Over fifty percent of the Rangers were Narns, although that number was falling. The Narn were the most powerful of the major races in the Alliance, and the most willing to assist in this matter. The humans were still under suspicion over their dealings with the Shadows. The Minbari were occupied with repairs to their own worlds. The Brakiri were busy observing the Drazi for any signs of renewed rebellion. The other races did not have either the power or the inclination.
Oh, there would be support from the other races, Durano had no doubt of that. Maybe the overall commander would not be a Narn, but the bulk of the forces provided would be Narns, and it would be a Narn hand pulling the strings.
But what other choice was there?
Durano was left with a grudging admiration for whoever in the Kha'Ri had orchestrated all this. They were hardly responsible for the lunacies going on on Centauri Prime. They could have had no part in the Inquisitors, the rioting, the starvation, the raids, or even the Emperor's illness. These were all a combination of weakness, stupidity and a stubborn refusal by the Alliance to realise that the Shadow contact in the Republic had been just one man, not some elaborate conspiracy.
Damn you, Marrago. Wherever you are.
No, the Kha'Ri had not been responsible for this, but they had used it all well. Very well. And Durano doubted anyone else would be able to see it.
He stood up, and began rehearsing his speech. The Council would be meeting in less than an hour and he would have to plead with them for help to give complete control of his home to an alien race.
The words were ashes in his mouth, but he continued. What choice did he have?
* * *
Talia awoke to feel a cold hand grip her heart. It took a moment for her to remember where she was. This was the cargo hold of the ship she had half-smuggled and half-bribed herself aboard. She was not…. there.
In truth, she found it hard to remember where 'there' was. She only knew that it had appeared in her dreams, a vast wilderness, a cold blackness where only the dead walked. The world was an alien one, the sky not one she knew, the sun dead and cold.
She knew there had been creatures there. There had been life there once, but it had all ended. Something had descended and destroyed that world, just as they had destroyed everything else in that galaxy.
She trembled, and not just from the cold. How much longer could it take to get to Proxima? She knew this was a trading ship and so was bound to visit several different places first, but still….
She was about to settle down to sleep again when something sounded in her mind and she sat bolt upright. No. No, not here.
The screams were always with her, apart from when she used the artefact, but they were louder now, and one louder still. They could not have arrived at Proxima yet. By her reckoning there was another day or so at least.
She reached out with her mind, then pulled back sharply. There was a presence here, nearby. That concept was relative out in space of course, but a node of the network was close. That could only mean one thing.
Gently, slowly, with exquisite care, she sent her mind out, concentrating on the ship this time, not seeking to expand beyond it yet. It was terrifying to realise how much her powers had developed, that she could approach that as a rational possibility.
The artefact. It all came down to the artefact. One day she would have to do something about it.
But that was a problem for another day.
The message was simple and straightforward and terrifying. She heard it with her mind easily enough. No efforts were being made to keep it coded or secret. She sensed the captain's fear. It had been him who had hidden her on board. There were no doubt other minor bits of contraband here as well, but she was the main concern. Her discovery would lead not just to a fine or the revocation of his shipping licence, but to something far, far worse.
This is the Dark Star Fifteen. We repeat again. You are requested to stand down and prepare to be boarded. If you refuse, deadly force will be authorised.
You have thirty seconds to comply.
* * *
Marrago had known it from the instant he had set foot inside the council room. Of all of them — Rem Lanas, the nameless human, the Narns, the Drazi — this Moreil was the true power here. It was not just the two monsters that never seemed to leave his side, visible or not. It was that Moreil had a quiet force, one that said he did not care about the dreams or ambitions of the others.
Marrago had taken time to study his fellow captains in the Brotherhood Without Banners, and all but Moreil he understood. The human was simply insane. He lived for torture and murder and commanded a crew of other humans just as insane as he was, binding them together by force of personality and lunatic whims. Revenge, that was all they wanted. Revenge on anybody and anything.
The Drazi were seeking revenge too, for the perceived betrayal of their race by the Alliance. They knew how to fight, and that was all. No doubt the survivors would be plotting some sort of comeback for Marrago or Moreil. Whatever that was, it would not be subtle. Drazi schemes rarely were.
