Summoning Light (29 page)

He took a deep breath, banishing his worry. It would serve nothing. He opened the message and forced himself through it, word by word, sentence by sentence.

The Shadows know you are on Babylon 5. They know you plan to leave on the Zekhite. The Zekhite will be destroyed once you are aboard. Morden is in charge of it.

If the Shadows could intercept their messages, Galen's warning would work to Elric's advantage. That, however, provided little comfort. Galen's message was unnecessary. And he had risked his life to send it.

I was able to translate Isabelle's spell. I'm sending you all of her files, and my translation, and the information we've gathered about this place and the Shadows.

Galen had learned how to listen to the Shadows. If others could translate the work, this would be an invaluable asset. It would take time, though.

Only three sentences remained.

Blaylock has been captured and is being held in the City Center. I'm going after him.

Elizar is there.

Blaylock had been overcome, just as Kell had been. Of the powers Elizar and the Shadows might have used to subdue them, Elric had only his fears. Against those powers, Galen would have no preparation, no defense.

Galen had written the message in haste, no doubt, which explained its sudden end. Elric skimmed through the attached information. Galen had given over all of Isabelle's files, his private link to her. He did not believe he would return.

The message was awash with Galen's emotions: fear for himself, fear for Elric and the mages, fear for Blaylock, and, at the end, a hint of eagerness. At last Galen would get what he most wanted, and what Elric most feared: a confrontation with Elizar.

Elric pressed the heel of his hand to his temple, hoping to hold back the pain. It was building, and he had no time to rest.

He composed a brief, cryptic message to Alwyn, from which Alwyn would understand that he must seek out this City Center. Elric should have sent him sooner. Elric should have gone himself. He should never have allowed Galen to part from him.

If the Shadows had Blaylock, then they likely knew of Galen's presence on Thenothk. Morden could have known his location all along. His threat need not have been idle.

Elric lowered his hand from his head, but the emptiness remained, pushing outward, pressing at the backs of his eyes, his forehead. How could he have allowed Galen's life to be endangered? How could he have let Galen go to the Shadows? Would Galen be sent back to them, flayed? Or would they hold him and tempt him with what he most wanted? And when he listened to the Shadows, what poison would he hear?

C
HAPTER 13

It was near dawn when Galen and G'Leel approached the demolition site behind the City Center. The streets were quiet now. The not-darkness of night was being replaced by the not-light of day. Columns of black smoke rose to obscure the sky.

They slipped into an alley, unobserved. His breathing rapid and shallow, Galen unwrapped from around his head the scarf, which he had used as a crude disguise. He pushed it into his pocket.

Dark spots danced before his eyes, and he rested for a moment against the side of a building. His leg had turned into a mass of pain. He hadn't dared use a platform to reach the City Center, and as they'd hurried through the maze of streets, it had swollen until he could no longer bend his knee. The skin was hot and tight, and with each step the grating in his shin set off a brilliant detonation of sensation.

He was racing with energy-burning with it. He had felt that way ever since he'd heard Tilar speak Elizar's name. The tech was ready for his command. Yet what good was it if the Shadows would detect him the moment he used it? He must make do with his broken body a little while longer.

He started down the long alley after G'Leel. They must hurry. Even now it could be too late.

It had been forty-five minutes since he'd awoken in G'Leel's hotel room. In his mind's eye, Galen watched the bright white room deep underground through the probe on Rabelna. Blaylock remained lying on the floor, unconscious. Elizar and Tilar had spent the time first arguing over who was to blame for Blaylock's condition, then debating what should be done about it. Bunny had tried to stimulate Blaylock's mind to consciousness, but had failed.

Now she stood over him in her pink dress, hands on her hips. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he was brain-dead. Obviously the functions to keep his body alive are still working. But the higher functions are shut down. He's not asleep. He's not unconscious. He's just" – she snapped her fingers – "turned off. You mages are very fragile."

"That's not possible," Elizar said. "A brain can't just be turned off." Galen tried not to focus on Elizar. When he looked at that angular, arrogant face, his hatred threatened to overwhelm him.

