A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 5 : Among the Stars, like Giants. Part 5 : The Three–Edged Sword

No wonder Sinoval acted as if he were a God. Standing here, he practically was.

The battle was going better than she had cause to expect, but that was still not particularly good. The Vorlons were too many, and too powerful. Not to mention the defences of the station itself. The fleet was disorganised, fighting in small units rather than one cohesive whole.

Still, she had to admit that those small units were fighting well, especially the Drazi. They were completely heedless of any sort of tactics or fear and were impossibly relentless. She had seen at least two damaged Sunhawks deliberately throw themselves into a Vorlon ship.

The Tak'cha were swarming their enemy, using very impressive hit–and–run tactics. Guerrilla warfare, almost. Someone had been training them.

The Brotherhood were chaotic and random, but that very randomness allowed them some leeway. Marrago had identified key targets, and the Brotherhood were taking them out. Most of the defence grid had already been shut down.

And the Soul Hunters and Cathedral.... they were fighting as one unit, directed by one guiding mind.

Susan would be the first to admit she was no tactician, but when her army had two expert generals and the combined knowledge of millennia guiding it, she did not have to be.

But even she could see that they would be lost if things carried on like this. They had managed to force a small breach in the station and she hoped a boarding party had made it on board, but she could not be entirely sure.

She wished she could see inside.

And with that thought, she could. The station seemed to rush towards her, and she almost jumped out of the way for fear of a collision, but the walls passed around her and suddenly she was inside.

'Well, this is.... interesting,' she breathed.

Navigating the scene was far from easy, but she managed to move herself around. There was a boarding party, led by.... surprise, surprise, Marrain himself. He and the Tak'cha were fighting a group of Security officers, and doing well.

Now where the hell were the people they had to get out? Susan ran through the list. Delenn, Sheridan, G'Kar, Kulomani, Na'Toth, David, and she really hoped he was all right. It was just like him to get caught in a mess like this.

Where were they?

All of a sudden she could feel Sheridan's presence. Casting around, she tracked him down.

There was a room filled with light. Sheridan was looking at a Vorlon clad in pasty bone–white armour, mottled and spotted. The Vorlon seemed to be looking directly at her, but it evidently did not notice her. It was speaking to Sheridan.

<What do you say, Shadowkiller?>

'What do I say? I say....

'Cut the crap.'

Susan took in the scene, and paused.

Then she knew what she had to do, and shouted out one word as loudly as she could.

'Lorien!'

* * *

You will obey us

* * *

I am a warrior. I am Minbari. I am of the Wind Swords.

We are cold, the cold of stone, the cold of winter. A hard people and a harsh land.

Sebastian struck him again, the power thundering through his body, pain crackling along his nerves.

We were feared because we knew no fear. We would use the bodies of our brothers as weapons if we had to, and know that they would use our bodies as weapons should we fall.

The stories he had told Susan, the stories of Marrain and the Wind Swords, surged within him. There were other stories as well, all living in one. Tales of Shingen, of Parlain.

They called our armies the coming of the cold, and they feared us, because we feared nothing.

Sebastian struck him again.

No loss, no grief, no sorrow, no pain could deflect us from our task.

And again.

The coming of the cold.

Sebastian brought his cane back for another blow.

I am Sinoval.

He pushed forward and caught the cane as it came forward. The sparkling blue lightning crackled along its length and burned into the skin of his palm. He could smell his flesh singe and burn, but he kept up the iron grip.

Sebastian displayed no emotion, assuming he ever did.

It was a pity, Sinoval thought. Sebastian would have made a fine Wind Sword.

Then he remembered Kats lying still, and that lent him new resolve. He fought back, hauling himself up, straining, his feet digging into the floor. Still grasping firmly to the glowing shaft of Sebastian's cane he let himself weaken just a little, just a small step back. Then, as Sebastian fell, he pushed harder, releasing the cane.

Sebastian crashed hard against the far wall, the impact obviously jarring him. Sinoval grabbed Stormbringer from where it had fallen. The hilt was cold against the charred flesh of his hands, but that did not trouble him.

He was the cold.

The coming of the cold.

Sebastian moved forward, more swiftly than Sinoval had anticipated. The human's face was expressionless, but his dark eyes revealed his anger.

'There is nothing,' Sebastian said simply, 'that can save either you or your fleet. You do understand that?'

'I do not fear,' Sinoval rasped. 'I am a warrior of the Wind Swords. Mine is the cold, the stone, the throne of rock studded with spikes as a reminder that the life of a warrior is pain. Mine is the huge hall of the chill air.'

'Shirohida,' Sebastian said, carefully. 'A thousand years dead and gone, nothing but a burned–out wreck even before your world died.'

'No,' came the reply. 'It lives.... here, within me.'

'Interesting. So what are you then? Minbari, or Soul Hunter? Warleader, or Primarch?'

'I cannot be both?'

'For as a mortal man hath but one soul, so hath he but one purpose, and that purpose is to serve. And no man may serve more than one master. You are divided, and division is a flaw. I see we had little need to pursue you. Left to your own devices you would have collapsed in pieces. You are no conciliator, no unifier, no melder of broken peoples. You are trying to be too many things. Where is the real Sinoval?'

Sinoval did not reply. With each moment his breath grew easier, his muscles harder, his body stronger. With each moment the pain was less. Let him talk.

'Buried beneath so many words, like a cheap doll covered in countless layers of paint. One person saw the real Sinoval, did she not, and where is your precious Deeron now? She fled from your bed, and died at your hand. There is no one alive who knows you, who can see anything but illusion upon disguise. No one....'

Sebastian stopped, and a sly smile of triumph spread across his face.

'I do apologise,' he said. 'It appears I was mistaken.'

Behind him Kats began to stir, then she rose to her feet.

* * *

You will obey us

* * *

'Senator Smith, always a pleasure. I had almost thought you had gone into hibernation, hmm?'

That was a joke. He did not find it funny. Hibernation was a long sleep, and sleep was just a death from which you awoke. Or was it the other way around - that death was a sleep from which you never awoke?