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far.
    Kunra shook his head. “The successful applicants must be able to meet the stare of Shimrra’s lackeys unflinchingly, yet without resorting to violence. They will take their first steps toward true defiance against each other. The first to strike a blow will be the first to be dismissed.”
    “And by dismissed you mean—”
    Kunra nodded. “Eliminated.”
    Nom Anor nodded, satisfied. There were many conflicting demands made of an organization such as his. The first was finding ways to spread the heresy through conduits that had never been designed to act efficiently or reliably. The Shamed Ones had always gossiped, but did so with no concern for accuracy and were safe only under the assumption that no one higher up cared to listen. For the heresy to be effective, distortions had to be kept to a minimum. And now that higher ranks
were
listening, precautions had to be taken to ensure that the message couldn’t be traced. These two objectives werefrequently contradictory, and Nom Anor relied on his two assistants to balance them, with or without each other’s knowledge.
    So if Shoon-mi was responsible for ensuring the spread of the word, Kunra, then, was there to plug the leaks. He and a small, handpicked team of what Nom Anor thought of as “spiritual police” worked secretly to tie up any loose threads that threatened to unravel the entire fabric of the scheme. His work was made easier by the fact that disappearances were assumed to be the work of higher echelons getting close to the sources of the heresy. Each surgical elimination had the added effect of heightening paranoia and, arguably, making his role less essential.
    But as the network expanded, and exponentially more mouths began spouting the Jedi tenets, the risks multiplied. Sometimes Nom Anor woke in the middle of the night, sweating with panic at the thought that even now, despite all his precautions, Shimrra was closing in.
    “Good work,” he said, praising Kunra as he would a trained pet. He didn’t need to earn Kunra’s loyalty; he had purchased it simply by sparing the ex-warrior’s life. “But don’t bore me with the details. Just make sure you have a candidate ready in three days. I wish to move on. This skulking in the dark is not something I care to make a habit of.”
    Kunra bowed briefly. As with Shoon-mi, there was a certain amount of defiance in the gesture, but Nom Anor could accept it from Kunra. The ex-warrior needed spirit to carry out his tasks effectively. Shoon-mi just needed obedience.
    “Leave me now. I wish to think.”
    Kunra strode from the room, shutting the door behind him. Tiredly, Nom Anor leaned over to the bowl of water at his side so that he could wash his face. Things were going well, yes: the heresy was spreading, and a constantmoving from place to place ensured that Shimrra was still no closer to catching him. That wasn’t enough, though, and it never would be. The heresy had been from its conception a means of restoring himself to power. Every step he took had to advance that cause, or it was a step backward. The question that ever nagged at him, though, was: power over whom? Was being the leader of a scruffy army of Shamed Ones and misfits sufficient?
    He froze, staring down at the reflection in the bowl of water. It was haggard and grimy as a consequence of living in the foul subterranean dwellings of Yuuzhan’tar, and its eyes were full of doubt. It looked like a stranger.
    With a frustrated snarl he dashed the bowl of water to the floor.
    Kunra was wrong. Shimrra wasn’t frightened at all. Not once had he shown a flicker of fear. Anger, yes, but not fear. The heresy was a hindrance, not a threat. And the Prophet? The king of a dungeon might be a king, but he was still living in a dungeon.
    It was well beyond time, Nom Anor told himself, feeling better even as he came to the conclusion, that he started exercising some real power …
    On the
Falcon
, tempers were flaring.
    “We
can’t
leave yet,” Han