"I've told you, Zannah-we share a bond. I can tell what you're thinking, what you're feeling. You're afraid of being alone . . . but you're not alone. Not anymore.

"You'll make the right choice. And when you do, I'll be there for you."

She weighed the offer carefully, chewing on her lip so hard her teeth drew blood. If she refused, Bane was dead and she'd have to continue the Sith Order on her own. Kill Caleb, find an apprentice ... probably kill Darovit, too. If she agreed, she had to betray her Master to the Jedi, which would mark the end of the Sith and the first step in her long road of redemption and atonement.

"Bane's time is running out," her cousin prodded. "You have to decide."

The two paths loomed large before her: alone into the darkness, or into the light with Darovit at her side. She spun the problem over and over in her mind until, finally, the answer came to her.

"Tell Caleb I agree to his demands."

Bane opened his eyes slowly; his lids felt heavy, weighed down as if they were lined with metal filings. He could feel them brushing over his pupils, rubbing like sandpaper as he blinked against the harsh light streaming down on him. The brightness made him squint again as he tried to sit up.

His body refused to move. Legs, arms, and torso ignored the impulses from his brain to rise. Even his head couldn't budge. There was sensation in his extremities: He could tell he was lying on his back, and he could feel the rough grain of a burlap sheet or a coa.r.s.ely woven cloth against his skin. But he was paralyzed, unable to move.

He let his eyes flicker open once more, and the brightness began to fade as his pupils gradually contracted. He was staring up at a low, sloping ceiling of simple wooden planks. A ray of sunlight beamed through a narrow crack in the wood, shining directly on his face.

Groaning he managed to turn his head to the side so the light no longer hit his eyes. The change of angle also gave him a better view of the room he was in: small, plain, and strangely familiar. Before he could match the setting to any of his memories, a figure stepped into his line of sight.

From the fact that he was staring directly into a pair of worn leather boots, Bane deduced that he was lying on the floor. The figure stood over him for a moment, then crouched down to look him in the eye.

The face-ten years older, but unmistakable-jogged the Dark Lord's memory.

He had lain on this very floor over a decade earlier on the border between life and death, even as he lay now.

Caleb, he tried to say, but the only sound that came out was a soft groan. Like the rest of his body, his lips, tongue, and jaw refused to move. Bane tried to call upon the power of the dark side to grant him strength, but his will was as weak and helpless as the rest of him.

"He's awake," Caleb called out loudly, never taking his eyes off his patient.

From outside Bane heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He tried to speak again, pouring all his strength into a single word.

"Caleb."

His voice was a faint whisper, but this time the word was clear. The healer didn't bother to respond. Instead he stood up, leaving Bane staring at his boots once more. Bane heard the dull thud of running footsteps on the sand outside change to the sharp clack of boot heels on the shack's wooden floor.

"Let me see him!"

He recognized the voice of his apprentice, and his mind slowly began to rea.s.semble the pieces of what had happened. He remembered the battle with the Jedi on Tython; he remembered unleashing a storm of Force lightning at the last of his foes. He remembered the kriffing shield the Ithorian Master had thrown up around him. After that, all his memories were of unbearable pain.

Somehow the Jedi's barrier had trapped Bane inside the center of the dark side storm. The electricity had enveloped him, millions of volts arcing through his body, cooking his flesh from the inside and throwing his muscles into an endless series of violent seizures that threatened to rip his body apart.

The energy had coursed through the orbalisks embedded in his skin, too.

The creatures absorbed the power, hungrily devouring it until they became so engorged that the soft, pliant flesh of their underbellies had began to swell. Squeezed ever tighter against the unyielding chitin of their own exterior sh.e.l.ls, they'd begun to burrow deeper into Bane. He remembered screaming as thousands of tiny teeth started sawing away at subcutaneous tissue, chewing through muscles, tendons, and even bone.

But burrowing deeper hadn't stopped the creatures from feasting on the electricity coursing through Bane's frying innards. They'd continued to expand until they had begun to pop, rupturing like overfilled balloons pinched beneath the hard sh.e.l.ls.

