Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #7: Pantheon by John Miller

Author:John Miller [Miller, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: TBR
ISBN: 978-0-345-51944-3
Publisher: Random House Digital Inc.
Published: 2011-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

They just had to knock out the windows, Hilts thought. Thirty years he’d spent trying to keep his portion of the capital building from falling apart. The warring oafs had just set him and his staff back another thirty years—provided he survived the afternoon.

“I have to say I’m surprised to see you all here,” Hilts said, stepping over shards to the center of the room. The warriors had stepped back from one another but still held their lightsabers before them, leaving a wedge of space in between for him and Jaye. “It’s eight days until Testament Day. But this is a palace. I guess we have some extra rooms here for you—”

“Shut up, old man!” The beefy black-haired woman with all the scars took a step forward and pointed at Iliana. “We want to know why she’s here!”

Hilts looked to see Iliana and her companions, some bloodied from the battle, backed up against the Sandpipes, ready for their last stand. Iliana’s face flashed with defiance. “Don’t answer that cretin, Hilts!”

“Don’t you raise your voice in this place, woman!” The hulking bald man with a black mustache stepped forth from his leather-clad coterie and made an unkind gesture to Iliana. “The house of Korsin was no place for Seelah—and no place for you!”

Seeing the line of warriors behind Iliana poised to move, Hilts quickly stepped between them and the giant. “You—you’re Korsinite League, right?”

“I am Korsin Bentado,” the shiny-headed man said, his deep voice thundering in the chamber. He gestured to either side. “This is Korsin Vandoz, and you know Korsin Immera from the last Testament reading. We’ve come, Caretaker, to celebrate the lives of Yaru and Nida Korsin at this grand and celestial time. We hope that all is ready—”

“Well, it will—”

“—and we hope that you can show the misled among us the truth of the Testament. That the leader came from beyond, that the Tribe is the body of the leader, and that those who would imperil the body deserve neither mercy nor life,” Bentado said. He gazed reverentially at the statue Iliana had once mocked and bowed his head. “One becomes all, and all one. Korsin now, Korsin forever.”

“Whatever you say,” Hilts said. Turning, he shot a surreptitious look at Jaye and shook his head. Hilts knew these people well. A former slave had founded the Korsinite League a century earlier, taking Korsin as a title for himself, separate from the hierarchy of Lords. Emancipated, he patterned his life after those led by the first Grand Lord and his successor daughter; as he declared, any worthy could aspire to Korsin-ness, just as he had. His followers took it to heart—and, being Sith, decided they could just as easily adopt the title for themselves. Which they all did, over the movement founder’s complaints—and, eventually, his dead body. Now there were hundreds of self-named Korsins of either sex running about, chanting mantras and declaring their empires of one to the crowd at large. To strike up a conversation with a Korsinite was to risk death by cognitive dissonance.

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