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It was very late on the night before a battle was to be joined, but Legate Pondra was not asleep. He sat at the large desk in his command tent, studying a parchment detailing Naievirl tactics in the Battle of Zio Var by the light of a rush torch. A brazier of charcoals glowed nearby, driving back some of the winter cold that Cardassians found so difficult to endure, and a plate of half-eaten food sat at his left elbow, forgotten.
His army was in a pretty mess, not for lack of organization, but for lack of intel. The Naievirl held the Temple of the Celestial Towers and it was the job of Pondra and his fellow legates to get it back again. The problem was that the Naievirl had a bad habit of hiding extra forces in the densely wooded and mountainous countryside of this continent, and hiding them so well that army scouts couldn’t find them or else never returned to report at all. Without accurate knowledge of how many more enemy warriors were lying in wait Pondra had no idea where to position his troops or how to distribute their fighting strength, the sort of ignorance that had led to a crushing and bloody defeat for Cardassian forces at Zio Var forty-three years ago.
He’d been resigned to the idea that he’d have to be running this campaign blind and hoping for the best, as much as that galled any military commander when the lives of so many men were at stake. And then, out of the blue, two strangers had appeared in camp: a fellow Cardassian calling himself Garak and a new type of creature, a Human, which he claimed was his slave and a doctor into the bargain. Pondra was old, but his eyes were undimmed: the Human was no more a slave than Garak was his master, except perhaps in a sense that had nothing to do with documents of formal ownership. And Garak, at least according to his own account, was far more than the simple traveller he seemed at first glance.
A trained spy was a gift ow'n that Pondra had been prepared to let through the gates, especially when that spy was willing to venture out into this icy night, hazard an enemy camp he’d never been to in terrain he was unfamiliar with, capture an enemy General, and wring the details of the Naievirl’s battle plans out of them. There was really nothing to lose: if Garak succeeded they’d potentially be able to save hundreds of Cardassian lives, and if he failed, he’d die at the hands of the Naievirl without having any secrets of his own — or at least none that concerned Pondra — to yield under torture.
All Garak had asked for in return was admittance to the Temple when it was reclaimed and access to the holiest object within it, the device which spoke to the Towers in the Sky. Given what was at stake, Pondra was certain that the priests could be talked into granting him his price.
“Legate?” It was his night watchkeeper, Nissar. The young man bowed slightly and touched his clenched fist to his breastplate respectfully. “You asked to be informed when the spy Garak returned?”
“I did.” Pondra set aside the old report he’d been perusing and glanced at the sand clock. It was a little over halfway through the fifth hour of the night. “Send him in, will you?”
Nissar departed with another bow. Several seconds later Garak appeared through the tent flap and came to stand in front of Pondra’s desk. He offered no bow; he simply stood at a relaxed and balanced attention, with his hands lightly clasped behind his back and the air of a man who is the very soul of dependable efficiency.
“Well?” Pondra asked.
Without a word Garak reached into the trim leather wallet at his right hip and withdrew something, tossing it onto the desk in front of the Legate. It was a Naievirl mark of rank, the badge that Generals wore. His hands returned to their former position. “She was most forthcoming, once the question was put to her properly.”
Pondra looked up from the badge and studied Garak carefully. There was no blood on either the circlet of metal or the black clothing he wore, but that didn’t necessarily mean that pain had not been inflicted. “What did you do to her?”
The spy smiled a small and secret smile. “I believe that’s what’s called a ‘trade secret’. Suffice it to say that if and when her fellow Naievirl find her, they’ll assume she fell off a cliff in the darkness and broke her neck on the way down. Quite tragic, really. She should have taken a torch with her on her midnight stroll.”
Pondra smiled in turn, pleased that this eleventh-hour addition to his forces had proven to be so effective. “You found out the enemy’s positions and planned pattern of attack?”
“Bring me a map,” Garak replied, “and I’ll show you.”
Pondra picked up the meter-long leather tube that had been lying on his desk all evening waiting for Garak’s return, then stood up and unrolled the map inside it onto the smooth wooden surface. He secured the corners with four stones and then called Nissar in again and told him to send messengers to fetch Varasis and Aarazar. When Nissar had departed he crossed to a side table and uncorked a bottle of spirits that was standing upon it. “Would you care for a glass of kanar?”
