“Yes,” Lumiya said. “To survive. Survival is a Sith trait. Jedi train themselves for self-sacrifice, for union with the Force, and they can afford to be suicidal, because there are so many of them. Sith train to survive.”
“Now you’re making things up,” Jacen said. “Nelani, keep her here while I go find Ben.”
Lumiya shook her head. “You don’t want Ben to be here. Someone’s about to die. It might be you, it might be Nelani, and it might be me. Bring Ben here, and it might be him. Death is here among us, and it will be a very distressing one.”
Frowning, Jacen cast out his senses like a net, sampling the present and the future. Pathways led in all directions, but in each of them one of the three people present fell dying. Jacen, head severed by a pliant whip of light. Lumiya, Nelani’s lightsaber cutting her in half-lengthwise, so there was no chance of missing the organic parts. Nelani, her heart speared by Jacen’s lightsaber. Jacen, stabbed from behind by Ben, the boy’s uncomprehending features making it clear that he was seeing something very different from the reality before him. Lumiya, swept into a marble wall by Jacen’s control of the Force, her skull shattered-Jacen shut his eyes against the parade of tragedy. He opened them to view reality. “You’re right. I can’t see a path that doesn’t lead to death. Let’s revise our circumstances and see if any more options open to us in a minute or two.”
“Good,” Lumiya said. “Now. Vergere. A Jedi, but one who was quietly resentful of the hidebound ways of the old Jedi Council, its resistance to any learning outside the rote procedures that had been part of the order for so long. She was a rogue student of the Force, of techniques and pathways that are not all part of the Jedi school. You agree?”
Jacen nodded.
“In her investigations, she studies Count Dooku, and his trail leads her to Darth Sidious, who has just taken Dooku as apprentice. Darth Sidious, who, the galaxy learns decades later, is Palpatine. Sidious accepts her as a student and candidate. There can be only two Sith at any time, the Master and the apprentice, but there can be many candidates, and she is one.”
“Proof,” Jacen said.
“You’ll find the proof in your feelings.” Lumiya spared a look for Nelani. “Assuming the good Jedi girl doesn’t kill me for saying things she doesn’t like.”
“She won’t,” Jacen said.
“Vergere learns from Palpatine … and she learns about him. She observes. She sees his weakness, his greed, his compulsion to rule and manipulate. She realizes that he could be the most destructive living force in the galaxy. And she decides to kill him.”
Jacen didn’t answer. It troubled him that there was nothing in Lumiya’s words inconsistent with the Vergere he knew. Had Vergere been a student of the Force in that time period, which he knew she was, he was certain that she would have studied every facet of the Force she could find. And if she became certain that her teacher was a force for destruction, she would have tried to find some way to doom him.
“But Vergere strikes too soon,” Lumiya continued. “Palpatine survives, and puts killers on her trail. She uses Jedi order resources to keep her a step ahead of her pursuers, and soon accepts a Jedi mission that may get her clear of her enemies. It takes her to the world of Zonama Sekot, and from there she chooses to leave with the mission that eventually reaches the galaxy of the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“That doesn’t make her Sith,” Jacen said. He kept his voice even, but he could feel the doubt growing within him. Lumiya’s words made so much sense, casting Vergere within a context that finally made her comprehensible to him…
… but only if Lumiya’s claims about the nondestructive, noncorruptive basis to the Sith were actually true.
Lumiya’s tone turned chiding. “Think about it, Jacen. She cared for you, cared for the fate of the galaxy, cared for everyone. She gave Mara Jade the healing treatment that allowed her to carry that boy. She was a Sith, and yet she helped give Luke Skywalker a son. She could be cruelly ruthless, couldn’t she? And yet each act of ruthlessness improved matters. Improved her surroundings. Improved you.”
Nelani gave Jacen one more look, and in her glance there was worry and anguish. “That’s it,” she said.
She struck at Lumiya.
Chapter Thirty-Three
NELANI’S LIGHTSABER BLOW WAS LIGHTNING-QUICK, BUT BY THE time it landed the older woman had twirled to one side, positioning herself behind a bust. The glowing blade sliced off the marble top of the head of some long-dead Rodian scholar.