Bane had stayed conscious through the torture of the electricity cooking him alive and the agony of the teeth burrowing into his flesh. But the indescribable pain from the chemicals released by the exploding orbalisks dissolving his body on a cellular level finally caused him to black out... only to wake up here.

A pair of boots stepped in beside Caleb's: the smaller feet of a woman, most likely Zannah.

"He's trying to speak," Caleb said from up above Bane's line of sight.

He tried to tilt his head again, this time managing to look up toward the pair standing over him. Zannah noticed and crouched down to raise his head and shoulders. She slid a makeshift pillow formed by her balled-up cloak underneath his neck to support him. He felt her long, thin fingers on his back as she did so.

The contact brought a realization crashing down on Bane-the orbalisks were gone! That was why he had felt the coa.r.s.e blankets against his bare skin. That was why he could feel Zannah's fingers pressing against his flesh.

"Orbalisks?" he managed to gasp.

"We had to remove them" his apprentice informed him. "They were killing you."

Bane felt the world going dim again, his body exhausted by the two words he had spoken. As he lost consciousness, he felt a pang of regret for what he had lost.

To Zannah's untrained eye, her Master looked much stronger when he opened his eyes again two days later. This time he was able to turn his head slowly from side to side, taking in the surroundings of Caleb's home and the nearby presence of his apprentice.

"What happened?" he asked.

The words were faint, his voice still raw and ragged.

"Caleb healed you," she told him, adjusting the pillow she had taken from the Loranda and placed under his head and shoulders to prop him up. "He saved your life."

Four days ago such a statement would have been hard to imagine. Caleb had watched Zannah program the message drone and send it off to the Jedi, then warned her there was a strong chance Bane wouldn't survive the treatment.

She'd thought at first it might be a ploy, an excuse Caleb was giving to cover up his actions if he decided to let her Master die ... or simply killed him. So she'd kept a close eye on the healer during Bane's treatment. Even though she knew there were a hundred ways he could end Bane's life without her having any clue as to what he was doing, Zannah hoped her presence might dissuade him from trying anything underhanded.

Now she realized how pointless her vigil had been. Caleb was a man of his word; he was burdened and bound by foolish notions like honor. He had promised to help Bane as long as she alerted the Jedi, and since she had held up her end of the bargain, he had made every effort to do the same.

Zannah had originally suggested moving Bane back to the Lo-randa's medical bay for the treatments, but Caleb had refused. He'd claimed the powerful energies coursing through the land around his camp gave strength to his medicine. Darovit had agreed, and Zannah, having felt the power of the place herself, had relented.

The healer had started by forcing a foul-smelling liquid he had concocted in his cooking pot down Bane's throat to counter the effects of the orbalisk toxins. Darovit had warned her that the poison was killing Bane, eating away at his body. But it was only when they began to peel away the orbalisks, beginning with the charred sh.e.l.ls of those that had died, that Zannah understood the full scope of how badly her Master had suffered.

What lay beneath could no longer be called skin; it couldn't even be properly called flesh. A pulpy ma.s.s of green and black ichors released by the parasitic organisms mixed with oozing white pus and b.l.o.o.d.y red tissue from Bane's own body. Looking at the damage it was obvious, even to someone like Zannah, with no medical expertise, that the only thing keeping Bane alive was his power in the Force. His wounds gave off the gangrenous odor of spoiled meat, and it was all she could do not to vomit.

The next step involved removing the still-living orbalisks. The key, as Zannah had suspected, was electricity. Caleb had brewed a sticky, highly conductive gel over his fire, then used it to coat the exterior sh.e.l.l of each orbalisk. Next he took a long, thin needle attached to a power cell salvaged from the Loranda and inserted it into a tiny hole at the very tip of the orbalisk's plated skull. The needle pierced the soft body underneath, discharging a powerful electrical jolt to stun the creature.

This caused the orbalisk to release a small burst of solvent chemicals that weakened the powerful adhesive the creature used to bond itself to the host. With the adhesive bond weakened, the creature could be manually pried loose. The still-stunned parasites were then tossed into a large, water-filled tank hooked up to one of the Lo~ randa's power cells and killed with a final dose of electricity. The process had to be carefully repeated for each individual in the colony that had sprouted over Bane's body, and even with both Darovit and Caleb working on him the procedure had taken several hours.

