The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 1

by J. G. Hertzler

  As he turned left at the T, walking confidently toward the stairs, the guard called to him. Martok tugged the blade in its sheath.

  Somewhere below, Sirella waited for him. He would do what he must.

  15

  THE DUNGEON’S NARROW hallways and low ceilings scraped the top of Martok’s head. Putting the helmet back on might protect his skull, but his vision and hearing would be further impaired. Shuffling along as fast as he could, head held low, he felt exposed, anxious. What if he was spotted? Even worse, recognized. The dimly lit hallways prevented him from seeing more than a few meters ahead; a guard station could be in the next patch of deep shadow and Martok wouldn’t know until he had practically stepped into a disruptor’s muzzle.

  He stopped and tried to quiet his breathing enough that he could listen for cues about the path ahead, but it proved difficult. The air was so dry and close that Martok had to consciously resist the urge to take deep draughts of air. He strained to catch every ambient noise. Nothing. He heard nothing, not even the to-be-expected slow drip of leaky plumbing or the gasp of a dilapidated ventilation unit. Where was Worf and his precious Starfleet tricorder when he was really needed? Nothing else to do, really, except press ahead. He filled his lungs, released it, filled them again, and, for the first time in many days, felt the muscles in his neck loosen. He did not realize, until that moment, how much weight he had been carrying there.

  And who am I carrying? he asked himself. Sirella? Worf, Jaroun, K’Tar, and every other warrior who has died these past three days? My father, even the little Ferengi and his father? Drex, Shen, and Lazhna? And here he felt shame. My children … I’ve barely spared them a thought. How can that be? Have I been so focused on Sirella that I forgot them? And, again, he was shamed because he knew the answer: Martok loved his children, but he had not truly known them. They existed through Sirella. Even Drex had only become fully formed in his mind when he became a soldier of the empire. And then there was the consideration of what kind of soldier, what kind of man, his son was. And the truth was, it was something he did not care to think about.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked aloud, and Martok knew himself well enough to know that the question did not address only this corridor in this dungeon in this palace at this moment. What was he doing here? He had an answer, but Martok—Martok the warrior, Martok the general, Martok the chancellor—felt fear creep up his spine, but knew, absolutely knew he had to speak the words aloud.

  He whispered his answer, but then, feeling a coward, he spoke them again and the words tore at the dry, still air. He said, enunciating each syllable as clearly as he could, “I do not know.” A nameless dread clawed at him, and Martok suddenly found himself remembering a childhood game where he and his friends would dare each other to speak a mythological demon’s name three times while staring into a mirror. Would the demon appear behind the glass? None ever had, but there was no way to know if this time would be the one. And now what demon have I unleashed? He watched the shadows and waited. He felt his heart in his chest and counted the beats.

  The answer, apparently, was none.

  And then he heard her voice.

  “Martok?”

  He wondered if it was his imagination playing tricks on him. It might well be. He had slept no more than three hours in the past three days. His eye felt like a dry bit of charcoal in the socket, but it was impossible to resist the temptation to answer.

  “Sirella?”

  “Here.”

  “Where?” Her voice was little more than a rasp and indistinct, as if through a wall or …“Speak again.”

  “I am here, husband. Beneath you, I think.”

  Martok took a step forward and saw a soft glow on the floor no more than three paces before him. It was a tiny drain, though for what, Martok could not guess. He knelt down and peered through. “Sirella?”

  “Yes. You are louder now and above me. There must a grate in the ceiling. I thought I heard you speak earlier, but I could not be certain.”

  “Sirella, keeper of my soul and my honor … Hearing your voice, my weariness falls away and I am whole again.”

  “It is good to hear your voice, too, my husband,” Sirella said. She sounded, if possible, even more exhausted than Martok had felt.

  “How do I get down to you? Can you see a door or a stairway?”

  “No, but there must be one. I have had visitors—the usurper and one other—and they came from a dark corner, though this room is not large, I think. If I can judge, the door and where you are speaking from are near each other. Check the walls near you.”

  “I will. Be strong, my wife. I will be with you soon.”

  Before he could straighten up, Martok heard Sirella say, “Have you ever known me to be anything else?” He smiled. Same old sting in her voice. At least that has not changed.

  Once he knew what he was looking for, finding the lip of the hidden door was simple. He slipped the tip of his bat’leth into the crack and slowly worked it around until he felt it catch on something. Probing carefully, he checked for a tripwire or an alarm, but detected nothing. This troubled Martok more than if he had found something, but he had no choice except to proceed. The door was opened with a kick plate on the floor and when he pressed it, a section of wall slid back. Martok pushed on the door and it slid aside as if was on a track. Very clever, he thought. And quiet, too. When I am the chancellor again, I will have to consult the original plans. … He stopped then, surprised to be thinking about the future. One thing at a time. …

  Halfway down the stairway, the steps suddenly became slippery and the air grew clammy. Some kind of reservoir beneath the palace? Martok wondered, and added that question to the list of things he would investigate if he ever had the opportunity.

