Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 5 : Средь звезд, подобно гигантам.(ЛП)

"Without the telepath, I have to do this myself. It would be so much easier with her, but I fear there is little choice, and I certainly do not have the time to do this slowly. I have to rush, and what if I mis-step or make a wrong move? What if he sees me or rejects me?

"Ah, Valen, curse you. Destined for greatness, indeed!"

He made for the steps leading downwards. "I have to commune with Sheridan again. I am.... making breakthroughs with him, slowly but surely, but I will have to move more quickly. Someone has to lead if anything happens to me, and without the Vorlon touch there would be no one better than him.

"If I can make him see!"

"Sinoval!" Susan called out. He stopped and looked back at her. "Don't do anything stupid. We can't do this without you, and if you die and leave me to do it myself, I swear to God I'll find your soul wherever it's gone and kick the living crapola out of you." He looked at her, and she looked down, annoyed at the outburst. "You got that?"

He was beside her in an instant. H ow does he move so fast?she had time to think. Gently, he touched her hair and kissed her forehead.

"Susan," he said. "If I had to leave, I would trust you with all of this. Remember that."

Then he was gone, and she was left to wait.

Hidden. Above Centauri Prime.

Waiting for the raiders to come.

Waiting.

After a while she began to whistle.

* * *

Da'Kal took a long, slow sip of the bitter jhala. It tasted foul in her throat and she could not understand why the Centauri drank it. It was too hot and too bitter and it scalded the roof of her mouth.

But, however foul the taste, it reminded her of victory.

"It was him," H'Klo said, standing in the doorway. "Again." The Councillor of the Kha'Ri was normally unflappable, but now he actually sounded.... worried. H'Klo knew no fear, she knew that much. When he was nothing but a pouchling, he had been working with the Resistance. The Centauri had captured and tortured him, and he had said nothing even as they had peeled the skin from his back with red-hot pincers, one strip at a time. Da'Kal had looked at those scars, touched them, even kissed them.

H'Klo feared neither Centauri, nor Shadow, nor Vorlon, nor Narn. He had sworn to defend her in her quest, and she had no doubt he would. When a Thenta Ma'Kur assassin had attacked her in her bedchamber one night, H'Klo had faced him bare-handed and broken his back, despite being wounded five times in the process.

No, he feared nothing. Save one thing alone.

One person.

A prophet.

Da'Kal said nothing, but merely looked out across G'Khamazad. The city was so far beneath her, she could see the comings and goings of her people, free for the first time in their lives. Free from the Centauri. Free even from the fear of the Centauri. Now it was time for the Centauri to learn fear themselves.

She sipped at the jhala again. It was thick and cloying. She hated the smell. When she was young, before her name day, she had worked in the household of a Centauri noble, washing his clothes and cooking his food and pouring endless cups of jhala for him and his fat, vain wife and his spoiled, brattish children.

She remembered his face after the Resistance had taken his manor. G'Kar had killed his captain of guards in single combat and had made her lady of the manor. She had made the lord serve her jhala, and she had drained the drink in one gulp. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter, not even the taste of G'Kar's kisses that night.

"He will know," H'Klo said. "He will find us."

"There is no need to be concerned," she replied, still looking down on the city. One of the many things she had learned from the Centauri. Build high, and look down upon those you rule.

"I am concerned," he snapped. "Ask me to fight for you and I will. Ask me to kill for you and I will. But do not ask me to go against him, Da'Kal. He is.... our Prophet. He has something I have never seen in anyone else, not even you. He...." H'Klo paused, obviously struggling to find the words. "He is special."

"Yes," Da'Kal replied, irritated. "The mighty Prophet G'Kar. The wise, the bountiful, the saviour of our people."

"Is he not everything you have said?"

She took more jhala. "Yes," she replied bitterly. "Yes, he is."

"He will find us."

"Let him. Do not worry, H'Klo. You will not have to fight him."

"The Thenta Ma'Kur?"

"No. I am not sure I can trust them anyway. For all their boasts of loyalty only to money they can be.... sentimental. Besides, I have enquired secretly about their price for him." She paused, holding herself tight with her right arm, staring into the mirror of memory.

"And?"

"Over eight million Narn ducats."

"We do not have that sort of money."

"No one does. That is the point. Do not worry, H'Klo. There are.... other ways."

"He will not understand."

"No," she whispered sadly. "He does not. In a strange way I admire him. I even love him still, almost as much as I hate him. He was the bravest man I ever met. But the man he has become....