Harch blinked as one struck in the face by an unseen object. Then he lunged with the weapon. Kahless slammed the palms of his hands against the younger Klingon’s extended wrist and stopped its motion, just as the tip of the blade neared his chest. Then he grabbed Harch’s wrist and twisted, even as he brought a knee up into his attacker’s ribcage. The dagger clattered to the cave floor. Seeing Harch’s companions moving toward him, Kahless shoved his off-balance assailant backward. Harch collided with the advancing Klingons, causing those in the lead to stumble.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kahless saw Valandris rushing up, disruptor in hand, followed by several others who had been gathering near the impending birth. Kahless waved them off. “Back! This whelp is mine!”
Upright again, Harch spied his dagger at Kahless’s feet—and looked up to see that the emperor was holding his own blade.
“What do you wait for, killer? Come for it!” Kahless’s eyes darted down to the knife below and back to Harch. “You have slaughtered doddering nobles and valiant Sentries alike. How can you fear a Klingon grown from a drop of blood?”
Harch stood, seething—and suddenly aware of all those watching: his friends, for certain, but also many new observers, flanking Valandris. Kahless worried for a moment the two groups would have at each other. But Harch dusted himself off and took a step back. “I have killed you already, clone. There’s no use doing it again.”
“I will tell you what there is no use for,” Kahless said. “Stomping around, threatening to fly off and unload your torpedoes at random, just to end in destruction. Our people have a saying, ‘Fools die young.’ ”
“I am not so young,” Harch said, beating his chest. “Tell us what we have to live for. Tell us!”
Kahless started to open his mouth—when a scream came from across the cavern. By the second one, it was clear what was happening. “That is what you live for, besides battle. You live to father a child.”
Valandris stepped beside the clone. “You do not understand, Kahless. He is fathering one,” she said, peering at Harch. “Right now. Aren’t you?”
Harch said nothing. His companions looked at him as he fumed.
“That’s right, Harch. Weltern told me about you two. I thought she was lowering herself with an oaf like you—all of Zokar’s cronies lacked minds of their own. But our people aren’t very good at having standards.”
“I am the father,” Harch snapped. “What of it?”
Kahless scowled. This behavior didn’t make any sense. “You mean you are that woman’s mate—and you are hanging about here grousing? Today, while your child is born? You should be celebrating.”
“I bring only more shame to the child,” Harch said, refusing to look in the direction of the birthing. Slowly, the fire seemed to go out of him. “I am three generations from discommendation. Weltern is four. So her child takes a step backward, because of me.”
“According to Potok’s rules!” Valandris said. “Why care about his practices now?”
“Practices that shattered families,” Worf said, appearing behind Kahless. Attracted by the commotion, he stepped to the left side of the emperor. “But this child must have been conceived while you were all serving Kruge, not Potok. You must have hoped things would be different.”
“That Kruge was a liar,” Harch snapped. “You told us so!”
“So you go back to considering yourself unworthy of a name,” Kahless said. “Potok is dead, Harch. And I tell you that if you do seek to build a new life—a Klingon life—there is no better time to start than on such a day as today.” He stared at the hothead. “You can die a fool—or found the House of Harch.”
“I do not understand,” one of Harch’s companions said. “A discommendated Klingon has no house.”
“You are never lost,” Worf said. “I was discommendated. I have my house. There is hope.”
Shaking, Harch opened his clenched teeth to let out a deep breath. Then he shook his head. “Not for me,” he said, turning. “Never for me.” Harch looked to his companions—and seeing no support, he began walking, foot after trudging foot, toward the nearest pillar of fire.
An infant’s cry resounded across the atrium. Kahless, hearing it and seeing that Harch was paying no mind, declared, “Morath’s bones, I have had enough!” The clone charged across the cave floor. Grabbing Harch by the back collar of his tunic, he twirled the despondent Klingon around and shoved him across the cave floor.
“You will see,” Kahless yelled. “You will not die before you see!”