  He found another door before him and felt for its edges. It opened, as had the other, without a sound, and Martok stood in a pool of blackness, but he decided that made no sense. He had seen a soft glow in Sirella’s cell. How could he be sheathed in darkness? He reached out carefully and touched a heavy black curtain. Ah. Clever. He swept the curtain aside and stepped forward. Unfortunately, he did not know that the curtain marked the edge of a low shelf and he stumbled awkwardly off it, splashing into ankle-deep water and almost dropping his bat’leth.

  “Clumsy oaf. Can’t you be more careful?”

  Sirella stood before him, arms folded across her chest, back straight, head held high, lips curled into a delicious sneering smile. Martok felt the oily water soak into his boots and he had to fight a sudden need to pass water of his own.

  “Good to see you, too, Sirella. Are you ready to leave?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’re prepared to be chancellor again.”

  Stung, Martok asked, “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “You have taken a long time to get here. I can only assume you’ve been dallying. Questioning your future. Second-guessing the past.”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, about that …”

  “Not now, husband,” Sirella droned. “We should be leaving. I trust you have a plan?”

  “Of sorts,” Martok said, stepping closer to examine the cell door. It was not a complex lock, but it was strong, much too strong for a blow from a bat’leth to have any effect. A disruptor bolt might work, but it would be risky in such tight quarters. Perhaps the hinges …

  “The keys are over there,” Sirella said, and pointed to the opposite side of the room.

  Martok glanced at the opposite wall. The keys were on a peg. This was distressingly simple. “I do not like this,” Martok muttered.

  “Really?” Sirella drawled. “I cannot imagine why.” Another kind of chill suddenly froze the air around them. “Martok,” she said. “Tell me you have guards watching the entrance.”

  Martok winced. She only used his name when she needed to tighten her grip on him, one way or another.

  “Sirella …”

  “Tell me …”


  “I’ll get the keys.” He splashed across the room.

  “Martok.”

  “I’ll have you free in a moment.” He splashed back.

  “You must leave,” she said softly, but firmly. “They cannot capture you.”

  “No,” he said, his voice just as soft. “I’ve come too far to find you. You must come. They’re going to execute you. …”

  “Do you think I’m as stupid as you are?” she hissed. “Don’t you think I know that?” She reached through the bars and snatched the keys from his hand and pulled them to her breasts. Then, with the other hand, she grabbed Martok’s beard and hauled him to the bars of the cage. “They killed our Lazhna,” she whispered. “Shen and Lazhna are dead.”

  Martok’s chest tightened and his throat closed. My daughters … Our daughters … The anger, the pain, both boiled up inside him and behind that bolus of rage came the thought I barely knew them. … I barely had a chance to know them. … And then he said, “Drex? What about Drex?”

  “She told me he still lives,” Sirella said. “She said that he was on the run, but that he had escaped.”

  “She? She who? Who are you talking about? What about Morjod?”

  But Sirella wasn’t listening. “Find her, Martok. Escape this place and kill her in my name. She slew my daughters. What happens to me is irrelevant. I ask only for the chance to throw her off a cliff to Gre’thor once you’ve dispatched her to the afterlife. If you open this door, they’ll know you’re here and they’ll come, but if you turn around and leave, you might still escape so that you can find her. I command you in the names of our children and our fathers and mothers. Find her. And when you do, kill her.”

  “Kill who?”

  And from behind him, Martok heard a light soft laugh and a voice say, “Me, Martok. She means me. But you tried to do it once before, so I doubt if you could do it this time.”

  Martok felt something creep up his legs, into his chest, and out the top of his head. He fell against the bars and heard Sirella do the same. Darkness descended.

  * * *

  “Little warrior, you are needed.”

  Pharh lifted his head and cracked it against something sharp. Fortunately, he possessed a very thick skull (many had remarked that it was his best feature), so there he didn’t hurt himself very badly. Pain—lots of pain—but no damage.

  He was in a little cave. Grasping his head and saying, “Ow, ow, ow,” he tried to remember why he was in a little cave. It was a nice enough little cave, to judge by all the available evidence. It was pleasantly cool and damp, in fact. As had been the case so often lately, his pants were soaked through to his skin.

  Then, straining, he remembered. The Sporak had broken down ten klicks down the road from where he had dropped off Martok. It was much too far back to the landfill, so the logical plan was to head into the First City. He had left the road for what he had thought was a shortcut, then had ended up stumbling across a wide stretch of orange sand and gray rock. From his previous trips into the city, he knew that at this point it began to sweep back and forth in great curves, no doubt some kind of primitive defense mechanism. When he had been riding, the trips were enjoyably scenic, but as a pedestrian, he found them positively sadistic. The First City had been right there, right in front of him, and he couldn’t seem to get any closer. Deleting the curves and moving cross-country had seemed like a good idea. Less heat, less dust, fewer big birds.

  At first, the birds had been yet another interesting sight. They were about half his height when they stretched out their long necks, had large, heavy bills, beady eyes, and thick, sharp talons. They also had a thick crest of red feathers over their eyes that made them look faintly comical when Pharh first saw them. He had enjoyed watching them watch him. They sat by the side of the road, watched him approach, pivoting their long, thin heads on their skinny necks, then watched him walk past. As soon as Pharh moved a few paces past, he would hear a heavy wump, wump, wump as they spread their heavy wings and seemingly by sheer force of will levered themselves into the air. Then they would land a short way ahead of him and the whole performance would repeat itself.

