Star Wars_ Darth Bane 03_ Dynasty of Evil - Drew Karpyshyn [64]
And then what? She already beat you once.
Maybe this time he could surprise her. Catch her off guard. Carefully, he began to gather his power.
“I thought you were smarter than that,” the woman said.
Set froze. Going to have to talk your way out of this one. Time to turn on the charm.
He opened his eyes and gave an easy laugh.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said with a shrug, sitting up in bed.
He was still dressed in the same clothes he had worn to the party.
“That was quite an entrance you made last night,” he said.
“Three nights ago,” she corrected, returning his smile with a humorless stare. “I was beginning to wonder if you would be trapped in your nightmares forever.”
Her words caused his mind to momentarily flash back to the terrors he was still struggling to suppress, and he shuddered involuntarily.
“I managed to find my way out,” he answered, his voice grimmer than he intended. “What did you do to me? Some kind of drug?”
“If that’s what you really think,” she said, her lip curling up in disdain, “then I’m wasting my time here.”
There was an implied threat in her words, and Set’s survival instincts kicked into high gear.
Get on the ball, Set. You don’t want to make this woman angry.
“Sorcery,” he said after a second of deliberation. “You said you were a Sith. You attacked my mind with some kind of spell.”
She nodded, and Set saw her shoulders relax. So she had been on the verge of killing him for his ignorance.
“Are you the assassin who killed Medd Tandar?” he asked, still trying to fit everything together.
The woman shook her head, blond curls swaying slightly.
She’s attractive enough … if you can get past the whole Sith sorceress thing.
“You followed me here from Doan,” Set guessed, desperately looking for some piece of information he could use. If he figured out what she was after, then he’d have something to bargain with. “You want the talismans.”
“You’re half right,” she replied. “I followed you from Doan, but I’m not interested in the talismans.”
Set wasn’t used to being at a disadvantage. If he didn’t have it, he was usually smart enough to figure out a way to get it. Here, however, he was utterly at a loss as to the woman’s motives and goals. And so he had no recourse but to fall back on the one thing he hated most of all: total honesty.
“I have absolutely no idea what you want with me.”
“My name is Darth Zannah,” she explained, “and I am looking for an apprentice.”
On one level, Set was even more confused than before. But part of his mind—the part that had kept him one step ahead of the Jedi for the past ten years—seized on her words. Now you know what she wants. Figure out a way to use it.
“Why are you looking for an apprentice?” he asked carefully, wary of enraging her with his lack of understanding.
“The Jedi believe the Sith are extinct,” she began. “But you can plainly see by my presence that the Jedi are wrong. The Sith still exist, but now we number only two: one Master, and one apprentice. One to embody the power of the dark side, the other to crave it.”
“So you want to increase your numbers,” Set reasoned. “You’re seeking recruits to join your cause and rebuild the Sith armies.”
“That is the path to failure,” Zannah replied. “The history of the Sith has proven that in greater numbers the Sith will always turn their hatred against one another. It is inevitable; it is the way of the dark side.
“The only way we can survive is by following the Rule of Two. Our numbers can never grow beyond this. The Master will train his apprentice in the ways of the Sith, until one day she must challenge him. If she proves unworthy, the Master will destroy her and choose a new apprentice. If she proves the stronger, the Master will fall and she will become the new Dark Lord of the Sith, and choose an apprentice of her own.”
Set felt like things were becoming clearer now. “You are the apprentice. You think it’s time to challenge your Master. And you want