A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 4. A Future, Born in Pain addm-4

by Gareth D. Williams

  "Nothing but the greater glory of the lord I serve."

  He tried to study Forell's words for any sign of treachery or deceit.... for anything, but the fog around his perception would not shift, and finally he shook his head. "Bring me Takier," he said. "We will muster our fleet, such as it is. In truth it does not matter what is at Krindar, as long as there is a battle. As long as there is.... then we will win glory, or we will die and rest."

  "It is as you say, great lord." Forell bowed and left. Sonovar turned from him and glanced casually back at the table. He stopped, and thought.

  The table was bare.... but there had been something there, had there not? A.... a data crystal? No, it was not there. There was nothing, just a figment of his imagination.

  He prepared himself to receive Takier. For too long he had been still and silent. He would wait no longer for the enemy to encircle and destroy him. He would seek out glory.

  He would choose the manner of his death.

  * * *

  "I understand now. I have been waiting for this, preparing for it. I know my destiny, and yet.... and yet....

  "And yet now that the time is soon, I do not want this.

  "Could I have changed things somehow? Could I have done things differently, or would my destiny always have brought me back here, to this place, to this time, to this understanding?"

  All things can change. All things could have changed. You could have let the assassin's knife claim you as you stood above Earth. You could have remained in the Dreaming as Varmain died, and gone with her. You could have been content with the simple role of soldier

  But you did not. You were not. You fought, and raged, and struggled. And your struggles led you to this place. Destiny did not bring you here. You brought yourself here.

  "And there is no other way? None at all?"

  You have asked that of us before. The answer is unchanged.

  "I know. Will I be alone? Always?"

  You will be with us always. No, you will not be alone.

  Sinoval nodded. "Then that will be enough. It will have to be."

  * * *

  I hail thee, Sonovar. I speak to you from across space, in hope that as one warrior to another we may save our people, the people we both have sworn to serve and to protect.

  Sonovar could feel the air hum around him, vibrating with breathless anticipation. He was going to war. He was riding to battle, the wind his steed, the stars his guide, the blade his voice.

  "We attack Krindar."

  "What is at Krindar?" Takier had asked. "What is there for us there?"

  I am a warrior. I am not afraid, not to die, not to live, not to walk, not to rest. I fear only failure, but I am a warrior, and I will not fail.

  You lie, Sinoval. Your words are lies.

  His destiny is waiting. His destiny. My destiny. I have but to reach out my hand and take it, grasp it in my strong fingers and squeeze.

  You are dying, Sonovar. You have been infected by a virus passed on to you by Kalain before his death. He was infected by Jha'dur, Deathwalker. It was part of her foul plan for revenge - on humanity, on me, on the whole universe. She is dead, but her legacy lives on. I bear the burden for her evil, and I will pay the price for it, I assure you.

  "You lie, Sinoval. Your words are lies."

  "You are wise indeed, great lord. Victory shall be yours, surely."

  Forell is not here, but that does not matter. Nor is Sinoval, nor is Takier. Their voices are here, their spirits reaching out to touch him.

  Forell is feeding you a drug, an elixir. It contains an antidote to the disease that is killing you. An antidote, but not a cure. It is holding back the disease and preventing you from spreading the illness to others. You became infected in Kalain's dying days. No one who has come to me shows any sign of her disease. I believe it is you alone who now bears the legacy Jha'dur intended to destroy our people.

  "You lie, Sinoval."

  "Of course he lies, great lord. He seeks to distract you from your great purpose."

  "What is at Krindar, Sonovar? Why do we attack there?"

  The elixir is more than a cure, Sonovar. It is a drug, an addiction. Forell is controlling your mind, warping your perceptions. He is using you. I do not know what purpose he intends for you, but you are being pulled by his strings. He has made a weapon of you, a weapon he has been using to strike at our heart. The elixir that preserves your life is destroying your mind and your honour.

