A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 5 : Among the Stars, like Giants. Part 5 : The Three–Edged Sword addm-5

by Gareth D. Williams

  * * *

  His breath was as fire from his lungs, his eyes were as cold as the halls that had given him birth, his blade was as black as blood at midnight.

  Any lesser man would have been intimidated, but Sebastian was not a lesser man. He was a man who had stared at infinity and survived with both purpose and sanity.

  Kats looked at the tableau as she rose, coughing and shaking, and she could feel the power crackling in the air between them. Sebastian was talking, but the words hardly registered. Sinoval said nothing, or if he did speak, she could not hear the words.

  And then Sebastian paused, and she had the impression that he was smiling.

  "I do apologise," he said. "It appears I was mistaken."

  He turned and looked at her. She saw in him then the eyes of a murderer, the eyes of a monster who knows too much and understands too little. She had faced madmen before, and she knew then that Sebastian was not mad.

  He was coldly, chillingly sane, the kind of sanity that cannot tolerate any madness at all, no matter how insignificant.

  "My lady," he said, and the words cut her to the quick. He was holding his cane in one hand, tapping the silver top in the palm of the other. "It is so nice of you to join us. We were having a spirited discussion. Perhaps you can help us. What, in your opinion, is Primarch Sinoval?"

  She did not look at Sinoval, keeping her eyes fixed on Sebastian despite the gorge rising in her throat. Her hand clutched her necklace so tightly that it drew blood.

  "What does that matter?" she asked.

  "He seems to be under the delusion that he is a hero. What do you think of that?"

  "I don't know."

  "Really. How disappointing. I know that you do not know who you are, but I had hoped at least that you knew who he was."

  "He's a good man," she said, breathing slowly. "He has done bad things, and he is capable of doing horrible things. To be honest, I am more scared of him sometimes than of anyone else I have ever known.

  "Including you.

  "But he is still a good man for all that. He has never intended to do wrong."

  "How.... interesting," Sebastian said. "So very blind. Shall I tell you about good people with good intentions? Good people are weak, you blind woman. I believed once that I was doing good, and others called me a monster. I had good intentions, plans to erase debauchery and weakness and barbarism, and I was branded insane. Anyone can perpetrate acts of horror and barbarism and claim that they had 'good intentions'.

  "As for him, his intentions are as irrelevant as yours. Deeds are what matter and what have his shown him to be?"

  Kats smiled. "A good man. A strong man."

  "Strong? On the contrary, he is flawed. Weak. Incomplete."

  "Oh," she said, softly. "I don't know about that."

  Sinoval darted forward, Stormbringer flashing. She had not seen the preparation, but she had heard his breathing, and she knew him. Sebastian took a step back and raised his cane to parry, but Kats had expected that.

  Leaping forward, she grabbed the cane and struggled to wrench it away from him. The power surged at her, and burned her skin. She screamed and let go, but she had done enough.

  Stormbringer smashed into the human's side. She heard Sebastian's ribs break and saw his face twitch, for just one second, in a grimace of pain.

  Sinoval kept up the attack. Sebastian took slow, measured steps backwards, a defender's steps. Sinoval's attack was that of a warrior - aggressive, furious, strong.

  But as Kats cradled her burning hands against her belly she saw that Sinoval was too wild, that he had lost the control he had always exemplified. Please, she thought. Stay calm. Don't let him provoke you.

  Then she saw Sebastian parry Stormbringer and hold it with his cane. The black blade of the pike seemed to absorb the lightning and draw it into Sinoval. She watched as his grip weakened, then she scorned her own advice and lunged forward.

  It hurt to move her hands, but she had lived with pain before, far greater pain than this. She clawed at Sebastian's face, raking at his eyes, throwing her body at him. He slipped and stumbled, and his cane almost dropped from his hand.

  Her momentum forced him to the floor. She swayed, but managed to stay on her feet. She stumbled back as Sinoval readied his final blow, a sideways swing that would surely break Sebastian's neck.

  With inches to spare, Sebastian brought up his cane. It was less a parry than an attack on the blade of Stormbringer itself. Kats saw the ball of lightning form an instant before the strike. She doubted if Sinoval did, but he could hardly have missed the sound that accompanied the impact.

  It was an awful noise: the sound of metal breaking, and a soul with it. There was a flash of light, a blur of motion, and a short, sudden pain in her stomach.

  As Sinoval staggered back, seemingly blinded, she saw that Stormbringer was shattered. The piece that Sinoval still held was no longer than his arm. Sebastian leapt up and thrust forward with his cane. Sinoval tried to parry, but Stormbringer was not long enough, and he was moving too slowly, as if he were swimming in air as thick as blood.

  Kats coughed, and realised that she was coughing up blood. She looked down.

  And saw Stormbringer's jagged shard embedded in her stomach.