The flesh beneath the living orbalisks was pale and ragged, with deep, weeping sores where it had been constantly chewed and gnawed by the parasites' tiny teeth. The wounds looked minor when compared with the grisly mess beneath the dead sh.e.l.ls.

Once Bane was cleansed of the infestation, Caleb had rubbed a salve over his entire body and wrapped him head-to-toe in bandages.

The dressings had been changed every four hours for the first two days, the salve reapplied each time.

Zannah was impressed with Caleb's skill. Bane had been little more than a ma.s.s of dead and infected tissue when the healer had begun, and by the time the bandages came off for good Bane's ravaged body had been reborn.

His skin was now a bright pink, unusually supple and extremely sensitive, though over the coming weeks she'd been told it would slowly return to a more normal color and texture.

"Caleb saved me?" Bane muttered softly. "How did you convince him?"

Zannah hesitated, not sure what to tell him. Darovit and Caleb were just outside the door; they could walk in at any moment. But even if they caught her telling Bane about the message drone, why would they care? The deed was done. Her Master was still too weak to stand, and by now the Jedi were probably less than a day away from Ambria.

"We had to tell the Jedi you were here. I sent a message telling them a Sith Lord had killed five Jedi on Tython. I told them you were with Caleb on Ambria, injured and helpless. They're coming for you."

Anger flashed through Bane's eyes and he tried to sit up, but only managed to raise his head a few centimeters off the pillow before falling back. Realizing he was helpless, her Master stared at her with accusing eyes.

"You exposed me," he said. "You betrayed me."

"I had to keep you alive," she explained, falling back on the argument she had used to make her final decision. "You still have so much to teach me."

"How can that happen now?" he demanded angrily. "The Jedi will never allow it."

Zannah didn't have an answer she could give him. Bane closed his eyes, though whether in defeat or thought she couldn't say. She could just make out Darovit and Caleb talking in low voices outside by the fire.

Bane's eyes opened a few seconds later, burning with a fierce intensity.

"Darth Zannah, you are my apprentice. The heir to my legacy. You can still claim the destiny that is yours by right. You can still ascend to the rank of Sith Master."

He was speaking louder now, his strength slowly returning. Zannah wondered if the men outside could hear him.

"Take your lightsaber and strike me down! Claim my t.i.tle as your own.

Slay the others and flee this place before the Jedi arrive. Seek out a new apprentice. Keep our Order alive "

Zannah shook her head. Caleb had already considered that possibility, and effectively eliminated it. "Our ship is disabled, and the Jedi will be here in a matter of hours. Even if I flee into the desert, they will find me before I can escape this world."

"I never thought you would fail me so utterly," Bane told her, turning his head away from her in disgust. "I never thought you would be the one to destroy the Sith."

She didn't say anything in her defense, and a few seconds later Bane turned back to face her once more, casting his eyes to the lightsaber on her belt.

"I don't want to live as a prisoner to the Jedi," he said, his voice low, as if he now knew there were others who might overhear, "You can end this before they arrive."

Zannah shook her head. She hadn't gone to all the trouble of saving her Master's life just to kill him now. "While you live there is still hope, Bane," she said quietly, worried what Darovit or Caleb would think if they heard her words. Yet she had to offer some type of rea.s.surance to her Master. "The Sith may yet rise again."

Bane shook his head, though it took a monumental effort. "The Jedi will never allow me to escape. They will sense my power, and keep me under the constant guard of a dozen Jedi Knights until the Senate decides to execute me for my crimes. Kill me now and deny them their justice."

Zannah had spent the past two days by Bane's side, waiting for him to wake again. It had been clear he would live, but she'd wanted to speak with her Master to be certain his mind was still intact. She'd wanted proof that all his faculties-his intelligence, his cunning- had survived his ordeal. She had it now, ironically expressed in his desire to die.

"A Sith never surrenders, Master," she told him.

"And only a fool fights a battle that cannot possibly be won," he answered sharply. "The Jedi will be here soon. Act now. Strike me down!"

She shook her head. Her Master tried to rise, his fury giving him the strength to sit halfway up. And then he collapsed back onto the pillow, utterly exhausted.