  "I seek only to serve you, great lord. I seek only a merest fraction of the glory your shadow casts over the galaxy."

  You lie, Forell.

  One way or another, Sonovar, you will die. As do we all. It is for you to decide whether you die with glory, or with shame. The elixir is destroying you, but without it you will die and taint all those with you, spreading Jha'dur's contagion.

  Come to me, Sonovar. All will be forgiven if you come now. Resist, continue to serve dark masters you do not know, and I will destroy you, and do more than destroy you. For myself, I can forgive. For my people....

  Come to me, Sonovar. Come to me now, and I shall forgive you.

  You lie, Sinoval. Every word a lie!

  "We go to Krindar."

  "What is at Krindar?" Takier asked again.

  "Glory," Sonovar had replied simply.

  * * *

  The Alliance shipyards were at Greater Krindar, the spawning grounds for the new Dark Stars, each one a cocoon wherein lay a screaming telepath, bound in a dark chamber.

  Sonovar arrived, his approach undetected, for the Shadows did not move with him save in the shadows of his mind.

  This tale has already been told, the tale of war, of sacrifice, of heroism, of countless screams in the night.

  Finally Sonovar limped away, bloodied but unbowed, broken but not silent, maddened but not mad.

  On the contrary, at last he was sane.

  * * *

  What is love?

  A question Kats could not answer. As she looked down at Kozorr's sleeping face for the third and final night, she found herself finally prepared to ask herself the question she had not been able to face before now.

  She had not been surprised by the things she had seen in his face. She had seen his loyalty, his honour, his pride. He was a fine warrior, possessed of many of the virtues true warriors were meant to exhibit, but there was more to him than that. She could see his decency, his protectiveness, and most of all his sheer, clear and precise love for her.

  She heard him cry out in his sleep. She saw his self–hatred, his inability to forgive himself for his self–perceived treasons, and she wanted to reach out and touch him, easing his pain and bringing him peace.

  She remembered the first time they had spoken. She had been alone, trapped in an agonising pillar of light, at the complete mercy of a madman who had attempted to tear her apart, body and soul. She had met Kozorr then, trapped in despair and pain and suffering, wishing only to die. She had seen him before then, many times, but that had been the first time she had seen him as a man, not simply as one of her tormentors.

  Help me! she had cried.

  He had not answered, not with words, but his face had shown his divided loyalties. His eyes had revealed his sympathy, and that had been something for her to hold tight as she suffered the onslaught of Kalain's words and blows.

  What is love?

  She did not know, but she did know that it was what she felt for him now.

  Above all else she wanted to reach out and ease his pain. He had eased hers without ever realising it. It had been a simple thing, one single look, but for her it had been enough.

  She could do no less for him. Nor would she.

  "I love you," she whispered. His sleep became more peaceful, his dream demons abated.

  * * *

  Sonovar listened again to Sinoval's words, and this time the seeds sank into his heart, and the doubts that had been there sprouted and grew and wormed their way into his mind. He knew now the dark Masters of whom Sinoval
had spoken. He saw at last whom Forell served, and he wondered why he had not seen it before.

  He sat in silent meditation, for the first time since he had taken the reins of leadership and power from Kalain. At the end Kalain had been raving, broken, a husk. He had taught Sonovar so much without ever realising it. He had taught him to reach out and grasp his destiny with his own hands, to claim it for himself and never let go.

  He had given him the answer to every question but one: How to be a great man. He had asked that question of many he had known and met, but he had never asked the one person he should have asked.

  Himself.

  For long hours he spoke with his ancestors, feeling their spirits around him. He spoke of his fears, his questions, his dreams, and as they listened, so he listened to himself. And as he heard them, so he heard himself. So he heard the answer to his last question.

  He rose from his meditation at last, heedless of the pain of his body. It was nothing. The blood that filled his right eye was nothing. The shattered bones in his leg were nothing.

  He was a great man at last.

  "Great lord," whispered a familiar voice. "I have come to bring you your healing draught, great lord."

