Invoking Darkness (9 page)

"By killing them," Galen said, "before they kill me."

He looked to Elric, his lips parted with desperate hope.

If he went, Elric would not last until his return. Though that was no reason to keep Galen here, Elric could not stand to send him away again. Every time he went, he came back changed, hurt. This time, Elric feared they would lose Galen. Indeed, that, Elric believed, was Galen's unstated goal.

To suffer the ultimate punishment.

"As we prepared to leave for this place," Elric said, "you told me why you must come with us. You told me that if you remained out in the universe, you would destroy all, gladly. You told me that you were not fit to remain. Has that changed?"

Galen's face tightened. "No, I am not fit." He shivered. "But I can no longer hide here behind my weakness while others die. If you release me, I swear that I will kill only the Shadows and those I know to be their servants. I will not lose control again. When the time comes, when I have done what must be done, I will destroy myself. I have the power, and the resolve to use it."

Elric couldn't believe that Galen was standing here, proposing what he was proposing.

"That is unacceptable."

"I agree." Blaylock's eyes narrowed.

"I have told you we are meant for greater things than fighting."

Galen's crossed arms rose and fell with his hard breaths.

"Yet you hold me here as your weapon, in case we are discovered. Would you protect yourselves at the cost of everyone else?"

Elric cared only about protecting Galen.

"You speak of control," Blaylock said, "but your plan is simply to go, and to kill. That is not the plan of a techno-mage in control. Elizar can again nullify your tech, rendering you defenseless."

Herazade pressed her palms flat against each other.

"We require assurance that no telepath could gain from you the location of the hiding place, or even the knowledge that so many of us still live. You cannot give that assurance. So long as you are vulnerable to the Shadows' control, you may find yourself subject to telepathic scan, as you were before. By your own admittance, that may be why Soom was attacked. The hiding place must not be next."

Galen took a deep breath, released it.

"If I could find a way to immunize myself to the Shadow signal, would you then let me go?"

"You have told us that is impossible," Herazade said, "and we have confirmed your findings. We are united against your proposal, Galen. Do not show us disrespect by arguing your case further. If you find evidence that your spell of destruction is being used, bring it before us, and we will consider what best should be done."

Galen looked down, and his gloved hands fell to his sides. He gave a single nod, turned, and walked out. Elric received a message from Herazade, her summary of those select findings and decisions of the Circle to be made public.

He scanned it quickly, read her brief, passionless description of the destruction of Soom, and approved it for circulation. His head felt light and hot, and his muscles quivered with weakness. More than anything, he wanted to go after Galen. But Galen was lost to him. Soom was lost. The mages soon would be; they had begun their long twilight.

When they had first come to this place, Elric had felt hope, in the mages' solidarity in the face of the Shadows, in John Sheridan's potential to fight them, in Galen's return from the rim. It had been a false hope. The Shadows destroyed anything of worth outside, while within, the mages decayed and Galen spiraled toward self-destruction.

The tumor of despair had at last completed its job, Elric realized. He now saw the truth. All was hopeless.

C
HAPTER 5

Galen circulated through the narrow gray corridors of the hiding place.

Though it was late, he could not sleep. One mind-focusing exercise had been insufficient to keep his thoughts to a safe path, so he maintained two simultaneously, wrapping them tight about him, withdrawing down the tunnel their walls created.

With each step his pants whispered against the raw skin of his legs; his boots cut into his shins; his prickly sweater, pressed down by the weight of his coat, ground into his shoulders. Normally, a few circuits around the hiding place would be sufficient to settle his thoughts for the night. The regularity of his footsteps, the rhythm of his mind-focusing exercises, the discipline of pain usually calmed him. But tonight he had lost count of his trips through the corridors.

Several rounds had been necessary to rid him of his frustration at the Circle, more to block out his anger at Elizar and Razeel, more to bury his grief over Fa, and Soom. Once those were gone, the issue had become very simple.

