by dreams.
It had been easy to push her out of his mind, but now she was here before him, vulnerable and wounded, and he had not been expecting her.
The Well tried to cry out a warning to him, but the voice was distant and he did not react as quickly as he should have done. He tried to move forward, but Sebastian was ready for him. The cane swung in a smooth, graceful semi–circle and smashed into the side of his head. He fell, reeling, stunned by the electricity crackling from the length of the cane.
'I am authorised, and indeed requested,' Sebastian said, 'to use whatever force I deem necessary in the pursuit of my duty.'
He struck Sinoval again.
For Senator Dexter Smith, sleep was not something to be welcomed. Not now. It was not that he suffered from insomnia, in fact that would have been preferable. It was that when he slept he dreamed of the grave, of worms eating his flesh, of cold damp soil filling his mouth and his eyes, of skin cracking and rotting and becoming dust.
He had to will himself to wake, and then there was nothing to do but stare up at the ceiling, careful not to wake Talia. She was sleeping well, and he supposed he should envy her that, but he could not. He doubted he could envy anyone anything.
He could hardly bring himself to touch her. Her skin was cold and clammy, her hair smelled of mist in a graveyard, her heartbeat was the slow, dying thud of a drum whose drummer is losing strength.
Sometimes she felt warm, and at those times he let her stay with him and sleep beside him. They did nothing else. He could hardly bring himself to touch her, or anyone else. He could not bring himself to kiss her. It was only the gentle touch of her mind that made her presence bearable.
It was not that he had stopped feeling for her. He doubted he would ever do that, but he could see no point in anything. He could see only death in everything and everyone. Even in her.
Little things provoked strange memories within him. He thought about kissing her, and he remembered the first girl he had ever kissed, only now she was not full of life, with a shy glint in her eyes and shaking almost as hard as himself. Now she was a hollow skeleton, her lips blue with cold and skin that broke at his touch, revealing emptiness beneath.
Every other memory he had was the same. Everyone he remembered was dead, a skeleton, a revenant.
Was that what death was like, he wondered frequently, the slow and gradual corruption of all the good memories, until all that remained were the bad, and there was no reason to carry on?
Fortunately he had a reason. Those creatures, the things from elsewhere, had to be stopped. He had to stop them, because he had seen one, and without the training and discipline of the telepaths who had shared the experience, he had seen and experienced more. It had been driven back, back into the Apocalypse Box from which it had emerged, but it was still there, and he could feel it every time he looked at a living - or dying - being.
That was his goal, but there were things he had to do first.
'You're crazy,' Talia said to him one day when he told her of his plan. They had spoken such words before, about one insane plan after another. The breaking into the hospital to rescue Delenn was yet another memory that had turned to ashes, for they had got there to find Delenn already dead and yet they had brought her out anyway, but this time the words were spoken without jest. No joking. No banter.
He supposed he was. No one could look upon that thing and remain sane. No one could look unprotected upon the infinity that was another universe and not see things differently.
He was a human being, and he was still alive. That was what he told himself when he doubted, as he did so very often.
'I have to do this,' he had replied simply.
'At least take me with you.'
'No.'
'We should leave soon,' said the Vindrizi. Dexter did not like to look at him. The body was human, but the force animating it was something entirely different. The human body was fallible and weak, and he could see the flaws running through it, tiny fault lines far beneath the surface. But that did not matter to the Vindrizi itself, a being with an existence of hundreds of millennia. It could wait and live on. It didn't matter to Dexter either. It didn't matter how long any lifespan was - all things died, and one day the Vindrizi would die too. And it would cease to exist with an even greater fear than that experienced by humans.
'I must do this,' he had said again.
Neither of them understood. Or perhaps they had understood and he had not noticed. Regardless, he was convinced it was right that he do this. He was human, not a machine, not a walking corpse. He was human, and he would repay his debts.
That was why he found himself looking up at the impressively tall Edgars Building, home of Interplanetary Expeditions, looking at the cracks in the plexiglass and plasteel. That was why he found himself waiting outside the office of its secretive controller and conspirator, Mr. William Edgars.
He had wondered if an old man would be more obviously dying than the younger people he had seen. To his slight surprise, that was not the case. Everything was dying equally.
Death begins with life, after all.
And so the ships came through, bringing war to the place built to symbolise peace.
The Drazi, a race punished and sanctioned and enslaved.
The Tak'cha, a race of exiles, without home, without understanding, without atonement.
The Brotherhood Without Banners, raiders and outlaws and murderers and monsters.
The Soul Hunters.
The Vorlons were waiting for them, of course.
The Vorlon's voice was seductive and soft, the voice of a kindly uncle comforting a young child who does not understand the way the world works. It was the voice of wisdom, of the understanding of a teacher or a friend.
General John Sheridan did not need a lesson in how the world worked. He was not a young child, and he did not need wisdom.
What he needed, what he understood he needed, beneath the raging anger and the howling emptiness, behind the legion of ghosts staring at him with blank, unforgiving eyes....
What he needed was answers.
<You know anger,> the Vorlon continued. <Anger can make you strong, for a time. You know grief. Grief can make you strong, for a time. You know pain. Pain can make you strong, for a time.
<Everything you give birth to is ephemeral. Everything you experience or create is fleeting. You are short– lived creatures, and thus you have short–lived concerns.
<Can you truly say that your grief and your anger and your pain benefit you? They are merely ephemeral, and when the fleeting strength they grant you passes, what remains?
<We are eternal, and we have become eternal by putting aside ephemeral things. We have ceased to look at the present, or the future, for we know they are one and the same. Thus we feel no fear, we feel no anger, we feel no grief, we feel no pain.
<We want you to understand these things.
<You are special. You are unique. We say these things to you, because we know that you will understand. You have been deceived by those you thought you loved, and that deceit has left behind anger and grief and
