Kahless.

by Michael Jan Friedman.

HISTORIAN'S NOTE

This story takes place in the eighth year of Jean-Luc Picard's command of the EnterpriseD-after the events chronicled in All Good Things ... and prior to those described in Star Trek Generations.

Michael Jan Friedman Port Washington, New York February 1996

PROLOGUE.

In ancient times, there was a road here.

But that was more than a thousand years ago, long after the end of the so-called heroic age. The rolling terrain had long since been claimed by flowering brush and snaking vines and a dense forest of gray-and-yellow-streaked micayah trees.

Which made it all the more difficult to excavate, thought Olahg, as he watched a half-dozen workmen finish clearing a stand of micayah with their hand tools.

They could have used disruptors, but this forest was prized by those Klingons who lived in the vicinity, and it wouldn't be a good idea to cut down any more of it than they absolutely had to.

The clerics of Boreth, of whom Olahg counted himself a member, had plied the High Council for years to obtain permission to dig here. If they hoped to excavate other sacred sites, other locations where Emperor Kahless had walked, it was critical that they treat this place with respect.

By the time the work crew was done with Olahg's appointed, twelve-meter-square plot, the micayah were gone. So were the mosses and shrubs and flowering plants that had grown in the s.p.a.ces between them. All that was left was the pungent smell of micayah sap, unraveling in the wakening breeze to the shrill protest of distant treehens.

The foreman of the crew stood up straight. Turning to Olahg, he grinned through his sweat and his long black beard. A Klingon's Klingon, he had a brow heavy with thick hornlike ridges.

"How's that, Brother? Clean enough for you? Or shall I cut the rest away with a dagger?"

The initiate swallowed, dismayed by the foreman's gravelly voice and broad shoulders. "It is clean enough," he confirmed, and watched the crew move to the next designated section, where another cleric awaited them.

Olahg sighed. He had never been one for confrontation.

Nor was he built for it, with his skinny limbs and his slight, fragile frame.

Certainly, that quality had not made his life easy. It had caused him to fall from favor with his father rather early in his youth, and all but ensured him a desk job in some deadly-dull Klingon bureaucracy.

Then, several months ago, Olahg had heard the Call.

He had hearkened to the small, insistent voice within, which had urged him toward the teachings of the legendary emperor Kahless.

It was the Call that had brought him to the planet Boreth and its shadowy mountain monastery, and placed him in the company of the other clerics. And it was the Call that had convinced him to spurn worldly things, embracing a life of pious contemplation instead.

Olahg had fully expected to spend the remainder of his worldly existence that way-sitting around a smoking firepit with his brethren, seeking visions in the scented fumes. He had grown comfortable with the prospect. He had even convinced himself that he was happy.

However, only a few weeks after his arrival on Boreth, the wisdom of Kahless began to lose its appeal. Or perhaps not the wisdom itself, but the rather austere way in which it was handed down to Kahless's disciples.

He came to long for a more personal relationship with the object of his admiration. He yearned for an audience with the great, glorious Kahless himself-or, failing that, the being made from Kahless's genetic material who had been named the Empire's ceremonial emperor a few years earlier.

But pet.i.tion as he might, Olahg could not seem to win such an audience. He was told time and again that Emperor Kahless was too busy, that his duties kept him away from Boreth-though when that changed, he would surely visit the monastery.

When he could find the time.

Even though it was in that monastery that the clone had been created. Even though it was the community of clerics on Boreth to whom the emperor owed his very existence.

The idea was a festering wound in Olahg's soul. He couldn't sleep for the ingrat.i.tude of it, the injustice-the need he couldn't seem to fill.

And the spiritual Kahless was no more accessible.

Though Olahg sat before the prayer pit until his face grew raw with its heat, no visions came to him. It was as if he had been abandoned, spurned by the icon of his faith as surely as he had been spurned by everyone else in his life.

Koroth, chief guardian of the monastery, had told him that Kahless was testing him, that the emperor had something special in mind for him. But as much as Olahg honored and respected Koroth for his insight, that was difficult for him to believe.

More and more, he felt alone, apart. And he came to resent the very personage he was supposed to worship.