  But it hadn't hurt at all, she thought dumbly as she fell forward to her knees. She managed to raise her head and look up, only to see Sinoval reeling backwards and Sebastian aiming carefully–judged blows at him. She tried to say something, but all she could do was open her mouth and cough up more blood.

  The last thing she saw before she fell to the floor was something she had never realised could happen:

  Sinoval, Primarch Majestus et Conclavus, falling on the field of battle.

  * * *

  Or you will die.

  * * *

 

  "No, you don't. You're offering us stagnation. You're offering us nothing, now and for eternity."

 

  "Maybe we don't want to be perfect. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe it's our flaws that make life interesting."

 

  "You tried to control me, that's all you did! Don't you dare try this altruistic, we've–only–got–your–best–interests–at–heart spiel on me."

 

  "Maybe we don't need your protection."

 

  "Well, that's a funny thing. One of your guys gave me a gift earlier. The gift of truth, I suppose it was. And it hurt. Oh God, it hurt."

 

  "Shut up! Damn you, I've stood here and I've listened to your crap for all this time, now you can at least listen to me! Yes, the truth hurt, but I'm glad he told me, because after I stopped blaming the person I shouldn't have been blaming, I looked around.

  "You sent her there to die, you self–righteous sons of bitches. You sent Delenn to Z'ha'dum to die, and you probably knew she was pregnant and you didn't care one little bit! There's your perfection for you, there's your caring and nurturing and altruism right there. When it comes down to it, you'll throw people away just because it's convenient."

 

  "Yes, damn it, I do, but I regretted it each and every time I did it, and I never, ever sent someone to die just because it was more convenient that way."

 

  "And Heaven forbid I have anything distracting me from that, hey? Like, I don't know, a wife and kid? I'm so sick of you and all like you trying to control me. You tried to make me turn against Delenn by giving me your truth, and for a time I did, because I was so angry I couldn't think straight! Sinoval tried to make me turn against you by mind games and parlour tricks and philosophy and I wasn't sure what to say because I had no ide
a what I was meant to be doing.

  "For a long time I had no idea what I was meant to be fighting for, but after listening to all that crap you've spewed out, I've made up my mind.

  "I'll fight for my friends, if I have any friends left. I'll fight for Delenn, if she'll even have me back, which she has no reason to. I'll fight for those who need someone to lead them who isn't a zealot like you or Sinoval.

  "And I'll fight against you because you're nothing but arrogant, stuck–up, holier–than–thou puppeteers who think you've got the right to do whatever you want!"

 
 
 
 

  Chapter 5

  You will obey us!

  "No," Sheridan replied calmly.

  * * *

  The Alliance had been tottering for some time before the battle at Babylon 5. Even if events had not been forced as they were, it is likely that the collapse would have happened eventually. Some authors have even maintained that the Alliance was flawed from the very beginning.

  The history of the Alliance had been one long walk towards annihilation, with numerous flashpoints. The Drazi Conflict. The enslavement of the Centauri. The destruction of Narn. But the date commonly accepted as being the day the Alliance ceased to function was 20th November 2263. The day of the Battle of Babylon 5.

  It was a battle fought on many fronts. Outside the station, the rag–tag fleet Primarch Sinoval had gathered fought the Vorlon forces. Inside, Marrain and the Tak'cha had managed to board the station on a 'rescue mission' that rapidly degenerated into slaughter. Sinoval faced his hunter, the Inquisitor Sebastian.

  And most importantly, General Sheridan confronted the Vorlon responsible for it all. The Vorlon was only identifiable by its bone–white encounter suit, but given the Vorlons' habit of changing their encounter suits at their convenience, it is hard to be sure what part that particular creature played either before or after this event. Certainly the Vorlons liked to present themselves as a monolithic, singularly focussed group, many parts of one machine working in unison, but as even Primarch Sinoval was forced to concede, that was simply not true. It cannot be denied, however, that their reluctance to provide names makes tracking their movements difficult.

  It is generally believed that the white Vorlon was one of the leaders of the High Command itself, a Light Cardinal. Whether it knew anything about the Aliens from Elsewhere, however, remains unclear.

  But at that moment its attention was fixed entirely on General Sheridan, and it was that confrontation that turned the tide of the battle, even the war. It centred, as many turning points do, on an enemy making a mistake. It was a rare error for a Vorlon, but it proved telling.

  If tragic.

  MATEER, K. (2295) The Second Sign of the Apocalypse. Chapter 9 of The Rise

  and Fall of the United Alliance, the End of the Second Age and the

  Beginning of the Third, vol. 4, The Dreaming Years. Ed: S. Barringer,

  G. Boshears, A. E. Clements, D. G. Goldingay & M. G. Kerr.

  * * *

 
 
 

  "What? Doing whatever you say? Frantically trying to tidy ourselves up, hoping we won't do anything that might upset you? Living without individuality or emotion? Without choice?

