Ruanek had sacrificed a bright future on Romulus for Spock’s sake because his honor, as well as his friendship with Spock, required it. Now, Ruanek’s honor demanded he sacrifice the life he’d built in exile. As the late Praetor Narviat had once remarked, honor like Ruanek’s could be a confounded nuisance.

  He is, as he has ever been, true to himself. Illogical not to expect him to act in accordance with his nature. “You want vengeance. I want an ally I can trust.”

  “I anticipated you would find it logical for us to join forces,” Ruanek said.

  “Provided that you control yourself.” Spock raised an eyebrow. “I will not tolerate your going out and assassinating every senator whose actions you distrust.”

  Over the years, Ruanek had picked up the habit of that Vulcan quirk of an eyebrow. “I don’t think I could kill that many senators before their guards got me,” he said dryly. “You have my full cooperation. As long as your investigation does not interfere with my duty to the Emperor.”

  With that, Spock had to be content.

  Ruanek got to his feet, stretching, then poured himself a fresh mug of hot khavas. “I don’t suppose you want—no, I don’t blame you. People never understand that khavas needs to be strong enough for an Honor Blade to stand in.”

  Spock, expressionless, beckoned him back to work.

  Ruanek sighed. “The Emperor was so well loved—and yet he still did have enemies.”

  “Be content that he was never affected by ‘All power corrupts—’ ”

  “ ‘And absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ The humans’ Lord Acton would have made a good senator.”

  “At least, we have managed to shorten the list,” Spock said. “We have eliminated all those who might have harbored resentment but lacked opportunity or true motive. What do you make of this?” Spock gestured at the viewscreen. Ruanek’s emotional kinship with the people they analyzed would be of great value even if his information were decades out of date.

  “Motive is as shaky a basis for a case as alibis,” Ruanek said, cynically. “Let’s assume—though I know you don’t—you think Avelik and his friends are smart enough to engineer a murder like this. What do they stand to gain? Just one rumor, one hint that someone was seen changing shape outside the room where the Emperor died, and they are, as I’ve heard humans say, dead meat. Very messy dead meat.

  “Cretak’s record is not of one who uses violence to gain her ends. In fact, she is one who works to preserve life rather than take it.

  “Neral? I don’t like him any more than you do, and don’t tell me that you don’t have personal reactions, Spock, because I know better. To summarize: I see neither logic nor opportunity to make a case against Neral.”

  “Clarify,” Spock said.

  “Look what Neral is facing,” Ruanek said, clicking onto another screen. “The death toll from the riots has climbed to—” he winced “—three hundred and fifty. Those deaths are a political liability he doesn’t need, moral repercussions aside. Besides,” Ruanek added with his usual irony, “Neral lacked opportunity to commit the crime. The Emperor’s household is governed by the Hearth Guard. Neral may control the military, but the Guard reports day and night to the…” He hesitated, staring at Spock. “To the archpriest.”

  “Precisely,” said Spock.

  “Spock, you’re supposed to be the logical one. That’s preposterous.”

  “ ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,’ ” Spock quoted.

  “Arthur Conan Doyle, old Earth author.” At Spock’s raised brow, Ruanek explained, “The books were in the Vulcan Embassy. Shelved under ‘alien logic puzzles.’ But this isn’t fiction. Yes, N’Gathan seems a logical enough suspect. But I’d still like some physical proof. Starting with a look at his current Holiness.”

  “It is hardly safe for any of us out on the streets. Especially you—”

  “You’ve survived this long,” said Ruanek. “If they question me, I’ll make something up. I certainly remember how to lie.”

  “I do not doubt it,” Spock said, absolutely without expression.

  Amarik hunched over the viewscreen, making the smallest of adjustments.

  “Praetor’s on,” he said as the images resolved themselves more sharply.

  Neral appeared on the screen, groomed to look the very image of Romulan invulnerability. “To forestall civil war,” he announced, “I had been forced to declare the senate in recess for the past ten days. Yes, I have heard some mutter that this was but the preamble to a new dictatorship. Now, however, the senate will reconvene at the Hallows at Gal Gath’thong.”

