The village itself seemed to exhale, wretched air pa.s.sing through the opening. Seelah didn't move, spell-bound by the bodies around her. The dead Keshiri looked all the same to her, purple faces and blue tongues, faces twisted in choking agony.

Her footing faltered, and she saw Ravilan's a.s.sistant.

What was her name? Yilanna? Illyana? Yilanna? Illyana? Seelah had known the woman's whole family tree the day before. Seelah had known the woman's whole family tree the day before.

Why couldn't she remember her name now, when the woman was on the ground, choked on her tongue, bloated and blue- Seelah stopped.

She knelt beside the corpse, careful not to touch it.

She drew her shikkar shikkar-the gla.s.s blade the Keshiri had fashioned for her-and carefully worked open the woman's mouth. There it was, the tongue a mad azure, blood vessels engorged and bursting. She'd seen it before in humans, at the edge of her memory . . .

"I need to go back," Seelah said, erupting from the village gates. "I need to go back home-to the ward."

Korsin, directing his henchmen building a bonfire, looked puzzled. "Seelah, forget about any survivors.

We're the survivors. We hope." the survivors. We hope."

Ravilan, lucklessly trying to calm the collected uvak Korsin had tethered outside the village wall, looked back in alarm. "If you think of bringing this disease into our sanctum-"

"No," she said. "I'm going alone. If we here are infected, nothing matters anyway." She took the bridle of an uvak from Ravilan and flashed him an unenthu-siastic smile. "But if we're not infected, it's like you said. It's a warning."

Korsin watched her leave and turned to the task of burning the village. Seelah didn't look back, soaring into the night. There wasn't much time. She'd need to meet with her entire staff at the ward, her most loyal aides.

And she'd need to see her son.

When dawn broke over the Takara Mountains, Seelah was not found in the shower by Tilden Kaah-as much as she now felt like she needed one. Seelah hadn't slept at all. With Korsin and Ravilan's return in the dead of night, the retreat had become a crisis center.

Communications were the real problem. The deaths of nameless Keshiri had stirred the Force little for those who didn't care about them anyway. But the aftermath had stirred such confusion in the minds of the Sith that even the most experienced heralds were having trouble fielding messages. Korsin had been careful in calling for the return of his people from the Keshiri towns and villages; so far, Tahv and the rest of the major cities had not heard of the disaster in Tetsubal, and he didn't want a ma.s.s withdrawal putting the natives on their guard. Sith abroad were instructed to casually remove themselves from public contact and make their way home.

What had befallen Tetsubal had not yet struck the major cities-but reconnaissance fliers were still out, checking on the surrounding areas. By the time word came in from the hinterlands, all of the Sith would be safely in their redoubt.

Seelah saw Korsin several times in the morning as she pa.s.sed through. He wanted her staff to set up quaran-tines for reentry to the compound. None of the Sith who had torched Tetsubal were showing any symptoms of distress, but the stakes were high. Seelah had a.s.signments of her own in the ward, and in fact few of her medical staffers appeared in public. "We're working on the problem," she had told him.

Reentering at noon, Seelah saw Ravilan standing with Korsin, monitoring reports. Korsin seemed hag-gard from lack of sleep-his little purple fluff wouldn't be coming for lunch today! But Ravilan, despite his harrowing experiences of the day before, seemed reju-venated; his bald head was a robust magenta.

"It goes better than we feared, Korsin," Ravilan said.

No Grand Lord now, Seelah noticed. Seelah noticed. Not even Commander. Not even Commander.

Korsin grunted. "All your people are back?"

"I am informed they have all just arrived back at the stables. Not much of a vacation," Ravilan said, his facial tendrils curling slightly, "but then there is much work to be done. On our new priorities."

Seelah looked up. It should be about now.

"Rider coming!"

The herald sensed the uvak's approach long before it appeared on the southern horizon. Waved directly onto the colonnade, the rider set the beast down and leapt to the stone surface. All eyes were on the new arrival. All save Seelah's.

"Grand Lord," he said, short of breath. "It . . .has happened again . . . in Rabolow! in Rabolow! " "

Seelah heard Korsin's gasp-but she saw Ravilan's yellow eyes bulge. It took but a second for the quartermaster to find his composure. "Rabolow?"

