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

"Introductions must be made, yes?" Moreil replied. "This one is Moreil, former Takita'talan of the Z'shailyl war fleet, fourth in standing to the Warmaster himself."

"I know who you are," Marrago said. "You know who I am."

"Indeed I do. You are once Warmaster of the Centauri, once noble of the Centauri, once right hand of the Emperor of the Centauri. Now you are here, outcast, abandoned, lost."

"I have already told you why I am here."

"That is not what was questioned. This one knows of you, once-Warmaster. This one knows you bargained with the Drakh, with the Dark Masters, sought their boon in your war. This one knows much of your bargainings."

"That is no secret. Why do you think I was exiled? Why do you think both the Alliance and my Emperor are hunting me?"

"Lesson there is that was learned from the Dark Masters. There is never what is on the surface alone. Always something is there hidden, below the skies. No mere exile, you. No. Perhaps you are agent. Perhaps you seek something other than you have said.

"After all, why exile you, then place bounty on you for return?

"There is much hidden within you, once-Warmaster."

Marrago took a slow step back, his hand reaching for the hilt of his kutari. Moreil's two monstrous guardians shimmered into view.

"And this one will discover your secrets.

"Or you will die."

He walks through darkened corridors and tunnels and caverns without care, without heed, without danger. He walks as if in a trance, guided by footsteps and echoes not his own. Ghosts walk beside him, ghosts of a race long gone, long dead, now ashes in the wind, mere whispers on the tides of space.

He leaves behind those sent to guard him, and this he neither notices, nor cares. He is drawn in some way he cannot explain, pulled by some force he does not seek to understand. With eyes not his and a understanding altogether alien, he sees beings as old and immeasurable as any he knows.

They are dying before his eyes, raising glowing faces to the heavens, awaiting a mercy that will never be given, a sign that will never come, peace that will never reign.

This place is a monument to war, and on some level he understands that. This place is a graveyard, a floating cemetery to a long-dead people.

He does not see what is killing them. He knows somehow that he should, but all he can see are masks and smoke and mirrors and angels with bright and bloody swords raised, glorying in their power and their bloodlust and the terror of their opponents, and the light that shines on them from heaven.

Names and faces flash before him and he does not care. He sees a beautiful woman caught between two worlds, looking at him with bright green eyes, and he presses on. He sees a father, a mother, a friend, a lover, a sister, a daughter, and a son.

Seeing the last he stops, briefly, slowly, and pauses — and then he stumbles on, not knowing or caring what draws him, knowing only that he must keep moving.

He walks into the depths of the earth and the ghosts grow louder and louder and more and more plentiful. There are so many of them. So many dead. He should grieve, he knows. He should cry out and weep and collapse to his knees in anguish at the misery around him, but he does not.

All he does is walk forward.

And after several lifetimes he emerges into a dark, shadow-haunted chamber. It stretches far above his head, a vast cathedral of rock and misery and torment. He moves forward, approaching the far wall, and with each step an alien voice cries out an alien name and an alien message, whether of hope or curse or misery he does not know.

He merely continues to walk forward, until the shadows fall over him and embrace him, almost as friend, almost as lover, almost as saviour.

"Sheridan."

The voice is old, and the first one he has been able to understand. He stops, and turns. It is ancient, that voice, and filled with wisdom and anger and power and a terrifying familiarity.

He knows that voice, and as it speaks to him, memory returns. Understanding returns.

Anger returns.

"Sheridan," the voice says again, the terrifyingly familiar voice says again.

"Always a pleasure."

Sinoval had changed.

The most obvious sign of this change was the clothes he wore. No longer was he garbed in the black-and-silver tunic of a Minbari warrior, with clan and rank emblazoned on his shoulder. Now he wore robes of bright red and gold. They looked almost ecclesiastical.

The robes had a hood, but now it was pulled back, revealing his face. His eyes were the same as ever, dark as midnight, filled with power and arrogance and confidence, but now there was a sense of age within them, a great and terrible understanding, and memories more than one lifespan could contain.

Above his eyes, embedded in his forehead, was a jewel. It was not held there by a circlet or any other sort of jewellery. It was just there, as much a part of him as if he had been born with it. A dull light shone from it, and deep within it colours swirled. Looking into that jewel was like looking into a mirror within which a distorted reflection could be seen, a reflection that showed death and decay and a truth that mortals feared to contemplate.

His bearing had changed as well, although more subtly. Before he had walked with arrogance, the walk of a man convinced he was the master of all he surveyed. Now his bearing was that of a man who knew he was master of all he surveyed. The difference was subtle, but clear to anyone who knew him.

His terrible fighting pike Stormbringer hung at his side. It was not something anyone wished to dwell upon. That blade, it was said, had once in a single day broken apart the armour of a Vorlon and taken the innocent blood of a Minbari. In Sinoval's hands it looked alive, a malevolent creature that laughed and rejoiced as crimson blood flowed around it. Now it merely seemed to be asleep. No, not asleep — dormant, awaiting always a chance to waken and spread havoc.

Sinoval stood there, in the place where he had appeared from nowhere, from the thick eddies of hyperspace, from the darkest memories of man, moving from the edges of perception. The shadows danced around him like servant creatures or pets fawning for the attention of their master, but he ignored them, his powerful dark eyes focussed on another. He stood alone in a dead place lost in the swirling tides of hyperspace, surrounded only by ghosts and memories of ghosts.

Sheridan felt his strange malaise and trance shake itself away and he looked at Sinoval with new eyes, noting the changes his adversary had gone through. Sinoval now seemed more dangerous than ever.

He waited for Sinoval to speak, and when he did the words were hollow and harsh and filled with power.

"Sheridan," he said, sampling the name with the skill a general uses to survey the forthcoming battlefield.

"Always a pleasure."

The Centauri was not moving. He hardly even seemed to breathe. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, and his eyes remained fixed on Moreil. Not on the two Wykhheran that had just appeared behind him, but on Moreil himself.

The Z'shailyl was impressed. That was a mark of courage, conviction and a certainty as to where the real threat lay. He directed the Wykhheran, mastering their mere animal desires to stalk and kill. If one of them was felled then he would be as before, but without him they would lose all intelligence and direction, lapsing into barbarian fury.

Do we kill, lord?

Not yet, Warrior. But be ready.

This one.... is strange to us. Is he a Master?

No, Warrior.

He stands as a Master. He looks as a Sin-tahri, but he acts as a Master. What is he?