Drew Karpyshyn - Darth Bane 3 - Dinasty of Evil

But what about Andeddu's Holocron?

She had initially thought he was seeking eternal life so that he could defy the Rule of Two by living forever. Now she wasn't so certain. Would immortality really be a violation of the Rule's underlying principles? The secrets inside the Holocron might keep Bane from aging, but she didn't think they could protect him from falling in battle. If she was strong enough to defeat him, she would still earn her place as Master, just as Bane had intended when he first found her as a young girl on Ruusan. Now she wondered if the Holocron was just a safeguard to keep the Order strong. Perhaps Bane saw it as a way to protect against an unworthy candidate ascending to the Sith throne simply because the Master became weak and infirm with age.

Zannah leaned forward and plotted in a course for Ambria, wondering what had made Bane choose the healer's camp as the location of their final encounter.

The world was steeped in the energies of the dark side; for the first decade of her apprenticeship Bane and Zannah had dwelled there near the shores of Lake Natth. But he wasn't calling her back to their camp; he was waiting for her at Caleb's.

Two times the Dark Lord had nearly died there. Did that have anything to do with his choice of location? Or was there some other explanation?

It was still possible she was about to walk into a trap. Ambria was a sparsely inhabited world. It would be easy to make preparations there without drawing unwanted attention.

Yet her instincts told her that wasn't what Bane was plotting. And if her instincts were wrong about something as important as this, then she deserved whatever was waiting for her.

Either way, she reasoned as the ship made the jump into hyperspace, this will all be over soon.

Night had passed on Ambria, giving way to the scorching heat of day. With the rising of the sun, Bane and Cognus had retreated inside the shelter of the hut. There the Dark Lord had sat cross-legged on the floor, meditating and gathering his strength in preparation for Zannah's arrival.

"She'll probably show up with an army at her heels," the Iktotchi warned.

Bane shook his head.

"She knows she must face me alone."

"I don't understand."

"The Sith used to be as plentiful as the Jedi. Unlike the Jedi, however, those who served sought to tear their leaders down. Their ambition was natural; this is the way of the dark side. It is what drives us, gives us strength. Yet it can also destroy us if not properly controlled.

"Under the old ways, a powerful leader would be brought down by the combined strength of many lesser Sith working together. It was inevitable, a cycle that repeated over and over. And each time, the Order as a whole grew weaker.

"The strongest were killed, and the weak tore the Sith apart with their petty wars of succession. Meanwhile, the Jedi remained united, confident in the knowledge their enemies were too busy fighting one another to ever defeat them."

"You discovered a way to break this cycle," Cognus chimed in.

"Now everything we do is guided by the Rule of Two," Bane explained. "One Master, one apprentice. This assures that the Master will only fall to a worthy successor.

"Zannah knows that if she is to rule in my place, she must prove she is more powerful by defeating me herself."

Cognus nodded. "I understand, Master. I will not interfere when she arrives."

As if on cue, the sound of a shuttle's engines roared through the camp. The two of them rose to their feet and stepped out into the desert heat just as Zannah's ship touched down.

She emerged a few seconds later. As Bane had predicted, she was alone.

He marched forward to meet her, Cognus hanging back near the entrance to the hut. He stopped in the center of the camp. Zannah took her stand halfway between the shuttles and where Bane now stood, eyeing the Iktotchi in the background suspiciously.

"She will not interfere," Bane assured her.

"Who is she?"

"A new apprentice."

"She has sworn allegiance to you?"

"She is loyal to the Sith," Bane explained.

"I want to learn the ways of the dark side," Cognus called out to Zannah. "I want to serve under a true Sith Master. If you defeat Bane, I will swear my loyalty to you."

Zannah tilted her head to the side, studying the Iktotchi carefully before nodding her agreement to the offer.

"Who lies in the graves?" she asked, turning her attention back to Bane.

"Caleb's daughter and her bodyguard," he replied. "She was the one who imprisoned me. She fled here when the Stone Prison was destroyed."

He felt no need to explain in any further detail. Zannah didn't need to know who Lucia was, or her connection to Bane.

"I wondered why you chose this place to meet," Zannah muttered. "I thought it might have some symbolic meaning for you."

Bane shook his head.

"The last time we were here you were too weak to even stand," his apprentice reminded him. "You were helpless, and you thought I had betrayed you to the Jedi.

"You said you would rather die than be a prisoner for the rest of your life. You wanted me to take your life. But I refused."

"You knew I still had things to teach you," Bane recalled. "You swore you would not kill me until you had learned all my secrets."

"That day is here," Zannah informed him, igniting the twin blades of her lightsaber.

Bane drew out his own weapon in response, the shimmering blade rising up from the curved hilt with a low hum.

The two combatants dropped into fighting stances and began to circle slowly.

"I have surpassed you, Bane," Zannah warned him. "Now I am the Master."

"Then prove it."

He lunged toward her, and the battle began.

Zannah expected Bane to come at her aggressively, but even so she was caught off guard by the ferociousness of his attack.

He opened with a series of two-handed overhead chops, using his great height to bring his blade hacking down at her from above. She easily blocked each blow, but the momentum of the crushing impact caused her to stagger back, throwing her off balance.

She recovered quickly, however, spinning out of the way when he followed up with a low, looping swipe meant to hew her off at the knees. She retaliated with a quick jab with the tip of one of her blades toward Bane's face, but he ducked his head to the side and came back with a wide-arcing, single-handed slash at chest level.

Zannah intercepted his blade with one of her own, angling her weapon so that the momentum of Bane's attack was redirected downward, sending the tip of his lightsaber into the dirt. This should have exposed him to a counterthrust, but he was already reacting to her move, driving his entire body forward into Zannah's before she could bring her weapon up.

His weight slammed into her, knocking her back as Bane snapped his neck forward. Zannah threw her head back just in time, and the head-butt that would have smashed her face glanced off her chin instead.

Scrambling to stay on her feet, Zannah raised her weapon back up, spinning the handle so that the twirling blades formed a defensive wall that repelled Bane's next half a dozen blows.

During her years under Bane, they had sparred hundreds of times. During these sessions she had always known he was keeping something in reserve for the day they would inevitably fight for real. Only now did she realize just how much he had been holding back.

He was faster than she could ever have imagined, and he was using new sequences and unfamiliar moves he had never revealed during their practice sessions. But somehow she had survived the initial flurry, and now she knew what to expect.

The next exchange had a more familiar feel. Bane pressed the action with a devastating, complex combination of attacks, but Zannah was able to intercept, parry, or deflect each one. Her defensive style was simple, but performed correctly it was nearly impenetrable.