  Sonovar's eyes, the one filled with blood and the other a pale blue, so pale as to be almost colourless.... both of them flashed.

  "I think there are things to be said, Forell," he whispered.

  * * *

  Takier had been a leader all his life. From birth he had been destined to command, to lead his clan and his warriors, to die in glorious battle and pass the burdens and glories of power to a successor. At first he had hoped his son would lead, but his death had forestalled that. Lanniel's treachery precluded her, which left only Tirivail, but was she ready to lead? Was she truly ready? He had not known.

  He still did not know.

  The battle had been hard–fought and bloody. Of the five ships Sonovar controlled, three had been destroyed. The remaining two had been forced to flee, broken now at last. Their rebellion was over. Sonovar's final order had confirmed it.

  "It is done," Takier whispered to himself. "We fought, and we tried. We lost.... these are the wages of defeat. Had we won...."

  No, foolish thoughts. They had lost. Why think of what might have been?

  He stopped before the door. It was unguarded now, of course. There were not enough left to guard it. His orders had been for her protection, but now.... now it was far more likely that he would need her protection, that they all would need her protection.

  The door opened and he stepped through. Lanniel was sitting in silent meditation. Communing with her ancestors, perhaps? Her eyes opened and an expression of acceptance crossed her face.

  "Am I to die then?" she asked softly.

  "No."

  "Then has a reply been prepared for me to take back to the Primarch?"

  "In a sense. We are the reply."

  "What?"

  Takier breathed in harshly. He had faced countless enemies, fought a multitude of battles, stared at death a million times and not been afraid. But he was afraid now.

  "I have received orders from Lord Sonovar. I and the entire Storm Dancer clan are to surrender to Primarch Sinoval."

  * * *

  "I think there are things to be said, Forell."

  There was no reply, not at first. Only a slow drawing in of breath and a slight twitching of his mutilated face revealed any change in his demeanour.

  "What things, great lord?" he asked at last.

  "The truth.... unlike the lies you have been feeding me along with that foul drink. Who are your masters? How long have you been working for beings other than myself? Since the very beginning?"

  "I have always worked for you and you alone, lord." There was a shimmering on Forell's shoulder, something Sonovar could not clearly see, something on the edge of his perception. His crimson–stained vision did not help.

  He moved forward, pike raised, and smashed it through the tray Forell held, sending goblet and elixir to the floor. Forell took an involuntary step back, but then held his ground.

  "Liar!" Sonovar cried. "Answer me, Forell! I need the truth!"

  "There is no truth," Forell said calmly. "There is nothing but the perception of truth. There is nothing but words and images and a million different interpretations. The others have a saying: truth is a three–edged sword. They are wrong. It is not a sword but a maelstrom, a whirlpool of thought and colour.

  "Truth is chaos personified."

  Sonovar stepped back slowly. The voice was Forell's, but the words did not seem to be his. A dark mass began to appear on his shoulder, long tendrils snaking around his neck.

  "You do not understand," Forell continued. "That is something else the others say. They say understanding is irrelevant. They are wrong. Understanding is vital.... but only when the time is right. You have served us directly for two years, and indirectly all your life. You are a chaos–bringer, an instrument of war, forged in battle.

  "You are everything we could have wished of you.... almost. But there is one better, one more fit than you. In another world we might have come to you and moulded you for our purposes, but not in this one. In this world you were only a foil, a means to orchestrate and enhance another. You were the fire within which he was tempered.

  "You were ours even when you did the bidding of the others.... when you entered his sanctum and wounded him fatally. Even when you acted at their will.... you were following our path."

  "No," Sonovar whispered. "How did you know...?" He had told no one, not ever. Not Kalain, not Takier, no one.

  He had told no one that, just as the fleets of his people circled above Earth, when he was nothing but a servant to the Grey Council, he, on the orders of the mysterious Vorlons, had gone to kill one of his own..