Rem Lanas was a pathetic little man who merely wished to be someone important, and exaggerated his own significance in a bid to appear so. He had no authority, no power, no soldiers. All he had was a little knowledge, and a lot of pretensions. He would no doubt be planning some form of elaborate revenge as well, but Marrago did not fear him.
The Narns…. they were unusual. There was something about them that puzzled him. The male was G'Lorn, a Narn Marrago recognised, although it had taken him a few days to remember where from. He had been an aide to Warleader G'Sten. What he was doing here was a mystery, but the Kha'Ri were often even more unforgiving than the Royal Court. It was possible G'Lorn had been a casualty following G'Sten's failed attack on Centauri Prime and subsequent retirement.
He was not in charge, of course. The female was. Marrago did not know her, but she moved with the easy grace of one used to power, and trained in it from a young age. There was something in the way G'Lorn looked to her sometimes, as if seeking her approval. Marrago did not know if they were married, lovers, siblings or what, but she held the power. That was clear to anyone with eyes to see. What they wanted…. judging by the first major target of the Brotherhood, revenge on the Centauri was not an impossible notion. Marrago would have to be careful around those two as well.
And then there was Moreil.
The two of them were standing in an observation post, the vastness of space stretching out before them. Moreil's sentries were not visible, but Marrago knew better than to assume that meant they were not there. The alien was looking at him slowly, and Marrago met his gaze. He had nothing to fear, not any more.
"I was expecting some sort of visit eventually," he said, never taking his eyes from Moreil's. The otherness of them disturbed him, but he still did not shift his gaze. Sooner or later, in there, he would uncover all he needed to about the alien. "Have I broken some law or another in taking the girl? I thought the only law of this order was that strength is all."
"Many laws there are," Moreil hissed. "But that is the one truth of them. Laws are for the weak. The strong make their own. The girl is of no importance to this one. Take her. Keep her. Fight those who would take her from you. In strength there is rightness, yes?"
"Yes," Marrago agreed, the lie burning his tongue. He thought of Senna, weak before her torturer, or Lyndisty, weak before her murderer. He suddenly hated this alien. "If not that, then why did you want to talk with me?"
"Introductions must be made, yes?" Moreil replied. "This one is Moreil, former Takita'talan of the Z'shailyl war fleet, fourth in standing to the Warmaster himself."
"I know who you are," Marrago said. "You know who I am."
"Indeed I do. You are once Warmaster of the Centauri, once noble of the Centauri, once right hand of the Emperor of the Centauri. Now you are here, outcast, abandoned, lost."
"I have already told you why I am here."
"That is not what was questioned. This one knows of you, once-Warmaster. This one knows you bargained with the Drakh, with the Dark Masters, sought their boon in your war. This one knows much of your bargainings."
"That is no secret. Why do you think I was exiled? Why do you think both the Alliance and my Emperor are hunting me?"
"Lesson there is that was learned from the Dark Masters. There is never what is on the surface alone. Always something is there hidden, below the skies. No mere exile, you. No. Perhaps you are agent. Perhaps you seek something other than you have said.
"After all, why exile you, then place bounty on you for return?
"There is much hidden within you, once-Warmaster."
Marrago took a slow step back, his hand reaching for the hilt of his kutari. Moreil's two monstrous guardians shimmered into view.
"And this one will discover your secrets.
"Or you will die."
* * *
He walks through darkened corridors and tunnels and caverns without care, without heed, without danger. He walks as if in a trance, guided by footsteps and echoes not his own. Ghosts walk beside him, ghosts of a race long gone, long dead, now ashes in the wind, mere whispers on the tides of space.
He leaves behind those sent to guard him, and this he neither notices, nor cares. He is drawn in some way he cannot explain, pulled by some force he does not seek to understand. With eyes not his and a understanding altogether alien, he sees beings as old and immeasurable as any he knows.
They are dying before his eyes, raising glowing faces to the heavens, awaiting a mercy that will never be given, a sign that will never come, peace that will never reign.
This place is a monument to war, and on some level he understands that. This place is a graveyard, a floating cemetery to a long-dead people.
He does not see what is killing them. He knows somehow that he should, but all he can see are masks and smoke and mirrors and angels with bright and bloody swords raised, glorying in their power and their bloodlust and the terror of their opponents, and the light that shines on them from heaven.
