'A few months. I have.... been busy.'
'Ah. A few months?' He began to chuckle. 'I was sure it was longer. A hundred years or more. I thought you must have died in the meantime and become a part of this.... soulscape in which we are all bound. The other souls do not come to visit me. I fear they do not like the place I have made my home.' He bent down, and raised his hand just as another wave of flame arose. He caught it and examined it lovingly, as another man might a flower, or a bird.
'I cannot see why,' Marrain continued. 'I personally enjoy it here.'
'Fire is a painful and traumatic death,' Sinoval observed.
'Yes. It certainly is that.... until a moment before the end. Then you realise that nothing truly matters.'
'The more painful the death, the less.... stable the soul is when collected. I am told you were.... less than sane even before you died.'
'Insults? Here, in my own home?' Marrain shook his head, smiling. 'I should be very unhappy, but.... what does it matter? You speak the truth. I suppose I was insane, made so through envy, and hatred, and.... love. Hah, now there is a thing to make anyone insane.'
'I would guess so. I have never been in love myself.'
'No? You are very lucky, or very unlucky. I am not sure which.'
'Was it worth it? The moment of love you felt? Was it truly worth the cost of everything that resulted from it?'
'No.... but then she did not return my love. If she had, then.... perhaps. I do not know. What is your point?'
'As I was saying, you were taken in great pain and considerable madness. Thus it is possible you are fixated on the moment of your death. That has happened before with souls brought back to the world of flesh over and over again. They became obsessed with death and the manner of bringing it about.'
'Yes.' Marrain paused, deep in thought. Trickles of flame licked at his feet, but he seemed not to notice. 'That does seem to make sense. Few.... think about death while they live. At least not properly. I was a warrior, thus I lived with it more than others, but not even I understood it.... No one can, who has not died.
'Hmm.'
Something suddenly occurred to him and he turned, rounding on Sinoval, his eyes in a black fury. Fire rose up around him, a great wave cascading over his form. He paid it no heed, no more attention than Sinoval did to the rising surge lapping at his feet.
'Souls brought back to life?' Marrain cried. 'That is possible?'
'Forbidden,' Sinoval admitted. 'But possible, yes.'
'Why? Why did I not know of this before? By all the Gods of my fane, to live again.... to breathe, to raise a hand to the sky, to.... drink and eat and....
'To kill.'
'And is that what you would do if you were brought back to life? You would kill?'
'I.... I was a warrior. It is what I did. What I still would do.'
'No. Warriors fight. They do not kill, not unless it is necessary. I learned that lesson recently.... although it was not easy.'
'Yes, you have changed. I can see it in you. You are one of them now.'
'Tell me, Marrain.... would you like to live again?'
'You said it was forbidden.'
'It is, but there is small risk in doing so only once. I will not give you immortality. I will not grant you life eternal, or a multitude of lives to squander. One lifetime. One more chance to live.... and breathe and rectify the mistakes you made in your last.
'For all of history mortal beings have wanted nothing so much as a second chance. I am offering you one, if you are willing to take it.'
'I....' Marrain paused, and the flames died down, sinking deep into the ground. He looked at Sinoval, and his eyes betrayed the hope of one who has long since believed all hope lost.
'What must I do?'
Sinoval told him.
The history of the Centauri Republic is a long one, filled with moments of glory, moments of honour, of courage and of extraordinary sacrifice. There were also moments of horror, of tragedy, of incompetence and of needless death.
The Centauri are a proud and arrogant people, and they have over the centuries indulged in more than just a little re–writing and re–shaping of history. People who to one generation were heroes became villains to the next, and monsters of utter evil have become canonised with the passing of the days. The late and unlamented Prince Cartagia knew this all too well, and already even now there are whispers that things might have been so much better had he triumphed in his fateful duel with the current Emperor Londo Mollari.
Londo wondered idly how future generations would see him. Hero or villain? Saviour or destroyer? That would of course depend on whether there were any future generations at all.
Still, as he looked at his companion and friend, he pondered the workings of history.
There had been two Emperors from House Marrago in the history of the Centauri Republic, just as there were now two Emperors from House Mollari. And, in all probability like House Mollari, there would never be another Emperor from House Marrago. Not that the line would not continue, for it surely would, but as part of the oath of that House.
The first Emperor Marrago had raised arms against his Emperor, storming the Royal Palace, murdering the entire Imperial family and instituting a twelve–year reign of terror. That was how the history books had always portrayed that time. To some, to those who knew better, Emperor Marrago had deposed and executed a bloody tyrant who would surely have destroyed the Republic through madness and incompetence, and he had taken the throne only at the insistence of the entire Centarum.
Regardless of which version one believed in, the first Emperor Marrago was succeeded by his son, a weak man, incompetent according to some, grief–stricken and ill according to others. He had reigned four years before his assassination.
Since then, House Marrago had taken a sworn oath. It was their House promise, the words immortalised under their insignia.
And yet Londo surely owed his ascension to his old friend. Had Marrago made him Emperor?
'Majesty?' said Marrago. 'Majesty, are you.... well?'
'Yes,' Londo replied. 'I am.... fine. Why would I not be?'
'Because you have not heard a single word I have said for the past ten minutes. I swear, Londo, I think I would rather be with the Narns than here. At least they listen to what I have to say.'
Londo chuckled. No one else dared to speak to the Centauri Emperor like that - apart from his beloved First Consort of course - but Marrago did so by imperial decree and by dint of a life–long friendship. The courtiers would be scandalised of course, but they were not here. This was after all a private and confidential meeting between the Emperor and his Lord–General. Not even the other Ministers were here, although Timov would doubtless be eavesdropping somewhere.
Apart from the two of them, the only other person present was Lennier, Londo's taciturn and near–silent Minbari bodyguard. He frightened the courtiers almost as much as the Lady Timov did, and as a result they tended to ignore all the multiple breaches of etiquette he unknowingly committed.
'You are right,' Londo said with an exaggerated sigh. 'Alas, I am an old man, and I have been without sleep a great deal recently. Affairs of state, you realise.'
'Well, I am an even older man,' Marrago said, 'and....'
'Older by four days,' Londo interrupted.
'I am an even older man, and if I have to stay awake, then so must you. Are you willing to listen, Majesty, or must I get Timov to fill you with some ghastly medicine?'
'Great Maker, no! Ah, you are an evil man. So, anyway.... what were you saying?'
'As I was saying.... it seems as if the Narns have a new commander. G'Sten has by all accounts resigned
