Gareth Williams - A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 5 - Among the Stars, like Giants. Part 1 - Learning How to Live

"Was that meant to be a threat?"

"Of course not. I do not make threats, Senator Smith."

"Well, I do. Keep them out of three-o-one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a poker game to get back to." He rose and made for the door.

"Of course. Good fortune, by the way, although I doubt you will need it. You strike me as a particularly fine card player. Oh, have you heard from Miss Winters recently?"

Dexter stopped and turned.

Edgars simply raised an eyebrow. "Mere curiosity, I assure you. Have a safe trip home."

Dexter left. It was only after he had gone and the feeling returned, that he realised that when he had been with Edgars he had not been able to feel the thing's mind crawling around within his. He returned to his apartment with a splitting headache.

I wish sometimes I could have known G'Kar as a young man. I have spoken to those who saw him then, who heard him speak, and I see the eyes of old men light up at the memory. They told me of a man who could have talked the rocks down from the mountains, who could have charmed fire from the earth and voice from the land itself.

I never heard him speak. Wait, let me correct myself. I spoke to him often during my apprenticeship by his side. I have read all of his speeches. But cold words are pale imitations of the passion and fury he must have had. I have tried to imagine the old man I knew as the young and fiery orator I have heard described to me. Sometimes, when I caught his glance in the dancing shadows of the firelight, I thought I saw something there, but only for an instant and then it was gone.

He had lost so much by that time. We all had, but he seemed to take it all personally. He spoke the names of people I had never met: Neroon, Michael Garibaldi, Alfred Bester, John Sheridan. He spoke of the Great Machine, of Babylon Four and of the technomages, and I almost wept at the thought of all those wonders lost forever from the galaxy.

During the course of the Wars of Light and Darkness, G'Kar changed, irrevocably and permanently. The turning point was probably the Battle of the Third Line, where he lost forever the Godlike power that had been at his fingertips, and saw his dreams for the future vanish a millennium into the past.

But that was only one event. There were countless others. The loss of his eye, the betrayal that was the Night of Blood, the Last Night of Shadow that both of us were fortunate to escape when so many others did not.

Still, there were brief moments of respite as well, tiny pinpoints of light in the darkness. One such occasion he recounted to me. It occurred at the Brakiri Day of the Dead....

L'Neer of Narn, Learning at the Prophet's Feet.

"You have changed greatly, Ha'Cormar'ah."

"Have I really? So much?"

"Your eyes. They do not burn as they once did. Your breath is tired. Your gestures are slow and heavy. Yes, Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar, you have changed."

"I did not think it was so clear. Yes, I have changed. I am tired and weary. I have fought enough, and when I think it is over, there is still more."

"The war is over then?"

"The war we fought is over, yes. But I fear there is a greater war on the horizon, just beyond our perception. You once said that I see more than others do, that I look at the world with different eyes, that I remove all the blinkers others have raised about themselves."

"I remember."

"I wish I did not. I wish I were blind like everyone else."

"Truthfully?"

"No. Not truthfully. But sometimes, yes. No one listens any more. No one has been listening for a very long time."

"Then make them listen."

"I try. I speak and they listen, but when I turn my eyes away they carry on as before. Is that all I am to them? Is that all I will ever be? A stern teacher who is followed only when I am there, and ignored when I am not?"

"You were never that to me."

"Then why do they not understand? They are blinded by old hatreds. I thought.... I convinced them to end the war. The fleets went to help the Centauri. They actually fought and died to defend Centauri Prime. Who could have believed such a thing was possible?

"But now? Now they continue as before. They plot and they plan and they think I do not notice. We have assimilated too many things from the Centauri, but their 'Great Game' was the worst of them. The worst by far.

"We will destroy them in the end, or we will destroy ourselves, and why? Because they cannot see beyond the past! They cannot look to the future.

"No one listens."

"What do you expect me to say? I am dead, remember. I understood only at the very end. I betrayed you and everything you stood for. Before that I betrayed my people and my lord. And after that, I betrayed my new masters. Three betrayals, and only after the third did I truly understand.

"That did not help anyone else of course, but it helped me."

"Is that it? Will they only understand when they are dead?"

"I do not know. I truly do not."

"There must be more. There must be something."

"Why did you come here? I do not believe for an instant that you were simply passing through."

"Ah.... no. I had heard the rumours. I was afraid, and sceptical, but if there was the slightest chance...."

"Was I the one you wanted to talk to?"

"Truthfully?"

"Of course. You cannot hurt my feelings. I am dead, after all."

"I do not know. I do not know who I wanted to talk to. My father. My mother. Any one of a hundred friends from my days in the resistance, or the Kha'Ri, or the Rangers. There are so very many of them."

"That is it, isn't it? You came to feed your guilt. You live when so many others are dead, and you came here to remind yourself of them all. You came here to feel guilty and to flagellate yourself. I know you too well."

"...."

"Well, if you will not talk, then I will. This is not an opportunity I will have again for a very long time, and by then I doubt that anyone will care. How is she?"

"Well."

"Is she happy?"

"I believe so."

"Does she love him?"

"Yes. There is no doubt."

"Ah. I am.... glad she is happy. Do they.... have children?"

"No."

"Ah. A pity. She would make a fine mother."

"In a sense, she is mother to all of us."

"In a sense, you are father to all of us. You brought the Rangers together. You gave us purpose. You cannot understand that, but that does not make it false. Believe it or not as you will, Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar. Ta'Lon, what of him?"

"He is the same. He speaks little, and does much."

"Tell him it falls to him to look after you now."

"He already knows."

"I do not doubt that."

"The sun is rising."

"I know."

"Do you.... do you have a message for Delenn?"

"No. Please do not tell her that you met me. If she is happy with him, then so much the better for her. That is enough for me."

"I am glad I could speak with you again."

"As am I. I am honoured. Did my words provide any comfort? Ah, probably not. I was never good with words."

"You are better than you think."

"You do not see yourself as the inspiration you are. That is your greatest weakness, G'Kar. Look past that and see yourself as we do. There, my last piece of advice. Goodbye."