Hadlo pushed on, batting away hands that grabbed at his robes, ignoring the pleading cries. The compartment was just a little farther away.

Red light blazed through the windows and tore a scream from the refugees. He glanced up and saw dying energies falling back on themselves, consuming the gunmetal cylinders of the big bulk tanker; there had been at least seven hundred Oralians on board that ship.

The cleric couldn’t see the vessels that had fired the killing shots, and he tore himself away, moving again, pushing and snarling at the living tide around him. At last he was at the hatch and he forced it open. Hadlo closed the door behind him and sank to the floor just as another blast buffeted the lighter.

He dragged himself into the chair before the communications console, his hands shaking. How did they find us?The question rolled through his mind. The Badlands are an uncharted wilderness…This cannot be chance…The answer brought a sour taste to his mouth. Betrayal, then! Someone sold our lives for their own! Of course!One of the ship crews perhaps, or an Oralian who had fallen from the Way and lost faith.

Hadlo tried to work the controls, but his hands were shaking. In his nostrils there was the stink of ashes and blood, and he felt a sudden rasping tightness around his feet and ankles. He did not dare look down for fear of seeing the vipers coiling around him. “The vision!” he cried. The dream granted to him by the Orb was returning again.

Reality hazed and flowed like rain across a windowpane. Rough caresses over his legs and bare feet, a touch like old dry parchment. The snakes burying him, ashes and fire and the wind like razors, the screaming hooded faces—

Hadlo slammed his hands on the console and shouted, “No! Oralius, I beg you! We cannot perish unknown in this place! I must…I must be heard!” The cleric punched at the controls, fear robbing him of reason. “Bennek! Bennek, do you hear me?” He stabbed at the transmit key. Nothing but snarling static answered him, and the ship howled as more shots struck it. Lights flickered as the power trembled toward darkness.

He dropped to his knees. There would be no worse fate than this one, he realized. To die unrecorded and unremembered, all that he had done for his faith swept away in a plume of nuclear fire. I will not die in silence! I must be heard!

“Oralius… Oralius?”He shouted the name. “Prophets! Do you hear me? Have you all abandoned me? My love is for you both—”

“There are no gods here, Hadlo.”

The voice made the cleric jerk back with fear. “W-who?”

Laced with interference, the words hissed from the communicator console. “It took me a while to find you, Hadlo. But I told you this day would come, do you remember?”

He scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the porthole in the wall of the lighter’s hull. Outside he saw two shapes moving slowly, circling the vessel: Cardassian warships. “Dukat?” Hadlo said the name like a curse.

“You are no more use to Cardassia, priest. Your gods have forsaken you. Your faith will not protect you.”Hadlo could almost see the smile.

“No!” He lunged at the console. “The Way is eternal, it cannot be destroyed! You must not do this, Dukat! The path to the fire and the burning cities, this will bring that to pass! I have seen it, I know the future—”

But the signal had already ceased, and outside a salvo of disruptor bolts reached down to tear the freighter apart.

It was a simple memorial, one among hundreds of others. There were funerals taking place every day in a dozen cities, and even as Darrah bent to run his fingers over the arc of Lonnic’s headstone, the sounds of ritual chants reached him from across the ornamental gardens. In a moment of open grief, Jas Holza had ordered that part of the keep’s grounds be consecrated as a place of rest. Markers had sprouted up overnight, and here in this eastern corner there were places for those who had perished in the reprisal fleet at Ajir. Nearby a woman and a young dark-haired boy stood holding duranjalamps in front of the stone etched with Li Tarka’s name. The woman was crying, but the look on the boy’s face was firm with determination as he laid a prayer paper at the foot of the arch.

Darrah rested his hand on the sun-warmed stone and thought of Lonnic Tomo. One more loss among so many.He took a breath, and it shuddered through him.

“Sorry about your friend.” Syjin put his hands in his pockets, uncomfortable to be among the dead.

Darrah stood. “Thanks.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Why are you here?”

Syjin nodded at another arch. “Paying my respects, like you. The engineer on the Kylenused to crew with me.” He blew out a breath.

“I didn’t bring any papers,” Darrah said quietly. “Didn’t come here to see Tomo, really. I want to talk to Osen.” He jerked a thumb at the keep behind them.

“They made him a vedek, I heard.”

“Yeah. A lot of priests died when the monastery fell, Cotor and a lot of others. Arin had Gar pushed up the ranks to fill the gaps.” He sniffed. “But now he’s got duties, what with the monks from Kendra being rehoused at the keep for the interim…”

“And he doesn’t have time to talk to an old friend?”

“Yeah.” Darrah nodded again. Gar’s refusal to even see the inspector wasn’t like him. He thought about that stormy night again, of Gar’s wild claims. It was one more element of a growing disquiet that hung around the lawman like a cowl of smoke.

Syjin kicked at a loose stone. “Listen, uh, Mace. It’s best you hear this from me before someone else tells you. I don’t want you to get mad or anything, okay?”

Darrah looked up at him and said nothing.

“Karys and the cubs? It was me, okay? She came to me and she asked me to take them to the colony on Valo II. I didn’t put the idea into her head or anything, but I got them offplanet.”

A flare of anger burned bright and then died just as quickly. “No. It’s all right. I’m glad it was you. You don’t need to be sorry. I feel better knowing it was someone trustworthy who did it. Thank you.”

“Trustworthy.” Syjin smiled a little. “That’s not a term many apply to me.” The smile faded. “She cried all the way there, you know. She wasn’t doing it out of hate. It’s just…I don’t think she can take it here anymore, and she’s not the only one. People are leaving in droves.” The pilot sighed. “Look, I’m taking some more folks out in a couple of days. There’s space for you as well, Mace. Just pack a bag and come. You could patch things up, you’re a smart guy. You could—”

“I can’t,” Darrah said quietly. “I want to, but I can’t.” He looked up and out over the city. “I can’t leave all this undone, Syjin. Something’s wrong here. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure of it.”

The pilot gave a bitter laugh. “Sure it’s wrong! Bajor’s being pulled apart around us. But we’re just ordinary men. What can we do but get out while we still can?”

Darrah shook his head. “I’m not going to walk away from this. The attacks, the Cardassians, it’s all converging. I can see it in the air. Someone has to follow this as far as it goes.”

“Why does it have to be you?”

He shot Syjin a look. “Because who else is going to do it? I can’t follow Karys to Valo knowing this is behind me.”

“She won’t wait forever,” said the other man, after a long moment.

“I know.” Darrah nodded and looked up into the sky.

“But I have a job to do. The truth about what’s really going on is buried out there somewhere, and I’m going to bring it to light.”

Bennek awoke with a jerk. Beside him, Tima shifted beneath the sheets and mumbled something incoherent. The cleric felt awkward and uncomfortable, as if something in the room had changed without his knowledge. He moved slowly so as not to disturb the sleeping woman. His hand was touching the tab for the lamp when he saw the shape of a man-shadow across from him, in the old wicker chair.