Out of the Darkness (2 page)

"Calm yourself," I said again. "We had no appointment. I was simply passing by and heard someone in distress. There are so many distressed individuals out there," and I gestured toward the cityscape. "I cannot attend to all of them. But at the very least, I can help those who are within these four walls, yes?"

"That's very kind of you, Highness."

"Leave us," I said to my guards. Dunseny, ever the soul of proper behavior, good tact, and common sense, had waited in the corridor. "Leave you, Highness?" They appeared uncertain and even suspicious. "Yes."

"Our orders from Prime Minister Durla are that we are to remain by your side at all times," one of them said. I would record here any distinguishing characteristics he exhibited, for the sake of reference, but I cannot. My guardsmen were something of a homogenous lot. The aforementioned Mr. Garibaldi called them the "Long Jockey Brigade," I believe. I am no more conversant with the term "long jockey" than I am with "ice cream suit," but I will say this: Mr. Garibaldi certainly had a colorful way of expressing himself. "Your adherence to orders is commendable," I said. "Thank you, Highness."

"However, you overlook two things. Prime Minister Durla is not here. And I am. Now get out, before I command you to arrest yourselves."

The guards glanced at each other nervously for a moment, then wisely hastened into the hallway. I turned my attention back to Mariel. To my surprise, she actually seemed to be smiling slightly. Even laughing softly. "'Arrest yourselves.' Very droll, Highness."

"With all that has passed between us, Mariel, I believe 'Londo' will suffice." "No, Highness," she said simply. "I believe it necessary always to remember your station and mine."

A remarkable attitude. "Very well. Whatever makes you more comfortable." I took a few steps around the room, arms draped behind my back as if I were on an inspection tour. "So... do you wish to tell me precisely why you are so upset?"

"I see little point, Highness. It's nothing. A passing mood."

"Has Durla been abusive to you in any way?"

"Durla?" The thought seemed to amuse her even more than my passing comment had, moments earlier. "No, no. Durla, in point of fact, is not really here enough to be considered abusive. He is busy these days. Very busy." She looked down, apparently having suddenly taken great interest in her hands. "I do not begrudge him that. There is a great deal for him to do."

"Yes, yes. Destabilizing the region and sending our world spiraling toward certain destruction can be very time-consuming, I should think."

She seemed surprised by my tone. "He is your prime minister. I would think he carries out your wishes and desires. He serves Centauri Prime, and you are Centauri Prime."

"Yes, so I hear. The emperor is the living embodiment of Centauri Prime. A quaint notion. A grand custom. I think I like the sound of it more than I do the practice." I shrugged. "In any event, Durla does what Durla wishes. He no longer consults with me, or even needs me." I looked at her askance. "Or you, I should think. Is that the reason for the tears? That you miss him?"

"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."

C
HAPTER 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 first-tier 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 somewhat 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.

It was one of those activities that had brought him here, to Centauri Prime, to the place called the "Tower of Power." It was an impressive and elegantly simple structure that, when viewed from the ground, seemed to stretch forever to the sky.

Luddig had not come here on his own, of course. It had been set up meticulously and scrupulously in advance. No one on the Drazi Homeworld had been aware that he was coming to Centauri Prime ... well, not "officially" aware. He had brought Vidkun along primarily to have someone to complain to.

"This is how they treat Luddig of the Drazi!" Luddig said in disgust. He was one of those who chose to affect the popular Drazi habit of referring to himself in the third person. "An hour and a half we wait," he continued. "Waiting and waiting in this stupid room for this stupid minister." He cuffed Vidkun abruptly on the shoulder. Vidkun barely reacted. By this point in his career, he scarcely seemed to notice. "We had a deal!"

"Perhaps you should remind him of that, sir," Vidkun said with exaggerated politeness.

"Remind him! Of course Luddig will remind him! Drazi do not have to, should not have to, tolerate such poor attention to Drazi interests!"

"Of course not, sir."

"Stop agreeing!" Luddig said in annoyance, striking Vidkun once more on the shoulder. Since it was the exact same place, it left Vidkun a bit sore, but stoutly he said nothing. "You keep agreeing. It shows you are trying to mock Luddig!"

Vidkun tried to figure out if there was any conceivable way in which he could respond to the accusation. If he said it wasn't true, then he'd be disagreeing and thereby disproving the contention. Except he'd be calling Luddig a liar. If he agreed that was what he was doing, Luddig would shout at him that he was doing it again. Vidkun wisely chose to say nothing at all, instead inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment without actually providing any admission one way or the other.

Clearly Luddig was about to press the matter when, with miraculously good timing, Minister Castig Lione entered.

Lione was a tall man whose build and general look bordered on the cadaverous. He had such gravity about him that he could have used it to maintain a satellite in orbit, Vidkun mused. Then he noticed several of the black-clad youths known as the Prime Candidates following Lione, dropping back and away from the minister as he walked into his office. Vidkun came to the conclusion that Lione already did have satellites. They were the youth of Centauri Prime, and as near as Vidkun could tell, the best and the brightest. Their loyalty to Castig Lione was reputedly unyielding and unwavering. If Lione had told them to break every bone in their bodies, they would do so and do it willingly.

Vidkun did not, as a rule, like fanatics. If nothing else, they tended to be a bit too loud for his taste.

"Ambassador Luddig," said Lione, bowing deeply in respect. For a man of his height, bowing was no easy thing. Luddig should have appreciated the gesture. Instead he scowled even more fiercely. Vidkun rose and returned the bow, and got another quick physical rebuke from his superior. "To what," continued Lione, "do I owe this honor?"

"This honor." Luddig made an incredulous noise that conveyed contempt. "This honor. This treatment is more like."

"Treatment?" His eyebrows puckered in confusion. "Was there a problem with your arrival? My Prime Candidates were given specific instructions to provide you full protection in escorting you from the port. I cannot, of course, account for the reactions your presence might engender among our populace."