SNAKECHARMER
By: Liz Williams <arcady@fastnet.co.uk>

Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that Paramount has exclusive rights to 
the Star Trek universe, All Rights Reserved,  and that all characters 
and locations are the property of Paramount television. No 
infringement is intended. STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE is a Registered 
Trademark of Paramount Pictures. 
  
There is a panther stalks me down: 
One day I'll have my death of him... 

Pursuit; Sylvia Plath. 

                                        1. 

Now that so long a time has passed, and the principal protagonists can 
no longer be affected by the truth - a conceit in which my friend so 
ironically never believed - I feel that the time has come to let the 
world know what happened at Issenara, all those years ago.  My medical 
work on DS9 is long gone into the past, and yet it seems as vivid as 
though it happened yesterday.  Perhaps, in comparison with the span of 
a soul, it did.  Garak would not begrudge me this last footnote to our 
lives, I am sure of that; though time and distance and perhaps even 
the last great boundary of death separate us now, what we had still 
endures, in memory, and in the heart. 
  

                                        2. 
  

  
'Have you ever told him the truth?'  The voice over the comlink was as 
soft as snow, and colder.  Reining in his temper, the tailor said 
  
'Once again, your appreciation of the political niceties leaves much 
to be desired.  Obviously, I haven't told him the truth, nor have I 
told your daughter.  I've kept to the part of the story that you were 
willing for me to tell.'  For a moment, his voice betrayed a wintry 
sadness. 
  
'Well,' Dukat said, silkily.  'Perhaps it's best that he doesn't know 
the real reason for such a long hatred.  After all, it doesn't put you 
in a very good light, does it?  I don't suppose you'd want him to know 
about Issenara, and what happened there, for example.  I don't think 
they approve of that sort of thing in the utopian confines of the 
Federation, and I suspect that a member of the medical profession 
might find it more than a little distasteful.' 
  
'What happened at Issenara,' the tailor said, as lightly as he could 
'was not my responsibility alone.  Why bring this up now, Dukat?  What 
did you want to say to me?' 
  
'Political pressures, Garak, have become something of a priority of 
late.  People are suggesting that your presence on Terok Nor is no 
longer desirable or useful.  There have even been suggestions that you 
might be - withdrawn.  I'm afraid I'd be most reluctant for that to 
happen.' 
  
'That surprises me.' 
  
'I'm an honourable man, and for the sake of what we once had, I feel 
it only reasonable to give you warning.  Besides, there's always the 
possibility that someone else might kill you before I get the 
opportunity.  Now that Tain is dead, and the protection that certain 
other people have been willing to extend to you is no longer extant, 
it seems you've become fair game at last. So I'm issuing iranahar on 
you; a ritual penalty, for all those of my family you've wronged and 
betrayed, and for myself.'  Rage lay like iron in his voice. 
  
'You already know the time and the date, I hope.  I'm sure you can 
guess where I have in mind for a duelling ground.  End of 
transmission.' and the comlink shrank to a point of light.  Numbly, 
Garak sat staring into the empty screen, and the years fell away. 

He was back at Issenara, with the pale light dying over the hills and 
winter on the way.  He heard a step behind him and smiled; hands 
rested lightly on his shoulders and a voice spoke his name into his 
ear.  He bowed his head, to hide the smile. 
  
'You're early,' he murmured. 
  
'Perhaps I couldn't wait.' 
  
'Perhaps you're over-confident of your welcome,' Garak said, but his 
hands crept up to enclose the fingers that still clasped his shoulder. 
  
'Oh, I don't think so.  I think you just enjoy playing games.' 
Garak felt the other man's breath warm against his throat.
  
'It's growing cold,' the voice murmured.  'You shouldn't be standing 
out here, Elim...evening's coming on.  And we have a little time...' 


It was over thirty years ago now, and the tailor could still feel the 
wet wood of the balcony railing beneath his hands, and the chill in 
the air.  It sometimes seemed to him, in the nightmare dark, that this 
had been the last day of his life; that everything after that had been 
no more real than a dream conjured from hatred and despair, and 
underneath it all, there was still desire.  He glanced at the clock 
and sighed.  Banality intervened: he had agreed to meet Ziyal for 
lunch.  It seemed to him the final irony, that he should court the 
goodwill of Dukat's daughter, after all that had gone between her 
father and himself, as though the same game was played out with the 
same cast, taking slightly different roles.  Enough, he told himself, 
enough. 

Ziyal was waiting for him in the Replimat.  She smiled when she saw 
him, and rose to place her palm against his own. 
  
'My dear,' he said.  'How are you?' 
  
'I'm fine' she replied.  She was gazing at him, and with unease he 
recognised that light in her eyes.  She was so like her father, in 
ways.  He ignored it, saying only, 'It's crowded in here, today, isn't 
it?' 
  
'I was lucky to find a seat.  Shall I order?  What would you like?' 
Absently, he ordered something.  The girl was chattering on, but he 
was once more lost in memory, sudden and compelling. 

*Issenara again, and Dukat's hand around a glass, twirling the stem so 
that the wine caught the fire, glowing as green as a spring sky.  He 
had drunk too much; he felt light headed and euphoric, and when he at 
last raised his eyes from the glass he saw that Dukat had been 
watching him all the time.* 

  
'Garak?  Did you hear what I said?'  Ziyal was mock-indignant. 
'You're miles away.' 
  
'I'm sorry, my dear.  I was thinking about someone I used to know,' 
the tailor said, and raised his glass to hers. 
  

                                                3. 

At first, I thought I was awake, for the dream seemed so real.  I was 
standing on a terrace, gazing across the city. 
  
'What are you watching for?' 
  
'The signal, from the temple.  I want to know when he dies, even if I 
can't be there with him.' I heard my own voice say. 
  
'Don't be bitter.  He wanted you to remember him as he was, not as he 
is now.  He always does what seems right; some day you'll understand 
that.' 
  
'I understand it now.  That doesn't mean I have to like it -' and I 
shook her hand from my sleeve.  It should have been a darker day, I 
thought, but somehow it was still summer and the city lay beneath a 
glaze of heat.  A flock of birds spiralled up from the courtyard and 
someone was singing in the street below.  It seemed so strange that 
everything was going on as normal, but in a very short while he would 
be dead, and I would have to go on living.  I stared down at my hands, 
clenched so tightly on the carved stone of the balustrade that the 
scales along my knuckles stood up in ridges.  I looked up, and smoke 
was rising from the temple roof. 

Then everything was dark again.  I was in my own bed, blinking, with 
the hazy sense that my whole life had been taken from me.  I had been 
asleep for only two hours and yet it seemed as though years had 
passed: a lifetime in a night.  My mouth was as dry as an old bone.  I 
rolled out of bed and went in search of water.  I had just retrieved a 
glass from the replicator when there was a transmission from Dax, with 
news of the unauthorised release of a shuttle and who had taken it, 
and all thoughts of the dream evaporated as I pulled on my uniform and 
raced down to the docking bay. 
  

                                                4. 

Now that the summons had come at last, Garak found that he was 
relieved.  In the event that he would not return from Issenara, he had 
written a letter to Bashir.  It would, he hoped, explain matters.  He 
had taken an almost sensual pleasure in the confession; it was a 
release, after all this time, to relate his side of the story.  There 
was no future for Bashir and himself, he knew, but the torment of 
living with so much unsaid between them was becoming increasingly 
difficult to endure.  Besides, the past would have to be paid for some 
day; better now, perhaps, than later.   The place to which he 
travelled had been waiting for many years; reaching beyond his 
disgrace and exile. 

*Dukat*, he thought, staring out at the distant stars.  *Well, we were 
all of us different people then*.  Issenara had changed him, forming 
the crucible in which Tain's son had been tempered and alchemically 
transformed.  Dukat's voice echoed in his head, the words spoken in 
their last private transmission: *So the old man's dead at last.  I 
thought he'd never go, Elim.* And then Dukat had laughed. *But then, 
how could you tell?  He's been dead for years, in every way that 
mattered.* 

He could almost sense Tain standing behind him: a shiver in the air, 
his father's hands resting on his shoulders, and then it was real.  He 
sat very still, not even daring to breathe, until a familiar voice 
said 
  
'Should have checked your transporter readings, shouldn't you?' 
  
