memories live on, to remind us of what is lost. There is no emotion; there is peace; There is no death; there is the Force. Jedi Master Valenthyne Farfalla Jedi Master Raskta Lsu Jedi Master Worror Dowmat Jedi Knight lohun Othone Jedi Knight Sarro Xaj Caleb of Ambria
When her eyes fell upon the last name of the list, Serra felt her knees grow weak. Speechless, she could only stare at the monument, her mind unable to make sense of what she was seeing.
'What is this?' Lucia asked, echoing her mistress's confusion. 'Why'd you bring us here?'
'Ten years ago, Master Valenthyne Farfalla learned that a Dark Lord of the Sith had somehow survived the thought bomb on Ruusan. Acting on a tip, he quickly assembled the team of Jedi you see honored on this monument to try to apprehend the Dark Lord. They followed him into the Deep Core and confronted him on the world of Tython. None of the Jedi survived.'
'Did you know them well?' Lucia wondered aloud, still following Serra's instructions to ask questions at every opportunity.
'I knew Master Worror and Master Valenthyne back when we were all Padawans. We served together in Lord Hoth's Army of Light during the war against Lord Kaan's Brotherhood of Darkness.'
For several seconds there was silence, Obba lost in his memories and Serra still too stunned to speak. It was Lucia who broke the spell, asking yet another question.
'The last name, Caleb of Ambria-I remember hearing it back during the war. He was a healer, wasn't he?'
'He was. In the battle against the Jedi on Tython, the Dark Lord was grievously injured. He went to Ambria in search of the one man with the knowledge to heal his wounds. But Caleb refused to help him.'
In her mind's eye, everything became clear to Serra. As her father had predicted, the man in black armor had returned. As before, he had come to try to compel Caleb to work his art. As before, Caleb had resisted. This time, however, her father had the upper hand. Having sent his daughter away, there was nothing the Sith could do to compel him to cooperate.
'What happened when the healer refused?' she whispered, her eyes still transfixed on her father's name etched into the base of the stone.
'Nobody knows for certain. What we do know is that shortly after the Dark Lord arrived, Caleb sent out a message alerting the Jedi Council. He told them the last of the Sith was at his camp on Ambria, injured and virtually helpless. He wanted the Jedi to come capture him.'
'Why would he do that?' Lucia wondered. 'I seem to remember hearing that Caleb refused to take sides in the
