“Miss him?” She appeared to consider that a moment, as if the thought had never before entered her head. If she was feigning contemplation, she was doing a superb job. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “No, I do not think I miss him… as much as I miss myself.”
“Yourself?”
She made to reply, but then stopped, as she appeared to reconsider her words. Finally she said, “I think of where I intended my life to be, Highness. I had plans, believe it or not. There were things I wanted to do when I was a little girl… not especially reasonable, all of them, but I…” She stopped and shook her head. “I apologize. I’m babbling.”
“It is quite all right,” I told her. “In all the time that we were married, Mariel, I do not think we actually spoke in this manner.”
“I was trained to say all the right things,” she said ruefully. “Speaking of one’s disappointments and shortcomings—that wasn’t deemed proper for a well-bred Centauri woman.”
“Very true. Very true.” And I waited.
Again, I must emphasize that I bore no love for this woman. I looked upon this interaction with a sort of detached fascination; the way one looks with curiosity at a fresh scab, impressed that such a crusted and nauseating thing could appear on one’s own body. In speaking with Mariel, I was—in a way—picking at a scab. Then, since she didn’t seem to be volunteering any information, I prompted, “So… what things did you wish to do? As a young girl, I mean?”
She half smiled. “I wanted to fly,” she replied.
I made a dismissive noise. “That is no great feat. A simple ride in—”
“No, Highness,” she gently interrupted. “I do not mean fly in a vessel. I wanted…” And the half smile blossomed into a full—blown, genuine thing of beauty. It reminded me of how it was when I first met her. I admit it. Even I was stunned by her beauty. I did not know then, of course, the darkness that the beauty hid. But who am I to condemn others for hiding darkness?
“I wanted to fly on my own,” she continued. “I wanted to be able to leap high, wave my arms, and soar like a bird.” She laughed in a gentle, self—mocking way. “Foolish of me, I know. I’m sure that’s what you’re thinking…”
“Why would I consider it foolish?”
“Because such a thing isn’t possible.”
“Mariel,” I said, “I am the emperor. If you had asked anyone who knew me—or, for that matter, if you had asked me directly—what the likelihood was of such a thing coming to pass, I would have thought it to be exactly as possible as your fantasy. Who knows, Mariel? Perhaps you will indeed learn to fly.”
“And you, Highness? Did you indeed dream of becoming emperor?”
“Me? No.”
“What did you dream of, then?”
Unbidden, the image came to my mind. The dream that I had not had until well into my adulthood. But it’s a funny thing about certain dreams: they assume such a state of importance in your mind that you start to believe, retroactively, that they were always a part of your life.
Those powerful hands, that face twisted in grim anger. The face of G’Kar, with but one eye burning its gaze into the black and shredded thing I call my soul, and his hands at my throat. This dream had shaped, defined, and haunted my life for, it seemed, as far back as I could remember.
“What did I dream of?” I echoed. “Survival.”
“Truly?” She shrugged those slim shoulders. “That doesn’t seem such a lofty goal.”
“I had always thought,” I said, “that it was the only one that mattered. I would have placed it above the needs of my loved ones, above the needs of Centauri Prime itself. Now…” I shrugged.” It does not seem to be such an important thing. Survival is not all that it is reputed to be.”
There was a long silence then. It was very odd. This woman had been my enemy, my nemesis, yet now it seemed as though she were another person entirely. Considering what I had faced, considering those who desired to bring me down… the machinations of one young Centauri female didn’t seem worth the slightest bit of concern.
Not so young, actually.
I found myself looking at Mariel, really looking at her for the first time in a long time. She was not decrepit by any means, but her age was beginning to show. I wasn’t entirely sure why. She was older, certainly, but not that much older. She seemed… careworn somehow. She looked older than her years.
“Strange,” she said slowly, “that we are talking this way. With all that has passed between us, Lond—Highness—”
“Londo,” I told her firmly.
“Londo,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “With all that we have been through… how odd that we would be talking here, now. Like old friends.”
“‘Like,’ perhaps, Mariel. But not actually old friends. For I shall never forget who I am… and who you are… and what you did to me.”
I wondered if she would try to deny that she had endeavored to kill me fifteen years earlier. If she would bleat her innocence in the matter. Instead, all she did was shrug, and without rancor in her voice say, “It was no worse than what you did to me.”
“Next thing, you will tell me that you miss me.”
“It is impossible to miss what you never had.”
“That is very true.” I looked at her with even more curiosity. “You have not told me why you were crying. That is, after all, the reason I came in here. Was it indeed because you miss ‘yourself’?”
She looked down at her hands with great interest. “No. Someone else.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. “It does not matter…”
“I wish to know, nevertheless.”
She seemed to consider her answer a long time. Then she looked over at me with such melancholy, I cannot even find words for it. “I appreciate the time you’ve taken here, Londo… more than you can know. But it really, truly, does not matter. What is done is done, and I have no regrets.”
“Whereas I have almost nothing but regrets. Very well, Mariel.” I rose and walked toward the door.” If, in the future, you decide that there are matters you wish to discuss… feel free to bring them to my attention.”
“Londo…”
“Yes?”
“My dream is childhood foolishness… but I hope that you get yours.”
I laughed, but there was no trace of mirth in my voice. “Trust me, Mariel… if there is one thing in this world I am certain of, it is that, sooner or later, I will get mine. And sooner, I think, rather than later.”
chapter 1
Luddig wasn’t a particularly happy Drazi.
He did not like the building to which he had been sent. He did not like the office within the building. And he most certainly did not like that he was being kept waiting in the office within the building.
Luddig was a firsttier ambassador in the Drazi diplomatic corps, and he had fought long and hard to get to where he was. As he drummed his fingers impatiently on the expansive desk he was sitting beside, he couldn’t help but wonder why it was that things never quite seemed to work out the way that he wanted them to.
Seated next to Luddig was his immediate aide, Vidkun. They provided quite a contrast to one another, Luddig being some what heavyset and jowly while Vidkun was small and slim. Not that Vidkun was a weakling by any means. He was whipcord thin and had a certain air of quiet strength about him. Luddig, on the other hand, was like a perpetually seething volcano that tended to overwhelm any who stood before him with belligerence and bombast. As diplomats went, he wasn’t particularly genteel. Then again, he’d never had to be. His activities were confined mostly to his office and occasional backdoor maneuvers.