'Julian,' the tailor said, flatly.  Bashir seemed very pleased with 
himself; with that trace of delight in his own cleverness that had 
become more evident since he learned about his own genetic 
modification. 
  
'Dax beamed me in from the Defiant.  I couldn't let you go off on your 
own.  Who knows what might have happened?' 

Silently, the tailor rehearsed possible conversations: you shouldn't 
have come/put yourself in danger for me/you don't understand... 
He did not realise that he had breathed the last words aloud until 
Bashir said fiercely 
  
'If I don't understand, it's because you never *tell* me anything. 
Whatever you've done, don't you think I'd make the effort to 
comprehend it?  I saved your life, and at that time I suspected God 
knows what...that you were the possible murderer of children, that 
you'd been one of the butchers of Bajor.  And what do I know now?  
That you were a state torturer.  That the head of one of the most 
brutal secret services in the galaxy was your father. That you'd 
cheerfully have killed a nineteen year old girl if she'd shown the 
faintest sign of being your enemy.  That you were probably responsible 
for the deaths of a whole flock of Romulan diplomats. That you'll 
commit murder without a qualm and attempt genocide with not much more 
than that.  Elim, how much worse can it be?  If you have any more 
horrors in your closet, they'd better be good ones.' 

Against all the odds, the tailor smiled. 

'I'll try not to disappoint you,' he murmured, and would say no more. 
  
  

                                        5. 

I sometimes think now that it amused Garak to be interrogated; as if 
by turning the tables on him I was in some way making our relationship 
more equal.  But if he wanted me to know some aspect of his character 
or past, I reflected as the stars of Cardassian space sped by, he 
would have to tell me himself, freely.  I got the impression that he 
realised this, and that it rather annoyed him; I certainly hope it 
did. 

He made me regain some of my interrupted sleep while he flew the 
shuttle, but I found it difficult to relax.  Visions seemed to swim 
out of the halflight before my uncomprehending gaze: a low building 
among trees, strangely Japanese in its contours.  There was the smell 
of rain, and beneath that, something else: the iron scent of blood.  
It lasted for only an instant but, like my earlier dream, it was very 
real.  I rose from the crash couch and made my way to the piloting 
cabin. 
  
'You ought to rest,' the Cardassian said, without looking round. 
  
'I can't sleep,' I said, adding by way of explanation 'Uneasy dreams.' 
  
‘You learn to live with those,' he said bleakly. 
  
'I'd prefer not to.'  Briefly, I related the dream and glanced up to 
find that he was looking at me with something that could have been 
fear.  'Garak?  Is it a real place?  Do you know where it is?' 
  
'It's a place called Issenara, on a world named Carcenar.  I was - 
stationed there, a long time ago now.' 

'Why are you going back?' 

There was a very long pause. 
  
'Because someone has issued iranahar to me.  It's a kind of ritual 
obligation.' 
  
'What sort of obligation?  A duel?' 
  
'Not quite as straightforward as that.  Literally, it means a passage 
of the soul, a rebalancing.  When one has betrayed another person, the 
latter has the right to call iranhar, to place matters back into 
harmony.  It dates back to Hebitian times, though the form of it has 
changed somewhat over the centuries.' 
  
'What exactly does it entail?' 
  
'If you don't mind, I'd rather not discuss it,' the Cardassian 
replied, with finality. 
  
'Very well,' I said, a little stiffly, and turned my attention to the 
flight plans.  Something was strange: we had been travelling for a 
good few hours, and yet were only just on the borders of Cardassian 
space. 

Then, I realised. ‘We're heading for the station.' 
  
'I know.  I'm taking you back.' 

'You can't do that!' 
  
'I don't recollect inviting you to accompany me, Doctor.  This is 
something that I have to do alone.  I'm afraid that you will not be 
paying a visit to the place of your dreams after all...' - but in 
this, he was wrong. 

The ship came up on us so quickly that I barely glimpsed it on the 
scanners before it was hovering before us: one of the big cobra headed 
Galor-class warships. 
  
'Company,' Garak said softly.  He did not seem particularly surprised. 
  
'They're hailing us.  They want to send someone over.' 
  
'All right.' 

The blue light of a transporter beam flared briefly throughout the 
cabin and then Dukat's unpleasantly familiar voice was saying 
  
'Garak.  Ah, and Doctor Bashir, too.  What a pleasure.' 
Despite all my efforts to control it, I felt the fear rise in my 
throat. 
  
'Dukat,' I said. 
  

                                        6. 

'A charming young man,' Dukat said, an hour later, when they were 
installed in the commander's quarters of the warship.  He had 
dismissed the guards, but Garak knew that they stood within easy reach 
outside the door.  His enemy leaned back in his seat, stretching an 
arm across the back of the couch.  Garak had forgotten that tendency 
of his, but now he recalled how Dukat had always spread himself 
around, long legs extended in front of him, arms draped over a chair. 
  
'Who?' 
  
'Bashir, of course.'  Dukat regarded his old enemy indulgently.  'Who 
did you think I meant?  None of my aides qualify, unfortunately.  You 
always did have impeccable taste,' he concluded, rather smugly. 
  
'With momentary lapses.' 
  
'Yes...there was that girl in Rohanin Province, I seem to recall.  Not 
really your type...otherwise you've been remarkably consistent.  
They've got that holodeck on Terok Nor now, haven't they?  Do you find 
that satisfies your appetites, or is it too - well, understimulating?' 
  
'I don't use it a great deal.' 
  
'The young doctor...' Dukat mused.  'I've always presumed it was the 
case, but I've learned with you never to take anything for granted.  
Are you lovers?' 
  
'Is it important?' 
  
'Perhaps it is, to me.' 

Even now, after all that had passed between them, Dukat still could 
not resist the urge to seduce, Garak reflected. All those old 
wiles...Since the day of his sentence to exile, his only personal 
interactions with Dukat had been in public, and had of necessity been 
acrimonious.  Their relayed communications had been too brief to 
count.  He had not forgotten Dukat's charm, though the memories had 
diminished a little down the years; he remembered now how it had 
warmed him.  Dukat's eyes were paler now than they had been, but the 
promises that lay behind them had not dimmed. 
  
'Dukat,' he said, expecting further scorn, but his adversary said only 
  
'I've missed you.' 

Garak stared at him.  That sudden capacity to disarm: he had forgotten 
that, too.  

'I should like to think, Elim, that you believed in what you were 
doing.' 
  
'I never failed to believe.' 
  
'No, that was your problem...always the apparatchik, never 
questioning, always following orders with your usual zeal.  I despised 
you after Issenara.  I didn't think there might be greater betrayals 
in store.' 
  
'I only ever betrayed you once.' 
  
'Oh, no,' Dukat said, bleakly.  'Over and over again.' 

                                        7. 

Had Dukat imprisoned him? I wondered, alone in the locked room that 
had been assigned to me.  Was he even now undergoing the same 
interrogation that he had meted out to others?  Was Dukat the issuer 
of the challenge?   It had to be Dukat, I thought.  They had always 
seemed to me to be linked: entwining one another in an unimaginably 
complex skein of histories and duplicities and deaths, drawing us all 
into their dance. 

Garak had once told me of a Cardassian belief shared by many races, 
that it's necessary to embrace the shadow in order to become fully 
real.  I once read an account of an ancient Hebitian practice, in 
which the apprentice shaman spends the night among the burial pyres of 
the dead, and as dawn comes he must wrestle with the physical 
representation of his deepest fear, and overcome it before the sun 
rises. It is depicted as the worst magic of all, the most terrifying, 
and yet the conquering of our terrors is something that we all must 
face. Dukat and Garak: each the shadow of the other, it seemed to me 
then. 

Kira would never talk about the Gul, as though the name was poison on 
her tongue, and I had no idea what had passed between them, yet 
somehow I understood.  She was Bajor to him: that whole raped world, 
and even if all the kais themselves lined up to pay him undue 
forgiveness, he would not consider it enough until he won her over.  
In this he was severely deluded: Kira would never forgive, it had been 
burned out of her.  But what of myself and my own fears, my own 
forgiveness?  I was not afraid of death, but of illness and pain; I 
had fought these all my life, and the thought of deliberately injuring 
another person was anathema to me.  