Names and faces flash before him and he does not care. He sees a beautiful woman caught between two worlds, looking at him with bright green eyes, and he presses on. He sees a father, a mother, a friend, a lover, a sister, a daughter, and a son.
Seeing the last he stops, briefly, slowly, and pauses — and then he stumbles on, not knowing or caring what draws him, knowing only that he must keep moving.
He walks into the depths of the earth and the ghosts grow louder and louder and more and more plentiful. There are so many of them. So many dead. He should grieve, he knows. He should cry out and weep and collapse to his knees in anguish at the misery around him, but he does not.
All he does is walk forward.
And after several lifetimes he emerges into a dark, shadow-haunted chamber. It stretches far above his head, a vast cathedral of rock and misery and torment. He moves forward, approaching the far wall, and with each step an alien voice cries out an alien name and an alien message, whether of hope or curse or misery he does not know.
He merely continues to walk forward, until the shadows fall over him and embrace him, almost as friend, almost as lover, almost as saviour.
"Sheridan."
The voice is old, and the first one he has been able to understand. He stops, and turns. It is ancient, that voice, and filled with wisdom and anger and power and a terrifying familiarity.
He knows that voice, and as it speaks to him, memory returns. Understanding returns.
Anger returns.
"Sheridan," the voice says again, the terrifyingly familiar voice says again.
"Always a pleasure."
Sinoval had changed.
The most obvious sign of this change was the clothes he wore. No longer was he garbed in the black-and-silver tunic of a Minbari warrior, with clan and rank emblazoned on his shoulder. Now he wore robes of bright red and gold. They looked almost ecclesiastical.
The robes had a hood, but now it was pulled back, revealing his face. His eyes were the same as ever, dark as midnight, filled with power and arrogance and confidence, but now there was a sense of age within them, a great and terrible understanding, and memories more than one lifespan could contain.
Above his eyes, embedded in his forehead, was a jewel. It was not held there by a circlet or any other sort of jewellery. It was just there, as much a part of him as if he had been born with it. A dull light shone from it, and deep within it colours swirled. Looking into that jewel was like looking into a mirror within which a distorted reflection could be seen, a reflection that showed death and decay and a truth that mortals feared to contemplate.
His bearing had changed as well, although more subtly. Before he had walked with arrogance, the walk of a man convinced he was the master of all he surveyed. Now his bearing was that of a man who knew he was master of all he surveyed. The difference was subtle, but clear to anyone who knew him.
His terrible fighting pike Stormbringer hung at his side. It was not something anyone wished to dwell upon. That blade, it was said, had once in a single day broken apart the armour of a Vorlon and taken the innocent blood of a Minbari. In Sinoval's hands it looked alive, a malevolent creature that laughed and rejoiced as crimson blood flowed around it. Now it merely seemed to be asleep. No, not asleep — dormant, awaiting always a chance to waken and spread havoc.
Sinoval stood there, in the place where he had appeared from nowhere, from the thick eddies of hyperspace, from the darkest memories of man, moving from the edges of perception. The shadows danced around him like servant creatures or pets fawning for the attention of their master, but he ignored them, his powerful dark eyes focussed on another. He stood alone in a dead place lost in the swirling tides of hyperspace, surrounded only by ghosts and memories of ghosts.
Sheridan felt his strange malaise and trance shake itself away and he looked at Sinoval with new eyes, noting the changes his adversary had gone through. Sinoval now seemed more dangerous than ever.
He waited for Sinoval to speak, and when he did the words were hollow and harsh and filled with power.
"Sheridan," he said, sampling the name with the skill a general uses to survey the forthcoming battlefield.
"Always a pleasure."
* * *
The Centauri was not moving. He hardly even seemed to breathe. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, and his eyes remained fixed on Moreil. Not on the two Wykhheran that had just appeared behind him, but on Moreil himself.
The Z'shailyl was impressed. That was a mark of courage, conviction and a certainty as to where the real threat lay. He directed the Wykhheran, mastering their mere animal desires to stalk and kill. If one of them was felled then he would be as before, but without him they would lose all intelligence and direction, lapsing into barbarian fury.
