1.

'He's back,' Damar said.

The face on the screen did not change, but he had learned to read her well over the years, and he caught the ember of hope and contempt in her eyes.

'He?' the woman said, seeking confirmation.

'The exile. Elim Garak. Tain's son.'

'Here? In Cardassia?'

'He's on his way. I had a report this morning from one of my operatives.' Damar leaned back in his chair and frowned. 'I've been expecting this. Traitors,' he added with contempt. 'Well, at least the girl's out of the way now...But I knew we'd be having problems with Garak, sooner or later.' His respect for the woman on the screen prevented him from adding *Dukat's weakness, of course. Letting the exile live instead of hiring a good assassin and creating one less headache.* There had been old rumours surfacing over the past year: murmurs of a long-dead affair between Dukat and Garak, which continued to have repercussions even now. Damar did not immediately discredit those rumours. The more you looked at those two, it seemed to him, the closer their lives appeared to be intertwined. The thought of it disgusted him. Garak had betrayed the State, which made Dukat's obsession with the man even more shameful. *He should have killed the girl, too; long before I had to do it. Couldn't control her, let her slink into that vole-fucker's bed and look what happened.*

'I'm grateful to you, for apprising me of this,' the woman said. The words were spoken in the formal mode, but he could hear the bitterness in her voice. Gently, he said

'Please don't concern yourself. I'll deal with him.'

'Will you?' she said. A spark leapt briefly in the depths of her dark eyes. 'Do you promise me that, Damar? Do you promise to do what my husband was too vain or too weak to complete?' She paused, staring at something Damar could not see. 'I want Elim Garak dead. And that is the last time you'll hear me speak his name. Do you understand me? We've little enough honour left.'

'I understand,' he said. 'And you can trust me. We have the same aim.'

'Then take care of it,' Suliemis Dukat said, bleakly. 'And call me when my husband's enemy is gone.'

Once the screen had darkened, Damar resumed his contemplation of the city, and smiled. It was not too late. Even under Cardassia's new masters, it was not too late. He had grown up under the patronage of the A'Dukati, one way or another. The old man had taken a liking to him, and ensured his rise through the ranks of the gulyet. Alliances in Cardassia were always a delicate matter. Tie yourself in too closely with one clan, and you'd rise when they rose, but you'd fall with them too. Damar, however, had decided when he was still quite young that honour was more important than pragmatism. *Should have been a Klingon* he thought now. He despised the race on the whole, but there were aspects of their culture with which he found himself in sympathy. He had avowed himself to the A'Dukati with splendid timing: a month later the old man had been on the block, sentenced for treason, and Damar's future was placed seriously into question. It was still a matter of pride to the young man that he had not given in to his enemies' concessions. He had continued to pledge his support to the family, and he had been suitably rewarded.

Now, Dukat was hardly the leader he had once been. People did not bother to hide their contempt, and jokes about the Gul's madness no doubt enlivened dinner party conversation the length and breadth of Cardassia, but Damar still doggedly believed in the A'Dukati. He had ideals, after all, and if he renounced them, then he was nothing. He had shot the girl because she was a disgrace, an abomination for the purity of the species, and she should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. She had violated his ideas about what Cardassians and Cardassia should be. He held Ziyal responsible for his leader's decline. On his return to Cardassia, he found that there were many who agreed with him, and paramount among them had been Suliemis Dukat. She had come to see him that first night home, secretly, beneath the cover of darkness, to thank him.

'He humiliated me,' she had whispered, and Damar's indignation had flared again at the sight of her tears. 'Bringing his Bajoran whelp home, with no thought of me or his children.' Turning, she had taken Damar's hands in her own. 'Our honour is in your hands, now. You've never renounced us, never betrayed us.' She looked down at their laced fingers and murmured 'Take care of our honour, Damar. Until my husband remembers what it means to be Cardassian.'

A woman as conservative as Suliemis would never have touched a man who was not her father or her husband unless the situation was utterly desparate. Damar gazed down at the desolate face beneath the veil and promised without hesitation.

Now, therefore, Damar was holding Dukat's honour for him, until the time when the Gul should recall precisely who and what he was, and resume his rightful place in the new state. *And I'll take care of your enemies for you, Dukat. Including Elim Garak.*

2.

The journey to Cardassia seemed to take longer every time, and every time it seemed more bitter. He had travelled too far from home, Garak thought as he stared through the viewport window and watched his shattered world grow larger. He knew, now, that it would never be possible for him to return for good. To do so, he would have to travel back in time, become the young man whom he had once been, with a bright future before him. He was another person now, and that life was worlds away. Tain was dead, and Cardassia utterly changed. He wondered if the city would even be recognisable, or whether Gened had been bombed into a ruin by the repeated onslaught of invaders. He was not sure whether he wanted to find out.

With Sisko's help, he had gained a berth on a neutral freighter carrying pardunum ore into Cardassian territory. The captain of the vessel did not care whom he carried, as long as they could pay, and he had not troubled Garak with questions. There was, however, no medical officer on board and this worried the Cardassian, who preferred to have a safety-net whenever possible. Granted, Bashir seemed stable, though he was still sleeping like the dead. He was utterly, unnaturally still beneath the transparent covering of the stasis stretcher. Garak was drawn again to wonder about the Prophets, and the extent of their powers, and he had not ceased to speculate about their plans for Bashir. It seemed that the young man was important to them, but why? He had always thought that Sisko was their chosen representative, but now Bashir had been drawn into their dark and unfathomable mysteries, and Garak had no idea what the reason was. He still felt that Sisko had been keeping something back, but there seemed to be a great deal that the Commander was not saying, these days. It irritated Garak no end; if anyone was going to be in the business of keeping secrets, he thought, it ought to be him. He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Bashir as he slept. He supposed it was what he wanted, to be with his love, alone and dreaming, but there was no comfort in it. The future held too much that was unknown and unknowable. Garak sighed as the pale marbled face of his homeworld swam up under the starboard bow, and the freighter turned in preparation for landing.

When the ship settled down onto the landing pad, Garak saw that they were on the nightside, as he had planned. He had arranged for Bashir to be brought out in the covered stretcher with the rest of the cargo; a farcical situation which Garak found far from amusing. Making his way to the passenger area, he watched anxiously as the automatic loading equipment sorted out the cargo and sent it on racks into the main bay. A good thing this was still efficient Cardassia, he thought; on some worlds, they'd have dispatched his baggage halfway around the quadrant. He glanced uneasily around the passenger bay, hoping he looked like nothing more than the middle-aged Cardassian businessman he was pretending to be. A pair of Jem-hadar warriors were strolling along the far side of the area; the sight pierced Garak's heart. He had never thought to see his world brought to such a pass. Casually, he stepped behind a nearby column until they had gone from sight, appalled to find that an icy trickle of sweat was stroking his spine.

He watched as the cargo began to emerge from the handling tube, and was so intent on ensuring that the stretcher was sent safely into the main bay that he did not hear the soft footfall behind him. When he felt a hand touch his shoulder he turned, nerves on edge and ready to kill. The woman took a step back.

'Elim?' Tain's housekeeper faltered.

It was, Garak thought, the second time in a week that he had confronted a family member. But Mila was not the ghost that Tain had been. She had grown older, more fragile, and the hand which tentatively plucked at his sleeve was like the claw of a bird.

'Mila,' he breathed.

'I got your message.'

'I wasn't even sure if you were still alive,' Garak said. He grimaced. 'None of the others are. You heard what happened?'

The old woman nodded. 'I wasn't your father's mistress for all those years without learning a few survival tricks...You should know me better than that.' She paused. 'You look the same. No older.'

He managed a smile. 'I feel older.'

'You're just tired,' she said. 'I've arranged for your - ' she hesitated, fractionally ' - friend to be taken into the city, to one of the old safe houses.'

'And is it? A safe house?'

'The Order remembers, Elim. They remember Enabran, and what you did for him. You still have a welcome on Cardassia. In certain, select, places.'

Garak glanced towards the loading bay, where the covered form of the stretcher was being carried towards a waiting transporter.

'Friends? Or do you have your own people?'

'Elim,' she said reproachfully. 'I've always had my own people.' - and there was a flash in the faded blue eyes that reminded him so much of his own; a glimpse of the operative she had once been. *The best,* Tain had said once, in one of his rare moments of sentimentality. *Better than you'll ever be, Elim. Because she outwitted me.* Affectionately, he took her arm.

'You still are,' he murmured.

'What?' she asked, not understanding, and then dismissed it. 'We shouldn't linger here, Elim. There are spies everywhere. Not to mention the Jem'hadar.'

'I know the feeling.'

3.

Genneret did not, after all, go to war. Dravan found that he had won supporters in the halls of the Judiciary, but he was disconcerted to find that Arasha was drawing further into the shadows.

'It won't be that long before someone else takes my place in the sun,' the Adept said. 'Ten years, perhaps - that's not long by the standards of the Hassenet Ai. And I'd like to retire sooner than later. Put my feet up; read frivolous literature. Politics has become so uncouth recently. I'm getting old and frail, Dravan.' His mouth turned down in mock self-pity. Dravan gave him a sceptical glance. Beneath the heavy robes, Arasha's lean frame moved with the grace of someone twenty years younger, and the blue eyes burned. 'Probably senile, as well. My memory's not what it was. And I think my teeth are going.'

'Age doesn't seem to have diminished your capacity to lie through them,' Dravan said acidly, having heard Arasha only that morning recite all thirty pages of the ietreda liturgy without a glance at the text. A week ago, he would have been horrified to hear himself address the Adept in such a manner, but the time in Genneret had turned them into friends as well as mentor and pupil. Arasha beamed at him, unrepentent.

'I like to keep in practice. And it makes you so annoyed...Ah well. In a while you won't have to put up with me any longer.'

Unsure of what he had just heard, Dravan stared uncomprehendingly at the Adept.

'You're not coming back to the Hassenet Ai?'

The Adept's eye-ridges almost reached his hairline.

'Did I say such a thing? I've no intention of staying in Genneret when I could be enjoying the peace and tranquility of the countryside. Too many people. Too much going on. I suppose it's all right if you're young - diverting, and all that, but for us weary old folks it's -'

'Adept!' Dravan virtually shouted.

'Yes?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Oh, am I not making myself clear? Mind must be wandering again. I will be travelling back to the Hassenet Ai at the first possible opportunity, but you will be staying here.'

'Me?' Dravan said. Only one possibility presented itself to his whirling brain. 'You're rejecting me as a candidate for succession?'

'Dravan. Please. Use the vestiges of your intelligence. I am not rejecting you - not yet, at least. You will be staying here, to represent the temple to the Judiciary. Mind you,' he added sharply 'Your power to make decisions will be severely curtailed, until you find your feet. I'll be pulling the strings, but from the peaceful confines of the Hassenet Ai, happily, rather than this madhouse. I'm leaving you here to represent our interests because I have faith in you, and it's time you assumed some responsibility on the Hassenet's behalf. Now that the immediate crisis has been averted, you should find things reasonably easy to manage, and I think you'll find also that your fellow councillors want you to implement some of those fine ideas you presented to them with such confidence'

Unhappily, Dravan sat down on the couch beside the Adept.

'I'll miss you,' he said miserably, before he could stop himself. He had never seen the Adept look disconcerted before.

'Well,' Arasha said, after a pause. 'I'll miss you too, of course, but I'll see you at the mid-rains celebrations, and we'll be speaking every day. I know it may seem a little difficult, being without my guidance, but -'

'Not your guidance,' Dravan whispered, knowing that under no circumstances should he say what he was about to say. 'You.'

Impulsively, he turned towards Arasha and, astonishingly, the Adept's long fingers cupped his face. Arasha leaned closer, brushing his mouth against Dravan's, tasting the same air, and then they were kissing.

Whenever Dravan had imagined such a thing, in the darkness of his forbidden desires, he had always thought that Arasha would remain the same cool, amused person as in everyday circumstances. But then he found himself flat on his back on the couch and the Adept was kneeling over him, palms gripping his shoulders. Arasha's blue eyes were burning in the light and the Adept was saying in a hoarse voice that no longer sounded like his own

'Do you know what you're doing? Don't you know this isn't supposed to happen?'

Dravan opened his mouth to reply and Arasha kissed him again, with swift, uncontrolled passion. Dravan's hands swept the length of Arasha's long back until his fingers met the soft hair at the nape of the neck, and he pulled his mentor against him. Hastily, before the Adept could react, he slid his hand inside the heavy robes until he encountered smooth flesh. His hand travelled down the scaled chest, caressing the ridges which outlined the lower ribs, and Arasha made a small stifled sound like a sob. He moved until his face was buried in Dravan's shoulder; the young man could feel that he was shaking. Then, with a deep breath, the Adept sat up.

'Dravan,' he said, with an effort. 'We have to stop.'

'Why?' the young man murmured. Arasha's flat stomach was hot beneath his palm; he stroked the skin, and the older man's back arched in pleasure. Then he took Dravan's hand and removed it, gently but firmly. The Adept passed a hand over his own flushed face and said hoarsely

'Because it's forbidden.' With a return of his habitual urbanity, he added 'Boring explanation, I'm afraid.'

'But we're not like some of the old orders. There's nothing to say we have to be celibate.'

'No. But the Adept is supposed to leave the acolytes alone - especially the chosen candidates. It's a good rule, Dravan. It prevents factions forming. If I have to choose between you and the other acolytes to appoint my successor, and you're my lover, there are two ways it can go. Either they'll say I chose you because you *were* my lover, or I rejected you because you were my lover - in which case they'll say I made the wrong choice. And we won't be able to keep it a secret, either. One never can.'

'Then I'll deselect myself,' Dravan said stubbornly. Arasha stared at him.

'You'd give up the chance of being the Adept of the Hassenet Ai, for me?'

'I love you,' Dravan whispered. 'Sorry.'

'Oh, look,' Arasha said, dismayed. 'You'll get over it. You're young.'

'Don't patronise me! You make it sound as though I was in love with some - some girl, or something.'

'That's bad?' the Adept asked, with a ghost of a smile.

'You know what I mean!' The obvious thought occurred to him. 'Is that why you're leaving me here?'

'No. I'm leaving you here because you're the best person to be here right now.' An expression of brief annoyance crossed the Adept's features. 'I've always been very bad at this.'

'At what?'

'At falling in love with the wrong people,' Arasha said. He looked down at his hands, continuing before Dravan could react to what he had just heard. 'You know, Dravan, when you're supposed to be spiritually enlightened, people expect you to be perfect. They expect you to have conquered all those inconvenient emotions, like love, and jealousy, and desire. But you haven't. You can either stifle them, and pretend they don't exist, or you can acknowledge them and face the consequences. You can be as detached and objective as anyone has ever been, but you can't stop feeling. And it can be lonely, you know, being the object of everyone else's expectations. Ever since that day on the terrace, I've been - I've been thinking about you. I know I'm old enough to know better, but that's what's happened. It's not the emotions that are wrong. It's what you do with them.' Wearily, he bent and kissed Dravan's brow. 'Go to sleep. And learn from this.' Then he was gone.

The safe house was one of the old Order haunts; Garak remembered it from years before, when it had thronged with life and intrigue. Now, with Tain gone and the Order a shadow of its former self, the house was redolent of the past. It was a huge building: one of the old mansions that had been the property of the landed, three hundred years before. It had been built on even more ancient Hebitian foundations, Mila told him. The Order had discovered things when they renovated the cellars: old bones, shards of mosaic flooring, perhaps even some of the treasure which had been one of the Order's greatest resources, and which Tain had squandered on his last, doomed fleet.

'The place is full of ghosts,' Mila said, flicking her fingers in the old gesture of warding. She had always had those odd remnants of superstition, Garak remembered, a legacy of the country childhood which she had tried so hard to shake off.

'I thought I'd never see you again,' he said, softly. They were standing out on the covered verandah at the top of the house; these mansions had always seemed to him to be upside down. It was the perfect place for the Order: full of angles and steep, unexpected views. Mila glanced at him with an eye that was suddenly sharp and bright. That fragility, he now saw, was something that she had discarded once they were out of the public eye. She had straightened, and it made her look wiry rather than frail.

'Getting sentimental in your old age, Elim?'

He smiled.

'I don't take after him, do I?' he asked her. Mila hesitated.

'In some ways. Not many. He often wondered aloud whether you were really his son.'

'And am I?' It was the first time he had ever dared to ask such a question, but she answered quite simply

'Oh, yes. You're Tain's child, no-one else's. He knew that perfectly well, of course; just liked to tease me. You used to model yourself on him; I don't see that so much now.'

'Life has changed me,' he said.

'Of course it has,' Mila replied with momentary irritation. Then she said 'And that boy, lying like the dead - what part has he played in those changes?'

Garak was silent.

'I thought so,' Mila said. They stood side by side, looking out across the dark city. Below, in the well of the street, the lamps looked like stars. 'A human. A citizen of the Federation. How ironic.'

'That had occurred to me.'

'But then, many things have changed, in old Cardassia. We're living beneath the Dominion's rule now. Beneath the Vorta and their addicted war-slaves...Things have changed,' she repeated sadly.

'I blame myself,' Garak murmured. 'I had my chance at stopping it. I failed.'

'I know,' Mila said. She reached out and grasped his hand. 'But I know you tried. Enabran would have been proud of you.'

'I doubt that.'

Uncertainly, she glanced at him, then changed the subject.

'Tell me, Elim. Your young human. Do you despise yourself, for loving him?'

'Sometimes. Not always. I told you. I've changed.'

'Yes,' she said sadly. 'You've become like me. One finds oneself preferring love to patriotism, after all. I've never been convinced that it's an improvement.'

'Cardassia's a society of ideals, not practices. Look at Dukat.'

'Dukat?' she asked, puzzled, then said 'Oh, yes. The one with that pretty little Bajoran mistress, and the daughter.' From the corner of his eye, he saw her glance at him, but he did not dare look her in the face. 'Don't the humans have a saying - 'Love your enemies?' And yet it's us who put it into practice...Where will you take him?'

'Bashir? To Senghala.'

Mila gave him an odd look.

'Have you become religious, too?'

'Oh, please.'

'But why Senghala?' she persisted.

'It was where I was told to take him.' Garak said. Mila did not ask by whom. Instead, she said

'Senghala is a strange place. They say it was once the centre of Hebitian worship, in the Middle Period. It was supposed to be a bridge, a link between the animism of the northern tribes and the more sophisticated religion of the south. People at that time worshipped spirits, and advanced technology was forbidden.'

'Yes, I'd heard that. But something must have happened to break that tradition, otherwise we wouldn't have developed to the stage we're at today.'

'It's said that the people at last renounced the gods, and began to practice science. I don't know what caused the change. Some people say that there are still remnants of that old religion left, even after the Order's best efforts.' Mila gave a brief, cold smile, as if the thought had reminded her of something.

'I didn't know that. Surely not, after all this time?' Garak said.

Mila shrugged. 'These things last, once they're entrenched. The Tenathan Path...do you know what that is?'

'I've no idea.'

'Someone once told me a long time ago that it was not a religion at all, but an experiment. The core of it was a belief in reincarnation: that its adherents would be granted life after life down the ages, and guard the knowledge that they held in their souls. And each life would add to that knowledge, and it would spread out into the universe and free us all.'

'Obviously an experiment that failed.'

'Maybe so.'

'How was the knowledge gained in the first place?'

'Through the meditations that led to enlightenment.'

Garak said

'I saw similar things on Bajor. There's a human saying: 'religion is the opium of the people.' Very wise.'

'But that's only half the saying,' Mila said, with an echo of his own sly smile. 'Oh, I've read a few things, too, Elim. Do you know how it continues?' At his questioning glance she repeated ' "Religion is the opium of the people - the heart in a heartless world." And perhaps that's wise, too.'

'I've never believed in anything much.' Garak said, dismissively.

'You believed in the Order. And in Tain.'

'But what do you do, when that's gone? When everything you believe in is gone?'

'You endure,' she said quietly, and the lights of the city below began to fade, one by one. 'You endure. That's all you can ever do.'

5.

Since the morning after that troubled night, Dravan had not seen the Adept for some weeks. Arasha had left for the temple, treating Dravan at his departure as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. At the time, Dravan had been disappointed, but later he appreciated Arasha's attempt to restore a measure of detachment to the situation. He could not, however, stop thinking about the Adept. He lay awake at night reliving each detail of the encounter, and his uneasy dreams were filled with images of longing.

His days were spent in giving what advice he could to the Judiciary, and sorting out friends from enemies. The former, at least, was work that he enjoyed, being both practical and productive. Dravan concentrated his environmental efforts on the saltmarshes to the south of the city: an area that had always been regarded as intractably barren. Using the lessons that his people had learned on a smaller scale in the Emeraya, Dravan ordered acres of marsh to be drained and reclaimed from the sea as farmland. He also instructed the local farmers, who had long experience of cross-breeding crops, to produce a vegetable that thrived in a salty soil. They looked at Dravan as though he was a lunatic, and there was much muttering, but at last one old gentleman reappeared with the news that he'd had an idea.

The idea involved a complex series of cross breeds, and when they tried it out it resulted in a lumpy root crop that was promptly named 'polt', after the old man who had been its creator. Dravan was the first to admit that polt was unappealing. It was fibrous and tough. It had to be mashed into a paste, and if you ate too much of it the crop made you thirsty, but it was highly nutritious. It also grew like a weed. Six weeks later, the refugee camps had their first decent meal for a year and Dravan was acclaimed as a hero. It was somewhat embarrassing. Dravan knew that the unpalatable polt would be associated with him for as long as he lived: dishes containing it, and named after him, were already appearing on the city's menus. It enjoyed quite a vogue, but Dravan was still embarrassed. Adept Arasha professed, in his frequent letters, to be highly amused by the whole thing, which did not help, but the episode had undeniably solved a crisis. If the Spirit of the Mirahasi spoke on the issue, Dravan did not hear of it. Sharak, it seemed, knew when to keep silent.

And now it was half-way through the Season of Rains, and Dravan was returning to the Hassenet Ai for the festival; for Arasha to choose his successor. Dravan tried to stifle the excitement at the thought of seeing the Adept again, but it was difficult. The thought of the succession was also preoccupying him: news had reached him that Arrac had been taking tuition with Arasha, and that the young man was expected to be named as Adept. Well, Arrac deserved it, Dravan thought. Arrac was a sound person, and he'd make a good leader.

