by John M. Ford
Before long, the serving maid approached him. She was a comely sort, though a bit too short and stocky for his taste. Then again, she did have a nice sharp mouthful of teeth….
“What do you want?” asked the serving maid.
Kahless shrugged. “You?” he asked playfully. Even a man in a hood could enjoy flirting. Particularly now, when his spirits were low.
“Not if you were the emperor himself,” she replied. “Now, if you’re not hungry, I can—”
“No,” he said, holding up a hand in surrender. “I know what it’s like to incur your wrath. One can sit here until he dies of old age and never get a chance to order.” He sat back in his chair. “How’s the targ?”
“It was still alive a couple of hours ago.” The serving maid looked around at the patrons. “Which is more than I can say for some of the clientele. But there’s no heart left.”
“Of course not.” Kahless thought for a moment—but just a moment. “The liver, then. And bring it to me bloody.”
She chuckled. “Is there another way?”
He watched the swing of her hips as she left him, then nodded appreciatively. He liked this place. He liked it a lot.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed two men walk in, their cloaks as dark with rainwater as his own. Like him, they left their hoods up to conceal their faces.
One of the men was tall, with an aristocratic bearing. The other was broad and powerful—almost as broad as Kahless himself. They looked around, then headed straight for the elderly man’s table.
Apparently, the serving maid had noticed too. Halfway to the kitchen, she veered off and wound up at the table in question. The two men, who were about to sit down, turned to her.
“We’re not ready to order yet,” said the tall one.
The maid shook her head. “You misunderstand. I wasn’t asking for your order.” She pointed to the table. “This is taken.”
The tall man glanced at the table, then at her, then laughed. “Taken, is it? You’re joking, right?”
“Not at all,” she replied. “There’s a man named T’lanak who sits here every day. I don’t know much else about him, but he’s a steady customer, and we stand by our steady customers.”
The broad man took a step toward the serving maid. He was smiling, but it was a forced smile, and Kahless had the impression it could easily become something else.
“This T’lanak isn’t here now—and we are. Nor are we any less hungry than he’s likely to be. Now go see to your other customers while we decide what we want to eat.”
The clone frowned. He didn’t like the way this Klingon was talking. As much as he would have liked to keep to himself a while longer, he wasn’t going to stand here while two cowards bullied a serving wench.
He got up and approached the men. He wasn’t more than halfway there before they noticed and turned to face him.
His voice was low and unmistakably threatening. “The serving maid gave you some advice. I suggest you take it.”
The broad man tilted his head to get a better look at Kahless, though he couldn’t see his face very well because of the cloak. Likewise, the clone couldn’t see much of his adversary.
Then again, he didn’t have to. Kahless didn’t back off from anyone. In fact, he was actually hoping the situation would come to blows. As emperor, he seldom got the opportunity to engage another Klingon in combat. But as a hooded man in a place where everyone had a secret, it wouldn’t be at all inappropriate for him to crack a few skulls.
“This is none of your business,” the broad man told him.
Kahless grunted. “I’ve made it my business.”
“Even if it involves the spilling of blood?”
The clone smiled. “Especially if it involves the spilling of blood.”
The broad man’s hand drifted toward his waist. Under his robes, no doubt, he had a weapon tucked into his belt.
Kahless prepared himself for his adversary’s move. But before the broad man could start anything, his companion clamped a hand on his arm.
The clone looked at the tall man. For a moment, as their eyes met, he caught a glimpse of a long, lean face, with a clean-shaven chin and a wispy moustache that began at the corners of the man’s mouth.
Then, perhaps realizing that he was exposed, the tall man lowered his face. Again, his cowl concealed him.
“This isn’t worth killing over,” the man said, his voice deep and throaty. “It’s just a table, after all. And there’s another for us.”
The broad one hesitated, lingering over the prospect of battle. But in the end, he relented. Without another word, he followed his companion to the empty table and sat down.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kahless noticed that the serving maid was looking at him. Gratefully, he imagined. The clone turned and nodded, as if to say, you’re welcome. With a chuckle, the wench stirred herself and went about her duties.
Kahless returned to his seat, quite pleased with himself. It was satisfying to engage an opponent eye to eye and stare him down. Not as satisfying as drawing his blood, perhaps, but pleasing nonetheless.
And yet, as he reflected on it, there was something about the encounter that didn’t seem right. Something that didn’t ring quite true. He glanced at the newcomers, who were conversing across their new table with their heads nearly touching. Only their mouths were visible.
They didn’t look the least bit shaken by him. Nor should they have been, considering there were two of them, and neither looked feeble in any way. So why had they backed down so easily?
Unless, perhaps, they had even more reason to hide behind their cowls than he did? The clone nodded to himself. That must have been it.
In his mind’s eye, he reconsidered his glimpse of the tall one’s features. Long chin. Wispy moustache. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him there was something familiar about what he’d seen—something he couldn’t put his finger on.
He scoured his memory. The man wasn’t one of the clerics, was he? No, not that. A bureaucrat on one of the moons? He didn’t think so. A retainer to some great House, then? Or a crewman on the vessel that had carried him to the homeworld from the Enterprise?