"That's on the Ragnos Lakes, isn't it?" Seelah looked toward Ravilan and smiled primly. "That's where your people were a.s.signed to go yesterday, wasn't it, Ravilan? Villages on the Ragnos Lakes."

He nodded. They'd all been there when it was being discussed. Ravilan cleared his throat, suddenly dry.

"I-I should speak then with my a.s.sociate who just returned from there." He hobbled past Seelah, turned, and bowed. "I-I really should meet them. Commander."

"You do that," Seelah said. Korsin said nothing, still flabbergasted by the recent news and the coincidence.

He watched Ravilan disappear from sight, heading for the stables.

"Rider coming!"

Korsin looked up. Seelah thought he almost looked afraid, afraid of the news the rider would bring.

The news was of another city of death, on another of the Ragnos Lakes. A third rider told of a third. And a fourth. One hundred thousand Keshiri, dead.

Korsin goggled. "Something to do with the lakes?

That-what was it-algae of Ravilan's?"

Seelah crossed her arms and looked directly at Korsin, stooped over and nearly her same height. She was tempted to let the moment linger . . .

. . . but there was work to be done. She called for Tilden Kaah.

Her worried a.s.sistant appeared from the direction of the ward, holding a small container. She took it and dismissed him. "Do you know what this is, Korsin?"

Korsin turned the empty vial over in his hand.

"Cyanogen silicate?"

It was from her medical stores on Omen Omen-and also from the stores Ravilan kept for the creatures in his care. In its solid form, she explained, it was used as a cauterizing agent by healers working with the Ma.s.sa.s.si.

She had seen it used again and again in Ludo Kressh's service. Nothing weaker could do anything to those savages' hides.

"It's bad enough on its own," she said. "But if mois-ture gets into it, it breaks down-and intensifies a thou-sandfold. One particle per billion could do anything."

Korsin's bushy eyebrows flared. "What-what could it do in a water table? Or an aqueduct? Or an aqueduct? " "

Seelah held his hands firmly and looked directly into his eyes. "Tetsubal." "Tetsubal."

She explained the story behind the death of her ward's bearer. Beefy Gorem had been seconded to Ravilan's team to help reach what remained in crushed sections of Omen. Omen. He'd apparently touched a stained deck plate from the Ma.s.sa.s.si apothecary and died outside, not long after washing his hands. Death was not instantaneous, but the victim never got far. He'd apparently touched a stained deck plate from the Ma.s.sa.s.si apothecary and died outside, not long after washing his hands. Death was not instantaneous, but the victim never got far.

Ravilan must have seen Gorem's death, she said, and realized he had a tool against the Keshiri. A weapon that could force Korsin and the rest of the humans to forget about building on this world-and recommit to leaving it.

And now every city that members of the Fifty-seven had visited in the previous day had gone the same way as Tetsubal.

Korsin spun and shattered his bridge chair against a marble column. He didn't use the Force. He didn't need to.

"Why would they do this?" He grabbed Seelah. He grabbed Seelah.

"Why would they do this, when it's so obvious I'd trace it back to them? How stupid-how desperate desperate would they have to be?" would they have to be?"

"Yes," Seelah said, curling around him. "How desperate would would they have to be?" they have to be?"

Korsin looked into the sun, now beating down on the mountain. Releasing her, he looked into the faces of his other advisors, all waiting and wondering.

"Bring all the others in," he said. "Tell them it's time."

Chapter Four.

Seelah had already set her mind on leaving LudoKressh before he executed her family. It was trivial; hisankle had been injured in a battle, and she had failed tostop the infection. He'd killed her father the first night,and his leverage lessened considerably after that. Seelahfound her chance to go a few days later, when one ofSadow's mining teams stopped on Rhelg to refuel. Shedidn't have anybody left by then, anyway.

Devore Korsin had been her escape. She saw hisimmaturity and recklessness, but she also saw something there to work with. He, too, strained against theinvisible chains limiting his ambition. He could be herally. And in Sadow's service, at least, something couldhappen-as long as Devore didn't foul it up.