The barge took a long time to reach the Hassenet Ai, for the canal was running high with rainfall and navigation was difficult. Dravan did not expect to find Arasha waiting for him, but when the barge turned through the Avama Gap and glided up to the wharf, he saw that a familiar tall figure was waiting on the quay. The first thing that the Adept said when Dravan stepped off the barge was

'I've tried your new vegetable. We had it last night in a stew. Interesting, if a trifle salty. Vanesha says she's still picking it out of her teeth, but she's never satisfied. Anyway, how are you?'

'Coping.' Dravan said. Night had fallen early, and he had forgotten how cold the mountains became in the winter. He could see a distant shimmer high above the snowline, and the blowing dark was wet with rain. Arasha's normally sleek hair was dishevelled, and he was swathed in a thick, damp cloak. Dravan wondered how long he had been waiting. The Adept said

'I knew you would. Well, are we going to stand out here, or shall we go inside?'

Together, they walked through the sodden gardens to the complex. Dravan was startled to find how familiar it all looked, and yet it sometimes seemed that he could barely remember the hive dwelling where he had lived for the first twenty one years of his life. The Adept had been right. The Hassenet Ai had become his home now.

'So, the Adept said. 'How's life in the city?'

'Busy. Confusing.'

'But worthwhile?'

'Yes. Very worthwhile. I went to the refugee camp yesterday. They didn't know who I was. They've made lives for themselves, Adept. Children were running around; people were cooking over the fires and no-one was hungry. And the diseases that resulted from malnutrition - they've more or less been eradicated. For now, anyway. There's talk of reclaiming more land, and allowing them to settle. It might even work.'

'Good,' Arasha said. Pausing on the steps of the complex, he turned to look at the young man. 'That's where your love lies, isn't it? With people. In helping people.'

'I - I suppose so,' Dravan said, startled. He had never framed the issue like that before.

'You see,' Arasha said, and in the wet darkness his face seemed almost sad, as though something precious had been lost 'You see, I never was like you. My real interest has always been the state. The abstraction, not the messy reality. I've always told myself that it was the duty of the Hassenet Ai to remain as objective as it could; not to become over-involved in the day-to-day intricacies of politics. I still believe that. But sometimes I wonder whether it isn't just that I don't like people very much.' He paused, staring out to the distant lights of Genneret. 'You'll make a better adept than I ever could.'

- and before Dravan had time to take in what he had just been told, Arasha had taken his arm and steered him across the courtyard to the welcoming warmth of the temple.

Bashir was still sleeping, guarded by Mila's men. They had decided to lie low until the evening, rather than risk a journey to Senghala in the betraying daylight. The sensible option would have been for Garak to remain at the mansion until dusk, but events of late had been so strange that he felt the time for sensible options was past. He was longing to see the city, as though it had been a lover long left behind, and nothing Mila said could deter him. He left the building by one of its many back entrances, and found himself at the top of the Sarakhari. The city stretched below, and from this height, if he half closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that nothing had changed. The afternoon sun still glinted from the crests of the memorial pylons, and he could see the distant gleam of water as the river broadened out, divided by the many islands on which the city lay before expanding into the delta. It was hot, the air humid before the next rain, redolent with salt and spice. Even the presence of a Jem'Hadar warship coming in over the delta could not prevent a shiver of tension leaving Garak's shoulders. It would not be for long, and everything had changed, but for the moment, he was home.

Thinking back to his conversation with Mila, he winced. Years ago, he could have looked out across the city and known almost everything that was going on in its labyrinthine environs. The Order had infiltrated every organisation in Gened; even those that thought themselves unknown.

"I had limitless power," he had told Bashir in a moment of indiscretion, and for once he had not lied. It had not been the kind of power that Bashir had, perhaps, imagined: not the power to bring politicians into his pocket or children to his bed. It had taken the form of knowledge. One man could not be omniscient, but the Order could, and the Order had prided itself on its acknowledgement of even the slightest detail. This is what he had lost, and this was why he felt himself to be so powerless on the station: he lacked knowledge. And now, in the heart of the old city, he felt that he knew nothing any more. The times had left him behind. Garak told himself, as he had so often done, that it would be necessary to begin again, make a new life. He could leave the station, travel to some neutral world with a change of face and name and disappear into comparative obscurity. He knew, however, that he would not do this. He had unfinished business to attend to, and even though the task that he had been set had been placed upon him under duress, in exchange for his life, he would still see it through. The Order taught determination, and commitment, and most of all, it had taught him patience. He would wait.

He walked down through the city, anonymous at last, noting the changes. Disrupter fire had striated the high walls of the Iket, where whatever puppet government the Dominion had installed now met. Along the river, the pylon to Gul Ghanar Ressek had been shattered, and now jutted in a jagged stump out across the silty waters of the Herai. Garak wondered whether they'd even bother to repair it. Jem'Hadar were everywhere, striding in silent groups of two or three, and so were the Vorta. Like voles, Garak thought, vermin among the ruins, seeking dead meat. The broadcasts were still running. Faces known to him appeared on the hour, reciting a stream of propaganda in favour of the Dominion. It was poorly done, in Garak's opinion. These modern litanies lacked the style of the old days, their lightness of touch. The aim of propaganda was to reassure, not to berate. He doubted whether even the stupidest citizen would find comfort in these paeans to Cardassia's new masters.

He took the lower path that ran along the river to avoid the more visible signs of occupation. Here, at least, he could pretend that things were as they had always been. He passed a woman with a child, automatically noting the cut of her dress: subtle changes in fashion, Vorta-influenced perhaps, but still charming. Her dark hair fell in an ornate lattice down her spine, her brow was marked with indigo and for a moment it could have been Ziyal, passing him by. Involuntarily, he turned his head; when he looked back, she was gone, vanishing into the dark sunlight down the river path. He stood still for a moment, listening to the rhythmic sound of the barges knocking against the quay and the cries of the dakitri out over the river. It was so familiar that Garak blinked, wondering suddenly whether the past few years had been nothing more than nightmare. *If I had never left...* But what role would he have played in this new state, had he not been sent into exile? A gibbet on the Iket, no doubt, swinging in the rainy wind, even assuming that he would have survived Tain's disastrous last stand. Yet if he had been there by his father's side, perhaps Tain would not have been so easily deceived. Who could say?

The past slipped by, conjured out of the sounds of the river. Garak hated to admit it to himself, but there were times when he wondered whether the exile had been a blessing in disguise. And what he had told Ziyal had been true, for once: against the merciless logic of the universe, he had survived. But not more than survived. He should be back here: scheming, plotting, manipulating the delicate array of forces for what was still his beloved State. He smiled, considering the analogy. *No matter what you do, I'll always love you. No matter who you take to your bed, how ever much you lie to me, betray me, send me away - I'll always be back at your door.* Cardassia remained that first love, even now. He gazed across the city, seeking its span from Sihali to Sessara, noting the ruins of the Hebitian temple that still raised its graceful pylons above the river. They had not destroyed everything. The city was still intact, in the heart, where it mattered. He knew when it was time to go.

He made his way in a great circle, up past the gardens and back towards the Sarakhari, and it was in Sessara, ironically enough, that he saw Dukat. The Gul was deep in conversation with an aide: he did not see Garak, who stepped hastily behind one of the hamath trees and peered through the dark branches. Dukat looked sane enough, Garak thought disparagingly, but then, he always had. From this distance, Dukat could have been the young officer whom Garak had loved all those years ago, and he found himself wishing that he could have mended things between them. If he had acted differently, if he had made other choices...Useless to think that way. Dukat passed by, his metal breastplate catching the crimson light of the sun, and just as he reached the top of the steps he turned and glanced back, as if he sensed the presence of a ghost among the trees. Disconcerted, Garak walked quickly back through the gardens to the mansion. It would not be long before twilight fell, and he discovered that he was anxious to be gone.

*********************************************************************

Bashir did not belong in this dark place, Garak thought, as he stood looking down at the bed. The young man's face was peaceful in coma, but he looked fragile amidst the hard angles of the Cardassian room. The mansion had been built in the old manner: a basic, brutalist architecture. Any subleties had been added later, at the command of the Order. The room seemed to overwhelm the human's limp body, rendering him even more vulnerable, and Garak could not leave him alone in this alien place. He drew up a chair beside the bed and watched Bashir as he slept.

Mila had gone to rest, and apart from the two men downstairs whom, she told him, could be trusted, Garak did not feel easy about sleeping. He had taken a shot of theracine to keep him awake, and it was taking its inevitable toll on his nerves. When he wasn't paying attention, he found himself grinding his teeth under its amphetamine push. But better that, he told himself, than a knife in the back. Even as the thought occurred to him, there came a very small sound from the hall below. Garak listened. Nothing...and then it came again. Old houses were full of odd sounds, but to the Cardassian's trained ears, this had the hallmarks of something made by a person. Noiselessly, he crossed to the door. The hallway below lay in darkness. Garak craned his neck, trying to see, but there was nothing.

And then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a tiny point of crimson light climbing the wall. It moved higher, then retreated back down the panelling. Garak watched it, transfixed. He never knew what made him glance down, but as he did so he saw a similar point of light travelling up his torso. Instinct held. He threw himself backwards into the room as the disruptor blast seared the doorjamb. Throwing the door closed behind him, he ran to the side of the bed and crouched behind it, ready to shoot the first thing that came through. Thoughts, accelerated by the drug, raced through his mind. The first problem was how to deal with his assailant, and to estimate how many more people might be hiding in the shadows below. Dispose of them; establish their identities and get Bashir and Mila out of the building before anyone else arrived. He had a plan for that, but the unknown attackers lay between him and its completion. He peered through the darkness, and saw that the door was opening. He took a deep breath to steady his racing nerves, and raised the gun.

7.

Inside the Hassenet Ai, the braziers spread heat throughout the rooms, dispelling the damp. The globes of the lamps shone with a soft light, and in the dim warmth Dravan felt himself beginning to relax. He was trying not to think about the implications of Arasha's words. Arasha had made his choice, and Dravan would be Adept before his thirty fifth birthday. Despite his training, however, Dravan was not inclined to suppose that the spirits would be kind. His unsettled childhood had cautioned him into expecting the worst, and he clung to the possibility of disaster as though it were a talisman. That way, he thought wryly, he could only be pleasantly surprised. His training told him that this was a stance he must outgrow, and learn to take events, both good and bad, with detachment, but the habit was a hard one to break. His musings were interrupted by the arrival of the Adept.

'I've told the inner council that I'll announce my succession tomorrow evening, before the festival rites begin,' he said. 'I haven't told them who it is to be, but I think they've already guessed.' An expression of vague irritation crossed his face. 'I'd quite like to have surprised them, but I suppose I'll have to reinforce my reputation for wisdom rather than unpredictability...' He smiled at Dravan. 'And I haven't even asked you if you'll accept.'

His eyes met Dravan's, and the young man knew that Arasha could read his thought. *If I refuse...we could be lovers* - and the unmistakeable flash of warning flickered in the Adept's blue gaze. *Remember everything you have learned, Dravan*. The words were so clear he was startled to realise that Arasha had not spoken aloud.

'I accept,' Dravan whispered. Arasha's face betrayed a combination of relief and regret, which he made no effort to conceal.

'Then that's settled.' Arasha said. 'Well. They're all waiting for you downstairs. I suggest we go and greet our colleagues.'

He had learned a great deal during his time in Genneret, Dravan realised now. His days with the Judiciary had taught him to read people more closely, and though his first impulse was still to trust them, the naivete had been burned out of him. By now accustomed to praise, he accepted the tacit respect accorded to him by the hierarchy with equanimity, and was neither unduly flattered nor unnerved by their efforts to court his attention. In fact, the evening was something of a revelation to Dravan. He saw many things of which he had previously remained unaware. He observed old Nagal Harreki's resentment of the acolytes, whose youth was a constant reminder of his own failure to achieve more than Seventh status. From a unguarded comment he realised that the youngest of the acolytes, Suli Yerren, had no desire to take her vows but had only joined the temple to please her parents. And he also saw for the first time that Vanesha Morrec was in love with the Adept, and that Arasha knew.

Later, he reflected that they must have thought him very dull at that homecoming meal. He said very little, answering the questions that came but preferring to watch and listen. More than once, he raised his head to find Arasha's eyes upon him, but the blue, hooded gaze revealed nothing. At last, the meal ended and Dravan, excusing himself, walked out onto the terrace. The rain had cleared, and the terrace lay in starlight. Arasha was not long behind him. In silence, they walked through the gardens. The summer herbs had withered down to little gnarls of wood along the path, and the air was fresh.

'I haven't forgotten,' Dravan said, without explanation. Arasha did not pretend to misunderstand him.

'No, neither have I. But it makes no difference. It's not possible, Dravan. We both have promises to keep; to the Order, and to the vows we made. What we want can't be allowed to be important. You must understand that.'

'I understand. I just don't accept it,' Dravan said with desparate stubborness, but even as he spoke, he knew that Arasha was right. And he wondered, not for the first time, what the nature of this love really was. Beyond the immediate distractions of desire lay a host of other emotions: respect for a mentor and an elder, friendship, love for the father he had never had...It was difficult to separate the different strands. He looked up at the host of stars and wished that he was anywhere but here.

'Tomorrow,' Arasha said, gently. 'Tomorrow is to be your initiation.'

'All right,' Dravan said, wearily. 'Tomorrow, then.'

Together, they stood looking up at the sky. The summer stars had burned down below the horizon now, and the constellations of the rains had risen up. Only the Eye of Dhalet remained, low above the line of the mountains, blazing a chilly red.

'In the Emeraya, they say the Eye is an unlucky star,' Dravan murmured, pointing. Beside him, Arasha nodded. 'In the islands, too...It's said it will bring loss to our people, one day. I don't know why. The prophecies are all somewhat obscure, as prophecies tend to be. They talk of a fortress in the sky, guarding the Gate of the Eye. And they talk of war, but then prophecies always do. I sometimes think it's the single constant of history.'

Dravan shivered, but not from the cold.

'There's a legend that says the Eye is the portal of death. It always makes me think of that when I look at it. Adept,' he said, hesitantly 'I know what the teachings say, that we have more than one life, but what do you think happens? When we die?'

In the bright starlight, he saw Arasha smile.

'When we die?' the Adept echoed. 'I could repeat the teachings to you, as I would to another acolyte. I could tell you not to doubt the ancient wisdom, not to ask faithless questions. But because you are who you are, I'll tell you the truth. I've absolutely no idea.'

Dravan stared at him, bewildered.

'But you're an Adept,' he said.

'Yes,' Arasha replied. 'But I'm not a dead one.' He gave a sudden shiver. 'Shall we go inside?'

'Don't shoot,' Mila said, quickly. It was a moment before Garak's muscles would respond. Gradually, he lowered the gun, keeping it ready in case of a trap, and stepped over the door. Once out on the landing, he saw that the body of a young man sprawled in death half way up the stairs. A second corpse adorned the hall below.

'You seem to have kept your edge,' Garak said, in admiration.

'We have to leave,' Mila whispered. 'Errac and Jayal are dead. I'll help you with him,' - she gestured towards Bashir.

'Is there an unobtrusive exit to this place?'

Mila said scornfully

'This is an Order house, Elim. What a question to ask.'

Garak carried Bashir down the stairs and, at Mila's direction, through the cellar door. Once they had found their way, Garak activated the antigravity units on the stretcher, which rose obediently and glided forwards.

'Any idea who our opponents might be?' Garak hissed as they made their way through the vaults beneath the mansion.

'I was going to ask you the same thing.'

Garak snorted.

'Could be anyone. Dukat's people...Damar's. There's no shortage of enemies these days.'

'Damar...' Mila mused. 'I've been hearing a lot about that young man. Very enterprising.'

'I've a score to settle with him.'

'I understand there's a queue,' Mila said wryly. Turning her head so that she could look into his face, she added

'Is it for the girl? Dukat's daughter?'

'How did you know about that?' Garak asked warily.

'You're not my only source on the station, Elim. Damar told people what he'd done - really, for an aspiring leader, he's very bad at keeping his mouth shut. Military, you see; they never were properly trained. And of course, he drinks. Now if he'd been a member of the Order, he'd have known never to divulge unnecessary information... anyway, the person who relayed this to me also told me that Ziyal had been your lover. Is that true, Elim?'

Startled, Garak told the truth.

'No. It was what she wanted, not what I thought advisable.'

Mila nodded her approval. 'Very sensible. But you always did have the capacity to think with your brain rather than other parts of your anatomy. Unlike your father,' she added, tartly.

'Mila!'

'What? Don't tell me I've shocked you,' she said, with a sidelong glance. 'Propriety's only useful when there's a society to acknowledge it. And since that's no longer the case these days - here we are.'

Guiding the stretcher to a halt, Garak examined the door which lay open in front of them. The lintel lay a good six inches beneath the crown of his own head.

'They must have been shorter in the old days,' he murmured. 'Where does this lead?'

'Beneath the city.'

'All of it?'

'Through this door, there's a passage. Enabran thought that it dated from the days of the Insurgency, when people had to get out of the city fast. He had some of it mapped, but there are dozens of tunnels which remain completely unknown. The way we're taking joins up with the catacombs beneath the city, then up through the sluices.'

'The -?' Garak was unsure whether he had heard correctly. 'You mean the old city reservoirs?' He thought back to the downpouring seasonal rain. 'Isn't that a little risky? Some of those systems are still used as a run-off.'

'You'd prefer to stay here?'

Mila had a point, he conceded. He reactivated the stretcher and they headed down the passage. The light from Mila's torch played over the walls, revealing layers of flaking plaster and the ancient stonework beneath. As they made their slow progress through the maze, the air grew warmer and damper. It also tasted stale; uneasily, Garak wondered what the oxygen quality was like down here. His head felt heavy with old air and lack of sleep, and his arms soon began to ache. Once, to his mortification, he almost let the stretcher slide away to bang against the wall . After what seemed like hours, they came out onto a walkway overlooking a long, dark pool of water.

'That's the first of the city cisterns,' Mila whispered.

'How many are there?'

'Twenty three. They should lead out into the Herai.'

Garak thought briefly. 'That's a long way away. That's right over in the Eastern quarter.'

'We've a long way to go,' Mila said.

Bashir had once told him a story about someone travelling down into the Underworld to fetch back a young woman. Garak could not now remember the details of the tale, which had been some legend of old Earth, but he recalled the sense of bleak loss with which it had been imbued. The seeker had not rescued the girl, after all. Instead, he had violated some taboo and at the last minute her spirit had slipped from him and fled back into the wasteland. The parallels seemed too close for comfort to Garak's tired mind. The constant friction against the guide of the stretcher had blistered his hand, and the thin metal guide was now slick with blood, making the stretcher difficult to grip. The close, warm environs of the reservoir network, linked by narrow tunnels, were also having the worst possible effect on his latent clautrophobia. Eventually he said

'I'm sorry. I'm going to have to rest for a moment.' Carefully, he lowered the stretcher and sat down on a nearby ledge. Putting his head in his hands, he took a deep breath and thought of the infinity of space; sunlight and desert air; anywhere but here. He was distantly aware of Mila's hand on his shoulder.

'Tell me,' she said, gently.

'It's nothing. Claustrophobia, that's all.'

'I'd forgotten,' Mila said. 'How stupid of me.'

'I didn't think you even knew.'

'Enabran told me. When you got back from Tsenkath. He told me everything.'

'He can't have done,' Garak said, surprised to find that the bitterness was still there, after so many years. 'He didn't know half of what happened. I didn't tell him; I couldn't. He was angry enough as it was.'

'He shouldn't have blamed you,' Mila murmured. 'But he always saw his own weaknesses in you. He always saw what he couldn't accept in himself.'

'Isn't that what one has children for?' Garak said savagely, and was gratified to hear her small noise of protest.

'No. No, of course it's not. Your father was a man of many remarkable qualities. He kept Cardassia together when everything seemed to be flying apart. It was his first, and greatest love. But he was - not good, at dealing with things on a personal level. He wanted you to take the Order after him: everything he did, he did for that. Don't think he didn't pay a price.'

'Even when he died,' Garak whispered. 'Not even then would he tell me that he had any love for me beyond my usefulness. And only one moment of pride, in all those years, and that for something that happened when I was a child.'

'Elim, your father trained himself not to express his emotions a long time ago. He was typical of his generation and his culture. And he was very hurt, by what he thought you'd done.'

'I know.' Garak rubbed his eyes with his bloodstained palm, trying to ignore the pressure in his head.

'Do you think you can go on now?' Mila asked.

'I'll try. What was that?' he raised his head at the sound that echoed through the tunnels.

'I don't know,' Mila said. She bit her lip in self-reproach. 'I'm afraid my hearing's not as good as it used to be, these days.'

'Come on,' Garak said. 'Let's get going.'

9.

Dravan could not remember how he had come to be here. Vague thoughts rippled through his mind: of the tall man, the one with the beautiful eyes, holding a cup.

'Drink this,' he had said, and Dravan had done so. The memory of the liquid burning down his throat, buckling his knees, passed across his dreaming mind and was gone. He was lying on the floor of the meditation chamber, but the stones beneath his hand seemed insubstantial, as though he could pass his fingers through them.

'Who are you?' a voice whispered, but Dravan could no longer remember. He searched desparately for his own name, but it had gone into the smoke. At the back of his panicking mind, beyond whatever drug they had given him, he thought: 'I have failed the test. Already, at the first rite of initiation, I have failed' - and behind even that despair lay a grain of hope, that Arasha would have to find another successor, and then they could be lovers.

'Who are you?' the voice asked, again, and Dravan whispered

'I don't know.'

'Good,' the voice said with satisfaction.

'I don't understand,' Dravan said.

'If you do not know who you are,' the voice said, honey-sweet, 'Then you can be whoever you choose.'

Numbly, Dravan shook his head. The light grew, drifting around him until the whole world was encompassed in its span and he felt as though his mind had been laid wide open, all the way to his soul. Something immeasurably ancient was gazing at him, seeking out with ruthless efficiency everything that he sought to hide. His fears for the future, his love for Arasha: everything was mercilessly exposed to this alien scrutiny. The voice said, and it seemed almost sad

'Then it is already too late for you. For what you are and will become.'

'I don't understand,' Dravan echoed.

'Look,' the voice whispered, and Dravan found himself gazing into the void where stars are born. He had attained his wish after all; he stared into the chaotic vastness of space, looking down on clouds of nebulae, galaxies forming and destroying as he watched, and he was not alone. Something was with him: something immeasurably ancient. He had a sudden, mind-blinding glimpse of the beings that governed the universe itself and the movement of souls within it, and then he saw who he had been and would be: Hebitian, alien, Hebitian again...a multitude of lives until the end of time. And then there was nothing more.

