Third Rituals

Chapter 3: The Darkfire

Dawn broke them apart, the first touch of the beginnings of light falling through the narrow window above the prayer alcove in which they lay. "I always watch the sunrise," Delenn said, shifting her head from its comfortable position just below Lennier's shoulder. He rolled his limbs away from where they had become entangled with hers to allow her to rise, and dress quickly, and go outside. A moment later he followed her.

Delenn sat on the garden bench, as she usually did in the mornings. Lennier could feel the silent presence beside her, next to her on the bench, where he wanted to be. He knew he had no place there. But last night had changed everything, and so he knelt down by her feet and placed his head against her knees. She breathed, relaxed, and one hand curled around the top ridge of his headbone.

"I still don't understand," Lennier said.

"You understood it better than I did, even then," Delenn said. "Or we each understood different pieces. What you wrote about threes."

"What did I write?"

"That three creates possibility, and allows us to choose our destiny." Delenn sighed. "It is a Shadow-truth, that brings confusion and chaos. But I am not sorry for it. I would only add that three creates mystery, and unknowing, because no two will ever look at a third alike." Delenn glanced briefly at the space beside her on the bench. "You know that John is still with me," she said.

Lennier hesitated, not knowing what to say, wondering again if he were out of place here. Then he knew. "Three is too sacred to be broken by death," he said. Delenn closed her hand around his headbone, and wrapped her other arm around him, pulling him to her.

"I wonder, sometimes, if John was taken beyond the Rim, and that is why we never found his body," Delenn said. "Taken by the Vorlons, or perhaps by Lorien. And then I wonder if Anna could have lived, survived the destruction of Zha'ha'dum, and if she went beyond the Rim with the Shadows she served. I wonder if they will find one another."

The sun rose over the garden wall, but Delenn's eyes were brighter than the sun reflected in them. She slid down off the bench to sit next to Lennier on the grass. "Did you know your face changes at night?" she asked.

She could not possibly have performed the Sleep Ritual, since Lennier was certain that he had not spent one moment in sleep as the night had passed. Still, sometimes in passion a true face is revealed. "What am I?" he said.

"There is a burning in you," she answered, "something that is almost anger. Like you would tear apart the Universe to find me, not caring what you would destroy. Lennier," she continued, "what happened to you, when you..."

"When I tried to kill your husband?"

"Is that what you did?"

"No," he admitted. "I didn't really think he would die. I didn't really think anything at all. All I knew was that whatever would happen if I did not open that door could not be worse than what would happen if I did."

"And what would have happened?"

"He would have bowed, and thanked me. You would have thanked me as well, and kissed him. You both would have known that you could have trusted me to serve you. And that is what I would have done, for the rest of my life."

"And you could not bear the thought of this."

"It was all I wanted, then. I have learned to want other things since. Delenn, I know that it will take a lifetime to atone for what I have done. I know that I have not yet fully done so, so I will not ask you to forgive. But tell me, does it frighten you, this other face?"

"Yes," she said. "I have seen it in myself, and it frightens me there as well. It is my soul, as you are my soul. I am glad that we will have time together, now."

The cold wind of the morning chilled Lennier's face and he pulled away. "I have done wrong by coming to you," he said. "Please forgive me. I did not intend for this to happen. It was only that I could not bear to go without seeing you again."

"Go?" she asked, her voice hardened.

"I am under oath to the Grey Council," Lennier said, "as I am under oath to you. Delenn, you taught me long ago to always be willing to give my life for the greater good. Even now," his voice shook, "even now, I don't know what else to do. I would be unworthy of you if I were unable to follow your teaching."

"And what does your oath to the Grey Council demand?"

Lennier wanted to lie to her, to protect her, but he found that he could not. Not now, not after she had chosen to trust the darkness in his face. "Delenn," he said, "what do you know of the Darkfire?"

*

It had been strange, the previous night. Delenn had said that she would tell Lennier what she wanted, but then she had found herself unable to speak. So she had kissed him, sudden and hard, surprising even herself. It had taken him a moment to respond, but when he had it was with all the passion of a Minbari seized by madness, crushing her to him, pressing her mouth open under his. Then he lifted her up, and carried her to her rooms, not to the bed but to the prayer alcove, as is the way of Minbari Religious. He pulled back once he lay her down. "Are you certain?" he asked, with a shake in his voice at the effort of speaking the words. In response she simply reached for him.

They did not speak as they undressed each other, or as they explored each other, finding ways for their now-alien bodies to join. In the end they pressed together, as if they could crush twenty years between them, until she shook, and called his name, and fell, relaxed, in his arms.

They tried to sleep, after, in the angled bed, but had stayed awake all night, talking, touching and staring at one another. Towards dawn they returned to the prayer alcove, this time with the proper meditations and prayers to draw out the joining, enhance it, and make it part of something greater. It had all seemed so simple, and so obviously correct. Even the sudden moment of fury in Lennier's face was right, and she wondered if he saw something like it in her own.

Delenn wondered if the time would ever come when she could answer the wanting question in words. She had not been able to in the night, although she supposed her actions had been answer enough.

And now Lennier was telling her about the Darkfire, and why he had to go.

"I had believed it was only a legend," she said.

"Nur found it, in her work in the desert. Blacker than the emptiness between stars..."

"And within, a brightness beyond imagining." She knew the stories, of the building of the Starfire Wheel and what had inspired it.

"We watched the Vorlons, Delenn, and the Shadows. We know what they are, and what they teach. What would they create, together, if they were to bring us a gift? A place of darkness and light, in which the light can also destroy. A place of questions, and knowledge, in which the one is sacrificed to the greater good. A place like the Starfire Wheel, in whose image the Grey Council chamber was made.

"I believe the legends are true," Lennier continued. " The Darkfire exists, on which the Starfire was modeled, long ago, long before Valen. I believe that it was of joint Shadow and Vorlon creation, forged in a brief interval between battles, when for a short time they believed that they could guide the galaxy together."

"And you believe that this has something to do with the diminishment of Minbari souls, which you believe began two thousand years ago."

"We turned from the Darkfire," Lennier said. "Without it we have lost our strength."

Delenn had known that he believed this, that there was a cause other than Valen for the loss of Minbari souls. She had read it in his diary, twenty years ago. 'If the diminishment of souls began a thousand years ago,' he had written, 'how will reversing this act undo it? How will bearing human children in a Minbari womb stop this diminishment, rather than add to it?'

"You know that I cannot agree with what you are saying," she said.

"I know," he said, with a wrench in his voice. "But still I must go."

"And what will you do, once you are there?"

"Legend teaches that the one who enters the Darkfire must answer two questions. If the Darkfire was brought by the Shadows and Vorlons, then I believe that we finally know what these questions must be. If the Darkfire is the heart of Minbar, then answering these questions in the face of the Darkfire should cause our souls to begin to return."

"And you intend to do this."

"Yes," he said. "You see, Delenn, it has to be me. I stand in the center of the circle of nine, in the circle that reminds us of the Starfire, in the circle that reminds us of the Darkfire. It is my place. And, Delenn," his voice caught, "it will give me, finally, a chance to atone."

To atone for a crime for which he had long ago been forgiven. But that would not matter to him, as it had not mattered to her. "Fine," she said. "When do we set out?"

"Delenn," he said, "it is my place to do this."

"I do not recall your ever leaving me in the face of danger. I do not know why you would expect that this is something that I would do."

"Because you are the President of the Alliance."

"I am your friend, Lennier." She held his gaze until he smiled, and touched his fingers to hers.

"Friend," he said.