And now, I realised in the quiet dim light on that Cardassian warship, 
I loved someone to whom that worst of all possible deeds was no more 
than part of the job.  I had spent years fighting that love, telling 
myself that it was no more than a delusion, that it would never work 
however hard we strove, and now I could not deny it any more.  It was 
no longer a question of whether I loved Elim Garak, but of how I could 
continue to live with myself now that was so. 

Then the door opened and Garak stepped through.  'Carcenar,' he said.  
I looked out of the viewport and there it was below: a marbled world, 
our future. 

                                        8. 
  
We landed on one of the northern continents of Carcenar; coming in, I 
glimpsed high spines of rock snaking up from a long broken coastline, 
their summits crowned by glaciers which, from so high up, resembled 
nothing more than frost across patterns in the sand.  I watched as the 
world unscrolled beneath us.  The Cardassians had barely acknowledged 
my existence; it was though I did not exist.  The door of my quarters 
remained locked until we reached the envelope of atmosphere and I was 
released under guard to take my place for landing.  Dukat spent most 
of his time engaged in conversation with Garak, a discourse to which I 
was not invited. They were speaking Cardassian, having over-ridden the 
translators, and I could make nothing of that sibilant tongue.  

Dukat's manner had undergone a subtle change in the presence of the 
tailor.  The posturing contempt had altered into something altogether 
more ambivalent: dislike tinged with an exasperation that could almost 
have been mistaken for  affection.  And yet if Dukat had challenged 
him to some sort of penalty, this made little sense.  I did not know 
enough of Cardassian behaviour, even now, and less of the complexities 
of Kardesi, its tonal subtleties.  I could not tell when ostensible 
hatred betrayed regard, or even desire.  They seemed to be retreating 
from me moment by moment.  Sighing, I turned my gaze to the window and 
watched this new world fall up to meet us. 

                                        9. 

Bashir was uncharacteristically silent during the short trip down to 
the planet.  Garak noticed this, and it worried him, but he was 
compelled to dismiss it.  He hoped the young man had not picked up on 
Dukat's continuous verbal sleights.  It was typical of Dukat, he 
thought bitterly; even now he was unable to let anything go, jealous 
of what no longer concerned him.  That had been the problem all along, 
of course; that constant demanding possessiveness, coupled with a need 
for adoration no matter what abuse might be doled out along the way.  
Dukat honestly could not understand why Garak no longer worshipped 
him; talk about divine arbitrariness, the tailor reflected.  Isn't one 
supposed to love a god, no matter what atrocities the object of one's 
devotions might commit? *He genuinely despises me* the tailor thought.  
*He's never forgiven me, for betraying him.  He intends to kill me, 
and yet he expects me to forgive him, and love him just the same.*  He 
glanced covertly at Dukat as they made their way across the landing 
pad; for a moment his fury burned away and he thought only  *You were 
so beautiful.  You still are.* 

They had seemed so bound to one another, all those years ago: 
opposites, the same.  The silent young man in the shadows, preferring 
subtlety and subterfuge, and the other: all bravado and glory and 
sunlight.  That was before Issenara, before the dust and filth of 
Bajor, before Naprem and Dukat's father's execution, and now they were 
back to the beginning again.  Issenara lay before them across the 
launch pad.  It seemed a little smaller now, the trees had grown 
around it, but the cool damp air was the same, and so was the darkness 
beneath the sapera leaves. 

                                        10. 

  'What is this place?'  I asked in an undertone, as the door closed 
behind us, leaving us to our imprisonment.  It was very quiet; an 
ominous silence, as though something was waiting just around the 
corner.  Garak did not reply for a moment, then he said 
  
'It used to be one of the Order retreats.' 
  
'What was it used for?' I asked, though I did not particularly want 
to hear the reply. 
  
'Oh...conferences, political debates.  Like a sort of a lodge.' 
Even now, I couldn't tell from his manner when he was lying to me, I 
thought in despair, only from the words.  When you work in medicine, 
you have a sixth sense for pain; it is as though it reaches out and 
touches you, and Issenara reeked of it. 
  
'Doctor?' he said, gently. Even now, I have difficulty concealing my 
thoughts; what I feel shows in my face. 
  
'And what else was it used for?' I asked, and I could no longer hide 
my disquiet.  Garak said nothing.  'Torture?  Interrogation?' 
  
'Julian, you are not my conscience, and I would be grateful if you 
would credit me with the wit to understand the consequences of my own 
actions.  When all's said and done, you remain my friend of your own 
free will.  I ask myself, as usual, why. You should know by now that 
something is bound to be revealed which you find personally 
disquieting.  Yet you still persist.  You and Dukat,' he snapped 
suddenly.  'You're so alike.'  The accusation was so ludicrous that I 
simply gaped at him. 
  
'It isn't me, is it, that's so appealing?  Not my own flawed, 
compromised self, but your idea of what I should be.  You think, in 
your arrogance, that you can save me, be my redeemer.  What had you in 
mind, Doctor?  Presenting me as a model of reformed Cardassia to your 
Starfleet colleagues?  "You see before you a murderer and a torturer 
and a spy, but I've set an example to him and through my wise guidance 
he's seen the error of his ways?"  You have no idea what or who I am, 
have you?  You have no idea.' 

I was too astonished, and perhaps too ashamed, to defend myself.  I 
had never seen him so angry before, only once, after I had taken that 
wire from his head.  And he was right.  I could not even begin to 
think what he might have meant by that reference to Dukat.  

The door opened and one of Dukat's aides said 'Elim Garak?  Gul Dukat 
wants to see you.' 
  
'I'll see you later,' the tailor muttered, and left the room. 
  

                                        11. 

Outside the house, the guard melted away, leaving Garak alone on the 
balcony.  The observation device at the top of the perimeter fence 
swivelled, keeping him beneath its electronic eye, but he had no 
thought of trying to run.  Garak leaned against the wall and closed 
his eyes. It had needed saying, but he should have kept his temper.  
He felt trapped between the two of them: Dukat at one end of his life, 
Bashir at the other, both with their demands and expectations that he 
had no hope of fulfilling.  He had always known that one or other of 
them would kill him in the end.  They both asked so much, he thought, 
in a moment of self-pity.  

Dukat's words echoed in his head: 'Of course I understand what the 
evidence means, Elim, I know what it looks like.  And maybe you're 
right, maybe my father has been - dealing - with these people.  But 
you'll overlook that, won't you?  For the sake of what was once 
between us?' - and Elim Garak had realised then, with the ice growing 
in his heart, that Dukat still did not understand. 
  
'It's nothing to do with you,' he had tried to say.  'With us, or with 
what we had.  Your father is a traitor.' 

Dukat had never grasped the distinction between the personal and the 
political, and Garak doubted whether Bashir did, either.  Sometimes 
you have to do things that are directly the reverse of what you might 
believe in; your beliefs aren't important, they are not the issue, 
they are a luxury which the state cannot afford.  This was the basis 
on which his respect for Sisko was founded, and his enduring respect 
for Tain.  He had followed the controversy surrounding Captain Yates 
at a distance, but he had admired Sisko for what he had done, and 
understood it.  So had Bashir, but when it came to Garak, the tailor 
was suddenly expected to abide by another set of rules.  Wearily, he 
rubbed his eyes. 

The past ebbed back, and he was once again the young man that he had 
been when he first came to Issenara, before Tain had explained to him 
what was to be done here.  Coolly, he had accepted that interrogation 
would be a part of the practice.  It was distasteful but it was 
necessary for the survival of the state and so he would do whatever 
was required of him.  Would he make the same choice now, Garak 
reflected? He probably would.  He still believed in Cardassia, after 
all; the first and most enduring love.  As for the other choices he 
had made here, well, they stemmed from more complex emotions.  He 
looked up and the mountains were clear in the evening light, close 
enough to touch, and above them the two stars shone: Erretsay and 
Issauth, the other planets of the system.  Soon, other stars would 
rise: Genneret and Theremara and Cardassia Prime itself.  If he had 
not gripped the railing, he felt, he would have sunk to his knees.  He 
was home, if only for a little while. 

And as it had been so many years before, he heard a footstep behind 
him on the balcony and Dukat was there. 

                                        12. 

