Out of the Darkness (9 page)

"Get away!" yelled Vir, and he clambered up on a stone bench. "Get away! Get away!!!"

The bird ignored him, and Vir, who was gesticulating wildly, suddenly lost his balance. He stumbled backward, struck his head, and lay there, unmoving.

He had no idea how long he lay there, but when he finally did open his eyes, he found that night had fallen. He wondered how.

She could possibly have just been left in the one place, unseen by anyone, for such a period of time.

Then he felt heaviness in his chest, and a distant buzzing of alarm in the back of his skull. Suddenly he began to feel as if someone had clubbed him from behind. Probably, he reasoned, some sort of residual pain left over from falling and hurting himself.

With effort, he looked up at Rem Lanas' head atop the pike.

It was gone.

His own head was there instead.

It looked rather comical in its way, and he would have laughed had he actually been able to get the noise out. Instead, though, there was simply an overwhelming desire to scream at the hideous sight. However, he couldn't get that to emerge either. There was just a repeated, strangulated coughing.

He turned and tried to run, tried to shout for help...

... and there was someone there in the shadows.

The darkness actually seemed to come alive around him as he stared, transfixed, at the being – no, the creature – that was moving slowly out of the shadows toward him. It fixed him with a malevolent glare, as if it had already destroyed him somehow and he simply wasn't aware of it yet. Vir knew it instantly as a Drakh, a servant of the Shadows. But he reminded himself that the average Centauri had never seen a Drakh, and the last thing he should do was blurt out what was on his mind.

"Shiv'kala," the Drakh said.

The word brought back awful memories. Years earlier, at the behest of the now-dead techno-mage, Kane, he had spoken that name to Londo. The mere mention of it had gotten Vir thrown into a cell. Later on, working in conjunction with another techno-mage, Galen, he had come to realize that the name belonged to one of the Drakh. Immediately he understood.

"You... are Shiv'kala," he said.

Shiv'kala inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. "Names," he said, "have power. Power, however, cuts both ways." When he spoke, his voice was a gravelly whisper. "You mentioned my name once. Do you remember?"

Vir managed to nod.

"When you did so, it drew my attention to you. Why did you?"

"Wh-why did I... what?"

"Why. Did you. Mention. My name?"

Once upon a time, Vir would have panicked at a moment such as this. Confronted by a dark, frightening creature of evil, he would have been reduced to a trembling mass of disintegrating nerves.

That Vir, however, was gone.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Outwardly he was all terror and wide eyes, hands trembling violently and legs buckling at the knees, causing him to sink to the ground in stark-staring terror.

Inwardly, his mind was racing. For he was seeing this entity before him not as some overpowering, terrifying monster, but rather simply as a member of another race. Granted, an incredibly formidable race. But he had been responsible for the destruction of a long-lost Shadow vessel that the Drakh had craved. He had seen Drakh warriors killed before his very eyes. He knew they were not invincible.

They had limits.

And the question posed him by Shiv'kala revealed some of those limits.

In a way it was remarkable. A bare half-dozen years ago, the mere mention of Shiv'kala's name had struck a chill within him. Now he was facing down the owner of the name, and he was analyzing him with methodical precision.

The sight of his own head on the pole had been a nice bit of theatrics, but that had been sufficient to tell him that he was no longer in reality. He was in some sort of dream state, into which the Drakh had inserted himself.

But the Drakh was asking him questions.

Which meant the Drakh didn't know the answers. After all, if he knew the answers, then why bother to ask at all? To try to "trick" him for some reason? What would be the point of that?

So even though the Drakh clearly had some sort of advanced mental abilities, they were hardly limitless. They were apparently able to broadcast into someone's dream state, and were probably capable of receiving transmissions. But they were not readily capable of reading minds. Or, at the very least, they couldn't read a mind that wasn't cooperating.

Furthermore, Shiv'kala had waited quite a few years to come to Vir and start asking why his name had been bandied about. That indicated to Vir that their range might be limited, as well. Again, at the very least, it was limited where other species were concerned. Shiv'kala had had to wait until Vir was within reasonable proximity of the palace.

