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Leaving the beast where it had collapsed, Kas’im pressed on with a newfound urgency to his pace. The battle, short and simple as it had proved, was the first time he’d been tested in a true life-or-death struggle since he’d agreed to help Qordis train the students at the Academy. He was pleased to see that his skills had not been diminished by the long layoff.

Kas’im had a feeling he was going to need those skills again before the day was through.

Bane was sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of the central chamber on the Rakatan Temple’s uppermost floor. He was meditating on Revan’s words as he had often done between the Holocron’s lessons. Now that the artifact was gone, it was even more important to contemplate what he had learned about the nature of the dark side … and the path it would lead him down.

By its very nature, the dark side invites rivalry and strife. This is the greatest strength of the Sith: it culls the weak from our order.

The constant battling of the Sith since the beginning of recorded history served a necessary purpose: it kept the power of the dark side concentrated in a few powerful individuals. The Brotherhood had changed all that. There were now a hundred or more Dark Lords following Kaan, but most were weak and inferior. The Sith numbers were greater than they had ever been, yet they were still losing the war against the Jedi.

The power of the dark side cannot be dispersed among the masses. It must be concentrated in the few who are worthy of the honor.

The strength of numbers was a trap … one that had snared all the great Sith Lords who had come before. Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Darth Revan: each had been powerful. Each had drawn disciples in, teaching them the ways of the dark side. Each had assembled an army of followers and unleashed them against the Jedi. Yet in each and every case the servants of light had prevailed.

The Jedi would always remain united in their cause. The Sith would always be brought low by infighting and betrayals. The very traits that drove them to individual greatness and glory—the unrelenting ambition, the insatiable hunger for power—would ultimately doom them as a whole. This was the inescapable paradox of the Sith.

Kaan had tried to solve the problem by making everyone equal in the Brotherhood. But his solution was flawed. It showed no understanding of the real problem. No understanding of the true nature of the dark side. The Sith must be ruled by a single leader: the very embodiment of the strength and power of the dark side.

If all are equal, then none is strong. Yet whoever rose from the swollen and bloated ranks of the Sith to claim the mantle of Dark Lord would never be able to hold it. In time the apprentices will unite their strength and overthrow the Master. It is inevitable. Together the weak would overwhelm the strong in a gross perversion of the natural order.

But there was another solution. A way to break the endless cycle dragging the Sith down. Bane understood that now. At first he had thought the answer might be to replace the order of the Sith with a single, all-powerful Dark Lord. No other Masters. No apprentices. Just one vessel to contain all the knowledge and power of the dark side. But he had quickly dismissed the idea.

Eventually even a Dark Lord would wither and die; all the knowledge of the Sith would be lost. If the leader grows weak, another must rise to seize the mantle. One alone would never work. But if the Sith numbered exactly two …

Minions and servants could be drawn into the service of the dark side by the temptation of power. They could be given small tastes of what it offered, as an owner might share morsels from the table with his faithful curs. In the end, however, there could be only one true Sith Master. And to serve this Master, there could be only one true apprentice.

Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. The Rule of Two.

This was the knowledge that would lead the