Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 08_ Ascension - Christie Golden [11]
Abeloth was very attractive, and most appealing. All present, even the throngs of observers crowding the capital city, knew that she was able to shift her shape. It was a fascinating ability, and Abeloth obviously enjoyed giving demonstrations of it. There were three appearances she seemed to prefer: two human, and one Keshiri. All were female, though Vol was well aware that she could also impersonate a male. She cycled through them as the need arose, judging her audience well: pretty but natural-featured Girl with Brown Hair, cultured and lovely Fair-Haired Woman, and a Keshiri who took even Lord Vol’s breath away, aged as he was and aware—thanks to the reports—of her true appearance.
Night fell while the parade slowly moved through Tahv. The artificial lights that normally kept the city illuminated had been ordered to stay off, so that the thousands of fireglobes might sparkle all the brighter. As the parade reached its termination point—it had taken a serpentine path from the north side of Tahv to the south—the participants emerged to find a bevy of small, floating disks. Each disk would safely lift two or three dozen beings high into the air, and each had a small staff of two or three Sith Sabers controlling it.
Vol Force-leapt a not-insignificant distance from the hoversleigh to the disk, then turned to Abeloth. “Come join me,” he said, “for the finale of the parade. And then … our masquerade.”
Abeloth smiled prettily, then floated—she did not even need to leap—to stand beside him. As she drifted through the air, her features changed. The hair grew dark, coarser, and curlier, and her face broadened slightly. Only her eyes seemed the same: gray and unfathomable. He smiled at her, acknowledging her shapeshifting with a nod, and, spreading his arms, lifted the dais upward.
Tahv was now laid out before them, the fireglobes outlining every one of its streets and adorning the tops of the walls that encircled the city. It was a view that might inspire awe in even the most jaded, Vol thought. He felt a quick stab of pride in his homeworld and his people—both the Lost Tribe and the purity of its line, and those Keshiri who had earned their places as powerful Sith.
This woman beside him, if woman she could even indeed be called, was a tool to help them to greater glory. And the instant she outlived her usefulness—well, then she would have outlived everything.
A sudden sparkle of lights shattered his reverie as the fireworks display began. Abeloth watched, strangely enraptured, clapping her hands like a little girl as the pyrotechnics—all directed by the Force to form pleasing shapes and designs—exploded all around her.
Vol found it a peculiarly disturbing image.
The masquerade would be the final event of the busy day. The next day, Abeloth and the Circle would have a formal meeting in the Circle Chambers, where the finer points of their alliance would be negotiated. Tonight, however, was ostensibly for enjoyment, entertainment, playful deception, and frivolity; in reality for continued observation, assessment, duplicity, and plotting.
In other words, it was a quintessentially Sith-like event.
It would be held in the great hall of the Sith Temple. As was most of the Temple, it was cavernous and dark. But unlike the majority of the spaces frequented by the students, which tended to be austere and forbidding, this hall, which saw large gatherings of a usually celebratory or otherwise pleasant nature—graduations and theatrical productions such as tonight’s—was somewhat more congenial. The walls were still looming rock, carved from the mountain itself, but there were portraits of prominent former students on the walls, marble mosaics inlaid in the floor, and illumination that was more festive than practical.
The guests were powerful Sith, human and Keshiri, male and female, all at the top of their fields. They were present because Vol wished to either reward them or observe them. The Lost Tribe