*********************************************************************

When he awoke, it was morning. The thin rainy light illuminated the room. Arasha was sitting by the side of the bed. With an effort, Dravan raised his head. His mouth tasted of ash.

'Drink this,' Arasha told him, and held a cup to his lips. The liquid was very cold, and make Dravan gasp. 'Snowmelt,' the Adept said. 'It's traditional. Arrac ran all the way up the mountain to get this, so don't spill it.'

Obediently, Dravan drank the icy water and sank back onto the pillows. Arasha eyed him sardonically.

'You look better than I did when I went through my initiation. You look pale and romantic. I ended up with a terrible cold, I seem to recall.'

'That may yet happen,' Dravan told him, feebly. Then the vision that he had experienced began to flood back and his hands shook, sending the frosty water over the sheets. Arasha rescued the cup without saying a word and put his arms around Dravan, who clung to him like a child until he stopped shivering.

'Arasha...I saw -'

'No. Don't tell me. It's forbidden to speak of it. Don't even think about it. Not yet.'

Arasha's arms tightened around him, but Dravan remained staring, wide-eyed, into the empty and unforgiving light of day.

10.

Fear, Garak reflected, was a wonderful cure for neurosis. The footsteps of their pursuers echoed through the vaults of the reservoir network, and once a voice floated out of the darkness. To Garak's paranoid ears, it sounded like Damar, or perhaps Dukat: a choice of enemies, coming out of the night. Soon, however, the voices and the sounds of pursuit began to fade, and then were gone. Good, thought Garak, they had shaken off their pursuers in the labyrinth of tunnels. The fragile light of Mila's torch flickered across the walls. He hoped she knew where she was going; he felt like a vole in a maze. Above the laboured sound of his own breathing, he could hear the pounding of his heart. It seemed to reverberate through the tunnels, filling them with sound like the beat of a drum. Driven by paranoia and panic, as well as an unaccustomed degree of exertion, the blood was rushing in his head. He could hear it clearly, wave after wave, as though it was not his own blood at all but something external to him. And then the hot passage was filled with the smell of brackish water and he realised what was happening. Someone had opened the sluices. The tunnel was filling up. Urgently, Garak hissed

'Mila! The water!' and the face that she turned to him, illuminated in the gleam from the torch, was full of fear.

'Elim? The reservoir's not due to fill until morning.'

'They've opened the gates. They're trying to flush us out. They want us dead.'

He looked around him, frantically searching for a refuge.

'There must be an opening somewhere. There must be something...' but the tunnel was sealed. The sound of water was growing to a distant roar.

'Give me that map. Where does this come out?' Garak asked, snatching the plastic sheet from the old woman's hand.

'We're here,' Mila said, peering around his arm and indicating a point on the map. They were close to the main reservoir now. The different levels of the map showed channels leading from the cistern out into the reaches of the canal network.

'We have to get to the reservoir,' Garak shouted above the rising din of the water. 'I have an idea.'

Together, they hastened the stretcher down the tunnel and came out onto a wide ledge overlooking an expanse of oily water.

'Help me push the stretcher over the edge. Good.' He pressed the catches on either side of the stretcher so that the transparent casing opened. 'Now get in,' Garak ordered. Mila looked at him in alarm.

'What?'

'Into the stretcher! Do it! I don't have time to explain.'

Hesitantly, she lowered herself over the side of the reservoir and into the stretcher, which bobbed like a boat on its antigrav pads. She curled uncomfortably against Bashir's unconscious form. Hastily, Garak leaned over the side and closed the casing.

'What are you doing?' Mila cried, her voice muffled, but he was already in the water, gasping at the sudden chill.

'Now,' Garak said curtly. 'Hang on.'

Water was bursting through the tunnel and into the main chamber. Garak's teeth clamped around the opened oxygen filter as the wave broke over his head, and as it did so, he activated the stretcher's antigrav unit to maximum. The great wave carried them forwards towards the sluice, and as it opened they were sucked through like a cork in a bottle. The stretcher was carried along with such force that it did not touch the narrow sides of the adjoining tunnel. Garak bit down on the filter so hard that he cut the sides of his mouth. His lungs were bursting with the pressure and at last he remembered to breathe. He had a fleeting impression of the gates of the sluice as they shot through and then they were free: borne in the torrent of water from the opened sluices into the Great Northern Canal itself. It was still dark, but the lights of the city illuminated the skies with a lambent orange glow.

Garak clung to the stretcher until the rushing water slowed, carrying them gently against the stone banks of the canal. Freeing his hands, Garak hauled himself out of the water, then leaned to open the stretcher and help Mila up. They lay gasping on the slippery silt by the sides of the canal while Bashir, encased in the bubble of the stretcher, bobbed peacefully in the water below. Mila turned a basilisk eye on Garak as he lay bedraggled and panting on the side of the canal.

'That was no way to treat your mother.'

'Sorry.' Garak said, and somewhat to his shame, laughed until he choked.

'And now, I suppose, you'll want to start walking.'

'At least we know where we are.'

He had been worried that the wild ride might have damaged the stretcher's antigrav unit, but to his relief, when they fished it awkwardly out of the canal, it hovered obediently at knee height. Garak took the guideline, and they began to walk along the edge of the fields. Soon, the distant ridge of the mountains came into shadowy view as dawn approached. A cool mist lifted up from the fields, burned away by the sun, and the air smelled of earth and greeness. It promised to be a warm day. Gened fell gradually behind; ahead, lay the shrine of Senghala.

1.

'And you are telling me,' Dukat said, 'that he has now been on Cardassia Prime for two days and you have not seen fit to inform me?' The Gul's voice was gently reproving, but there was a glint in the pale eyes which made Damar's neck scales bristle.

'I've been keeping a close watch on him,' Damar said. 'He hasn't made a move without my knowledge.'

'Well, that surprises me, because from what I hear, you tried to have him killed, and not only significantly failed, but lost two men. I think you might have mentioned it to me, don't you?'

'Gul Dukat, I had no intention of deceiving you; I simply did not want to trouble you with a matter that -'

'Listen to me,' the Gul said, very softly. 'If Elim Garak sets so much as a foot off that station, I want to hear about it. I want to hear about where he goes, who he sees, who he speaks to. Is that quite clear, Damar? It is not for you to decide what is, and what is not, important.'

'I understand,' Damar said.

Dukat fixed him with a wintry gaze.

'You don't appear entirely convinced.'

'Sir, I will follow whatever instructions you give me,' Damar protested.

'Yes,' Dukat said. 'Yes, you will. And your instructions are to find out where Garak has disappeared to. I trust even you can manage that.'

When Damar had gone, Dukat sat back at his desk, lost in thought. *So. Cardassia welcomes home its prodigal son.* It was an insult, of course; a direct challenge to Dukat's authority. Elim Garak's presence burned like a blow to the face. *I thought I'd broken you, back there at Issenara*. But he'd said it himself: the mere exertion of control was no satisfaction. That could only come when the enemy agrees with you, is led inexorably towards conviction. Dukat hated to admit it, but part of Garak's appeal was that Dukat had never managed to convince Elim of the rightness of his perspective. Even at the height of their affair, so many years ago now, he sometimes caught Garak looking at him, and beyond the desire and the admiration and the resented, obsessive love, those cold eyes were clear with calculation. *You never managed to fool him*, a small, chilly voice said from the depths of Dukat's mind. *He always saw through you*.

With contempt, Dukat dismissed his own thoughts. The truth of the matter, of course, was that Elim simply hadn't been good enough for him. At first, before learning the secret of Garak's parentage, Dukat had viewed him simply as the fatherless boy to whom Enabran Tain had taken some perverted liking, transforming over the years to the ruthless young operative. Dukat had always had the military's distaste for the Order: they had no honour, no real courage, and at first he had intended only to demonstrate to Elim Garak the extent to which he despised him. He had expected Garak to react hotly to remarks calculated to wound, but the Order operative had merely given that small, cool smile and said nothing. After that, Dukat had gone out of his way to seek Garak out, constantly trying to get a rise out of him, but Garak had never given him the satisfaction. Only once had Dukat seen a glitter of anger in Garak's eyes, after a comment concerning his relations with Tain. This had confirmed Dukat's suspicions. The possibility that they might become lovers had then been very far from his mind.

They had both been somewhat drunk, he recalled now. It was shortly before Dukat's squadron left for Bajor. A party in someone's quarters had left the two of them alone together. Garak had drunk at least as much kanaar as he had, Dukat knew, but it seemed to have had little effect. The Order operative was sitting back on a couch, legs elegantly crossed, gazing at Dukat with that level, inexpressive stare.

'What's the matter with you?' Dukat demanded. 'Still spying for your master?' In Kardassi, the word had a multitude of connotations, none of which were lost on Garak.

The operative said, merely

'Not at the moment.'

Dukat lifted an arrogant head and said with a sneer

'Then I suppose you're thinking I'm the best looking thing you've seen this evening.'

'How unusually perceptive. I was thinking that very thing, as a matter of fact.'

'Doubtless you - what?' Dukat remembered that his mouth had fallen slightly ajar in a parody of surprise. Garak smiled, leaning back on the couch. A distinct sensuality was glazing the operative's blue eyes.

'I was wondering whether you might like to have sex,' Garak said, as though he barely cared one way or the other. Dukat discovered, to add to his humiliation, that he was blushing.

'I - I mean -'

'Well, well,' Garak murmured. 'I always suspected you might be shy.' Rising from the couch, he strolled across to where the astounded Dukat was sitting and slipped a finger beneath his jaw, raising his head. Through a haze of kanaar and shock Dukat noticed, not for the first time, that Elim Garak was a very attractive young man: that compact body, the air of self possession, and those elegant neck-ridges...Then Garak bent and kissed him hard on the mouth, as though he could take Dukat when and where he pleased. Dukat, infuriated, pulled him down and rolled over, so that he was lying on top of the operative and pinning his hands at his sides. Garak made no attempt to struggle free, stretching languidly under Dukat's weight. Dukat, enraged by the possibility that the operative was mocking him, growled and bit Garak sharply on the jaw-ridge, hard enough to draw blood. The blue eyes opened, and Dukat saw that the longing in Garak's face was real. Appeased, he wound his fingers into the operative's silky black hair and kissed him. Garak's blood was still salt in his mouth.

That had been the start of a long night, and a brief affair. Now, over twenty years later, images passed through Dukat's mind, their vividness undimmed. Garak lying exhausted, sprawled across the bed in the afternoon sunlight, his skin filmed with sweat and the distortion of orgasm fading from his face. A summer night with the rain pouring from the guttering, the air smelling of water and greeness and heat: Garak and himself out on the verandah of the country house, the Order operative kneeling before Dukat, head thrown back in ecstasy and the warm rain washing pearls of semen from his skin. *There's never been anyone like you*, Dukat thought now, and chased the thought angrily away. He had never been able to reconcile his belief that he was the most important thing in Elim Garak's life with the fact that the operative had betrayed him, to torture and anguish, and all for the sake of maintaining his own status in the eyes of Enabran Tain.

Over the years, which had seen Garak's downfall and his own rise, there had been many opportunities for Dukat to take his revenge. For a time, the situation had been vengeance enough: Garak exiled, alone, cast out by the Order. But then Dukat's own child had - had been seduced and beguiled and tricked, Dukat thought now, wincing away from the memory. It had all been Garak's fault. He thought he had redressed a balance, back there at Issenara; he had not bargained for the fact that it appeared to have given Garak his heart's desire. How ironic, that he should have lost Elim at last, to Julian Bashir. And now Garak was back, and his for the taking.

If Dravan had hoped that initiation would make him feel any differently, he was mistaken. The knowledge with which he had been entrusted did change things to some degree; he felt that he had a longer perspective on things, naturally enough, and everyday matters seemed less important and pressing. But the promise of eternal life encompassed too vast a span for him to be able to get a real grip on it; assuming, of course, that the gods did not lie.

The day after his initiation, he walked down to the banks of the canal. It was the coldest day of the year. Hebitia was usually a warm world, but the mountains were sometimes touched by a breath of winter. Now, frost lay in the dark places along the walls, and the thin ice on the canal was unaffected by the pale sunlight. Idly, Dravan threw a small pebble onto the ice and had the satisfaction of watching it fracture. That was like his world, he thought. He had been vain enough to think that he understood a little of the way in which life was to be lived; now, that had utterly changed. Glancing up, he saw that one of the sifa had returned. It was sitting on a rock, watching him with a cold golden eye.

'You shouldn't be here', Dravan told it, charmed. 'It's much too frosty for you.' Perhaps the little creature had been drawn out of hibernation by the sunlight, but here it was, perched blinking on a rock. Dravan studied it, taking note of the flattened crest and long claws. He wondered if this was how the spirits saw him: as an amusing little being without much thought for itself, and no real understanding of the wider world of which it was such a small part. What must it be like, to live within the parameters of eternity? The Tenathan Path was not a religion that spoke of the love of the Spirit, nor were people supposed to comprehend that being's purposes, but the Path also taught that it was necessary to question. But Dravan did not know which questions to ask, nor what constituted an answer. In the end, the issue seemed to resolve itself into a leap of faith which, he supposed, he had made by seeking initiation in the first place. He thought of Sharak's dangerous fanaticism: was the revelation that there was more than one life, a succession of lives extending far into the future, the origin of that arrogance? Sharak seemed to feel that he was somehow chosen, special, and Dravan instinctively knew that this was the great lie that the Spirit told: singling people out to do its work for it. Sharak saw people as expendable, and Arasha did not: that was the difference between them. *We are all special, all chosen...*

He raised his head to see that the Adept was watching him. He did not know how long Arasha had been there.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I was thinking...'

Arasha said nothing, simply waited for him to continue.

'Adept? Do you think that the greatest form of heresy is to question the will of the Spirit?'

Still without speaking, Arasha came to sit next to him. In the wan morning light he looked older, and Dravan realised the extent of the strain that the Adept had been under. 'In my darker moments, Dravan, I sometimes think that enlightenment is nothing more than a realisation of the extent to which one is being used. That is the burden that the Adepts bear. The Path acknowledges the existence of the Spirit, but it does not require worship. Yet it also teaches that the Spirit is our creator, and that we must do its bidding when we are called to do so. You know, before I was initiated, the notion of fate always seemed to be very unsophisticated. And then I learned that my free will is nothing more than an illusion after all. Another, more devout man might say that freedom comes through serving the spirit, but if that's the case then I've always been a heretic.'

'I don't know what I feel. Not yet, anyway.' Dravan said.

Arasha reached over and put an arm around Dravan's shoulders. The young man leaned against him, comforted by his presence. *And this is all we can ever have* he thought, bitterly. He turned so that he could see the Adept's face, and to his distress saw that Arasha looked utterly lost. And Dravan realised that he had given up the chance of love, for Hebitia, and for the future. It was a worthwhile sacrifice, but at the moment, he thought, it seemed as empty as a broken promise.

3.

They had left the fields behind now, and had paused on the ancient pathway which led alongside the canal through the foothills. Garak was fairly sure that they were not running the risk of being seen in such a remote location, and could thus afford to take a break. The heat, which even so early in the morning was strong, had dried his clothes and now that Garak was out from the confines of the reservoir network he felt that he could breathe again. Senghala lay a day's walk to the north; neither Mila nor Garak was inclined to travel there on foot.

'We need someone trustworthy,' Mila said. 'With a private vehicle.'

'Any ideas?'

'Of course. Avarran Tasic. You remember him.'

'Is he still alive?' Garak asked, amazed. 'I heard he'd been killed during the invasion.'

'Certainly he's alive. He's one of the few of us left, from the old days. Tasic's much too clever to get himself slain by a bunch of Klingons. Who do you think got me out of the colony, when Enabran disappeared? And who helped me with the arrangements for this one?' She gestured towards Bashir. 'But I'll need to contact him.'

'I should be able to rig something up,' Garak said.

This task provided occupation for the next hour, with a short wait before Tasic's arrival.

'When we reach Senghala,' Garak said 'What will you do?'

'I'll go back with Tasic,' Mila said. 'To the city at first, and then, when I know all's well with you, to wherever I choose to call home.'

Garak looked at her. She had taken off her long outer dress and bundled it up, and was now sitting in her leggings and tunic. Seeing her silhouetted against the light as she stared into the distance, Garak had a sudden vivid impression of the young woman she had once been: lean and fierce and filled with an ambition that had been wrecked by love. He had never asked her how, or why, she had become Tain's mistress, nor why she had chosen to place herself in such danger by bearing his illegitimate son. He could, he supposed, have chosen to blame her, but he respected her secrets as she respected his. He did not wish to press for the sort of openness practised among the humans: disgorging emotional traumas which brought little relief, as far as he could see. They were an Order family, and would conduct themselves accordingly.

'It's dangerous to go back to the city,' he warned her. She made a dismissive gesture.

'Obviously. But I've got used to that. Life with your father was - well, never dull. Do you know how many assassination attempts he attracted?'

'No.'

'Twenty two.'

Garak smiled.

'That has to be some kind of record.'

'I would have thought so. He nearly died, Elim, on at leat four occasions. Once was poison; once there was a bomb in his office...I forget the others. But he survived.' She paused, then said almost reluctantly 'Elim, before Enabran died - did he speak of me?'

'I - yes, he did. His love for you, his gratitude for all that you did for him...'

'You're lying,' Mila said. Reaching down, she plucked a dry blade of grass from the pathway and began to run it through her fingers, stripping it of the grain. 'Tain didn't know what gratitude meant. He told you he should have had me killed, didn't he?'

Garak was silent. 'I thought so,' she said. She sighed. 'I was never sure whether he meant it. I don't think he did. Enabran and I - unless you've loved someone for so long, you can't understand. The compromises, the knowledge of when and what to forgive...It wasn't simple, Elim, and it wasn't easy, but if I'd wanted simplicity and ease then I'd have married a filing clerk.' She reached out and touched him briefly on the arm. 'And I had you.'

'Glad that was worth it,' he said dryly.

'Oh, I think so.' Mila said. 'Look. There's our transport.'

******************************************************************

With the help of Mila's old friend they had, at last, reached Senghala. Standing in front of the complex, Garak craned his neck to look up at the carvings adorning the rock face. He ran his hand along the worn dark surface of the stone, following the curves. He had the sudden, disturbing sense that he had done the same thing many times before.

'Remarkable,' he murmured. Beside him, Mila made a small sound of agreement.

'I've only been here once before,' she said. 'Years ago now, on an Order mission. We'd had word that a fugitive terrorist was living up here; I was one of the team.'

'And did you find him?'

'No. We found traces - ash from a fire, a scrap of clothing, but although we searched the whole complex, there wasn't a sign of him. We concluded he'd gone up into the mountains - he'd had a head start. We never did find him.'

'A terrorist...' Garak mused. 'A dissident against the Occupation?'

'In part. He was the leader of an underground cult that were trying to re-establish the Tenathan Path. His name was Chiran Genneshen. He started disseminating material against the Occupation - saying that there was an old prophecy that ruin would follow. Quite insane, of course.'

'It has, though, hasn't it?' Garak said. 'Brought ruin, that is.' He glanced at Mila. 'Not that I put any credence in these things, you understand.'

Mila did not reply. She stepped forward across the shattered stones of the forecourt.

The complex must have been impressive once, Garak thought. Twin columns of a red, black veined stone guarded the entrance. The lintel had fallen years before, and the rubble concealed the dark interior of the temple. A sad place, he thought, and somehow familiar. Memory tugged at him, a voice seemed to whisper in his ear, and then it was gone. He looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see the forecourt thronging with Hebitian ghosts, but there was only a stirring of dust in the wind. He placed his hand on the warm plastiglass covering of the stretcher.

'Not long now,' he said to the unmoving Bashir, as much to comfort himself as anything. Mila had gone ahead, striding into the complex with her disruptor held loosely at the ready. Garak pressed the stretcher forward to follow her.

Inside, the complex was dark. Garak shivered, anticipating a return of his claustrophobia, but instead the ruins enveloped him with an unexpected sense of reassurance.

'I've been here before,' he murmured.

'When?' Mila turned, wide-eyed.

'I don't know. Deja vu, the humans say...I know what's through those doors. We're close to the meditation chamber.'

Leaving Mila standing by the stretcher, he picked his way over the broken stones, put a hand to the doors and pushed. They creaked open on their shattered hinges and Garak stepped inside. He swung the torch around the room, seeing a high, domed ceiling and plastered walls. Surely there had been banners here...but the walls were bare except for a central panel. Faces gazed out at him across the years: blank eyed beneath elaborate coils of hair. These must date from the eighth century, long after the chamber had been constructed. Torchlight glinted from a lamp, suspended from a length of chain: the lamp looked polished, as though someone had only just finished rubbing away the tarnish.

'What's there?' Mila's voice sounded anxiously from the hallway.

'Nothing of interest,' Garak said. He made his way out of the chamber to where she stood.

'What happens now?' she asked.

'I don't know.' Now that he had finally reached his goal, Garak felt suddenly at a loss. All of his energies had been expended in complying with the Prophet's instructions; now that was accomplished, he had no idea what to expect. He gazed around him, seeking inspiration, but none came.

'I'll have to stay here,' he said. 'I think you should make your way back.'

Mila gave him a doubtful glance.

'If you're sure.'

'No, I'm not sure,' Garak told her. 'But we'll just have to see what happens.'

She held him close for a moment, resting her head on his shoulder.

'Be safe, then, Elim. I hope your young human recovers. Contact me before you leave, won't you?'

'I promise.'

'And call me, if you need help.'

'I will. Mila. Thank you.'

'Ah,' she said, with a sigh. 'What else am I here for?'

- then, turning, she walked out into the sunlight to where the transport was waiting.

4.

A round of formal ceremonies followed Dravan's initiation. He had learned in Genneret to bear being the centre of attention with grace, but it still chafed. He would much rather have spent his time quietly in the temple, or walking in the cool, humid gardens, but protocol demanded that he be subjected to a host of audiences and banquets and performances. Members of the Judiciary came from Genneret, Sharak among them. Arasha would, Dravan knew, be keeping an eye upon the Mirahasi leader, but Sharak's presence unnerved him. The general had been lying low during Dravan's brief rise to public notice; he had not seen Sharak for some weeks, and then they had not spoken. Sharak had passed him on the steps of the Iket, giving him an ingratiating, mocking smile. Dravan would have placed a bet on the probability that Sharak was planning something.

