A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 4. A Future, Born in Pain

faster than he'd planned, but not because he was smarter, or better, or more astute, or more popular. He shot up because most of the people above him were dead. Anyone can rise that way. What kind of intelligence does that require?

You'd made it easy for him, and that cheapened him in some way. Also, it sort of undervalued his position. When he finally did get to power, it was by poisoning Crane, by the way. Oh yes, I knew all about that. When he did get to be President, what was the point? He couldn't fix anything, because it would take him his whole lifetime just to clean up the mess you'd left him. Oh, he enjoyed doing what he could.... you should have seen him blackmail the Narns.... but that wasn't the way he'd dreamed of it happening. He wasn't the leader of a powerful young race, ready to take its place in the galaxy. He was the last leader of a pathetic people, clinging on to survival by their fingernails, with half of them ready to let go and drop into the abyss.

He blamed you for all of that, and after a while he blamed us as well.

Until the Vorlons came along. That, I didn't know. I knew he was acting strangely, but by that time I wasn't thinking straight. Just like all those years ago, when I first saw Vicky, my life had been turned upside down — although just like with Vicky, I wasn't to realise it for some time, almost too long.

That was meeting you, of course.

* * *

Corwin knew he should have moved forward, should have done something, but he didn't. There was nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing even to think.

Delenn.

He had not seen her much since she had been found in Sector 301, at the place where she had died and been reborn, a place that had become a shrine to her, in a way he found both disturbing and strangely comforting. It was ironic, perhaps, but Sector 301 seemed to be coming out of the chaos better than anywhere else on Proxima. Perhaps the Shrine of the Blessed Delenn had something to do with that, but Corwin put it down to human industry and endeavour.

Then.... he didn't want to think about that now. He wanted to think about his friend.

The General put down the bottle and sighed. 'I was so sure,' he whispered. 'I was so goddamned sure. I mean, I'm a soldier. It seems I've been a soldier forever. A soldier lives off his instincts.... you know that. I've acted on instinct thousands of times, and never been wrong before.

'But there.... I was just so sure.' He shook his head. 'How could I have been so wrong?'

Corwin had a theory of his own, but he did not want to put it into words. He was having enough difficulty coming to terms with recent revelations concerning the Vorlons without having to voice them to another, least of all someone in a condition as.... fraught as the General's.

'It doesn't matter now,' Corwin said finally. 'Delenn's here. She's alive. She's safe. You're.... you're together. It doesn't matter any more.'

The General chuckled, the mirthless laugh of someone who knows the joke everyone else is laughing at isn't funny. 'Doesn't matter? Oh.... yes it does. It matters a lot. If I hadn't left her there....

'She was pregnant. My baby. Our baby.

'They killed him. The people here killed our baby.'

'What?' Corwin breathed out and almost choked. He'd never heard.... he hadn't known.... Good Lord! Surely people couldn't have done that to her.... to an unborn child. 'How.... Why? Why, for God's sake?'

'Some.... political game, I think. I don't know. Probably just because they could. They did it badly, too, really messed her up. Hell, they damn near killed her, even before that mess in three-o-one. She's not going to be able to have any more children.'

'Oh, God....' There really was nothing to say.

'She's tried to tell me otherwise, but we both know the truth.... It's my fault. I should never have left her there....'

'No, it's not your fault.'

'Yes, it damned well is, and you know it!' Corwin shrank back, momentarily surprised by the sheer anger in the General's voice. The light surged up around him, blazing and flashing, tendrils of lightning shooting from his eyes. 'Of course it's my fault!

'It's my fault for daring to think I could do something other than fight a war! For deluding myself there was anything else I could do other than kill people! It's so easy to take lives, isn't it? So damned easy, especially when you rationalise it to yourself. I'm a soldier. This is war. It doesn't matter who they are.

'Delenn's seen that. She's done that, and she managed to break free. So why the hell can't I? Face it, I'm not a soldier, I'm a murderer, and I just murdered my unborn son!'

'It's not your fault,' Corwin said again, desperately trying to get through. Where was this coming from? John had seemed.... better recently. Changed. The discovery that Delenn was alive....

'No? If not mine, then whose? The people who did it? I don't know who they are. Besides, they were only following orders. You can't blame anyone for just following orders, no more than you can blame yourself or your crew for doing what I tell you to.

'Welles? He was just doing what he thought was right, and he's on some damned life support machinery now. Clark? He's dead. My father? My own father?

'I'm telling you, if I can't blame myself there's only one other person I can blame, and I'd much rather blame myself than her.'

'What?'

'Forget it.' He sighed, and buried his head in his hands. 'I don't want to. God.... I know it wasn't her fault, but.... could she have done something? Anything? God.... I don't want to blame her.... but somewhere.... somewhere right at the back of my mind....

'I do.'

He lifted his head, and his eyes were filled with a dark madness, a truly terrible sight.

'God help me, David.... what kind of person am I?'

* * *

Breath came more slowly now. His throat hurt. He could not remember the last time he had spoken so much, the last time he had said so many things he had not wanted to say.

'There's.... there's an old saying,' he said, struggling to keep his eyes open. He should not have stayed awake this long. He should have let the drugs and the painkillers slide him into unconsciousness, but he could not do that. He had to finish, and if not now, then he never would.

'It comes from one of our philosophers. It goes....' He breathed in, and sharp bursts of pain triggered across his shattered ribs. Ignoring the pain was becoming harder and harder.

'It goes.... 'If you gaze into the abyss.... the abyss....

'the abyss gazes back....

'at you.'

'That was me. I gazed into the abyss for years.... and it changed me. Then I saw you....

'just as I'd seen....

'Vicky

'for the first time

'I looked at you....

'and you looked back at me.

'And you changed me.

'It just took me.... so

'long.

'So long to see it.

'Delenn.

'I'm sorry!'

She reached out, and he felt her cool, soft hand touch his. 'There is nothing to say,' she whispered. 'You have already said it all, if not with your words, then by your deeds and with your eyes. I will accept your forgiveness.... and I pray you can accept mine.'

There was a harsh moment of laughter. 'Yes,' he said. 'Of course.'

'I wish I had known your Vicky.'