Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: Pantheon

Chapter One

3000 BBY

Time is a lover, the old saying went: a Sith lover. She tempts you with forever — and then cuts you and leaves you for dead.

Staring into the reflecting pool, Varner Hilts studied the latest scar from time, his one and only long-term relationship. No, he couldn’t blame this on a trick of the light, or the polluted water. It was real. A fresh crack ran straight from his left eye to his temple. Turning his head and looking more closely, he swore. Why wasn’t there at least a matching wrinkle on the other side? Time wasn’t big on symmetry.

Hilts was well on his way to becoming the most worthless construct in all creation: an elder in a Sith society. It was the great irony of the Tribe on Kesh. A man without enemies lived long, but had no future. By virtue of his unique calling, Hilts had managed to survive decades of tumult — but for what? So he could spend thirty more years walking past the same basin, observing his decline every day on his way to work?

Well,traditions are important, Hilts thought. Kneeling over the reflection, he brought his hand to his face and squinted. Slowly, his finger traced the new crevasse…

CRACK!

Ancient stone shattered. Startled, Hilts looked up. High above, a section of Tahv’s suspended aqueduct heaved and gave way, shearing loose from its towering support.

«Caretaker!»

Before Hilts could fully stand, a purple blur appeared from the alley. The Keshiri male dived headlong into Hilts’s paunch, knocking the human backward. Giant slabs of stonework smashed to the street, pulverizing the rim of the basin where Hilts had knelt moments before.

Flat on his back on the pavement, Hilts reached through the Force and deflected chunks of debris from himself and his rescuer. But no power could stop the crush of brackish water cascading down from the shattered sluice. The Keshiri shielded Hilts as best he could until the shower of water and rocks subsided.

Coughing, Hilts recognized his savior. «Trying to score points with the boss, Jaye?» As he spoke, he rose, shaking grimy water from his sparse silvery hair.

«I–I’m sorry for pushing you, Master Hilts,» the Keshiri stammered. «I was passing this way—»

«Calm down.» Hilts knew it was a useless instruction, even though Jaye was officially his to command. The moon-faced native had no more chance of relaxing than Hilts had of becoming Grand Lord. «Just a normal day in ‘the Crown of Kesh.’»

«It’s the conjunction,» Jaye said, wiping his superior’s cape. Nervous black eyes scanned the now-broken skyline of the capital city. «The omen I’ve been telling you about!»

«And telling me. And telling me.» Hilts spied a crowd of humans quarreling near the fallen aqueduct section. Pinning blame, it seemed, was Tahv’s only growth industry. He pulled his aide’s sleeve. «Let’s get to the office before someone decides we brought it down by breathing heavily!»

In an earlier day, Sith on Kesh bided their time to achieve power, temporarily following others in order to one day claim the prize. For most in that simpler era, Yaru Korsin’s power structure of High Lords, Lords, and Sabers worked as a means to an end. The hierarchy survived because it served the purposes of enough people — people with the power to defend the system against those who would destroy it. For more than a thousand years after the founder’s death, the Tribe had thrived.

But the Second Millennium brought unrelenting tribulations. Grand Lord Lillia Venn had vanished more than nine hundred years earlier on what the Keshiri locals remembered, rather ineloquently, as the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor. It had certainly presaged doom for Omen’s grandchildren. Learning of her disappearance, Venn’s rivals attacked her supporters first — and then one another. Defeated combatants quit the capital city and took to the hinterlands, where many found common cause with disenfranchised human slaves. Increasing numbers of Sith pressed peace-loving Keshiri into their forces. For centuries, factions united long enough to conquer Tahv and slay the ruling Grand Lord — only to immediately begin fighting among themselves. One rebel force became two, which became twenty. Power in the Tribe poisoned whoever tasted it.

A quarter century earlier, Hilts had famously coined the term for the age, but it hadn’t required much imagination. «The Time of the Rot» was visible everywhere. Under successive sieges, the rich streets of Tahv decayed. Left untended, towering aqueducts clogged and overflowed; the morning’s calamity was an all-too-familiar occurrence. Far to the south, the Sessal Spire raged as it never had in Keshiri memory, unleashing an explosion so thunderous that one face of the great arena, the Korsinata, collapsed. It was as if the planet itself were fighting back against its émigrés from beyond.

But nestled in a small corner of the eroding marble of the capital building, one place had remained free of neglect: the office of the Caretaker. Amid all the battles between Grand Lords and Antilords, only it had remained untouched.

It wasn’t because the Sith had any fear of sacrilege. Varner Hilts’s office, outside the traditional power structure, had been established in Nida Korsin’s time to provide the Tribe with accurate timekeeping and a historical archive. It was a lifetime appointment, in part because so few candidates were interested. No one desired the Caretaker’s lot; his only followers were a roomful of Keshiri clerks, unsuited for service in any- one’s army. Not that Hilts was ever actually in demand. A historical polymath, he had been told early on that with his lightsaber skills, he need never worry about a treacherous ally. No one would dare stand near him, for fear of accidental dismemberment.

