And then Marrago looked at Mi'Ra. She could not disguise the triumph in her eyes.
"We attack Centauri Prime. We spread the silence through fire and pain. We attack those who brought us pain.
"We ask for aid from the bannerless, from the songless, from the pained.
"What say you?"
Will you come to find me?
Sheridan sat up and looked around. His waking was not the start and scream of a nightmare. It was the slow, puzzled emergence of one who was never truly asleep to begin with. Some people could move straight from sleep to full wakefulness with no period of transition. John Sheridan was not that sort of person, at least not usually.
Beside him Delenn was still sleeping, silent and still and as beautiful as a statue touched by the sunrise. He brushed her hair with his fingers and was surprised by just how cold she was, like marble not yet warmed by the sun.
He rose from their bed and walked through to the bathroom. There was no sound at all. That was unusual. There was always…. something. There was no night on Babylon 5, not really. There was always someone up — security guards, the usually nocturnal Brakiri, the terminally insomniac…. someone.
He poured some water and splashed it on his face, hoping it would wake him up. It did no such thing. He rubbed at the stubble on the side of his face and sighed. Sometimes he hated shaving. It was hard enough managing enough co-ordination just to get dressed some mornings, without having to shave as well. Maybe he could forgo it for today. Would anyone really notice? He looked into the mirror to see how bad it was.
Nothing looked back at him.
He started and touched the cold surface. It was there. It was solid, and it was reflecting the rest of the room perfectly. Just not him. He looked around to make sure. Yes, everything was there. The corner of the shower screen, the towel rail on the opposite wall, the window.
The window?
Where had that come from?
He walked slowly over to it, the silence now uncomfortably oppressive. Some strange, primal urge came over him, an overwhelming compulsion to return to bed, to the warmth and safety that existed there and nowhere else, to pull the blanket over his head and hide from whatever was out here.
He hadn't felt this afraid since he had been a child and convinced that the scarecrows were coming to life and trying to get in his bedroom window.
He touched the curtains. They were solid. They were real. They had that texture of dampness and roughness that spoke of a most definite reality.
He could have sworn this room hadn't had a window before.
He threw the curtains open.
A dazzling light seared his eyes and he stumbled backwards, raising his arms instinctively, but knowing it was too late. It had blinded him, the light was tearing him apart, filling his mind and his soul and covering everything it found there, like a layer of oil over the surface of an ocean.
Will you come to find me?
The voice came with the light, repeating the question over and over again.
Will you come to find me?
He reeled away from the window, falling backwards. He reached out frantically, seeking anything to stabilise himself. A firm, stone hand caught him and helped him steady himself. Slowly, awkwardly, he pulled his hand away from his face.
There was a grey robe in front of him, almost like a monk's. He could see no face inside it, in fact there was no sign of anything inside it, anything at all.
"Will you come to find me?" said a voice from the robe. "You have been asked that already. Someone tried to warn you. You did not listen, did you?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Babylon Four. Before the fire, before the fury, the calm before the storm. Someone tried to warn you of what would come, dressing up the warning in dreams and whispers and premonitions. You did not listen. Will you come to find me?"
Understanding dawned. "I did go to find her. I went to Z'ha'dum. I…."
"Left her there? How can you blame her for what happened?"
"I don't know. I shouldn't, but…."
"Emotions. Irrational little things, aren't they? Or so I'm told. You should have listened to the warning, but it was just one more door you closed behind you without really looking at what was beyond it. How many of those have there been?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Who are you trying to convince? Me — or yourself?"
"I don't even know who you are."
"Do you even know who you are?"
"I…."
"Don't answer that. You can't. Ask yourself this, though. What other warnings have you ignored? What other doors have you slammed shut and lost the key for? What else have you forgotten or lost or simply not understood?"
He looked down. There was a dagger in his hands. Blood was dripping from it.
"We all sacrifice a great deal on the altar of victory. When does the time come when the sacrifice becomes more than the God is worth?"
"I don't know."
"No, you don't. Think on that, for a while."
The man in the monk's robe was gone. The dagger was gone. The window was gone. The light was gone.
