Summoning Light (14 page)

"Yes," Gowen said, looking frustrated.

Alwyn stood before Galen. "You're a more tolerant man than I, accompanying Blaylock. I'd be ready to wring his neck before we got halfway to the rim."

"Please watch over Elric," Galen said. "He is not well."

"The stubborn bastard. I'll make sure he behaves himself." Alwyn shook his head. "Apparently he and the rest of the Circle are going to look the other way, ignore our defiance. It surprised me, to tell you the truth. I expected more of a fight. Kind of looking forward to it. Officially, of course, once we fail to show up at the gathering place, they'll sentence us to flaying, as they have Elizar and Razeel. But it will be a hard sentence to impose with all of them cloistered away in the hiding place." Alwyn laughed to himself. He embraced Galen. "If you come to your senses, you know how to contact me."

"I won't change my mind."

Alwyn hesitated, his mouth falling open. "You're making a mistake. Your father: he never walked away from a fight."

It had been a long time since Alwyn had invoked his father. Once, years ago, Galen had overheard Elric telling Alwyn never to mention his parents again. For the most part, Alwyn had obeyed. The few times Alwyn had persisted, Galen had refused to respond.

"I do what I must," Galen said.

"That sounds like Elric."

"Be well," Galen said. As passionate and unreasonable as Alwyn could be, he had been a good friend.

Alwyn gave a sour smile, realizing he was being dismissed. "Come, Gowen. You're going with Elric's group, aren't you?"

Gowen nodded. "I'll follow in a moment."

As Alwyn and Carvin crossed the hangar, Gowen turned to Galen. "I'll watch over Elric as well. Please see Blaylock safely back to us. He claims he is unchanged since the destruction of his place of power, but he has aged. And he barely eats." Gowen glanced nervously toward Blaylock. "In his quest to become one with the tech, he has encouraged his systems to intertwine with it more intimately than most of ours do. I fear the destruction of his place will lead to the failure of his body. He will not make any concessions. He treats himself harshly."

Blaylock's voice rang across the hangar. "Gowen, if you have need to discuss me, do me the courtesy of speaking in my presence."

"Yes, Blaylock," Gowen called.

"His hearing seems unimpaired," Galen said.

Gowen started across the hangar toward Blaylock, looking anxiously back at Galen. Galen gave a single nod. He doubted that either he or Blaylock would return from their task, but he would do his best to keep Blaylock well.

Gowen smiled, nodding back.

As Gowen bowed before his teacher for a final good-bye, Galen saw that Elric had joined Blaylock and the others. After a few moments, Elric took his leave from them, coming toward Galen. His movements again seemed stiff, brittle. He looked tired. Galen met him.

"You will depart?" Galen asked.

"Yes," Elric said.

They stood in silence. Galen didn't know what to say. There was so much he had never said. It was too late now. There was no time.

"Do not make me see you to the other side," Elric said.

Galen nodded. He didn't want to let Elric go. He wanted to run with Elric to the hiding place, to keep Elric safe there.

"Galen!" Blaylock's voice carried across the hangar. "Come."

He had failed to say the words to her, and they had haunted him ever since. Yet still he could not say them to Elric. She was wrong. She had said he could transcend himself, but he could not. He was who he was.

"Be careful," he said, beginning to move toward Blaylock. The words sounded empty, weak.

"I am glad to have been your teacher."

Galen nodded quickly, his throat thick. As he continued toward Blaylock, he found that he had a message from Elric.
You have made me proud.

He thought to send something to Elric in return, but he could not form the words. He didn't know why. But he could not. Elric knew, didn't he? Didn't he know how Galen felt?

"Gather your things," Blaylock said. "We go at once."

Galen turned back; the air-lock door slid down, blocking the last of Elric's black robe from sight.

He was gone.