Throughout the ceremonies, the Mirahasi leader's cold eyes rarely left Dravan's face. Dravan treated Sharak with the smooth blandness that Arasha employed for people he really despised, but it only seemed to provide Sharak with some private amusement. Much to Dravan's surprise, the northern tribes had also sent a representative for the ceremonies; an unprecedented event.

'Tekani Na Harrukan...' Arasha mused. 'Interesting woman. I remember her mother, the previous matriarch. Wily old lady. Tekani seems to be following in her footsteps.'

'Sharak doesn't like her,' Dravan murmured. He rested his folded arms on the sill and leaned out into the rainy afternoon. The fresh chill in the air seemed to help him think. Behind him, he heard the rustle of the Adept's robes as Arasha shifted position on the couch.

'Yes,' Arasha said softly. 'Sharak does not like Tekani Na Harrukan at all, nor her tribe, nor any of her people...I think we must keep an eye on that particular situation. Sharak will be returning to Genneret soon, and so will you.'

Dravan nodded, rather bleakly.

'In the meantime,' Arasha continued 'I should like you to get to know Tekani. You'll find it worthwhile. She thinks highly of you, you know. The Tribes are giving you credit for averting the invasion of their territory. For the first time in three hundred years, civilised Hebitia and the Tribes have the possibility of a real alliance. You're the new start, Dravan. We have to capitalise on that.'

'I'll talk to Tekani,' Dravan promised and later, after the pomp of the ceremony was over, he sought her out.

He found her out on the terrace, her fur and leather cloak wrapped tightly against the wet.

'Na Harrukan, assaya mehan achat,' Dravan said, carefully and formally. The sides of Tekani Na Harrukan's mouth twitched.

'You speak very good Habata,' she told him, in excellent Karvassi, 'But I'm afraid your accent needs a little work.'

'I haven't had much practice,' Dravan said, startled.

'I'm sure you'll get plenty over the next few years,' Tekani murmured, and turned to face him, favouring him with a long, frank stare. Slightly disconcerted, Dravan recollected his wits long enough to appraise her in turn. The tribeswoman was a small, slight person. He found it difficult to guess her age, but estimated that she was probably somewhere in her early forties: an elder, then, given the lower life expectancy of the Tribes. Her pointed face was gaunt with hard living; great dark eyes gazed out of prominent cradles of bone. Her third eye was decorated with an inlay of silver wire and her hair fell in intricate braids down to her waist. She had a quality of stillness that reminded him of the sifa: the same kind of grace. Looking at her, Dravan very much hoped that he met with her approval. Tekani said nothing, but turned back towards the distant lights of Genneret.

'Over there,' she said 'is a place whose inhabitants wish me nothing but ill. They want my people's lands, and they'll do what they can to take them. What are you going to do to stop them?'

Flustered, Dravan said

'I - well, it's a very complex situation, and it would need careful analysis. I suppose-'

'No,' Tekani said simply. 'I am not a primitive person, Adept-in-waiting Dravan. I have breathed politics since the day I was born. Don't stall me with talk of complexity. The situation is inherently simple: there are a series of possibilities, and a series of options. I have come here because you have demonstrated your faith, and I want to know if you will make good on that.'

'If I can, I will.'

'All right.' She smiled at him; he noticed for the first time that she had teeth missing.

'That will do for now.'

'Will you come inside?' Dravan asked, with a sudden shiver. He could see clouds massing up in the heights, drifting down to veil the mountains with rain.

'No, it's too stuffy. I'll stay out here for a little while. Don't worry,' she added. 'We'll talk again.'

She pressed her thin fingers against his own and he walked slowly back to the complex, lost in thought.

5.

Garak watched until the transport was out of sight, lost against the rock wall of the valley, then he turned and walked back into the complex to where the stretcher lay. It was so quiet here, as though he was the only person left alive in all Cardassia. He smiled at the thought, but it was hardly an amusing one. Shock at the changes in Gened was only now beginning to reach him. He felt as though he had returned to find his lover raped; he had not expected it to hurt so much. Here, at least, there were no reminders of the last five years, but only silence. Twilight was falling like a shadow across the land, casting the mountain wall into a blue silhouette and merging the distant line of sky and sea. The air smelled of dust and heat. For the first time since they had arrived on Cardassia, Garak felt something that was close to peace. He had a sudden urge to talk to Bashir, to tell him all that had happened, and everything he felt. Even though it was unlikely that the young man could hear him, he still wanted to revive a semblance of their old intimacy. His steps hastened as he neared the entrance to the complex. He stepped hurriedly over the rubble, ducking under the broken beam of the lintel, and paused. The stretcher was gone.

'Julian...' Garak breathed. For a stunned moment, he found himself literally unable to believe his own eyes. He wondered crazily whether the unit's antigrav field had become accidentally activated; whether the stretcher had taken off by itself and was now nudging its way through the dark passages of Senghala. The thought was so absurd that he almost laughed.

Taking a deep breath, he drew the disrupter and walked cautiously forward. The hallway was still dark, but he could see light coming from somewhere: a faint, iridescent glow. The stretcher had lights, he remembered. He stopped to listen, but there was nothing. With the disrupter at the ready, he stepped over the threshold of the chamber.

The lamp that hung from the ceiling had been lit, and it was this that was giving off the pale, smoky light. Beneath it, in the depression in the floor, lay Bashir. The stretcher was nowhere to be seen. Bashir's body had been arranged so that he fitted the depression, curled like a cat. Someone was kneeling by his side: an old man, dressed in a filthy assortment of rags and wrapped in a greasy cloak. His fingers were in Bashir's mouth, and he was probing and working them against Bashir's teeth. At Garak's involuntary sound of protest, the old man raised his head and Garak saw that his eye sockets were quite empty.

'What,' Garak asked icily 'are you doing?'

'You'll have to speak a bit louder than that,' the old man said, querulously. 'I'm blind, you know.'

Wonderful, thought Garak. Blind, deaf and mad.

'What are you doing?' he shouted. 'Leave him alone! And who are you, anyway?'

'Leave him alone? But I've only just started. These things take time - they can't be done in an instant. Sit down and be quiet.'

Without quite knowing why he did so, Garak complied. He saw that the old man was working some kind of paste into Bashir's mouth, smearing it along the gums. Finally he withdrew his fingers and Garak saw that they were stained with blood.

'What have you done?' he asked anxiously and the old man replied

'Fastest way for him to ingest the stuff. Bit corrosive, but he'll be all right; don't worry. He's got good teeth,' he added, wistfully.

'Yes, he has, and I think he would prefer to keep them where they are,' Garak said loudly. 'Who are you?'

'What? Oh. I am Genneshen,' the old man said, as though this was perfectly obvious, and then Bashir opened his eyes.

'Senghala,' Dukat said. 'Why would he want to go there?'

Damar gave the Cardassian equivalent of a shrug, watching Dukat warily.

'I've no idea.'

'There's nothing up there, apart from the ruins, and there can't be anything to interest him there. And he's taken the human with him, you say?'

'On a stretcher.'

'On a stretcher,' Dukat marvelled. 'All the way up into the mountains - Cardassia's most wanted exile, Tain's bitch mistress and a Federation citizen. And you've only just found out where they went.'

'They had help,' Damar protested.

'Indeed? From whom?'

'A man named Avarran Tasic.'

'Ah, yes. That's an old connection, and one that you should have anticipated, Damar.' Dukat's manner had become almost avuncular. 'Never mind. You can't be blamed for your youth, I suppose.'

He leaned back in his chair, idly playing with a pen that had been resting on his desk. Damar thought longingly of his quarters and the bottle of kanaar waiting for him in the desk drawer. There was that new adjutant, too: what was her name? Ysset Havarek...a pretty little thing, and to the best of his knowledge, unattached. Perhaps some company would be in order later, too...He realised with a start that Dukat was staring at him, the cold eyes unreadable.

'Damar?' the Gul said, with silky politeness.

'Sir?' Damar said, with a cold clutch of panic.

'When you've finished daydreaming, you might like to reflect on my suggestion that a trip would be in order.'

'I'm sorry, Sir?'

'A trip of historical interest, Damar. To the old Hebitian shrine of Senghala.'

7.

'Julian,' Garak said. He sat down heavily on one of the stone benches that encircled the chamber. Bashir stared at him wonderingly, and his lips moved to speak an unknown name.

'Arasha?' It was no more than a whisper on the air.

'Who? It's me,' Garak said, more sharply than he had intended. 'Elim.'

'Elim,' Bashir repeated, as though he'd never heard the name before, and then comprehension dawned. 'What - where are we?'

'On Cardassia Prime. In a place called Senghala.'

'Senghala?' Genneshen said. 'Is that what they're calling it now?'

'What are you talking about? It's been called that for four hundred years.' Garak stared at him. 'You should know that.' Something about Genneshen was curiously familiar, he realised: the old man reminded him of someone. A name was tugging at memory: not the same name, but almost the same. Garak tried to seize it, but it was gone.

'Four hundred or four - it's odd, it stops making a difference after a bit,' Genneshen said, surprised.

'How old are you?' Garak asked, moved by a sudden suspicion.

'Oh, I suppose I must be very old,' Genneshen said, with an air of vague surprise. 'It all gets so confused...They used to call this place the Hassenet Ai, you know. It was a wonderful place, long ago.'

'It was, wasn't it?' Bashir said. 'Do you remember the gardens? And on a clear day you could see all the way to the delta.'

'I've lit the lamp,' the old man said, leaning across to grasp Bashir's arm in the old gesture of friendship. 'Just as it used to be.' He paused, adding 'I did my best, you know. I tried to hold things in trust for you, just as you asked me, and then when the prophecy began to be fulfilled, I tried to start things again. But it didn't work. I'm sorry, Dravan. I failed you.'

'It's all right,' Bashir said gently. 'I know you tried, and that's what matters.'

Garak said blankly

'Julian?'

The figure before him was undoubtedly Bashir, but for a moment it seemed as though the young man's face was overlaid by another countenance: Cardassian, silver skinned and dark eyed, and so familiar that Garak almost gasped. For a moment, the chamber seemed thronged with faces, all known to him, all dead. There was something that he should remember - but then the illusion was gone. Bashir was shaking his head in bewilderment. Some sort of drug, Garak thought wildly; something entering the air supply? - but deep within him he knew that there was nothing of the kind here.

'We don't have long,' Genneshen said. 'The murai herb will revive him for a few hours, no longer. And in that time, you have to find the key.'

'The key?'

'The key to what happened here, all those years ago. The key to the future. Before the Assatra come. Oh, it knows what's happening - and it'll stop us if it can.'

Garak felt as though he was lapsing in and out of the conversation: crucial elements were missing. Then pragmatism reared its head. Bashir was back, if only for a while. Under normal circumstances, Genneshen would be the last person whom he was inclined to trust, but for now, Garak did not know who else could help them.

'All right,' he said to the old man, who crouched, swaying protectively, over Bashir. 'Tell me what we have to do.'

Genneshen, infuriatingly, gave a rippling shrug; a very human gesture that seemed out of place on Cardassian shoulders.

'Well, I don't know. You'll have to work that out for yourselves. I'm going outside. Too hot in here.' He lurched to his feet and felt his halting way towards the door. 'I'll be in the courtyard, if anyone wants me.'

When Genneshen had gone, Garak collapsed on his knees beside the young man. He found that he was irrationally furious.

'Do you know what you've put me through?' he demanded. 'Do you?'

'I'm sorry,' Bashir said, nonplussed. 'I don't remember a thing.'

'Try,' Garak said fiercely. Gripping Bashir's shoulders, he gave him a gentle shake, then discovered that it was he who was trembling. He held Bashir close, burying his head in the young man's shoulder. He felt Bashir's hand come up, tentatively stroking the back of his head.

'Hey,' Bashir said, awkwardly. 'Elim?'

Garak bit his lip hard.

'It's all right,' he told Bashir. 'It's going to be all right.' - but expert liar though he was, even Garak could not convince himself.

They spent the next hour in conversation, but it was of little help.

'I don't remember anything,' Bashir said, with evident frustration. 'I remember going to the shrine in Dekhana, and talking to the Orb, but I don't know what the hell I said. And I think it spoke to me - it was as though it suddenly turned on me, it was as though it were somehow alive, but after that - nothing.'

'And you've no memory of our journey here?'

'No. Why, was it exciting?'

'It had its moments,' Garak murmured. He thought of Mila and smiled. 'We had a little help en route.'

'And who's Genneshen?'

Garak favoured him with an odd look.

'I thought you could tell me that. After all, you two were chatting away like old friends twenty minutes ago.'

'Yeah, that was bizarre,' Bashir muttered. He shook his head as if trying to clear it. 'For a moment, it was though I was another person entirely - and I remembered things, about this place, about someone who was and isn't you.'

'What?'

'It's as though you were someone else, too. Someone so close to me - well,' he added with a doubtful smile 'I suppose you are.'

'A reassuring statement of lifelong affection, there,' the Cardassian said, acidly. 'Anyway, never mind that now. Tell me exactly what you remember.'

Bashir sighed.

'This place...it was a temple, or something. Funnily enough, it reminded me of a Bajoran shrine. In fact, that's where I thought I was when I came round, except for old whatsit leaning over me. And the calligraphy -' he pointed to the faint lettering which traced itself across the ceiling '- that's Kardassi, I think. But I think the last time I was here, it was full of fire and light and the smell of blood - and you looked at me and said 'It's time to go.' And there was such sorrow in your face, but you seemed completely resigned to it.'

Garak felt the scales at the back of his neck begin to curl with an ancient sense of danger. Bashir's words had reminded him of something; a very old, forgotten memory like a dream. The doctor was watching him closely.

'Garak?' Bashir said.

'I don't know...We're not getting anywhere with this. Where's Genneshen?'

*********************************************************************

They found the old Cardassian squatting at the edge of the canal, poking at the black water with a stick.

'What are you doing?' Bashir asked. He sat down beside Genneshen, and the old man's eyeless sockets turned towards him. Genneshen smiled.

'Can't you see the stars?' he whispered. 'Down there...down in the water, like the souls of the drowned...'

Garak was half convinced by now that Genneshen was no more deranged than he was.

'I thought you were blind,' he remarked.

'Ah,' Genneshen said, craftily. 'That's what I tell everyone, you see. Come here.'

'Excuse me?'

'Come *here*', Gennshen insisted. Reluctantly, Garak sat back on his haunches so that the old man could whisper in his ear. He had thought, vaguely, that Genneshen might smell rank and unpleasant, but the old man had no odour at all.

'Listen to me,' Genneshen murmured. 'One upon a time, I could have whatever I wanted. Latinum, a place on the council, all the power I could ever enjoy...Do you know what I really wanted, Elim Garak?'

'No,' Garak whispered.

'I wanted your father's skull, to whistle the spirits through, and your mother's heart to feed to the ghosts of the sifa. They like that, apparently,' he added in a perfectly normal voice. 'Fresh meat, you know...After all, it was your own dark-hearted family who put paid to the new acolytes. Oh, I heard her when she came just a day ago: Amila Garaka Ka'Tain or whatever she calls herself now. It was different then, I seem to recall. And she's as old as I am now - there'd hardly be a drop of blood left in that withered heart...' Genneshen was spitting as he spoke.

'Um,' Bashir ventured.

'I'm terribly sorry,' Genneshen said loudly. 'Getting off the point again... I'd have done you a favour, wouldn't I, if I'd taken old Enabran's life? Saved you all that disgrace, that exile - you'd have been Head of the Order once Tain had gone. But I didn't. I came back here, to stand guard, because it won't be long now before it's free.' He gestured in the direction of Bashir. 'He'll slip back into his coma soon and then - and then there'll just be night, for all of us. Because once he's far enough into the eraya, it will have a gate. A door. It'll be able to come through again, and I don't think we'll be able to stop it this time.'

'Genneshen,' Garak said firmly. 'What are you talking about?' - and when the old man did not reply, he made his own wild guess, fuelled by an understanding which he had not known he possessed. 'You keep referring to 'it.' Is something imprisoned here? What the Bajorans call a Prophet?'

'No,' Genneshen said, after a long pause. 'Another. Like the Prophets, but not.'

'A pagh wraith?'

'Oh, words...' Genneshen said with contempt. 'Don't you remember?'

Bashir said incredulously 'Are you suggesting that the - wraiths, the whatever-they-are, came from *here*?'

'I should have thought that was perfectly obvious,' Genneshen said. 'It was your doing, after all.'

- and while they gaped at him, stunned, Genneshen rose and ambled away down the path along the canal, moving surefooted into the darkness.

Any fears Dravan might have had about the immediacy of the situation were soon allayed. Sharak left the next day for Genneret, having made his peace with Tekani Na Harrukan.

'Sharak's lying, of course,' Tekani said to Dravan. They were standing out on the platuea in a rare moment of sunlight. Tekani turned, bit down on her lip and spat bloodily against the bad luck of speaking an enemy's name. 'But it doesn't matter. He won't be able to cross the passes until spring, and your people hold the Avama Gap, which means he'll take troops west through the ranges of the Tehin Rahan.'

She spoke as though war were already an established fact, an attitude which Dravan felt moved to comment upon.

'War will come,' Tekani said, calmly. 'The crucial question is when.'

She wrapped her arms around herself and stood swaying; Dravan had become used to these odd movements.

'We'll fight back, but the trouble with the tribes, Dravan, is that we are incapable of acting in unity...Our leaders prefer momentary strife to long term gain. Perhaps we deserve to be conquered...' she mused, then added 'But I used to be like that, before I learned to think.'

Dravan smiled.

'Whoever taught you did a good job.'

'He hasn't told you, has he?'

'Who?'

'Arasha. He spent a winter with us, years ago. I was fifteen then, I thought I was grown. I had three children already; if there was any telling to be done, I was the one to do it. Then Arasha came, with a man named Essoy, who now sits on the Judiciary Council.'

'Yes,' Dravan said, remembering. 'He said he'd spent time with the tribes.'

'Essoy was a good strategist. But Arasha could see things from every perspective; he could get inside your head, my mother used to say, and look through your eyes. And he'd listen, and he wouldn't criticise, or tell you what you ought to think - he'd lead you through the steps until you found you were arguing against yourself...' She stood still for a moment, the dark eyes slitted against the sun and the cold. 'And of course I listened to him because he was so handsome. I remember, there was a bird we had, a surazh that used to come and sit on his shoulder, and his hair was as black as the feathers of the surazh. So handsome...and he still is,' and she glanced slyly at Dravan. 'Don't you think so?'

Flustered, Dravan opened his mouth to reply and found himself stumbling on the words.

'I just wanted to be sure,' Tekani said.

'We're not lovers,' Dravan managed to say.

'But you'd like to be, wouldn't you? And why not?' the matriarch said. She took his chin in her fingers and turned his head; she must assess her riding hounds this way, Dravan thought indignantly.

'Would you like to check my teeth, too?' he asked sourly and Tekani laughed.

'Arasha needs someone like you. You're too sophisticated, you Hebitians. What if you are his lover? In the tribes, that's how you watch your back. I'm making sure that any successor of mine shares my bed first: how else do you get to know a person?'

'It's forbidden,' Dravan said uneasily.

Tekani spat again.

'Forbidden...Why deny life? You're all the same, you priest-scholars - constantly making things hard for yourself just so you feel important.'

Dravan said nothing. There was no defence he could make which would not violate the terms of his initiation. Yet the matriarch seemed to sense the thoughts that were running through his mind.

'My people have a story,' she began. 'It is the oldest story of all, and it is not one of the ones that are told around the night-fires, or to children to make them sleep. It is a secret story, but I will tell it to you for Arasha's sake, and for the sake of the man you will become when you are Adept. It is a story from the beginnings of the world.' She glanced at him and smiled, saying mockingly 'Well? D'you want to hear it?'

Dravan realised that he was looking at her open mouthed, like a child.

'Yes,' he said.

'Very well,' Tekani replied. Gathering her furs around her, she sat down on a nearby rock, her booted feet planted firmly on the ground. 'I know you find it cold,' she added 'But this is not a story that should be told inside, where the wrong ears can hear it. Better that it's lost in the light and the winds as soon as it leaves my mouth -' and from the change in her voice he knew that this was a ritual beginning. 'One night, long ago, before there were the stars in the sky, people came to Hebitia. They were not our ancestors, not the Karvasi-mnar, and they did not look like us. But it's hard to say - no-one knows what they looked like, for they played with form as we might put on different clothes. They came in a magical boat: as it touched the air of Hebitia, it shattered and the fragments turned into mountains. The people drifted down on the winds into the world. Some of them joined hands on the Imhari plains and became a golden lake, where they stayed for hundreds of years. And one of them, the most powerful, took to the caves of the Tellahanan, where it learned about fire and darkness and haunted the caves and the upper air.

Over those many years, the Karvasi-mnar grew out of the earth, and became our ancestors. They bred and increased, and at last they spread all over the world they knew. Some of our ancestors went to the Imhari plains, where they discovered the golden lake. They settled near its shores, not because they could drink it or fish in it, but because it was beautiful and they searched for beauty as we might search for food and water. But the people of the lake did not want them there. They came in the night, and snatched our ancestors away, or left them butchered around the edges of the settlement. Our ancestors were grieved by such cruelty, and they decided to act. They dug pits around the lake, as far down as the black blood of the world, and then they built a brush wall and set fire to it on the hottest, driest day of summer. The beings of the lake split and fled: it's said that there were seven of them. Our ancestors drove them into the pits and threw torches after them so that the blood of the world caught fire, and burned them out. Only one survived, taking the form of a bird and flying south, never to be seen again.

The being in the mountains witnessed their defeat, and decided to work on the mind rather than on the form. It called itself a spirit, and created illusions so that our ancestors believed it. It allowed itself to be worshipped, until the day when the heroine Drvari Nar Tarkalan found the Dark Sphere and banished it. It fled shrieking into the mountains after a great battle, and Drvari learned in a dream that it had tried to go back to its original home, a net that had been placed between the gates of the sky, but its kind had cast it out and would not take it back. Drvari followed it and sealed it inside the mountains, then she tied herself to her great riding hound, and let the hound carry her beyond the lands of the tribes, into an unknown place. It's said that a man saw them, travelling north, and Drvari was already dead: she was frozen, and her eyes were open as though she dreamed. No-one knows what happened to her. '

Tekani stretched, arching her lean back and lacing her fingers together. 'A long story,' she said.

'And what happened next?'

'That's the end of the story. There is no more.'

'But what happened to the Spirit?' Dravan asked, but he already knew the answer.