As her Master slipped once more into unconsciousness, Zannah realized he was right. The Jedi were coming, and if she didn't act now it would be too late. She stood up and drew her lightsaber, knowing the hum of its blade would alert the two men outside. She didn't care. By the time they realized what she was doing it would be too late.

Chapter 24.

The Light of Truth, one of the many Jedi cruisers that had been incorporated into the Republic fleet after the Ruusan Reformations, landed with a soft thump on Ambria's desolate surface.

"Be ready for anything," Master Tho'natu warned his team as they prepared to disembark.

Back before he achieved the rank of Master, the Twi'lek had served as a Jedi Knight in the Army of Light on Ruusan. He had been a.s.signed to Farfalla's ship, luckily in time to avoid the effects of the thought bomb, but not before he'd had ample opportunity on Ruusan to witness first-hand the kind of atrocities the Sith were capable of. He wasn't about to take any chances here.

They'd been dispatched in response to a message drone that had arrived on Coruscant a few days before. The anonymous message inside had been cryptically short, and somewhat disquieting in its lack of detail. It contained only a set of landing coordinates and four brief lines of text.

A Sith Lord still lives. He killed five Jedi on Tython. He is now on Ambria, under the care of a healer named Caleb. He is badly injured and helpless.

Less than two weeks ago Master Farfalla and four companions had hastily taken off from Coruscant, leaving behind word they were heading to Tython in pursuit of a Dark Lord of the Sith. They hadn't been heard from since.

The message drone offered a grim explanation of their fate, and it drew an immediate response from the Jedi Council.

They'd quickly a.s.sembled a team of fourteen Jedi, six Masters and eight Jedi Knights, and sent them to Ambria under Tho'natu's command to apprehend the man responsible for the ma.s.sacre of Master Farfalla and his companions. The journey had been made with all possible haste, but now that they were here they intended to proceed with caution, wary of walking into a trap.

The landing coordinates had set them down a few hundred meters from a small wooden hut and a tiny campfire. A cruiser with the name LORANDA emblazoned on its side was parked nearby.

The landing bay doors opened, and Tho'natu and the others leapt to the ground, ready to draw their lightsabers at the first sign of trouble. The air around them trembled with a strange and unfamiliar sensation of power, though beneath was the unmistakable taint of the dark side.

"First and second units, go check out that ship," he said. "Third unit explores the camp with me."

Nine Jedi rushed off toward the Loranda, while Tho'natu and the others approached the camp. What they saw as they drew nearer filled them with revulsion: Someone had been literally chopped to pieces.

Eviscerated chunks of human anatomy littered the ground around the campfire. Arms had been hewn off at the shoulder, then sliced again at the elbows and wrist. The same had been done to the lower limbs, dismembered into feet, legs, and thighs. Even the torso had been carved into quarters. The clean, cauterized cuts left no doubt the butcher's weapon of choice had been a lightsaber.

Only the head remained whole, placed like a trophy atop an upside-down cooking pot resting on the ground. A human male with long, black hair, he appeared to have been forty or fifty years of age. His features were twisted in a gruesome mask of pain and terror; Tho'natu wondered how many of the wounds had been inflicted while he was still alive.

"What kind of madness could make someone do this?" one of the others asked, but Master Tho'natu had no answer.

At a nod from their commander, the Jedi ignited their weapons. They crept toward the small shack, their commander in the lead. As a unit, they stopped when he heard a soft sound coming from inside the building: hard ragged breaths broken by trembling sobs and whimpers of fear.

A tattered blanket hung down across the building's open doorway, obscuring their view. The Twi'lek reached out with the Force to try to sense whoever was hiding inside, but something-likely the strange, underlying power of the campsite itself-blurred his awareness.

"I am Master Tho'natu of the Jedi" he called out, flicking off his lightsaber's blade. "We're here to help you."

A scream of incoherent rage erupted from the shack. A young man burst from the doorway, brandishing a golden lightsaber above his head in his left hand. His right hand was nothing but a stump, and there was a crazed gleam in his eye.

"No!" he shrieked as he charged at them, flailing wildly with his weapon.

"You'll never get me! No! No! No!"