A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 5 : Among the Stars, like Giants. Part 3 : On the Edges of Percepti

will destroy it.'

'You have doomed us all, Da'Kal.'

She looked at him, the light globe held before her like a talisman.

'No, you have killed us all, G'Kar. You speak of peace and unity when what we need is war and revenge. We will never be safe while the Centauri live. We will destroy them, and if the Alliance try to enslave us we will destroy them as well.

'If you had been stronger, G'Kar, you would have seen this for yourself.'

'If you had been wiser, you would have seen for yourself how wrong that is.'

She cried out, a wordless scream of anger and frustration and betrayal. She hurled the light globe towards him and it shattered against the side of his face. Blood filled his vision and he slumped back, now staring only at darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

Only the sound of the door opening and closing told him that she had left.

* * *

The battle was still; a silent, frozen image. On one side, the raiders of the Brotherhood Without Banners and their Tuchanq allies. On the other, the Dark Stars of the United Alliance.

And in the middle, the Emissary of Death. Cathedral.

For a long time there was silence. Moreil, watching from the observation point of his ship, could not say a word, simply staring at the unmoving vessel. His Wykhheran could not speak or move, impulses they did not understand filling their minds. Mi'Ra's body cooled on the floor.

Then a sound reached all their ears, Alliance and raider and Tuchanq and Centauri alike. It reached the planet and it reached space.

It was music, a song.

To Moreil it was hideously ugly, and he winced, raising his hands to cover his ears, slumping to the ground in pain.

To the telepaths trapped within the Dark Stars it was a thousand different songs — nursery rhymes, concert arias, hymns — it was something different to each one of them. Each one heard a tiny part of their life and the first piece of their past touched them.

Lord-General Marrago did not hear it. Not so much as a single note.

The Tuchanq heard it, all those on the ships and all those on the world below, and they fell to the ground in joy. Some of them cried, some shouted out their gladness to the heavens, most joined in.

The Song of the Land was being sung again.

And then, once the song was finished, the voice spoke to them again, the voice of Death that came from Cathedral.

This ends now. If anything thinks I am joking, just try it.

And it did end.

But in a sense, it began as well.

* * *

There was light and darkness and a mirror shattering, and a voice and a million questions he could not answer. There was hatred and love and a great and terrible anger, and there were mirrors, hundreds of mirrors, all showing him different things.

All showing him what he had been, or could have been, or still might be.

His eyes opened and General John J. Sheridan sat up in his hospital bed.

* * *

There is disturbing news, Light Cardinal.

Reveal it.... Yes, this is now known.

We must send the Inquisitors. The world must be purified.

No. The darkness runs deep and long. Three races already have felt the touch of the Inquisitors and still more turn to the Darkness. A greater lesson is needed, one that will fill all their eyes with light and leave no shadows in their minds; no doubt or questioning, only fear and obedience.

We await your command, Light Cardinal.

Awake the Death of Worlds.