A Burning House

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

They continued to circle each other, each waiting for the other to make a move. Members of the crowd shouted out cheers and jeers, some for Klag, some for Rodek, others nothing specific, probably interested only in seeing the fight and not caring who won.

  Finally, Rodek lunged. Klag reached up with his father’s hand, grabbed Rodek’s wrist, and pulled it to the side. Rodek stumbled, and Klag swung his left arm up in an arc toward Rodek’s now-outstretched arm.

  With a clang of metal on metal, Klag’s gauntlets struck those of Rodek. Klag had hoped to break his arm, but both of them were too well protected by their armor for that. However, the impact startled Rodek for a brief second, giving Klag time to whirl around and flip Rodek over his own shoulder, sending him crashing to the concrete floor of the qaDrav. Before Klag could deliver a kick to his face, Rodek brought up his knee into Klag’s groin. Moving instinctively to protect himself, even though his armor was even stronger there than on his arm, Klag lost his chance to finish Rodek off.

  Then Klag was sent reeling backward by Rodek’s foot slamming into his stomach, smashing his own armor into his belly. There was no pain, but the force of the impact was enough to make Klag stumble backward to the iron railing.

  Normally, Klag would be lost in the bloodlust by now. But this fight served no purpose. Klag found himself confused and angered by his mother’s betrayal and by Rodek’s absurd story, so much so that he could not focus on the fight itself.

  “You will die for what you’ve done to me!” Rodek cried.

  “I have done nothing!” Klag cried right back. “We fight for no reason, Rodek!”

  “Do not call me that! Rodek is a fiction that you created!”

  From behind him, a deep, powerful voice said, “That is not so!”

  Whirling around, Klag saw Worf stepping through the crowd, forcing aside other Klingons in an attempt to reach the railing.

  A guardsman Klag had not noticed before stepped forward with his painstik brandished. “There is a challenge in progress!”

  Worf glowered at the guardsman. “I am Worf, Federation ambassador and member of the House of Martok. You will let me pass.”

  While the diplomatic post did not seem to impress the guardsman, Martok’s name did. He stepped aside.

  The crowd grew quiet.

  Rodek was squinting at the ambassador. “Worf.” The name was spoken as if it were a curse.

  “Yes, I am the firstborn son of Mogh. And you are indeed Kurn, Mogh’s second son and my brother.” Worf now turned to address the crowd. “It is true that Kurn’s memories were erased. It is true that ‘Rodek, son of Noggra,’ is a fiction. What is not true,” and now Worf looked again at the man who was apparently his brother, “is that Captain Klag is in any way responsible.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Rodek asked.

  “Because I am the one responsible.”

  Klag felt almost dizzy. “You did this to your own brother?”

  “I had…what I thought were good reasons at the time, Captain.”

  “What of my father?” Rodek cried. “What of Noggra?”

  Worf pulled a padd from an inner pocket of his floor-length cassock. “Noggra was killed by an assassin who interrogated him for several hours, forcing him to tell the truth of what happened to you.” He held up the padd so that both Klag and Rodek could see the display.

  The crowd grew restless. “I thought there was a challenge!” “Talk later, fight now!” “Kill him, Klag!” “Destroy the traitor, Rodek!”

  But Rodek was focused entirely on the recording before him. “That is what Dorrek showed me—but only some of it.”

  Klag turned to see that his mother and brother were trying to lose themselves in the crowd. Immediately, Klag said, “Guardsman!”

  The guardsman who had tried to stop Worf stood at attention. “Sir!”

  Pointing at Tarilla and Dorrek, Klag said, “Detain those two!”

  Two other guardsmen stepped forward, and the three of them quickly had both of Klag’s family members surrounded.

  Turning to Rodek, Klag said, “Dorrek wanted revenge upon me for discommendating him—not to mention his losing command of the K’mpec. He would have done anything to hurt me, including pitting me against my own officer.”

  Worf walked up to the opening in the railing of the qaDrav. “Klag is blameless in all this, brother. If anyone deserves to die for what has happened to you, it is me. If you wish to take my life, I shall not stop you.”

