Rule of Two (Star Wars: Darth Bane, #2)

by Drew Karpyshyn

The thought bomb had only taken those with sufficient power to touch the Force:

Seems convenient

Too late he understood that, through the thought bomb, Lord Kaan’s madness had brought devastation upon them all.

They were still alive! The bodies of the Jedi and Sith had been consumed by the thought bomb, crumbling into dust and ash, but their spirits had survived, sucked into the vortex at the heart of the bomb’s blast only to be imprisoned forever.

He believed in the power of the Force, but he also believed in himself: He was more than just a servant of prophecy or a pawn of the dark side, subject to the whims of an inevitable, inescapable future. The Force was a tool he had used to forge his own destiny through strength and cunning.

“But these are worthless emotions. They mean nothing. What you need to feel is anger!”

A focused strike against a single heel was much more subtle. It showed intelligence and cunning,

One Master and one apprentice; one to embody the power, the other to crave it.”

“If we give in to our emotions now, if we allow ourselves to come to needless harm, then we dishonor what he has done.

Persuading someone through the Force was always easier when it was something they wanted to be convinced of, Johun noted.

The Force was a part of all living things, and all living things were a part of the Force. It flowed through every being, every animal and creature, every tree and plant. The fundamental energies of life and death coursed through it, causing ripples in the very fabric of existence.

Her corpse twitched once, then went forever still.

severed from the cauterized stump of his neck by the crimson blade of Bane’s thrown lightsaber.

Don’t underestimate her, Bane reminded himself. She has the power to one day surpass you.

“Prowess in combat is the simplest display of the dark side’s power,” her Master cautioned her. “Brutal and quick, it serves a purpose. Yet it is often less effective than subtlety and cunning.

“Our mission is not to bring death to all those unfit to live. We answer to a greater calling. All I have done on Ruusan, and all that we will do from this day forward, must serve our true purpose: the preservation of our Order and the survival of the Sith.”

We must recognize that killing for sadistic pleasure—killing without reason, need, or purpose—is the act of a fool.”

“Since we cannot hide the fact of our survival,” Bane continued, “we must obscure it with half-truths. We must encourage the rumors, spreading them so thick they blind our enemies until they cannot separate myth from reality.”

Seek the tomb on Dxun.

Her rage would always be a part of her, simmering below the surface. It would serve her well in the years to come.

Patience. Cunning. Secrecy. These are the tools we will use to bring down the Jedi.

“You don’t have to abandon me to make me suffer,”

“When your power eclipses mine I will become expendable. This is the Rule of Two: one Master and one apprentice. When you are ready to claim the mantle of Dark Lord as your own, you must do so by eliminating me.

“You are the chosen one, the anointed heir to the legacy of our order. You will find a way.”

“You just want to believe the Sith are gone forever! That’s why you refuse to see what’s right in front of us.”

“It will,” Farfalla answered grimly. “In ways you cannot even begin to imagine.”

fear and pain were an inevitable part of existence. And it was far better to inflict them on others than to suffer them herself.

“I’m not a kid,” Zannah said as she pulled the trigger. “I’m a Sith.”

Ruusan Reformation—calls

“The Sith are never truly gone,”

More important, their vast resources also enabled them to fund groups that were opposed to the Republic, should they so choose. Separatist factions often sought out wealthy benefactors in Carannia, Saffia, and Fiyarro, Serenno’s three largest cities.

Never trust a promise made in front of a holoprojector,

sardonically

We got chiss we got sardonicly did tim zhan ghost write this?

“Isn’t that one of the Deep Core worlds?”

Tell that to Dave Filoni

“And what if you were wrong?” Bane asked in a quiet, menacing voice. “What if they had somehow killed me?” “Then you would have been weak, unworthy of being the Dark Lord of the Sith,” Zannah answered boldly. “And you would have deserved to die.” “Precisely,” Bane said with his familiar grim smile, and Zannah knew her Master approved.