Star Wars_ Darth Bane 01_ Path of Destruction - Drew Karpyshyn [95]
He’d gone into the desert seeking enlightenment, but found only disillusionment. Korriban was no longer the cradle of darkness; it was a husk, a withered, desiccated corpse that had been picked clean by scavengers. Qordis had been right … yet Bane now understood that he was also very, very wrong.
Bane hadn’t found what he was looking for in the tombs. But in the long trek back across the desert his mind had finally become clear. Hunger, thirst, exhaustion: the physical suffering cleansed his thoughts. It stripped away all his illusions and exposed the lies of Qordis and the Academy. The spirits of the Sith were gone from Korriban forever. But it was Lord Kaan’s Brotherhood of Darkness—not the Jedi—who were to blame.
They had twisted and perverted the ancient order of the Sith. The Academy’s teachings flew in the face of everything Bane had learned in the archives about the ways of the dark side. Kaan had cast aside the true power of the individual and replaced it with the false glory of self-sacrifice in the name of a worthy cause. He sought to destroy the Jedi through might of arms, rather than cunning. Worst of all, he proclaimed that all were equal in the Brotherhood of the Sith. But Bane knew equality was a myth. The strong were meant to rule; the weak, to serve.
The Brotherhood of Darkness stood for everything that was wrong with the modern Sith. They had fallen from the true path. Their failure was the reason the spirits of the Dark Lords had vanished. None on Korriban—not Master, not apprentice—had been worthy of their wisdom; none worthy of their power. They had simply faded away, scattered like a handful of dust cast across the desert sand. Bane could see the truth so clearly now. Yet Qordis and the others were forever blind. They followed Kaan as if he had bound them up with some secret spell.
A faint gust of wind brought the sound of distant voices to his ears. Glancing up, he was surprised to see the temple of the Academy looming ahead of him, less than a kilometer away. Caught up in his philosophical ramblings, he hadn’t realized how far he’d come. He was close enough to see small figures moving at the base of the building: servants, or possibly a handful of students from the Academy out wandering the surrounding grounds. One of them noticed him approaching and scurried back inside, probably to deliver news of his return to Qordis and the other Masters.
Bane wasn’t sure what kind of reception they’d give him. In truth he didn’t care, as long as they brought him food. Beyond that they were of no use to him anymore. He despised them all: Masters and apprentices alike. They were no better than the Jedi who had looted Korriban three millennia before. The Academy was an abomination, a testament to how far the Sith had fallen from the true ideals of the dark side.
Bane alone understood this. He alone saw the truth. And he alone could lead the Sith back to the way of the dark side.
He wouldn’t be foolish enough to say so, of course. The Brotherhood would never follow him; neither would Qordis or any of the others at the Academy. Weak and ignorant as they were, they could still overwhelm him with their numbers. If he was to restore the Sith to their true glory, he would need an ally.
Not one of the Masters: they were all too close to Kaan. And the apprentices were nothing but groveling servants, blindly following their Masters. They had no real understanding of the dark side. They didn’t sense that they were being led down a false path. Not a single one of them was worthy.
No, Bane corrected himself. There was one. Githany.
She wasn’t intimidated by the Masters. She had defied them to train Bane. The fact that she’d done it for her own selfish reasons only offered further proof that she understood the true nature of the dark side.
He wished now that he had spoken to her before