John Sheridan reached one trembling hand to the mirror and looked at his reflection. It had returned, and for the first time in his life he seemed to be looking at a stranger staring back at him.
* * *
Galen was precisely an inch and a half taller than he was. That was such a tiny thing to harbour so much envy over, but there it was. Emotions were rarely rational, and jealousy even less so. Galen's magic came from the cold, the sterile, the scientific. Vejar's came from the imaginative, the fantastic, the spiritual.
He didn't need to watch Galen perform more parlour tricks to know that his magic had grown stronger. Something had freed it, while he had been left to wither. Left here in the dark.
"How are the others?" he asked bitterly, trying to make conversation, however futile or pointless. As if he really cared. The technomages had abandoned him just as much as Delenn and Lethke had.
"That's not what I came here to talk about, cousin."
A mission of some kind. Yet another tempting and honourable and glorious opportunity to be killed or mutilated or generally to suffer for the good of someone else.
"I'm not listening," Vejar snapped. He turned back to his mirror and looked at himself. For now, the mirror was just that — a mirror. There was no magic in it, but then there never had been.
Or that was what people would think. The first lesson Vejar had ever learned was that there was magic in everything. A sunrise, a morning breath, the touch of a lover, the opening and closing of a fist.
Someone had once asked Elric if he could make the dead live. Elric had smiled that curious, thin smile of his and stretched out his hand, spreading his fingers wide and then clenching them together so tightly that the veins on his wrist bulged.
"Life begins with death," he had intoned. "Just as all things are born, so do they die. All flesh is dead, and look!" He opened his fist again. "Dead flesh obeys my command. Yes, I can make the dead move."
Vejar always remembered that. There was magic everywhere.
And a mirror was one of the most magical artefacts ever forged. It destroyed illusions, saw through to the soul, pierced masks and glamours and enchantments. It was brutally honest and callously genuine.
He did not like what he saw there. He saw a man old before his time, staring with deep-set eyes back at his own. A man with clammy skin and a sickly pallor.
Behind him stood someone who seemed twenty years his junior, tall and vibrant and determined.
"You have changed, cousin," the young man said to him.
"So have you," Vejar replied bitterly. There was a month difference in their ages. "Have you fallen in love at last?"
"No, although not for lack of trying. I have a mission, cousin. A purpose."
"Good for you."
The old man, whom Vejar could not in any way identify as himself, raised a hand and another ball of fire formed around it. He held it there for long seconds. There was no pain. There was not even any sensation. He could feel nothing.
"You have changed," Galen said again. "I remember when you chose to remain behind. I remember seeing the fire in your eyes, the conviction that you were right and damn all the consequences." The young man looked at him sadly. "What has happened to you, cousin?"
"I did not choose to stay. I was asked to stay. Elric…. he wanted me to observe her, to be ready when the time of her choice came, to ensure that she reached it."
"Ah," Galen replied, a faint smile playing over his face. "That explains a lot. I assume all went according to plan?"
"You know the answer to that. She chose. It damned her and me and it cost her more than either of us can imagine, but she chose."
"She was the salvation of an entire race. In a hundred years, will it matter what it cost her?"
Vejar rose slowly. "How dare you?" he hissed, still looking at the mirror. He could see a flame beginning to rise in the old man's sunken eyes, a flame to match the one in his fist. "How dare you? What do either of us care what will happen in a hundred years?"
"Why did you not go to Babylon Five?"
"What…. What do you mean?"
"I cannot believe you were not invited."
"You know why."
"Assume I do not. Tell me."
Vejar closed his eyes, not wanting to see either person looking at him. He saw the vision, as he had so many times before. "Death," he whispered. "Death will come to Babylon Five. Everyone there will die. Everyone! He will spare no one, not a single soul."
"You could try to warn them."
"And would they listen?" The rage in his voice surprised him, and for a moment he thought someone else had spoken. "That station is cursed, and has been since the idea was conceived. It will bring nothing but pain and destruction and death, and they all know it! I've done enough for these people. I won't be a part of their doom!"
"No," Galen said quietly. "But you can be a part of their salvation. There is something I need your help with."
