"You had better fear us!"
"Old woman. Your son blinded my nephew. You will heal him."
"Mother, don't touch these animals!"
A sound, and then a scream. The alien male is screaming. Good, they should all scream.
"Stop it! Remember, girl. It is a gift. A gift for when he awakes."
"I do not fear you. I know you will kill me when I am done, just as I know you will kill my son when I am done. But show me this nephew of yours. I would at last look upon the face of this one."
Some of the stars go out, as a small shadow falls across him. It becomes greater, spreading and growing. There is a sound like an intake of breath, sharp and cold, a brush of wind against his cheek.
"Oh, this one. I had heard, but I had feared. So you are the one I have sought for so long? You accomplished nothing, my son. This one shall outlive all here. His words shall outlive this galaxy. He is touched."
"Enough with the prophecies! Just heal him!"
"Do you doubt me? You.... warlord. You remember a prophecy, yes. I see it in your eyes. Not mine, but the fate still hangs above you."
"I remember, witch. And I still live."
"For now, yes. But this one shall outlive you. Do you wish to know his fate, warlord?"
"Mother, do not...!"
"This one shall befriend an Emperor and meld peoples with his words. His passion shall inspire them, his heart make them kneel before them. He shall be the mouth of the river that flows through his people's souls.
"And he shall see his world die and be powerless to prevent it. He shall die at the hands of one he once called friend, but his words and his legacy shall live on. Not forever, but as close to it as makes no difference."
"Heal him, woman. I have no patience for your mysticism."
"You shall see, warlord. And yes, I will heal him — but because the whispers of fate say I will, not for your threats."
There is a warm pressure on his eyes. The few remaining stars die and the shadow grows. Slowly, it takes shape and form. A woman. A Centauri. A noblewoman.
A seeress.
He moves with the speed of a striking snake. As soon as he can see her form, he seizes her neck and squeezes. There is a crunch of bone and she snaps, falling limp and boneless to the ground.
Slowly he moves from the bed, his vision returning — blurred and unclear, but there all the same. Da'Kal holds him tightly and passionately. G'Sten stands proud and tall, nodding in admiration. The other has fled. G'Kar has not heard his voice for some time.
And there, chained and beaten and bloodied in the corner, lies the Centauri noble who did this to him. He looks up, defiant.
"A gift, nephew," G'Sten says.
"Kill him," Da'Kal hisses. "Kill him."
"Not yet," he says. His knife is still at his belt and he pulls it out. The light reflected from it is dull and faint, but he knows full vision will return with time. He knows somehow that one day he will see to the ends of the galaxy, see wonders that most people cannot even contemplate.
"He would have blinded me, taken my eyes and my vision forever. Let such a fate be his, then.
"An eye.... for an eye."
Blind.
G'Kar huddled in the darkness.
Blind.
Breath came slowly and darkness filled his vision. He could barely move. For a moment that seemed to last forever he thought he was dead, and his soul lingered in his decomposing corpse. It would be fit punishment for the sins of his life, he supposed, and he wished he had spoken more to Sinoval about such matters when he had had the chance. A golden opportunity to learn about death and what followed it, and he had failed to seize it.
"G'Kar," he whispered. He was not sure if he had actually spoken the words aloud or only in his mind. If he had died, should it not have happened as he had foreseen? It had been a dream. A death-dream. Those never lied.
But the truth they told was not always what it appeared to be.
Or perhaps nothing was written in stone, and any fate could be avoided.
Or perhaps stones could simply be shattered and ground to dust.
"G'Kar," he said again. His fingers twitched. He strained his head to look at them, and struggled again. Yes, they moved, the smallest distance, but a movement nonetheless.
He was not dead.
Unless this was just a hallucination. A dream.
Was he a Centauri dreaming he was dead or a ghost dreaming he was alive or something in between?
He could smell smoke. It was not the braziers drifting from the feast of his dream, or his life, or whatever it had been. It was the smoke of death and madness and in its black cloud it carried with it the screams of his people.
"I cannot rest here," he whispered, and struggled to pull himself up. His muscles would not obey him, but he persevered, and managed to lift his legs over the edge of the bed. They were hideously lumpen and heavy, like dead flesh moving.
The floor was cold and hard beneath his feet, but that was good. A sensation at last. He could feel something other than pain. He could not be dead.
Through his blurred vision, something slowly swam into focus.
A meal. Food, and a glass with something in it.
He reached out with the one arm that seemed to obey him and touched the glass. Jhala. And fresh, too.
Part of his dream. No, in his dream he had been drinking brivare and Earth liquor and Minbari water and.... other things. Not jhala. A powerful thirst suddenly burned in his throat and he tried to lift the glass. It seemed impossibly heavy, and he had to support his arm with the other one, forcibly heaving the glass to his face as if it contained molten metal.
He could smell it as it came nearer, inch by agonising inch. It smelled good. Another sensation. Another sign that he was not a dead soul in a dead shell. He tried to manoeuvre the glass to his mouth.
It shattered in his hand, the drink cascading over his face and body. He opened his mouth hurriedly and actually managed to catch some of it. It tasted fine, finer than anything he could have imagined. His legs gave way beneath him and he sat back wearily on the bed, careless of the shards of glass.
"I did not supply that drink for you to throw it everywhere," said a prim voice. He turned his head to see a short, elegant woman standing demurely in the doorway. She walked forward slowly. "You are all right then. I would have hoped so, the amount of time you spent sleeping. Who would run the Republic while you were asleep, you might have thought to ask, but no." She reached his side and looked at him intently.
"Oh, Londo," she sighed. She rested her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Londo."
"Timov," he whispered. "Oh, my Timov."
The dreams were less now, the nightmares grown rarer. It was remarkable what a solid day's work would do for you. Going to bed exhausted every night left little space for bad dreams.
That was precisely how David Corwin liked it.
A piece at a time, Yedor was transforming before his eyes — growing, becoming new, becoming alive. The fields outside the city were becoming greener, the stones and the crystals slowly starting to shine. The lake was still dirty and thick with silt. The sky was still dark and heavy. The signs of the devastation of this world were still there, but they were less now.
One day, he hoped, no one would ever be able to tell what had happened. There would be no sign remaining, no hint of the bloodshed humanity was capable of.
Corwin sat silently on the banks of Turon'val'na lenn-veni, looking out across the lake. The Minbari had accepted him now, or most of them at any rate. He was even able to speak with them, and laugh and joke. But none of them were his friends.
Except perhaps one.
He heard the soft footsteps that signalled Kats' arrival. He turned to greet the little worker. As always, she was wearing a simple robe of plain white, her only ornamentation the plain necklace that hung around her neck.