Summoning Light (33 page)

"You always wanted to be a healer," Elizar said. He stood beside the upended table, the gurney. Perhaps the gun had fallen on the far side.

Elizar set a chair down beside Galen, extended a hand to assist him. Galen ignored the hand and used the chair to pull himself up, sitting in it before he fell.

"There is a reason," Elizar said, "that healing is the most difficult thing for a mage to master."

Galen had to concentrate to make his mouth form the words. "They both need immediate help. They're in shock."

"I cannot do anything for them," Elizar said, "until you and I talk."

Bowing his head as if in weakness, Galen looked for the gun. He must find it, and he must regain his equilibrium.

Elizar brought over a second chair, placed it opposite Galen's. He appeared unarmed. A sign of his arrogance. Still, Galen was in no condition to overpower him without a weapon.

"You don't know how glad I was to find you were here," Elizar said.

"The feeling was mutual."

Elizar sat. "You're injured."

Galen met his gaze. "Your plan is to kill us all, is it not?"

"Not if you will join me."

Galen couldn't help it; he started to laugh. His side spasmed like a fist and he clutched it, gasping. He supposed he was in shock too. "How can you possibly imagine that I would ever, ever join you?"

Elizar leaned forward, his dark blue eyes intent. "Do you remember when we spoke before? You were right. You said I must tell you what I uncovered. That I must give you evidence. I could not tell you then. But now I can."

Galen breathed lightly. "You mean you didn't want to tell me then. Unless I swore loyalty to you."

"I feared you would tell the Circle. I didn't want Kell to find out all I had learned. If only I'd known that he had contrived for me to learn it." He wiped a hand over his mouth. "In any case, I am permitted to tell you now."

"It serves your purpose to tell me now," Galen said.

"The evidence that what I say is true," Elizar said, "exists within your own body, in the very fact that your tech is no longer under your control."

"I don't care what you found. You're a butcher, and you're in partnership with butchers."

Elizar looked toward Blaylock's limp body. "You won't care so much about him when you know the truth. I told you that the Circle has lied to us. They have kept the truth from all of us – a truth we deserved to know before initiation, a truth that has put us in the middle of this war and has now brought us to the brink of destruction."

There was a secret, Galen knew. Elric had refused to tell him. Alwyn had discovered it somehow, and had believed the rest deserved to know. Galen had thought it a secret of power, a secret that might help the mages fight the Shadows.

But Galen no longer cared to know. He just wanted the tech and all its blazing energy restored to him so he could crush Elizar. So he could crush the Shadows. So he could end this.

Elizar studied him. "You and I have often spoken of the Taratimude, of their brilliance in inventing the tech. We marveled at how lucky we were, to be the inheritors of their wisdom, the recipients of these implants that grant the power to make dreams manifest, to create beauty and magic and do good. We mourned the death of the Taratimude, and of their knowledge of the tech.

"But the histories we have read are inaccurate and incomplete. The Taratimude understood the tech's workings little better than we do. They did not invent the tech. They did not produce it. They took it, in exchange for alliance. They took it from a much more ancient, much more advanced race: the Shadows."

Galen's mind went blank. For a moment, he could think of nothing. He was floating, transparent. He was not in this room, in this place. He was a ghost again, with no name, no body, no history. It was as if his identity had slipped away from him and he must wait for it to return.

But in a moment it did return, and he knew he must have misheard. Elizar could not have said what he had said. It couldn't be. All Galen had been taught, all he believed – He had spent his entire life studying the mages' history, learning their ways, striving to master the tech. The mages were a noble order, an ancient fellowship conceived in wonder, fired in discipline, proven in technomancy. They followed an admirable Code. They devoted themselves to magic, knowledge, and good.

The Shadows lived for war, chaos, and death. From behind the scenes, they provoked, they corrupted, they manipulated, they destroyed. Over their history, they had been responsible for billions of deaths. They believed in everything the mages opposed. Their technology did not empower; it enslaved.

It could not be so. Elric had told him. Elric had taught him. Elric could not have kept this from him.

