The silhouette of the Vorlon was stark in the doorway, casting a black and terrible shadow into the room, touching each and every one of them. us
* * *
Help me!
The scream filled Talia's mind, at the same moment as it echoed across the network. A million trapped minds and souls, some imprisoned for millennia, their bodies long rotted to dust and ash, screamed as well. yo
And they provided the help needed by their saviour. uw
A bright, terrible light filled Dexter's vision, rising from the shadow Talia cast before the box. The creature there, the Alien, the wrong, unnatural abomination, seemed to recoil from the shock. Something inside Dexter's mind reached out past the pain and the revulsion and joined with the rush of energy and consciousness. il
The box itself was surrounded by light. Dexter could not see it himself, but the others could. There were so many souls, beings composed entirely of light and power, battling against the Alien. lo
Talia felt something reaching across countless light years, from somewhere so far away she could barely imagine it, a gesture as gentle as a caress on the nape of her neck. be
"Al," she thought. She did not whisper, for she could not make any sound, and she did not cry, for her eyes could not shed tears. It took every effort she had to simply give birth to that thought, but she managed it. yu
"Al," she thought again. so
The necropolis was bathed in light, but she knew it was temporary, a tiny spark as of a match struck against midnight. It was a momentary blink to beings such as these. ry
The image before her knew that. ou
We have waited a thousand times your lifetime, the dark, hateful voice said to her. Do you think this gambit means anything to such as us? Your Gods are but insects compared to us. Your lords bow down before us. Your power is a shadow before our presence.
Talia could feel her eyes bleeding. "You haven't won yet." wi
We will. Even if we never truly cross the barrier to your existence. Even if you close this gate and all others, we will always triumph. All things end. Even planets, even stars, even universes die. At the end, there is nothing but death.
"You're right," she whispered. ll
If all ended in death, it didn't matter to them whether they won now or not. di
But it did matter to her. e
The light grew brighter, briefly, but then it began to die. This had been the work of a moment, nothing more, and it had not tapped into even a fraction of the power of the network. She could not do that and still live as anything mortal. youw
And all it had done was hold them back for a single second, for the blink of an eye. illo
She withdrew, and returned to a body racked with pain and blood. Her vision was red and misty, and the light here was almost blinding. beyu
But she managed to look up to see the creature return through the box. sory
And then it closed. ouwi
And remained closed. lldie
* * *
<You are all traitors.>
The words sang in their minds with the mournful dirge of hanged men at dusk, with the rattle of bones sleeping unquietly in their graves, with the horrifying finality of judgment and sentence.
Lethke tried to speak. So did G'Kael and Taan Churok.
The Vorlon heard none of them.
G'Kar said nothing. Not then.
youwillobeyusoryouwilldie
* * *
There was light, and it filled his mind.
There was purity, and it illuminated his soul.
There was stillness, and it sounded in his ears.
There was justice, and it rang true to his immortal being.
While elsewhere the first deaths were beginning, their harbinger stood alone and silent, looking up across the depths of space with eyes that had seen things no human should ever see, holding his cane precisely with hands that had touched things no human should ever touch, with a mind that remembered doing things no human should ever do.
He was no longer human.
He was, as everyone else was now, a servant of a higher power.
It was beginning, but the one he waited for was not here yet. He would be here soon. He had been marked, tainted with the memory of his thoughts.
"Primarch Sinoval," Sebastian said softly and calmly, with just a hint of anticipation. "Do hurry. I am waiting for you."
iwillobeyyou
* * *
As Delenn walked through the winding paths of the garden, she did not stop even once to look at the plants around her. She had to blink against the extreme brightness of the lights, and an uncomfortable itch was developing on the back of her neck.
A stone turned under her foot and she stumbled. Her knee gave way and she crashed to the ground. Reaching out instinctively to save herself, her hand caught a small bush and sharp thorns raked at her skin. She hit the ground with a jarring thud. For one painful, awkward, embarrassed moment she lay still, then she managed to haul herself back to her feet.
Normally she would have been very conscious of the loss of dignity, but there was no one around to notice. In fact she had seen hardly anyone during her walk. Fortunately there had been one hurrying Brakiri merchant who had remembered seeing John heading for the garden.
Wincing from the pain in her leg, she looked at her hand. There was a ragged tear in the skin and three perfect, pristine drops of blood decorated her palm. Angrily, she wiped them on the hem of her skirt and carried on her way, slower and more laboured than before.
She found John sitting on a bench in the centre of the maze that the garden had become. The plants cast faintly sinister shadows on the path in front of her and she had hesitated to step on them, but fortunately the clearing where John sat was open and bright.
She said his name, once, softly. He did not react, and she said it again, moving forward slowly. Again he did nothing, and so she spoke again, even louder.
He turned and looked at her. She took a step back, imagining for a second that she had travelled backwards in time during her hellish trek through the garden. He looked as he had looked when she first met him, wounded and battered by countless years of war, friendless and alone and trapped.
His eyes were hollow and black, haunted and tormented. There was a brief rush of air, and she was aware of flickering shadows behind and in front and all around her. She and John seemed to be the only creatures alive in a galaxy filled with ghosts.
"John," she said again. "John."
"Yes," he said, his voice flat. It was calm and emotionless and….
…. dead.
He sounded dead.
She shivered against another cruel gust.
"What is it?" she breathed. "John, I tried to look for you but no one knew…. Lethke has gathered the Ambassadors. There is to be a meeting of the Council soon. Kats has received word from the Grey Council. John…. I need to talk to you."
"I don't feel like talking." He lowered his head. It lolled, weightless and formless between his shoulders.