'Perhaps it's still here,' Tekani said. She stared out across the brightness of the frost, towards the portals of the Hassenet Ai and her eyes narrowed. 'Still working its woes...The Mirahasi Temple think so, anyway. But you won't be interested in some old tale; not someone like you, a scholar...'

'Does Arasha know the story?' Dravan interrupted.

'Arasha,' said Tekani 'was the one who told it to me.'

'Well,' Garak said, annoyed. 'I must say, that was most unhelpful.' He turned to Bashir for confirmation, and saw that the young man was leaning forwards, his head in his hands.

'Julian?' Garak said in alarm. He put an arm around Bashir's shoulders; the young man was shaking.

'Shit,' Bashir murmured. 'It's okay, I'm alright.' He swallowed painfully, adding 'Nauseous...'

'I'm not surprised. Genneshen's enough to revolt anybody,' the Cardassian said with an attempt at levity. 'And you haven't eaten for over a week - I know you've been in stasis but it still has an effect.'

'It's not that. I don't think so, anyway. Something the old man said: I keep getting memories, it's as though I'm living two lives at once. I don't know what the hell's happening to me.'

Sliding down onto his stomach, he leaned into the canal and splashed his face with water. Reflected in the dark surface of the canal, the stars danced and fractured.

'You ought to rest,' Garak said.

'I know.'

Garak helped the young man to his feet, and led him back into the shelter of the shrine. Old instincts led him to an antechamber; this had been ransacked long ago but someone, possibly Genneshen, had installed a makeshift bed. Garak was glad to see that it bore no recent signs of use. Heading into the shrine itself, he retrieved the stasis stretcher and removed the bottom pad; with this and the meagre blankets on the bed, they would at least be able to rest. Bashir seemed already half asleep. As quickly as he could, Garak arranged the bedding and curled around him. It was cold in the chamber, but at least it was dry. Bashir's breathing was ragged and he muttered fitfully. Garak slid a hand from under the blanket and touched the young man's brow: Bashir felt hot, as though some inner fire was burning.

'Julian...' the Cardassian murmured.

'Couldn't stop you,' Bashir whispered, mumbling in his sleep. '...I didn't know...'

'Hush...'

'...didn't realise what it meant... a thousand years, the spaces between the stars...didn't know how cruel god could be...'

'You're dreaming...'

'No...' Bashir's voice was no more than a breath of sound, like a ghost's voice in the shadows of the chamber.

'Listen to me,' Garak said. Unconsciously, his own voice had changed, to become the voice of the interrogator. How many times, he wondered vaguely, had he employed it in this way? *You can tell me everything. Nothing will happen to you; everything's going to be all right. Just tell me, and I'll make sure of that...* - all the forgotten lies, the empty reassurances, delivered in that same beguiling tone that said, beneath it all *Trust me*. He was no longer the same person, but the voice had not changed: the snake to lure the dove.

'Julian, listen to me. None of that matters now. None of it. Everything's different now. And you're going to get well, and remember, and we'll go back to the station safely, very soon.'

Bashir made a small sound.

'Do you understand that? You must believe me, Julian. You must trust me...'

and he murmured on, lying to his love in the cold dark, and eventually Bashir abandoned whatever dream had been troubling him and slept. And Garak, ironically enough, talked himself to sleep too, and dreamed of nothing, except perhaps the place that lies between one life and the next.

********************************************************************

Next morning, Genneshen had still not reappeared. The Cardassian woke to find that he was alone in the narrow bed. A thin shaft of light streamed across the doorstep, coming from some fracture high in the rock. The Cardassian turned on his side and watched the motes of dust twist and dance in the sun, fearing what the day might bring. Then he roused himself and walked out into the courtyard.

'Hello,' Bashir said. The young man was sitting on a convenient pile of rocks by the entrance to the shrine. His hair was wet.

'There's a well,' he said, shielding his eyes from the light and squinting up at Garak. 'Genneshen showed me.'

'He's deigned to put in an appearance, has he?' Garak said. His voice sounded rusty with sleep. He sat down beside Bashir.

'He was here earlier. He kept talking...I didn't understand a word of it. He went off to look at the gardens.' Bashir indicated a wasteland of scrub that lay in front of the rubble which half-concealed the temple.

'Why do I get the impression that Genneshen is living in a different world to the rest of us? Did he actually say that? ''To look at the gardens'?'

'Yes. I know, he's blind. I could see him for a while; he was peering at the herbs.'

'Mmm.' Garak stole a glance at his friend. 'How are you feeling?'

Bashir shrugged.

'A bit fragile. I'll check out whether there's anything to eat, but I'm wondering whether I should bother. According to Genneshen, I'm probably due to lapse back into catatonia today.'

'Do you have any idea what's wrong with you?'

'No, I bloody don't,' Bashir replied, with irritation. 'Sorry. I'm not angry with you; I'm annoyed with myself. While you were still asleep I ran some tricorder checks - I can't find anything wrong with me. There's some very peculiar stuff going on with my neural pathways, but apart from that I am the very picture of health.'

'If you'll pardon me for saying so, you don't look it.'

'I don't feel it, either. I feel as though someone's beaten me with hammers.' He rubbed his face with his hands.

'What Genneshen was saying last night,' Garak said. 'About the being in the temple...What do you think about all that?'

'Past lives...' Bashir murmured. He squinted up into the dull glare of Cardassia Prime's crimson sun and sighed. 'I don't know what I think about it. Plenty of Earth's religions consider reincarnation to be the case, but I've never believed in it. I've never really seen why it's important, somehow - it's as if this life isn't enough.'

'I suppose the people who come closest to reliving past lives are the Trill.'

'But that's not reincarnation as such. That's got a physiological basis,' Bashir said. 'Mind you, there's still an awful lot we don't know about the mind and how it functions. Maybe we do have some sort of essence that persists. Who knows?'

'Tell me,' the Cardassian said. 'Why did you start thinking about the Orbs?'

An unfamiliar expression passed over Bashir's face, but it was gone so swiftly that Garak was not sure if he had imagined it. It could almost have been guilt. At last the young man said

'I had a dream.'

'A *dream*?'

'I can't remember the details, but I was in a very large building, like some kind of ceremonial hall, and I was being questioned. And there was an Orb in the middle of the hall, but it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was almost as though it was alive; it seemed to have some kind of sentience. I felt as though I was part of some much bigger pattern; one that I wasn't capable of grasping fully. Then someone told me that the answer was in the Orb, but they didn't say how or why. I wasn't even sure who was speaking to me. I didn't remember the dream until some time later, but I began to get obsessed with the Orbs. I started reading all sorts of Bajoran literature, trying to find out information about them, and it was garbled - almost as though someone had been entrusted with information they did not understand. As though someone had given a technical manual to a primitive person, and they'd transcribed it into their own terms...It's hard to explain. So I decided to investigate the Orbs more closely. You know the rest.'

Garak reached out across the brief gap and put his hand on Bashir's wrist. He said nothing. He was aware that the young man was watching him curiously, but he waited for a moment, choosing his words with care before he spoke. At last he said

'I don't like being manipulated.'

'Well, neither do I,' Bashir said, bewildered. 'Who's manipulating you? Do you mean Genneshen?'

'No,' Garak said shortly. 'Something I can't see, or touch, or hear. Something that's beyond all of us. I mean the Prophets.'

'What?'

'Do you remember that conversation we had before you left for Bajor, when I said that none of us truly understood what the Prophets were?'

'Yes, before I left for Bajor.'

'Well, I still don't know what they are - I don't believe that they're gods, but I think that they're beyond our capacity to understand them.' He released Bashir's arm and put his hands in front of him, weighing the air in an effort to explain. 'I don't know why I think this, but it's as though I'm remembering something that was told to me years ago. I think that the beings whom the Bajorans call the Prophets have been acting in the affairs of this quadrant for a very long time now. And I think that we're just pawns in the Prophets' game.'

Bashir stooped, picked up a shard of black stone and turned it over in his hands. Then he said

'And Sisko?'

'Sisko is important to them. He's their chosen human. I've been wondering whether they brought him to the station in the first place, engineered events so that he was in the right place at the right time. I think that the Prophets' agenda has to do with the Founders, but that's just a guess. I've no basis for it.'

'The beings from the Q continuum,' Bashir said 'They're the closest thing there are to gods.'

'Yes, we had a visit from one of them, didn't we? An odd, capricious entity...What I heard about that reinforced my belief that becoming a deity would drive you mad. Either that, or your motives would be so strange, so far beyond the normal mortal perspective, that we poor humanoids couldn't comprehend them. Years ago, people worshipped gods, but a lot of the time that seemed to be placatory. Sacrifices and the like.'

'Do you believe in gods?' Bashir asked curiously. Religion had never formed a large part of their discussions.

'No. I think everything that anyone has ever called a god is either an alien, or the product of personal or cultural neurosis. But I do believe in - ' Garak paused, considering his words ' - in the universe itself. I think it has awareness, and direction. And in that context are many levels of power, and that everything can be reduced to a power struggle in the end. That, it seems to me, is what we are seeing now.'

'And?'

'And I'm tired of being used by beings who are no more gods than I am. I think we're part of a pattern, and it's time that pattern was changed. Wait here,' Garak said. 'I'm going to find Genneshen.'

10.

Dravan went to visit Arasha shortly before his departure to the city. He found the Adept sitting at his desk, perusing a document.

'Present from Tekani,' Arasha said, without looking up. 'One of the most closely guarded secrets of the tribe. She'd have brought it before, she tells me, but it was among the personal effects of the old sukai -'

'The -?'

'The priestess, is the closest approximation. Tekani didn't even know it existed.'

Dravan went to look over his shoulder.

'What is it?' he asked. The long lines of symbols made no sense at all.

'I've no idea. Neither has Tekani. When she first told me about it, I assumed that she couldn't read it - whatever their many virtues, the tribes all take a perverse sort of pride in being illiterate. Then I discovered that I couldn't read it, either. I've been trying to puzzle it out. No luck. You're going back to Genneret this afternoon, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'I'd like you to take this to somebody - an old friend of mine who lives up in Sarakhari. He's better educated than I'll ever be. See what his opinion is.'

'What's his name?' Dravan asked.

'Yran Ganshin. He actually comes from the north - or so they say, no-one's quite sure. He was a friend of the old Adept, my predecessor. Odd man. Comes and goes very much at his own whim...I remember being very impressed by his account of living an utterly simple life, alone in the mountains. I even tried it myself - came back a week later, wet through to the bone, to find that he'd moved into a palatial abode in the city and had been holding the most memorable banquets.'

'Did you challenge him?'

'Naturally. He laughed, I remember. And a while later I heard that he'd moved into a sea cave on the furthest island of the Peranaya, and had spoken to no-one for over a year.'

'And this is the man I'm going to see,' Dravan said, intrigued.

'Indeed.' Arasha carefully folded the document into a thin slip and handed it to him. 'Treat it gently. It's old and fragile. Like me.' He gave Dravan a wicked grin. Without a word, the young man stepped forward and embraced him.

'Oh, Dravan.' Arasha said into his ear.

'When will I see you again?' Dravan whispered.

'Soon. I'm coming to Genneret next month - for the Judiciary meeting, at the beginning of the Season of Life. I'll see you then.' He returned the embrace with sudden, fierce affection, then released Dravan.

With the document stowed safely in an inner pocket, the young man walked slowly out into the courtyard. The clouds that lay above the temple looked as solid as iron, and there was a thin scattering of rain. Dravan could taste change on the wind. *Tekani* he thought, remembering the story, but when he went in search of her to say farewell, Vanesha Morrec told him that she had already left.

'She left a message for you,' Vanesha said. '"Do not forget." I presume that means something to you?'

'I understand,' Dravan said. Vanesha looked at him curiously, but he had no intention of explaining Tekani's opaque message. Instinct told him that the fewer people who remembered old legends, the better it would be.

'You're leaving soon, aren't you?' Vanesha said.

'This afternoon.'

Vanesha made a gesture of acknowledgement; Dravan was certain that he could see relief in her face and tried to swallow his jealousy. She would be staying here, with Arasha, able to look at him and be with him whenever she chose, and Dravan would have to return to the intrigue and veiled hostility of Genneret. Yet he had been chosen, and he had work to do. He felt that he had aged in the last few days: that years had been lived since his return to the Hassenet Ai.

'Dravan,' Vanesha said. He glanced at her, unseeing.

'He cares about you,' Vanesha said, and Dravan realised what it had cost her to say such a thing.

'Thank you,' he said. They exchanged a long look, and he knew that she understood.

'I have things to do,' he told her, before the tears could come into her eyes. 'Excuse me.'

********************************************************************

Dravan did not visit Yran Ganshin immediately. There were issues of the Judiciary that occupied his attention, and matters relating to the refugee situation, which had now subsided from being a crisis into a long-term problem. He found that his selection as the next Adept had made a predictably substantial difference to his status. People who, until now, had treated him indifferently now went out of their way to court him. Dravan was too level-headed to become flattered, but he found the attention wearied him. There seemed to be no-one whom he could talk to as an equal; no-one who was not trying to involve him in factional politics. Sharak demonstrated a laudable consistency in continuing to treat him with contempt, and Dravan was startled to find that this was refreshing. At least it was honest.

A week after his arrival, he finally found the time to visit Ganshin. Dravan felt his spirits lift as he walked along one side of the Iket and up through Sessara. Although Genneret was only fifty lians or so south of the temple, its location on the delta ensured that it was somewhat warmer. It would still be a couple of months before the Season of Life began, but there were already hopeful signs: indigo buds along the tips of the hamath trees and an occasional freshness in the air. Dravan had developed a great attachment to the gardens during his time in the city: they had been developed according to Tenathan principles, ensuring harmony. A wide balustrade led across one side of the gardens, overlooking the expanse of the city, and a series of low, sweeping steps led up into the hamath groves. Beyond lay the water gardens, fed by the city's aqueducts, and this was Dravan's favourite place. He had already spent a number of evenings sitting on the edge of the long ponds, watching the fish dart around the sculptures, and now, despite the rain in the air, he paused for a moment by the side of the pond.

'Fish,' a voice said, behind him. Dravan turned. Someone was standing there, muffled in a motley assortment of garments.

'Excuse me?' said Dravan, in the formal mode.

'Fish. I've always liked fish.'

'Have you?' Dravan said, somewhat at a loss.

'Much more intelligent than people, I think.'

'You might have a case there,' Dravan said dryly, thinking of Sharak.

'Even people who are supposed to be enlightened.'

'I'm not sure I - '

'You've had that document for over a week. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about it. After all,' the apparition remarked, sarcastically 'It's only the most important piece of information that the Hassenet's had in its possession for the last thousand years. Why not just throw it in that pond for the fish to eat?'

Dravan did not take long to reach the obvious conclusion.

'You're Ganshin?'

'What an intellect,' Ganshin remarked. He sunk down into the side of the pond and trailed his bony fingers in the water. 'Have you got it, then? You've probably left it sitting on your desk.'

Dravan fished in his pocket and handed Tekani's document to the old man.

'Thank you,' Ganshin said, with heavy courtesy. 'I hope you had the sense to make a copy?'

'Yes.'

'Good,' Ganshin said. He tucked the document away in a fold of his voluminous garment and fixed Dravan with a bright, beady eye. 'So you're to be the next Adept? I hope you're more competent than the present incumbent.'

'Adept Arasha is a great man,' Dravan said hotly.

'Ah, you're loyal, too. But stupid. Never mind. They always are,' Ganshin said, and before the indignant Dravan could reply he added 'I'm having a party next week. Want to come?'

'Me?' Dravan said, taken aback.

'You don't have to, of course. You've probably got something better to do. Meditate, or however you young people enjoy yourselves these days. Anyway, it's on Seventh Moon day. At dusk. Bring some wine or something. Goodbye.' He rose to go.

'Wait a moment,' Dravan said. 'What about the document?'

'What about it? I'll have a look at it, see what I think, if anything, and talk to you later. You go and play at politics and leave the important things to me.'

Dravan opened his mouth to reply and realised, with a cold jolt of shock, that Ganshin was no longer there. He looked around, wildly, but there was only an elderly matron and her daughter, hurrying across the gardens. Dravan, deep in thought, made his way through Sessara and home.

Genneshen was nowhere to be seen. Garak searched the complex, cursing the old man beneath his breath with a wide and inventive array of invective, and finally gave up. Bashir had gone back into the complex, and was lying on the bed.

'Elim,' he whispered.

'Julian, no...'

'I don't think I can keep conscious,' Bashir said hoarsely. 'It's like darkness. I can feel it taking me...'

'It's the eraya,' Genneshen said, from nowhere. 'The space between the stars.'

'Genneshen! Where have you been?'

'I just sat down for a moment,' Genneshen said, rising from a spot behind the door 'Must have dropped off.'

Garak turned, seized the surprised ancient by the throat and slammed him against the wall. A shower of plaster fell around Genneshen's feet, but the old man merely blinked with lizard calm and said 'Those drugs. You shouldn't take them, you know. They make you twitchy.'

'Genneshen,' Garak said in a hiss.

'What drugs?' Bashir was almost inaudible.

'Listen to me,' Genneshen said, and there was such a compelling quality in his voice that Garak let go. Genneshen's empty eye sockets were suddenly filled with a liquid darkness, black as oil and brimming with stars. 'Listen to me, Cardassian...'

'*What are you?*' Garak heard his own hoarse whisper as though from a thousand miles away. 'What are you?'

Genneshen ducked away, eyeless once more, and started to laugh.

'Do you know, it's been so long, I've almost forgotten...But there were many like me, once.' His voice took on an unfamiliar, wistful note. 'Thousands of us, all joined...'

Warning bells rang in Garak's bewildered mind. *Odo*, he thought.

'A shapeshifter?'

'Solids,' Genneshen said distantly. 'Always wanting words for things. We had no name for ourselves, at the beginning, we were perfect in our unity and thus we did not need to differentiate.'

'*At the beginning?* Did things change?'

'You're a good listener, Cardassian. Yes, we changed. We evolved, into two different forms of life. We've always been good at that, creating life, letting others do our work for us. Consider the Jem'hadar...But I'm getting off the point again.'

'At first, the Founders were all like you,' Garak said, beginning to understand. 'And then you evolved - into what?'

Genneshen's face seemed to slip and glide.

'Into - less corporeal forms than even ourselves. Beings that live part in this dimension, part in another. Beings that like to play God.'

'The Prophets,' Garak whispered.

'I gather that's what they're calling themselves these days,' Genneshen said. His face twisted into a parody of humanoid distaste. 'As we think ourselves above the solids, so the Prophets think themselves above us.'

'And how far do they think they're above *us*?' Garak asked.

'To them, there is remarkably little difference between you and the Jem'hadar. They use you, as they use their generated warriors, manipulating, as they in their arrogance have always done.'

'Are they allies of the Founders?' Garak said, frantically trying to re-evaluate the situation. 'What about the Pagh-wraiths?'

'The wraiths are old, degenerate and mad, but ultimately of the same species. The Prophets cast them out. I should know; I was the one who was instructed by my masters to bring one of them here, when it was still a burning, barren world. The wraiths are the Fallen; from whom all this quadrant's myths of devils, and demons, and those who are cast out, derive. Perhaps it amuses the Prophets to set different parties against one another. Who can say? They play with souls as you play with the pieces on a kotra board. I lost the capacity to comprehend them years ago.'

'What does Bashir have to do with all this?' Garak asked defensively.

'Bashir's story is connected with the lost Orb.'

'The lost Orb?'

'The dark sphere. Drvari's sphere. The geno-neural device in which Ariad Arasha imprisoned a very powerful Pagh-Wraith, a thousand years ago. Now, it seems, the bad blood between Prophets and their degenerate kindred has escalated once more. The Prophets want the Wraiths exterminated. This one is due to release itself when the sphere's program runs down, and the Prophets do not want that to happen. So they have sent you to dispatch it.'

'You haven't answered my question,' Garak said. 'What about Bashir?'

'Bashir,' the shapeshifter said 'is bait.'

There was a very long silence.

'It might be better,' Genneshen said carefully 'If we were to kill him now. I understand something of what the Prophets have done, you see. They have ensured that Bashir cannot be used as a vehicle for the wraith by removing the element that you might term his soul. It is now far from him, halfway into the state that you - and I - know as death. That's not how the Prophets see things, by the way,' he added in an almost conversational aside. 'To them, Bashir is in a trans-dimensional state called the eraya, the mixture-that-lives...And if this body dies, they will send his soul on to be reborn. It is very unlikely that you will be able to save him now.'

'Don't touch him,' Garak hissed. He took a step that brought him between Bashir's body and the shapeshifter. Genneshen smiled

'Such loyalty... I won't kill him. Don't worry.' He turned his blank gaze towards Bashir and regarded the young human with something remarkably akin to affection in his face.

Garak glanced uneasily around.

'The Wraith...can it enter the Shrine?'

'*Enter the shrine*?' the old man echoed. 'I thought you'd realised. It's already here. If you listen very carefully, you can hear it - just beyond the edge of sound, as though it's waiting behind a door...Can't you hear it?' Then Genneshen added

'For the moment, it's compelled to stay where it is. Quite safe; no danger to anyone. Except for your young friend Dr Bashir, of course.' He paused, as if listening. 'And, if we fail, to us all. Watch him well, Cardassian. Watch and wait, and see what happens,' and before Garak could ask him what he meant, Genneshen was gone.

He sat down beside Bashir's motionless form and touched a hand to the young man's pulse. It ran slowly, deep beneath the skin, and Bashir's breathing was harsh in his throat. Unable to bear the laboured sound, Garak lifted him into the stretcher and attached him to the ventilator; gradually, Bashir's breathing grew less painful. Then Garak sat down to wait.

12.

Dravan did not hear from Ganshin again. He tried to contact the address that he had been given, sending a messenger up into the city, but the boy returned to say that the doors of Ganshin's ancient, magnificent house had remained firmly closed. Frustrated, Dravan sent a message to the temple to inform Arasha of recent events; he got a note back in return which said simply 'Told you so.' Having now had some experience of Yran Ganshin, Dravan was beginning to understand where Arasha had acquired his more elusive mannerisms. He had no choice but to wait for the party, but in the meantime, there was plenty to keep him occupied.

He spent much of his time among the refugees, listening and learning. They were ordinary people, as far removed from the glittering heights of the Judiciary as it was possible to get, and Dravan found their concerns as pressing as the wider political agenda. He learned from them, too, coming to understand the very different life from which they had fled. The southern states, banding the equatorial belt, engendered a hasrher political regime than their northern neighbours; Dravan surmised that this was due to a less congenial climate. In summer, the refugees told him, the sun seared the skin unless one stayed indoors or covered up, and winter was unknown. It had not always been so fierce: years ago, one old man told Dravan, there was a fountain in every square and gardens wherever you looked, oases of greeness among the baking stone. But now there had been drought for over ten years, and the gardens had shrunk and died.