Then it came to him. The man was Lomakh, a high-ranking officer in the Klingon Defense Force. They’d met less than a year ago, at a ceremony honoring Gowron’s suppression of the Gon’rai Rebellion.
At the time, Lomakh had been very much in favor—held in high esteem by both the Council and the Defense Force hierarchy. So why was he skulking about now? And who was he skulking with?
Pretending not to be interested in the pair any longer, the clone looked away from them. But every few seconds, he darted a glance in their direction, hoping to catch a smattering of their conversation.
After all, he had been created by the clerics with a talent for reading lips—one of the skills of the original Kahless. As long as he could see the men’s mouths, he could make out some part of what they were saying.
Of course, in ancient times, a great many people could read lips, as it was essential to communication in battle and, thus, critical to their survival. It was only in modern times that the practice had fallen into disuse.
Fortunately, the two men were so intent on their own exchange, they didn’t seem to notice the clone’s scrutiny. With increasing interest, Kahless watched their lips move, shaping an intrigue that caught him altogether off-guard—an intrigue so huge and arrogant in its scope, he could scarcely believe it.
Yet there it was, no mistake. Sitting back in his chair, he took hold of his reeling senses. This was something he had to act to prevent—something he couldn’t allow at any cost.
Abruptly, he saw a plate thrust before him. Looking up, he saw the serving maid. She was smiling at him with those remarkable teeth of hers.
“I hope you like it,” she said, then turned and left.
Kahless glanced at the conspirators, whose heads were still inclined together. He shook his own from side to side. “No,
” he breathed. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
The question was…what would he do about it?
Four: The Heroic Age
As Kahless entered the village of M’riiah at the head of his men, he saw a flock of kraw’zamey scuttling like big black insects over a mound of something he couldn’t identify. It was only when he came closer, and the kraw’zamey took wing to avoid him, that he realized the mound was a carcass.
The carcass of a minn’hor, to be exact. A burden beast, prized in good times for its strength and its ability to plow a field. By its sunken sides and the way its flesh stretched over its bones, Kahless could tell that the beast had died of hunger. Recently, too.
It was not a good sign, he thought. Not a good sign at all. And yet, he had found it to be pitifully common.
With a flick of his wrist, Kahless tugged at his s’tarahk’s head with his reins and urged it with his heels around the minn’hor. Otherwise, the s’tarahk might have been tempted to feed on the carcass, and there was still a possibility of contagion in these lands.
Riding between the huts that made up the village, he saw the central square up ahead. It was nothing more than an empty space with a ceremonial cooking pot set up in the center of it. At the moment, though it was nearing midday, there was nothing cooking. There wasn’t even a fire under the pot.
Again, he had seen this before, in other villages. But that didn’t make it any more pleasant.
Behind him, Kahless heard a ripple of haughty laughter. Turning, he saw that it had come from Starad. Truth to tell, he didn’t like Starad. The man was arrogant, cruel and selfish, and he used his raw-boned strength to push others around. But he was also Molor’s son, so Kahless put up with him.
Unfortunately, Starad wasn’t his only problem. Far from it. There were others who grumbled at every turn, or whispered amongst themselves like conspirators, or stared hard at one another as if they’d break out into a duel at any moment.
That was what happened when one’s warriors came from all parts of Molor’s empire, when they had never fought side by side. There was a lack of familiarity, of trust, of camaraderie. And the wretched tedium of their mission only made matters worse.
As Kahless stopped in front of the pot, he saw that the villagers had finally noticed him. They were starting to emerge from their huts, some with children in their arms. A few looked almost as bony as the minn’hor.
An old man in a narrow, rusted honor band came out of the biggest hut. His cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut leather, and his ribs stuck out so far Kahless could have counted them at a hundred paces.
This, apparently, was the headman of the village. Its leader. It was to him Kahless would present his demands.
Nudging his s’tarahk in the man’s direction, Kahless cast a shadow over him. “I’ve come on behalf of Molor,” he spat. “Molor, who claims everything from the mountains to the sea as his domain and demands tribute from all who live here.” He indicated the circle of huts with a tilt of his head. “You’ve neglected to pay Molor what’s due him, either the grain or the livestock. Where is it?”
The headman swallowed, visibly shaken. Even before he opened his mouth to speak, Kahless had a fair idea of what the old one would tell him—and he wasn’t looking forward to hearing it.
“We cannot give you the grain due our lord, the matchless Molor.” The headman’s voice quavered, despite his painfully obvious efforts to control it. “Nor,” he went on, just as painfully, “can we submit to you the livestock required of us.”
Kahless’s stomach tightened. Give me an enemy, he thought. No—give me ten enemies, all armed and lusting for my blood—and I will not complain. But this business of squeezing tribute from a scrawny scarecrow of a headman was not to his liking.
Off in the distance, the kraw’za birds picked at the minn’hor’s corpse. Right now, Kahless felt he had a lot in common with those kraw’zamey.
He leaned forward in his saddle, glaring at the headman as if his eyes were sharpened bores. “And how is it that you cannot pay Molor his rightful tribute?” he asked, restraining his annoyance as best he could.