“Why, thank you!” Garak sounded most politely grateful. “The night is rather cold.”
Pondra poured two glasses and returned to stand beside the smaller man, handing him his drink. For several moments they were silent, sipping the potent liqueur and studying the parchment spread out before them. “So,” Pondra asked at last, “how many of the perujoi are there?”
“Ten liaeriar of fifty warriors each,” Garak responded without hesitation, “plus a contingent of seil’loi, one hundred strong.”
Pondra winced slightly. More than they’d estimated, by a goodly margin. “You’re convinced she was telling the truth?”
“I’m a very persuasive speaker," Garak said cheerfully. "And of course after we’d been talking long enough she stopped changing her story, which is always a good sign.”
Pondra nodded. He’d dealt with men like Garak before — shadow-walkers, master manipulators, cruelly inventive, capable of killing with a cool head and no more remorse than most men would feel about snuffing out a candle flame... but he found himself wondering yet again what the young man he’d conversed with earlier this evening — warm, polite, a little disingenuous, and a healer in the bargain — was doing with this ruthless torturer and cold-blooded killer. The individual in question, the exotic alien called Jular, had denied that an intimate relationship existed between them, but Pondar was given to strong intuitions that usually proved to be accurate, a possible legacy of Naievirl shaman blood three generations back on his sire’s side. Passion can be a strange thing, he mused, before dismissing the thought completely from his mind.
"Do you have any suggestions?” he asked the spy, more to make conversation than anything else.
“I really couldn’t say,” Garak replied, “since I’m not familiar with your plan of attack. However, if I were you I’d place some archers with medium range bows on that northeastern ridge. There’s a gorge just there,” and he leaned over to touch an area of the parchment that was sketched as solid forest, “that isn’t indicated on your map. It leads through to a dry river bed. A sizeable enemy force could conceivably use it to spring a surprise attack on your flank if you’re not careful.”
Pondra took another sip of kanar and regarded Garak sidelong, impressed in spite of himself. It had been an intelligent observation couching a potentially vital piece of information. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
At that moment Nissar returned, announcing that Aarazar was approaching the tent, and shortly thereafter the youngest legate breezed in, smiling as if he was coming to a party. Pondra offered him kanar as well, and it wasn’t long before Varasis joined them, tall and arrogant as only a born member of the Shiar class could be. He did not greet Garak as Aarazar had done, and Garak seemed quite content to ignore him in turn except when the business at hand required them to exchange words. Pondra wasn’t surprised: the way that Varasis had been looking at Garak’s alien companion earlier this day hadn’t been a recipe for cordial relations between the two men. Vararis had quite possibly been hoping that Garak would not return, or return badly wounded enough to die of his injuries, for purely selfish reasons: if he didn’t survive the mission, his property and his slave would be there for the taking, and Vararis would not have hesitated to make a very strong claim for ownership of the Human doctor.
Garak, however, was very much alive and looking uncommonly like the zhia’har that’s been in the cream. The four of them talked until well after the sand clock had been turned again by Nissar’s aide, and by the time their conference was finished Pondra was well satisfied with the information their newest ally had provided. Many lives would be saved on the morrow because of the work of those merciless grey hands, which proved the old adage that even a serpent, properly employed, was a creature to be welcomed into one’s home.
When Garak had finished being debriefed Pondra dismissed him, then followed him outside for a dose of cold air to help wake him up a bit before he settled down to revising tomorrow's battle plans with his fellow legates. He was at an age when such late nights were becoming physically taxing. They walked together a little way from the tent, their exhalations frosting in the dimness, and just before they parted company Pondra remarked:
“I think Varasis wants to buy your slave, you know.”
“Does he?” Garak didn’t even blink. “I very much doubt he could afford the price.”
“Which would be?”
“His life,” the spy replied, and with a little bow of his chin he departed, disappearing into the night like a shadow.
Pondra looked up at the starry sky, drawing in a long deep breath of the icy air to clear his head, and reflected again that passion was a very strange thing indeed.
THE END