  Klag stepped back, giving Rodek room. He wasn’t sure what the entire story was, but he did know that this was a feud between two brothers. In fact, it was two feuds between two sets of brothers, but he would deal with Dorrek shortly. Right now, he wanted to give the sons of Mogh the opportunity to finish this.

  They stared at each other for several seconds. Shouts came from the crowd, who had been promised blood.

  Rodek threw his head back and screamed to the heavens.

  Then he threw his d’k tahg to the concrete floor and ran past Worf and into the crowd.

  One of the guardsman, who was making sure Dorrek and Tarilla stayed put, asked Klag, “Should we go after him, sir?”

  “No,” Worf said. “Let him go.”

  Glowering at the ambassador, Klag said, “I am hardly inclined to do as you say right now, Ambassador.”

  Tarilla spoke up suddenly. “It does not matter, Klag. It would have been easier if you had died today, but I have already petitioned to speak before the High Council.”

  “Rest assured, Mother, you will speak before the council, but it will only be to explain your actions today.” Turning to the guardsmen, he said, “These two are to be bound by law for attacking the head of the House of M’Raq in his own home.”

  The guardsmen all saluted.

  Klag then turned to Worf. “As for you, Ambassador, you will explain yourself. And if I am not satisfied with the explanation, I will kill you myself.”

  Twenty-five

  Baldi’maj District

  Krennla, Qo’noS

  By the time the dress rehearsal rolled around, G’joth had resigned himself to his impotence.

  That resignation came when he remembered that he had left Krennla in the first place and never looked back. Years later, he remembered Klaad and Krom with fondness, but that was, he now realized, the haze of nostalgia. Distance from the actual event had made him recall only the parts he wanted to remember, completely forgetting that Krennla was a pit that he ran away from as soon as he could.

  In turn, that revelation made it easier to deal with the opera. The Battle of San-Tarah was for Konn and Reshtarc what Krennla was for G’joth: a fond memory. The creators of the opera were interested in remembering only the parts that were important to them, just as G’joth remembered only the parts of his childhood that were important to him.

  Wol had been right to stay away from here. Were I sane, I would have done likewise. His memories were far more pleasant than the reality and also easier to maintain when he was in space far away from Qo’noS.

  Still, he was here now, so he continued to “consult” for Konn. The one way he was actually useful was in showing some of the extras how to hold a bat’leth. They kept dropping them, mostly because they insisted upon holding them one-handed. In and of itself, that was fine, but you had to hold it a particular way for a one-handed grip to work, and they didn’t know what it was. G’joth took it upon himself to show each of them either the proper two-handed grip or a one-handed grip that would allow them to hold onto it. It necessitated a reworking of some of the fights, which did not endear G’joth to Krelk, the choreographer, but G’joth was unconcerned. If Krelk wished to issue a challenge, G’joth suspected that Krelk would know only stage moves, and G’joth would kill him in an instant.

  Speaking of challenges, the role of Captain Huss had to be recast when rehearsal was interrupted by the arrival of a woman who claimed to be the wife of the man with whom the actress playing Huss was sleeping. They fought a duel on the stage, the actress lo
st (for pretty much the same reason why G’joth expected to win a potential fight against Krelk), and one of the chorus was elevated to the role of Huss.

  G’joth sat in the front row of the amphitheater as the dress rehearsal went on. This was the first opportunity he’d had to see the opera from start to finish, and he reluctantly had to admit to being impressed. Kenni deserved his reputation—he sang with passion and verve, enough to make G’joth’s ribs vibrate on the lowest notes—and, while Klivv still looked nothing like Klag, he was able to convey the captain’s heroism and spirit, if not his physical presence. (He also chuckled. G’joth did not think that the captain ever chuckled, and Klag’s deep-throated laugh was legendary, but Klivv was unable to replicate it, and his one attempt to do so reinforced to G’joth that he should stick with the chuckle.)

  As for his sister, it was impossible to make out her voice in the cacophony of the chorus, but the chorus as a whole did its job magnificently.