Stepping from the anteroom into the beaders’ hall, Hilts again heard the clickety-clack that had greeted him for half his life. Seated on their knees in a semicircle, brown-clad Keshiri worked at handheld counting frames constructed from seashells and young hejarbo shoots. Hilts discarded his dripping cape and strode through the room, barely wondering what they were working on today. Jaye kept the figurers busy, most of the time, calculating dates to go along with the bits of trivia Hilts scraped from the archives. He’d often marveled at their precision. For a species that lacked basic mathematics when Omen crashed, the Keshiri had embraced calculation as vigorously as they had all their other arts.

Grabbing an abacus from a co-worker, Jaye followed Hilts into the sunlit atrium. Centuries before, the first Grand Lord, Yaru Korsin, had watched his nephew Jariad dueling here — knowing even then, Hilts suspect- ed, that Jariad was planning to betray him. Now the Sandpipes dominated the room. Silently tended by watchful tan-clad Keshiri girls, the towering network of powder-filled glass vials kept time for the Tribe. As if time could be bottled up, Hilts thought, scratching the side of his face.

«I want to be able to see my reflection in those pipes,» he ordered. «I don’t have to tell you what a big day we have coming up.»

He didn’t. The workers shined the massive device more urgently, careful not to interfere with its functioning. For the first time in their young lives, visitors were coming to their place of work. No Grand Lord or pretender had lived in the palace for six hundred years; Korsin’s architects had designed for beauty, not defense. Testament Day was the only time the building saw visitors.

Every twenty-five years, on the anniversary of Korsin’s death, listeners heard his final testament again. Fifty years earlier, Hilts had been a boy, not allowed into the palace — but the idea of communing with the past had captured his imagination. Through study and toil, he had made certain that, when the next Testament Day arrived, he would be the one to manage the event. Now, like a comet, the day had come around yet again. But the palace today was a much shabbier place, beyond his resources to repair. Glancing at the cracks in the smoked-glass windows in the ceiling, Hilts just couldn’t get excited.

Jaye didn’t have that problem. «They’ve confirmed it, Caretaker!» the Keshiri squeaked, abacus shaking in his hand. «My calculations about the Sandpipes—»

«— Aren’t important right now,» Hilts said, «unless you intend to grab a cloth and help clean them.» He regarded the young women at their work. At least some parts of the room would look good. «We’ve got twelve days. We’ll be ready.»

The clerk bit his lip. «Can we really be ready? This… this is a mystical convergence. No — a holy one.»

Hilts rolled his eyes. Jaye didn’t just love his numbers; he feared them, too. This year was a first for the Tribe. Testament Day wasn’t the only such memorial— and Yaru wasn’t the only Korsin. Daughter Nida had reigned for a record seventy-nine years after her father, and her elevation to Grand Lord was commemorated with a monthlong festival on the grounds outside the palace every seventy-nine years. Even Hilts hadn’t been around for the last one.

«Don’t you see, Caretaker?» Abacus shells rattled as Jaye worked another calculation. «It’s been one thou- sand nine hundred seventy-five years since Grand Lord Korsin transcended this existence and Nida succeeded him — and that’s seventy-nine times twenty-five! This is the first time Testament Day and Nida’s Rise have ever fallen in the same year!» Eyes darting to the side, he lowered his voice to a whisper. «The first time, ever.»

«Ever!» Hilts clutched his pale purple companion by the shoulders in mock seriousness, causing Jaye to drop his counting frame to the stone floor. «So what you’re telling me — is that we’ll save on wine this time!» Hilts released Jaye and slapped his cheek lightly. «We don’t need any more omens, Jaye. We’ve got one, up on the mountain, remember? And no one’s allowed inside that.»

Hilts walked toward his private office, leaving his aide to stare blankly at the abacus.

«But, Caretaker—»

«Overreacting, Jaye.»

«But what about what I learned about the Sand-pipes?»

«Don’t start that again!» Hilts stepped into his office and looked with relief at his chair. Yes, that was the answer. After a morning like this, it would be a relief to sit in silence and drink some—

Voices rose outside in the atrium. Slamming his half-filled glass down to the desk in disgust, Hilts yelled over his shoulder at the commotion. «Jaye, I told you to quiet down!»

«That’s funny,» responded a husky female voice. «I just told him the same thing.» Hilts turned to see a black-clad woman in her late twenties, holding a gleaming red lightsaber just beneath Jaye’s neck. Golden eyes alive with dark intelligence, she spoke. «We have to talk, Caretaker — and I hate being interrupted.»

She stood a full two meters, easily taller than Hilts. Bright red hair, neatly coiffed; flawless pink skin. She would have fared well in Seelah Korsin’s inspections, centuries before, Hilts thought. And that was the whole point.

The intruder led Hilts back to the atrium, where he saw half a dozen similarly clad women, all perfect specimens of humanity themselves, threatening the huddled workers with lightsabers. She spoke again. «Of course, you know me.»

«Only by reputation,» he said, throat sandy. He’d never gotten to taste his drink. «I don’t get out much.»

