Summoning Light (35 page)

He must get to the gun. Galen removed his hand from his side, straightened. He didn't dare move his leg until he had to. Without the aid of the organelles, the pain had been intensifying steadily the entire time they'd been speaking. And the leg had swollen up even more than before, his pants digging into it.

Galen took a shallow breath, focused. He was a poor liar, but he had to try, at least, to convince Elizar that he was considering the proposition. "You're right that I hate you. But I'm not blinded by it. Your plan is our only chance. Yet how do I know that saving the mages is your true goal? Once you learn the hiding place, you can kill me, and you will have the rest of the mages at your mercy. I've no sensors to tell me whether you speak the truth. You must give me a sign of your good intentions. Restore my tech. Show me your trust, and I will show you mine."

Elizar stood. "And how do I know you won't destroy me, as you've destroyed so many in the tunnels? You've killed many more than I, Galen."

And he'd just been getting started.

Elizar brought his hand down sharply. "I've told you more truth than anyone else in your life. Tell me what you know of the mages' hiding place. Together we can save them. Together we can gain their freedom. You know that's what I want. And I know it's what you want. We once shared noble dreams. Reality has tainted them, but still there are great tasks left for us to accomplish. Show me your goodwill. Then I will restore your tech to you."

Galen looked down, trying to appear uncertain. He needed Elizar to move away from the gurney. He needed Elizar not to see the gun.

"Are others here with you and Blaylock?" Elizar asked.

Galen met his gaze. "No. The rest are on Babylon 5. We came to discover the Shadows' plans for them."

"And what of the mages' hiding place?"

"Unfortunately," Galen said, "the Circle's secrecy is not limited to the tech. Only they know the location of the hiding place. They feared that some of our number were agents of the Shadows, so they would tell no others."

Elizar studied him. "You know nothing more?"

"Blaylock knows the hiding place." Galen staggered to his feet. Pain shot up his leg. "Rouse him and I will help convince him to tell you. I have no further loyalty to him." He swayed, his vision swarming with grey dots. He focused on his balance. He must reach the gun in one clean movement.

"Blaylock will never tell. And you have told me nothing that would convince the Shadows you have turned." Elizar extended a hand, stopped himself before he touched Galen. "I don't understand you. This is the only chance the mages have. You must help me. Don't you want to save them?"

Galen found his breaths coming faster. He fixed Elizar with his gaze. "Restore my power. Let us go. Tell the Shadows we escaped. I will warn the mages. They will elude the trap, and you will have the time you need."

Elizar flung his arms wide, and his voice rose. "How do I know you won't kill me? I can't endanger all I have done, let all those who have died be lost in vain. I must know I can trust you." He hesitated. "If you know nothing of the hiding place, then explain to me your spell of destruction. It will remain between us."

For Elizar, it always came back to power. "I will tell no one that spell. The temptation is too great."

Elizar's mouth hung open at a crooked angle. "We both want the mages to survive. Don't you find it tragic that we can't trust each other? It's our only chance. Galen, we have only a few minutes before they're all dead. What can I do, what can I say to gain your trust?"

"Bring Isabelle back."

Elizar's mouth wrinkled shut, and his eyes drifted to the side. "I would if it were within my power. Not a night has passed that I haven't relived that nightmare. But we must get beyond that. She–"

"There is no getting beyond that."

Elizar's gaze returned to Galen, lingered there. At last he shook his head, and his voice was soft. "I must have Bunny scan you. She will know your true intentions. If you will leave me unharmed, I will help you and Blaylock to escape."

Once Bunny was inside his mind, she could find out whatever Elizar desired.

Elizar started toward the door, and Galen pushed off with his good leg, lunging for the gun. He lurched into the gurney, his elbows slamming down onto Anna's legs, and snatched up the weapon. The gurney began to roll away, and he stumbled to regain his balance, a brilliant pain exploding in his shin. He brought the gun up on Elizar, gasping.

