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Paramount Pictures.
 

SNAKECHARMER
 
 

There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him...

Pursuit; Sylvia Plath.

                                        1.

Now that so long a time has passed, and the principal protagonists can
no longer be affected by the truth - a conceit in which my friend so
ironically never believed - I feel that the time has come to let the
world know what happened at Issenara, all those years ago.  My medical
work on DS9 is long gone into the past, and yet it seems as vivid as
though it happened yesterday.  Perhaps, in comparison with the span of a
soul, it did.  Garak would not begrudge me this last footnote to our
lives, I am sure of that; though time and distance and perhaps even the
last great boundary of death separate us now, what we had still endures,
in memory, and in the heart.
 

                                        2.
 

  'Have you ever told him the truth?'  The voice over the comlink was as
soft as snow, and colder.  Reining in his temper, the tailor said
  'Once again, your appreciation of the political niceties leaves much
to be desired.  Obviously, I haven't told him the truth, nor have I told
your daughter.  I've kept to the part of the story that you were willing
for me to tell.'  For a moment, his voice betrayed a wintry sadness.
  'Well,' Dukat said, silkily.  'Perhaps it's best that he doesn't know
the real reason for such a long hatred.  After all, it doesn't put you
in a very good light, does it?  I don't suppose you'd want him to know
about Issenara, and what happened there, for example.  I don't think
they approve of that sort of thing in the utopian confines of the
Federation, and I suspect that a member of the medical profession might
find it more than a little distasteful.'
  'What happened at Issenara,' the tailor said, as lightly  as he could
'was not my responsibility alone.  Why bring this up now, Dukat?  What
did you want to say to me?'
  'Political pressures, Garak, have become something of a priority of
late.  People are suggesting that your presence on Terok Nor is no
longer desirable or useful.  There have even been suggestions that you
might be - withdrawn.  I'm afraid I'd be most reluctant for that to
happen.'
  'That surprises me.'
  'I'm an honourable man, and for the sake of what we once had, I feel
it only reasonable to give you warning.  Besides, there's always the
possibility that someone else might kill you before I get the
opportunity.  Now that Tain is dead, and the protection that certain
other people have been willing to extend to you is no longer extant, it
seems you've become fair game at last. So I'm issuing iranahar on you; a
ritual penalty, for all those of my family you've wronged and betrayed,
and for myself.'
Rage lay like iron in his voice.
  'You already know the time and the date, I hope.  I'm sure you can
guess where I have in mind for a duelling ground.  End of transmission.'
and the comlink shrank to a point of light.  Numbly, Garak sat staring
into the empty screen, and the years fell away.

He was back at Issenara, with the pale light dying over the hills and
winter on the way.  He heard a step behind him and smiled; hands rested
lightly on his shoulders and a voice spoke his name into his ear.  He
bowed his head, to hide the smile.
  'You're early,' he murmured.
  'Perhaps I couldn't wait.'
  'Perhaps you're over-confident of your welcome,'  Garak said, but his
hands crept up to enclose the fingers that still clasped his shoulder.
  'Oh, I don't think so.  I think you just enjoy playing games.'
Garak felt the other man's breath warm against his throat .
  'It's growing cold,' the voice murmured.  'You shouldn't be standing
out here, Elim...evening's coming on.  And we have a little time...'

It was over thirty years ago now, and the tailor could still feel the
wet wood of the balcony railing beneath his hands, and the chill in the
air.  It sometimes seemed to him, in the nightmare dark, that this had
been the last day of his life; that everything after that had been no
more real than a dream conjured from hatred and despair, and underneath
it all, there was still desire.  He glanced at the clock and sighed.
Banality intervened: he had agreed to meet Ziyal for lunch.  It seemed
to him the final irony, that he should court the goodwill of Dukat's
daughter, after all that had gone between her father and himself, as
though the same game was played out with the same cast, taking slightly
different roles.  Enough, he told himself, enough.

Ziyal was waiting for him in the Replimat.  She smiled when she saw him,
and rose to place her palm against his own.
  'My dear,' he said.  'How are you?'
  'I'm fine' she replied.  She was gazing at him, and with unease he
recognised that light in her eyes.  She was so like her father, in
ways.  He ignored it, saying only
  'It's crowded in here, today, isn't it?'
  'I was lucky to find a seat.  Shall  I order?  What would you like?'
Absently, he ordered something.  The girl was chattering on, but he was
once more lost in memory, sudden and compelling.

*Issenara again, and Dukat's hand around a glass, twirling the stem so
that the wine caught the fire, glowing as green as a spring sky.  He had
drunk too much; he felt light headed and euphoric, and when he at last
raised his eyes from the glass he saw that Dukat had been watching him
all the time.*

  'Garak?  Did you hear what I said?'  Ziyal was mock-indignant.
'You're miles away.'
  'I'm sorry, my dear.  I was thinking about someone I used to know,'
the tailor said, and raised his glass to hers.
 

                                                3.

At first, I thought I was awake, for the dream seemed so real.  I was
standing on a terrace, gazing across the city.
  'What are you watching for?'
  'The signal, from the temple.  I want to know when he dies, even if I
can't be there with him.' I heard my own voice say.
  'Don't be bitter.  He wanted you to remember him as he was, not as he
is now.  He always does what seems right; some day you'll understand
that.'
  'I understand it now.  That doesn't mean I have to like it -' and I
shook her hand from my sleeve.  It should have been a darker day, I
thought, but somehow it was still summer and the city lay beneath a
glaze of heat.  A flock of birds spiralled up from the courtyard and
someone was singing in the street below.  It seemed so strange that
everything was going on as normal, but in a very short while he would be
dead, and I would have to go on living.  I stared down at my hands,
clenched so tightly on the carved stone of the balustrade that the
scales along my knuckles stood up in ridges.  I looked up, and smoke was
rising from the temple roof.

Then everything was dark again.  I was in my own bed, blinking, with the
hazy sense that my whole life had been taken from me.  I had been asleep
for only two hours and yet it seemed as though years had passed: a
lifetime in a night.  My mouth was as dry as an old bone.  I rolled out
of bed and went in search of water.  I had just retrieved a glass from
the replicator when there was a transmission from Dax, with news of the
unauthorised release of a shuttle and who had taken it, and all thoughts
of the dream evaporated as I pulled on my uniform and raced down to the
docking bay.
 

                                                4.

Now that the summons had come at last, Garak found that he was
relieved.  In the event that he would not return from Issenara, he had
written a letter to Bashir.  It would, he hoped, explain matters.  He
had taken an almost sensual pleasure in the confession; it was a
release, after all this time, to relate his side of the story.  There
was no future for Bashir and himself, he knew, but the torment of living
with so much unsaid between them was becoming increasingly difficult to
endure.  Besides, the past would have to be paid for some day; better
now, perhaps, than later.   The place to which he travelled had been
waiting for many years; reaching beyond his disgrace and exile.