After he had gone, I sat down on the bed and berated myself for being 
a fool.  Garak was right, I told myself in an agony of self-abasement.  
I was smug, and self righteous and arrogant.  All the thoughts that 
had come to me, back on the ship, returned to haunt me.  I didn't know 
Garak, only my idea of what I thought he was and should become.  I'd 
never really loved him for himself, and I knew that this hurt him, 
because he had let me see it in his face. I didn't know exactly when I 
had come to my realisation that there might be more to our 
relationship than friendship, but somewhere along the way fascination 
had turned to infatuation and desire. Now I was passing beyond that, 
into the more difficult waters of regard and love, and perhaps it was 
already too late. 

                                        13. 
  


'It's been a long time, since you and I stood side by side, somewhere 
we could call home,' the younger man said. 
  
'If we ever did.' 
  
'Do you still doubt my commitment to Cardassia?' Dukat asked, 
incredulously.  'After all that I've done, all the sacrifices I've 
made?' 
  
'All the risks you've taken for your personal position, rather.  I 
don't want to go through this argument again; the meat's gone cold and 
stale, and won't be improved by further chewing.  I've explained to 
you time and time again the reasons for my actions; if you don't 
understand by now, you never will.' 
  
'Elim,' Dukat said, softly.  'I know you think you did the right 
thing...' 

*Here it comes again*, thought the tailor. 
  
'And despite everything, however misguided you may have been, I might 
be prepared to forgive you, if you were to offer the apology that 
you've never been able to extend, for betraying my family and myself.  
I know in your heart you understand that you were wrong, and now that 
Tain is dead we might be able to reach some form of accommodation with 
one another.'  He turned, condescendingly, towards Garak and reached 
out to grip the older man's upper arm in the traditional gesture of 
friendship.  

So that was it, Garak realised. Dukat had brought him here to win him 
back.  Regaining Garak's loyalty would be a greater victory than 
killing him. If the tailor refused, as he was sorely tempted to do as 
a matter of honour, how would Dukat react?  He found that he could 
face the prospect of his own death with a reasonable degree of 
equanimity, but there was Bashir to think of now, and he was 
unprepared to risk the doctor's life as well.  He would play this new 
game with his customary skill, he told himself; to save his own skin 
as well as that of Bashir, but even then he knew that this was only 
part of the truth.   For in the dying light, Dukat was once again the 
young adjutant whom Garak had so greatly loved, and before he knew it 
the tailor had stepped across the divide and the years and taken Dukat 
in his arms. 

                                        14. 

I needed fresh air.  Walking over the window, I drew aside the 
parchment blinds and found myself looking out across a wide stretch of 
twilight woodland.  I could not see the walls that surrounded the 
fortress, only the trees.  It was unlike anywhere I had ever called 
home: the leaves were indigo and blue, like gazing across a sea of 
shadows.  On the storey below the room ran a long balcony, on which 
two people now stood. 

It seemed that I had been waiting for this for a very long time: to 
see him in someone else's arms, face buried in someone else's 
shoulder.  I had left it too late and too long, and now I had lost 
him.  Somehow, I was not surprised.  The constant verbal battling, the 
bitter hatred, Dukat's fury over Ziyal: all of this had its roots in 
some early treachery.  There is no enemy so hated as the one whom once 
you loved. 

Dukat's challenge, I was suddenly sure, had been no more than a 
subterfuge to bring Garak back.  Now that Tain was dead, and Garak 
seemed to be reaching an intimacy with Dukat's own daughter, the Gul 
must have thought that he could no longer afford to wait.  I could not 
bear to watch any more. I turned back towards the room and there was 
no more time to think.  The door opened and a guard entered, sliding 
noiselessly from the shadows.  I felt the nauseating pulse of a 
disruptor strike me in the side and then the room inverted itself as I 
crumpled to the floor. 
  

                                        15. 
  

'The trouble with you, Elim, that you've always been too cautious. 
You don't have a proper sense of adventure...' 

Dukat lounged back against the cushions, smiling, confident in his 
ability to win over even the most stubborn adversary.  Garak, briefly 
reflecting, found that he did not know what he felt about this most 
unlikely reconciliation.  He had no doubt that their new truce would 
not last, and there was still the ritual passage to go through; once 
issued, it could not be recalled.  He sighed.  Even at the best of 
times, the sparks had flown between himself and Dukat.   They were at 
once too different and too similar for a lasting understanding.  Yet 
he might be able to buy enough time to bargain for Bashir's life, he 
told himself, trying to ignore the fire that Dukat's presence had once 
again ignited. 
  
'More wine?' Dukat said. 
  
'No, thank you.  I've had enough.'  It was early evening.  They had 
been here in Dukat's private rooms for over an hour, and Garak found 
himself being treated more as a guest than a prisoner.  He had been 
offered the use of the baths, and a clean robe, and then wine.  Dukat 
had always been magnanimous in victory. 
  
'Ah, Elim...always so temperate.'  The calculation was back in his 
eyes.  'You always did prefer self-control.' 
  
'There's nothing wrong with that.' 
  
'I didn't say there was.  It's just that sometimes it inhibits one's 
desires.  There's a time and a place for abandonment, after all.'  He 
drained his glass and set it down on the table with finality, then 
rose and came to stand over the tailor. 
  
'Iranahar,' Garak said, as lightly as he could.  'The penalty to be 
paid.  What form were you considering?' 
  
'Tonight's ritual - that remains to be seen. But it's early yet.  I 
have a different form of submission in mind, now,' and Dukat smiled. 
Garak did not pretend to misunderstand him.   The wine, and the sudden 
wave of desire, blurred his sight for a moment.  He did not trust 
himself to stand.  He raised his eyes and met Dukat's predatory stare. 
  
'Elim,' Dukat said, very softly, and the tailor's breath caught in his 
throat. Dukat's voice was laced with menace, out of the far past, when 
their race had called their prey to them and brought it in for the 
kill.  He could no more have resisted Dukat than the bird can break 
free of the serpent's gaze, and more than anything now he wanted to 
die, sinking into the languor of surrender beneath his lover's killing 
hands.  The final release: all illusions fading into the descent of 
night, all pain gone.   A hand curled around the back of his neck, 
gripping the plated scales.  He could not look away.  Dukat's eyes 
burned as pale as fire.  Garak tilted his head back against the 
painful grip and bared his throat.  He barely heard Dukat's hiss of 
satisfaction through the blood that roared in his head.  The sudden 
endorphin rush took him like the kiss of the wire in those early days, 
before the sweet edge had dulled with over-use, as Dukat's teeth met 
in the skin of his throat.  If this was death, Garak thought dimly 
beyond the haze of animal entrancement, it was worth the price. 

Then Dukat was holding him close, and whispering in his ear; the last 
and most dangerous language of all, the oldest language.  The sense of 
Dukat's words did not matter; their meaning was contained in their 
tone and all Garak heard was the sudden insidious gentleness.  The 
voice whispered like the sea in his ears: just let go, nothing more, 
nothing so easy as this...His back arched in submission and Dukat 
kissed him, then licked the blood from his throat with an obscenely 
delicate precision.  They lay like this for a long time, predator and 
prey in the darkest dance of Cardassian desire. Garak felt Dukat's 
hands around his neck, choking gently, slipping a little on the damp 
scales.  He sighed, unresisting. 

Irresistibly, he was reminded of that scene on the balcony above the 
Promenade: Dukat's hands closing around his neck in rather different 
circumstances.  It had excited him then, too; a fact of which Dukat 
had been perfectly well aware.  Dukat relaxed on top of him, his 
scales slipping over the smoother skin of Garak's stomach. Dukat had 
somehow found the time to remove his own shirt  (*constant practice* 
the tailor thought, in a brief return to awareness) and his skin 
gleamed like gunmetal in the lamplight. Garak could not stop himself 
from sliding his hands the length of his tormentor's body; exploring 
the cool, glassy scales, the delicious contrast of hard ridges and 
silken skin.  He felt Dukat's teeth close upon the plates of his neck 
in chastisement, a tongue probing the sensitive crevices between.  The 
tide of pain ebbed into memory and back again...all those long nights: 
Dukat's touch eliciting pain and pleasure in equal proportions, 
feeding an addiction which grew stronger by the day, so that even when 
sated he still craved more and more. And now - it had been such a long 
time without sensuality, without love.  He had always taken pleasure 
with ease and grace; it had been his for the asking and during the 
first months of his exile, when he had realised how alone he truly 
was, the loss had been bewildering.  The sensation of Dukat's body 
against his was overwhelming.   Garak closed his eyes, gasped as 
Dukat's hand slid down, running his fingertips along Garak's flank, 
across his belly and then the length of his erection, caressing lazily 
until the tailor unwillingly cried out. 
  
