Гэрет Уильямс - Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 5 : Средь звезд, подобно гигантам

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?

"Mr. Edgars," he said. "Good morning."

The old man looked at him. The dying old man looked at him. Smith thought he had built up some resistance to this sort of thing by now, but he had not. The sight of the grinning skull beneath Edgars' permanently machiavellian expression unnerved him.

Edgars tapped the commpanel on his desk, deep in thought. "Miss Hampton," he said.

"Yes, sir."

"I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Zento later this morning."

"Yes, sir. In two hours."

"Inform him that something has come up unexpectedly and I will be unavailable. In fact, I will be unavailable all day."

"Yes, sir."

Edgars sat back, fingers steepled in front of his face, masking his expression. Smith liked that. Skeletal fingers were preferable by far to the sight of that grinning skull.

"You've changed," Edgars said. "I've seen that expression in people before, some young men, some very old. I was a little younger than you when I first saw it on myself in a mirror."

Smith said nothing, content to let him talk.

"You've seen something, or done, or felt, or experienced something. Whatever it is, it's completely changed your entire world — view, hasn't it? When we are young, we have such clear ideals, such a precise understanding of the world and our place in it, and then occasionally something happens to shatter all that. Where once there was certainty, now there is only doubt.

"I saw it in myself when I first spoke to a telepath. I had seen them before of course, and I had always known of their existence, but it was the first time I had spoken to one…. I could sense her superiority beneath the surface. Despite the uniform and the badge and the gloves, she still behaved as if she was better than us."

He sat forward.

"And do you know what? She was right. They are better than us. They have a power that I cannot comprehend. Oh, I can imagine it, but I can never know for certain. That revelation, that I was a second — class citizen because of something missing in my mind, in my DNA…. well, that changed me. I saw everything differently from that moment.

"You've seen something as well, haven't you? What is it? I assume that's what you came here to tell me?"

Smith nodded and walked forward, one hand still in the pocket of his trousers. He pulled the PPG out and laid it on the desk. Edgars leaned back again, looking up at him.

"I've seen Death," he said simply.

You will obey us

The whole thing took no more than a second:

Ah, child. You have called for me. How are things progressing?

Badly. You did know you were sending me to a death — or — glory bloodhound with delusions of Godhood, didn't you?

I knew he was flawed, yes. Were he perfect there would be little need of your intervention. How is his training progressing?

It's weird. Sometimes I think I've got somewhere, but then he goes and does something totally alien, or stupid, or incomprehensible, or all three, like now for instance. He's gone off alone and dumped all this on me.

Perhaps he sees you as his successor.

Once, I can accept. Last time, it wasn't really as if he had a choice — but he's the leader here, not me!

Ah, a battle. I see.

Anyway, I can moan about him later, if there is a later. You said I could call on you once, and you'd help me, right? Whatever it was.

I did, although my power to intervene is perhaps not as overwhelming as you may think.

Whatever. I don't know quite how this seeing thing works, but I can see John. He's talking with one of the Vorlons.

Yes, so he is.

I…. you can see it?

Through your eyes, yes.

Oh…. good. I want everyone to see it. Hear it, too. Everyone on the station, in the fleet, the lot.

That may risk revealing my involvement to the Vorlons.

Then risk it.

Do you believe this is so important?

I wouldn't ask if I didn't. What he's saying, it's something everyone has to hear. That's what you kept telling me, that this isn't just a war about armies or territory, it's about ideology and belief and philosophy and them trying to dictate what's best for all of us.

Yes.

Well, I think John's about to tell them all that their ideology stinks, and it's something everyone should hear. There are too many people who think the Vorlons are a necessary evil, even after what they did to Narn. We can't afford to let any more planets be destroyed before people finally get up and do something. The more people who hear this conversation, the more people will act now. Do you get me?

Perfectly.

You did promise. Any one thing, and you'd do it.

I did. Very well. It is perhaps a little too late for me to continue to hide, and time I should 'get up and do something'.

That's not what I meant.

No, it is. I will do as you ask.

The whole conversation took less than a second.

You will obey us!

His breath was as fire from his lungs, his eyes were as cold as the halls that had given him birth, his blade was as black as blood at midnight.

Any lesser man would have been intimidated, but Sebastian was not a lesser man. He was a man who had stared at infinity and survived with both purpose and sanity.

Kats looked at the tableau as she rose, coughing and shaking, and she could feel the power crackling in the air between them. Sebastian was talking, but the words hardly registered. Sinoval said nothing, or if he did speak, she could not hear the words.

And then Sebastian paused, and she had the impression that he was smiling.

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

He turned and looked at her. She saw in him then the eyes of a murderer, the eyes of a monster who knows too much and understands too little. She had faced madmen before, and she knew then that Sebastian was not mad.

He was coldly, chillingly sane, the kind of sanity that cannot tolerate any madness at all, no matter how insignificant.

"My lady," he said, and the words cut her to the quick. He was holding his cane in one hand, tapping the silver top in the palm of the other. "It is so nice of you to join us. We were having a spirited discussion. Perhaps you can help us. What, in your opinion, is Primarch Sinoval?"

She did not look at Sinoval, keeping her eyes fixed on Sebastian despite the gorge rising in her throat. Her hand clutched her necklace so tightly that it drew blood.

"What does that matter?" she asked.

"He seems to be under the delusion that he is a hero. What do you think of that?"

"I don't know."

"Really. How disappointing. I know that you do not know who you are, but I had hoped at least that you knew who he was."

"He's a good man," she said, breathing slowly. "He has done bad things, and he is capable of doing horrible things. To be honest, I am more scared of him sometimes than of anyone else I have ever known.

"Including you.

"But he is still a good man for all that. He has never intended to do wrong."

"How…. interesting," Sebastian said. "So very blind. Shall I tell you about good people with good intentions? Good people are weak, you blind woman. I believed once that I was doing good, and others called me a monster. I had good intentions, plans to erase debauchery and weakness and barbarism, and I was branded insane. Anyone can perpetrate acts of horror and barbarism and claim that they had 'good intentions'.

"As for him, his intentions are as irrelevant as yours. Deeds are what matter and what have his shown him to be?"

Kats smiled. "A good man. A strong man."

"Strong? On the contrary, he is flawed. Weak. Incomplete."

"Oh," she said, softly. "I don't know about that."

Sinoval darted forward, Stormbringer flashing. She had not seen the preparation, but she had heard his breathing, and she knew him. Sebastian took a step back and raised his cane to parry, but Kats had expected that.