OBEY
The air was thick and heavy, the red duller and darker, the voices....
whispering
and screaming
and seductively soft and
enticing
as death
itself.
They were there, near the edge, too near, tendrils lapping over on to the world of
mortals.
They wrapped around him.
Stupid, so
stupid....
He'd known they were here. He'd been to
Golgotha
He'd seen the ruins of the
Enaid Accord
He knew they were nearby
worshipped
feared
monsters
Gods
Monsters worshipped by Gods.
You will obey us.
That was their cry, the cry of the Lords of Order
But even they obeyed someone else
The beings that waited beyond this universe, beyond the gates, beyond the
doors
Worshipped by a few
cult
conspiracy
The Lords of Order sought
changelessness
....
but even they
changed.
New rulers
New Governments
Secret members who worshipped secret Gods
Bewitched by a war millennia old
the war that had destroyed
Golgotha
and the
Enaid Accord.
Sinoval could feel himself
screaming
lost
Stupid.
A warrior
a leader
leads from the
front.
They were here
waiting
close to the edge.
He did not
fear
them
But he knew what they were and he
feared
for others
For those who did know
fear.
These creatures were fear.
Ancient
terrible
death incarnate
black hearts beating in the mausoleums of stars.
So near
whispering to him
No.
Not yet.
He was Primarch
He was Sinoval
the Accursed
the Saviour.
He had the
responsibility
the
duty
the
....
the
....
the
power!
He called out his
name
and
hyperspace parted.
The door opened and
closed
behind him.
US
Sinoval the Accursed, Primarch Majestus et Conclavus, stumbled back to real space, reeling and nauseous. He fell to his knees, the welcome weight of Stormbringer at his side. Around him power crackled, burning and forceful and pounding.
He looked up, his head almost too heavy to lift.
"Primarch Sinoval, I presume?"
YOU WILL
Susan ran as fast as she could, until she thought her lungs were going to burst into flames and her legs collapse into jelly. Never in her life had she moved with more urgency.
Each step leading to the precipice seemed steeper and higher than the last.
The Well had been angry, dark whispers resounding in her mind. It wasn't as if she wanted to hear that gibberish. Death, lots of warnings about death.
And danger.
There is danger. Remember.
Of course there was danger. They were about to besiege a space station housing the most important people in the Alliance and guarded by a massive Vorlon fleet. Of course there was danger.
And where was Sinoval?
She thought she knew, but she prayed she was wrong.
There was a figure standing on the precipice, but it wasn't Sinoval.
Moreil turned sinuously to face her.
"The Chaos–Bringer is not here," he hissed, his ugly, rasping voice hitting her like fingernails on slate.
"No," she whispered, trying to get her breath back.
"He has gone ahead of us, to bring the war to the enemy."
"Yes," she breathed.
Yes, gone ahead to take on the Vorlons in single combat, presumably. God save her from all this death–or–glory rubbish.
"Then we must follow him, and spread the fire with our footsteps."
She looked at the alien, the Shadow–spawned alien, and she saw the fanatical zeal and passion in his twisted, wrong eyes. She knew why Sinoval had spared his life, and she knew he could be used, but she didn't like it, and she didn't like associating with him.
But as she raised her head and looked at the fleet arrayed in hyperspace around Cathedral, waiting for the order, and as she remembered her purpose, she made the decision that Sinoval had always known she would have to make.
Sinoval, if we both survive this, I'm going to....
She never completed that thought. Instead she looked at Moreil.
"Yes," she said.
OBEY US
No one troubled him.
No one stopped him.
No one interfered or even looked at him
Anyone who passed him by ducked to one side, pressing themselves tightly against the corridor rather than meet his gaze.
John Sheridan had acquired a reputation amongst the Minbari when he was younger. He was the Starkiller, and more than one Minbari child had woken from nightmare visions of his face in the dark. The John Sheridan who walked through the corridors of Babylon 5 was more terrible by far than all of those dream images put together.
He reached the door he wanted, a door that was unguarded, for who would want to break in here?
It opened at his touch, and closed behind him.
From here, he could see everything around him - the Vorlon ships massed and ready, the myriad jump points opening to admit the invading fleet. He should be there to defend his station from the invaders, but he was not needed.
<We have been waiting for you,> came the voice from the bone–white Vorlon.
He paused, and looked around at the beginning of the battle.
"I'm here now ," he said at last.
It is acceptable for you to hate us. It is even right that you do so.
You hate us because we are perfect, and that perfection merely reveals your own flaws. By hating us you see this, and you accept it.
Accepting your own weakness is merely the first step towards your apotheosis. You hate us, and hatred is merely a form of envy. You hate us because you wish to be us, and that hatred will be your first step along the path to becoming us.
To becoming perfect.
Chapter 4
We have never wished you harm, never wished to hurt you, or destroy you. You are our children, and we are your parents. All parents want only the best for their children, to see them grow and learn and become strong.
But as children grow they must be forced to become other than that which they were. Children are selfish and self–centred and greedy. An adult must be different.
The very act of growth is one of change, becoming different from that which you were. So it is with the growth of your race. We shall change you, that you may grow and become something better.
And then you will never need to change again.
He liked to think he did not feel, this creature of Order, of cold and passionless regimen and duty. That was what he had been told before he was.... changed, that he would never feel again.
And certainly, that was mostly true. He had felt no fear since the day he had been reborn. He had felt no doubt. Uncertainty and grief were now just words to him, or tools with which to manipulate others.