  "You wanted the truth?" Forell observed mockingly. "We know. We have always known. You were nothing but a tool to us, and now your usefulness is ended. What is done, is done."

  The thing around his neck became clear. It had one eye which flicked open, radiating a sheer malevolence, a pure and unbridled hatred.

  "Now do you know who we are?"

  "You won't win...." he rasped. "I'll destroy you all! Every single one of you!"

  "No.... not you. Others, perhaps, but not you. It is possible we will not win. It is possible that the time has come at last for a decision, for one of us, Order or Chaos.... to triumph at last.... but should we lose, then we will leave behind our legacy.

  "Congratulate yourself, great lord. You were vital to the nurture of our legacy. Our greatest weapon against the others is the enemy you tried and failed to kill."

  "Sinoval," he whispered.

  "Yes. Sinoval."

  "No!" Sonovar roared, moving forward. Forell knew what was coming, but did not react. He could have tried to sidestep, to block, to move away, but he did nothing. The pike tore through his bone and his flesh, crushing skull and mind and heart. Sonovar continued to rain blows upon the body until there was nothing left but a mass of flesh and blood and broken bone.

  Trembling, he stepped backwards. His mind was strangely clear, and he knew what he had to do. He could see so much now. He had broken his people apart, not for glory, not for power, not because it was right, but because an ancient race of evil had incited him.

  "What was done.... what is broken, can always be repaired," he whispered to himself. "There is redemption, reparation...." He was thinking of what to tell Takier. He at least could salvage something from this. An order to surrender would be given. The Minbari must be united. This war must end. Now he saw that. He would fight for glory, but never for the whims of another.

  "Redemption.... Reunification.... And of course...." His eyes flared, and he raised his pike.

  "Revenge!"

  * * *

  Time shifted, faded, dissipated. As Kazomi 7 recovered from the assault of the Fist of Darkness and the near–destruction of the entire world, as John Sheridan waged unrelenting and bloody war on the
Shadows, as Proxima 3 suffered famine and hardship, as Centauri Prime once again went up in flames.... Sinoval worked to heal the fractured wounds of his people.

  He received Takier and his followers in person. Lanniel was freed and returned to her duties as Sinoval's guard. Takier requested the right of morr'dechai - an ancient right to suicide last practised in the early days of Valen's reign - but Sinoval denied him permission. Takier, Tirivail and the other leaders of the Storm Dancers clan were imprisoned, while those who could be trusted were set to guarding the trade routes between the sparse Minbari worlds.

  Sinoval continued to watch for Sonovar, but he had seemingly disappeared. Reports came, whispers through the Vindrizi, through the Well of Souls. Shadow ships had been attacked, their bases threatened, their warriors hunted down and killed. Some of these were surely fabrications or exaggerations, but in some there were footprints that could only be Sonovar's.

  Sinoval was content to wait, however. Since he had taken the title of Primarch he had learned patience. He could sense that events were being played out and that he would meet Sonovar again when the time was right.

  On the day the Dark Star ships fought the Shadows at Velatastat, on the day Lord–General Marrago faced down the Shadow Criers in the throne room, Sinoval finally uncovered Sonovar's last place of refuge.

  * * *

  The ship was floating dead in space, broken, shattered, finished. It was nothing, nothing at all, hidden in a nowhere place far from anywhere. This was the place Sonovar had come to die.

  Sinoval stood alone on the pinnacle of Cathedral and looked across at the ship. Sonovar's flagship, the place where he had stood and plotted and raved, the place where he had imprisoned Kats and Kozorr, the place where he had dealt with the Tak'cha, the place where he had continued the long process of tearing apart the Minbari people.

  And that process would end here.

  No. Sinoval shook his head. It would not end here. It would end somewhere else, when he carried out the deed he had been warned was necessary. The day he had taken the role and the name of Primarch Majestus et Conclavus, he had asked the Well of Souls what he would have to do to heal his people.