*Dukat*, he thought, staring out at the distant stars.  *Well, we were
all of us different people then*.  Issenara had changed him, forming the
crucible in which Tain's son had been tempered and alchemically
transformed.  Dukat's voice echoed in his head, the words spoken in
their last private transmission: *So the old man's dead at last.  I
thought he'd never go, Elim.* And then Dukat had laughed. *But then, how
could you tell?  He's been dead for years, in every way that mattered.*

He could almost sense Tain standing behind him: a shiver in the air, his
father's hands resting on his shoulders, and then it was real.  He sat
very still, not even daring to breathe, until a familiar voice said
  'Should have checked your transporter readings, shouldn't you?'
  'Julian,' the tailor said, flatly.  Bashir seemed very pleased with
himself; with that trace of delight in his own cleverness that had
become more evident since he learned about his own genetic modification.
  'Dax beamed me in from the Defiant.  I couldn't let you go off on your
own.  Who knows what might have happened?'
Silently, the tailor rehearsed possible conversations: you shouldn't
have come/put yourself in danger for me/you don't understand...
He did not realise that he had breathed the last words aloud until
Bashir said fiercely
  'If I don't understand, it's because you never *tell* me anything.
Whatever you've done, don't you think I'd make the effort to comprehend
it?  I saved your life, and at that time I suspected God knows
what...that you were the possible murderer of children, that you'd been
one of the butchers of Bajor.  And what do I know now?  That you were a
state torturer.  That the head of one of the most brutal secret services
in the galaxy was your father. That you'd cheerfully have killed a
nineteen year old girl if she'd shown the faintest sign of being your
enemy.  That you were probably responsible for the deaths of a whole
flock of Romulan diplomats. That you'll commit murder without a qualm
and attempt genocide with not much more than that.  Elim, how much worse
can it be?  If you have any more horrors in your closet, they'd better
be good ones.'
Against all the odds, the tailor smiled.
'I'll try not to disappoint you,' he murmured, and would say no more.
 
 

                                        5.

I sometimes think now that it amused Garak to be interrogated; as if by
turning the tables on him I was in some way making our relationship more
equal.  But if he wanted me to know some aspect of his character or
past, I reflected as the stars of Cardassian space sped by, he would
have to tell me himself, freely.  I got the impression that he realised
this, and that it rather annoyed him; I certainly hope it did.

He made me regain some of my interrupted sleep while he flew the
shuttle, but I found it difficult to relax.  Visions seemed to swim out
of the halflight before my uncomprehending gaze: a low building among
trees, strangely Japanese in its contours.  There was the smell of rain,
and beneath that, something else: the iron scent of blood.  It lasted
for only an instant but, like my earlier dream. it was very real.  I
rose from the crash couch and made my way to the piloting cabin.
  'You ought to rest,' the Cardassian said, without looking round.
  'I can't sleep,' I said, adding by way of explanation 'Uneasy dreams.'
  'You learn to live with those,' he said bleakly.
  'I'd prefer not to.'  Briefly, I related the dream and glanced up to
find that he was looking at me with something that could have been
fear.  'Garak?  Is it a real place?  do you know where it is?'
  'It's a place called Issenara, on a world named Carcenar.  I was -
stationed there, a long time ago now.'
'Why are you going back?'
There was a very long pause.
  'Because someone has issued iranahar to me.  It's a kind of ritual
obligation.'
  'What sort of obligation?  A duel?'
  'Not quite as straightforward as that.  Literally, it means a passage
of the soul, a rebalancing.  When one has betrayed another person, the
latter has the right to call iranhar, to place matters back into
harmony.  It dates back to Hebitian times, though the form of it has
changed somewhat over the centuries.'
  'What exactly does it entail?'
  'If you don't mind, I'd rather not discuss it,' the Cardassian
replied, with finality.
  'Very well,' I said, a little stiffly, and turned my attention to the
flight plans.  Something was strange: we had been travelling for a good
few hours, and yet were only just on the borders of Cardassian space.
Then, I realised.
  'We're heading for the station.'
  'I know.  I'm taking you back.'
  'You can't do that!'
  'I don't recollect inviting you to accompany me, Doctor.  This is
something that I have to do alone.  I'm afraid that you will not be
paying a visit to the place of your dreams after all...' - but in this,
he was wrong.

The ship came up on us so quickly that I barely glimpsed it on the
scanners before it was hovering before us: one of the big cobra headed
Galor-class warships.
  'Company,' Garak said softly.  He did not seem particularly surprised.
  'They're hailing us.  They want to send someone over.'
  'All right.'
The blue light of a transporter beam flared briefly throughout the cabin
and then Dukat's unpleasantly familiar voice was saying
  'Garak.  Ah, and Doctor Bashir, too.  What a pleasure.'
Despite all my efforts to control it, I felt the fear rise in my
throat.
  'Dukat,' I said.
 

                                        6.

  'A charming young man,' Dukat said, an hour later, when they were
installed in the commander's quarters of the warship.  He had dismissed
the guards, but Garak knew that they stood within easy reach outside the
door.  His enemy leaned back in his seat, stretching an arm across the
back of the couch.  Garak had forgotten that tendency of his, but now he
recalled how Dukat had always spread himself around, long legs extended
in front of him, arms draped over a chair.
  'Who?'
  'Bashir, of course.'  Dukat regarded his old enemy indulgently.  'Who
did you think I meant?  None of my aides qualify, unfortunately.  You
always did have impeccable taste,' he concluded, rather smugly.
  'With momentary lapses.'
  'Yes...there was that girl in Rohanin Province, I seem to recall.  Not
really your type...otherwise you've been remarkably consistent.  They've
got that holodeck on Terok Nor now, haven't they?  Do you find that
satisfies your appetites, or is it too -well, understimulating?'
  'I don't use it a great deal.'
  'The young doctor...' Dukat mused.  'I've always presumed it was the
case, but I've learned with you never to take anything for granted.  Are
you lovers?'
  'Is it important?'
  'Perhaps it is, to me.'
Even now, after all that had passed between them, Dukat still could not
resist the urge to seduce, Garak reflected. All those old wiles...Since
the day of his sentence to exile, his only personal interactions with
Dukat had been in public, and had of necessity been acrimonious.  Their
relayed communications had been too brief to count.  He had not
forgotten Dukat's charm, though the memories had diminished a little
down the years; he remembered now how it had warmed him.  Dukat's eyes
were paler now than they had been, but the promises that lay behind them
had not dimmed.
  'Dukat,' he said, expecting further scorn, but his adversary said only
  'I've missed you.'
Garak stared at him.  That sudden capacity to disarm: he had forgotten
that, too.
  'I should like to think, Elim, that you believed in what you were
doing.'
  'I never failed to believe.'
  'No, that was your problem...always the apparatchik, never
questioning, always following orders with your usual zeal.  I despised
you after Issenara.  I didn't think there might be greater betrayals in
store.'
  'I only ever betrayed you once.'
  'Oh, no,' Dukat said, bleakly.  'Over and over again.'

                                        7.

Had Dukat imprisoned him? I wondered, alone in the locked room that had
been assigned to me.  Was he even now undergoing the same interrogation
that he had meted out to others?  Was Dukat the issuer of the
challenge?   It had to be Dukat, I thought.  They had always seemed to
me to be linked: entwining one another in an unimaginably complex skein
of histories and duplicities and deaths, drawing us all into their
dance.

Garak had once told me of a Cardassian belief, shared by many races,
that it's necessary to embrace the shadow in order to become fully
real.  I once read an account of an ancient Hebitian practice, in which
the apprentice shaman spends the night among the burial pyres of the
dead, and as dawn comes he must wrestle with the physical representation
of his deepest fear, and overcome it before the sun rises. It is
depicted as the worst magic of all, the most terrifying, and yet the
conquering of our terrors is something that we all must face. Dukat and
Garak: each the shadow of the other, it seemed to me then.

Kira would never talk about the Gul, as though the name was poison on
her tongue, and I had no idea what had passed between them, yet somehow
I understood.  She was Bajor to him: that whole raped world, and even if
all the kais themselves lined up to pay him undue forgiveness, he would
not consider it enough until he won her over.  In this he was severely
deluded: Kira would never forgive, it had been burned out of her.  But
what of myself and my own fears, my own forgiveness?  I was not afraid
of death, but of illness and pain; I had fought these all my life, and
the thought of deliberately injuring another person was anathema to me.
And now, I realised in the quiet dim light on that Cardassian warship, I
loved someone to whom that worst of all possible deeds was no more than
part of the job.  I had spent years fighting that love, telling myself
that it was no more than a delusion, that it would never work however
hard we strove, and now I could not deny it any more.  It was no longer
a question of whether I loved Elim Garak, but of how I could continue to
live with myself now that was so.