'Why do you think this is?' Dravan asked him, and the old man had made a gesture of ignorance and said 'Some say that we have angered God. But then, they always say that. It's easier to blame the gods than the greed and folly of men, after all.'

Whatever the reason for the catastrophe which had befallen them, matters were rather easier for the refugees now. With the coming of the season of life, they would be able to settle the reclaimed land, make more of a place for themselves. Dravan began to feel, albeit cautiously, that he had finally accomplished something.

*********************************************************************

In the event, he almost missed Ganshin's party. A long council session continued into the evening, and it was well past twilight when Dravan managed to get away. He hurried to the Sarakhari, and spent some time searching for the house. When at last he found it, he wondered how he could ever have missed it. Ganshin's mansion was enormous. It had a single facade of stone, windowless in the old style to keep out the heat, and an immense iron door. Dravan went up to the door, and after a moment discovered a very small bell. Feeling foolish, he rang it. He had vaguely supposed that Ganshin would have servants, but the old man himself opened the door. He appeared rather smarter than on the occasion of their previous meeting, for he was wearing a long, formal robe patterned in scarlet and black. His eyes were as bright as ever.

'Ah, the boy. You decided to come, then? We'd rather given up hope.'

Dravan apologised for being late.

'I suppose you got stuck with those idiots in the council? Nothing worse than people who like the sound of their own voices...well, come in.'

Dravan stepped through the door and found himself in a cavernous, gloomy hallway.

'It is a little dark,' Ganshin said, correctly interpreting his expression 'But I like it that way. That's the trouble with this planet. Too hot, and too bright.'

Dravan gave his host an odd look. From the way Ganshin had said it, it sounded almost as though he'd had experience of elsewhere. But the old man was hastening ahead of him.

'Come on, don't be shy...'

Dravan followed him through the door and stopped dead. The party, who were sitting quietly on the couches around the room, contained some of the most influential people in the state. He recognised them from the news-sheets; he could put a name to every face. And the last person on whom his gaze fell was Arasha.

'So this is the young man you've been keeping so secret from us,' someone said, and Arasha, smiling, murmured

'I trust this explains my absence from the Judiciary...'

They smiled at Dravan through the lamplight as he stepped forward to take his

place among them. Even though he was overcome with nervousness, Dravan bowed his head and held out his empty hands in the most formal greeting of all. There was an approving murmur

'Of course, all his lovers have beautiful manners...' - as though it was already an accepted fact that he was Arasha's own. Dravan felt his neck-ridges burning with self-consciousness. The Adept himself gravely inclined his head as if meeting an equal, but there was a brief spark in the blue eyes which made Dravan's heart leap.

'I believe you've met?' Ganshin said, satirically.

'Yran, you know that perfectly well. Don't be annoying.' Arasha said. He rose fluidly from the couch. Dravan had never seen him looking quite so elegant before, dressed in a simple night-blue robe, square cut at the shoulders which left his beautiful ridges bare. As if he had not noticed the admiration in the young man's eyes, Arasha said coolly

'Dravan, let me introduce you to my colleagues.'

In a slight daze, Dravan circled the room. The Judiciary might run the city, but these people ran the Judiciary. They were the heads of the old landed families: the First, or so it was said, who founded Genneret, perhaps even built these great enclosed mansions. Dravan pressed his hand against theirs, feeling the icy edge of anticipation within. This was not his definition of a party. Clearly, these people were here for a reason.

'I seem to have run out of chairs,' Ganshin said, reflectively. 'Still, can't have you standing...'

'He can sit with me,' Arasha said. He sat back down on the couch and indicated the space next to him. Dravan took it, wondering what was going to happen next.

'Wine?' Ganshin said.

'Thank you.' Dravan accepted the proferred glass and sipped, realising as he did so that everyone was watching him expectantly. The wine was remarkable, like gilded light. Dravan indicated appreciation. The assembly continued to watch.

'You'll have to forgive them. They're interested in you, you see,' Ganshin said. 'And when you reach their social level, one can occasionally dispense with manners.'

Dravan did not know what to say. Nervously, he glanced at Arasha for reassurance. The Adept said

'And the reason why they're all so interested in you, Dravan, is because we are hoping that you will become their newest member.'

'Tell me,' a voice asked 'How much do you love Hebitia?'

Dravan turned to see who had spoken. There were two women present: Narsis Ghavalin, who was Arasha's equivalent in another order, and the Uliath of Glin. The latter had a reputation of being one of the grandest and most conservative members of Genneret society. Dravan had never seen her, as it was said that she adhered to the old way of thinking, that dictated the seclusion of women. He had once seen her barge, however, a long black craft hung with charms, proceeding down the northern canal as though it sailed from out of the past. Now, however, the Uliath was unveiled and staring him straight in the eye with grim amusement. She reminded him of Tekani, he thought, pared down to the bone, but her ridges were adorned with antique jevonite jewellery that could have bought the Hassenet Ai, and her pale skin was dusted with silver. She had a very deep, hoarse voice, like one of the carrion birds that haunted the mountains

'How much?' she repeated.

Dravan answered 'More than anything.'

'More than your life? Than all your lives?' A bony finger flickered in the direction of Arasha, who was sitting very still and tense. 'More than him?'

She would, Dravan sensed, be able to smell out a lie at twenty paces. He looked deep into his own heart and found the truth.

'Not more than the Adept,' he said in a whisper.

He noticed the slight shock on some of the faces around him, but the Uliath nodded as if satisfied.

'Good for you,' she said, surprisingly.

'Too much self sacrifice around these days,' Ganshin agreed. He turned to the Uliath 'Told you he wasn't pretentious, Selara.'

'For once,' the Uliath remarked witheringly 'you appear to have been correct.' Her lizard gaze turned back to Dravan.

'Well, then. What are you prepared to do, young man? For Hebitia, and for him?'

'Whatever's required of me,' Dravan said quietly. Youthful bravado would not, he felt, sit well with this company, and besides, it was not his style.

'Even if you were called upon to defy the One Spirit?'

Dravan took a very deep breath.

'If I have to defy the Spirit,' he said slowly. 'Then it's for a reason. And it may be heresy, but it seems to me that if the Spirit must be defied, then it's failed.'

Beside him, he felt Arasha relax.

'If,' Ganshin said 'If it is a spirit at all.'

Arasha put out a hand and enclosed Dravan's wrist. The Adept continued to stare at the floor, but the warm pressure of his fingers was reassuring.

'Tekani's document has proved interesting,' he said.

Dravan gaped at Ganshin.

'You've deciphered it?'

Ganshin looked obscurely uncomfortable.

'Well, I had some - knowledge of such things. It's not precisely a prophecy. It's a map.'

'A map?' Dravan echoed, baffled. The cryptic symbols on the document related to nothing that he could identify as a map.

'It's a written equivalent of the land-sense of the Tribes. I suppose you're familiar with the way that such people can find their way around the landscape?'

'I've heard of it, yes. It's said that you could blindfold a tribeswoman, put her anywhere in the north, and she'd know where she was.'

'Yes, yes,' said Ganshin impatiently. 'But do you know how it's done?'

'No.'

'The Tribes believe that the land we see is not the only one. They believe in a sacred landscape, that lies beneath the one we know, and imbues it with meaning. Sometimes this inner landscape is the same, and sometimes it's different, but that is the land that they travel in. That's why the Tribes say that they do not live in the real world, but in other-time. Tekani's document is a map of other-time.'

'So if it's a map of some kind of other world,' Dravan said 'What exactly does it depict?'

'Have you heard the legend of Drvari Nar Tarkalan?'

'Tekani told it to me.'

'Then you'll understand what I'm talking about,' Ganshin said. 'The map shows the location of the Dark Sphere.'

Dravan had the sudden, terrifying sensation that he knew exactly what Ganshin was going to say next.

'And we need to find it,' Ganshin said. 'To bring the Spirit down.'

********************************************************************

The conversation had ended around that point. There seemed to be so much to say that no-one was willing to give voice to it. In silence, Ganshin showed Dravan to an upstairs chamber: a comfortable room hung with Third Era tapestries. A fire of sea-wood burned in the grate, sending shadows arching across the walls.

'It's too late for you to head home,' Ganshin told him by way of explanation 'And I'm not sure I trust you not to get lost on the way, so you'd better stay here.'

Dravan nodded dumbly. He was too dazed, and too tired, to disagree.

'And by the way,' Ganshin added. 'I've had a word with Arasha. Told him to stop being an idiot. If he's really going to challenge a god, he might as well stop quibbling about antiquated ordinances.'

'I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean,' Dravan said, puzzled.

'Oh, you'll find out.'

He had been alone for no more than ten minutes when there was a soft knock on the door and his heart leapt. Hardly daring to hope, he opened the door to find Arasha.

'I wondered if - I mean -' Dravan began, suddenly feeling tongue tied and shy. Arasha stepped forward, closing the door behind him, caught Dravan by the shoulders and pushed him gently against the wall. This time, he was clearly determined not to lose his self control. He brushed his mouth against the ridge of Dravan's jaw line, then the ridges of his throat, and Dravan momentarily stopped breathing. Arasha kissed the hollow of the young man's throat, cupped his hands around Dravan's face, then raised his head to kiss Dravan on the mouth. It was a slow, deliberate kiss. Dravan could hear the beat of his own blood echoing in his head; the firelight seemed to be moving to the rhythm of Arasha's mouth. Releasing him, Arasha murmured

'Now. Come to bed.'

Dravan stumbled across to the bed, taking Arasha with him. The Adept pulled Dravan's robe aside, so that he was bare to the waist, and ran his hands down the young man's flanks. Dravan shivered, and Arasha whispered

'It's all right; I won't hurt you, I'll be so gentle you won't know what's happening to you until...until...'

His voice was hoarse and unfamiliar; Dravan wondered just how much passion Arasha kept contained behind that urbane facade. Arasha's mouth trailed down his chest, caressing each ridge; Dravan linked his hands in the Adept's glossy black hair and Arasha groaned deep in his throat. Hastily, the young man undid the catches of Arasha's robe, sliding it down his shoulders, and Arasha sighed with pleasure at Dravan's touch. He was more heavily muscled than Dravan had expected; a powerful chest tapering to a sturdy waist. Hesitantly, Dravan worked aside the blue folds of Arasha's garment until his hand was resting on the warm, ridged base of Arasha's belly. Arasha gasped and Dravan felt the scales begin to soften beneath his hand. He stroked Arasha's smooth stomach, absorbed in the contrast between soft skin and hard scales, then the ridges parted to release the older man's stirring cock. Arasha sprawled across the bed in abandon and closed his eyes. Dravan - nervous, aroused and wanting to impress - bent his head and took the tip of Arasha's cock in his mouth. Arasha's hands entwined in the younger man's hair, holding his head gently in position as he caressed the swelling ridges with his tongue, sucking and kissing and licking until Arasha cried out.

With a groan, he raised himself up on his elbows and pulled Dravan up against him so that the young man's head rested on his chest. Dravan shifted slightly so that Arasha's hard, heavy cock lay taut beneath his stomach, and his own erection pressed into the folds of Arasha's discarded robe. Arasha slid a hand down Dravan's side, rubbing the sensitive underside of the ridge; the other hand travelled lazily down his spine. Dravan relaxed beneath the Adept's touch, feeling the tension of the last few months drain out of him. Hebitian culture did not particularly prize virginity, and it was not the first time that Dravan had made love, but he had always done so with those of his own age. There was no-one with whom he felt he could abandon himself, in whose presence he could lose himself, except now. Clasping his hand, Arasha took Dravan's fingers one by one into his mouth and sucked, an unexpectedly flirtatious gesture of promise which made Dravan catch his breath. And then Arasha grasped him around the waist, turning to take him down onto the bed. His teeth closed on Dravan's neck-ridges, in the old ritual demand of submission, but it was a gentle gesture. Dravan let himself go limp, and Arasha growled. He sat up, straddling the younger man's body and running possessive hands over Dravan's shoulders and chest. His erection, freed from its protective scaled sheath, glistened in the firelight. Stroking a strand of Dravan's hair back from the young man's brow, he murmured

'Has anyone taken you before? Like this?'

'No...' Dravan whispered, with perfect truth. Arasha's head tipped back in momentary satisfaction.

'Good.' He leaned down and kissed Dravan lingeringly. The sensation was not puely physical; Dravan could feel the familiar, intangible wave of Arasha's energy as it began to merge with his own. His vision grew hazy; the only real thing in the world seemed to be Arasha's fire-blue eyes. Arasha kept his word, taking Dravan with aching, agonizing gentleness, then beginning to move. Dravan lost himself in sensation, gasping as Arasha began to caress his cock. Arasha bent his head and whispered

'Come for me, Dravan. In your soul, and your heart, and your mind -' and Dravan felt his orgasm beginning, deep within his self, and Arasha threw back his head and cried out as he, too, came. Arasha lay for a long time, holding Dravan, murmuring to him, before he fell into firelit sleep.

Garak had lost track of time during his long vigil. He remembered switching off the ventilator and activating the nanogen regulators, and his mind was still filled with hazy thoughts of Prophets and Wraiths. His head felt dull, as though it had been stuffed with wool, and there was an unfamiliar taste in his mouth. Gradually, he realised that Genneshen was standing in front of him, but the world around him had changed. The walls of the room were hung with tapestries; coals blazed in the brazier and filled the room with spicy heat. Garak's perspective seemed to have altered, too. He felt taller, and when he glanced down at himself he found that he was wearing the robes of a Tenathan Adept.

'What have you done?' he whispered. Genneshen gave a toothless grin.

'What have *I* done? You should be asking what you've been up to, all these years. Tell me,' and the resonant, hypnotic voice was back. 'Who are you?'

With difficulty Garak said

'My name is Elim Garak. I am a former operative of the Obsidian Order. I am the son of Enabran Tain.'

'No,' the voice said, and it seemed to reach in and touch his soul. 'Who are you?'

The words came out of the blood and despair of the past. 'I am Ariad Arasha.'

The world seemed to darken for a moment. 'Ah,' Genneshen's voice said slyly.

'So you *do* remember? I thought you would.'

Lives seemed to flicker past Garak, half glimpsed and half understood. He wondered, with the vestiges of his present self that remained to him, whether this was what it was like to be a Trill, and mad.

'But that's merely the life,' Genneshen said, still sly. 'What about your deaths, Arasha? Remember those? All those times your spirit has fled shrieking into night?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' Garak whispered.

'Another lie,' Genneshen remarked without contempt. 'But there comes a time, you-who-are-now-Elim Garak, when the lying has to stop. This is that time.'

'I remember - countless deaths. When the final breath rattled in my throat and darkness came down...I should not have to remember this,' Garak said, angrily.

'No,' Gennshen said, with a return to his reasonable voice. 'No, you shouldn't. Do you know how it is that you can?'

'Tell me.'

'Because this is the anniversary of the death when everything changed for you. The day when Ariad Arasha died, a thousand years ago, and sealed his long bargain.'

Garak stared at him, unmoving, and now the past was coming back with a swiftness that appalled him. His own initiation; the years of training and then his first meeting with Dravan. The decision made to defy the spirits of Hebitia, the lords of the world, which sealed his fate and Dravan's. *The Assatra have long memories, Arasha. And they don't lightly forgive*. He could not yet remember who had spoken.

'One thousand years,' he said.

'That was the bargain you made. And that was the bargain you seem to have kept, you and your lover.'

Garak heard himself give a painful laugh.

'And now?'

'And now it's time to end it,' Genneshen said.

1.

Dravan looked down and saw that he was standing on the high terrace of Yran Ganshin's mansion, gazing across the city. Vanesha Morrec stood by his side, hands gripping the smooth black wood of the railing.

'What are you watching for?' Vanesha said. Her voice floated out into the warm air; he felt that he could see the light through her, as though she had become translucent, no more than a ghost. Dravan replied

'The signal, from the temple. I want to know when he dies, even if I can't be there with him.'

He looked north, and though it was not possible to see the Hassenet Ai from Genneret, there was the temple: as small and perfect as a Ruharian miniature. Dravan could see every detail, even the little figure of a man crossing the courtyard. Distantly, he realised that if he could see the temple so clearly, this must be a dream. Vanesha's almost disembodied voice murmured

'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 -' Dravan said, shaking her hand from his sleeve. It should have been a darker day, he thought, deep in the dream, but somehow it was 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 Arasha would be dead, and he would have to go on living. He stared down at his hands, clenched so tightly on the carved stone of the balustrade that the scales along his knuckles stood up in ridges. Then he looked up, and far away to the north, smoke was rising from the roof of the Hassenet Ai. He thought he cried out, but there was no sound at all, only the beat of his own heart, drowning out the world.

*******************************************************************

Dravan woke to darkness. The room was warmed by the fire, but his skin felt cold, as though frost had gathered on him. He rolled over and lay gazing into the driftwood embers of the fire, still burning sea-blue in the grate. Blue as an eye, Dravan thought. Behind him, Arasha muttered in his sleep and slid an arm around the young man's waist. Dravan settled back against the warm body, clasping Arasha's fingers in his own and comforted by the contradictory sensations of soft skin and smooth scales. Slowly, the dream faded, and he dozed, watching incuriously as the span of lives unravelled before his mind's eye. His last thought before he fell asleep was that none of it mattered, except this moment.

*********************************************************************

The dream-landscape of the Na Harakh, indicated on Tekani's map, led north: through the mountains of the Tehin Rahan and into a land so barren that it was deserted even by the tribes.

'Do Tekani's people know this place?' Dravan asked, staring over Arasha's shoulder. They were sitting in the bedroom of Ganshin's mansion, before the fire.

'No. There's no reason for them to go: no hunting, no water. Only ghosts and demons, so Tekani says. There are legends, of course - the Drvari cycle, the Heroine's Journey, forms part of them. But according to Tekani, there's only the wasteland and its dream.'

'So we're going north,' Dravan murmured. Arasha twisted his head to smile at him.

'We? Who said anything about you and me?'

'Because you're bored with a life of contemplation and politics,' Dravan said 'and because I won't let you go alone.'

Arasha ducked his head to hide a smile, then said, as if he had reached a sudden decision

'Come here. Come and sit next to me.'

Dravan did so, and the older man slipped an arm around his shoulders. Dravan glanced at him, uncertain as to what to expect.

'Dravan,' the Adept said. 'What do you think of me?'

Dravan found himself floundering for an answer.

'I think you're wise, and knowledgeable, and -'

'No,' Arasha said. 'Not the trappings of the job. I meant me, as a person.' His face, lit by the flames, was half in shadow; like a mask, Dravan thought.

'I think you're kind. You try to do the right thing, you have more integrity than anyone I've ever met. You're detached. And,' he added, because it was true 'I think you're remarkable.'

'Ah,' Arasha said, without looking up 'That's love talking, not wisdom.'

'Can't they be the same thing?' Dravan said and he reached out, took Arasha's chin in his hand and turned the Adept's face towards him. Arasha's eyes were wide, and golden in the light of the fire, but as Dravan kissed him, they slowly closed.

*********************************************************************

They left the city secretly, by the western gate that led across the salt marshes. Arasha had left word with the Judiciary that Dravan had been temporarily recalled to the Hassenet Ai; only Ganshin, who had arranged for a barge, was there to watch them go.

'Don't do anything stupid,' Ganshin said. He shivered irritably in the early morning mist. 'And make sure you bring the sphere back in one piece. Not to mention yourselves.'

'We'll try,' Arasha said. He turned as the barge glided out of the mist like a ghost-boat, the blackened hull shining in the wetness and the growing light. Pressing his palm against Ganshin's own, he stepped on board. Dravan followed him. There was a faint jerk as the barge poled off, and then they were heading up the western branch of the canal.

It was afternoon by the time that they reached the upper reaches of the canal, and by this time Genneret lay far behind. They were already high into the mountains: the Tehin Rahan falling in a series of ragged steps from the peaks. Dravan marvelled again at the feat his ancestors had accomplished, in cutting the canal through this inhospitable terrain.

'Remarkable,' Arasha agreed, when Dravan voiced his thoughts. He leaned back against the narrow seat and stretched his legs. 'They say it was a golden age. I wonder.'

'Some philosophers say that we're as advanced now as we'll ever be,'

Dravan said.

'I find that hard to believe. I think it's just a justification of the Mirahasi. The One Spirit seems remarkably selective in what it will and will not allow. There must be better ways of doing things.' He smiled. 'I'd give a lot to come back in a thousand years' time and see what's happened. Perhaps we'll be out among the high stars then, as you once hoped.' He brushed the back of his hand affectionately down Dravan's cheek, then stroked the young man's hair back from his ear ridge with a lover's absorbtion.

'I hope we'll be together,' Dravan said.

'I hope so too. Look,' Arasha said, leaning forwards so that he could see through the little window. 'We're almost at the last lock.'

Ganshin had utilised one of his many contacts to bring a pair of riding hounds. The beasts waited patiently by the side of the lock, their breath steaming in the air. Dravan, who was fond of animals, went to murmur in their small slit ears and run a hand down the plated scales of their flanks. They stood taller than Dravan: sinuous bodies arched on long, jointed legs. The hounds hissed with pleasure and their tongues flickered out to touch Dravan's cheek.

'Well,' Arasha said, stepping from the barge. 'You've made friends.'

'Aren't they beautiful?'

The Adept regarded the hounds with something less than enthusiasm. 'I wouldn't say that, exactly. Are you sure they'll behave themselves? They seem docile enough.' Warily he put out a hand and patted the nearest beast. It rolled a yellow eye. Arasha stepped hastily back.

'You can ride, I hope?' Dravan asked. He swung himself up into the high,

narrow saddle.

'I learned, yes,' the Adept said. 'How many times I'll fall off before this evening, however, is a matter of speculation.'

In fact, Arasha proved to be an adequate rider, although he refused to admit it.

'Boats,' he said dourly. 'I'm good with boats. Grew up in the islands, you see; we didn't have riding hounds.'

'I've never seen the islands...'

'Was that a hint?' Arasha asked, smiling. 'When this is over, I'll take you there. To Arakrahari, where I grew up. It's a beautiful place...they built it into the cliffs above the caldera. The houses are all made of pale stone, and the light's golden; sometimes you can hardly tell where the sea ends and the sky begins...And it's always warm. Even the winds are warm.'