"John?" She stepped forward, slowly and gingerly. Her knee moaned in protest. She reached out to touch him, but he jerked back at the brush of her hand, as if she had burned him.
"I need to be alone," he breathed, without moving his head.
"I need you," she whispered. "John, it's all falling apart and I can't hold it together alone. We need you."
"I need to be alone," he said again.
"John?" She had been wrong earlier. He was not as he had been when she had first known him. He was darker, more hollow, more empty. She had only seen him like this once before, when he had shot and killed Anna. He had been drunk then, and delirious and grieving.
Now he was quiet, and sober, and dead.
"John," she said again. "What is it? What is wrong?" An urgency greater than any she had ever known gripped her, a sense of terror she had never felt before, never thought she could feel.
"You don't want to know," he whispered. "Delenn, leave me alone."
Breathing out harshly, she took another step back. She said his name again, almost like a prayer, and then she turned, eyes filled with sparkling tears as she tried to run, to flee from this singular clearing of light.
Her knee gave way and she went down again. This time she did not reach out to save herself and simply fell, her body shaking, her dress torn and ripped. Her hands dashed against hard rocks, and she felt the pain of her wounds re — opening. Struggling to her knees, hardly able to see, blinking away tears, she looked at her hands.
They were covered in blood.
Shaking, trembling, afraid of what was out there almost as much as what was in here, she tried to turn round. Raising her head and blinking through the light, she looked at him. "John," she said again.
He looked at her again, raising his head. Once it had been weightless, now it seemed so heavy that very motion was an act of herculean strength. His eyes were empty, almost colourless.
"You knew," he whispered.
"What? John, I don't…." The pain seemed almost too much to bear. It was absurd. She was only scratched. She had been tortured, seared by electricity. She had been beaten and corrupted by the alien — ness in her own body. She had fled from Shadows beneath Z'ha'dum with her lungs burning. She had even been killed.
But none of those things had ever hurt more than these few simple scratches and bruises.
"You knew. When you went to Z'ha'dum. You chose to go. You weren't captured or abducted. You chose to go. You were pregnant."
"John," she whispered, her heart lurching. An echo thudded in her ears.
"When you were there," he continued, his every word a flat, calm hammer beating at her, "you were given the chance to return to Kazomi Seven, or anywhere else. You could have left. You could have fled. You chose to remain. You were pregnant."
"John." She tried to form more words, but could not give them voice. They simply did not exist in her mind. The technomages had warned her that she would have to make a choice. Vejar had expressed concern about the wisdom of her answer. Lorien had told her that she faced a happy life in a galaxy with a terrible future or a sorrow — filled existence in the knowledge of a brighter world ahead. How else could she choose?
"You went into danger knowing what you were doing. You were willing to die. You were pregnant."
"John." She hardly heard herself that time. The echoes of the heartbeat were too loud, the rush of the wind too chill.
"You killed my son."
Some words, once said, can never be unsaid, never be forgotten, never be undone.
She shook. "John," she said again, although she was not sure to whom she was speaking. She did not know the man before her. The man she knew was dead and had been dead for a very long time.
She wished she had chosen differently. She wished she had turned down the Vorlons' bargain. She wished she had let him die there and then with the memory of his greatness and his love still alive. Anything rather than let him become this dead, hollow figure in front of her. The one who could not even give voice to his anger as he accused her of doing something so abominable she could not even comprehend it.
There were no words. There was nothing he could do or say that would heal the wound in her heart — or worsen it.
She was wrong.
He rose to his feet, ignoring her sobbing, her shaking, her wounds, her ragged dress and her bloody hands. He walked towards the fluttering, writhing shadows at the edge of the clearing. He stopped and turned back to look at her. She met his gaze, and through her tears and her shaking and the light and the shadows and the wind she saw one thing clearly.
There was nothing inside him.
"I was going to ask you to marry me."
Then he was gone, vanished from her sight, just another ghost returned to the world of the dead. She was alone, the last living being surrounded by the dead and their memories and their pain and their echoes.
And their hearts beating.
* * *
We granted you salvation from the Shadow. We granted you peace from the war. We granted you security beneath the shield of our light. We granted you an end to fear, an end to pain, an end to misery, an end to uncertainty.
We have protected you from evils in the galaxy that you cannot even imagine.
But most of all, we have protected you from yourselves.
We are your saviours and your salvation. We are your Gods, your angels, and your dreams made flesh.
You are weak and imperfect. We understand this. It is your curse, the curse of individuality, the curse of fear, the curse of hope. We understand this. We do not hate you. Not even those of you who defy us. We hate none of you.
You are weak, and imperfect. We are strong, and we are perfect.
All we wish to do is to help you.
* * *
you
* * *
The garden was dark now, and still. The ever — moving plants cast shadows across her face and her soul. She could see them taunting her, mocking her.
There were no words. In any language ever spoken or thought or imagined, there were no words to describe what she felt.
"You killed my son."
The air spoke those words back to her. They echoed around her, each time in a different tone of voice. Anger and hatred and joy and release and cackling humour and sheer revulsion. None was worse than the first time.
Flat, calm, dispassionate. Not a whisper, not a question, not an accusation. A simple, straightforward statement of fact.
"I was going to ask you to marry me."
Everything laughed at her, all the faces from her past and her present.
She was alone.
Alone with the thirteen words that had destroyed her. Killed her more simply and more swiftly than any weapon ever could.
Alone.
One….
heart….
beat….
after….
another.
One….
word….
after….
another….
* * *
will
* * *
<You are all traitors.>
The Vorlon's encounter suit was white, bone — white, a sickly, nauseous pallor. G'Kar looked at it and felt its shadow fall over him.