"Well, I don't sense a thing from him," Bunny said. "Not a memory, not a worry, not a wet dream – nothing."

To one side, Tilar studied Blaylock with an intensity that worried Galen. "That's not the way it's supposed to work."

Bunny shrugged. "Well, I can't get anything out of him like this."

As the discussion continued, Galen tried to understand what had happened. Elizar and Tilar had done something to Blaylock. He had no idea what they'd done, but obviously they hadn't expected this result. He feared they'd caused Blaylock some irreparable damage. It was strange, though, that they were so puzzled by his condition.

Galen had considered the possibility that Blaylock was pretending an injury to avoid a scan by Bunny. Yet he didn't believe Blaylock had the ability to simply turn off the higher functions of his brain. Elizar was right; it wasn't possible. And in the unlikely event Blaylock did have the ability, how would he ever judge when it was safe to turn his brain back on? Galen didn't think Blaylock would have returned to this place just to play dead.

A more likely possibility, which cycled endlessly through Galen's mind, was that Blaylock had purposely injured himself. Blaylock had said Kell induced a heart attack to avoid revealing information. Had Blaylock, perhaps, induced a stroke? The locations of the gathering place and the hiding place were in his keeping. And Blaylock might have felt some need to protect Galen, to give him the chance to pass along the information they'd gained.

That would mean Blaylock had sacrificed himself for Galen, just as she had done. Galen could not accept that. He could not live with that. No more would die for him, unless he wanted them to.

As he approached the mouth of the alley, he pressed himself against the wall. Then, at last, he could rest another moment. He wrapped a hand around his side, struggling to catch his breath.

From across the alley, G'Leel appraised him. "You look like death."

Galen gazed out on the demolition site. It was a great open area of brown rock, surrounded on all sides by high buildings, the tallest the City Center. The Joncorp factory had once stood here, and soon would again, if G'Leel's information was accurate.

The ground was flat, except for a vast, irregularly shaped hole that had been excavated out of the rock. The excavation began just a short distance from the alley where they stood and covered about half of the empty lot. Galen couldn't see how deep the hole was, but he remembered that the Shadow ship had been carving some sort of trench in the ground. Anna must have blasted out this entire area.

A large group worked at the far end of the lot, where Anna had crashed. Pieces of wreckage were being hauled up on cranes and cleared away. The near end of the lot was unoccupied.

Galen couldn't tell whether the large hole contained an entrance to the complex of underground tunnels where Blaylock was held, but his guess was it did. That could be the easiest way in.

"What are they doing over there?" G'Leel asked.

It was time to risk detection, Galen decided. They'd probably be spotted as soon as they entered the tunnels anyway. "Want to take a ride?" he asked.

"On what?"

Galen visualized the equation for a flying platform, and the tech echoed it, eager, at last, to act. The platform pushed against his feet. He conjured an equation of motion, glided over to her.

"How the hell are you doing that?"

He extended the platform beneath her feet, and she grabbed at him for balance. "Hold on," he said. "We're going to move quickly."

She took hold of his belt.

Equation of motion, equation of motion. They shot out from the alley across twenty feet of open space, dropped straight down into the excavation. She grabbed him with both arms and spat a curse in Narn.

Perhaps a hundred feet below them was a smooth, dull black surface. It ran in gentle, graceful contours. It had been buried here, in the ground. Anna had unearthed it. Galen slowed their descent and turned the platform so he could observe the strange, spiky object that had been revealed.

"What the–" G'Leel said.

"You remember the ship you described to me once? As black as space, and bristling with arms. It moved as if alive."

"That's it," G'Leel said. "What's it doing in the ground?"

"I don't know. The Shadows must conceal their ships until they're needed. The one I destroyed last night was cutting this one free." They had demolished the Joncorp factory to reach it.

He resumed their rapid descent, directing them down between the front edge of the Shadow ship and the stone wall of the pit.