Then the door opened and Garak stepped through.
  'Carcenar,' he said.  I looked out of the viewport and there it was
below: a marbled world, our future.

                                        8.
 
We landed on one of the northern continents of Carcenar; coming in, I
glimpsed high spines of rock snaking up from a long broken coastline,
their summits crowned by glaciers which, from so high up, resembled
nothing more than frost across patterns in the sand.  I watched as the
world unscrolled beneath us.  The Cardassians had barely acknowledged my
existence; it was though I did not exist.  The door of my quarters
remained locked until we reached the envelope of atmosphere and I was
released under guard to take my place for landing.  Dukat spent most of
his time engaged in conversation with Garak, a discourse to which I was
not invited. They were speaking Cardassian, having over-ridden the
translators, and I could make nothing of that sibilant tongue.  Dukat's
manner had undergone a subtle change in the presence of the tailor.  The
posturing contempt had altered into something altogether more
ambivalent: dislike tinged with an exasperation that could almost have
been mistaken for  affection.  And yet if Dukat had challenged him to
some sort of penalty, this made little sense.  I did not know enough of
Cardassian behaviour, even now, and less of the complexities of Kardesi,
its tonal subtleties.  I could not tell when ostensible hatred betrayed
regard, or even desire.  They seemed to be retreating from me moment by
moment.  Sighing, I turned my gaze to the window and watched this new
world fall up to meet us.

                                        9.

Bashir was uncharacteristically silent during the short trip down to the
planet.  Garak noticed this, and it worried him, but he was compelled to
dismiss it.  He hoped the young man had not picked up on Dukat's
continuous verbal sleights.  It was typical of Dukat, he thought
bitterly; even now he was unable to let anything go, jealous of what no
longer concerned him.  That had been the problem all along, of course;
that constant demanding possessiveness, coupled with a need for
adoration no matter what abuse might be doled out along the way.  Dukat
honestly could not understand why Garak no longer worshipped him; talk
about divine arbitrariness, the tailor reflected.  Isn't one supposed to
love a god, no matter what atrocities the object of one's devotions
might  commit? *He genuinely despises me* the tailor thought.  *He's
never forgiven me, for betraying him.  He intends to kill me, and yet he
expects me to forgive him, and love him just the same.*  He glanced
covertly at Dukat as they made their way across the landing pad; for a
moment his fury burned away and he thought only  *You were so
beautiful.  You still are.*

They had seemed so bound to one another, all those years ago: opposites,
the same.  The silent young man in the shadows, preferring subtlety and
subterfuge, and the other: all bravado and glory and sunlight.  That was
before Issenara, before the dust and filth of Bajor, before Naprem and
Dukat's father's execution, and now they were back to the beginning
again.  Issenara lay before them across the launch pad.  It seemed a
little smaller now, the trees had grown around it, but the cool damp air
was the same, and so was the darkness beneath the sapera leaves.

                                        10.

  'What is this place?'  I asked in an undertone, as the door closed
behind us, leaving us to our imprisonment.  It was very quiet; an
ominous silence, as though something was waiting just around the
corner.  Garak did not reply for a moment, then he said
  'It used to be one of the Order retreats.'
  'What was it used for?' I  asked, though I did not particularly want
to hear the reply.
  'Oh...conferences, political debates.  Like a sort of a lodge.'
Even now, I couldn't tell from his manner when he was lying to me, I
thought in despair, only from the words.  When you work in medicine, you
have a sixth sense for pain; it is as though it reaches out and touches
you, and Issenara reeked of it.
  'Doctor?' he said, gently.
Even now, I have difficulty concealing my thoughts; what I feel shows in
my face.
  'And what else was it used for?' I asked, and I could no longer hide
my disquiet.  Garak said nothing.  'Torture?  Interrogation?'
  'Julian, you are not my conscience, and I would be grateful if you
would credit me with the wit to understand the consequences of my own
actions.  When all's said and done, you remain my friend of your own
free will.  I ask myself, as usual, why.
You should know by now that something is bound to be revealed which you
find personally disquieting.  Yet you still persist.  You and Dukat,' he
snapped suddenly.  'You're so alike.'
The accusation was so ludicrous that I simply gaped at him.
  'It isn't me, is it, that's so appealing?  Not my own flawed,
compromised self, but your idea of what I should be.  You think, in your
arrogance, that you can save me, be my redeemer.  What had you in mind,
Doctor?  Presenting me as a model of reformed Cardassia to your
Starfleet colleagues?  "You see before you a murderer and a torturer and
a spy, but I've set an example to him and through my wise guidance he's
seen the error of his ways?"  You have no idea what or who I am, have
you?  You have no idea.'
I was too astonished, and perhaps too ashamed, to defend myself.  I had
never seen him so angry before, only once, after I had taken that wire
from his head.  And he was right.  I could not even begin to think what
he might have meant by that reference to Dukat.  The door opened and one
of Dukat's aides said
  'Elim Garak?  Gul Dukat wants to see you.'
  'I'll see you later,' the tailor muttered, and left the room.
 

                                        11.

Outside the house, the guard melted away, leaving Garak alone on the
balcony.  The observation device at the top of the perimeter fence
swivelled, keeping him beneath its electronic eye, but he had no thought
of trying to run.  Garak leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It
had needed saying, but he should have kept his temper.  He felt trapped
between the two of them: Dukat at one end of his life, Bashir at the
other, both with their demands and expectations that he had no hope of
fulfilling.  He had always known that one or other of them would kill
him in the end.  They both asked so much, he thought, in a moment of
self pity.  Dukat's words echoed in his head:
'Of course I understand what the evidence means, Elim, I know what it
looks like.  And maybe you're right, maybe my father has been - dealing
- with these people.  But you'll overlook that, won't you?  For the sake
of what was once between us?'
- and Elim Garak had realised then, with the ice growing in his heart,
that Dukat still did not understand.
  'It's nothing to do with you,' he had tried to say.  'With us, or with
what we had.  Your father is a traitor.'

Dukat had never grasped the distinction between the personal and the
political, and Garak doubted whether Bashir did, either.  Sometimes you
have to do things that are directly the reverse of what you might
believe in; your beliefs aren't important, they are not the issue, they
are a luxury which the state cannot afford.  This was the basis on which
his respect for Sisko was founded, and his enduring respect for Tain.
He had followed the controversy surrounding Captain Yates at a distance,
but he had admired Sisko for what he had done, and understood it.  So
had Bashir, but when it came to Garak, the tailor was suddenly expected
to abide by another set of rules.  Wearily, he rubbed his eyes.

The past ebbed back, and he was once again the young man that he had
been when he first came to Issenara, before Tain had explained to him
what was to be done here.  Coolly, he had accepted that interrogation
would be a part of the practice.  It was distasteful but it was
necessary for the survival of the state and so he would do whatever was
required of him.  Would he make the same choice now, Garak reflected? He
probably would.  He still believed in Cardassia, after all; the first
and most enduring love.  As for the other choices he had made here,
well, they stemmed from more complex emotions.  He looked up and the
mountains were clear in the evening light, close enough to touch, and
above them the two stars shone: Erretsay and Issauth, the other planets
of the system.  Soon, other stars would rise: Genneret and Theremara and
Cardassia Prime itself.  If he had not gripped the railing, he felt, he
would have sunk to his knees.  He was home, if only for a little while.
And as it had been so many years before, he heard a footstep behind him
on the balcony and Dukat was there.

                                        12.