'Oh, you like this, don't you?' Dukat's voice was raw.  'Don't you?' 
Rolling over, he grabbed Garak by the wrists and forced him towards 
the floor, then lay sinuously back against the couch.  The tailor drew 
a deep, shaking breath but the spell still held.  Dukat's hand brushed 
against the scales of his spine, causing them to rise and ruffle 
against the trailing touch.  In the lamplight Dukat's eyes, half 
closed, still shone.  He said languidly, as though this were no more 
than some casual affair 'You used to be rather good at this.  I hope 
you haven't lost your touch,' 
  
'I'll manage.' The tailor finally found his voice.  Dukat cuffed him, 
not gently, and forced his head downwards. 
  
'And don't talk.  Although even you should find it difficult to speak 
and - ah.  That's better.'  His last words were a growl.  His nails 
raked the soft and bloodstained skin of Garak's throat, sliding idly 
down to caress the intricate patterns of breastplate and flank as the 
tailor lost himself in the taste of the younger man's flesh.  It was 
difficult to breathe, and the tailor broke away with a gasp to rest 
his head against the cool skin of Dukat's belly.  He had not realised 
how close to release Dukat must have been, for the latter snarled with 
frustration and uncoiled from the couch.  With an efficiency 
presumably born of years of experience, Dukat knelt behind him and 
slipped a restraining arm around his waist, pulling the tailor back 
against him. Garak, beyond shame, heard his own voice murmuring in 
entreaty.  The scales of Dukat's chest and stomach grated against his 
back; he turned his head so that their mouths met.  Dukat tasted of 
blood and wine; intoxicated, he entwined Dukat's tongue with his own 
as the younger man slid deep inside him.  Dukat did not bother to be 
gentle, but Garak had long since ceased to care.  The deep, 
humiliating satisfaction of penetration, combined with the caressing 
grip of Dukat's fingers, were already taking him beyond pleasure. 

Later, as the sweetness of his long climax faded, he rested his head 
on Dukat's shoulder, almost dozing as exhaustion claimed him. The pain 
had gone, leaving a heat deep within his muscles.   His lover's breath 
rasped in his ear. 
  
'I'm not as young as I was,' Dukat admitted, in a moment of 
uncharacteristic confession.  Evidently Garak's own submission had led 
him to be charitable. 

The tailor regarded him from a narrowed, sardonic eye. ‘You didn't do 
too badly.' 

He and Dukat had never enjoyed a particularly affectionate 
relationship, and Garak was amused to notice how quickly they fell 
back into old habits, even under the present circumstances.  Dukat 
rose and began pulling his uniform back on, while Garak watched him 
from the couch. His lover still had that dancer's body: the long legs 
and the sleek spine. The scales rippled down his back like water as he 
moved.  Such grace, Garak thought, and it was the same as it had 
always been, wanting more and more, never enough... 
  
'You still do that, you know,' Dukat said, over his shoulder. 
  
'What?' 
  
'Keep staring at me.' 
  
'Do I?' Garak said, carefully indifferent.  He fooled neither of them.  
Dukat gave him a slightly contemptuous glance.   Sex had always 
conferred a certain sleek self-satisfaction upon the younger man and 
this was in evidence now. 
  
'I think you've put on weight,' he said to the tailor. 
  
'Well, I am thirty years older than I was when we last did this; it 
would be surprising if I hadn't changed to some degree.' Garak 
replied, rather put out. 
  
'Actually, it suits you.  You were much too thin in those days; people 
never knew what I saw in you.'  Dukat peered into the nearest mirror 
and began combing his hair. 

Thirty years, and it might have been a day, the tailor thought, 
ruefully. Sighing, he retrieved his clothes. 

'D'you remember, that last night here?' Dukat murmured as the tailor 
dressed.  'You seemed so desperate, then, like a man possessed.  You 
made love to me as though you were saying goodbye: I wondered about it 
at the time.  Later, of course, I realised why.  It was Tain, of 
course.' 

'Tain explains a great many things.' 
  
'I've often wondered what else he made you do...What was it, a sort of 
initiation?' 
  
'He wanted to make sure.' 
  
'Of you?' 
  
'Of me. Of his son,' Garak said.  Dukat stared at him blankly for a 
moment, then sank back onto the couch.  His hand fluttered in 
negation. 
  
'Do you know, I never once suspected?  Never.  His protege, yes, not 
his son.'  He glanced at Garak uncertainly; with mild surprise, the 
tailor realised that he was embarrassed. 
  
'You must have been, well, I wasn't aware that Tain had a legitimate 
child -' 
  
'It was the one uncalculated move he ever made.' 
  
'He must have loved your mother very much,' Dukat said.  The tailor 
smiled.  Even now, Dukat was incapable of understanding anyone's 
motives save in terms of his own. 
  
'Ever the sentimentalist, Dukat.' 
  
'I'm surprised he didn't have you killed, though.  But I can 
understand it.' 
  
'Naturally,' Garak said, dryly. 

They sat in a mutually contemplative silence for a moment, then Dukat 
said 
  
'Did he ever mention me?  Afterwards?' 
  
'No.  He remembered you only from - well, that business with the arms 
merchants.' 
  
'Oh, that.' 
  
'But that was years later.  He never made the connection and I 
certainly wasn't going to bring it to his attention.'  He smiled, 
grimly.  'I must have saved your life a dozen times, simply by failing 
to open my mouth.' 
  
'I suppose I should thank you,' Dukat said, doubtfully.  Then, in one 
of his lightening non-sequiturs he said  'Does Major Kira ever mention 
me?' 
  
'I haven't the faintest idea.  We are hardly intimate.' 
  
'Pity. I'd like to know what she really thinks, beneath all that 
conventional Battling for Bajor nonsense.  She wants me, of course; 
she's a terrible flirt.' 

Garak stared at him in honest amazement. 
  
'Dukat, given the choice between sharing her bed with a Retellian mole 
viper and you, I would put good money on the former.' 
  
'Oh, that's just her way.  She's fighting it, naturally - feels it's 
expected of her to despise me, but that's not what she really feels.  
I can tell.' 
  
'Mmm.' 
  
'You don't agree?' Dukat asked, surprised. 
  
'I think it somewhat unlikely.' 
  
'Why?  Well, you're jealous, I suppose.  But I'm not the only one to 
have admirers, Garak.  That young doctor of yours...If all goes well, 
and you come back to Cardassia Prime with me, I'm afraid you'll have 
to leave him behind.' 

Behind him, the tailor had become very still. 
  
'Coming back?' 
  
'Why not?  I've forgiven you; Tain's dead.  There's no reason why you 
shouldn't come home.  You're under my protection now.'  He smiled at 
Garak, quite kindly.  'Just as it was when we were young...Look, it's 
almost midnight.  There are a few things I need to attend to, and then 
- then, it will be time for iranahar.' 

                                        16. 

I could not seem to wake up, but it did not matter, for the darkness 
was all around me, hot and heavy.  I heard a familiar, hated voice say 
'The cells were used primarily for interrogation, did you know that? 
I think it's time we reinstated their use.' 

I was being lifted and dragged across the floor.  I could feel the 
soft earth beneath my fingertips, and then the scrape of stone.   
Blindly, I struck out but a kick caught me beneath the ribs and I 
collapsed panting onto the floor.  The red heat of pain spread through 
me, stealing my breath.  There was once again the smell of old blood, 
stifling in my lungs, and that pervading sense of misery, and then the 
dark descended and there was nothing more. 

                                        17. 