He must make a decision.

Elizar was a skilled mage. If Fa had remembered all that Galen had shown her, Elizar would be able to translate the spell of destruction. It would take him, at most, a few days. Then he would want to show Galen what he had learned. Galen could either spend the rest of his life here, in safety, watching as Elizar killed, or he could engineer his departure from this place.

He could think of only one way to accomplish it, one he dared not face.

Not yet. So he continued to walk. Ahead, Emond and Chiatto exchanged quiet, forceful words.

They were a few years older than Galen. In his general avoidance of everyone, he hadn't seen them in months. The two mages had been good friends when they'd entered the hiding place. Now they faced each other in the narrow corridor, Emond's thick brows knitted in anger, Chiatto's Centauri crest trembling, his left hand poised to cast a spell, like a snake about to strike.

Within Galen, the tech quickened.

"I told you to stay away from me," Emond said.

Chiatto gave a harsh laugh.

"What makes you think you can tell me anything?"

Emond's head snapped around, his anger coming to bear on Galen. After a moment, the anger faded with recognition.

"Galen."

Galen took a deep breath, released it. He told himself they meant him no harm.

He nodded, continued his exercises.

Chiatto regarded him with wariness. Emond moved out of the way, and Galen passed them without stopping. He would not interfere in their fight. He could not risk losing control. They waited only a few seconds before resuming their argument.

"I'm going to go wherever I want," Chiatto said.

Galen blocked their voices from his mind. He must be calm, think. Time was short. To stop Elizar and Razeel, he must leave here. Breaking free, though, would mean destroying the machines that powered this place, devices that sustained the mages' lives on this unfriendly asteroid and masked their presence. He wasn't sure he had the ability to do such a thing; certainly the devices were protected by the Circle. Even if he could, he would not. It might be that the mages should never have been made; it might be that they were doomed, but let them live out their final years in this place, where they could harm no one but one another.

Much as he might want to deny it, although he hated the Circle, he desired their approval of his request. The last time he'd wanted to pursue Elizar, he'd misled the Circle about his motivations. Elric had voted against him then, and Elric had been right. He had been out of control, and should not have gone.

Through that journey to the rim, he'd learned that there was something more difficult than accepting that Elizar went on with his life, unpunished, after killing; all he'd killed. He'd improved his control since then. Still, though, he did not trust himself. If the Circle trusted him, if they allowed him to leave, that would be a sign that he was fit to leave. As he approached the entrance to the dining hall, conversation and laughter echoed out. Fed and some of his friends commonly drank late into the night.

The first time Galen had walked past, about ten of them had been within. By his last pass, the number had decreased to six. This time, only four remained: Fed, Optima, Ak-Shana, and Gwynn.

Galen passed the doorway, continued his endless circuit. Fed was popular with the women. Actually, he was popular with many, because he found fun in nearly everything, rather than hardship. In these times, his attitude helped others to forget their problems, and the problems of the universe. Fed was one of the few who seemed to feel none of the stress of the hiding place. Although he had an important responsibility – managing their use of supplies – it seemed to demand little of him.

The laughter faded, and Galen's footsteps carried him forward. Blaylock had said Galen had no plan but to go and kill, and that was true. He had too little information to form any specific plan. He could only devise a strategy as he went, using the tools he had. He had collected more tools during his time in the hiding place, though, and he hoped some of them might prove surprising to Elizar. He had discovered seven basic postulates, seven one-term equations that embodied the seven powers the Shadows had planted inside of them – one for each word of the Code, which he found ironic.

One, of course, was the spell of destruction. Another, the spell to listen to the Shadows. Beyond that, he was unsure of their purposes. One had underlain a series of equations for accessing external devices. Another derived from a progression involving various types of shields. Another seemed connected to their ability to generate illusions. As for the others, they seemed related to several quite different types of spells. He didn't know what they might do. The one-term equations were too dangerous to cast here, when they could carry great, unpredictable energies. Elric had said his research into the tech needed purpose. He hoped that its purpose was to give him enough knowledge to kill the two who needed to be killed.