  Clearly, the Praetor hoped that the ancient surroundings might overawe, or at least shame the senate into peaceful behavior. And the recess meant that the Emperor could lie in the Hall of State, which could be opened to the citizens of Ki Baratan.

  “Security for the viewing of the Emperor’s body will be extremely tight,” Spock murmured to Ruanek. “The odds against your escaping detection are so high that calculating them might demoralize our associates.”

  “If my mission is in jeopardy,” Ruanek murmured back, “so is yours, my friend. And our missions are similar in so many ways.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Why, you too are relying on faith rather than any calculation of the odds.”

  “I see no reason to insult me.”

  “This is no insult. Clarification: what you are doing is more important to you—more important to what you serve—than cold logic. You cannot logically take that privilege for yourself, while denying it to me.”

  Now, Spock allowed himself the almost-smile he reserved for the very few friends who had gotten past his guard over the years. “I assumed that would be your reaction. I suggest we go to the Hall of State to pay our respects to the Emperor.”

  For 2.3 hours, Spock and Ruanek, heavily cloaked, waited to enter the Hall of State, its doors open to allow free passage of the Emperor’s spirit to the Last Review. Drums pattered at the speed of a Romulan heart, punctuated by the ear-piercing jangle of systra, those silver bell-banners made to a pattern that had been old even when the Great Ships left Vulcan, and the mournful bray of horns.

  Incense fumes drifted through in the air, growing heavier as they worked their way into the Hall of State. The altar held many offering cups, many bowls of spices, and knives attached to the gleaming stone by chains too strong to break.

  The Praetor’s seat had been replaced by a massive catafalque of viridian stone, draped with latinum-pressed cloth. On it, surrounded by torches burning in lofty, ancient bronze holders, lay the Emperor. His body, preserved by a stasis field, was robed with the splendor Shiarkiek had tried to avoid while he lived. Honors hung overhead, academic and military.

  “I wonder they didn’t roll in a fish tank,” Ruanek muttered. The late Emperor’s scholarly bent had been ichthyology, mostly carnivores.

  Spock bowed and tossed fragrant spices into the brazier, then turned to pay his respects. Kneeling beside the catafalque, eyes downcast, he studied Shiarkiek’s body. Death had eased the lines that centuries of stress and disillusionment had etched into Shiarkiek’s face. He looked…resigned, and so pale that Spock was startled.

  Did Romulans embalm their imperial dead? This was hardly the time or place to research the question. Spock seemed to recall the procedure began with draining blood from the corpse.

  Spock bent closer. If anyone noticed, they might think he was simply one of the dead Emperor’s ancient academic colleagues. He gazed at the Emperor’s hands where they lay on his breast, clasped around his Honor Blade.

  His gloved hands.

  Fascinating.

  What would Spock see if he could peel back those gloves? Wrists, slashed longitudinally to let the blood drain freely and fast, he suspected. Shiarkiek had been so old that even minimal blood loss could have brought on a fatal level of shock, just as it was intended to.

  Ruanek had gone almost as pale as the late Emperor, although his face was Vulcan-calm. He bowed deeply. Taking the offering cup, he scooped up incense and cast it into the brazier. The flames blazed, an indication to the superstitious that his gift was accepted.

  Spock turned to summon Ruanek, and froze.

  Archpriest N’Gathan had emerged from a side door. To a chorus of awed murmurs of welcome, he approached the altar, holding out a goblet filled with the sacramental wine pressed from the grapes grown on the slopes below Gal Gath’thong.

  Seeing Ruanek make his offering, the archpriest beckoned him forward, offering him the chalice. Ruanek dipped his head in respect, but held up a hand: a moment more, the gesture requested.

  Then, each of his actions precise, as befitted a warrior in the presence of his Emperor, he knelt, unsheathed his Honor Blade, raised it in salute and kissed the blade. Drawing it across his palm, he let the blood flow. Only then did he tilt back his head to receive wine from the archpriest. It might have been poison, but Ruanek drank anyway.

  It was difficult to tell which man looked the more exalted, the priest or the warrior.

  Ruanek rose, bowed, and left the Hall of State.