He knew, of course, that Dukat could not be trusted; there was no 
doubt that this was no more than a cruel game, punishment for sins 
both real and imagined.  At the same time, he felt that Dukat was also 
curiously sincere in his forgiveness.  That was the trouble with the 
man, that ever present duality.  It was this, of course, that made him 
so fascinating.  You never knew where you were, and thus the 
enchantment was sustained.  He was convinced that Dukat had meant 
every word of it: fury and forgiveness and passion alike.  His moods 
had always been inconsistent, dependent on whim and on the parts that 
he felt compelled to play.  *Should have gone on the stage*, Garak 
thought.  Dukat: the dashing young officer, the stern yet 
compassionate commander, the loving father - all of them roles, and 
behind them lay what?  Not for the first time, he wondered whether 
Dukat was entirely sane. 

Now that he had time to reflect on matters, he bitterly regretted his 
capitulation, but it had been inevitable.  It was hardly the first 
time that he had surrendered to Dukat's magnetic allure; that 
irresistible quality of his. These things ran deep, the tailor knew; 
wired into Cardassian biochemistry and perhaps even into the 
Cardassian soul.  The need to dominate and be dominated, not 
necessarily through force, but through persuasion and desire, the 
strongest bonds of all.  He understood this even better than Dukat, 
though the latter possessed an intuitive understanding of both theory 
and practice, the tailor had, after all, been taught by a master.  He 
smiled bleakly, remembering.  *Now, all you have to do is to talk to 
me.  I'm not going to hurt you. Why, you're shaking...* - and the 
girl, the terrorist, lying in his arms with her head on his shoulder 
and her eyes closed against the bleakness of the cell, telling him 
everything he needed to know.  Then, Tain's voice from the shadows: 
*Good.  That's very good, Elim.  And now, you can finish it.* 

After that, there had been others.  Garak bowed his head; he could 
remember each one, every face and name, every hour passed in their 
company.  None of them had left Issenara alive. Sometimes, back on the 
station, he would lie awake in the darkness as they visited him, one 
by one. He had grown accustomed to it.  It was company of a sort, 
after all, and it was still a bond more intimate than most.  You may 
recall the face of your first love imperfectly, but who would forget 
that of their executioner, even after the intervention of death?  It 
was a close and secret relationship that he possessed with the dead; 
it was his tribute to them.  They had all been traitors, one way or 
another: terrorists and subversives and spies.  He had known that what 
he was doing was for the best, not for those few frail individuals, 
but for the State.  Even so, it had unsettled him a little, sometimes, 
and during that first month, his dependence on Dukat had grown.  Dukat 
had enjoyed the domination of someone so self contained, and Garak had 
welcomed it, finding atonement, if not repentance, in the other man's 
arms. *You see,* he whispered to the lingering dead, *you see, I've 
suffered too.* 

He could not help feeling that it had all been for nothing; a purpose 
outlived or a dream fractured beyond repair.  Cardassia had changed, 
and left him behind.   Not for the first time in recent years, he was 
beginning to feel his age.  Dukat was not, he reflected with mild 
surprise, so very much younger, but he had always possessed that 
glittering quality that one associates with youth, untarnished by 
self- hatred or self doubt.  The tailor did not like to admit it to 
himself, but Bashir's presence had also had its affect.  The doctor 
had proved unexpectedly resistant to persuasion, which had, 
inevitably, increased the attraction that he held for Garak.  Now, 
part of that puzzle had been solved, by the revelation of Bashir's 
genetic enhancements; no wonder he was so convinced of his own 
rightness, Garak thought now.  He had never really won Bashir over, 
and he resented this, but he also admired the young man for it.  
Bashir, stubborn and arrogant and self-righteous as he was, 
nonetheless challenged him and this, more than anything, had kept him 
sane.  But he did not want to think about his love for the young man; 
not now, not here in this contaminating place. He glanced uneasily at 
the clock.  A few minutes to midnight; time to face his fears. 
  

                                        18. 

The heat in the cell had become stifling. I called hoarsely for the 
guard, but no one answered.  I had not yet ceased to hope that I would 
soon be freed.  As soon as Garak discovered where I was - but suppose 
it was he who had incarcerated me here?  A Starfleet officer, albeit a 
junior one, might prove a reasonably useful bargaining chip if one 
hoped to rehabilitate oneself with the current authorities.   I pushed 
the cynicism away; he would not let me die here.  I trusted him.   
There was nothing in the cell that could be used.  A blanket, a water 
bowl plus a bucket, and a square of shadow were all that I now 
possessed.  I sat down in the shade and tried to think.  I had been 
jailed before, but it's never a pleasant experience; I thought with 
wonder of poor Miles and his long, imagined sojourn in the pit.  I'd 
only been here for a few hours; he was incarcerated, subjectively at 
least, for years.  He was the most remarkable man I have ever known, 
in ways; he managed to remain so resolutely ordinary, even though the 
most appalling things kept happening to him.  Well, if Miles had 
survived, then so would I.  I would not let him down. 
  

                                        19. 

Garak stood quietly for a moment in the dimly lit corridor that snaked 
beneath the house.  Twelve chambers led from the corridor, where the 
prisoners used to be kept, but now all were empty. The air was damp 
and stale.  There was no one there.  Turning, he made his way swiftly 
along the hallway.  Only one place remained now, the deepest chamber 
of the fortress, and the one of which he was most afraid. 

                                        20. 

Movement caught my eye and as I turned my head, I saw Dukat.  He was 
utterly still.  His eyes glittered in the dim light. 
  
'You see,' he murmured.  'I thought it was an exercise, nothing more; 
we were on military manoeuvres at the time. I trusted him, you see.  
Oh, everyone thought that I was the dominant one, but I always looked 
up to him. I told him things about myself that I told to no-one else, 
and he used all those fears against me. Imprisonment, and then the 
drugs, and the pain...He left me here to die.  You have to choose, I 
told him.  You have to make a choice: Tain or me.  I never imagined 
he'd choose the old viper.  He'd told me he hated Tain...never could 
resist a lie, even then...' The words whispered on, corrosive with 
bitterness and loss. 
  
'So you see, I loved him, and he betrayed me, and everything we became 
stemmed from that,' Dukat said, simply. 'And now he has to make 
another choice.' 
  

                                        21. 

'Iranahar,' the tailor said from the doorway.  'The ritual penalty. 
It's for you to give me the choice.  What is it to be?  Pain?  Death, 
now that you've had my submission and tormented me with an empty 
promise of rehabilitation?' 
  
'Given your chosen career, it would seem that torture would be the 
most appropriate.' 
  
'Very well,' Garak said, in as neutral a voice as he could manage.  In 
the darkness, he clasped his hands behind his back, to stop them from 
shaking.  'You'd best begin, hadn't you?' 
  
'Oh, I wasn't going to torture *you*, Elim.'  Dukat's voice came from 
somewhere close; Garak could feel his breath against his own neck. 
Dukat brushed his mouth with a kiss, very gently.  'Not directly, 
anyway.  I could never do that to you, and besides, you know my 
distaste for the interrogatory arts.'  A pale globe of light flared 
and Garak could see Bashir.  The young man lay against the wall, 
unmoving. 
  
'Oh, don't worry,' Dukat said, following his gaze.  'He isn't dead. 
He's quite conscious, in fact; we've been waiting for you.' 
  
'What did you have in mind?' 
  
'Just a simple demonstration of skill, quite straightforward.  I want 
you to show me again what Tain taught you.' 
  
'What? Bashir doesn't have access to any particular information; he's 
a medical officer -' It was suddenly difficult to think; everything 
was shifting and changing underneath his feet.  

Dukat said  ‘But everyone has secrets, haven't they?  You should know 
that...I don't trust you, Elim.  I don't trust you not to lie to me, 
and you'll lie for all the days of your life if it gets you back to 
Cardassia. Tonight, you submitted to me for a little while, but it 
wasn't sufficient.  I want you to surrender completely; I never had 
that from you, and I should have had it, because I earned it.  Oh, 
you'll bow to the pack leader for a little while, like all the rest of 
them, but then they break free and I don't think I want that to happen 
with you, not again.' 
  
'Just tell me what you want me to do,' the tailor said, tightly. 
  
