章節 22: SAVIOR - Chapter 22
4975 BBY
"Children of Kesh, your Protectors have come home to you. Again!"
Korsin waited for the clamor from the crowd to die down. It didn't. Captain Yaru Korsin, Grand Lord of the Tribe of Sith on Kesh, stood atop the marbled platform and looked across the churning sea of ecstatic purple faces. Behind him rose the columns and domes of his new home. Once a native village, Tahv was now a Sith capital.
The buildings had been raised quickly on the site of the old Circle Eternal for this day, exactly a quarter century in standard years after the Sith arrival on Kesh.
Korsin had been determined to make that anniversary one to celebrate, rather than lament. With today's dedication, Korsin signaled his people's intent to live among the Keshiri for good.
Now, years after the crash, it was clear that nothing more could be done to repair Omen. There was no reason to live in their lofty temple at the crash site when such beauty existed below. Korsin cast his gaze upward, toward the cloudy peak on the western horizon.
A skeleton team of Sith and Keshiri workers was there, wrapping up affairs on the mountain. Sealed safely in its shrine, Omen would be there if they needed it.
Korsin knew they wouldn't. It was a charade. No one was coming for them; he'd known that as soon as he saw the transmitter's melted guts. The planet Kesh was nowhere near anywhere, or Naga Sadow would have found them by now. Them, and his precious Lignan crystals.
He wondered about Captain Saes and the Harbinger. Had they survived the collision that had sent Omen astray? Had the fallen Jedi won the glory that should have belonged to the Sith, after a victory at Primus Goluud? Or had Naga Sadow slain him for his incompetence?
Does Sadow even live?
Idle thoughts, Korsin knew. But he had to keep these questions alive in his people, so long as any remembered where they came from. Stability demanded it.
It had required an elegant balancing act. Sith facing a future only on Kesh would forever fight for status—meaning more days like the one, years before, when he and Devore had dueled. He looked at the Sith standing at attention on either side of the wide slate stairs leading down the platform.
So many people, so many ambitions to manage. It was why Korsin had allowed them to think that he had indeed activated the emergency beacon once, before it failed. The prospect of departure had the power to unite; so did the specter of the arrival of a punishing superior power.
But he also had to make sure any hoped-for escape always ran second to their real job: reshaping Kesh as a Sith world. What had happened to Ravilan's people was partially due to Korsin's failure at managing that, though he didn't mind the result.
Unlike his wife, he had nothing against the crimson-skinned Sith, but factions threatened order. A homogeneous Sith people was easier to rule.
His wife. Marrying Seelah had been another nod to stability, a bridge between Omen's crew and its mining-team passengers. There she was, across the dais, greeting the dignitaries the Keshiri were allowed to have. Greeting, that is, without actually touching any of them.
Korsin never touched her anymore, either. It was a shame: she was gorgeous now, auburn hair cascading in ringlets around flawless dusky skin. He didn't know what dark sorceries her team of experts had wrought, but she looked scarcely a day over thirty-five.
This move was her idea. She'd hated the sterility of the mountain retreat; their new home was warmer, both in temperature and in appearance. The Keshiri artisans and Sith designers had learned much from one another.
There was stone, yes, but thorned dalsa flowers scaled the exterior walls. Gardens appeared here and there, beside gurgling aqueduct-fed pools. It was a place for life.
Not all Keshiri cities had been places for life, Korsin thought as he acknowledged the elders hobbling past. He could've lost the natives entirely, years before. The mass deaths at the lake towns had been effectively ascribed to the residents' lack of faith in the Tribe's divinity.
The Sith had even made a show for the doubters: a known Keshiri dissenter was trotted onto the Circle Eternal to proclaim against the "so-called Protectors," only to fall, seemingly choking to death on his own words. Korsin himself was able to appear benevolent and shocked—but the message was clear. Plague and pestilence awaited the defiant.
Gloyd had thought up that little stunt. Good old Gloyd. More old, now, than good. The stern Houk stood behind, lightsaber drawn, as Korsin's ceremonial bodyguard—but the onetime gunner now looked like he needed the protecting. He was the last nonhuman left from the original crew. An age would pass with him.
"The Daughter of the Skyborn, Adari Vaal," Gloyd announced. Korsin immediately forgot all about architecture and clever Houks. Adari, their native rescuer of old, stepped mildly before them and bowed.
Korsin watched her cold welcome from Seelah. If they weren't in front of half of Kesh, it would be colder still. He always marveled when he watched the two together. There wasn't any comparison.
Seelah was attractive, but she knew it—and never let anyone forget it. She found the Keshiri ugly: more proof her judgment was never to be trusted.
As a Keshiri, Adari was so much less than Seelah—and yet so much more. She wasn't touched by the Force, but she had a nimble mind, grappling with things far beyond her people's obvious limitations. And she had the will of a Sith, if not the beliefs.
Only twice had he seen her strength fail her—most important, the first time, when she had agreed to keep Devore's death a secret. That had made so many things possible—for both of them.
Stepping before him, Adari regarded Korsin with her dark, probing eyes, full of mystery and intelligence. He took her hand and smiled. Forget Seelah.
Twenty-five years. He'd saved his people.
This was a good day.
You can read my mind. Don't you know how uncomfortable this is for me? Don't you care?
Adari pulled her hand free from Korsin's and managed a smile. Seelah's "greeting" had only given her a mild shiver. But Yaru Korsin always looked at her like a cart he was about to buy at half price.
She tried to step back and continue down the receiving line, but Korsin pulled at her arm.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票