'You miss it, don't you?' Dravan said. He reined in the hound and touched Arasha lightly on the arm. 'You told me not to be homesick, once.'

'I know...But I've never regretted any part of my life,' Arasha said, and took Dravan's hand in his own, staring down at it. 'Nothing.'

'Good,' Dravan said, and they rode on.

Night fell early up in the passes. Arasha and Dravan found a way-station cut high into the rock, and reached by a series of worn steps. It was clearly ancient; Dravan did not recognise the symbols etched into its stone walls. From here, once could see the whole of the Senakh Pass: a sliver of space snaking through the vast gorge of the Tehin Rahan. Above it, the light lay green with the dying sun, deepening to the colour of the sea. The red coal of the Eye of Dhalet was the first star to appear above the gorge, and Dravan shivered when he saw it. Arasha watched it rise, expressionless.

'We should sleep,' he said.

Dravan curled around him beneath the fur cloaks, seeking comfort as much as

warmth, and Arasha's arm slid around his waist and held him close. Dravan raised his head and kissed Arasha's throat; the Adept murmured something that he could not hear.

'What?' he asked. Arasha rolled over and kissed him on the mouth; a long, sensuous kiss that left him half soothed, half aroused.

'I want you,' he heard himself whisper, and Arasha laughed and said

'Not here...Too cold, mmm?' The Adept's hand slipped up to stroke the back of his neck, fingers entangling in his hair. The kisses continued, gentle and slow, until Dravan at last fell reluctantly asleep.

*********************************************************************

Early in the morning, Dravan woke with a start to the first grey light. He lay listening, bemused with sleep. For a moment, he thought he could hear bells, coming from somewhere far in the city, but then he realised where he was. Untangling himself from Arasha, he stepped cautiously to the edge of the platform and looked down. He could see the bodies of the hounds, indigo in the growing light, wedged into the crevices of the rock. The beasts were still fast asleep. And then his gaze fell on the pass, and the breath caught in his throat.

An army was coming through the pass. They moved quietly, with only the metal harness of their hounds and the soft rustle of the beasts' clawed feet splintering the silence. They carried no standards; they were dressed in black and grey, and their metal breastplates glinted sparks into the sun. As Dravan watched, a rider came back down the lines, moving fast, and Dravan recognised him. It was Sharak. Dravan darted back into the shelter and roused Arasha.

'Invasion,' the Adept said grimly. 'He's going to take the north, present it to the city as a fait accompli. No-one will take action after that.'

'But what about the Na Harakh?'

'Tekani's people fight like rabid hounds but I doubt they can withstand that many troops. They're not organised, you see, and Sharak's soldiers are disciplined and trained.'

'What are we going to do?'

'Get word to her. We'll try and outride them, get to them first. And then, I'm afraid, we'll just have to let the Na Harakh take their chances. The sphere has to be our principal goal. Besides,' he added 'We're not going to be much use in a pitched battle, and I'm not enamoured of a futile death, however glorious it might prove to be.'

Dravan agreed with him.

'Best get moving then,' he said.

They took the hounds back through the pass; nervous that they might meet some straggler in the wake of the army. But the pass was deserted. Even the earth was smooth and untouched: Sharak had clearly aranged to have the army cover its tracks. When they reached the head of the pass, they rode swiftly north. It was a risk,this far into the Season of Rains, but it was the only way to get a march on Sharak.

They had been travelling for no more than an hour when the surazh appeared. Dravan spotted it first: a speck in the blue fastness of the mountains. Initially, he thought it was one of the carrion hunters that haunted the passes, then realised that it was much too large: the bird's wingspan was as wide as his two outstretched arms. The bird wheeled above them, then dropped straight down from the rainy sky, to settle on Dravan's saddle bow. Dravan, startled, reined in the hound with a jerk and fought to retain his seat as the animal stamped and hissed. The bird put its head on one side, rattled the long plumes of its scales, and looked at Dravan from a wise red eye. Arasha laughed.

'Ah, always...'

'A surazh? I didn't think there were any left in this part of Hebitia.' Dravan said.

'That bird and I go back a long way,' Arasha said. He seemed relieved; Dravan wondered why. 'When I was with Tekani's people, it used to come and visit us. She made something of a pet of it. It never stayed very long, but it used to follow me around the camp. The old priestess used to call it my 'par-ghara' - my familiar. She'd stare into the smoke and tell me that our souls were linked. I think it was just because I gave it crumbs. They're scavengers, after all.'

'If it knows Tekani...' Dravan said uncertainly. He was not sure how much intelligence the bird possessed, but Arasha smiled.

'It can carry a message.'

Reaching into the neck of his robe, he detached the jevonite chain that ornamented his neck-ridge. 'This was a gift from Tekani's mother; she'll know it comes from me.' Guiding the hound to a nearby grove of trees, he peeled off a strip of pale bark and took out a piece of charcoal from his pocket. 'Can you draw, Dravan? I've never been much of an artist.'

'I'll try. What should I draw?'

'Sharak, if you can execute a passable likeness. Then draw some tents, and an arrow between them. She'll understand.'

Dravan managed a reasonable approximation of Sharak's gaunt features, then they tied the strip of bark to the bird's leg with the chain. Obligingly, the surazh raised a claw to permit the picture to be attached.

'I wonder if Ganshin knows what's happened?' Dravan said, struck by a sudden thought.

'Depends how close a watch he's been keeping on Sharak.'

'Who can say? I wouldn't want to predict anything that demented old man does,' Dravan said. The bird gave a sudden loud croak, as if in protest.

'Tekani,' Arasha said to it, slowly and clearly. 'Tekani.' The bird gave him a sidelong look, then dived from the saddle bow, skimming low over the ground on great black wings and vanishing into the sky.

'They must be long lived,' Dravan said.

'A hundred years, they say. Well,we'll see. I'm not sure I trust it not to just eat the message, but it seemed very purposeful, somehow. We'll just have to hope.'

He turned the hound's head to the north and they set off down the pass.

2.

Garak watched him warily, through unfamiliar eyes.

'I've asked you this before. What must I do?'

Genneshen said

'That is a question that you have to answer yourself. I am not a god out of the machine, here to solve your problems. I am here to challenge, and to initiate.'

Garak turned away from him, to stare into the fire.

'I made a certain choice, a thousand years ago,' he said, softly, because he remembered now. 'I don't know that I could have made a different one.'

'Perhaps it isn't the choice you made then. Perhaps it's the choice you make now,' Genneshen said. 'A choice that is informed by what you have learned.'

Garak glanced at him, but Genneshen was no longer there.

Blinking, Garak looked around him. The depression in the floor which had contained the brazier was now occupied by a kind of metal sphere. The brazier itself had been placed to one side, and he could smell the sweet astringency of the incense. He could hear the assuri humming in the herbs and it was summer again - but then he realised that it was the sphere itself which was emitting the gentle sound. Garak put his head on one side and stared at it; he had the sudden, curious impression that it was alive. With an effort, he knelt before it.

The draught that crept through the cracks in the wall was winter-cold, but the room itself was hot and stifling. The room shimmered in its heat; flames seemed to gush like waves across the banners that lined the walls until he knelt at the heart of a golden sea of fire. The humming that emanated from the sphere had deepened. It had a rhythmic pulse, hypnotic in its intensity. Garak listened, shifting in and out of his dream-like state. The voice came out of nowhere.

'This is the day of your death,' it said.

Unbidden, the thought came to his mind: *this is a good day to die*, and reluctantly Garak smiled. He'd die like a Cardassian, not a Klingon, with grace and a measure of dignity.

'Do you want to die?' the voice pressed him. 'This could be the last of your lives...After this, there is only the void. Is that what you long for?'

'Perhaps it's what I deserve.'

'I will give you a choice,' the Orb said. 'That is how it has always been done, and that is how it will be done now.'

'What manner of choice?' Garak asked, instantly wary.

'You have been told that the Bashir is here as bait. This is true. The Wraith that is contained here will soon be free. I cannot hold it. If you let the Bashir die, it will fly after his soul and fight to possess it: this is its nature. And then it will be trapped in the eraya, the mixture-that-lives.'

'And so will Bashir.'

'Yes. But if you decide that he should be saved, then there will be nothing to distract the Wraith; it will fly free into the world and cause the chaos in which their kind delights.'

'So my choice is a simple one,' Garak replied with a measure of irony. 'Bashir or Cardassia.'

The Orb did not reply, but he took its silence for assent.

'And if I refuse to make a choice?'

- but he knew intuitively that this would not be permitted.

Within the Orb, Garak could sense something else beginning to stir. It was ancient, and angry, and soon it would be free. Yet it seemed different from the Orb itself. The Orb, Garak thought, was alive, and behind it, he could sense the others of its kind. The curious thought came to him: *the Orbs have themselves evolved. They have become a single life-form; they have become a being greater than the ones that created them.*

'We are waiting,' the Orb said, serenely implacable.

'Wait a moment longer,' Garak told the Orb. 'Let me make my choice in peace.'

The high mountain path took them over the high peaks. It was a day's ride, and by the time that they came up over the summit, the sun was a bloodstained smear across the horizon.

'Well, ' Dravan said. 'At least we've broken the back of the journey.'

Arasha made a gesture of assent, too weary to speak. In the dying light, his face was strained and drawn; Dravan felt a knife of guilt run through him. The Adept was such a vital person that it was easy to forget that he was no longer young.

'Arasha?' he said, spurring the hound forward.

'It's all right,' Arasha murmured. He managed a smile.

'Not as much stamina as I used to have...Come on. We can make the plains by midnight.'

'You ought to rest,' Dravan protested.

'No,' the Adept said, sitting taller in the saddle, and suddenly the air of authority which he wore so lightly was back in full force. 'We go on. There's too much at stake. If I fall off this damnable beast and die at the side of the track, you have to go on.'

A brief argument ensued, and resulted in compromise. They would travel on for another two hours, and then rest. By now, the sun had slipped over the edge of the world and night had settled over the mountains. Dravan rode in a daze of fatigue and unease. He did not like the uncertainty of their position; he would have been happier, in a way, if they had merely followed the army. Then, at least, he would have been able to keep it in view. The Na Harakh were fighters, but the thought of Sharak's troops sweeping out of the darkness like wild-hounds chilled him. Neither was he proud of the thought of them sneaking around the back of the mountains, away from the conflict. He recognised Arasha's priorities, and knew that the Adept felt the same way, but it still galled him. He hoped Arasha's message had reached Tekani in time.

They halted at last in a valley to the east of the Tehin Rahan, and slept fitfully that night. When Dravan woke, stiff-jointed and cold, he found that the surazh had returned. It was sitting on a nearby rock, watching him with a beady red eye.

'Good morning,' Dravan told it. Arasha's head, tousled with sleep, raised itself from the furs beside him.

'Oh, you're back. Well, let's see what you've brought me,' the Adept said. The surazh hopped down from the rock and sidled towards him.

'There's something tied to its leg,' Dravan said. Kneeling, he clucked at the bird, which regarded him with momentary contempt before fluttering onto Arasha's knee and raising a scaled foot for inspection. Arasha gently undid the small parcel attached to the leg.

'What is it?' Dravan asked, peering at the tiny bundle of leaves.

Arasha dissected the package, and held up a little bracelet of polished bones, strung together on a sinew. The bracelet was too small for an adult's wrist; this looked as though it had belonged to a child, and the bones had a jaundiced tinge, as though the thing was already old. Arasha sighed, and the tension drained out of his shoulders. He arched his back, stretching. The surazh spat with disgust and flapped down to the ground, where it sat watching Dravan.

'Tekani,' Arasha said, in explanation. 'I made this for her, when she was fifteen years old. It was to mark the birth of her third child...' He weighed the fragment of bone in his hand, then slipped it inside an inner pocket. 'I'll give it back to her, when I see her again.' There was a distinct note of challenge in his voice. The surazh gave a harsh caw of amusement, and scratched its ear with a long claw. There was something oddly familiar about the bird, Dravan thought, something about the mocking look in its ruby eye. He was about to comment on the fact, but the bird sprang up, soaring above their heads and into the mountain fastness of the Tehin Rahan, wheeling on the wind until it was smaller than a blown leaf. In silence, Arasha and Dravan re-saddled the riding hounds, and resumed their journey.

Later that day, they reached the edge of the desert. Although he had not been raised in the tribes, Dravan could see that there was a quality to this landscape which touched the soul. The desert had never been inhabited or cultivated: a sweep of cold plain a thousand miles in diameter, extending almost as far as the edge of the pole. Dravan had heard of such places, but he had not been prepared for such bleakness. The region was scoured by perpetual northerly winds, tasting of snow and desolation, and nothing grew except for a few stunted trees. Even in his fur cloak, Dravan felt cold and he was worried about Arasha. The Adept was silent for hours at a time. His usual geniality had subsided to a kind of honed wariness; he was letting more of the steel show, Dravan thought. Above the dark fur collar, Arasha's face was as closed and cold as the world around them.

'This,' he said finally, 'is where the map begins.'

Straight backed on the riding hound, he closed his eyes. Dravan watched him, curiously, sensing the Adept's *apaht* energy change as he drew it around him like a cloak. The air above him shimmered as though it burned. 'This way,' the Adept said, and it did not sound like Arasha's voice at all; it was as though the land itself had spoken. Dravan, not daring to say a word, kicked the riding hound to follow.

********************************************************************

Half a day later, Dravan rode as if in a dream. Each time he looked at the Adept, it did not seem to be Arasha at all: not the man he knew and loved, but some remote stranger, an archetypal figure from the far past. Ganshin had said that the map was a representation of the inner landscape, a dreamed country, and it seemed to Dravan that they were moving further from the world he knew, into a place that was no longer entirely real. Eventually he had followed Arasha's lead, drawing his own energy from within and closing his eyes, and found that he could still see. The world had taken on meaning: each rock that they passed assumed layers of significance that Dravan felt incapable of comprehending. Outcrops appeared to take on disproportionate importance, as though they were almost alive. He wondered, briefly, if this was what it was like to go mad. He had begun to lose track of time; glancing over his shoulder towards the sun, he found that he was unable to locate it. The discovery should have dismayed him, but he seemed to have passed beyond emotion. Arasha turned and smiled, and Dravan wondered, distantly, who this man was with whom he travelled.

'Dravan,' Arasha said, in a voice that was not his own. 'Hang on. We're nearly there.'

They came up over a high ridge of land and paused. Dravan's hound raised its head and gave an unhappy cry; the whites of its yellow eyes showed in a brief flicker of distress. Ahead lay a plateau, levelling from a series of cliffs that rose sharply from the surrounding plain. On the plateau lay something so disturbing that Dravan could hardly bear to look at it. The thing looked a little like a huge barge, but the hull was blackened, as though the craft had passed through a fire.

'That's where the sphere is, isn't it?' Dravan whispered.

'Dravan,' said Arasha. 'Stay here. I'm going down there alone.'

'No,' Dravan protested, rousing his dormant will. 'No, you're not.'

'There's no point in both of us risking ourselves,' Arasha said, reasonably.

'I don't care. I'm going with you,' Dravan said, and he spurred the hound forwards so that they slithered down the slope in a shower of loose stones and earth. He caught the dismay on Arasha's face before the Adept followed him.

At the bottom of the slope, the hound refused to go any further. Dravan dismounted, and continued on foot. It felt as though the craft above him was almost alive. He could sense the waves of some emotion entirely unknown to him emanating from it. The black hull projected over the lip of the plateau above him, and it seemed to fill the whole world. Slowly, he began to climb, and after what seemed like an eternity, he reached the edge of the plateau, and hauled himself over. He turned to see Arasha brushing the dust from his hands.

'Inside,' the Adept said, grimly.

The last thing that Dravan wanted to do was to see within this great dark craft. It remained him of stories he had heard as a child, of the Barque of the Dead that glided over the plains during winter nights in search of souls. But he would not let Arasha go alone. Steeling himself, he took hold of the metal edge and clambered on board. Within, the sense of despair that permeated the barge assailed him again. The air sang and hummed just below the level of sound; he could feel it vibrating through the bones of his skull and down his spine. Fighting nausea, he made his way through into a narrow passage. He could tell where the sphere was located by the increasing power that surged through the air, and when he and Arasha stepped over the portal of the next doorway, they saw it.

The sphere was sitting on a pedestal in the middle of the room, and before the pedestal lay a body. Cautiously, Dravan turned it over and found that it was a woman. Most of the flesh was gone, and what remained had become desiccated in the dry desert air, but the rings which fringed her ridges showed her to be a member of the tribes. Her leather garments were still intact.

'Drvari Nar Tarkalan,' Dravan said. He stood and paused in dismay. Arasha's hands were poised on either side of the sphere.

'Don't touch it,' Dravan said in a whisper, but it was too late. Arasha gripped the sphere and lifted it. Dravan, paralysed, expected a lightning bolt or some such phenomenon to strike Arasha down, but to his surprise, nothing happened for a moment. Arasha stood quite still. The world slowly began to return to normal. The unnerving humming diminished, and was gone. Dravan blinked. He felt that the craft had died. Arasha stood with the sphere in his hands, smiling at him.

'So,' Arasha said. 'So this is the dark sphere.'

Warily, Dravan crossed to stand by his side. Reaching out, he touched the sphere. Its metal sides felt warm, but it was already cooling.

'It doesn't look very dangerous, does it?' he said, wonderingly.

'No,' Arasha agreed. He wrapped the sphere in a fold of his cloak. 'Old magic, Dravan. I wonder what it really is? What its purpose was?'

'It's a geno-neural co-ordinator,' Ganshin's voice said, startlingly loud out of the shadows. 'An interface. Not that that will mean anything to you, I suppose.'

Dravan gaped at him. The old Hebitian was standing by the doorway, clad in his disreputable cloak, and grinning.

'Ganshin,' Arasha said, and there was a note in his voice which Dravan had never heard before. It was soft, and cold, and dangerous. 'How did you get here?'

'Oh, ways and means...Interesting to see the old crate after so many years,' Ganshin said. He glanced around him. 'Not that I ever came in here, much. The Assatra was penned in here by the sphere. I was just the navigator - at least, until we crashed.' He looked slyly at Dravan, from the corner of his eye. 'Not bad going, for a demented old man, eh?'

Dravan remembered a red eye, watching.

'The surazh. It was you,' he said, accusingly.

Ganshin essayed a modest ruffle of his neck scales, and failed.

'One of my better efforts. I always liked birds.'

Arasha said incredulously

'You're a *shapechanger*?'

'Oh, I suppose it'll all come out now,' Ganshin said with a gusty sigh. 'All these dirty little secrets...Never mind, that can wait. Now, we need to get this old wreck airborne.'

'Wait,' Dravan said. Events had long since passed his understanding. 'This barge can fly?'

'How do you think it got here?'

'If you can get from the mountains to here so quickly, and it's your boat, why didn't you do so before?'

'Because the co-ordinator had been damaged in the crash - that's how the Assatra escaped in the first place - but it was still activated. The sphere, I mean. It's all very well for solids, but for my people, an out-of-control geno-neural device has a disastrous effect on our molecular structure. Besides, it was throwing out so much interference I wasn't even sure where it was until Tekani's map showed up.' Apart from the last half of this sentence, Dravan heard only a series of unfamiliar words: some kind of magical incantation, he presumed. 'I imagine they've solved the problem now, if there's anyone left back home, but this ship was one of the prototypes.'

'The Assatra,' Arasha said sharply. 'That's the One Spirit, isn't it?'

'Took you long enough to work that out,' Ganshin said. His eyes narrowed with ancient enmity. 'Spirit, indeed. Nothing more than a criminal: that's why its own kind threw it out.'

'And you? Are you the same?'

'Well,' Ganshin said, leaning back against the wall 'That's not quite the case. We're originally the same species, yes. But whereas your species is quite homogenous, mine is not. We take very different forms, sometimes. The Assatra had abilities that I never possessed.' He frowned, in distant memory. 'We never really spoke.'

'So you don't - communicate with it?'

'Oh, no. It must know I'm alive, of course. We always know. But it wouldn't deign to keep track of me; I'm much too lowly. Just one of the crew who brought it here. I've been watching it, however. The slow abuse of power over the years, the manipulation of your society, your species. Sharak's its creature, of course. The whole thing's gone on long enough. It has to be stopped.' He paused, and an old unease crossed his face. 'But I can't kill it. It's too powerful for that.'

'You spoke of abuse of power,' Arasha said, and a wintry softness was in his voice. 'Of manipulation. Are we then your assassins?'

Ganshin paused, as if considering his words, then said

'I'm using you, yes. But when this is over, if we succeed, your people will be free from alien interference. Free from the domination of the Assatra. It's up to you.'

Without answering, Arasha brushed past him and vanished through the doorway. Dravan and Ganshin exchanged a glance and followed him. They found the Adept sitting on the lip of the craft, staring out across the bleakness of the plain. It was the same country they had crossed, but its unnatural significance had gone. Now, it was merely a cold wasteland. Arasha turned to look up at Ganshin, his expression unreadable.

'Do you really think this thing will fly?' he said.

'Hopefully.'

'Then do what you have to do,' Arasha said.

Ganshin's inexplicable alterations to the craft took the rest of the day. Dravan did what he was told to do, but towards evening he saw that the old man's features appeared oddly blurred, as though someone had held him too close to a flame.

'I need to assume my usual state,' Ganshin explained. 'Happens every few hours. I'll be back in a while,' and without more ado he slid into a glistening golden wave. 'And don't touch anything...' his voice floated back. Dravan stared at the substance which was now spreading across the floor. If he saw no more wonders for the rest of his life, he thought, he would be quite content. He longed to return to something prosaic: suddenly the cultivation of polt seemed almost appealing. He went outside to find Arasha.

'He melted,' Dravan informed the Adept.

'Typical,' Arasha replied. The corners of his mouth turned down disparagingly. 'Trust Ganshin to do something bizarre.'

'Do you believe him?' Dravan asked.

Arasha gestured around him.

'Here is a barge that flies. Here is a magical sphere which seems to affect the minds of Hebiti for lians around. In *there* is a shape-changing being who, from the sound of it, is thousands of years old and brought our god to us. There is a daunting amount of empirical evidence. Quite what it supports, however, is another matter. I am not sure,' the Adept said carefully 'that I know quite *what* to think.'

Dravan gave him an uncertain glance.

'Neither am I.'

'If you were to ask me whether Ganshin is telling us the whole story, however, then I would be rather more sure. I very much doubt that he's told us even a part of it.'

They sat peacefully side by side, waiting for Ganshin to resume his form, and finally the shapechanger reappeared.

