power of the Well of Souls. He was their voice, their will, their personification made flesh. Some things will no longer be forbidden. Some secrets will no longer be hidden.
<We will find you. You cannot hide from us forever.>
We do not intend to. And you are welcome to try to find us. We will return when we are ready.
<We have won. The galaxy is ours now. Order is everywhere. Within a century, there will be no memory that anything else ever existed.>
You have not won yet, not while there is opposition to you, not while it yet grows and prospers. With every day that passes, another will take up arms against you, and then another.
<We will destroy them all. All who defy us will die.>
Then in the end you will rule a galaxy only of the dead, and the dead are ours.
<No, for we will destroy you as well.>
We are eternal. We are what lives on beyond the prison of flesh. We are what endures. We are everything you are trying to take from them, and we will not permit that.
<You are forbidden to interfere. Have you not already done enough here, in this plane?>
Some things will no longer be forbidden. We have remained silent and hidden for too long. We chose to emerge now, when our prophet arose. You could not destroy him, the Lords of Chaos could not shape him. He belongs to us, now and for eternity. He would always have been ours. Even had you succeeded, he would have been reborn in a thousand centuries and he would be ours once more.
<The future will be as we shape it. We are everything. We are order. We are stability.>
You are nothing. You will destroy what you set out to preserve. The Lords of Chaos saw this. Why do you not see it?
<We are the salvation. We are the glory and the light.>
We leave this place to you. Think on what you have found here, then and now. We will gather the Others in another place.
<They will not follow you.>
They will not follow you. Think of this place, Lords of the Cold and the Ice and the Death of Spirit. Think on this place, and remember why you are doomed to defeat.
The folds of time and space opened. The Vorlons, who could see this as well as anyone, could only howl in fury as Sinoval faded from the place of the dead. Bound by this prison of useless flesh, they could not follow, not in this form, and to bring themselves forth fully would destroy it.
For one instant they thought of doing precisely that, of tearing apart this sack of flesh and bones and manifesting completely, of opening a gateway and allowing their true forms to follow through to the Well of Souls.
But then reason prevailed. Cold and crisp. Precise and methodical. They needed this bag of bones. They needed it alive. It was, for the time being, useful. Far too useful to change and twist as the Well had evidently twisted their agent.
Besides, they were the masters of the galaxy. They owned the future. They could see its eddies, its whirls and twists and surprises. They would confront the Well of Souls again one day.
They had time, all the time in the galaxy.
When Sheridan awoke, they were all gone. Sinoval, the Vorlons, all of them. He awoke alone in an ancient place of death.
Alone, save for the ghosts.
* * * Whispers from the Day of the Dead — VIII It was over. The Day of the Dead had come and gone, and there seemed to be a vast.... emptiness over Brakir. People who had been waiting for years for this day now did not know what to do with their lives. They railed at lost chances, broken dreams.
One such walked slowly through the deadened streets. Last night Marrago had looked closely at all the people here, and he looked even more closely now, this morning. Some were happy, joyous, but most were depressed, weary, tired even. Kulomani had by no means been unusual.
But he had at least had a chance Marrago had not. There had been no Lyndisty to talk to, to tell one last time how much he loved her, how proud he was of her.
'A fascinating night,' came a slow, mildly interested voice. Marrago turned and saw a familiar figure standing in the shadows of an alley. He had not been there before, Marrago knew he would have noticed, but then there was no surprise there. 'I can still see the flickers of light and shadow. Old ghosts. They walk by moonlight and comet light. To some they speak, to others they are dumb.'
'I can't say I'm surprised to find you here,' Marrago replied. 'This is the sort of place where you would fit in perfectly.'
'Professional curiosity only, I assure you. There is no one dead that I wish to talk to.'
'So, did you find out how it worked? Just how the spirits came back to us? Were they even real, or just some sort of illusion?'
'Oh, there were a few unusual effects I spotted, but I haven't worked out how everything happened. Leaving aside the problem of not having the time, I don't want to spoil the magic. Let the universe keep a few precious mysteries.
'And as for the reality.... did it feel real?'
'Yes.... yes, it did.'
'Then it was. Did you find who you were looking for?'
'No, but perhaps I found the person I needed to see. How is that.... private project of yours going, then? The one you won't tell me about.'
'It is proceeding nicely. I have found a little.... base of operations for it. Something of a rallying point, you could say. What about you? Is my army ready?'
'Not in this amount of time. I have a small nucleus, a couple of very promising under-officers. I've been making deals here and there. There's a Thrakallan crime lord who owes me a favour now.'
'Any solid plans for the future, then?'
'I've been hearing, just here and there, that a group is forming. A couple of former captains, mercenaries, outlaws, that sort of thing. They always emerge after a war, and the bigger the war the more of them there are. They're going to cause a bit of havoc and chaos for a while, and then the Alliance is going to stamp on them and put them out of business.'
'I assume you have other intentions.'
'Exactly. With a bit of work I reckon I could take them over in a few months. There aren't many people with my standards of leadership and combat experience floating around. I'll join up, size up their strengths and weaknesses, forge them into some sort of order, and before they know it I'll be their leader.'
'You think it will work?'
'I've seen groups like that before. Mercenaries just want to be paid for fighting, and in this sort of galactic peace there's no use for them. I can find a use for them. As for the others.... I will see when I get there. Some may be amenable. Some will have to be dealt with.'
'Very well. I trust you. Just gather and train my army. That's all I ask.'
'That's enough of a task for most people, but I'll do my best. I might have made a new ally today, actually. Do you know Captain Kulomani? Brakiri. Dark Star captain. It turns out he's not very happy with the way some of the Alliance policy is going. I gave him a few things to think about. When things start falling apart among the Alliance — and they will — he might be willing to join up with us.'
'I leave it to your discretion.'
'I told you. I'll get you as much of an army as I can. Just remember your part of the bargain. I