Kahless pushed Harch through an opening in the crowd around the panting Weltern. Raneer, Chu’charq’s helm operator, lifted up a dripping, naked, and writhing babe. The child’s bony crown caught the light. “Weltern’s child,” Raneer announced. “It is male.”
“It is more than that,” Kahless said, nudging Harch. “It is your son.”
Harch stood, spellbound. For a moment, Kahless seemed concerned at letting the Klingon, who had been so despondent a moment before and incendiary before that, touch the child. But those worries vanished when he saw how Harch looked on the infant.
On the ground, Weltern looked up at him. It took her a few moments to register his presence—and when she did, it puzzled her. She could only ask, “What do you think of that?”
For his part, Harch could only get out, “I . . . do not know what to say.”
“Neither do I,” she replied.
“I have the words,” Kahless said, watching Harch take the child from Raneer. “ ‘Your blood.’ ”
“jIH dok,” Harch repeated.
Kahless looked down to Weltern. “ ‘Our blood,’ ” he said.
“maj dok,” she said. They did not need to hear the rest from Kahless. “Tlinghan jIH,” they said.
I am a Klingon.
“The House of Harch is begun,” Kahless said. “Honor may come or it may not. But one is always of his house.” As Harch stood mystified by his mewling son, Kahless took the new father’s shoulder and pointed outside. “Take him beneath the stars. Tell them that he is a Klingon and that they are his for the taking.”
Harch lifted the squealing baby over his head and did exactly that. A procession of the Unsung followed him outside, trailed by an entranced Valandris. Worf shot Kahless a look of admiration he would always treasure. Only Weltern remained, and Kahless lifted her so she could watch. She was Klingon and would be ready to skin a targ in an hour, but for now she needed his help.
For the first time since his retirement, Kahless knew his purpose. The Unsung did not need another leader, telling them what to do or whom to be. They needed only a guide to help them find the path from the darkness.
Kahless the Unforgettable would take care of leading deserving souls to Sto-Vo-Kor, as he always had. It would be the mission of Kahless the clone to help them deserve it.
ACT TWO
THE SIDE OF ANGELS
2386
“In trust I have found treason.”
—Elizabeth I
Twenty-four
CATHEDRAL OF STATE
JANALWA
A miracle occurred, as it did every day. Over the slums of eastern Rashtag, capital city of the homeworld of the Holy Order of Kinshaya, Janalwa’s star emerged round and whole. It was a circle, a circle of light—and while the Kinshaya were not sun worshippers, they did revere the circle beyond all other things.
Yeffir came just before dawn every day to the balcony garden to revel in this moment. Aged and infirm, the Kinshaya female took solace in the fact that the circle could be found everywhere—even looking over the houses of the poor, whom she had tried so hard to help.
So many hopes. So many failures. Life was a circle. An opportunity, missed, could always be counted on to come around again.
She just did not know how many more times she would be there to take it. Yeffir stood unevenly on the cold stones of the patio, feeling the arthritis in the four-fingered hands at the ends of her forelegs. Her leathery wings, so magnifice
nt in her youth, frayed at the edges; useless for flight, they served to insulate her long form against the crisp morning breeze.
In a slow, sometimes painful canter, she took her daily constitutional around the balcony, which wrapped far around this smaller dome of the Cathedral of State. Rounding the building, she saw Niamlar Circle to the west, the geographic and spiritual heart of the city. Kinshaya were already on the plaza, meditating and praying—and there were also merchants selling and educators teaching. Once, the latter two groups would never have been permitted to gather there; it would have been considered a sacrilege.
But there had come that terrible day four years earlier when the Kinshaya Inquisitors—with Breen thugs at their side—had fired into a crowd of protestors on the circle, defiling the holy shape with the blood of innocents. Yeffir had not been present. An itinerant preacher not affiliated with the Episcopate, she had been jailed for leading the Devotionalist movement, seeking to turn the Kinshaya away from dreams of conquest and toward peace. None of the many tortures they had subjected Yeffir to had given her the pain she suffered when she heard about her murdered followers.