Shaking his head, the initiate surveyed the patch of earth that had been cleared for him. The severed ends of stray micayah roots still stung his nostrils with their pungency. Later, the excavation teams would move in not only here, but in all those other places the ground had been cleared.

Then the digging would begin in earnest. For, according to the clerics" best guess, this was the area where the historical Kahless made camp on the long trek from his fortress to Sto-Vo-Kor.

Sto-Vo-Kor, of course, was the Klingon afterlife, to which Kahless disappeared after his death. It was a leap of faith to believe in such a place, but Olahg had done so wholeheartedly. At least, in the beginning.

The initiate knelt and picked up a handful of earth. It was rife with tiny bits of rock.

Was it possible that Kahless had really stopped at this spot and laid down his burden? That he had stretched out beneath the heavens here? Perhaps even spent his last night on Qo'noSo in this place, breathing the fragrant air and taking in the sight of all the stars?

Allowing the loose earth to sift through his fingers, Olahg stood and brushed off his palms. It would be difficult to find conclusive proof that Kahless had been in this spot. After all, nearly seventy-five generations had come and gone since. Even if such evidence had existed once, he doubted that it would have survived intact.

That was not the way a cleric was supposed to think. It was not the way of faith. But it was the way he felt right now.

The initiate was about to look for his colleague Divok, to see if it was time for the midday meal yet, when he saw something glint in the rising sunlight. He smiled at the irony. Here he had just been thinking about what they might unearth, and an artifact had already presented itself.

No doubt, it would turn out to be a sign from Kahless that Olahg's faith had been well-placed, and that the universe's cosmic plan would now be revealed to him. He grunted derisively. Yes-and after that, spotted targs would sing Klingon opera from the rooftops.

More likely, it was some piece of junk cast aside as someone strolled through these woods. Or maybe it was the tip of some bigger piece of garbage, discarded some years ago, when this forest wasn't quite so large.

At any rate, Olahg wasn't going to get his hopes up. Not by a long shot. He had done too much of that already.

Crossing the small, squared-off clearing, he saw that it was indeed a piece of metal that had caught the light. As he had suspected, it seemed to be the corner of something larger.

Olahg kicked at it, expecting the thing to dislodge itself from the ground. It didn't. It was too firmly anch.o.r.ed.

His curiosity aroused, he knelt again and dug around it with his fingers. It was hard work and it made his fingers hurt, but in time he exposed a bit more of the object. It looked like part of an oblong metal box.

Getting a grip on the box with both hands, he tried a second time to move it, but it still wouldn't budge. So he dug some more. And some more again, as the morning light grew hotter and more intense.

Little by little, making his hands raw and worn in the process, he came that much closer to unearthing it. Bit by bit, it revealed itself to him.

He could see there were symbols carved into it. Ancient symbols, he thought, though he didn't have the knowledge to confirm that. But they certainly looked ancient.

Or was it just that he wanted them to look that way?

That he wanted this box to be of some significance?

As his fingers were cramping, he collected sticks and rocks from outside the clearing to use as tools. Then he set to work again. It took a while, but he finally scooped out a big enough hole to wrest the thing from the ground.

With an effort that made his back ache and strained the muscles in his neck, he heaved and heaved and eventually pulled it free. More curious than ever, he laid the thing on its side and inspected it.

It was about a half-meter long, made of an alloy he had never seen before, and covered with the markings he had noticed earlier. The metal was discolored in some spots and badly rusted in others, but all in all it was remarkably well preserved.

That is, if it was anywhere near as old as it looked. And, the initiate reminded himself, there was no guarantee of that.

He picked it up and shook it. It sounded hollow. Yet there was something inside, something that thumped about.

Turning it over, Olahg saw what might once have been a latch. Unfortunately, over time it had rusted into an amorphous glob. He tried to pry it open with his fingers, but without success. Finally, he picked up one of the rocks he had gathered-the biggest and heaviest of them-and brought it down sharply on the latch.

It crumpled. The box opened a crack.

Only then did it occur to the initiate that he might be overstepping his bounds. After all, this excavation was to have been an organized effort.