  Spock followed, meeting up with him at a distance that might not be safe but was not, at least, instantly suicidal.

  “ ‘No matter how improbable,’ ” Ruanek repeated.

  “I agree our hypothesis is improbable,” said Spock. “This is why I am also going to extract a confession from him and have Amarik record it.”

  Spock had never been to the Hallows nor, in all the time he had spent on Romulus, had he ever been too warm. Now, he thought, the word warm was definitely an understatement.

  The Hearthworld was more blessed with lakes and seas than Vulcan had ever been; even here, near the firefalls, emerald pools of water, heavy with minerals, bubbled, fire in their depths.

  The slopes of the Gal Gath’thong range were richly fertile, but as one neared the actual firefalls, the land grew barren and strange and the air hot and dry. The ground trembled underfoot. Fumaroles roiled in mud pools, and steam rose from cracks in the bleak terrain.

  Here, the sky was overcast, granting only glimpses of frozen Remus and the star the Two Worlds shared. Dust and ash weighted what few trees survived into eerie, hunched shapes. Wise pilgrims hastened by lakes of acid, masks clasped to their faces. Glittering filaments and dust wafted through the air.

  Spock was dressed as an academician, giving him sufficient status to move freely in the Hallows. On his chest glinted the medallion given to him so long ago by the late Narviat’s wife (Liviana, his mind whispered, unbidden). As he, together with Amarik and several others from the Underground, reached one of the ablution pools outside the tombs, Spock looked up—and had to stop short, staring.

  Magnificent. Truly magnificent.

  No surprise at all that the first Romulan to see the firefalls had thought them sacred. From the lip of Gal Gath’thong, the one flawed peak in a vast range of snow-capped mountains, poured a constant torrent of flame and lava. The firefalls hissed, roared, and crackled as they fell. From time to time, lightning lashed out high above. Sparks and ash flew, burdening the gaunt petrified trees. From time to time, pyroclasts exploded, their fragments shattering still further on immense sulfur crystals.

  Here, in a narrow strip of barren land between rock and flame clustered the basalt domes and temples that guarded the Empire’s most revered dead. Here was the Romulan heart; here was the Romulan soul.

  “Dr. McCoy would have said, ‘Doesn’t this just look like hell,’ ” Ruanek murmured, in a fair imitation of the doctor’s Georgia drawl. “ ‘Hotter n’ hell, too,’ he’d probably have added.”

  Battle nerves, Spock thought. If all went as they planned, Ruanek stood a 78.213% chance of confronting his enemy today and avenging his Emperor. This was his adversary’s ground. Ruanek knew he had to win the battle over his awe lest it, and not the archpriest, defeat him.

  Spock glanced toward the immense domed temple whose foundations were reinforced by buttresses faced with jade. A stream of people in the robes of senators, accompanied by uniformed guards, brushed past pilgrims on their climb up winding steps to the temple.

  Off to one side, closer to the firefalls than any other building in the Hallows, was a miniature copy of the temple. This was the dwelling reserved for the archpriest.

  No doubt N’Gathan was waiting for just the right moment to make an impressive entrance.

  He will find his entrance delayed even more, Spock thought. He gestured to Amarik and Ruanek to take cover, Amarik to record whatever conversation Spock had with the archpriest, Ruanek to witness.

  Not 3.5 minutes later, the archpriest strode out of the portico of his house.

  “Go on ahead,” he ordered the underpriests and acolytes who served as his aides. “N’Lellan, once everyone is seated, flash the light in the dome, and I will enter.”

  Bowing his head, the underpriest hastened up the shallow ash-strewn stairs. Others followed, carrying records, disks, pads, and even an ancient scroll or two that afflicted Spock with a most logical yearning to preserve them from the polluted air and study them himself.

  Archpriest N’Gathan stood staring up at the firefalls, as if communing with them. Flame glinted in his eyes.

  “Your Holiness, may I trouble you for a word?” Spock called in an imitation of an academician’s over-precise diction. “I wish to inquire about some details of ritual.” He maneuvered to stand between the archpriest and the temple so that N’Gathan could not push past him and escape.

