Hell's Heart (22 page)

Forty-one

U
NSUNG
C
OMPOUND

T
HANE

T
he highest point in the camp, the hill had served for decades as the community's burial mound. Klingons elsewhere thought little about how they disposed of bodies; once the spirits departed, there was no need to treat empty shells with any reverence. The practice on Thane was different. Corpses invited disease, and life on Thane was dangerous enough already. Further, the early settlers suspected that a dishonored soul bound for Gre'thor might leave behind remains more odious than most.

The mound had been built with the dead shoved into unmarked holes and quickly forgotten. Valandris had never known anyone to willingly visit the Hill of the Dead—until the Fallen Lord's spacecraft had simply appeared there one day, a little over a year before.

There was no magic to it, she was certain; Potok had insisted that the later-generation exiles remain educated about science and technology. They knew what cloaking devices and transporters were, even if they had never encountered any. But once he'd convinced the residents of Omegoq of his identity, the Fallen Lord took the Hill of the Dead as his home, erecting a simple three-room hut there. Since then, it had been their temple. Many times she and her fellow residents had gathered on its slopes, hearing him tell of the greatness that could be theirs. He had turned them from the galaxy's flotsam into the Unsung. And he would do more for them yet.

Even being one of the Fallen Lord's favorites, Valandris had to admit it was unnerving to be called there alone. She walked
the worn path up to the front steps of the hut and prepared to strike the small gong hanging next to the door.

The door opened before she could act, and the smell of burning incense wafted out. A tiny Klingon woman appeared, holding a small burner. Wearing an ocean blue gown with a hood that completely covered her hair, the willowy female only came up to Valandris's shoulders. But when her deep golden eyes looked out from beneath the cowl and locked on the warrior, the intensity of her gaze nearly caused Valandris to take a step back.

“The mighty Valandris,” the woman said, her voice somewhere between a whisper and a chant. “Soarer of the skies, death in the night. You have returned to us.”

“Yes, honored N'Keera.” Valandris bowed her head. “All praise to your lord.”

“He is your lord too. He will be lord of all.” As she spoke the words over the burner, her breath caused the escaping smoke to balloon and billow.

“And we will rise with him.”

Since Valandris had known her, N'Keera had always spoken in mantras and riddles. She was thought by many to be the Fallen Lord's spouse; she never seemed to leave the door to his home. But the more superstitious said she was something else: a shaman of some kind, whose powers kept their lord young. It was hard to tell how old N'Keera was. Some days, she looked twenty; others, she appeared closer to her lord's age—or older, if that was possible.

It didn't matter: it was all part of her mystique. N'Keera had simply appeared one day, stepping out from the wooden hut; other minions of the Fallen Lord had come and gone the same way. Valandris and her companions were sophisticated enough to figure they were probably transporting in and out of the hut from vessels in orbit, although she had never noticed any ships during her recent trips offworld. However, there was no denying the net effect on the locals.

The Hill of the Dead felt as if it held real magic now. If N'Keera was the Fallen Lord's oracle, that made her the oracle of the Unsung too.

“Congratulations on your hunt,” N'Keera said. “He followed your progress. You appear to have carried out the executions exactly as he desired.”

“Justice was served.” The members of Valandris's expedition had been provided detailed dossiers on all the Gamaral ceremony attendees, so they would know for sure whom to kill—and whom not to. “We did not harm the one he said to avoid.”

“The
gin'tak
was blameless in their crimes. Our lord's justice is not indiscriminate. I will tell him your news when he is available. For now, he is in repose.”

Valandris had known that often to be the case, given his advanced age—but the answer still startled her. “He deserves his rest. But I was told he had called for me.” She paused, suddenly concerned. “Is he displeased?”

“He has a question for you. He wants to know why you took Worf—when your instructions were only to deliver Kahless.”

She was prepared for this. “Because he is like us,” Valandris said. “He belongs with the Unsung.”

“Now you recruit? You presume much.”