  Of course, he would have preferred more use of the ground troops, but that, G’joth knew, was a forlorn hope in an opera. Klag’s victories would be remembered forever. The fifteenth’s victories would be forgotten outside the Gorkon’s decks.

  After the rehearsal ended, G’joth accompanied Lakras downstairs to the dressing rooms. The aircar would take them back to Kenta District once they changed out of their costumes.

  “I also need to see Kenni for a moment,” Lakras said as she climbed into her own clothing. “Wasn’t he wonderful?”

  “He was…adequate,” G’joth said with a smile, unwilling to give his sister the satisfaction of fawning over her love interest.

  “Hmph. He was brilliant, and you know it.”

  “I will credit him with providing General Talak with a nobility of purpose that the genuine article did not have. In the opera, Talak is misguided. On San-Tarah, the general was merely a dishonorable petaQ.”

  “Perhaps,” Lakras said, exiting into the hallway and walking straight toward Kenni’s private room, “but dishonorable petaQpu’ make for boring opera.”

  “So I have been told repeatedly of late.”

  The opera house retained much of the same structure it had when it was first constructed centuries earlier, which meant that several of the doors were manual. Lakras pulled on the handle, saying, “You’re just an old crank, G’joth. Admit it, you loved…”

  G’joth was confused as to why Lakras trailed off. Then he looked past her to see Kenni scratching the chest of one of the other women from the chorus, who, in turn, was raking her nails across Kenni’s back, drawing blood.

  “Kenni? Ginva?”

  Whirling toward the door, Kenni said, “Go away, girl, I’m busy!”

  “But…but…I thought—”

  “I said go away!”

  Reaching past his sister, G’joth closed the door. He, at least, had no desire to watch. Voyeurism was never much of a thrill for him—he preferred to do rather than watch.

  Lakras’s eyes were wide, her skin and crest pale, her jaw hanging open. “I don’t—I don’t believe it. How—how—how could he—”

  G’joth recalled one of the chorus members telling him that Kenni would discard Lakras soon enough. Thinking about it, the person who’d told him that was the woman with whom Kenni was currently engaged.

  Grabbing Lakras’s arm, G’joth said, “Come, sister, let us go—”

  “No!” She shook off his grip. “I am not moving from this spot until he comes out and explains himself!”

  “Lakras—”

  “I said no!”

  “I am your older brother, Lakras, and I am telling you—”

  “Telling me what?” She turned and screamed at him, her face now growing red with rage, spittle flying out of the corner of her mouth. “You went off to your stupid ship to fight stupid aliens all the time! You don’t get to tell me anything!”

  Then she turned her back on him and stood in front of the door to Kenni’s changing room, arms folded defiantly over her chest.

  Once again, G’joth resigned himself to impotence. I have got to get out of this damned city.

  Eventually, the door opened. Both Ginva and Kenni were fully dressed. Ginva left the room, a triumphant expression on her visage as she passed both Lakras and G’joth.

  Kenni remained in the room, staring at himself in a looking glass. G’joth felt nauseous.

  “How dare you?” Lakras screamed. She grabbed a bowl filled with some items G’joth couldn’t see off a sideboard and held it as if to throw it at Kenni. “We were—”

  “Nothing,” Kenni said dismissively. “An entertaining diversion for a while, but I grew bored, so I moved on. Ginva gives me something you can’t.”

  Now Lakras did throw the bowl, but Kenni ducked it with ease. The bowl crashed into the wall, the items clattering across the floor.

  “I don’t believe it!” Lakras cried. “What about all those things you said to me, those things you promised me?”

  Laughing derisively, Kenni said, “Don’t tell me you believed all that?”

  “Why should I not have believed them?”

  “This isn’t a romance novel, Lakras, it’s real life. Do you honestly think I would do anything but dally with the likes of you?”

  Lakras grabbed a blade that was lying on the table. G’joth assumed it was Kenni’s. “I should kill you!”

  Another laugh. “Do not be a fool, Lakras. I am the finest opera performer of our time.”