On the floor to one side lay G'Leel, her gloved hands open, empty. Galen's grip was tight about her gun. She had risked her life to help him, and he had nearly forgotten about her.

A shot to the head or heart could kill Elizar. And in a moment, it would. But he must make sure, first, that he could get G'Leel away from this place.

"Open the door," he said breathlessly.

Elizar seemed frozen, his eyes wide. His expression was satisfyingly similar to that in Galen's fantasy. "You would have all the mages die." He fell silent, and after a few moments, his face regained its composure. "You're not the person I knew. It is more important to you to kill me, than to save everything you love."

"I love nothing," Galen said, "except the thought of killing you."

Elizar glanced toward the door behind him. "The passage outside is filled with Drakh. The Shadows won't let you leave this room. They know what you can do, better than you know it. They've been especially patient with you, because they wanted you fighting on their side. But they've made you their last offer. Submit to scanning. Give us what you know."

Something fell behind him with a heavy metallic ring. Galen looked back. The gurney had brought Anna to rest against the far wall. She had pried a panel off it. Within the wall, something soft and black glistened, shot through with veins of silver. She thrust her emaciated hand into it. She had found another machine with which to connect. It was all that mattered to her. She was a slave to the Shadows' programming, just as he was. Galen turned back to Elizar.

"Open the door."

Elizar pressed several buttons on the door's keypad.

There was no response. Was it some trick? Or could Anna somehow be affecting it?

"Open it," Galen said.

Elizar pressed the buttons again. Still the door did not move.

The lights went out, plunging them into darkness. Galen feared he had missed his only chance. Crying out, he fired at the spot where Elizar had stood, filling the area with plasma bolts. Each recoil spiked pain down his leg.

The door opened, and in the dim light of the tunnel he saw the craggy silhouettes of Drakh filling the doorway. He shot at them with the crude weapon.

The Drakh fell back with the impact of his blasts, but their armor, he suspected, protected them from any serious injury. In another second or two, he would surely be shot. He must throw himself at them. If he got out of the room, perhaps his power would be restored. That was his only chance of escape.

Firing, he stumbled toward the doorway. But the shapes there shifted. The craggy silhouettes parted, and a thinner, softer silhouette came forward between them. The dim light reflected off a curve of yellow hair. Galen's arm fell limp; the gun clattered against the floor. Beneath the curve of yellow hair, the face was a pit of pure blackness, and in the moment he saw it he was captured by it, its hunger pulling him toward it, sucking him in. He found his legs had stopped their forward movement, yet his mind was rushing ahead, unable to resist, wrenched from his body into the rich shining blackness.

C
HAPTER 15

The blackness spread over Galen's mind, branching into tentacles, burrowing inward. He'd thought at first that he'd entered the blackness, but he now realized the blackness had entered him. The tentacles slid deeper, twisting, writhing. Then the end of each sprouted a claw, dug in.

He saw Elizar sitting before him.
It all makes sense now, doesn't it?
Then Elric stood before him in a hallway on Selic 4.
It is the test of what you are. A techno-mage or a traitor. One who kills, or one who does good. One in control, or one consumed by chaos. One who brings darkness, or one who brings light.
Then it was Blaylock, sitting across the table from him on the transport.
Elric and the others,
Galen said to him.
They're on Babylon 5.

Bunny was scanning him. She was going to find out what she must not find out. He desperately visualized a blank screen in his mind, narrowed his attention to it, to the letter A appearing in blazing blue in the upper left-hand corner. It felt strange, doing the exercise without the echo of the tech. Yet he had done it many times before he'd received the implants.

It all makes sense now, doesn't it?
Elizar said.

He forced the letter B to appear beside the A.

Then it was A B C in a neat row. Then A B C D. He must hold them all in his mind at once, keep each individual letter clear while the whole also remained clear. He must keep out anything else.

A movement distracted him, and for a moment he was back in the white room. Bunny was smiling, waving off the Drakh, coming toward him. He found his legs stumbling back, away from the door. The tentacles carved paths through his mind, probing for his deepest secrets.