The horrors of the Niamlar Circle Massacre had been broadcast across the known galaxy, prompting a chain of events that still made Yeffir dizzy to consider. She had been freed and the Breen banished. Ykredna, the manipulative Pontifex Maxima, had been deposed; that was better. The Matriarchs had put forward Yeffir, who had never been in their hierarchy, to serve as Ykredna’s replacement. She had been stunned and honored—and overwhelmed by the sheer love the people had shown her.
She had accepted, only later realizing that she had been put forward as a figurehead to forestall a battle between high church officials, none of whom felt they could win public support in that charged atmosphere.
She had done a few things. The Inquisitorial Palace, across the plaza, had been emptied and turned over to Vicar General Tepesor, who was taking steps to make it the seat of a secular government. Thousands of religious and political prisoners had gone free. She had also started to wind down weapons production; the Episcopate’s control of the military complex was deep-rooted.
Yet zealots remained in every walk of life, slowing progress. On the extreme, a group of hardliners had seized warships two years earlier in a vain attempt to reclaim what they felt they had lost. It had taken the Federation ship Enterprise to thwart them, the Starfleet ship on which T’Ryssa Chen, ally of the Devotionalists, served. But the more insidious threat came from within. It was not enough that retrograde thinkers constantly undermined her, or that ridiculous bodies like the Office of Infidel Relations continued to function as always. No. Ykredna herself had wheedled her way into the chief position in the new secular bureaucracy.
It was Ykredna who was destined to be the cloud over this day. Yeffir had known of the upcoming meeting for days and dreaded it. It was to have been a sign of progress: the new vicar general crossing Niamlar Circle to pay her first official call on the Pontifex Maxima. A blessing would be given, and all would be right. Only it was Ykredna that Yeffir, looking down, saw leading a proud processional of Kinshaya toward the domes of the holy church.
Many brave and peace-loving Kinshaya had died to get the woman out of the Cathedral of State. Nevertheless, it was Kinshaya who had voted to allow her to return—in this, the Year of Prayer, no less. It was not right.
“Pontifex?” asked a young acolyte from the doorway to the balcony. “It is time.”
Angels and spirits, give me strength, Yeffir thought. And the wisdom to tolerate peaceably those with whom I do not agree. With doleful eyes, she turned and repaired inside.
• • •
The former Pontifex Maxima spent more than an hour telling the current Pontifex Maxima about her own cathedral. That was well enough, Yeffir had thought, and not the tiresome rant she was expecting. Younger than her by some years, Ykredna seemed to have taken her recent election to a secular seat as an excuse to dandify her wings with golden tassels and a fresh set of tattoos. Yeffir felt plain in comparison, yet she had no doubt which look was more favorable to the people.
It was not until they reached the Yongolor Rotunda, beneath the largest dome of the structure, that Ykredna had started in on the subjects Yeffir was expecting to hear about. No one entered the room without invitation, and so the former Pontifex was sure she had a captive audience without distraction.
“’Aya, and you know this is a re-creation of the interior of the Temple of the Gods on Yongolor, our late and wondrous homeworld, before the demon Klingons that you refuse to exterminate laid waste to it.”
Yeffir simply nodded. Of course she knew what the room was; the building had been hers to run for four years. And she could not deny that she had not exterminated the Klingons. She had no desire to do such a thing.
“’Aya, and it was in that place ninety-three years ago that the Great Niamlar manifested, warning the unfaithful that not to war on the Klingons, as you have, is the greatest of sins.”
“I am aware of the story.”
“No story, if by story you mean a myth. Scores of faithful saw Niamlar the Wondrous—for whom we have named our circle. Niamlar the Warlike, who is said to have captured the devil-father Kahless and swallowed him whole.”
“I know this.” Yeffir gave a glance to the ceiling, where an ornately detailed painting of Niamlar’s mysterious manifestation encircled the gap left by the cupola. It remained one of the more puzzling mysteries of their faith. She sighed and looked down at Ykredna.