  "Putting it bluntly, yes, it is too much to pay."

 

  "You don't get it, do you? You really don't. And you never will. I'm not saying we're perfect, any of us, but maybe we don't want to be."

 

  "Maybe, but we'll better ourselves on our terms, not yours. You say you've only ever wanted what's in our best interests?"

 

  "Then leave. Follow the Shadows and get out of our galaxy. Hell, they've left. You won. Congratulations. You don't need to stay any more."

 

  "Really? Well, of course you'd say that. You simply can't admit that this whole thing wasn't about us at all. It was all about you beating them. You fought them for so long, and now you've won you're just sitting around wondering what to do with the rest of eternity. So, you figure, why not? Why not actually try and do something with us, just because you can.

  "We're not your guinea pigs, and we're not miniature versions of you.

  "At least the Shadows finally admitted it at the end. They accepted they weren't doing any good, weren't doing what they were supposed to do, and they left.

  "I'm thinking they might have won after all. At least they admitted their mistake, which is more than you ever have."

  There was a cold wind, a chill, icy blast through the room.

 
 
 
 
 
 

  * * *

  They had left eventually, all five of them. Delenn supported Kulomani as before. G'Kar carried L'Neer. Na'Toth walked ahead, alone.

  The sound of fighting was very distant, far–removed from reality, but Delenn could feel it with senses more acute than the normal five. She could sense every life flickering and dying, and she wept for every one of them.

  Is this the life you wanted, Sinoval? Are all these deaths your desire?

  It would stop. It had to stop, and they were the ones who had to stop it.

  She was not a warrior. She was a healer.

  She repeated those words to herself as they walked, for each step of Kulomani's that dug into her shoulder, for each anguished breath he took, for each rasp of broken bone grating against broken bone.

  She would heal him, and she would heal the Alliance.

  No one challenged them. No one even saw them. When they finally arrived at Command and Control, the whole place was deserted.

  "Behold chaos," Na'Toth said grimly. "They can cover the galaxy with their spies, but they can't stop their spies from fleeing or hiding."

  "Actually, they can," G'Kar replied.

  "Chaos creeps in everywhere, however much they try to fight it."

  Delenn said nothing, but kept walking. The door slid open obediently, and she entered. There was no sign of activity. Through the observation window she could see the battle raging outside. Gently, she laid Kulomani down on a chair. He said nothing.

  Picking up the hem of her skirt, careful of her injured ankle, Delenn ran to one of the control panels. She could stop this, order the Dark Stars to stop fighting, contact Sinoval. She looked at the panel and paused. She had studied the systems here. She knew them well.

  And yet this.... this was completely alien to her. None of it made sense.

  "None of it works," said a bitter voice from the far corner of the room. Delenn whirled. Sitting against the wall, elbows on his knees, looking tired and drained and haggard, was David Corwin.

  Na'Toth moved
forward instantly, knife in hand. "No!" Delenn called. "He's a friend."

  "I know who he is," Na'Toth hissed. "But I cannot trust he is who my eyes say he is."

  "I don't blame you," David said, rising. Delenn went to him, brushing past Na'Toth. She looked at David, and then stepped forward to hug him tightly. Her son had been named after him.

  "Have you seen John?" he asked her. She stiffened, and pulled back.

  "We must do this without him."

  "He was.... strange. Like he was before. Distant, and angry and.... I don't know. He looked and acted more like his old self when I saw him on Minbar, but now...."

  "We must do this without him," she said, more firmly.

  "None of it works. Not a single thing. I've been trying to contact people, to call for help, anything, but none of it seems to work."

  "There have been.... revisions to the operating system," Kulomani said. "In the interests.... of efficiency."

  "The Vorlons have shut us out."

  Kulomani's face twitched in a semblance of a smile. "You made me.... Commander.... of Babylon Five. I would.... have been a poor choice if I.... could be defeated by something so.... simple. Help me to my terminal."

  He rose, swaying, holding tightly to the back of the chair. Delenn rushed to his side, but G'Kar was there first. Delenn watched as he made his way painfully to the Commander's terminal. He sat down awkwardly, and began.

  It was then that they heard the voices.

  * * *

  Tirivail was dreaming.

  She knew that, but she could not force herself awake. She was standing at the top of a giant mountain, looking down upon all the armies of the galaxy massed before her - awaiting her command, her leadership. The finest warriors ever assembled, and she would lead them. Her father was there, kneeling before her to accept her command.

  This can be yours, said a voice at her side. She turned, and saw an ethereal being, a spirit crafted of light, attired for war. Lead them against our enemies, and all this can be yours.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  The spirit became darker, lightning crackling from it. The sky turned black, the air cold.