Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 5 : Средь звезд, подобно гигантам.
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"Then we will be dead."
"Do you hear me, Vorlons? I am Da'Kal of Narn and I do not fear you! Send whatever force you like, and we 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.
Gareth D. Williams
Part 4
Hopes, Aspirations and Dreams.
All things have a price, all actions have a consequence, but no one suspected this. Across an entire world, eyes look up at the heavens to see a black shadow fall across the sun, and a voice speaks to an entire race. "Behold the price of disobedience. Behold the price of dealing with the Shadow." And then the screaming begins.
Chapter 1
Sinoval had been gone from our sight and our hearing for almost two years by that time, and had become little more than a fable or a legend. To some he was a great rebel hero, attacking an unjust and oppressive r?gime — a Robin Hood, a Sivalar'Miko, a Vizhtan.
To others he was a monster. A corrupt and terrifying opponent of everything the Alliance had tried to build. A follower of the old Gods of war, who would plunge the galaxy into fire and ruin with little thought or care for those he would destroy.
But it is doubtful if anyone really knew him. They all knew only a facet, an aspect of the whole. Kats knew the compassionate friend, Marrain the historian and tale-giver, Marrago the inspired leader, Delenn the ancient and honourable warrior, Sheridan the cold and merciless enemy.
Perhaps Susan Ivanova knew him best of all, perhaps not.?
But for those two years he was lost to us, moving on the Rim, discovering old secrets, discovering Golgotha and the ruins of the Enaid Accord, gathering allies to his side(q. v., chapter 13) . Secret documents that have only recently come to light hint that the Alliance was aware of some of his activities, and that there was indeed an encounter between General Sheridan and Sinoval at Golgotha, over ten years before the end of the war.
As the Brotherhood Without Banners attacked Centauri Prime, Sinoval reappeared in force. Cathedral seemed to shake the heavens themselves as he ended the battle by sheer force of will. Military historians almost all agree that the Brotherhood would in any case have been annihilated by the Alliance fleet, but had it not been for Kulomani's quick thinking and strategically planned positioning of hisDark Star patrols — and of course his readiness to ignore orders where necessary — that fleet would never have arrived.
And so that is the irony. Sinoval prevented the massacre of those whom many believe deserved nothing less. He did it with his usual overwhelming presence, and in the process he bound many to his side who would otherwise have been his enemies.
Some say that act sowed the seeds of his downfall, and indeed the wisdom of his decision has been debated many times.
But whatever view is taken on that question, the fact remains that his reappearance at Centauri Prime was the first sign that the slow years of uneasy peace were ending, and bloody war was about to return.
The second sign was the shadow that fell over Narn.
? KRASNYANSKI, A. (2291) T here's Always a Boom Tomorrow; see also
chapter 13 of this volume.
GILLESPIE, E. (2295) The First Sign of the Apocalypse. Chapter 7 of The Rise and
Fall of the United Alliance, the End of the Second Age and the Beginning of
the Third, vol. 4, The Dreaming Years. Ed: S. Barringer, G. Boshears,
A. E. Clements, D. G. Goldingay & M. G. Kerr.
"Where is G'Sten? Are there weapons hidden in the village? Is there money? Food? Where is the holy person?
"Where is G'Sten? Are there weapons hidden in the village? Is there money? Food? Where is the holy person?
"Where is G'Sten?
"Are there weapons hidden in the village?
"Is there money?
"Food?
"Where is the holy person?"
Every day there were the same questions. Every day, at precisely one minute before noon, the Centauri Captain gathered the entire population of the village into the square and picked one person at random. The same questions were asked, the same tortures inflicted whatever the answer. None of them knew where G'Sten was. There were no weapons, no money, no food. The holy person had died of a fever.