After he had gone, I sat down on the bed and berated myself for being a
fool.  Garak was right, I told myself in an agony of self abasement.  I
was smug, and self righteous and arrogant.  All the thoughts that had
come to me, back on the ship, returned to haunt me.  I didn't know
Garak, only my idea of what I thought he was and should become.  I'd
never really loved him for himself, and I knew that this hurt him,
because he had let me see it in his face. I didn't know exactly when I
had come to my realisation that there might be more to our relationship
than friendship, but somewhere along the way fascination had turned to
infatuation and desire. Now I was passing beyond that, into the more
difficult waters of regard and love, and perhaps it was already too
late.

                                        13.
 

  'It's been a long time, since you and I stood side by side, somewhere
we could call home,' the younger man said.
  'If we ever did.'
  'Do you still doubt my commitment to Cardassia?' Dukat asked,
incredulously.  'After all that I've done, all the sacrifices I've
made?'
  'All the risks you've taken for your personal position, rather.  I
don't want to go through this argument again; the meat's gone cold and
stale, and won't be improved by further chewing.  I've explained to you
time and time again the reasons for my actions; if you don't understand
by now, you never will.'
  'Elim,' Dukat said, softly.  'I know you think you did the right
thing...'
*Here it comes again*, thought the tailor.
  'And despite everything, however misguided you may have been, I might
be prepared to forgive you, if you were to offer the apology that you've
never been able to extend, for betraying my family and myself.  I know
in your heart you understand that you were wrong, and now that Tain is
dead we might be able to reach some form of accommodation with one
another.'
He turned, condescendingly, towards Garak and reached out to grip the
older man's upper arm in the traditional gesture of friendship.  So that
was it, Garak realised. Dukat had brought him here to win him back.
Regaining Garak's loyalty would be a greater victory than killing him.
If the tailor refused, as he was sorely tempted to do as a matter of
honour, how would Dukat react?  He found that he could face the prospect
of his own death with a reasonable degree of equanimity, but there was
Bashir to think of now, and he was unprepared to risk the doctor's life
as well.  He would play this new game with his customary skill, he told
himself; to save his own skin as well as that of Bashir, but even then
he knew that this was only part of the truth.   For in the dying light,
Dukat was once again  the young adjutant whom Garak had so greatly
loved, and before he knew it the tailor had stepped across the divide
and the years and taken Dukat in his arms.

                                        14.

I needed fresh air.  Walking over the window, I drew aside the parchment
blinds and found myself looking out across a wide stretch of twilight
woodland.  I could not see the walls that surrounded the fortress, only
the trees.  It was unlike anywhere I had ever called home: the leaves
were indigo and blue, like gazing across a sea of shadows.  On the
storey below the room ran a long balcony, on which two people now
stood.

It seemed that I had been waiting for this for a very long time: to see
him in someone else's arms, face buried in someone else's shoulder.  I
had left it too late and too long, and now I had lost him.  Somehow, I
was not surprised.  The constant verbal battling, the bitter hatred,
Dukat's fury over Ziyal: all of this had its roots in some early
treachery.  There is no enemy so hated as the one whom once you loved.
Dukat's challenge, I was suddenly sure, had been no more than a
subterfuge to bring Garak back.  Now that Tain was dead, and Garak
seemed to be reaching an intimacy with Dukat's own daughter, the Gul
must have thought that he could no longer afford to wait.  I could not
bear to watch any more. I turned back towards the room and there was no
more time to think.  The door opened and a guard entered, sliding
noiselessly from the shadows.  I felt the nauseating pulse of a
disruptor strike me in the side and then the room inverted itself as I
crumpled to the floor.
 

                                        15.
 

  'The trouble with you, Elim, that you've always been too cautious.
You don't have a proper sense of adventure...'
Dukat lounged back against the cushions, smiling, confident in his
ability to win over even the most stubborn adversary.  Garak, briefly
reflecting, found that he did not know what he felt about this most
unlikely reconciliation.  He had no doubt that their new truce would not
last, and there was still the ritual passage to go through; once issued,
it could not be recalled.  He sighed.  Even at the best of times, the
sparks had flown between himself and Dukat.   They were at once too
different and too similar for a lasting understanding.  Yet he might be
able to buy enough time to bargain for Bashir's life, he told himself,
trying to ignore the fire that Dukat's presence had once again ignited.
  'More wine?' Dukat said.
  'No, thank you.  I've had enough.'  It was early evening.  They had
been here in Dukat's private rooms for over an hour, and Garak found
himself being treated more as a guest than a prisoner.  He had been
offered the use of the baths, and a clean robe, and then wine.  Dukat
had always been magnanimous in victory.
  'Ah, Elim...always so temperate.'  The calculation was back in his
eyes.  'You always did prefer self-control.'
  'There's nothing wrong with that.'
  'I didn't say there was.  It's just that sometimes it inhibits one's
desires.  There's a time and a place for abandonment, after all.'  He
drained his glass and set it down on the table with finality, then rose
and came to stand over the tailor.
  'Iranahar,' Garak said, as lightly as he could.  'The penalty to be
paid.  What form were you considering?'
  'Tonight's ritual - that remains to be seen. But it's early yet.  I
have a different form of submission in mind, now,' and Dukat smiled.
Garak did not pretend to misunderstand him.   The wine, and the sudden
wave of desire, blurred his sight for a moment.  He did not trust
himself to stand.  He raised his eyes and met Dukat's predatory stare.
  'Elim,' Dukat said, very softly, and the tailor's breath caught in his
throat. Dukat's voice was laced with menace, out of the far past, when
their race had called their prey to them and brought it in for the
kill.  He could no more have resisted Dukat than the bird can break free
of the serpent's gaze, and more than anything now he wanted to die,
sinking into the languor of surrender beneath his lover's killing
hands.  The final release: all illusions fading into the descent of
night, all pain gone.   A hand curled around the back of his neck,
gripping the plated scales.  He could not look away.  Dukat's eyes
burned as pale as fire.  Garak tilted his head back against the painful
grip and bared his throat.  He barely heard Dukat's hiss of satisfaction
through the blood that roared in his head.  The sudden endorphin rush
took him like the kiss of the wire in those early days, before the sweet
edge had dulled with over-use, as Dukat's teeth met in the skin of his
throat.  If this was death, Garak thought dimly beyond the haze of
animal entrancement, it was worth the price.

Then Dukat was holding him close, and whispering in his ear; the last
and most dangerous language of all, the oldest language.  The sense of
Dukat's words did not matter; their meaning was contained in their tone
and all Garak heard was the sudden insidious gentleness.  The voice
whispered like the sea in his ears: just let go, nothing more, nothing
so easy as this...His back arched in submission and Dukat kissed him,
then licked the blood from his throat with an obscenely delicate
precision.  They lay like this for a long time, predator and prey in the
darkest dance of Cardassian desire. Garak felt Dukat's hands around his
neck, choking gently, slipping a little on the damp scales.  He sighed,
unresisting.