Gowen walked beside him. How could Elizar do such a thing?

ABCDE.

ABCDEF

ABCDEFG.

He could hold her off for only a few seconds more. He must kill himself before she could find what he knew. But he had no weapon. He added letter after letter at the end of the neat row, more and more to hold in his mind. H. I. J.

The tentacles drove into him, as the spike drove into her.
It's no use,
she said.
This is not a wound you can heal. It is a weapon inside me.

K. The letter took great effort, and he found himself thinking of Babylon 5, of Elric. Bunny was forcing him to. He pushed the thoughts away. He must continue the alphabet, complete it. Don't think of what would come after.

L, M, N. He came up against the wall, the gurney blocking him on his left. He sat in his bedroom on Soom working on his spells, Fa crouched on the table beside his screen.
What's that?
she asked.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO.

The lights came back on. Anna looked up at him with dark, hungry eyes. She was controlling the room's systems. P. Her left arm was coated in the gelatinous black matter, silver threads running through it like veins. Q. With her free hand, Anna seized him about the wrist. Elric seized him in an embrace as he left for Zafran 8.

R. She jerked his hand to the metal device on her head. She would control every machine in the universe, given the chance. He fell through the night, and she screamed with him. Anna. Anna Sheridan.

His father towered over him, dark, enraged.
You're my apprentice. She's nothing to you!
It was becoming harder and harder to add letters, to hold them all in his mind. He focused. Pushed.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST.

Galen's breath deepened as Anna took control of him, and pain stabbed into his side. His heartbeat slowed, falling into pounding synchrony with hers. He searched for control of his hand, was about to pull away from her when he felt the penetrating tentacles of blackness hesitate in their paths.

U. Bunny was uncertain, confused by what she sensed.

Galen slammed his free hand against the fine metalwork on Anna's head. Let them fight for control of him. Perhaps it would give him a few more seconds to think. Yet he must focus only on the alphabet, each letter now a monolith of effort.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV.

Anna circulated all through him now. Galen could feel her frustration at his tech's lack of response. She wanted what she had felt before, when they had connected in the tunnel. She found meaning only as part of the machine, in serving the machine. This machine was not working.

W. She located the problem. A transceiver at the base of his spinal cord was picking up an intense signal in the radio band. The signal overrode the tech, prevented it from acting. Anna searched for the source of the signal, sending herself out through the silver veins, through the machine built into the wall and through all those with which it was connected.

Bunny renewed her assault, claws ripping through Galen's mind. As he fiercely visualized the screen with the letters of the alphabet, thoughts and memories flashed in and out, leaking through his defenses.

Elric stood before him.
We may alter the particulars of our plan. But the plan has already been put in motion, and we cannot change course now.

X.

The Circle stood on the dais before the mages. Blaylock spoke.
We have decided upon a new site at which we can prepare for our exodus.
Bunny was searching for the mages' plan, zeroing in.

Y. Galen forced his mind away from that room, forced the alphabet to completion.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

But then he was standing before the dais again. Blaylock continued.
We cannot allow our gathering place again to be discovered by the Shadows.

Anna traced the nullifying signal to its source. And turned it off.

Power shot through him like a seizure. His body filled with fire, incandescent. Anna reveled in it. She too was programmed for destruction. She wanted her new weapon to work well.

He'd been horrified at what she was, yet they were kin: different systems with different degrees of autonomy, on the same spectrum of chaos and death.

The black claws ripped out of his mind. Bunny had broken off her attack and was pushing her way back through the crowd of Drakh toward the door. She knew what had happened.

Galen yanked his hands from Anna, retaking control of his racing body, struggling to regain his bearings. He didn't believe he'd revealed the mages' deception, but he couldn't be absolutely certain. He had to kill Bunny.

As the nearest Drakh raised his gun, Galen seized him within a sphere of destruction. Then the next Drakh. And the next. The white walls began to undulate, and time turned sluggish, distorted.