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

And now she was dead. Gone. Never to return.

He had seen some wonderful things, some terrifying things in his life. He had seen Z'ha'dum, Vorlon fleets, the terrifying presence of the Drakh, even Cathedral, a legend filled with beings who could save the dead.

And yet there had been no one to save Mary when she had died of a tumour. Something that mundane and banal. In a life where he had been threatened by Minbari, Drakh, Shadows, countless alien races, even his own people, to have the woman he loved die of something so.... normal.

He put the ring down. He could hardly believe it.

That was when the scream hit him. Light filled his mind and he fell, her scream echoing from every wall, from every sense. He could feel her pain, and he could feel her die.

'Carolyn,' he whispered, as he slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

This was unusual, unprecedented. Unique even.

The Well of Souls certainly thought so.

Sinoval had been standing on the pinnacle of Cathedral, looking out at the galaxy, thinking deep thoughts and formulating his plans. He was working out how much time he had to prepare, where to go to first. The war was over now. It would take time for the Vorlons to secure their control over the galaxy. He had time to be ready to resist them.

That was when he sensed the warning from the Well of Souls. It was not in words, more a feeling, but that did not matter. He could sense it.

Intruder.

Somehow, someone had got into the Well of Souls itself. No one entered there without the permission of the Well, without paying the price demanded, or without the permission of the Primarch himself. No Soul Hunter would dare go there unless summoned, and who else was there? Cathedral was in a dead system, hidden, walking on the edges of perception.

The Vorlons? Were they launching an attack this early? That would mean they had managed to find him so quickly, which he did not believe. The Shadows? Was that whole meeting with Forell some sort of gambit, a deception to set the seeds for revenge?

Or was this something else entirely?

Sinoval moved forward and stepped off the pinnacle. Nothingness welcomed him as he fell. He shaped it to his will, much as the whole of Cathedral was so bound. He was now the master of Cathedral, the voice of the Well of Souls, as the previous Primarch had been before him.

Space shimmered around him, hyperspace moved, and he could see the sparkling lights of the million spirits that made up the Well of Souls, an entity constructed of the last remnants of the first race of the galaxy, of those they collected. A memorial to pride and sin and mistakes.

And also, howling just beyond the horizon, were the monsters of the other world. Beings cast out and banished from this reality, kept in their own dimension, just waiting for an opportunity to break through.

A problem for another day, if ever.

The vast chamber appeared around him as Sinoval alighted gracefully. He could see the sparkling lights of the soul globes, feel the souls within them. Not trapped, not prisoners. They were free, more so than anyone he knew.

'Are you there?' he asked, knowing full well the answer. He was still not experienced enough to have fully adjusted to the other ways of speaking.

We are always here, came their voice, a multitude of voices and languages and thoughts in one.

'There is someone here. An intruder.' There was little point in looking manually. The Well was infinite, or practically so. It was shaped by the wills and desires of those that had given it form so long ago. Much easier to find this intruder by asking the Well itself. 'Where?'

Always here. She came by invitation, by ancient right.

'What right?' Sinoval asked. There was a great deal about the Well he did not know. Although theoretically the entire Well was open to him, he could immerse himself in it until every star in the galaxy died and he would still not know everything.

The First sent her here. To talk, Primarch. To talk with you.

'That would be my cue, I think.'

From nowhere, or perhaps from everywhere, a human woman appeared. She was tall, with long brown hair. Sinoval supposed she would be considered pretty by humans, except for the scars adorning the side of her face and the hideous damage to one eye. She was dressed in a simple human uniform of grey and black, and seemed unarmed.

Of course, appearances were often deceptive.

'And you are?'

'A messenger. Or an ally. Maybe a friend, that I don't know yet. God knows I've no reason to like you.... but the past is over, hmm? I've got a message for you.'

'I am listening.'

'You're doing this the wrong way.'

'Doing what, exactly?'

'This. All of this. Let me see if I get this right. You want to bring down the Vorlons, yes. You want to defeat them, cast them down, sow their ground with salt, blow their planets apart from space. You want to destroy them.'

'I want to destroy them, yes. This is not their galaxy any longer. What they are doing is wrong.'

'Right, dead on in fact. But why is it wrong? Because it's only half of what's there. They lie and they deceive and now they think they've won, but they haven't. They'll destroy everything they're trying to save and not realise what they're doing. Their balance is gone now, gone for good, and it won't be coming back. Everything's skewed.

'That's where you come in.

'You're going to build an army, right? You've got the Soul Hunters, you've got this insanely cool flying castle here, you've got a hidden planet somewhere full of Vindrizi. You're going to put together an army and challenge the Vorlons.

'It won't work.'

'Why not?'

'You can't beat them with weapons. All you can do that way is kill them, and that won't work. You'll just replace them with something worse. Maybe even yourself.'

'I have no wish to rule. Not any longer.'

'You say that now. Hell, people can change. I certainly have. You have to change your thinking as well. This isn't a war you can win with weapons. Oh, they'll be a part of it, but they aren't it. You need the truth. The Vorlons aren't necessary any longer. All of us, all the younger races.... we can make it to the stars on our own. We don't need them.

'Of course, that would sound a lot better if I'd worked it out for myself instead of being told it by someone even older than the Vorlons, but what are you going to do, hmm?'

'I'm going to listen to you, it appears. So what do I do next?'

'Gather allies. Narn, Centauri, Drazi, Minbari.... even us. Tell them the truth. Tell them we can do this by ourselves. Once enough of us know, and believe, then there won't be a thing the Vorlons can do about it. Not one single thing.'

'Believe it or not, that was exactly my plan. I may not be as military–minded as you or the First seem to think.'

She shrugged. 'Ah, well. There you go. Looks like I was a little redundant after all.'

'I wouldn't say that. All alliances have to begin somewhere after all.' Sinoval extended his hand. A human gesture, but one whose meaning he understood, and even respected after a fashion. 'You know who I am.'

'Oh, yes.' She took it. 'I'm Susan Ivanova. Nice to meet you.'

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