Irresistibly, he was reminded of that scene on the balcony above the
Promenade: Dukat's hands closing around his neck in rather different
circumstances.  It had excited him then, too; a fact of which Dukat had
been perfectly well aware.  Dukat relaxed on top of him, his scales
slipping over the smoother skin of Garak's stomach. Dukat had somehow
found the time to remove his own shirt  (*constant practice* the tailor
thought, in a brief return to awareness) and his skin gleamed like
gunmetal in the lamplight. Garak could not stop himself from sliding his
hands the length of his tormentor's body; exploring the cool, glassy
scales, the delicious contrast of hard ridges and silken skin.  He felt
Dukat's teeth close upon the plates of his neck in chastisement, a
tongue probing the sensitive crevices between.  The tide of pain ebbed
into memory and back again...all those long nights: Dukat's touch
eliciting pain and pleasure in equal proportions, feeding an addiction
which grew stronger by the day, so that even when sated he still craved
more and more. And now - it had been such a long time without
sensuality, without love.  He had always taken pleasure with ease and
grace; it had been his for the asking and during the first months of his
exile, when he had realised how alone he truly was, the loss had been
bewildering.  The sensation of Dukat's body against his was
overwhelming.   Garak closed his eyes, gasped as Dukat's hand slid down,
running his fingertips along Garak's flank, across his belly and then
the length of his erection, caressing lazily until the tailor
unwillingly cried out.
  'Oh, you like this, don't you?' Dukat's voice was raw.  'Don't you?'
Rolling over, he grabbed Garak by the wrists and forced him towards the
floor, then lay sinuously back against the couch.  The tailor drew a
deep, shaking breath but the spell still held.  Dukat's hand brushed
against the scales of his spine, causing them to rise and ruffle against
the trailing touch.  In the lamplight Dukat's eyes, half closed, still
shone.  He said languidly, as though this were no more than some casual
affair
  'You used to be rather good at this.  I hope you haven't lost your
touch,'
  'I'll manage.' The tailor finally found his voice.  Dukat cuffed him,
not gently, and forced his head downwards.
  'And don't talk.  Although even you should find it difficult to speak
and - ah.  That's better.'  His last words were a growl.  His nails
raked the soft and bloodstained skin of Garak's throat, sliding idly
down to caress the intricate patterns of breastplate and flank as the
tailor lost himself in the taste of the younger man's flesh.  It was
difficult to breathe, and the tailor broke away with a gasp to rest his
head against the cool skin of Dukat's belly.  He had not realised how
close to release Dukat must have been, for the latter snarled with
frustration and uncoiled from the couch.  With an efficiency presumably
born of years of experience, Dukat knelt behind him and slipped a
restraining arm around his waist, pulling the tailor back against him.
Garak, beyond shame, heard his own voice murmuring in entreaty.  The
scales of Dukat's chest and stomach grated against his back; he turned
his head so that their mouths met.  Dukat tasted of blood and wine;
intoxicated, he entwined Dukat's tongue with his own as the younger man
slid deep inside him.  Dukat did not bother to be gentle, but Garak had
long since ceased to care.  The deep, humiliating satisfaction of
penetration, combined with the caressing grip of Dukat's fingers, were
already taking him beyond pleasure.

Later, as the sweetness of his long climax faded, he rested his head on
Dukat's shoulder, almost dozing as exhaustion claimed him. The pain had
gone, leaving a heat deep within his muscles.   His lover's breath
rasped in his ear.
  'I'm not as young as I was,' Dukat admitted, in a moment of
uncharacteristic confession.  Evidently Garak's own submission had led
him to be charitable.
The tailor regarded him from a narrowed, sardonic eye.
  'You didn't do too badly.'
He and Dukat had never enjoyed a particularly affectionate relationship,
and Garak was amused to notice how quickly they fell back into old
habits, even under the present circumstances.  Dukat rose and began
pulling his uniform back on, while Garak watched him from the couch.
His lover still had that dancer's body: the long legs and the sleek
spine. The scales rippled down his back like water as he moved.  Such
grace, Garak thought, and it was the same as it had always been, wanting
more and more, never enough...
  'You still do that, you know,' Dukat said, over his shoulder.
  'What?'
  'Keep staring at me.'
  'Do I?' Garak said, carefully indifferent.  He fooled neither of
them.  Dukat gave him a slightly contemptuous glance.   Sex had always
conferred a certain sleek self-satisfaction upon the younger man and
this was in evidence now.
  'I think you've put on weight,' he said to the tailor.
  'Well, I am thirty years older than I was when we last did this; it
would be surprising if I hadn't changed to some degree.' Garak replied,
rather put out.
  'Actually, it suits you.  You were much too thin in those days; people
never knew what I saw in you.'  Dukat peered into the nearest mirror and
began combing his hair.
Thirty years, and it might have been a day, the tailor thought,
ruefully. Sighing, he retrieved his clothes.

 'D'you remember, that last night here?' Dukat murmured as the tailor
dressed.  'You seemed so desperate, then, like a man possessed.  You
made love to me as though you were saying goodbye: I wondered about it
at the time.  Later, of course, I realised why.  It was Tain, of
course.'
  'Tain explains a great many things.'
  'I've often wondered what else he made you do...What was it, a sort of
initiation?'
  'He wanted to make sure.'
  'Of you?'
  'Of me. Of his son,' Garak said.  Dukat stared at him blankly for a
moment, then sank back onto the couch.  His hand fluttered in negation.
  'Do you know, I never once suspected?  Never.  His protÈgÈ, yes, not
his son.'  He glanced at Garak uncertainly; with mild surprise, the
tailor realised that he was embarrassed.
  'You must have been, well, I wasn't aware that Tain had a legitimate
child -'
  'It was the one uncalculated move he ever made.'
  'He must have loved your mother very much,' Dukat said.  The tailor
smiled.  Even now, Dukat was incapable of understanding anyone's motives
save in terms of his own.
  'Ever the sentimentalist, Dukat.'
  'I'm surprised he didn't have you killed, though.  But I can
understand it.'
  'Naturally,' Garak said, dryly.
They sat in a mutually contemplative silence for a moment, then Dukat
said
  'Did he ever mention me?  Afterwards?'
  'No.  He remembered you only from - well, that business with the arms
merchants.'
  'Oh, that.'
  'But that was years later.  He never made the connection and I
certainly wasn't going to bring it to his attention.'  He smiled,
grimly.  'I must have saved your life a dozen times, simply by failing
to open my mouth.'
  'I suppose I should thank you,' Dukat said, doubtfully.  Then, in one
of his lightening non sequiturs he said  'Does Major Kira ever mention
me?'
  'I haven't the faintest idea.  We are hardly intimate.'
  'Pity. I'd like to know what she really thinks, beneath all that
conventional Battling for Bajor nonsense.  She wants me, of course;
she's a terrible flirt.'
Garak stared at him in honest amazement.
  'Dukat, given the choice between sharing her bed with a Retellian mole
viper and you, I would put good money on the former.'
  'Oh, that's just her way.  She's fighting it, naturally - feels it's
expected of her to despise me, but that's not what she really feels.  I
can tell.'
  'Mmm.'
  'You don't agree?' Dukat asked, surprised.
  'I think it somewhat unlikely.'
  'Why?  Well, you're jealous, I suppose.  But I'm not the only one to
have admirers, Garak.  That young doctor of yours...If all goes well,
and you come back to Cardassia Prime with me, I'm afraid you'll have to
leave him behind.'
Behind him, the tailor had become very still.
  'Coming back?'
  'Why not?  I've forgiven you; Tain's dead.  There's no reason why you
shouldn't come home.  You're under my protection now.'  He smiled at
Garak, quite kindly.  'Just as it was when we were young...Look, it's
almost midnight.  There are a few things I need to attend to, and then -
then, it will be time for iranahar.'

                                        16.

I could not seem to wake up, but it did not matter, for the darkness was
all around me, hot and heavy.  I heard a familiar, hated voice say
  'The cells were used primarily for interrogation, did you know that?
I think it's time we reinstated their use.'
I was being lifted and dragged across the floor.  I could feel the soft
earth beneath my fingertips, and then the scrape of stone.   Blindly, I
struck out but a kick caught me beneath the ribs and I collapsed panting
onto the floor.  The red heat of pain spread through me, stealing my
breath.  There was once again the smell of old blood, stifling in my
lungs, and that pervading sense of misery, and then the dark descended
and there was nothing more.

                                        17.

He knew, of course, that Dukat could not be trusted; there was no doubt
that this was no more than a cruel game, punishment for sins both real
and imagined.  At the same time, he felt that Dukat was also curiously
sincere in his forgiveness.  That was the trouble with the man, that
ever present duality.  It was this, of course, that made him so
fascinating.  You never knew where you were, and thus the enchantment
was sustained.  He was convinced that Dukat had meant every word of it:
fury and forgiveness and passion alike.  His moods had always been
inconsistent, dependent on whim and on the parts that he felt compelled
to play.  *Should have gone on the stage*, Garak thought.  Dukat: the
dashing young officer, the stern yet compassionate commander, the loving
father - all of them roles, and behind them lay what?  Not for the first
time, he wondered whether Dukat was entirely sane.

