more than he did. I kept promising myself that I would talk to him later, that I would allow him a time of peace for now and return him to power later, but.... I would not have the galaxy deprived of your potential as it was deprived of his.'
'Your husband must have been a great man.'
She smiled slightly. 'Yes. Yes, he was.'
'I'll think about it. Is that all right?'
Her smile grew wider. 'That is all I can ask.'
'I have been.... thinking a lot.... I think you have blinded me, Da'Kal.
'You took my eye from me in a gesture of anger and fury, and yet....
'I think I see far better now than ever before.
'Thank you for that, Da'Kal.'
Da'Kal shifted in the corner of the room. 'Are you talking to me?' she asked. 'Or yourself?'
G'Kar strained his head to look up. Everything was blurred and shifting, a melting sculpture of ice and colour. 'I do not know,' he whispered. 'Perhaps both. Is that truly you, or merely another image from my past?'
'Our satellites have seen something approaching,' she said flatly. 'Our hyperspace beacons have been destroyed, but the last images they sent.... It is massive, a shadow across the stars. There is a fleet, but it is accompanying something far bigger.'
'They come.... as I said they would.'
'Our off-world communications have been disabled. On-world, power is starting to fail. People are growing scared. They run outside, looking up at the sky, looking for the Centauri.
'I promised myself that my people would never have to be afraid of the skies ever again. You have made me a liar, G'Kar.'
'You have.... brought this upon yourself, Da'Kal. Upon all the innocents who will die. The Inquisitors cannot be reasoned with, or bargained with, or bribed.'
'G'Kar, listen to me! I know about the Inquisitors. I have seen them moving on Centauri Prime, and the Drazi worlds and elsewhere. These are not the Inquisitors.'
G'Kar looked at her, straining his vision. At first she was merely an outline, but then she grew clearer, more distinct, more.... alive.
'Help me, Da'Kal.'
'G'Kar, you....'
'I am Narn! This is my home. These are my people. I hate what we have become, what you have made us, but I will not stand by and let us fall. Help me up, Da'Kal.'
'Then you will fight them?'
'I will....' He hesitated, remembering a younger man, a man who had screamed defiance at the heavens, a man who had sworn that he would walk where he wished and live as he desired.
'I will do what must be done.'
She smiled. 'Now there is the man I loved. Take my hand.'
He did. Her skin was very warm to his touch.
'You are the lost. You are the abandoned. You are the angry and the resentful. You think this creation owes you more than you have been granted.
'You do not know what you want, but you do know that whatever it is you want, it is not what you have now.
'You call yourself the Brotherhood Without Banners. You are a force of chaos, a union bound by self-interest and self-protection.
'The fact is, you want banners. You need banners. You need a lord to serve and you walk the path you have chosen because you do not have a worthy lord. For some of you that lord would be a real person, for others an ideal. Some of you found a lord only to lose it, slipping like dust between your fingers, a memory into the wind.
'You know who I am. You know what they call me. I shake the foundations of Heaven with my footsteps. There will be a war, a great and terrible war for the destiny of the galaxy and all who live in it. So far, you have all been unwitting pawns in this game.
'I offer you the chance of something more.
'I offer you a lord. I offer you purpose. I offer you the chance to serve me.
'I offer you a war.
'You are killers and raiders and rapists and torturers. You will find no sanctuary anywhere but amongst your own kind. The forces of Order will seek you out and destroy you, for you are everything they hate.
'Understand me. You will die if you try to fight alone. You may die if you try to fight beside me, but you will die fighting for a real cause, beneath a banner you can respect.
'I will speak with each of you in turn. Any who wish to reject me may do so. You will be permitted to leave. I will not stop you, but as I said before....
'The Alliance will find you, and they will destroy you. They will weigh you down with chains of order and they will claim all that you are. They will destroy all that you are, leaving nothing but bones and ashes and the occasional nightmare of what you once had.
'The choice is yours. You believe in freedom. You worship freedom.
'Enjoy that choice, for it is the last taste of freedom any of you will ever have.'
'Who am I?'
No one seemed to recognise him, and he supposed he should not be surprised. He was not General John Sheridan, Shadowkiller, today. He was just a man, taking a holiday.
Or a sort of holiday.
'Who am I?' he asked himself again. It was a question that had been bothering him for a long time. Sinoval had simply managed to bring it into focus. Sinoval had forced him to confront it.
Sinoval. Now there was another problem that would have to be dealt with sooner rather than later. He could not be allowed to go running around the galaxy doing whatever he wanted. Sheridan had not heard much of what had happened at Centauri Prime, but what he had heard worried him. If....
No. Galaxy-shattering problems later. Personal problems today.
He leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the armrest. The seat was not terribly comfortable, but then he was not expecting anything better. He supposed he might be able to sleep on the journey. He was actually looking forward to sleep without dreams.
Although he would miss Delenn's warm breath on his shoulder. Until he had slept alone in the Medlab he hadn't realised how much he missed the little things about being with her. They had been apart more often than together during their eventful relationship, but since the end of the war they had spent almost every night together. It was uncomfortable, being without her.
It was painful, being without her.
They had not made love in almost six months. They had hardly kissed properly — not as lovers, not even as people in love. Something dark and cold had come between them.
Was it just the war? Too many bad memories and bad dreams? A child dead, a world destroyed, friends scattered and broken, one compromise too many in the name of a greater good?
Or something else?
The Vorlons had used him, controlled and manipulated and propelled him in the direction they wanted. He might not have minded. They were order, after all, and the galaxy needed order. The Alliance was a noble aim and the Vorlons provided enough power and backing to hold it together until it was strong enough to manage on its own.
But if what Sinoval had said was true, they had manipulated him to leave Delenn to die on Z'ha'dum. If they had done that — and he was growing more and more sceptical of what Sinoval had told him — but if it was true, then no force on Heaven or Earth would keep them safe from his wrath.
It was ironic. He would go to war against a race of Gods, not for the freedom and sanctity of the galaxy, but to avenge a wrong against the woman he loved.
