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.'
Chapter 4
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
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.
The conversation had taken mere seconds, and Moreil was convinced no one could sense him communicating with the Wykhheran. He was wrong.
'Some sort of telepathy?' Marrago asked, not shifting his stance at all.
'What do you mean, once-Warmaster?'
'How you command them? Telepathy?'
'Not as you would understand it,' Moreil replied. 'This one is bonded to the Wykhheran, a chain created when they emerged in shadows at Thrakandar. Words ride faster than thought between this one and the Warriors.'
'They obey your every command?'
'All serve the Dark Masters. While this one's commands are in Their service, the Warriors know to obey. Were this one to grow conceited and arrogant and power-hungry, they would turn on him.'
'Your Dark Masters have gone. They aren't coming back.'
Moreil hissed. 'Lies,' he said. 'They have not abandoned this place. They will return.'
'No, they won't. They lost the war, and they know it. That's why they left. None of us needed them any longer.'
'Lies!'
'All you are doing is deluding yourself. You are carrying on their mistakes, their errors. You are making their true enemies stronger by pursuing a false creed. That is why you are here, isn't it? You don't want riches or power or revenge. You want to carry on their law. Chaos personified, that's it, isn't it? You want to serve them even though they are gone.'
'This one follows the creed of the Dark Masters. This one remembers.'
'Face facts. You failed them while they were here. You won't bring them back by over-compensating now.'
How could he have known? How could he have known of Moreil's failures? How could the once-Warmaster have known that if Moreil had only performed a little better, the Dark Masters would still be here?
The Centauri dropped into a defensive stance, moving precisely and effortlessly.
