Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [1]
And the spiritual Kahless was no more accessible.
Though Olahg sat before the prayer pit until his face grew raw with its heat, no visions came to him. It was as if he had been abandoned, spurned by the icon of his faith as surely as he had been spurned by everyone else in his life.
Koroth, chief guardian of the monastery, had told him that Kahless was testing him, that the emperor had something special in mind for him. But as much as Olahg honored and respected Koroth for his insight, that was difficult for him to believe.
More and more, he felt alone, apart. And he came to resent the very personage he was supposed to worship.
Shaking his head, the initiate surveyed the patch of earth that had been cleared for him. The severed ends of stray micayah roots still stung his nostrils with their pungency. Later, the excavation teams would move in not only here, but in all those other places the ground had been cleared.
Then the digging would begin in earnest. For, according to the clerics” best guess, this was the area where the historical Kahless made camp on the long trek from his fortress to Sto-Vo-Kor.
Sto-Vo-Kor, of course, was the Klingon afterlife, to which Kahless disappeared after his death. It was a leap of faith to believe in such a place, but Olahg had done so wholeheartedly. At least, in the beginning.
The initiate knelt and picked up a handful of earth. It was rife with tiny bits of rock.
Was it possible that Kahless had really stopped at this spot and laid down his burden? That he had stretched out beneath the heavens here? Perhaps even spent his last night on Qo’noSo in this place, breathing the fragrant air and taking in the sight of all the stars?
Allowing the loose earth to sift through his fingers, Olahg stood and brushed off his palms. It would be difficult to find conclusive proof that Kahless had been in this spot. After all, nearly seventy-five generations had come and gone since. Even if such evidence had existed once, he doubted that it would have survived intact.
That was not the way a cleric was supposed to think. It was not the way of faith. But it was the way he felt right now.
The initiate was about to look for his colleague Divok, to see if it was time for the midday meal yet, when he saw something glint in the rising sunlight. He smiled at the irony. Here he had just been thinking about what they might unearth, and an artifact had already presented itself.
No doubt, it would turn out to be a sign from Kahless that Olahg’s faith had been well-placed, and that the universe’s cosmic plan would now be revealed to him. He grunted derisively. Yes-and after that, spotted targs would sing Klingon opera from the rooftops.
More likely, it was some piece of junk cast aside as someone strolled through these woods. Or maybe it was the tip of some bigger piece of garbage, discarded some years ago, when this forest wasn’t quite so large.
At any rate, Olahg wasn’t going to get his hopes up. Not by a long shot. He had done too much of that already.
Crossing the small, squared-off clearing, he saw that it was indeed a piece of metal that had caught the light. As he had suspected, it seemed to be the corner of something larger.
Olahg kicked at it, expecting the thing to dislodge itself from the ground. It didn’t. It was too firmly anchored.
His curiosity aroused, he knelt again and dug around it with his fingers. It was hard work and it made his fingers hurt, but in time he exposed a bit more of the object. It looked like part of an oblong metal box.
Getting a grip on the box with both hands, he tried a second time to move it, but it still wouldn’t budge. So he dug some more. And some more again, as the morning light grew hotter and more intense.
Little by little, making his hands raw and worn in the process, he came that much closer to unearthing it. Bit by bit, it revealed itself to him.
He could see there were symbols carved into it. Ancient symbols, he thought, though he didn’t have the knowledge to