"I have helped you enough already. I knew once that you would get me killed. Are you trying to prove me right?"
"You can remain here until the end of time while the galaxy collapses around your ears and not raise a single finger to stop it, if you like. Or you can do something. You can help. You can raise arms against a sea of troubles and scream defiance at the tempest."
"How did you get here?"
"I'm sorry?"
"How did you get here? We are some way from the…. sanctuary, are we not?"
"By ship, of course. Did you think I would grow wings and fly?"
"They know." Vejar sighed. "They know. You have as good as told them you have come. The Vorlons know. You have forced my hand in this. There is no choice."
"There is always a…."
Vejar opened his eyes and, without thought, without motion, without equation, he hurled the ball of fire directly at the mirror. There was a single moment when he thought he could have stopped it, but he did not want to.
The mirror exploded, his image shattering into a million pieces. Shards of glass flew into the centre of the room. One of them was aimed directly at his heart.
It would be so easy to let it pierce him, to let himself die here. He would be at rest, at peace, free from the memories of what he had done to Delenn, free from Galen's conscience.
He looked down, and saw the shard caught in his right hand. He did not even remember trying to catch it. Blood was welling between his fingers.
He turned around and looked at Galen. His friend was completely unscathed.
"Choice," Galen said, slowly and deliberately.
"What do you want me to do?" Vejar replied.
* * *
Centauri Prime.
His home. The home of his ancestors, of his friends, of his wife. The place where his daughter's ashes lay, at one with the soaring winds. The place where his garden could be found, derelict and abandoned and unloved.
Centauri Prime. Where his friend ruled as Emperor. Where stood the throne his family had sworn for centuries to protect and serve.
His home.
Words reached his ears. A conversation more than a year old. On Brakir, in the fading shadows of the Day of the Dead.
These…. outlaws. If you do join them, what if they begin to raid Centauri shipping, even attack Centauri worlds? Would you really attack your own people?
And his reply.
I've thought about that. A lot. But…. what can I do? The raids and the attacks will happen anyway. If I join, then…. eventually I hope to be able to change that.
But I will do what I have to do. If I must kill my people, even my friends, then I will. That is a soldier's job, after all. To kill.
All eyes were on him. The captains of the Brotherhood Without Banners and the representative of the Tuchanq.
Jorah Marrago stood up.
"It won't be easy," he said.
The Drazi snorted. "As we thought. Coward."
Marrago looked at him with the stare that had caused more than one raw recruit to fall silent and start shaking. "That is not what I said. I said it will not be easy, not that I was afraid of it. There is a wide difference between caution and cowardice, but if you do not believe me, that is your privilege. All the riches in the galaxy will do you no good if you are dead.
"Now will you listen to me, or are you merely going to toss around sarcastic remarks?"
The Drazi fell silent, anger in his gaze.
Everyone in the room was quiet.
"Continue," Moreil said at last. "We listen."
Marrago swallowed, trying to stoke up the anger he always felt. He had hated the Great Game, the foolish waste of it. He thought of the loyal soldiers who had died because of political machinations. He thought of Lyndisty bleeding her life away in the throne room. He thought of Londo banishing him. He thought of Drusilla, cold and calculating. He thought of weak nobles and foolish courtiers and sybaritic hedonists. He thought of everything he had ever hated about his world and his people.
And he turned that anger into a cold, determined conviction. He had taken this step. He had always known this day would come.
He would do what he must.
"It will not be easy," he continued. "Our…. their fleet might not be what it once was, but it is still impressive. Technologically the Centauri fleet outdoes anything we can match. The planetary defence system in particular is outstanding. After the attack two-and-a-half years ago I laid down specifications for new improved mechanics. They were half-way to completion when I was…. banished. It's safe to assume the new grid is finished now.
"Plus, there is the possibility of Alliance ships there. Centauri Prime still has some Centauri ships, but there may be other Alliance forces. I've heard about the Inquisitors moving around on the surface. They will have ships of their own in orbit. Plus, after the attack on Gorash, Londo will have asked the Alliance for greater protection. Count on it. You caught him flat-footed once before. I doubt you'll do so again.