“Niamlar appeared in a Year of Prayer demanding slaughter, but the people were weak and failed her, and she departed. You know, Pontifex, that every thirty-first year we celebrate a Year of Prayer, in honor of the thirty-one greater gods of the pantheon?”
“I know, for I am the head of the church,” Yeffir replied, not bothering to hide the impatience in her voice.
“And you know that ninety-three is thrice thirty-one, and that there are three circles to be found in the etheric structure of the cosmos, and three prophets who found them?”
“And three doors to this room.” Yeffir wondered how fast her old legs could get her to one.
“’Aya,” Ykredna said, “these are signs that to win Niamlar’s return, you must this year support an increase in attack fleet production of—”
“Three percent, correct?”
“I was going to say ninety-three.” Ykredna’s muzzle turned upward. “It is written.”
“What? Where?”
“In the very fabric of the cosmos.”
Yeffir’s mind boggled. “I will not recommend doubling the size of our arsenal. Not when the poor starve.”
“The poor will serve on our new ships and feast on the spoils of infidel civilizations. We will enslave the remaining Kreel—and erase the demon Klingons, once and for all!”
“I will not do so.”
“Then I will not leave,” Ykredna said, sitting down.
Yeffir blinked, her eyes tired. “You are just going to sit there?”
“Your Devotionalists used such peaceful means to get their way years ago,” Ykredna said. “As the people’s vicar general, I can do the same.” With that, she bowed her head and started chanting mantras.
Yeffir stared for several moments. She had expected a lot of things from Ykredna, but this was not one of them. Should she call the other Matriarchs, to get the vicar general out? What was the procedure when such madness befell?
At last, she decided Ykredna was doing no harm and headed toward the exit. “I will not disturb your prayers,” Yeffir called back. “Perhaps when I return we can—”
“I have returned!” boomed a voice from behind, producing a sonic wave that nearly knocked Yeffir off her feet. The Pontifex, ears ringing, turned to find the last thing she had ever expected to see, seated within a blazing fire at the center of the rotunda.
Niamlar!
Twenty-five
The murals, Yeffir thought, did not do Niamlar justice. Nor did the recordings from the
previous century, which she alone in her pontifical role had been allowed to see; electronic images of the gods were forbidden to the masses, who might seek to disprove them using nonspiritual means. Viewing the records of past visitations from the archives had been her first duties as Pontifex Maxima. She assumed the practice was intended to instill the church leader with additional fervor based on a certainty that the gods existed.
But images could not replicate the quaking of the marbled floor under Yeffir’s feet as the shining dragon stomped about on Kinshaya legs several meters long. Ten meters from steam-spouting snout to the tip of her serpentine tail, Niamlar bounded angrily about the rotunda.
“I am Server and Protector. Shield and lance of the Kinshaya, guardian against the great demons. Where are my worshippers?” the colossal beast hissed. “Where? Where?”
“’Aya, I am here, Great One!” Ykredna cried. She was still on the floor, but had completely prostrated herself, putting her neck to the marble. She refused to open her eyes. “I knew you would return!”
“And what are you?” Niamlar said, facing Yeffir. The Kinshaya felt the heat from the giant’s foul breath; it made the hairs on her back stand on end. “What do you pretend to be?”
Yeffir’s left foreleg collapsed, putting her down on one knee. Fear? Respect? Weakness? She did not know why she knelt, but she tried to face the shining Niamlar as she responded. “’Aya, I am Yeffir, Great One. I am Pontifex Maxima, your mortal agent.”
Niamlar abruptly lurched forward, causing Yeffir to shrink. The creature’s forked nose sniffed at her. “You are a Devotionalist and a heretic, unfit to lead my church. You are aged, cowardly. You have made my people a disappointment.”
“I was Pontifex, Niamlar!” Ykredna dared to look up. “I was always your servant—and will be again. Tell me what you would have us do—and I will do it.” She shuddered. “Just spare the Kinshaya who adore you!”
Niamlar stomped again and again, so hard Yeffir feared the ceiling would collapse. But then her motion ceased. “I came once before and found you wanting.”
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