The man swallowed again, even harder than before. “Because we do not have it.” He licked his dry, cracked lips. “You must know what it has been like here the past two years. First, the drought and the famine that followed it. Then the plague that ravaged our beasts.” He sighed. “If there was nothing for us to eat, how could we put aside anything for tribute?”
Before Kahless knew it, Starad had urged his mount forward and turned its flank to the headman. Lashing out with his foot, Starad dealt the villager a solid blow to the head with the heel of his boot.
Unprepared for it, the headman fell like a sack of stones and slammed into the hard-packed ground of the square. A moan escaped him.
“You put aside your tribute before you eat,” Starad snarled, “out of respect for your lord Molor.”
Eyeing Starad carefully, a couple of the females moved to help the headman, who waved them back. Dusting himself off, he rose stiffly and faced Kahless once more.
“Starad,” said Kahless, though he still stared at the villager.
He could see out of the corner of his eye that Molor’s son was grinning at those he called his companions in the group. He had entertained them with his attack on the headman.
“Yes?” replied Starad, the grin still in place.
“Another stunt like that one,” Kahless said evenly, but loud enough for all to hear, “and I’ll put your damned head on a post—no matter who your father is.”
The wind blew ominously through the village, raising spiraling dust demons as it went. For several long moments, Starad’s eyes narrowed gradually to slits, and it looked as if he might carry the matter further. Then he whirled and maneuvered his s’tarahk back into the ranks.
A wise decision, thought Kahless. He’d had no choice but to reprimand the youth. Just as he’d have had no choice but to physically discipline Starad, even in front of these lowly tribute-dodgers, if Molor’s son had piled a second affront on top of the first one.
A leader had to lead, after all. And like it or not, Kahless was the leader of this less-than-inspiring expedition.
Turning back to the headman, he saw that there was a dark bruise already evident on the side of the man’s face. But it was not out of pity that Kahless pronounced his judgment—just a simple acceptance of the facts.
“There is no excuse for failing to pay your taxes,” Kahless rumbled. He could see the headman wince. “But I will exact no punishment,” he said, glancing sideways at Starad, “that has not been exacted already.”
The villagers looked at one another, incredulous. Kahless grunted. “Do not rely on the next collector’s being so lenient,” he added and brought his mount about in a tight, prancing circle.
With a gesture for the other warriors to follow, he started to put some distance between himself and the village square—until he heard someone call out his name. A moment later, Starad rode past him and planted himself in Kahless’s path, giving the older man no other option but to pull up short.
“What are you doing?” Kahless grated.
His tone of voice alone should have been enough to make Starad back down. It was a tone that promised bloodshed.
But Molor’s son gave no ground. “There’s no room for mercy here,” he bellowed, making fast his challenge in the sight of the other warriors. “Molor’s instructions were specific—collect the full amount of the village’s taxes or burn it to the ground.”
“There’s no glory in such work,” Kahless spat, sidling his steed closer to Starad. “I didn’t come here to terrorize women and striplings, or to drive them from their hovels. If that’s what Molor requires, let him find someone else to do it.”
“What has glory got to do with it?” asked Starad. “When one pays homage to Molor, one demonstrates obedience to him.”
Kahless leaned toward the younger man, until their faces were but inches apa
rt, and he could smell Starad’s breakfast on his breath. “You’re a fool,” he told Molor’s son, “if you think I’ll take obedience lessons from the likes of you. Now get out of my way.”
Kahless’s father was long dead, the victim of a cornered targ. But while he lived, Kanjis had imparted to his only child one significant bit of wisdom.
In every life, his father had said, there were moments like a sword’s edge. All subsequent events balanced on that edge, eventually falling on one side or the other. And it was folly, the old man had learned, to believe one could determine on which side they fell.
Kahless had no doubt that this was such a moment. Molor’s whelp might back down or he might not. And if he did not, Kahless knew with a certainty, his life would be changed forever.
As luck would have it, Starad’s mouth twisted in an expression of defiance. “Very well,” he rasped, his eyes as hard and cold as his father the tyrant’s. “If you won’t do your job, I’ll see it done for you.”
Spurring his mount, he headed back toward the center of the village. As he rode, he pulled a pitch-and-
cloth-swaddled torch out of his saddlebag. And he wasn’t the only one. Several others rode after him, with the same damned thing in mind.
Kahless felt his anger rise until it threatened to choke him. He watched as Starad rode by one of the cooking fires, dipped low in the saddle to thrust his torch into the flames, and came up with a fiery brand.
“Burn this place!” he thundered, as his s’tarahk rose up on its hind legs and pawed the air. “Burn it to the ground!”
Before Starad’s mount came down on its front paws, Kahless had spurred his own beast into action. His fingers closed around the hilt of his sword and dragged it out of his belt.
Molor’s son made for the nearest hut. Kahless measured the distance between himself and Starad’s objective with his eye and feared that he wouldn’t be in time. Digging his heels into his animal’s flanks, he leaned forward as far as he could….
And as Starad’s torch reached for the hut, Kahless brought his blade down, cutting the torch’s flaming head off. Wrenching his steed about sharply, Kahless fixed Starad on his gaze.