'I've already told you.  I want you to torture your young doctor.  Not 
for information, but so that you can relive what you did to me.  You 
see, I don't think you're the same man any more.  I think you've lost 
your enthusiasm.  I can't quite see the Elim Garak who stands before 
me now so willingly tormenting the young man he loves.   I want you to 
experience the pain you should have felt when you tortured me.  Take 
him to the edge of death...If you do that, I'll let you both live.  If 
you refuse, you die.  I'll make it a quick death -' his lip curled 
with momentary distaste 'I don't share Tain's particular appetites.  I 
hope, Elim, for Bashir's sake and yours, that your very special skills 
haven't declined over the years.  All it would take is a slip of the 
blade and then - but I'm sure you know what you're doing.  I'll be 
monitoring his pain levels, by the way; I'll know if you're not 
putting your heart into your work.  Who knows, I might be wrong.  You 
might even enjoy yourself.' 

The doctor stirred, turning his head, and Garak could see from the 
expression in his eyes that he had heard every word.  

Bashir spoke for the first time. ‘Just get it over with.' 

                                        22. 

I don't remember a great deal of what happened after that.  Through 
the shadows of my memory I see Dukat's icy eyes, fixed with unblinking 
avidity on the scene before him.  He never once looked at me, I know 
that much; only at my torturer.  I don't even recall precisely what 
Garak did, although I realised later that it had to be some form of 
nerve stimulation.  I remember his fingers at the side of my neck, 
pressed against my heart in a parody of affection, moving down to 
diaphragm and groin.  Pain seared through me; the sun in my veins, 
bursting into fire and light and agony.  It was very precise: nothing 
crude, no lash of the whip. The pain consumed the world; burning away 
the past and all sense of who I was.  I had become nothing, locked 
into an eternal molten present.  I could not cry out; I could not even 
plead. I looked into Garak's eyes, once, and there was no-one there.  
He had retreated within himself, to endure a suffering of his own; it 
was debatable which one of us was tortured most.  The doctor's old 
mantra: *this hurts me more than it hurts you*, and despite the 
anguish I think I managed a smile. 

Then the pain catapulted me back into some unknown time: morning, the 
city stirring around me, and by my side my lover waking to the summer 
heat with a smile. 
  
'We should go soon; it's nearly time.  They'll be waiting at the 
temple...' 
  
'Not yet...' an unfamiliar voice, my own. I reached out and felt warm 
skin beneath my palm.  'Not yet...' and listened to the rustle of 
scales against the sheets as I rolled over to embrace him.  Looking 
idly down I saw that the scattering of scales across my stomach 
glittered as they caught the light.  'Look...' I murmured, and 
laughed. 

The snare of pain snatched me back into my human body.  The 
smouldering coil of incense filled my lungs and I coughed, collapsing 
forward, my mouth filling with a sudden rush of blood.  I gasped 
against the Cardassian's shoulder as Garak's voice whispered in my 
ear: hush now...not long, oh my love, not long till morning - then the 
flaying touch of his hand, and lightening fled along my spine, 
convulsing me back into that other unknown life. 

'So this is the young man you've been keeping so secret from us,' and 
my lover smiled and said 'I trust this explains my absence from the 
Judiciary...'  They were smiling at me through the lamplight as I 
stepped forward to take my place among them, welcoming me.  Even 
though I was nervous in the presence of all these important people, I 
bowed my head and held out my empty hands, and listened to their 
approving murmur.  'Of course, all his lovers have beautiful 
manners...' 

Then the world changing and my vision blurred in the wind that raced 
down from the heights, but perhaps it was only the pain.  I watched 
through the tears as the sun rose over the city, and it was morning.  
I was back in the cell for the last time and that other place, unknown 
and familiar, was gone.  Garak was holding me; kneeling by my side, 
murmuring in my ear. Dukat prowled forward to touch his arm and I 
heard him say, 'Enough.  It's over.' and gratefully I fell into 
unconsciousness. 
  

                                        23. 

Over the body of the young man, they stood and looked at one another, 
and there was nothing more left to say.  The game was over: old scores 
settled, and new ones beginning.  They had reached a balance, for now, 
but it was not enough and never would be, for what they saw in one 
another's eyes went beyond love and hatred and even life itself.  
Dukat reached out to touch the torturer's face and then, smiling, he 
turned and was gone into the depths of Issenara like a spirit into the 
empty air. 

                                        24. 

When I awoke, it was to find myself in an unfamiliar room, low-
ceilinged, and with a golden light pouring in around the shutters.  I 
shifted, flinching, in the bed and found that although my muscles 
trembled, they still obeyed me. Examining myself with the aid of a 
mirror, I saw that there was not a mark on me, only a small incision 
just above my collarbone.  This appalled me more than anything. Making 
my way to the window, I threw the shutters aside and looked out across 
an expanse of sand.  The long shadows raced along the side of the 
house, my own tall form waved to myself high on the dune.   It was 
close to evening.  I wondered how long I had slept.   I gazed out 
across the desert landscape, lost in thought.  I did not even hear the 
door open, but when I turned, Garak was sitting on the bed. 
  
'Doctor?  How are you feeling?' 

I rubbed my eyes.  I hardly knew what to say to him. 'I don't know.  
Physically or emotionally?' 

The tailor gave a slight smile. 'Either would be enlightening.' 
  
'Well,' I said, cautiously.  'I think I'm all right; a little weak, 
but that's not surprising.'  I turned to sit on the edge of the sill. 
'Dukat honoured his promise, then?' 

The tailor nodded. 'He's always suffered from the illusion that he's 
an honourable man. He left, and I brought us south...This is a 
friend's house, a place called Derreven; we'll stay until you're fully 
recovered.' 
  
'Dukat,' I said.  'He was your lover, wasn't he?' 
  
'Yes.  A long time ago.' 
  
'And you - did to him what you did to me?' 
  
'I seem fated to repeat my mistakes, I'm afraid.  Doctor?' and when I 
looked at him I could not bear what I saw in his face.  'There's 
nothing I can say; no apology I could even begin to make.' 
  
'It wasn't your fault.' I told him, wearily.  

He hissed with irritation. 'You really are the most infuriating young 
man...It seems to be a Federation trait - forgiveness like a slap in 
the face.  It most certainly is my fault.' 

Yet how could I truly blame him? I thought. A litany of woes held us 
apart: everything he had done negated all that I so fondly believed 
myself to stand for. Yet though forgiveness has nothing to do with 
passion, and little to do with love, it does have a great deal to do 
with understanding, and objectivity.  Even after everything Garak had 
done to me, I could not help but ask myself who I would have been, had 
I grown up in the ruins of Cardassia under the guidance of Enabran 
Tain.  Where does cause begin, after all?  With Tain, and the creature 
he made of his own child, or further back, when Cardassia began to 
starve and burn?  Or did it begin thousands of years ago, in the 
Hebitian Empire, with a young man and the mentor who became his lover?  
Memories haunted me: another life, another form.  I have never 
believed in the migration of the soul from body to body, and yet it 
did provide some kind of explanation, for an unlikely friendship, and 
an even more improbable attraction.  I knew that I could not begin to 
talk about this, not just yet.   

At last I said, 'If you and Dukat were lovers once - it does explain a 
certain amount.' 
  
'When he was young, he was so remarkable,' the tailor said, as if to 
himself.  'I could hardly believe it when he began to take an interest 
in me.  He could have had anyone he chose...I was so deeply in love 
with him, obsessed, but it never seemed quite real.  And then we came 
to Issenara, and Tain took me aside and explained to me that it would 
no longer be possible for me to continue my relationship with Dukat.  
An agent of the Order had to be above such ties, objective, free of 
attachments.  It would make things easier in the long run, he said. 
Then, I believed him - he could be very persuasive.  Now, I think that 
he was simply jealous.  He wanted me to be loyal to no one but 
himself. And so I agreed to give Dukat up, and Tain told me that this 
wasn't enough.  He didn't trust me, you see; thought I might take 
after my mother, put personal feeling before my obligation to the 
State.  He wanted me to prove myself.  So I did.  Dukat never forgave 
me - it's hardly the sort of thing one forgets.  There was that 
business with his father, and it simply sealed the hatred between us.  
And then I went into exile.' 

There was a short silence. 

'They've been long years for you, haven't they?' I said gently. 
  
'Oh,' he replied.  'They haven't been entirely without their 
compensations.  And I'm very adaptable.' 

It was an old wound now, almost healed, but I had to know.  I said   
'You once told me you hated me.  Did you ever mean that?' 