Galen took a deep breath. He and Blaylock were left in the empty hangar with Maskelyne. She had volunteered to stay behind and maintain as long as possible the illusion that the mages remained on Selic 4. She had made the planet her place of power so that she could more skillfully disguise their presence. Now she would disguise their absence. She did not know the location of the new gathering place, so when the Shadows came for her, they would not get the information from her.

Galen did not know her well, but she was a master of disguise and illusion. She constantly shrouded herself in full-body illusions, so that Galen wasn't sure what she truly looked like. She appeared now as a scarred warrior suited in glittering silver armor.

Blaylock bowed his head. "You do us a great service."

"I will be satisfied if I can take some of them with me."

"Then I wish you great satisfaction."

"And I, you."

Galen bowed. "Thank you."

"The blessing of Wierden upon you," Blaylock said to her.

Blaylock strode toward the air lock, and Galen retrieved his possessions and followed. As they stepped into the confined space, Galen slid his breather over his face.

For a few moments they were closed inside together, then the outer door opened onto the dark landscape. Faint moonlight reflected off the ice. As they stepped out, Galen heard the whisper of mage ships in the blackness overhead. He accessed his sensors, scanned the infrared for a hint of them. The ships were well shielded; only the slightest traces of their exhausts appeared as faint red fans against the night sky. A formation of fifty or so shot overhead. Elric and Ing-Radi would be leading them. Where they were going, Galen did not know. All was secrecy now.

Another group of ghostly red fans headed off to the south, this one smaller, perhaps thirty ships. Led by Herazade, they would go ahead to secure the hiding place. The red faded, vanished.

Finally, as he and Blaylock rounded the corner of the facility, he saw the main body of mage ships rising up from the ice field like a great flock of birds. With only a whisper they disappeared into the sky.

Blaylock climbed into his ship.
Follow me,
his message read.
Remain close.

Galen headed toward his own ship. The mages had been driven from their homes, and now were driven from this place. They were pursued, in decline. Elric believed they would not survive.

The cold wind burned into his skin. On the vast landscape he was alone, the mountains towering dark above him. The universe was a cold, empty place, empty with loss, empty of all the things that had once been there, and were no more. For a moment Galen thought it did not matter if he went to the rim, or if he returned within, or if he walked across the icy plain until his oxygen ran out. With the debate between fighting and fleeing, he had forgotten that simple truth. There was no justice in the universe, no order, no God. Killing Elizar would not bring Isabelle back. When she had died, the universe had not cared; the universe had continued. And now, what would happen to Elric? Would he die, and would the universe continue along its maddening course of chaos and death?

He didn't want Elric to be gone, as others had gone, leaving only a painful hole in memory. Whether Galen came back from the rim or not, Elric had to be all right. He had to. Galen stared up at the countless stars.

Please don't die,
he thought.
Please don't.

February 2259

C
HAPTER 7

Elric stood at the window as the transport approached Babylon 5. Bathed in light, the station was five miles of spinning metal, containing one quarter of a million beings. As a construction, the space station was primitive. As an idea, however, Babylon 5 aspired to the highest goal: good. It had been designed to promote communication and understanding between various species, to prevent unnecessary conflict.

Unfortunately, not all conflict was unnecessary.

While most on Babylon 5 remained unaware that the first skirmishes of a great war had already taken place, the influence of that coming war spread all around them. Here the early stages were fought quietly, in microcosm. Intelligence was gathered, alliances formed, alliances broken. Plots and counterplots were launched, some successful, some not. The mages' deception would be among them.

Yet this could be no ordinary deception.

The mages were more powerful and advanced than any but the Vorlons and the Shadows. Over their history, the mages had performed successful deceptions on members of nearly every intelligent species – save the Vorlons and the Shadows. Techno-mages were adept at manipulating perceptions, at influencing thoughts, at using the desires of others for their own ends.

Yet Elric could not manipulate the perceptions of the Shadows, when they could penetrate his illusions. He could influence their thoughts only crudely, with the limited knowledge he had of them. He hoped, at least, he knew their desires, for in those lay his only chance of success. And he must succeed, for the survival of the mages depended on it.