Now that he had time to reflect on matters, he bitterly regretted his
capitulation, but it had been inevitable.  It was hardly the first time
that he had surrendered to Dukat's magnetic allure; that irresistible
quality of his. These things ran deep, the tailor knew; wired into
Cardassian biochemistry and perhaps even into the Cardassian soul.  The
need to dominate and be dominated, not necessarily through force, but
through persuasion and desire, the strongest bonds of all.  He
understood this even better than Dukat, though the latter possessed an
intuitive understanding of both theory and practice, the tailor had,
after all, been taught by a master.  He smiled bleakly, remembering.
*Now, all you have to do is to talk to me.  I'm not going to hurt you.
Why, you're shaking...* - and the girl, the terrorist, lying in his arms
with her head on his shoulder and her eyes closed against the bleakness
of the cell, telling him everything he needed to know.  Then, Tain's
voice from the shadows: *Good.  That's very good, Elim.  And now, you
can finish it.*

After that, there had been others.  Garak bowed his head; he could
remember each one, every face and name, every hour passed in their
company.  None of them had left Issenara alive. Sometimes, back on the
station, he would lie awake in the darkness as they visited him, one by
one. He had grown accustomed to it.  It was company of a sort, after
all, and it was still a bond more intimate than most.  You may recall
the face of your first love imperfectly, but who would forget that of
their executioner, even after the intervention of death?  It was a close
and secret relationship that he possessed with the dead; it was his
tribute to them.  They had all been traitors, one way or another:
terrorists and subversives and spies.  He had known that what he was
doing was for the best, not for those few frail individuals, but for the
State.  Even so, it had unsettled him a little, sometimes, and during
that first month, his dependence on Dukat had grown.  Dukat had enjoyed
the domination of someone so self contained, and Garak had welcomed it,
finding atonement, if not repentance, in the other man's arms. *You
see,* he whispered to the lingering dead, *you see, I've suffered too.*

He could not help feeling that it had all been for nothing; a purpose
outlived or a dream fractured beyond repair.  Cardassia had changed, and
left him behind.   Not for the first time in recent years, he was
beginning to feel his age.  Dukat was not, he reflected with mild
surprise, so very much younger, but he had always possessed that
glittering quality that one associates with youth, untarnished by self
hatred or self doubt.  The tailor did not like to admit it to himself,
but Bashir's presence had also had its affect.  The doctor had proved
unexpectedly resistant to persuasion, which had, inevitably, increased
the attraction that he held for Garak.  Now, part of that puzzle had
been solved, by the revelation of Bashir's genetic enhancements; no
wonder he was so convinced of his own rightness, Garak thought now.  He
had never really won Bashir over, and he resented this, but he also
admired the young man for it.  Bashir, stubborn and arrogant and
self-righteous as he was, nonetheless challenged him and this, more than
anything, had kept him sane.  But he did not want to think about his
love for the young man; not now, not here in this contaminating place.
He glanced uneasily at the clock.  A few minutes to midnight; time to
face his fears.
 

                                        18.

The heat in the cell had become stifling. I called hoarsely for the
guard, but no-one answered.  I had not yet ceased to hope that I would
soon be freed.  As soon as Garak discovered where I was - but suppose it
was he who had incarcerated me here?  A Starfleet officer, albeit a
junior one, might prove a reasonably useful bargaining chip if one hoped
to rehabilitate oneself with the current authorities.   I pushed the
cynicism away; he would not let me die here.  I trusted him.   There was
nothing in the cell that could be used.  A blanket, a water bowl plus a
bucket, and a square of shadow were all that I now possessed.  I sat
down in the shade and tried to think.  I had been jailed before, but
it's never a pleasant experience; I thought with wonder of poor Miles
and his long, imagined sojourn in the pit.  I'd only been here for a few
hours; he was incarcerated, subjectively at least, for years.  He was
the most remarkable man I have ever known, in ways; he managed to remain
so resolutely ordinary, even though the most appalling things kept
happening to him.  Well, if Miles had survived, then so would I.  I
would not let him down.
 

                                        19.

Garak stood quietly for a moment in the dimly lit corridor that snaked
beneath the house.  Twelve chambers led from the corridor, where the
prisoners used to be kept, but now all were empty. The air was damp and
stale.  There was no-one there.  Turning, he made his way swiftly along
the hallway.  Only one place remained now, the deepest chamber of the
fortress, and the one of which he was most afraid.

                                        20.

Movement caught my eye and as I turned my head, I saw Dukat.  He was
utterly still.  His eyes glittered in the dim light.
  'You see,' he murmured.  'I thought it was an exercise, nothing more;
we were on military manoeuvres at the time. I trusted him, you see.  Oh,
everyone thought that I was the dominant one, but I always looked up to
him. I told him things about myself that I told to no-one else, and he
used all those fears against me. Imprisonment, and then the drugs, and
the pain...He left me here to die.  You have to choose, I told him.  You
have to make a choice: Tain or me.  I never imagined he'd choose the old
viper.  He'd told me he hated Tain...never could resist a lie, even
then...'
The words whispered on, corrosive with bitterness and loss.
  'So you see, I loved him, and he betrayed me, and everything we became
stemmed from that,'  Dukat said, simply. 'And now he has to make another
choice.'
 

                                        21.

  'Iranahar,' the tailor said from the doorway.  'The ritual penalty.
It's for you to give me the choice.  What is it to be?  Pain?  Death,
now that you've had my submission and tormented me with an empty promise
of rehabilitation?'
  'Given your chosen career, it would seem that torture would be the
most appropriate.'
  'Very well,' Garak said, in as neutral a voice as he could manage.  In
the darkness, he clasped his hands behind his back, to stop them from
shaking.  'You'd best begin, hadn't you?'
  'Oh, I wasn't going to torture *you*, Elim.'  Dukat's voice came from
somewhere close; Garak could feel his breath against his own neck.
Dukat brushed his mouth with a kiss, very gently.  'Not directly,
anyway.  I could never do that to you, and besides, you know my distaste
for the interrogatory arts.'  A pale globe of light flared and Garak
could see Bashir.  The young man lay against the wall, unmoving.
  'Oh, don't worry,' Dukat said, following his gaze.  'He isn't dead.
He's quite conscious, in fact; we've been waiting for you.'
  'What did you have in mind?'
  'Just a simple demonstration of skill, quite straightforward.  I want
you to show me again what Tain taught you.'
  'What? Bashir doesn't have access to any particular information; he's
a medical officer -'  It was suddenly difficult to think; everything was
shifting and changing underneath his feet.  Dukat said
  'But everyone has secrets, haven't they?  You should know that...I
don't trust you, Elim.  I don't trust you not to lie to me, and you'll
lie for all the days of your life if it gets you back to Cardassia.
Tonight, you submitted to me for a little while, but it wasn't
sufficient.  I want you to surrender completely; I never had that from
you, and I should have had it, because I earned it.  Oh, you'll bow to
the pack leader for a little while, like all the rest of them, but then
they break free and I don't think I want that to happen with you, not
again.'
  'Just tell me what you want me to do,' the tailor said, tightly.
  'I've already told you.  I want you to torture your young doctor.  Not
for information, but so that you can relive what you did to me.  You
see, I don't think you're the same man any more.  I think you've lost
your enthusiasm.  I can't quite see the Elim Garak who stands before me
now so willingly tormenting the young man he loves.   I want you to
experience the pain you should have felt when you tortured me.  Take him
to the edge of death...If you do that, I'll let you both live.  If you
refuse, you die.  I'll make it a quick death -' his lip curled with
momentary distaste 'I don't share Tain's particular appetites.  I hope,
Elim, for Bashir's sake and yours, that your very special skills haven't
declined over the years.  All it would take is a slip of the blade and
then - but I'm sure you know what you're doing.  I'll be monitoring his
pain levels, by the way; I'll know if you're not putting your heart into
your work.  Who knows, I might be wrong.  You might even enjoy
yourself.'
The doctor stirred, turning his head, and Garak could see from the
expression in his eyes that he had heard every word.  Bashir spoke for
the first time.
  'Just get it over with.'