The chanting of Blaylock's followers became audible as Galen approached the storeroom they had taken for their meetings. Tonight they held a vigil. He passed the wide doorway and saw them crowded within, kneeling rigidly on flying platforms, as they would through the night, small fireballs cupped between their hands. They wore plain black robes, their bodies scoured of all hair. They were over seventy now. Though some of their group had died, their numbers had been more than replenished as the mages increasingly turned to Blaylock's techniques of discipline and self-denial to help them retain control in this place. Galen noted that Blaylock had left the vigil; Miostro ran it in his stead.

Their chant followed him down the hall.

Keep us true to the Code.

Keep us focused on good.

Drive from us all temptation.

Guide us instead to your will.

Show us the way to become one with you.

Show us the path to enlightenment.

And bring us to unity with the universe.

They asked the Shadow tech, designed for chaos and destruction, to grant them peace and enlightenment. They asked it for help in fighting its own programming. It was terribly sad, when he thought about it. They were struggling for control, as was he. He even used some of the same techniques they did. But he could not buy into the fairy tale Blaylock had spun. He saw no good in becoming one with the tech. He was already too close to it. Galen knew what the tech was, and knew what he was. He was a killer, with only two more to kill. The only way to convince the Circle to release him was to find some way around the Shadows' ability to nullify his tech.

The Circle's greatest fear was that he would be trapped, his tech inactivated, his mind scanned. With mind-focusing exercises, a skilled mage might hold off a deep scan for a few seconds, but a powerful, determined telepath would soon breach those defenses. If Elizar did trap him again, certainly Galen could be prepared with weapons other than technomancy.

On Thenothk, though, he had managed to get G'Leel's gun only to have it drop from his hand under the force of Bunny's will. He needed a better solution. Since entering this place, Galen had studied all he knew of the Shadows' ability to nullify the tech. Although he possessed no recording of the exact signal they'd used on him, he'd gained some sense of it from Anna. When she'd connected with him, she'd been frustrated that his tech was not functioning, and she'd tried to activate it.

She identified the signal that overrode the tech, an elaborate and intense transmission in the radio band of frequencies. It had been picked up by a transceiver near the base of his spinal cord. As he pursued his research, he quickly realized the similarity between that signal and the one Burell had described. In her most extensive series of experiments, Burell had fed various signals to a mysterious transceiver she'd discovered at the base of her spinal cord, a transceiver that responded to none of the usual commands or signals.

Finally she found a signal to which it did respond: a complex, intense transmission in the radio band. In her obsessive search, Burell discovered the Shadows' secret signal to gain control of the tech. The first time Burell sent the signal, her transceiver responded with an answering transmission. The second time she sent it, a third of her implants became inert. Burell didn't understand what she'd found, because she didn't know they'd been designed as agents of the Shadows.

She didn't know their masters had created them with an on/off switch. In retrospect, it was all very clear. The first time Burell sent the signal, which requested access to a mage's systems, the tech responded with a request for the key. When Burell sent the initial signal again, the incorrect response activated some sort of safeguard. The tech concluded that the signals were coming from an interloper and not from the Shadows. To prevent further tampering, it shut down the transceiver and sections of the implants connected to it.

Burell was crippled by it. If she'd known the true origins of the tech, she might have deduced the purpose of the transceiver before experimenting on herself. But the Circle had kept its secret, at the same time searching itself for the control mechanism Burell had unknowingly discovered. Only Galen possessed both pieces of the truth. He had searched for some practical way to stop the Shadow signal from reaching the transceiver, but could find none. That left only the options of destroying the tiny piece of tech or removing it. A few inches above the coccyx, the transceiver nestled within the spinal column itself. It was surrounded by nerve fibers, including the major nerves innervating the legs.