"You destroyed one last night," G'Leel said breathlessly. "A Shadow ship. One that was moving around."

As he skirted the edge of the ship he saw a faint light coming from below. It was a tunnel in the wall of the excavation. From the tunnel, a walkway led to an opening in the ship. Galen brought them down on the walkway.

G'Leel released him and took a few stiff steps back. "I thought techno-mages were wise. I thought maybe they knew a few things. But I didn't think they did much, except tell fortunes and perform mysterious-nonsense."

"I suppose this would fall into the mysterious nonsense category." The entrance to the ship revealed only darkness. He wondered if someone was wired inside. There was no time to investigate.

The tunnel through the brown rock was about eight feet across, and had an arched shape. The floor had been smoothed and polished flat. The rest remained rough and ragged. Surely the Shadows had the ability to create something much more finished. But then, they chose to spend much of their time down here, rather than in the tower above. Perhaps this was where they were comfortable. Galen wondered if this was how they lived on their home, Z'ha'dum.

The dimly lit tunnel extended about thirty feet, then ended at an intersection with another. He saw no one, though the probe on Rabelna had revealed that the tunnels were well traveled by Shadows and others. Galen wished he could use a full-body illusion to disguise himself. But that would probably give him away even more quickly than some half-baked deception. "Hold your gun on me," he said. "If we are stopped, I am your prisoner."

"Who am I?"

"You are one of that cleanup crew out there. You were told to watch for me."

G'Leel pulled out her gun. "You think they're going to believe that?"

"If they don't, shoot them."

"Oh."

Galen limped down the tunnel.

In his mind's eye, within the white room, Elizar turned on Tilar. "You hit him. You did something. Just admit it."

Tilar crossed his arms over his chest. Against the ornately decorated vest he wore, the sleeves of his shirt were a brilliant white. "I didn't lay a hand on him. You can see there's not a mark."

"There were plenty of marks on Regana."

"Are we going to go through that again? She was my teacher. It was my right to kill her however I wanted."

Elizar threw up his hand with a flourish. "You are a sadist. And a poorly skilled one, at that."

"You act like you want to wrap your arms around Blaylock and give him a big wet kiss. We're going to kill him. What difference would it make if I-" Tilar turned and delivered a vicious kick to Blaylock's head. It snapped to the side, slowly rolled back. A trickle of blood ran down his temple.

Galen reached the end of the tunnel. A second one led off to left and right, curving in both directions so he could not see far along its length. A few doors were built into the rock, controlled by keypads in their frames. They were all closed, no one in sight. Galen wondered if he and G'Leel were just lucky, or if they were walking into a trap. It had occurred to him that Rabelna's presence within the underground room might be for his benefit. Elizar could have deduced that Galen and Blaylock had followed her to the City Center. He could have scanned her and discovered the probe. Showing Rabelna that they held Blaylock prisoner would be the best way to lure Galen there. But to what end? Elizar knew that Galen held the secret of destruction. Didn't Elizar fear him?

Whether it was a trap or not, he must reach Blaylock quickly. The probe on Rabelna was one hundred feet below them, and seventy feet to the north. Galen turned right, hurrying ahead. The curving tunnels seemed as mazelike as the city above.

In his mind's eye, the argument continued.

"This is ridiculous," Elizar said. "He could have all the information we want, and somehow you've destroyed our opportunity. I don't think our associates will be pleased with that."

Tilar spread his hands. "I haven't done anything! He's faking it. You know how he and his hairless holy order can turn their senses on and off. He's obviously got some method of turning his brain off." Tilar looked down at Blaylock. "He'll wake up if he really wants to. We just have to make him want to." He circled Blaylock's fallen body. After every few steps, as punctuation to his speech, he drew his leg back and kicked Blaylock, hard. "You act like you're so pure. Self-denial. Scouring. You claim the tech connects you to God. Well I have a message from God. He says he wants no part of you." He dropped to his knees beside Blaylock, took Blaylock's hand in his. As he bent forward, he obscured Galen's view.

"What do you think you're doing," Elizar said.