  A practiced benevolence masked the impatience in the archpriest’s face so swiftly Spock could almost doubt he had seen it. Nodding respect at an older man bearing the medallion of academic accomplishment, N’Gathan steepled his hands and asked, “How may I counsel you?”

  “I wish to ask about the rite of blood sacrifice,” Spock continued. “Not just for my family—we have a tomb here, very humble, but at least we are an old enough clan that our ancestors are honored in the Hallows—but in general. When His Imperial Majesty, may he sleep in honor, lay in state in Ki Baratan, I witnessed several warriors shedding blood. They actually drew blades in the Hall of State. How is that consistent with security?”

  “We should give thanks that the Praetor’s security is very good,” said N’Gathan smoothly. “If that is all?”

  “I know the Praetor’s security is very good, but how is that consistent with the practice of not permitting arms within the Hallows? How do you reconcile the two?”

  “I do not,” said the archpriest. “Records of prior Emperors’ funerals, stored in the Hallows’ archives, establish the precedent that security to protect the living coexists appropriately with honor to their ancestors. Now, if you will pardon—”

  “I should be glad to study those records,” Spock said, moving parallel with the archpriest, not letting him get away. His own rudeness almost astonished him. Judging from the high olive flush on the archpriest’s face, it astonished N’Gathan, too.

  “You must apply at the temple in Ki Baratan,” the archpriest said shortly. “Or anyone at the shrines here would, I am sure, be glad to assist you.”

  Up in the temple, the drums and systra had begun to play, insistent, commanding.

  “I thank you, Holiness,” Spock persisted. “Do you think I shall find evidence to reconcile the concepts of blood sacrifice and Final Honor? Consider the hero Azeraik, who ripped open his wounds and died, rather than accept life from his enemies. Because he drew no weapon, can we truly conclude that he accepted Final Honor?”

  “If you will excuse me…” N’Gathan looked past him. Horns brayed over the shrill ringing of the systra, compelling all within range to come forward.

  As Spock had foreseen, N’Gathan tried to walk away. Spock clung like a Terran limpet, finding the deliberate discourtesy almost as taxing as physical combat.

  “But what if Azeraik had been unable to tear off his bandages? If he had asked for help and been assisted? Would intention alone be interpreted as taking Final Honor?”

  “I really do not see what this has to do with ritual.” N’Gathan’s eyes flashed.

  “Do you not?” asked Spock, his voice as sharp as an Honor Blade. “It is a slippery slope, is it not, this matter of blood sacrifice. A slope made, we may say, slippery by blood. For example, what if a man long past his prime was unable to accept Final Honor, but someone believed that he wanted it and assisted him? Would that be accounted to his merit?”

  “If the man had led a good and honorable life, yes.”

  “So, the blood falls upon the land, and the land is healed,” Spock said. “Even land as barren as this?”

  “I think,” said the archpriest, “that you might do better to inquire at the temple. They have healers there, and clearly you are in need of more assistance than I can give you—”

  “One more word is all I ask,” said Spock. “The truth. An old man, a sick man, but an honorable one. Is it right to hasten him to Final Honor that the land may live? That is, live in all places but here, where there is no life but only honor?”

  “That is right. It is for the old, the feeble, the useless to take themselves out of the way. Or be taken thus, lest the Empire be weakened.” N’Gathan spoke with absolute conviction.

  He scorns the lie, Spock thought. Good. I shall not have to trick him.

  “Like the late Emperor?”

  “Will you stop dancing back and forth and let me pass?” demanded Archpriest N’Gathan. He put out a hand to push Spock out of the way, but Spock sidestepped it adroitly. “Yes, we respect our elders. Yes, we respect those who have lived lives of honor. But when they are old and dishonor themselves by their continued existence, if nothing else may be done, they should be set on the path of honor. Of Final Honor.”

  “And is that, then, true of an emperor?”

  “The Emperor—” N’Gathan broke off when he realized his slip from “an” to “the.”

  “In other words,” said Spock, “you are saying that it was Emperor Shiarkiek’s obligation to take Final Honor, and since he didn’t—”