  And the most modest, G’joth thought with a roll of his eyes.

  He went on: “You are but a common woman.”

  “Do you truly think that will stop me from challenging you? I have every right—”

  “Who cares about your rights, little girl? Do you even know how to use that thing in your hand?”

  Lakras bared her teeth. “There is one way to find out.”

  “Even if I accepted your laughable challenge, what would come of it? If I win, you die, and no one cares—except perhaps your brother, there, but he’ll be back on his ship in no time. If you win, you’ll be known only as the girl who killed a great opera performer. What do you think that will do for your career?”

  Tearing himself away from the looking glass, Kenni stepped past Lakras. “It was fun for a while, Lakras. And now you’ll be able to tell your fellow commoners that you bedded the great Kenni. Take it for what it is and move on.”

  Kenni continued toward the exit. Lakras did not move—G’joth thought she looked stunned. She still held the blade in her hand.

  Leaving his sister to her shock, G’joth followed Kenni to the entrance where a private aircar was no doubt waiting to take him back to his opulent home.

  “Kenni!” G’joth called out just as the singer walked through the doorway.

  “What is it?” he asked impatiently. “I have things to do.”

  “No doubt. I must give you credit. It is much easier to seduce common women secure in the knowledge that they cannot possibly challenge you without risk to their careers. But if you think I’m simply some soldier who will walk away, you are sadly mistaken.”

  Kenni, who was half a head taller than G’joth, stared down at him. “Are you threatening me, Bekk G’joth?” He practically sneered the rank.

  “Merely stating a fact. You see, I have very little use for the opera or its practitioners, beyond what it means to my sister. All things being equal, I would have been quite content to go back to my ship and forget all about you, as you predicted. But that is not going to happen now—now you have my attention.”

  With that, G’joth turned his back on Kenni and walked back inside.

  The sad thing was, it was an empty threat. If G’joth killed Kenni—and if he wanted to, he could have killed Kenni about twenty different ways without even trying hard—it would be a huge setback for the opera and would probably cause the same damage to Lakras’s career that her challenging him would. With Father out of work, they needed Lakras to provide income to the household. Honor was all well and good when you h
ad food in your belly, but it did G’joth’s family no good to starve just so Lakras could save face.

  Besides, she was a commoner. What face did she have to save?

  A warrior did not make an empty threat, and the longer he stayed in this misbegotten city he once called home, the less G’joth felt like a warrior.

  I have to get out of this place, he thought as he grabbed his sister, still in a state of shock, and took her home.

  Twenty-six

  Market Circle

  Pheben III

  Wol’s first thought upon seeing Lak was that he wasn’t the biggest person she’d ever seen. But she’d also spent every day of her life since reporting to the Gorkon in the presence of Goran, who was bigger than any two Klingons—not to mention dealing with various alien species, some of whom were built quite large.

  Besides, while Lak wasn’t the largest Klingon she’d seen, excepting Goran, he was by far the largest Klingon on Pheben III. He was roughly the same height as the big man, with narrower shoulders, wider forearms, and a larger gut, no doubt from what his family farm produced. Given his streak of victories, Wol wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that his family gave him the trigak’s share of the food produced by the family business to keep his strength up.

  Wol had spent the previous day working with Kagak on his hand-to-hand skills. Tabona had said she was wasting her time, but Wol had insisted, and Kagak had agreed to take whatever assistance his commander would provide. For her part, Tabona kept a steady supply of the candied racht coming, since that provided a source of energy for both of them during the workouts.

  At the end of the last session before the evening meal, Kagak had said, “Thank you, Leader.”

  “For what?” she had asked.

  “Today is the first day that I truly feel like I am part of the fifteenth—that it is only now that you have accepted me.”

  Wol had bowed her head. “You brought me here, Kagak. That alone earns you the right to fight alongside us.”

  Today, they had come to the market. B’Ellor and Goran had said they would be right behind them. The pair of them had been spending a lot of time together, and Wol was concerned that it would come to a bad end. After all, they were reporting back to the Gorkon soon enough, which meant he would have to leave her behind.