“Worf should be one of us, N'Keera. The Empire took away his name.”

“And it gave it back.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you want, Valandris?” N'Keera focused on the burner dangling from her hand on a chain. “Is that what following our lord is about? You were cast out like a cur, and now wish to scratch at the door and be allowed in by those who passed judgment on you?”

“I don't . . .” As Valandris struggled to find a response, the burner N'Keera was holding suddenly burned hot and bright.

“You could say something else to the Empire,” N'Keera said,
lifting the burner high into the air by its chain. “You could say, ‘How dare they?' You could make them pay.”

Valandris was still nodding when N'Keera turned back inside the hut. “Return to Worf,” she said. “Our lord will rule on him soon.” The wooden door closed tightly behind her.

•   •   •

Peeking through the door into the anteroom, the other occupant of the hut smiled at the job his assistant had done and returned to his chair. No, none of the Unsung would question the word of N'Keera, High Priestess of the Fallen Lord. She represented him, and his word was law.

In the year since his arrival on Thane, that had been his primary goal, without which nothing else would be possible. Valandris and all the other warriors of the colony would have to believe in him and in those who represented him—­completely and absolutely.

Fortunately, he was in the belief business.

To make them believe, he had to believe too. He
was
who they thought he was. He
was
the legend. He lived it. He lived
in
it. So many people in his circle failed in their enterprises because they refused to really inhabit the worlds they'd created. Not him. The room practically sang of who he was.

While Valandris had never been inside, he was certain it was exactly the sort of place she imagined it would be: a sanctuary for a fallen Klingon whose spirit had rekindled and now burned anew, ablaze with ideas for the future.

The only discordant note was in his hand. He manipulated the ancient playing cards with his fingers, agilely intercutting them again and again. He had obtained them from someone who had brought them from Earth; the Terrans had used them primarily for games. Some still did, he understood—but he was about more than games, and manipulating them helped him focus. Kings and queens, hearts and diamonds: power, love, and wealth. Everything important in the universe, encapsulated in paperboard.

The woman reentered. “She is gone.”

“I heard it all.” He didn't know what his offworld partner would think about Valandris's reasoning for abducting Worf, but that wasn't his worry.

His aide passed close enough by that she drew his attention away from the cards; she was good at that, even when dressed as his oracle. He idly tumbled the cards back and forth in his hand. “You know,” he said, “there's only one joker in this deck.”

She looked over his shoulder. “What's a joker?”

“It's a card that can masquerade as another. Most decks have two.”

“No mystery there, Fallen Lord.” She smirked at him. “The other's on Qo'noS.”

Forty-two

F
rom some distance away, Worf had watched Valandris heading for the hill and the small building atop it. Her cousin Tharas had told him little about the place and its occupants, other than to provide a name and evince a certain reverence toward it. “The Hill of the Dead is only for those who are called.”

Tharas led Worf on a winding path through an intricate honeycomb of tents and wooden structures. Everywhere he attracted attention—but not so much as when he'd first arrived. The Unsung, as Valandris had called them, continued with their business.

Training and working on weapons, yes—but also carting about heavier munitions and explosive devices. Several small torpedoes appeared to be Klingon in manufacture, but all markings had been removed. The bald one-armed male he'd seen earlier was coordinating operations; Zokar, as Tharas called him, acted every bit the sure-handed supply chief. Wherever those supplies were coming from, the Unsung clearly seemed to be preparing for war. But with whom, he did not know—and while Tharas was more gregarious than Valandris, he would say nothing on the subject.

It was a marked contrast to when he had been to a Kling­­on exclave, separated by years and distance from the Empire. He'd visited a group of Klingons in Romulan custody who had forgotten their traditions. Worf had shared with them what it meant to be Klingon. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to do that with the Unsung. They understood
some
of the traditions; according to Tharas, General Potok had made sure they understood what discommendation meant. Perhaps that was the reason they seemed to define themselves in opposition to Klingons. He would not be able to win anyone over to the
rightness of Klingon morality when they knew it was that code that had damned them.

