It didn't take him long to realize he'd made the wrong choice. He remembered the sharp incline he had tumbled down on his arrival, but the floor here was relatively flat. It would have been a simple matter to head back and take one of the other exits. But the thought of returning to the main chamber-and the orb of trapped spirits-prevented him from turning around.
"This tunnel's gotta come out somewhere," he told himself. "Just follow it to the surface."
The plan sounded simple, but it became more complicated when he reached a fork in the passage. He hesitated for several moments, studying the branch heading off to his left and then the one heading off to his right. Neither offered any clue as to which-if either- would lead him to freedom. With a resigned sigh and a shake of the head, he chose the one on the left.
Forty minutes and three more branches later he was regretting his decision. He couldn't go back to the cavern now even if he'd wanted to; he had become hopelessly turned around in the subterranean labyrinth. His stomach grumbled, and the realization that he might never find his way out began to creep into the corners of his mind.
He pushed on, his pace increasing with his rising panic. He was running now, his eyes darting from side to side, hoping that the dim illumination of the lightsaber's blade would reveal something- anything-that might show him the way. He darted down another side tunnel, stumbling along in his haste until he tripped and fell.
As he threw his hands forward to break his fall, the lightsaber flew from his grasp. It scored a gash along the wall, then bounced away from him across the uneven floor, extinguishing itself and casting all into total darkness.
Darovit had hit the ground hard. He lay facedown in the utter blackness of the tunnel, surrendering to the hopeless despair that crashed in on him. There was no point in going on; he would never find his way out. Better to just die here, forgotten and alone.
He rolled over onto his back, blind eyes staring up at the ceiling. And then he heard a sound. It was faint but unmistakable. A voice coming from a great distance, cutting through the oppressive silence.
Now you re hearing things, Tomcat, he thought. But a second later he heard it again, echoing through the tunnel. Someone else was down here!
He didn't know if it was a Jedi come to witness the fate of his fallen comrades, a minion of the Sith who had fled the final battle, or someone allied with a completely different group. He had no idea if whoever it was would welcome him, take him prisoner, or kill him on sight. But he didn't care. Even the fear of going back to the chamber and the unnatural, unholy silver orb didn't hold him back this time. Anything was better than dying of exposure or starvation in these dark tunnels beneath the planet's surface.
Crawling forward through the gloom, he felt around with his hands until his fingers closed around the hilt of the lightsaber. He thrust it triumphantly up in the air as it ignited, allowing him to see once more.
He had no way of knowing how far away the owner of the voice was. The acoustics of the tunnel were strange and unfamiliar. Sounds and echoes were unnaturally distorted as they bounced across the irregular stone walls of the underground maze. But he was certain the voice had come from somewhere up ahead, in the direction he had been going.
With the glowing blade to guide him, he moved with an eager confidence. Every minute or so he would catch another snatch of conversation coming to him from somewhere up ahead. He could tell there were two speakers now, each with a distinct voice: one a deep bass, the other a much higher pitch. Each time he heard the voices, they were slightly louder, and he knew he was headed in the right direction.
He noticed that the darkness of the tunnel was fading; he no longer needed his lightsaber to see his surroundings. But it wasn't the yellow light of the sun streaming in as he neared the surface; it was a cold silver glow. With a start he realized he had somehow circled back and was once more approaching the chamber of the thought bomb. Whoever the voices belonged to-friend or foe-he'd find them there.
The chamber was close, so close he could make out the words the next time the voices spoke.
"The Sith are only two now-one Master and one apprentice " the deeper one said. "There will be no others."
"What happens if I fail?" the other replied.
Sounds like a woman, Darovit thought, too focused on following the voices to pay much attention to the actual words. No, not a woman, he corrected himself a second later. A girl
"Will you destroy me, too?" the girl asked.
With a shock, Darovit realized that he knew the voice! He didn't know how it was possible, but there was no doubt in his mind who this was.
"Rain!" he shouted, breaking into a run to meet the cousin he had thought was dead. "Rain, you're alive!"
The trip to the cave was quick and uneventful. Bane had noticed a few shell-shocked survivors of the final battle of Ruusan staring at him and Zannah as they roared past on their swoop, but he paid them little heed. He doubted any of them would recognize him for what he truly was. And even if they did, their tales of a surviving Sith Lord racing past them with a young girl in tow would seem as ludicrous and unreliable as the accounts of the mercenaries he had let escape back at Kaan's camp.
He brought the swoop to a stop outside the dark and forbidding tunnel that would lead them down to the chamber of the thought bomb. Small pebbles crunched loudly beneath the hard soles of his heavy black boots as he dismounted. Zannah was too small to simply step off the vehicle, but she leapt down from her seat without any sign of fear or hesitation, landing nimbly on the ground beside him.
Neither of them spoke as they made the descent, their way lit by one of the glow rods Bane had found in the supplies back at the Sith camp. The air grew colder and Zannah shivered beside him, but she didn't complain. They moved quickly down the rough-hewn passage; even so it took nearly twenty minutes for them to reach their destination due to the length of the tunnel. And for the first time Darth Bane actually saw what his manipulations of Kaan and his followers had wrought.
The pale, glowing orb floating in the center of the chamber was nearly four meters tall. It pulsed with raw power; it made the flesh on Bane's neck crawl and the hair on his arms stand on end. Dark veins of shadow swirled on the shimmering metallic surface in slow, hypnotic rhythms. There was something grotesquely compelling about it, something fascinating yet repulsive at the same time.
Beside him Zannah gasped, drawing a sharp breath in wonder then releasing it in a slow hiss of fear. He glanced down at her, but she didn't return his gaze-her wide eyes were transfixed by the remnants of the thought bomb. Turning his attention back to the orb, Bane stepped forward into the chamber. Zannah took a single step to follow him, then held back.
Approaching the globe, he reached out with his bare hand and pressed it firmly against the surface. It seared his palm with cold fire, but he was oblivious to the pain, enthralled by the object's mesmerizing call. Beneath his touch the dark swirling shadows within coalesced into a single mass. The thoughts of those trapped inside rushed up to meet him: faint whispers in the dark recesses of his mind, the words unintelligible but full of hate and despair.
Instinctively Bane's consciousness recoiled. He resisted, fighting the urge to pull his hand back. Instead he thrust his awareness forward, penetrating the surface of the orb to plunge into the unfathomable depths of its black heart. The hateful whispers erupted into shrieks of torment. But these were not the screams of sentient beings: they were bestial howls of primal, mindless fury. The identities of those the thought bomb had consumed-Lord Kaan, General Hoth, all their Sith and Jedi followers-had been destroyed, ripped apart by the thought bomb's explosion. Only torn bits remained, broken pieces of what once had been spirits, no longer capable of conscious thought, wailing in the shared suffering of their eternal madness.