Galen tightened his grip on his side. "You expect me to accept this lie?"

Elizar extended a hand. His palm faced up – a sign of honesty, as Blaylock had told him. "I've never lied to you, Galen. Everything I've said to you is true."

"The Shadows told you this? And you believe them?"

"I learned this from Kell's own files. It was part of the information he wanted me to have, the same information given to each mage elected to the Circle. It is the legacy of Wierden." He let out a heavy breath. "Throughout our history, it has fallen to the line of Wierden to meet once every three years, before each convocation, with the agents of the Shadows, just as Wierden herself did a thousand years ago. As the latest representative of her line, Kell performed that task. He would meet with a Drakh, who would hand over the implants and chrysalises we needed. The Circle does not hold the secret for replicating the tech, as they've told us. They have no idea how it is made."

Galen remembered his tribute to Wierden, how he had admired her. "If Kell put that in his files, then he lied. He was manipulating you."

"I observed him. Six months before the convocation that saw us initiated, he met with a Drakh. He gave this Drakh DNA samples of all the apprentices who were to receive their chrysalises, and all who were to receive their tech. Your DNA and mine, Galen, were given over to the Shadows. Just two weeks before the convocation, he met again with the Drakh. I saw him receive boxes filled with canisters. Some of the canisters were clear and held chrysalises floating inside. Others were opaque, carved with runes. I saw him, when he arrived on Soom, turn those boxes over to Elric. I saw those opaque canisters, carved in runes, in the very tent where our tech was implanted."

Elric could not know. Elric could not be a party to this. Elric had said he would never lie to Galen. But this would make everything Elric had ever said, everything he'd ever done, part of one huge lie.

Galen had seen the canisters himself, each holding the tech for a new initiate. But Elizar was mixing truth and lies, to make his lies more convincing. That was the only answer. The Shadows pursued the mages because the mages were powerful and potentially dangerous. Not because they were allies who had taken and taken for a thousand years, and then, when something was asked in return, pulled out of the bargain.

Elizar could tell his lie. Galen would not be drawn in.

Elizar had paused, hesitant, his lips parted. Now he spoke. "Where do you think Tilar acquired his chrysalis?"

When Galen said nothing, he continued. "I didn't want to believe it either. I was furious at Kell, just as you must be at Elric. I felt betrayed – by Kell, and by the entire lineage of mages, back to the ancients we so admired. I wasn't sure what to do.

"That's why I was acting so strangely at the convocation. I wanted to tell you. But I feared that if we confronted the Circle, they would not allow us to be initiated. We would be cast away. I knew the Circle must be overthrown, and their secrets revealed. Yet at the same time I still loved the mages, and I wanted them to continue.

"Kell's files had told me that the Shadows were returning, for the first time in a thousand years. They would expect us to ally with them, and if we refused, they would kill us all. Even if some of us managed to escape, the Shadows would have no further reason to supply us with tech. The time of the techno-mages would be over."

Elizar's fist hit his palm. "The sheer irresponsibility of it was staggering. I was outraged that the Circle had placed us in such a position. We should be leading the crusade against the Shadows, and instead we were in secret alliance with them. Worse than that, Kell believed we hadn't even the option of fighting them. Early writings of the Taratimude suggested that the Shadows possessed a device that could nullify or control the tech. This possibility – that the mages might lose control of their own tech – terrified Kell and the Circle. They feared becoming slaves of the Shadows. Obviously, the Shadows do have such a device. If not, you would have killed me and we would not be having this conversation.

"Apparently the Circle has conducted secret research on the tech for most of our history, searching for this control mechanism so they could override it. They've failed to find it. The tech is so advanced, they're like fungi trying to understand a jumpgate. At the same time, they forbade any of us from studying the tech, to prevent us from discovering the similarity between it and the ancient technology of the Shadows, to prevent us from discovering their hypocrisy. That is why Burell was treated so harshly.

"But even so, their secret has not been completely secure. A few years ago, one of the mages did discover it, and when he went to the Circle, they told him he would be flayed if he shared his knowledge."