Why?

Because, as much as Vir's stomach churned just contemplating the notion, the fact was that the royal palace of Centauri Prime had become little more than a Drakh stronghold, a cover for the Drakh power base. Although Vir had strong suspicions that their true center of power was somewhere else on Centauri Prime.

But he had no desire to let the Drakh know that he had discerned so much, so quickly. Beings of finite power they might be, but there was no underestimating the ability of the Drakh to destroy him at their slightest whim. The only reason they had not done so by this point, he decided, was that they did not perceive him as a direct threat. If they did decide he posed a threat, however, he didn't stand a chance.

All of this went through his mind in less than a second, and by that point he was already back on the ground, "crumbling" at the mere sight of the formidable Drakh. He could tell from the Drakh's expression that Shiv'kala was by turns taken aback, appalled, and amused at the sight of this great, groveling oaf.

The thing was, he had to give some sort of answer that would throw the Drakh off track. He couldn't take the chance that Shiv'kala might figure out his connection to the underground. The only way to make sure of that was to present himself as a simple tool, a harmless foil who was about as capable of causing damage on his own as a wafting feather might be.

And the best thing of all was that he could tell reasonable amounts of the truth, which would be all the easier to sell to the Drakh. If there was one thing that Vir excelled at, it was sincerity. He wore sincerity as comfortably as other Centauri wore high hair.

"I... I was told to," he stammered out.

"By whom?"

"By... by ..." He licked his lips. "By a techno-mage."

"Anhhh ..." Obviously it hadn't been the answer the Drakh was expecting, but neither did it seem to surprise him. "A techno-mage. And where have you encountered a techno-mage?"

"Back on Babylon 5. I first met them when I was serving Londo." The words were tumbling over each other. It wasn't really that long ago – a minor part of a lifetime, really – that Vir Cotto had been a bumbling, tongue-twisted, and perpetually anxious young man. Vir remembered that Vir-that-was almost nostalgically. At the time, life had seemed hideously complex.

He remembered quite clearly the man he had been, and had no trouble at all summoning the Vir from years gone by. He took that much younger Vir, slipped him on like a comfortable overcoat, and impersonated him with tremendous facility. "Londo, he ... he wanted the techno-mages' blessing and ... and ... and... and ..."

Shiv'kala nodded, and moved his hand in a slight clockwise motion as if to indicate to Vir that he should get on with it.

"... and he sent me to them to tell them he wanted to suh-suh-see them!" Vir continued. "I thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn't. No. No, it wasn't. Because they came to me, and told me to walk into the palace and say your... that name. Why? Why would they do that? Please, tell me ..." And he started to sob. It was amazing to him how easily the tears came. Then again, considering everything he had been through, all the horrors he had witnessed, perhaps the impressive thing was that he was ever able to prevent himself from crying.

He reasoned that the best thing to do was allow the Drakh, all unknowingly, to fill in the gaps himself. Shiv'kala, as it so happened, promptly did so.

"We have our suspicions" was all the Drakh would offer, although he did add, "You would be wise, Vir Cotto, not to meddle further with magic workers. You are merely a game piece to such as they, to be discarded at will. Do you know us?" Vir shook his head fiercely. Shiv'kala glanced upward in the direction of the head. "Do you know him?"

Vir looked back up, and he saw that the head of Rem Lanas was back in lieu of his own. As appalling a sight as Rem's head had been up there, he had to admit that it was better than his.

"His... his name is Rem Lanas," Vir managed to say, making the response seem far more of an effort than it was. "I... met him on Babylon 5. We had drinks."

"You have met a great many people on Babylon 5, it seems."

"I ... I ..." He tried to find something to say, and finally settled on, "I have a lot of free time on my hands."

The Drakh either didn't register the response, or didn't care that it had been made. Vir couldn't help but feel that Shiv'kala was assessing him right then and there, trying to determine whether Vir was indeed going to be a problem.

"You do know," Shiv'kala said softly, "that this is all a dream. It is not happening."