                                        22.

I don't remember a great deal of what happened after that.  Through the
shadows of my memory I see Dukat's icy eyes, fixed with unblinking
avidity on the scene before him.  He never once looked at me, I know
that much; only at my torturer.  I don't even recall precisely what
Garak did, although I realised later that it had to be some form of
nerve  stimulation.  I remember his fingers at the side of my neck,
pressed against my heart in a parody of affection, moving down to
diaphragm and groin.  Pain seared through me; the sun in my veins,
bursting into fire and light and agony.  It was very precise: nothing
crude, no lash of the whip. The pain consumed the world; burning away
the past and all sense of who I was.  I had become nothing, locked into
an eternal molten present.  I could not cry out; I could not even plead.
I looked into Garak's eyes, once, and there was no-one there.  He had
retreated within himself, to endure a suffering of his own; it was
debatable which one of us was tortured most.  The doctor's old mantra:
*this hurts me more than it hurts you*, and despite the anguish I think
I managed a smile.

Then the pain catapulted me back into some unknown time: morning, the
city stirring around me, and by my side my lover waking to the summer
heat with a smile.
  'We should go soon; it's nearly time.  They'll be waiting at the
temple...'
  'Not yet...' an unfamiliar voice, my own. I reached out and felt warm
skin beneath my palm.  'Not yet...' and listened to the rustle of scales
against the sheets as I rolled over to embrace him.  Looking idly down I
saw that the scattering of scales across my stomach glittered as they
caught the light.  'Look...' I murmured, and laughed.

The snare of pain snatched me back into my human body.  The smouldering
coil of incense filled my lungs and I coughed, collapsing forward, my
mouth filling with a sudden rush of blood.  I gasped against the
Cardassian's shoulder as Garak's voice whispered in my ear: hush
now...not long, oh my love, not long till morning - then the flaying
touch of his hand, and lightening fled along my spine, convulsing me
back into that other unknown life.

  'So this is the young man you've been keeping so secret from us,' and
my lover smiled and said
  'I trust this explains my absence from the Judiciary...'  They were
smiling at me through the lamplight as I stepped forward to take my
place among them, welcoming me.  Even though I was nervous in the
presence of all these important people, I bowed my head and held out my
empty hands, and listened to their approving murmur.
  'Of course, all his lovers have beautiful manners...'

Then the world changing and my vision blurred in the wind that raced
down from the heights,  but perhaps it was only the pain.  I watched
through the tears as the sun rose over the city, and it was morning.  I
was back in the cell for the last time and that other place, unknown and
familiar, was gone.  Garak was holding me; kneeling by my side,
murmuring in my ear. Dukat prowled forward to touch his arm and I heard
him say
  'Enough.  It's over.' and gratefully I fell into unconsciousness.
 

                                        23.

Over the body of the young man, they stood and looked at one another,
and there was nothing more left to say.  The game was over: old scores
settled, and new ones beginning.  They had reached a balance, for now,
but it was not enough and never would be, for what they saw in one
another's eyes went beyond love and hatred and  even life itself.  Dukat
reached out to touch the torturer's face and then, smiling, he turned
and was gone into the depths of Issenara like a spirit into the empty
air.

                                        24.

When I awoke, it was to find myself in an unfamiliar room, low
ceilinged, and with a golden light pouring in around the shutters.  I
shifted, flinching, in the bed and found that although my muscles
trembled, they still obeyed me. Examining myself with the aid of a
mirror, I saw that there was not a mark on me, only a small incision
just above my collarbone.  This appalled me more than anything. Making
my way to the window, I threw the shutters aside and looked out across
an expanse of sand.  The long shadows raced along the side of the house,
my own tall form waved to myself high on the dune.   It was close to
evening.  I wondered how long I had slept.   I gazed out across the
desert landscape, lost in thought.  I did not even hear the door open,
but when I turned, Garak was sitting on the bed.
  'Doctor?  How are you feeling?'
I rubbed my eyes.  I hardly knew what to say to him.
  'I don't know.  Physically or emotionally?'
The tailor gave a slight smile.
  'Either would be enlightening.'
  'Well,' I said, cautiously.  'I think I'm all right; a little weak,
but that's not surprising.'  I turned to sit on the edge of the sill.
'Dukat honoured his promise, then?'
The tailor nodded.
  'He's always suffered from the illusion that he's an honourable man.
He left, and I brought us south...This is a friend's house, a place
called Derreven; we'll stay until you're fully recovered.'
  'Dukat,' I said.  'He was your lover, wasn't he?'
  'Yes.  A long time ago.'
  'And you - did to him what you did to me?'
  'I seem fated to repeat my mistakes, I'm afraid.  Doctor?' and when I
looked at him I could not bear what I saw in his face.  'There's nothing
I can say; no apology I could even begin to make.'
  'It wasn't your fault.' I told him, wearily.  He hissed with
irritation.
  'You really are the most infuriating young man...It seems to be a
Federation trait - forgiveness like a slap in the face.  It most
certainly is my fault.'