The other problem with trying to sway the Unsung had to do with their sheer numbers.

“How many are here?” Worf asked Tharas, hoping he'd get an answer this time.

“Fewer than there could be.” He started to count on his fingers. “Hemtara—she's mathematical—figured it out once. There were initially three hundred settlers here. Simply doubling the population each generation would make for a small city back on Qo'noS. Or so I'm told,” Tharas added tartly. “I've never been there. And we have not reached seven generations and regained our honor, under your accursed rules.”

“But this is no metropolis.”

“You've seen the dangers here,” Tharas said. “People are killed all the time. And many have refused to have offspring—Valandris among them.” His tone suggested he wasn't surprised about that choice. “I'm not sure there's more people now than there were a hundred years ago.”

“You have technology,” Worf said. “You could live better.”

“We would have—if our elders had ever let us use it.”

“But you are using it now.”

“Things have changed.” Tharas led him around the corner of one of the old freighters and pointed. “We're here. You wanted him, you've got him.”

Worf looked ahead—and couldn't believe the sight. Or the smell. A large circular trench, twenty meters in diameter, sat amid a clearing: a waste ditch of some kind. A ragged figure was down in the muck, staggering ahead step by arduous step, bearing the weight of a massive grimy yoke and the heavy dredging implement it was dragging. Chains ran from the yoke to a large iron pole implanted in the center island of the pit. An older villager stood in the middle, jabbing the enslaved worker below with a painstik to keep him moving. Chattering chil
dren rushed waste pails to the edge of the trench, where they emptied the foul contents in the unfortunate's direction.

“Kahless!” Worf charged forward, scaring and scattering the imps.

Behind him, Tharas seemed delighted. “How is he doing, Ralleck?”

“Terrible,” said the Klingon holding the prod. “Much worse than the animal he replaced. He'll be dredging for days before we can use this pit again.”

Kahless could only have been there for the hours since the ship had reached Thane, but the emperor looked as if he'd been toiling for days already. His neck and wrists were bloodied from where the yoke's collar and manacles had dug into his skin. Getting a running start, Worf vaulted over the trench onto the central platform, surprising the foreman. Worf lashed out with his left hand, deflecting the painstik—while using his right to deliver a jarring cross to Ralleck's jaw. The villager and his prod tumbled off into the trench, making a filthy splash.

Tharas fired a disruptor blast into the air. “Stop!”

Below, Kahless halted in the muck. Worf grabbed at the chains, yanking at them. “You will free him!”

“No.” Tharas fired again, this time just over Worf's head. He felt the heat and energy this time, and dropped the chain.

Looking at Kahless—his clothes already rags—Worf felt his friend's anguish. “You don't understand. He is the emperor. He is the walking incarnation of Kahless the Unforgettable.”

“Our lord told us all about him,” Tharas said, watching Ralleck scrambling out of the pit. “That Kahless is a clone. A fraud wrought on your people—some very gullible people, if you ask me.”

“Everyone knows he is a clone. He is emperor nonetheless.”

“Ridiculous. Our honor was stripped away at birth. His ‘honor' is manufactured, cooked in a stew pot. He repeats the words of Kahless like a trained animal.”

From behind Tharas, Worf saw Valandris approaching. “Something the matter?” she asked.

“Reunion,” Tharas said, gesturing to Worf on the central platform. “Can you get him to come off of there?”

“Not until you free Kahless,” Worf said.

Down in the trench, he heard Kahless's weary voice for the first time. “Don't . . . interfere, Worf,” he said with spite. “These people . . . need my help.
Filth generates filth.
”

Valandris looked tired. “Worf, it has been a long day. You must take food.”

“The emperor eats first.”

“Your ‘emperor' looks as if he's eaten enough for two ­lifetimes—but you have a deal.” She glimpsed into the pit and shook her head. “Once he's done with today's work, of course. He could use the exercise.”