Elric looked to Muirne and Beel, who stood beside him. They were both only in their forties, yet they too had been weakened by the loss of their places of power. Their weakness was less severe, since they had been connected to their places for a shorter time, yet he could see new signs of aging in them. The roots of Muirne's blond hair were going prematurely grey, and Beel's eyes seemed to have withdrawn into shadowed hollows.

They stood before the large window at the front of the passenger compartment, drawing attention to themselves without seeming to do so. All three wore black robes, and to make himself even more conspicuous, Elric had chosen the robe Isabelle had given him, curving silver and copper cords adorning the front in a bold pattern. In the crook of his arm he cradled his staff. It was short, in the ancient fashion, only three feet long and of a dull, unadorned silver. He wanted to make sure they were recognized by as many as might have memory of them. Once the transport docked, the news that mages had arrived must spread quickly through the station. Elric anticipated their strategy would be successful, for the other passengers shot them nervous glances and kept their distance.

"We have only fifteen minutes until our arrival," Muirne said.

Elric gave a grim nod, shifting his attention to the images in his mind's eye, which he knew the others watched as well. Through Babylon 5's security cameras, he saw Alwyn and Carvin loitering in one of the station's less reputable bazaars, among the crowds and noise. They were disguised with full-body illusions as Drazi, covered with thick grey scales, wearing coarse tunics and pants, and purple scarves about their necks. Although Elric and his two companions would be the first mages to officially arrive on the station, nothing was as it seemed. Alwyn and Carvin had arrived a day earlier, in disguise.

Through another camera, Elric monitored an empty corridor on the station. To the left stood a door that remained stubbornly closed, a door that must open before Elric arrived. It marked the room where the Drazi Rabelna Dorna stayed.

The plan had been for Alwyn and Carvin to encounter Rabelna the previous night and leak information to her. She was a thief and spy who operated out of the station, and in recent months, she had made several trips to the Thenothk system. After each trip, her bank account grew significantly. She was the perfect vehicle through which to convey a certain piece of news to the Shadows.

Alwyn and Carvin were to contrive for her to overhear them speaking. Since, to all appearances, techno-mages had not even arrived on the station, no deception would be suspected.

Yet last night, as Alwyn and Carvin had entered a bar where Rabelna gathered information, a fight had broken out between members of two Drazi factions: one wearing purple scarves and the other wearing green.

The Drazi had arrived at the end of their five-year cycle, and as custom required, they had split themselves into two groups by drawing scarves of either purple or green from a great barrel. For the next year they would fight, and when the fighting ended, the winning side would take over for the next cycle. Their custom was mindless, pointless, the seeds planted long ago by the Shadows. In a small way, it reflected the very conflict that would soon envelop them all.

Alwyn and Carvin, wearing purple, had been drawn into the fight, and had barely escaped being rounded up by security personnel. Rabelna had retreated to her quarters, and had not emerged since. The information had not been delivered.

Elric had not yet stepped foot on Babylon 5, and already his plan had gone awry.

If Rabelna did not receive the information until after mages had "arrived" on the station, she might suspect it. Even if she did not, her clients on the rim surely would. The information must not be tainted by the shadow of suspicion.

Elric watched the empty corridor, the closed door. She went to the bazaar every day at the same time. Yet today, she had failed to emerge. And he had no idea what she was doing within.

One of their greatest weaknesses in operating out of Babylon 5 was a lack of information. Their knowledge of the station and those who lived on it wasn't as extensive as it might be, for no mage had taken the station as a place of power. The fates of the previous Babylon stations had deterred interest, and this fifth station had not existed long enough to prove itself worthy of a mage's lifelong commitment.

The mage most closely associated with the station was Muirne. She had visited a number of times, though never revealing her identity. She had tapped into security, communications, and other systems soon after the station went on-line, but had never bothered to plant probes of her own. The primitive cameras used by station security provided superficial background information, though little more. They were limited to public areas and offered only rudimentary visual and audio functions.