"I had been kind of hoping for that to be the case," Vir told him.

"Be aware of one thing ... we know of the predictions of the Lady Morella."

This caused Vir to freeze where he stood. Even though he was dreaming, even though he felt no normal sensations, he was still certain he could sense his blood running cold. "Morella?"

"Londo mentioned 'predictions' once," the Drakh said." 'Both of us, protected by visions, protected by prophecy,' was what he said."

Vir remembered the exchange all too well. It had been in the cell that Vir had occupied for the high crime of mentioning Shiv'kala's name – at the urging of a techno-mage, that much at least had been the truth.

"I sought clarification from him as to what he meant. He was... less than forthcoming. At first. But we can be most persuasive. He told us of how the Lady Morella made predictions, stating that one of you would succeed the other to the throne of Centauri Prime. Since he is still with us ... that leads us to believe that you will be the next ruler."

"It's just a prediction. It means nothing."

"Perhaps. But be aware, Vir Cotto ... should it come to pass..." And the Drakh's mouth twisted into something approximating a smile, the single most horrific thing that Vir had seen in the entire encounter. "Should it come to pass ... there is much that we can offer you."

"I..." He gulped. "I appreciate the thought."

"Our power is great. You can benefit by it... or be destroyed. The choice, for the moment, is yours. In the end, it may or may not remain so."

And then he stepped back into the shadows, which seemed to reach out to claim him.

Vir stood there a moment, steadying the pounding of his hearts ... and then he noticed that the shadows were continuing to stretch ... toward him. Even though he knew it was a dream, even though he was certain he was not in any real danger ... nevertheless, he did not like in the least what the shadows portended, and he was loath to let them touch him. He backed up, and he bumped up against the pole on which he had seen his own head. He looked up involuntarily and let out a yelp of alarm.

Senna's head was there instead of his. It stared down at him, eyes glassy. And then the impact of Vir's thumping against it caused her head to topple off. The head fell, spiraling, and tumbled into Vir's arms even as he tried to do everything he could to avoid it.

And then, despite everything he'd been through, despite his being fairly inured to terrifying hardships, Vir found himself frozen, utterly paralyzed, unable to cope with what he was seeing.

He started to cry, tears running down his face, but without any heat. As grotesque and grisly a sight as it was, he clutched the head to him and the sobs crew louder.

And the head spoke to him. "Vir... Vir," came Senna's voice, impossibly, from the severed head. Then Vir was being shaken, and suddenly he opened his eyes, and the tears were very real and hot against his cheek.

Senna was looking down at him, her head securely back on her shoulders.

He remembered the first time he had seen her, more than a decade before, when Londo had taken her under his wing. There was no longer anything childlike about her. This was an adult woman, polished and intelligent, who looked as if she was already anticipating how she was going to respond to something you had not yet thought of saying.

She was dressed in a blue-and-white gown that was both simple and elegant. She had been wearing it the last time that Vir had seen her, about six months earlier, during a dinner with Londo that had quickly evolved into a rather pleasant evening.

She had, in fact, salvaged the evening, because Londo had spent much of it getting quietly drunk – which was something Vir had not often seen Londo do. Drunk, yes, but quiet? Never.

She had been witty, charming, entertaining, and utterly captivating.

He had also heard from her from time to time during the interim, although usually it was about more ... business-oriented matters.

"Vir ... Londo sent me to fetch you ... and you were here, and..."

"I'm all right, I'm ... I'm all right," he said quickly, clambering to his feet. He glanced around automatically. Even though he knew that there would be no sign of the Drakh – that, indeed, the Drakh had most likely never physically been there – he found that he was peering into the shadows to see if any of them moved. "I saw ..." Then he caught himself. He certainly didn't want to tell this young woman what he had experienced. There was no need to risk alarming her.

"You saw what?" she asked.

Slowly he pointed to the head of Rem Lanas, perched atop the pole.

"He was... one of yours?"

His head snapped around at those words. He saw it then, in her face, in her eyes ... she knew.