And if he did, well, there was always their son . . .

Lightsabers flashed in the night on the mountain-but not on the main plaza. Seelah walked calmly along the darkened colonnade, now festooned with added decorations: the tentacled heads of the Fifty-seven, staked at even intervals.

There was the young sentry from the tower, trapped and killed. He'd never abandoned his post. To the right was Hestus, the translator; Seelah had been involved personally in his takedown. Korsin said they'd come back to Hestus in the morning to remove the cybernet-ic implants. Who knew, there might be something they could use there.

She could sense Korsin and his chief lieutenants beyond the outer wall now, driving the remnant to a last stand beside the precipice where Omen Omen nearly met its end. No quarter would be offered; she could see Korsin hurling any who surrendered over the side. nearly met its end. No quarter would be offered; she could see Korsin hurling any who surrendered over the side.

Well, he has experience with that.

The stone silo of the stable master loomed before her.

Uvak enclosures stretched out in all directions from this central hub, where Keshiri aides would wash the stinking beasts. The Keshiri were gone tonight, she saw as she entered the round room. At the center, watched only by a guard in the shadows, hung the limp but breathing body of Ravilan. Strong cords of Keshiri-woven fiber lashed his splayed arms to cornices high on either side of the structure. The arrangement was designed to keep uvak from bolting during their baths.

Now it was doing the same for Ravilan, his feet dan-gling mere centimeters above the ground. Seelah stepped back as a rush of water poured from slots high in the tower, gagging the prisoner.

The flow stopped after a minute, but it was longer before the weary Ravilan registered the presence of his visitor. "All gone," he choked. "Right?"

"All gone," she said, stepping into his sight. "You are the last." Ravilan had been caught early, his bad leg failing him once and for all.

Ravilan shook his head. "We only did it one time,"

he said, his throat a gravelly trail. "In Tetsubal. These other cities-I don't know. We never planned-"

"-for me, me, " Seelah said. " Seelah said.

It had been surprisingly easy, once she'd realized Ravilan's ploy in Tetsubal. The only element was time.

She'd returned to the mountain retreat in the night and summoned her most trusted aides from the ward. Soon after midnight, her minions were in the air, propelling their creatures toward the lake towns of the south that Ravilan's people had been instructed to visit the day before. Her ward had held the only other surviving supply of cyanogen silicate; now it was in the wells and aqueducts of the lake cities-and in the bodies of dead Keshiri. Time was the key element-but she'd had help coordinating it all.

"Y-you did this?" Ravilan coughed and managed a weak chuckle. "I guess that's the first time you liked one of my ideas."

"It did the job."

Ravilan's crumpled grin vanished. "What job?

Genocide? " "

"You care about the Keshiri now now?"

"You know what I mean!" Ravilan strained at his bonds. "My people!"

Seelah rolled her eyes. "Nothing's going on here that wouldn't have happened in the Empire eventually. You know how things were going. Whose movement were you in, anyway?"

"Naga Sadow didn't want this," Ravilan rasped.

"Sadow valued power where he saw it. He valued the old and the new. He valued us us-"

She nodded to the guard-and another crushing bar-rage of water slammed Ravilan.

It took longer for him to recover this time.

"It could have worked," he choked. "We could have worked . . . together, like the Sith and the fallen Jedi of old. If only our children- could have worked . . . together, like the Sith and the fallen Jedi of old. If only our children- my my children-had lived . . . " children-had lived . . . "

Ravilan looked up, water streaming from his sagging face. "You."

Seelah fixed her silent gaze on the chutes, still dripping, near the ceiling high above.

"You," he repeated, louder. "You ran the creche. You and your people." His face twisted into an agonized scream. The future of his people had already been smothered, long before. "What did you do? he repeated, louder. "You ran the creche. You and your people." His face twisted into an agonized scream. The future of his people had already been smothered, long before. "What did you do? What didyou do to us? What didyou do to us? " "

"Nothing you wouldn't eventually have done to us."

She stepped toward the shadows, near the guard. "We are not your Sith. We are something new, a chance to do it right. A new tribe. A new tribe. " "

"Younglings-infants!" Wilted, Ravilan moaned.