«I can see that.» The woman smiled primly and deactivated her lightsaber. «Iliana Merko. And these are my fellow Sisters of Seelah.»

«I don’t think Seelah Korsin had any sisters,» Hilts said, regarding the beauties guarding his Keshiri.

«Sisters in spirit.» Iliana strode confidently ahead, crushing Jaye’s abacus underfoot as she did. The mathematician was with the others, now, prone on the floor but safe. Boot heels clacking against the marble, Iliana surveyed the glass statues lining the atrium. All depicted either Yaru or Nida Korsin. Iliana didn’t look pleased.

«Sorry,» Hilts said. «They took out the Seelah statues after — after what happened, years ago.» He assumed she knew about the failed coup Seelah had plotted with Jariad against her husband, Yaru. To members of Iliana’s faction, it was like yesterday. «I don’t think they kept any Seelah pieces at all.»

«I’m not surprised. No one gave our lady the respect she deserved. She founded the Tribe, you know — not these traitors.» Glaring at a glass representation of Yaru Korsin, Iliana’s expression melted to puzzlement. «Did he really look like that?»

«Back then, the Keshiri sculptors were still figuring out how to get human eyes right.» Hilts cautiously stepped toward her. The woman didn’t seem to be in any hurry, and he chose to think that boded well for his survival. But then, it wasn’t as if she was going to be interrupted. Who ever came here?

«You know why I’m here,» she said, facing him.

«The Testament won’t be read for twelve days yet. Why are you here now?»

She stepped briskly toward him. «We have to talk about what Korsin’s Testament says,» she said. «Before the others arrive.»

Hilts couldn’t help but laugh. «You know what the Testament says. Everyone does. It’s been transcribed so many times—»

Iliana charged forward, igniting her lightsaber and waving the tip just under the caretaker’s hairy chin. «Of course we know! But this is different. This Testament Day, this reading — somehow, it’s become a conclave.»

His eyes narrowed. «The Pantheon’s Peace.»

«Exactly.»

It suddenly made sense to Hilts. For centuries, Testament Day and the reading had been the one time that the Tribe’s entire hierarchy met peaceably under one roof — that of the palace atrium — to hear their late founder’s words spoken. Even after the Sith splintered, deference to the great leaders of the past had been enough to bring the various faction leaders together at one time. No one dared make the meeting an opportunity for mayhem; some now regarded Korsin almost as a magical being, able to influence events from beyond the grave. Their forebears had walked in the stars.

«All my rivals will be here,» Iliana said, still threatening with the lightsaber. «Some believe that in the Testament, they’ll hear support for their cause — an endorsement from a dead man.» She looked back up at the statue and sneered. «Well, we all know what it is — a boring old speech rewarding his allies for helping him thwart Seelah.»

Hilts swallowed. No, Iliana and her allies wouldn’t find much to like in Korsin’s dying speech. The leader had only mentioned Seelah to banish her. Some of the other groups might find some support for their own claims to power in Korsin’s words — but the Sisters wouldn’t.

«That’s why, old man, I want you to change what’s in the Testament.» Iliana closed the remaining few foot- steps between them and looked down on the caretaker. She smiled. «Change it — to favor us.»

He held her gaze for a moment. «You’re serious.»

«Deadly.» Twirling, she stepped away, dousing her lightsaber again. «I know about you, Wilts—»

«That’s Hilts.»

«— you and your little workers here exist to dig up worthless trivia. Well,» she said, turning, «you’re going to reveal that you’ve discovered the true Testament — one declaring that Seelah and those who follow her teachings today are the legitimate heirs to power on Kesh.»

One of Iliana’s comrades produced a scroll and shoved it at Hilts. Unspooling it, he goggled. «I don’t think this will work.»

«Oh, it will,» Iliana said. «The others are superstitious — all invoking one figure from our history or another. They’re in awe of our ancestors born on high — and they’re right to be. But they don’t respect the one they should.» She gestured to the parchment in Hilts’s hands. «That’ll change when you read thatinstead of the Korsin Testament. The simpler-minded will believe it, and follow me. That should be enough.»

Hilts exhaled, barely stifling a laugh. He regarded the woman, so full of energy and cleverness — all spent to no avail whatsoever.

No, of course she wouldn’t know, he thought. She’stoo young.

Iliana stared at him. «What?»

«I’m sorry,» Hilts said, gesturing to the scroll. «I admire your initiative, Iliana Merko. But there’s a reason no one’s tried this before. You wouldn’t know, unless you’d been here for a Testament reading — or spoken with someone who was.»

«What in blazes are you talking about?»

Slowly so as not to cause alarm, Hilts stepped to the right of the Sandpipes and approached a covered pedestal. «You see, I don’t read Korsin’s Testament. The Caretakers never do.»

Iliana watched, puzzled, as he returned with some- thing wrapped in rich fabric. «Then who reads it?»

«Yaru Korsin does.» Hilts pulled back the cloth, revealing a small pyramid-shaped object. A device—in a city that had none…