  At first, Pharh had been amused, even grateful for the company, but as time passed and the birds’ attention had grown more avid, he had begun to worry. Confusing cause and effect, he had decided that if he left the road, the birds would leave him alone.

  Unfortunately, now it seemed pretty clear that the big birds hadn’t been sitting by the roadside because they liked it.

  “You’re an idiot,” Pharh had said to himself, because he thought that if he had had company, that’s what they would have said. Pharh didn’t like to disappoint anyone, even the people who weren’t with him. The next curve of the road hadn’t shown up as he had expected. In fact, he had been fairly certain that he had somehow gotten completely turned around and was now headed away from the First City. It was difficult to say for sure, because the sun had been almost directly overhead and he was hot and tired and thirsty and his water had been almost gone and the birds had been getting even friendlier and resting somewhere had seemed like a good idea.

  At that point, he had stumbled into a small dell and found the little cave. Actually, the “cave” was more like a pile of rocks, but Pharh wasn’t in a position to be picky. Looking over his shoulder, he had noted that the birds were still following him and when they spotted the cave, they had looked disapproving, which had struck Pharh as a good thing. Being an old hand at seeking emergency shelter, he had not simply stuck his head in the cave and crawled forward. These sorts of havens were frequently occupied, so he had thrust in the nearly empty water container and moved it around for several seconds, then had waited to see if anything would emerge. When nothing had, Pharh had backed in feet first and pulled the water container after him, using it as a shield-slash-door. As soon as he had disappeared down his hole, the birds had wump-wumped to the entrance and begun to peck at the water container. Pharh wondered if maybe that’s what they had been after all along. He had considered shoving the container out to them, but decided it wasn’t worth taking a chance. He had a feeling that the beaks had been employed on more than one occasion to dig out things from tight places.

  So, with the sounds of frustrated pecking echoing in his ears, Pharh had sunk into an exhausted slumber and awoken to the sounds of a soft, pleasant voice whispering strange things in his ear.

  “Who … ?” he asked, not certain which who he meant. Who are you? Who needs me? They were both legitimate questions, and Pharh decided it might be best to let the mystery voice choose which option it preferred to address first. He waited, listening intently. He had good ears even for a Ferengi, so he heard many things: the slight breeze outside stirring the dust, the slow trickle of water down the inside of the rock, the scurry of some small creature above, the notable absence of a pecking beak, but no voice.

  Should he call out again? Seemed dangerous. Perhaps the voice had been a guard or search party, but his ears told him that no one that large was anywhere nearby. Finally, Pharh worked up his courage and said aloud, “Who needs me?”

  The breeze picked up and wheezed through the cracks in the rocks, sounding almost like a voice. Pharh closed his eyes, concentrated, and listened as hard as he knew how. The wind picked up and thrummed through the chinks between the rocks, but there no one spoke.

  Maybe he had imagined it. That made a lot of sense. He had been walking for a long time in the hot sun and stupid Martok hadn’t given him enough to drink. What did a Klingon know about a Ferengi’s fluid-replacement needs, anyway?

  The wind whistled again and Pharh felt himself trying to make it sound like someone was saying something, but it refused to cooperate. If I die out here, I’m going to track Martok from the Divine Treasury to wherever the Klingon afterlife is and … and … He struggled with possibilities. Kicking Martok in the rear end seemed like a bad idea even in the afterlife. If there was an after-afterlife, a Klingon could probably send him there.

  Pharh p
outed. He knew he should try to get out from under there, squeeze the water out of his pants and into the bottle, then try to find his way back to the road. If he followed it, eventually he would make it to the First City. Then he would try to figure out if Martok was still alive, and if he was, he’d get some money from him—if he was chancellor again, a lot of money—and then, and then …

  Pharh sighed, then twisted to the side to try to make himself more comfortable, which was almost impossible in such a tight space. Feeling a sharp pain in his side, he wiggled his fingers into an inner pocket and withdrew the object that was attempting to insinuate its way into his kidney through his epidermis. The ring, Martok’s ring. Damn him, anyway, Pharh thought, then shoved the water container out of the way. It wasn’t quite dark, but neither was it bright daylight. Crawling out, he looked about and decided it was sunset or maybe sunrise. Sunset would be better, he knew. If it was sunrise, he was in trouble. Too damned hot and too much time gone by.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” someone said. “You’ve been hard to find.”

  Pharh turned around and saw that there was a figure perched on a small pile of rocks. It was difficult to be certain, but he was fairly sure it was the same hooded figure he had seen in the alley … how many days ago now? Two? Three? It was difficult to remember. The oddest thing about his appearance was that Pharh felt absolutely no surprise at seeing him. “Really?” he asked. “I guess I’ve always been good at hiding.”

  “A valuable skill,” his visitor said, hopping spryly off the pile. “Something worth cultivating.”