He thought he heard a clattering from the gates, but Gar’s chamber was on the far side of the keep from the main portcullis and the wind rose and fell, bringing only snatches of sound to his ears. Not for the first time that day, his thoughts drifted to the desk in the middle of the room where his effects lay in untidy profusion. Beside an open copy of Yalar’s New Insights was a cloth bundle concealing a narrow-bore phaser pistol. There was plenty of room inside the vedek’s voluminous robes to conceal the gun, but then what would that benefit him? To be an armed priest on today of all days—it invited trouble. And besides, he was quite capable of killing with his bare hands, if the matter pressed him to it. He looked down at his spread palms, at the thin and lightly tanned skin, the lengthy artisan’s fingers. There was a moment of disconnection, as if the hands belonged to someone else.
Gar heard sounds out in the corridor beyond and the thread of his reverie snapped. Swift, frightened footfalls stumbled along the wooden floors, getting closer by the second. The vedek stepped to the table and laid a hand on the phaser, those long fingers slipping into the cloth to wrap around the weapon’s knurled grip.
A hard report sounded on the chamber door. He could hear someone gasping in deep breaths on the other side. “Gar! Gar!” The words were high with effort and terror. “Are you in there? For Fate’s sake, open the door!”
Gar knew the voice, and he schooled his face in the moment before he released the latch.
A hooded figure in pastel-colored robes fell in through the door and slammed it shut behind. The hood fell back to reveal slick, jet-black hair framing a pale gray face lined in ropelike ridges, sunken blue eyes darting back and forth across the chamber. The Cardassian held a leather carryall clutched to his chest, knuckles white where they held on to the strap with wild determination. He blinked and swallowed hard. “Brother,” he began breathlessly, “you have no idea how glad I am to see you! I didn’t dare to hope that you would still be here.”
Gar opened his hands. “Where else would I be, Bennek, if not here? In times of crisis, the Prophets would not have us flee and leave our kindred alone.”
Bennek hesitated at those words, as if he sensed something of an admonition in them. He worked visibly to calm himself and placed the bag upon the table, taking an empty seat. Gar offered him a flask of water, and the Cardassian drank greedily.
“Why are you here?” Gar asked carefully. “You must know the keep won’t offer you any sanctuary.”
Bennek’s eyes widened. “You would turn me out?”
Gar shook his head. “I mean that this place won’t protect you.”
The other man sagged in the chair. “I…I know that. They’re out there, sweeping the streets with bio-scanners. Looking for Cardassian life signs.” He nodded bleakly. “Yes. They’ll find me soon enough. It’s inevitable.”
“The others?” The vedek eyed the bag, wondering about its contents.
“Gone,” Bennek said in a dead voice. “Scattered, murdered…I pray to Oralius that it is not so, but I have only seen bodies.” He grabbed at Gar’s wrist in sudden panic.
“What if…what if I am the only one left? What if I am the last to walk the Way?”
Gently, the vedek peeled Bennek’s fingers from his arm and pushed him away. “My friend,” he said quietly, “I can only imagine what horrors you are facing at this moment, and I pray for you. I know the Prophets and your Oralius will watch over you. You must be strong, Bennek, for if indeed you arethe last of your faith, then you alone must rise to bear the weight of it.”
The Cardassian looked away. “I don’t know if I can.” He choked off a sob. “I…Tima, she…”
“Strength, Bennek,” repeated Gar. “The time for more mortal concerns will come later.” He glanced at the window. The thrumming of the tanks was closer. “But for now, you should get away. Go to ground.”
“Can you hide me?” The words were plaintive, like a child’s. This Bennek was a far cry from the one who had first arrived on Bajor so many years earlier, full of purpose and brimming with unshakable belief. All that had been slowly beaten from him, flensed away over time until he was little more than the pale echo sitting before Gar. These past days, the events unfolding across Bajor, Osen saw now how they were the last turns of the screw, the final pressures that broke the Cardassian priest’s will. “Please?” Bennek asked.
Gar shook his head. “You ask too much, Bennek. You’ve been out on the streets, you’ve seen what is happening in Korto. If they find you here, they’ll burn the keep to the ground, and everyone in it. Would you want that?” He advanced a step. “Would Tima want that?”
“No,” Bennek said quietly, and then with more conviction, “No.” A measure of his former strength returned to the Cardassian. “You’re right, of course. Forgive me for my weakness.”
“I’m sure even Oralius knows that no man can be strong every day.”
Bennek nodded. “But now I have to be.” He opened the bag and removed an object hastily wrapped in a torn and scorched strip of prayer tapestry. Gar recognized the tightly lined forms of Hebitian script across the blackened cloth. Bennek unrolled the tapestry and revealed an ornate mask carved from milky gray wood. The features of it were unquestionably Cardassian, but strangely fluid as well, and bore odd striations that some observers might think mimicked the nasal ridges of a native Bajoran. Something about the mask unsettled the vedek, but he was careful not to let that emotion show on his face.
Bennek let out a small cry of despair as he took up the mask and a part of it came away in his hands, a piece from the orbit of the right eye, whorled with delicately worked filigree in latinum and jevonite. “It must have been damaged when I ran from the encampment.”
“It’s only a small impairment.” Gar appraised the mask.
“This is an impressive relic.”
“It is one of the original Faces of the Fates, from the time of the First Hebitians on Cardassia,” said the other priest. “I’ve kept it safe for years…” He blinked, shaking away a moment of distraction. Placing the mask on the table, Bennek delved into the bag again and brought out a nested set of tubes made from murky glass. More etchings in the careful Hebitian script covered the exterior. “The Recitations,” explained the Cardassian. “This is one of only a few complete copies of the Word of my faith. This, my Bajoran brother, is the holy text of the Oralian Way in its entirety.” Bennek’s hands were shaking as he touched it.
Gar was no stranger to the religion, having seen Bennek and the members of his congregation perform their rites on many occasions. They would don the masks, ceremonially assuming the role as the avatar of their god, before speaking the lessons of Oralius as read from their sacred scrolls. The vedek assumed that somewhere there had to be definitive originals of the text, but he had never dared to imagine that one of them might be here, on Bajor. Bennek’s breathless awe in the face of these two objects was ample illustration of the incalculable value the Oralians placed on them. “Why do you show me these things?” he asked.
The Cardassian was on his feet, nodding to himself. “You cannot hide me, I was wrong to ask it of you. I will leave this place, but in the name of our twin faiths, I ask you to do this for me, Osen.” He pointed at the relics. “Conceal them. Hide the mask and the scrolls from the soldiers and promise me you will never reveal their location as long as you live, not until the soul of Cardassia grows strong again, not until the Voice of Oralius is ready to be heard once more. Tell me you will do this.” Bennek thrust the scrolls into Gar’s hands, and the vedek rocked back. “Swear it!”
There were more footsteps out in the corridor: the heavy thud of armored boots matched with the splintering of doors being kicked open. Gar heard gruff voices shouting and calling out commands to one another.
Bennek’s eyes were pleading, shining with fear. “In the name of your Prophets,” he cried, “swear it!”