is a feeling in both camps that an end is near at hand, but what sort of end? And will it be possible for that ending to prove that war would have been better?
All things are possible.
It was strange, thought Lyndisty of House Marrago, how swiftly she moved between forms, sometimes even with a speed that surprised herself, rarely she even surprised her father.
She supposed that was a testament to the skill of his training. She also supposed it was a good thing. She could be almost anything she wanted: a happy, frivolous, giddy noblewoman, a true child of the Court, concerned only with balls and shopping and intrigue and the endless chatter of romance.
But then, with a split second's motion, she could become cool and professional and dangerous. She could analyse politics and tactics and history almost instantly. To the few who even imagined her second persona, most notably of course her father, it was assumed that her public face was merely an act, an elaborate charade.
They were wrong. Even her father was wrong, although that was not a thought she cared to admit. She was both people, both personalities, inhabiting the same body. She did not know where one form began and another ended. She did not even know which one was the true her.
These feelings had been growing within her for a while, but her encounter with the outlaws some months ago had accelerated their growth. Her petty, giddy 'Court' mind told her to ignore them. These people were undesirables, they did not matter. If they wanted to work, then surely they could find work. How difficult could it be? No, they were just lazy, turning to banditry no doubt because of their innate criminal tendencies. Besides, they were only peasants.
But then another part of her realised that was simply not true. What they had said to her, the anger and the frustration in their voices.... She did not know.
Still, she was trying to forget. Sometimes knowledge and understanding were terrible burdens, and she tried to assuage them by burying herself in ignorance and idleness for a while. Her father had come to Court for a meeting of the Emperor's Council, and he had promised to take her shopping afterwards. There would be little to buy, of course. This beastly war had cut off most of the trade routes, but there might still be some bargains. She would need a new dress for the ball in a few weeks.
Ignorance would be welcome, but she knew she would not be able to accept that. She would ask her father what had happened in the meeting, and she would analyse what he told her. He would probably want to take her to weapons training afterwards as well.
She looked up uncomfortably, noticing that the guard was looking at her awkwardly. She flashed him her most brainless smile and he looked away sharply. She wondered if he had been admiring her.... or simply checking she was all right. It was becoming harder to remain in one personality for long now. Perhaps she had been doing something a proper lady was not meant to do, like sitting tensed, ready for an attack.
She sighed in what she hoped was a suitably melodramatic fashion and turned away from the guard. She was waiting in the reception room outside the Council Chamber, and there was nothing here. She could have spent the few hours of the meeting with some young ladies of her own age, acquaintances with whom she had shared many pointless hours of idle gossip, but she could not face that now. She was half–afraid she would let her mask slip.
She started as a figure suddenly appeared in the corner, and instinctively slid her wrist dagger into her hand. Then she blinked, and recognised him.
'That will not be necessary,' said the Minbari.
He intrigued her, but he also scared her enormously. The Emperor's Minbari companion - his exact status was largely unknown - had attracted a great deal of attention among the Court. He rarely said anything, did anything or talked to anyone. He merely waited and watched, dealing with the occasional potential assassin that was part and parcel of Court life with brutal efficiency. Her friends had once persuaded her to ask her father about him, but all the Lord–General had said was his name, 'Lennier'.
The shadows seemed to part around him as he stepped forward. She flicked a quick glance at the guard, who was resolutely looking away. Evidently Lennier troubled him as much as he did her.
'I would have thought you would have been with the Council, good sir,' she said hesitantly. She had never been this close to him before. She had never even heard him speak before.
'I was,' he said. His voice was strange. He was speaking Centauri flawlessly, but with a harsh accent, as though something grated in his throat. Every so often there came an unusual pause in the middle of a word, and a visible wince. 'I left. I have a message for you.'
'From my father?' she said. She did not know who else would want to give her a message. Perhaps the meeting was going on for longer than he had expected.
'No. There is.... something that speaks to me. It tries to command me, but I do not let it. Sometimes, though.... it says things that are useful. It has a warning for you. Someone is coming who will try to kill you.'
'What?' she said. The word came out a little garbled - half an anguished 'What? Who would want to kill me, you must have the wrong person' fluttering of eyelashes, and half a 'How are they going to do that? Do you know when? How did you know this?' clinical acceptance of the warning and a request for more information.
'But why?' she settled on, after a pause. 'Why would anyone want to...?'
'To get to your father. To provoke him to make a mistake. I have warned you, lady. Take whatever precautions you think necessary, but do not tell anyone of this, especially not your father.'
'But why? And what about...?' She looked at the guard. There was a flicker of a smile on Lennier's face.
'He has not heard us. He has not even seen me.' Then he turned, moved back to the corner, and all of a sudden was simply not there.
Lyndisty trembled a little, and checked her weapons. All of them. The two daggers hidden up each sleeve, one in each slipper, a garroting wire fixed into an innocuous necklace and a poison capsule in a ring. They were all there, most of them newly insisted upon by her father after the incident with the outlaws.
She should be safe from most assailants, but somehow.... she did not feel comforted by that. In fact, quite the reverse.
Ten minutes later the meeting ended and her father came out, his face dark. He still offered to take her shopping, but she found herself not in the mood, not at all.
Blood.... blood was life. A circle. Life began in blood, and ended in it. Always it had been a symbol for change, for beginnings and endings....
For power.
Blood.... blood and fire.
The shadows danced in the flickering light cast by the few flames that were burning. A small fire at the moment, but one that would rise up again, greater and greater, rising to an inferno that would sweep the world, and then the Republic, and then the galaxy.
Once that fire had raged almost unchecked. Selini alone of the homeworld had escaped its power. The Dark Masters had seeded tools on the homeworld, instruments that had caused madness, insanity, massacres. They did this simply by showing the truth. First they had overseen the deaths of all those who could see - the prophetesses, the Imperial Seers, the telepaths and oracles. All fell, by one means or another. Then the madness had begun.
But it had ended. First a gradual ebb, a natural thing, then through the enforcement of the new law, the new order. Finally the seeds had been destroyed. The ancient enemies of the Dark Masters had sent an agent here, and he had seen that all the seeds were destroyed.
Centauri Prime could not be re–seeded. There was not enough time. The Dark Masters needed a new place in which to hide, a place they could hope to use for their salvation when they lost their homeworld, as they now surely would. But if they could not even salvage that, then Centauri Prime would have another purpose, a deeper and darker purpose.
It would be a part of their legacy, a warning, a planet of ash and spent flames.
Oh, yes.... and of blood.
It dripped slowly on to the flower. The thing within the flower stirred, its form raised to monstrous proportions through the dancing lights and shadows. Each successive drop reflected its shape, clearer with each one, more precise, larger.
Lord Kiro felt no pain, not now. The blood he fed it was his and his alone. Soon it would awake.