He gave me a long, considering look. 'If I told you that and meant it, 
you should know that it was only because I hated myself more.' 
  
'Why?' 
  
'For not having the courage to live or the decency to die.' 
  
'That's a pretty harsh assessment -' 
  
'You gave me more than my life when you took that wire from my head, 
all those years ago.  You know that, don't you?' 

I couldn't say anything. 
  
'It doesn't matter,' he said, obscurely.  'We've gone on together for 
so long, it doesn't matter any more.' 
  
'Garak?'  I asked.  'How do you see me?' 

He thought for a moment. 'It won't be the truth, you know...' 
  
'Whatever.' 
  
'You're - the other.  Do you know that concept?  Your philosophers 
invented it, after all, hundreds of years ago.  We are all created in 
the eyes of those around us.  Suddenly we see someone's eyes upon us 
and we become self-conscious, we change to fit their ideas of us.  
That's why - so your philosopher said - we can never be integral, 
authentic beings.  We're always living up to other people's ideas of 
what we should be.  Take myself, for instance.  How do you see me?  As 
a mysterious, exotic, alien being?  Someone who's seen and done what 
you can only imagine, capable of anything?  You've been testing 
yourself against me ever since I've known you - or your fantasy of me, 
at least. And I've done the same thing; trying out other ways of 
being.  I've learned a lot from your idea of me, and mine of you.' 
  
'And who are we really?' I said. 
  
'There is no "really", that's the sad and interesting thing.' 
  
'Is Elim Garak your real name?' 
  
'What would you prefer, Ishmael?  You see, I've learned something from 
those novels of yours, after all.  Well.  There are two options, 
aren't there?  Either it's the name I was given at birth, by my 
parents, or it's something I picked up along the way. Am I just 
another Cardassian torturer: remorseless, sadistic?  Or the devious 
spy, or the plain and simple tailor, or just a man who made decisions 
that seemed right at the time, and who loves you more than anything 
now...You choose.  You decide who I am, who you'd like me to be.' 
The words seemed to resonate between us. 
  
'I think I chose a long time ago,' I said, and he nodded.  'Did you do 
this on purpose?' I asked.  'Have you just been giving me time to make 
up my mind about - about you?' 
  
'You had to be sure,' he said.  'You had to live a little, learn how 
to be.  I could have influenced that process.  I can be very 
persuasive, particularly where my lovers are concerned - you'll learn 
that, even if you don't know it already - but I didn't want you to be 
my creation.  I wanted you to be your own.  I think you have achieved 
that, now: you're no longer entirely young, the skeletons have not 
made such a big difference after all, and you've managed to remain 
true to your ideals, which I consider remarkable.  Understand me, 
Julian.  I don't mean to patronise you, which I'm sure I've done 
anyway.  I just wanted to make things clear.  I am not an easy person 
to love; I never have been.' 
  
'I know.' 

The sun had gone, now, leaving the room in shadow. I could not see his 
face. I said, ‘And now?' 
  
'Come here,' he said, and his voice was suddenly hoarse.  Only hours 
before, he had hurt me beyond bearing, and I did not know whether it 
was the measure of my trust in him, or some darker need, that made me 
go to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. 
  
'Elim?' 

I felt his hand cup my chin, and then he kissed me, so gently that all 
my doubts left me and there was only desire.  I gripped the soft 
weight of hair at the nape of his neck, returning his kiss, and his 
arms came around me.  I realised then the extent to which he was 
holding back.  I pulled him down against me, wanting in a way to get 
it over with; impatient, trying to overcome the residue of fear.  He 
was stronger than I, alien, and I could sense the predator's instincts 
lying just beneath the civilised veneer. 
  
'No,' he gasped.  'Slowly, slowly...' 

He tugged at the cord of my robe and it fell open.  He ran a 
possessive, lingering hand across my chest and I shivered.  I saw the 
glitter of teeth in the darkness as he smiled. 
  
'Then close your eyes...' he whispered fiercely into my ear.  I felt 
his mouth against my throat as he sank down beside me; his hands 
moving over my skin. I longed to touch him, but I couldn't move; just 
as you might wish to run your fingers through the tiger's heavy coat, 
but do not dare.  He was so dangerous.  I could feel that danger once 
again: in the appalling gentleness of his hands, his mouth, the taut 
muscles of the body that pressed against mine.   It was the mirror of 
my torture: pleasure instead of pain.  He had taken me to the brink of 
death, there in the cell, and now he led me back again.   Once more, 
he brought responses from me over which I had no volition, and I 
braced myself against his touch, but this time there was no agony, 
only pleasure.  If I hadn't already been in love with him, that night 
in Derreven would have settled it.  I felt him reach across me and the 
lamp flared into light. 
  
'There,' he whispered.  'There now...' His hands flickered across my 
body, caressing.  Tentatively, I stroked his flank; it was difficult 
to tell where the silk of the robe ended and his skin began. I touched 
the patterned plates and ridges across his chest, then his soft 
stomach, and his skin shivered beneath my hand.  He was silver in the 
lamplight, as though he had been created out of air and smoke. He was 
very tense. I looked up.  His eyes were open, and fixed on mine with 
unblinking, inhuman concentration. 
  
'Julian?' he said, softly.  I couldn't answer.  He drew me into his 
arms, murmuring as he kissed me, then that exquisite tension was back: 
the gentleness of his mouth and the caress of his hands. He was 
talking to me between kisses, drifting between his language and mine, 
instructing me, I realised dimly, in what to feel.   *Now, isn't that 
better? Oh, there...oh, that's wonderful...*  - and telling me, quite 
conversationally, what he had always dreamed of doing to me.  Pain is 
not the only way to torture someone. I would have done anything for 
him, at that moment; I was utterly possessed.  I looked into his eyes 
and couldn't look away. 

He said, very gently,'Let go, Julian,' and through the pleasure I 
realised with astonishment that I was already over the edge.  He cried 
out with me as I came.  I was exhausted; I couldn't have stopped him 
after that if I'd tried.  It was almost like a dream: I remember him 
holding me close, and still with that frightening restraint, sliding 
inside me, possessing me until his own swift climax claimed him. 

When I awoke, the smoky sun was already high.  The room was stuffy 
with heat; an insect beat itself against the shutters.  My lover was 
still asleep, breathing deeply.  I watched him as he slept, amazed.  
The light striped him into a series of shadows.  My gaze lingered on 
every scale and reach of skin: from the dark ridges of his neck, down 
to the arch of collarbone and the dove coloured skin just beneath, 
then the glossy plates which covered his breast, scales that seemed to 
have been carved from slate, scales as dappled as storm cloud and as 
clear as rain.  I gazed, mesmerised by the strangeness and the 
familiarity of him, and could not look away.    My breath caught in my 
throat.  I gathered my courage and kissed him, gently, where the pale 
skin of his shoulder shaded into a hard edge of scale.  He stirred, 
uncoiling against me without opening his eyes, basking in the warmth.  
I lay quietly in his embrace, my cheek against the ridges of his 
shoulder. 
  
'Elim? We should get up...' 
  
'We should. Just not yet...' 

By this time I was too aroused by his closeness and the heat to 
disagree.  He let me make love to him, still half asleep and lazy in 
the sunlight, letting me take it at my own pace.  The iron control was 
gone now; he submitted to my caresses with abandonment and my name was 
lost in his cries.    It seemed as though we were in a place where 
nothing could touch us.  Dukat and the danger that he might still 
present was forgotten, and so was the fact that soon we would be 
leaving to return to the station and our old lives.  I did not know 
what would happen then, and could not bring myself to care. 

                                        25. 

He lay with his face buried in his lover's throat, suspended in warmth 
and satiated desire.  He said, softly, 'Are you asleep?' 
  
'Nearly.  Not yet.'  Bashir's arms drew him tightly against the 
doctor's lean frame.  He heard a voice in his ear: 'What were you 
going to say, Elim?' 

Garak, without dissembling, said, 'I love you.  I've loved you for a 
long time.' 

Bashir sighed, and said, 'I love you, too, do you know that?  Whatever 
you've done, whatever's happened, I still love you.' and the tailor 
nodded against his shoulder, knowing that it would not be forever in 
that life, or perhaps even for very long, and understanding all the 
same that it was enough. 

END