Yet how could I truly blame him? I thought. A litany of woes held us
apart: everything he had done negated all that I so fondly believed
myself to stand for. Yet though forgiveness has nothing to do with
passion, and little to do with love, it does have a great deal to do
with understanding, and objectivity.  Even after everything Garak had
done to me, I could not help but ask myself who I would have been, had I
grown up in the ruins of Cardassia under the guidance of Enabran Tain.
Where does cause begin, after all?  With Tain, and the creature he made
of his own child, or further back, when Cardassia began to starve and
burn?  Or did it begin thousands of years ago, in the Hebitian Empire,
with a young man and the mentor who became his lover?  Memories haunted
me: another life, another form.  I have never believed in the migration
of the soul from body to body, and yet it did provide some kind of
explanation, for an unlikely friendship, and an even more improbable
attraction.  I knew that I could not begin to talk about this, not just
yet.   At last I said
  'If you and Dukat were lovers once - it does explain a certain
amount.'
  'When he was young, he was so remarkable,' the tailor said, as if to
himself.  'I could hardly believe it when he began to take an interest
in me.  He could have had anyone he chose...I was so deeply in love with
him, obsessed, but it never seemed quite real.  And then we came to
Issenara, and Tain took me aside and explained to me that it would no
longer be possible for me to continue my relationship with Dukat.  An
agent of the Order had to be above such ties, objective, free of
attachments.  It would make things easier in the long run, he said.
Then, I believed him - he could be very persuasive.  Now, I think that
he was simply jealous.  He wanted me to be loyal to no-one but himself.
And so I agreed to give Dukat up, and Tain told me that this wasn't
enough.  He didn't trust me, you see; thought I might take after my
mother, put personal feeling before my obligation to the State.  He
wanted me to prove myself.  So I did.  Dukat never forgave me - it's
hardly the sort of thing one forgets.  There was that business with his
father, and it simply sealed the hatred between us.  And then I went
into exile.'
There was a short silence.
'They've been long years for you, haven't they?' I said gently.
  'Oh,' he replied.  'They haven't been entirely without their
compensations.  And I'm very adaptable.'
It was an old wound now, almost healed, but I had to know.  I said
  'You once told me you hated me.  Did you ever mean that?'
He gave me a long, considering look.
  'If I told you that and meant it, you should know that it was only
because I hated myself more.'
  'Why?'
  'For not having the courage to live or the decency to die.'
  'That's a pretty harsh assessment -'
  'You gave me more than my life when you took that wire from my head,
all those years ago.  You know that, don't you?'
I couldn't say anything.
  'It doesn't matter,' he said, obscurely.  'We've gone on together for
so long, it doesn't matter any more.'
  'Garak?'  I asked.  'How do you see me?'
He thought for a moment.
  'It won't be the truth, you know...'
  'Whatever.'
  'You're - the other.  Do you know that concept?  Your philosophers
invented it, after all, hundreds of years ago.  We are all created in
the eyes of those around us.  Suddenly we see someone's eyes upon us and
we become self conscious, we change to fit their ideas of us.  That's
why - so your philosopher said - we can never be integral, authentic
beings.  We're always living up to other people's ideas of what we
should be.  Take myself, for instance.  How do you see me?  As a
mysterious, exotic, alien being?  Someone who's seen and done what you
can only imagine, capable of anything?  You've been testing yourself
against me ever since I've known you - or your fantasy of me, at least.
And I've done the same thing; trying out other ways of being.  I've
learned a lot from your idea of me, and mine of you.'
  'And who are we really?' I said.
  'There is no "really", that's the sad and interesting thing.'
  'Is Elim Garak your real name?'
  'What would you prefer, Ishmael?  You see, I've learned something from
those novels of yours, after all.  Well.  There are two options, aren't
there?  Either it's the name I was given at birth, by my parents, or
it's something I picked up along the way. Am I just another Cardassian
torturer: remorseless, sadistic?  Or the devious spy, or the plain and
simple tailor, or just a man who made decisions that seemed right at the
time, and who loves you more than anything now...You choose.  You decide
who I am, who you'd like me to be.'
The words seemed to resonate between us.
  'I think I chose a long time ago,' I said, and he nodded.  'Did you do
this on purpose?' I asked.  'Have you just been giving me time to make
up my mind about - about you?'
  'You had to be sure,' he said.  'You had to live a little, learn how
to be.  I could have influenced that process.  I can be very persuasive,
particularly where my lovers are concerned - you'll learn that, even if
you don't know it already - but I didn't want you to be my creation.  I
wanted you to be your own.  I think you have achieved that, now: you're
no longer entirely young, the skeletons have not made such a big
difference after all, and you've managed to remain true to your ideals,
which I consider remarkable.  Understand me, Julian.  I don't mean to
patronise you, which I'm sure I've done anyway.  I just wanted to make
things clear.  I am not an easy person to love; I never have been.'
  'I know.'
The sun had gone, now, leaving the room in shadow. I could not see his
face. I said
  'And now?'
  'Come here,' he said, and his voice was suddenly hoarse.  Only hours
before, he had hurt me beyond bearing, and I did not know whether it was
the measure of my trust in him, or some darker need, that made me go to
sit on the edge of the bed beside him.
  'Elim?'
I felt his hand cup my chin, and then he kissed me, so gently that all
my doubts left me and there was only desire.  I gripped the soft weight
of hair at the nape of his neck, returning his kiss, and his arms came
around me.  I realised then the extent to which he was holding back.  I
pulled him down against me, wanting in a way to get it over with;
impatient, trying to overcome the residue of fear.  He was stronger than
I, alien, and I could sense the predator's instincts lying just beneath
the civilised veneer.
  'No,' he gasped.  'Slowly, slowly...'
He tugged at the cord of my robe and it fell open.  He ran a possessive,
lingering hand across my chest and I shivered.  I saw the glitter of
teeth in the darkness as he smiled.
  'Then close your eyes...' he whispered fiercely into my ear.  I felt
his mouth against my throat as he sank down beside me; his hands moving
over my skin. I longed to touch him, but I couldn't move; just as you
might wish to run your fingers through the tiger's heavy coat, but do
not dare.  He was so dangerous.  I could feel that danger once again: in
the appalling gentleness of his hands, his mouth, the taut muscles of
the body that pressed against mine.   It was the mirror of my torture:
pleasure instead of pain.  He had taken me to the brink of death, there
in the cell, and now he led me back again.   Once more, he brought
responses from me over which I had no volition, and I braced myself
against his touch, but this time there was no agony, only pleasure.  If
I hadn't already been in love with him, that night in Derreven would
have settled it.  I felt him reach across me and the lamp flared into
light.
  'There,' he whispered.  'There now...'  His hands flickered across my
body, caressing.  Tentatively, I stroked his flank; it was difficult to
tell where the silk of the robe ended and his skin began. I touched the
patterned plates and ridges across his chest, then his soft stomach, and
his skin shivered beneath my hand.  He was silver in the lamplight, as
though he had been created out of air and smoke. He was very tense. I
looked up.  His eyes were open, and fixed on mine with unblinking,
inhuman concentration.
  'Julian?' he said, softly.  I couldn't answer.  He drew me into his
arms, murmuring as he kissed me, then that exquisite tension was back:
the gentleness of his mouth and the caress of his hands. He was talking
to me between kisses, drifting between his language and mine,
instructing me, I realised dimly, in what to feel.   *Now, isn't that
better? Oh, there...oh, that's wonderful...*  - and telling me, quite
conversationally, what he had always dreamed of doing to me.  Pain is
not the only way to torture someone. I would have done anything for him,
at that moment; I was utterly possessed.  I looked into his eyes and
couldn't look away.
He said, very gently.  'Let go, Julian,' and through the pleasure I
realised with astonishment that I was already over the edge.  He cried
out with me as I came.  I was exhausted; I couldn't have stopped him
after that if I'd tried.  It was almost like a dream:  I remember him
holding me close, and still with that frightening restraint, sliding
inside me, possessing me until his own swift climax claimed him.

When I awoke, the smoky sun was already high.  The room was stuffy with
heat; an insect beat itself against the shutters.  My lover was still
asleep, breathing deeply.  I watched him as he slept, amazed.  The light
striped him into a series of shadows.  My gaze lingered on every scale
and reach of skin: from the dark ridges of his neck, down to the arch of
collarbone and the dove coloured skin just beneath, then the glossy
plates which covered his breast, scales that seemed to have been carved
from slate, scales as dappled as storm cloud and as clear as rain.  I
gazed, mesmerised by the strangeness and the familiarity of him, and
could not look away.    My breath caught in my throat.  I gathered my
courage and kissed him, gently, where the pale skin of his shoulder
shaded into a hard edge of scale.  He stirred, uncoiling against me
without opening his eyes, basking in the warmth.  I lay quietly in his
embrace, my cheek against the ridges of his shoulder.
  'Elim? We should get up...'
  'We should. Just not yet...'
By this time I was too aroused by his closeness and the heat to
disagree.  He let me make love to him, still half asleep and lazy in the
sunlight, letting me take it at my own pace.  The iron control was gone
now; he submitted to my caresses with abandonment and my name was lost
in his cries.    It seemed as though we were in a place where nothing
could touch us.  Dukat and the danger that he might still present was
forgotten, and so was the fact that soon we would be leaving to return
to the station and our old lives.  I did not know what would happen
then,  and could not bring myself to care.

                                        25.

He lay with his face buried in his lover's throat, suspended in warmth
and satiated desire.  He said, softly
  'Are you asleep?'
  'Nearly.  Not yet.'  Bashir's arms drew him tightly against the
doctor's lean frame.  He heard a voice in his ear:
  'What were you going to say, Elim?'
Garak, without dissembling, said
  'I love you.  I've loved you for a long time.'
and Bashir sighed, and said
   'I love you, too, do you know that?  Whatever you've done, whatever's
happened, I still love you.' and the tailor nodded against his shoulder,
knowing that it would not be forever in that life, or perhaps even for
very long, and understanding all the same that it was enough.

END