But he had come too far to stop now. With tired, trembling fingers, he opened the box the rest of the way.

There was a scroll inside. Like the box, it was not in the best condition. It was brown and brittle at the edges, fading to a dark yellow near the middle. And the thong that had held it together was broken, little more than a few wisps of dried black leather now.

Olahg licked his lips, which had suddenly become dry.

A scroll was mentioned in the myth cycle, was it not? It was said that Kahless had left his fortress with such a thing in his possession.

But for it to have survived the long, invasive ages since?

The seeping rainwater, the corrosive acids in the soil?

Was such a thing possible?

Then he remembered-the work crew had torn apart the surface of the forest floor, along with the mica " vah.

There might have been something-some rock, perhaps-protecting the box and its contents from the elements. Still, he didn't know if that could be an explanation or not. He was not a scientist. He was a cleric.

Carefully, ever so carefully, Olahg picked up the scroll and unrolled it. Fortunately, it didn't go to pieces in his hands. It was still supple enough to reveal its secrets to him.

The thing was written in a bold, flowing hand. However, it was upside down. Turning it around, he held it close and read the words inscribed in it.

The first few words gave him an indication of what the rest would be like-but he couldn't stop there. He felt compelled to read more of it, and even more than that, stuck like a fish on a particularly cruel and vicious spear.

For what words they were! What terrible words indeed!

The initiate's heart began to pound as he realized what he had stumbled on. His eyes began to hurt, as if pierced by what they had seen.

For if it was true-if the scroll was indeed what it purported to be-this was the work of Kahless the Unforgettable. Yet at the same time, it was the greatest blasphemy Olahg could imagine. He looked around, to make sure no one had seen him reading it.

No one had. The other clerics were all tending to their own sections. He could barely see them in their robes through the intervening forest.

He had to put the scroll back in the box. He had to make sure it was never seen. Not by anyone, ever.

Or ... did he? The initiate swallowed, allowing his eyes to feast again on the scroll and its contents.

Certainly, one could call it blasphemy to let this get out. But it might be a greater blasphemy not to.

If this was the authentic word of Kahless, should it not be given a voice? Should it not be heeded, as the emperor no doubt intended-for why else would he have written it?

Olahg hesitated for a moment, his head feeling as if it would burst like a caw'va melon left in the sun. He had never in his life had to make this kind of decision. Nor was he likely to again.

Peace? Or truth? His hands clenched into fists. He pounded the ground on either side of the open scroll, hoping for an answer, wishing one would be handed down to him.

And then he realized ... it already had been. He had been allowed to find the thing. He had been given a gift.

And a gift, he had been taught, should never be wasted.

Rolling up the scroll, he secreted it in the folds of his robes. Then he walked away from the cleared patch of earth, through the still-dense forest of micayah trees.

None of the other clerics noticed. No one stopped him.

A sign that he was doing the right thing, Olahg inferred.

If he travelled quickly, without rest, he could make it to the city by morning.

The Modern Age The volcano shot glorious red streamers of molten rock high into the ponderous gray heavens. But that was just the first sign of its intentions, the first indication of its fury.

A moment later, in an angry spasm of disdain for the yellow and green plant life that grew along its black, fissured flanks, a tide of hissing, red lava came bubbling over the rim of the volcano's crater. The tide separated into rivers, the rivers into a webwork of narrow streams-each one radiating a horrible heat, each one intensely eager to consume all in its path.

In the distance, thunder rumbled. At least, it appeared to be thunder. In fact, it was the volcano itself, preparing to heave another load of lava out of the scorched and tormented earth.

The name of this severe and lonely place was Kri'stak.

It was the first time the volcano had erupted in nearly a hundred years.

A Klingon warrior was making his way up the volcano's northern slope, down where the rivers of spitting, bubbling lava were still few and far between.

The warrior wore a dark leather tunic, belted at the waist and embossed with sigils of Klingon virtues. The shoulders of the garment were decorated with bright silver circlets. On his feet, he wore heavy leather boots that reached to midthigh; on his hands, leather gloves reinforced with an iron alloy.