Galen could keep silent no longer. "Who was it?" he said, knowing the answer and praying Elizar did not.

Elizar gave a truncated laugh. "Alwyn. I can't imagine how he found out. Doesn't seem like he'd have the time, with his busy schedule of drinking and womanizing. Yet somehow he did."

It all fit. Galen answered absently. "Alwyn knows the language of the Taratimude better than anyone. He taught it to me." Alwyn must have discovered the secret in some of the ancient writings.

There were too many elements of truth in Elizar's lie. Galen could not find the lie in it. Everything Elizar had told him when they'd last met had proven to be true. Could it be that Elizar, who had killed Isabelle, who had flayed Kell, was telling him the truth? Could Elric and the Circle have lied to them all? Could he be betrayed on both sides?

He had believed that becoming a mage was the greatest calling one could have. He'd thought himself unworthy to be one of their number. The Circle portrayed the tech as a great blessing bestowed upon them by an ancient, dead race. Was it instead the benefit of a secret alliance, an alliance that tied them to a race responsible for countless deaths?

We will reclaim the techno-mages,
the fiery runes on Kell's body had read. Galen had thought it a presumptuous claim by Elizar. But had the message instead come from the Shadows?

Galen had turned down alliance with the Shadows again and again, refusing their offers of power, of knowledge, of Isabelle's life.
You are already one of us,
Morden had said. If it was true, then the Circle and the Code were empty, hollow conceits. And he had followed them, and lost her.

Elizar continued. "Once I knew the truth, I realized that, above all, we must have our freedom from the Shadows. Kell and the Circle seemed to have no intention of acting. Fate left that task to me. I determined to be what the mages needed me to be, and do what they needed me to do. I would discover any method the Shadows had for controlling our tech, and learn the secret of creating it. Only that way could I lead the mages into a new age."

Galen didn't want to hear any more. What did the killer hope to accomplish? Did he think Galen would forget the past? "At the convocation, you seemed more interested in secrets of power. You wanted my spell of destruction."

Elizar gave a single nod. "Kell's files indicated that we were once much more powerful than we are now. I knew that great power would be necessary to fight the Shadows, once we gained our independence from them. For a short time at the convocation I hoped Isabelle's shield or your spell of destruction might save us. But I realized that still we must have the secret of the tech's creation, and there was only one way to get it."

Elizar's hand curled inward, and his thumb circled about his fingertips. "So I sought out the Drakh with whom Kell had met. I pretended to join with the Shadows, so I could learn their secrets. I have learned the secret of the device that turns off our tech. I've learned other secrets as well."

"How to make a killing spike." Galen bit out the words, his anger building.

Elizar straightened. Was that regret Galen saw in the planes of his pale face? Regret at having his lies interrupted with the truth, perhaps.

"I wanted Isabelle as an ally," Elizar said. "I didn't want her blood on my hands. But she left me no choice. Without her sworn allegiance, the Shadows would not allow her to live. If I had not killed her, they would have. And they would have killed both of us as well. At least when I took on the task, I gained their trust. She did not die in vain. Her death helped in a greater cause."

Galen's fingers dug into his side. He was breathing hard, pain stabbing him with each inhalation. He used the pain to gain focus, to find his equilibrium. "So you decide who must be sacrificed. And you serve as executioner."

"Perhaps I chose badly."

"Perhaps?"

"I believe that the survival of the mages is more important than anything. More important than a single life. Don't you?"

"You seem much more willing to sacrifice others than yourself."

"I convinced the Shadows to spare you."

Galen wanted to throw himself at Elizar. "You should not have." He lowered his head, again looking for the gun. "If all you've said is true, you could have told the mages, forced the Circle to admit the truth. We could have worked together to formulate a plan. Instead, you kept silent, so your initiation would not be jeopardized. You went alone, to gain knowledge and glory. You could decide later whether your allegiance was to the Shadows or the mages. After you learned how much power the Shadows would give you. After you obtained the secrets that would allow you to overthrow the Circle and take their place."