'Better,' he said. 'Well, then. Let's see if this thing will fly.'

Arasha and Dravan followed him into the main chamber.

'I'm afraid there are no seats as such,' Ganshin said, over his shoulder. 'You'll just have to hang on.'

The two Hebitians watched in a stunned silence as the shapechanger began to flow and merge with the curving structure at the front of the craft.

'Since it's sub-atmosphere,' Ganshin's voice echoed out 'We won't need more than the basic technology. Just as well, really.'

Slowly, beneath their feet, the distant humming began, but this time it was much lower in tone, almost undetectable. The craft lurched, and a thin, high whine reverberated through the chamber. Dravan and Arasha grasped the railing which extended partway around the chamber, and held on as the ship began to lift. The glistening, gelatinous substance that was Ganshin flowed smoothly over the console in a graceful alien dance. The craft lifted, staggering in the air, and then dropped like a stone. Dravan felt as though his stomach had been left behind; Arasha's face was pale as paper. And then a surge of power ran through the ship and it swooped down across the plateau, so low that Dravan could hear the scrape of rock along its base, and they were flying south.

They reached the slopes of the mountains in half an hour, which to Dravan seemed unimaginably fast. He clung tightly to the rail and watched the landscape unscroll below through the slit window. Arasha handed himself along the rail until he was level with the gleaming thing that was Yran Ganshin.

'Ganshin,' he shouted above the roaring wind. 'Can you hear me?'

'Of course I can hear you,' Ganshin's voice said, although Dravan could see nothing that resembled a mouth.

'Does this craft have weapons?'

The gelatinous body seemed to shrivel slightly. At last Ganshin said

'Yes. It has weapons. But my former passenger has made very sure that use of advanced technology carries a heavy penalty on this world...'

Old stigmas, thought Dravan, ancient taboos. What better way to control a population, and ensure that they never come too close to finding out the real nature of the spirit that governs them, than by limiting science?

'Where are you taking us?' he called to Ganshin, but it was Arasha who answered.

'To the Hassenet Ai.'

'To the Hassenet Ai,' Ganshin echoed. 'To hide the ship. Then we get word to Genneret.'

'No,' Arasha said, and though he spoke quietly, the word fell like a stone. Ganshin's golden form quivered once, and then was still.

'No?' he repeated.

'If this ship has weapons,' Arasha said, narrow eyed, 'then let's use them.'

'Ah,' Ganshin said sadly. 'I was afraid you might say that.'

Through the viewport, Dravan could see the truncated outcrop that was Suran Peak.

'We're almost into Na Harakh territory,' he said.

'Take us closer,' Arasha said. Ganshin shivered in apparent indignation.

'One would think you'd been doing this all your life,' he protested.

'Take us down,' Arasha hissed.

The craft banked, turning low over the edge of the plains, and Dravan could see the fighting now: sporadic powder bursts and flares of flame. He could even see the combatants, thought from this height they looked as tiny as insects running through the courtyard cracks. Sharak's troops moved in disciplined formation; the tribes poured down from the slopes, attacking at random, but the troops pressed forward.

'Sharak's winning,' Dravan said.

'Where are our weapons?' Arasha snapped.

'I think you'd better let me do that bit,' Ganshin said. 'This technology's not suited to solids. Where is it? Ah, yes...It's been a long time...'The craft dived, and a pulse of fire shot out of the side of the craft and scorched a channel in the dust below. Troops and tribes alike scattered, predictably enough.

'Go for the heavy artillery,' Arasha was saying, cool and pragmatic. 'The main damage is done with the flares: I want those taken out. Then go for the vanguard troops; trap the frontline between us and the tribes.'

Ganshin activated the controls. With each pulse, the craft rocked and lurched; Dravan was flung across the chamber and ended up clutching at the side of the console. A spidery arm appeared from nowhere and locked itself around his waist.

'You solids,' Ganshin said reprovingly into his ear. 'So clumsy...' The golden substance against his cheek felt like half-melted rubber; Dravan gritted his teeth in sudden revulsion. Ganshin fired again and the high whine of the ship's engines increased to a painful pitch.

'Something not quite right there,' Ganshin murmured. 'Might have drained the power supply, I suppose, though I thought - Arasha, hold tight. I'm taking us down.'

The jolt of landing was a severe one. Dravan heard Arasha's gasp of pain, and a cloud of dust rose up and filled the chamber, making them choke. Another rending jolt, and the craft came to a trembling stop. But the whine of the engines did not cease; it seemed to be building to an unbearable pitch. The attenuated figure of Yran Ganshin hauled Dravan to his feet.

'Get out! Now!'

Dravan stumbled through the hatch, Arasha close behind and they sprinted from the craft. When the explosion came, it was almost soundless. The craft billowed upwards in a smouldering ball of hazy fire; almost immediately, the shockwave hit, knocking Dravan from his feet and sending him sprawling in the dust. Fragments of alien spaceship descended around him, drifting down through the burning air like falling stars.

'Are you all right?' Dravan shouted. He crawled across to where his mentor lay, spitting out dust and blood.

'Think I've broken my wrist. But the sphere's safe,' Arasha said, unsteadily gathering the shreds of his urbanity. 'Which is remarkable, given that I fell on it.'

The avian form of Yran Ganshin fluttered down from the sky, ruffled its feathers and resolved into the ancient Hebitian.

'Now,' Ganshin said, peering into the smoke. 'Let's see what we're left with, shall we?'

They walked among the injured and the dead, wreathed in smoke, until they came to the entrance of the Hassenet Ai. The complex appeared deserted. Soot from the powder blasts smudged the polished stone of the courtyard; apart from this, everything was unchanged. A wary face peered around the door: Vanesha Morrec, incongruously holding a spear. Her robe was mottled with blood. Her mouth opened when she saw Arasha, and she sagged against the lintel in relief.

'They're in the meditation chamber,' she whispered, her voice no more than a thread of sound.

'Who are?' Arasha asked gently. He tilted her chin so that he could look into her face.

'What happened?'

'Sharak,' she murmured. 'Came up the pass with his army. But there were others - he sent others, here to the complex.' She rubbed a weary, grimy hand across her eyes. 'And then he came himself. To seize the Hassenet Ai.'

Dravan said, bewildered

'Why would he want to do that? It would be tactically stupid to move against us - we've too many supporters in the Judiciary.'

'He's here,' Vanesha insisted. Her mouth twisted, like a child trying not to cry. 'He's in the chamber. With Tekani.'

Arasha did not wait to hear more. He turned and ran towards the chamber, Dravan and Ganshin following on his heels.

They had torn down the banners and overturned the brazier. The room smelled of blood and ash. One of Sharak's men lay dead at the entrance. Sharak crouched at the far end of the chamber, but Dravan hardly recognised him. Sharak's face seemed to have shrunk back against the bones like parchment stretched across a frame. The military leader's armour was soaked in blood, but Dravan did not think it was his own. He darted an odd, cunning look towards Arasha and his mouth worked, teeth worrying compulsively at his lower lip.

'Look at me, Sharak,' Tekani Na Harrukan hissed. She had been standing in the shadows, but now she came forward into the dim light. One hand, her right, clutched her abdomen; the left was extended towards Sharak.

Tekani's lips were moving, and as Dravan came warily closer he caught the end of her curse.

'...and wherever the universe takes you, I will be there. Throughout all your lives, I will be there, a thousand times a thousand years, destruction upon destruction..'

- and then she crumpled and fell, her right hand still gripping the spearhead embedded beneath her breastbone, and as she died, Dravan saw that she smiled.

'Sharak,' Arasha said.

The leader of the Mirahasi Temple turned and gazed at him. The gaunt face was a mask, as though something were wearing Sharak's flesh. His mouth moved in an unnatural contortion before he spoke, and Dravan realised that something was speaking through him. He could see it now, behind Sharak's eyes: something alien and old.

'Gana'ashn,' it murmured, and then it said something that Dravan could not understand, a liquid flow of words like the sound of running water.

'Assatra,' Arasha whispered. Ganshin looked at him sadly.

'A stalemate,' he said. 'I cannot harm it.'

Arasha took the hint.

'But I can,' he muttered beneath his breath, and he held out the sphere, cupped in his hands like a ball. The thing in Sharak's body snapped his head back as though he was under the lash, pulling him down into the dust as it tried to get free. Between Arasha's hands, the sphere began to glow, and the air sang. The Adept's eyes were closed tightly with the effort; Dravan could see the strain etching itself in his face as his *apaht* started to mesh with the energies of the sphere. Sharak's eyes were a lambent crimson, lit from within by the presence of the Assatra; a single bloody tear made its way down his cheek. And then the Assatra was free: snaking like a coil of gilded smoke into the air as it was drawn towards the sphere. It screamed as it came, congealing in the air. Dravan took an involuntary step backwards, and felt a touch like a flame against his cheek. The chamber grew warm as summer. The Assatra was as bright as day, a being with all the colours of flame, changing as he watched to the outlines of a Hebitian soldier, the silhouette of a tribeswoman, a hound: as though it was discarding the memories of all the forms it had ever worn.

'Harm me,' the Assatra said in a knife-edged voice 'And I will curse you, Hebitian.' A snaking head turned momentarily in the direction of Dravan. 'My people are far away, and cannot interfere with the living, but what you call death is their domain. They are listening even now. Your own death will not be enough. Your lover's will not be enough. My people will snatch his soul when he dies and send it far away, so that you will not meet again in this life, or any other life, not for a thousand years...And when you do, you will not know each other, and you will have become utterly less than you are now. Do you still intend harm?' it whispered, in its silky voice

- but Arasha, after a single glance at Dravan, raised the sphere so that it glowed more brightly.

'Oh, Dravan,' Arasha whispered.

'You have to,' Dravan replied, though the blood in his veins was icy because he knew, now, what the bargain meant. 'I'll wait, Arasha. I'll wait for you.'

'It's time to go,' the Adept said. The Assatra cried and wailed, and then with a sudden rush it was gone, into Drvari's sphere. And slowly, the sphere darkened as Arasha doubled over and fell.

He was accustomed to lies, and deception, and he associated them with the very fabric of power itself. That the being who had given him so invidious a choice seemed itself to be a kind of deity only lent it a greater capacity to lie, in Garak's opinion. The light from the waiting Orb seemed to fill the room; he was reasonably sure that it could sense every thought that entered his head, but he could not afford to fight that. He would have to make his decision in plain view, from the heart, with no prevarication.

With this in mind, Garak thought back down the years and the lives. He knew now what sort of man Arasha had been: a better person than himself. *How did I manage to fail myself so greatly?* he asked the memory of Bashir. *Was it because I knew that you were no longer there for me to live for? Arasha sacrificed love for the good of Hebitia, and he was right to do so, but now? Cardassia's gone; losing you won't bring it back. And you'll do more good than I ever will in this life.* And he knew, too, that he loved Bashir: the ideal, in a way, of the younger self that he had failed so badly, infused by the memory of that earlier love, a thousand years ago.

But then the memory of the ruined pylons of Gened rose up before his mind's eye, and he saw again the woman walking along the river path, holding her child's hand in her own. When he stripped away the love of scheming and power, manipulation for its own sake, everything he had done had been for the good of the State. It was the first love, and the deepest. Cardassia had suffered too much; he would not subject it to further ruin. It was the hardest choice he had ever made, the most difficult words he had ever spoken.

'Let him die,' he said, and closed his eyes.

He could hear the humming of the Orb slowing down, as the alien, sentient technology reached its last stages. Within, the mind-shriek of the wraith grew and grew, to an unbearable pitch. There was a sound like a snapping wire, and the wraith was gone.

'Julian, no,' Garak said, the name wrung out of him. The light grew, blinding him, and the Orb made a sound that was oddly reminiscent of a sigh. Then it, too, vanished, and he was standing out on the plateau with the dawn coming up over the mountains.

5.

Dravan, disregarding Ganshin's warning hand, rushed to the Adept's side. Arasha's face was still pale with strain, and when Dravan put a hand to his brow he discovered that the Adept's skin was colder than snow.

'No,' he said.

'Is he dead?' Ganshin asked, urgently.

'He's dying.'

'We need to get him out of here,' Ganshin said. Dravan stared at him accusingly.

'You knew. You knew it would kill him.'

The shapechanger had the grace to meet his eyes.

'I wasn't sure.'

Swiftly, Ganshin organised the remnants of the combatants and carried Arasha to his own chamber.

Vanesha was waiting for them, her face taut with anxiety. Together, she and Dravan laid the Adept on the bed. Arasha's eyelids fluttered. He whispered a name.

'I'm here,' Dravan said.

Arasha's eyes opened and they were as blue as the sea around the islands, and gilded by the light.

'Dravan...listen to me. You'll take my place very soon. You have to close the Hassenet Ai. Seal it off, with the sphere inside it. Ganshin knows why...' His gaze flickered, grew hazy. 'When I'm dead...' the words were effortful now 'Take my body to the high passes and burn it. Then, take my ashes to the islands, to Arakrahari. Start a new temple, dedicated to the teachings alone. No more spirits, Dravan...just us, and whatever we make of the world.'

'I love you,' Dravan whispered. 'I always will. However long we're apart...'

Arasha smiled, painfully, and there was a ghost of the old wicked smile.

'Only a thousand years...that's not so long. And when we meet again, Dravan, I'll show you the stars.'

Dravan bent and kissed him, then held Arasha close until he heard his lover sigh. He closed his eyes, and the whole universe was before him, opening up, worlds spinning by and his lover's soul out among the stars. And it seemed that Arasha turned and smiled, one last time, and then was gone. Dravan opened his eyes. Arasha's face was peaceful in death; the lines of age and strain fading as he watched. Gently, he lowered Arasha to the bed.

'Adept?' Vanesha said uncertainly, into the silence. Dravan turned to find her standing at the door.

'He's dead,' he said. His voice sounded raw and unfamiliar. He realised, distantly, that she had been addressing him.

'Adept? People are waiting for your instructions,' Ganshin said briskly. As if sleepwalking, Dravan rose from the bed and crossed to the door. He heard himself telling them what Arasha had instructed him to do, and they listened with attention and respect.

********************************************************************

Throughout the next day, Dravan watched himself as he took Arasha's body up into the hills and set it on the funeral pyre. An acolyte lit the fragrant wood and it snapped with resin as it burned, smouldering up into the clouded sky. Dravan listened to himself as he gave the funeral address, speaking with as much emotion as though he himself had died. He watched as the acolytes collected the ashes and placed them in a wooden box, and then he led them out of the mountains and down to the Hassenet Ai.

The powder had already been set in place. Carrying a torch, lit from Arasha's pyre, Dravan touched it to the fuse. The spark seared up the mountain wall towards the powder barrels and they watched from a distance as the gateway cliffs shattered and crumbled inwards.

'That was well done,' Ganshin said, at Dravan's side.

Dravan turned to him uncertainly.

'What will you do now?' he asked.

'Me? Oh, I'm coming with you to the islands. To see you settled. And then I'm coming back here. Someone has to keep an eye on the sphere and its occupants, after all, and I think I'd enjoy a bit of peace and quiet...Well, then. I believe we're ready?'

Turning, he took Dravan's arm and they walked slowly away from the Hassenet Ai, once a temple of the Tenathan Path, and now a grave for a Wraith.

6.

Senghala, Cardassia Prime.

Someone was coming across the plateau, walking slowly through the sootgrass and occasionally bending to crush a fragment of it between his fingers. Garak strained to see in the growing red light, not daring to hope until there could no longer be any doubt.

'Elim?' Julian Bashir said, when he was only a few paces away. He halted, evidently uncertain.

'It's me,' Garak whispered, but he no longer knew quite who that might be because it was not Bashir who stood before him in the early morning light. It was a young Cardassian: dressed in the dark crimson robes of the past, his hair bound at the nape of his neck to signify his designation. He had a northerner's face, high cheekbones and smooth, strong ridges, but the eyes were the same: dark and grave and familiar.

'Dravan,' Garak breathed. He reached out and took the young man's hands.

'Arasha?' The accent was northern, too, a soft voice without the sibilance of Gened. Garak looked down at their linked hands and saw that he, too, had changed: these were longer fingers than his own, and banded with faded markings. An inlay of silver wire ran along the prominent central sinew: he remembered having it done, before he came to the Hassenet Ai. Dravan's voice shook as he said

'It's been so long...All those lives - too many lives, Arasha. I didn't understand what it meant.'

Garak smiled.

'And we still haven't worked it out, have we? Our sentence...our punishment. Meeting on opposite sides. Fighting each other, never working things through...' His voice was not his own, he realised; he had spoken in Hebitian, with an unfamiliar accent.

'Oh, Arasha...Such a long time...And I couldn't remember...'

'A thousand years...' Garak, or Ariad Arasha, said. 'And now the long wait is over. Walk with me?'

- and together they took the old, familiar path down towards the canal.

'The Orb told me that I was going to die,' Bashir said, and now the face of Tanis Dravan overlaid his features like a ghost-mask. 'And the only way I could save your world would be by letting myself be used as a vehicle for a wraith...' He gave Garak that old, sideways glance.

'What did it tell you?'

'A similar kind of thing. It was a choice between your soul and Cardassia.' He paused, not wanting to continue, but Bashir said calmly

'And you chose Cardassia. 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.' - I'm sure you're familiar with the quote. It's all right, Elim. I might not like it, but I understand. '

'But if that's the case,' Garak said. 'What went wrong? You're here, you're alive, aren't you?'

Bashir shook his head.

'I don't know what happened. I knew when the Wraith was free - it was coming for me. I was in some kind of limbo...And then it just changed direction, as though something had distracted it. As though it had recognised someone.'

'Well,' Garak said, uneasily. 'It's gone. And what it will bring to Cardassia remains to be seen. Ironic, isn't it? Perhaps I need not have made my choice after all. I resent being forced into that.'

'Ah, but you see,' Bashir said, in the voice of Tanis Dravan. 'You see, the Prophets do not force us into choosing. It is we who choose to make the choice. What did Genneshen say about the Orbs? That they are some kind of neural interface? They reflect us, Elim. They are our mirror. Not gods who seek to test us, but beings that enable us to test ourselves.'

'I told you long ago,' Garak said. 'You'd make a better Adept than I ever would. Because you were wiser than I was, and it seems you still are.'

They made their way through the ancient gardens, crushing them underfoot and releasing their fragrance, and memory once more assailed the Cardassian. He blinked, trying to remember, but it was gone. Yet he knew beyond doubt that they had walked here before one summer dawn, with the stars burning low over the Tehin Rahan and the smell of herbs heady in the growing warmth of the day.

'Look,' Bashir said. Catching Garak's arm, he pointed up to where the Eye of Dhalet, the last star to die, was setting over the blue shadow of the mountains.

'That's Bajor's sun.'

'You wanted to see the stars one day,' Garak murmured. 'It seems you've got your wish.'

They had come to the portal of the complex; Garak turned and saw that Bashir once again wore the appearence of his former self.

'Listen to me,' Dravan said fiercely. 'This is the first time that you and I have met, in a thousand years. As we were then, as Arasha and Dravan, not as Garak and Bashir or whoever else we've been since...I don't believe that even the gods can hold a grudge that long. It's time to change things.' - and for a moment, he was Julian Bashir once more, gripping the tailor's hands in his own and saying 'When we get back to the station, Elim, we'll try to begin again. I know there are things that stand in the way' and from the brief flicker in his eyes, Garak knew that he had remembered Ganshin's comment about the drugs. Bashir continued 'We'll get it right, and nothing's going to stop that. If I have to resign my commission, I will. If we have to leave the station, then we'll do that. Whatever it takes.' He laughed, a little bitterly. 'I'm not having another thousand years of this...' - and Dravan was looking at him again, defiance in the dark familiar gaze.

'It might not be possible any longer,' Garak said sadly. 'I am no longer the kind of person Arasha was. I am old, and corrupted, and often wrong.' *And who is to say that you won't change your mind?* he thought, adding 'But I will be here for you, if you want me.'

Gently, his lover released his hands and held him. Garak settled into the embrace, distantly aware that it was sometimes a lean Hebitian body in his arms, and sometimes a human one, and that the name he could hear himself whispering was always different, and always the same.

7.

Dukat watched them walk away across the plateau. As they approached the entrance to the complex, he saw the old shapechanger come out to meet them; they went into the complex together. Frustration and fury sang through Dukat's veins.

'Why not now?' he asked the presence in his head, and it replied with a malicious serenity

'Soon. Soon you will have your chance; I promise you. When did I ever lie to you, Sharak?' - and his own voice echoed down the years *Always. All the time.*

'We are linked,' the voice continued. 'You were mine, once, and you will be again. And now I will leave you, for a little time, and you will forget...But only for a while.'

There was a sudden wrenching pressure behind his eyes and then the presence was gone, fleeing into the mountain air. Bewildered, Dukat shook his head to clear it. There was something he ought to remember...He left his vantage point in the rocks and retreated back to the aircar where Damar was waiting impatiently.

'Sir?'

'We're leaving,' Dukat said.

'But sir - the exile, the human? What about them?' Damar's face was contorted with uncomprehending dismay.

'What about them?' Dukat asked softly, and behind his eyes Damar caught a fleeting echo of something very far from mortal. 'Take us out of here, Damar. Now.'

The aircar spiralled up above the mountains, leaving Senghala behind, and heading south for Gened and the future.

Epilogue.

On the first day of the Season of Life, Adept Tanis Dravan walked out along the sea cliffs overlooking the caldera. Ganshin walked with him, squinting into the light. Dravan did not speak until they neared the stone beneath which he had laid Arasha's ashes: it lay on the highest point of the cliff, and beneath it the land dropped away into the gulf. From here, one could see almost all the archipelago: the arched back of Settra, silhouetted against the light, the little islands that dotted the Deruan Zher.

'He used to come up here to think,' Dravan said. 'So he told me.'

'If he told you so, then it's true,' Ganshin said. 'It's a good place. He'd like it here.'

Dravan sighed.

'Maybe he's already been reborn...Maybe somewhere down there, someone's nursing a child with Arasha's soul.'

'Maybe, maybe not.'

'Ganshin?'

'Yes?'

'The Assatra's curse...Do you think it's true? That Arasha and I will be separated, that we won't meet for a thousand years? That my soul will be sent to another world?'

Ganshin said

'And if it is true? You'd be surprised how quickly the time goes. But I will tell you this, Dravan. I watched you together. And I think that even if you have been cursed by a god, I don't think that anything in this life or out of it could keep you from meeting again. And when you do, hopefully you'll get it right.'