Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [4]
At the last possible moment, he planted his right foot and launched himself out over the channel. There was a point in time, the size and span of a long, deep, breath, when the warrior seemed to hover over the crackling lava flow, his legs bicycling beneath him.
Until he completed his flight by smashing into the sharp, craggy surface of the opposite ridge. For a moment, it looked as if he had safely avoided the lava, as if he had come away with the victory.
Then he began sliding backward into the river of fire.
Desperately, frantically, the warrior dug for purchase with fingers and knees and whatever else he could bring to bear-even his cheek. Yet still he slid.
The rocky surface tore at the warrior’s chest and his face, but he wouldn’t give into it. Slowly, inexorably, by dint of blood and bone, he stopped himself. Then he began to pull himself up from the edge of death’s domain.
Finally, when he felt he was past the danger, he lay on the ground-gulping down breath after breath, until he found the strength to go on. Dragging himself to his feet, too drained even to sweat, he stumbled the rest of the way up the ridge like a man drunk with too much bloodwine.
At the brink of the crater, the Klingon fell to his knees, paused, and pulled a knife from the inside of his boot. It was a dk tahg, a ceremonial dagger. Lifting a thick lock of hair from his head, he held it out taut and brought the edge of his blade across it. Strand by severed strand, it came free in his hand.
For a long moment, he stared at the lock of hair. Then he dropped it into the molten chaos inside the volcano, where it vanished instantly.
But only for a moment or two. Then it shot up again on a geyser of hot, sulfurous air. Except now it was coated with molten, flaming rock, an object of unearthly beauty, no longer recognizable as a part of him.
Mesmerized, the warrior extended his hand, as if to grasp the thing. Incredibly, it tumbled toward him, end over end. And as if by magic, it fell right into the palm of his gauntleted hand.
Bringing it closer to him, the Klingon gazed at it with narrowed eyes, as if unable to believe what had happened.
Then, his glove smoking as it cradled the lava-dipped lock, he smiled a hollow-cheeked smile-and started his journey down the mountain.
Worf, son of Mogh, hung in the sky high above it all, a spectator swathed in moist, dark cloud-vapors, his eyes and nose stinging from the hot flakes of ash that swirled like tiny twisters through the air.
He hovered like some ancient god, defying gravity, hair streaming in the wind like a banner. But no god ever felt so troubled, so unsettled-so pierced to the heart.
For a moment, all too brief, he had been drawn to the spectacle, to its mysticism and its majesty. Then the moment passed, and he was left as troubled as before.
“Mister Worf?”
The Klingon turned-and found himself facing Captain Picard, who was walking toward him through the clouds as if there were an invisible floor beneath him.
The captain had come from the corridor outside the holodeck, which was still partially visible as the oddly shaped doors of the facility slid shut behind him. It wasn’t until they were completely closed that Picard became subject to the same winds that buffeted Worf.
The captain smiled politely and tilted his head toward the volcano. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” he said.
Inwardly, the Klingon winced at the suggestion. Certainly, it had seemed important when he entered the holodeck half an hour ago. There had been the possibility of solace, of affirmation. But the experience had fallen far short of his expectations.
“No,” he lied. “Nothing important. I am merely reenacting the myth of Kahless’s labors at the Kri’stak Volcano.”
Picard nodded. “Yes, of course … the one in which he dips a strand of his hair into the lava.” His