Summoning Light (36 page)

He couldn't see Bunny. He cast the one-term spell again, this time making the sphere large enough to encompass as much as possible of the area between him and the door, while making sure it touched neither G'Leel nor Blaylock. The energy came down upon him, shot out of him. Many of the Drakh – and parts of a few who stood along the edges – were encased within the sphere. It began to darken. Galen hoped Bunny was among them.

Now for Elizar. Galen scanned the area in search of mage energy. All he found were his own and Blaylock's. At greater distances, as before, unfamiliar energies overwhelmed any sign of a mage. He realized why those frequencies were so full. The Shadow tech radiated at frequencies similar to the mage tech. They shared a common lineage.

The large sphere began to collapse. It had cut into the wall around the door, turning the opening into a large, curved archway. Through it, in the tunnel, he saw Rabelna. In the fluid spacetime of the spell, her shoulders were stretching out to each side, pulling the plaid pattern of her jacket with them, turning her into a strange, alien scarecrow. Her mouth open in fear, Rabelna aimed her gun at him, the gun that had shot G'Leel. With a thought Galen imploded her.

Behind her were more Drakh, and as his spheres collapsed with deafening cracks, they spilled into the room to fill the emptiness. Galen captured them in clumps.

Movement to his side, and Galen turned, the tech eager, ready for direction. It was Blaylock. He was pushing himself up against the wall, his rippling face ashen, drawn. He must have awakened when his tech was restored.

Blaylock jerked his head toward the door and raised his mangled palms. Arcs of brilliant white electricity jumped between the buttons of his jacket sleeves, raced up his arms, down the front of his jacket. A brilliant flash shot out from his chest. It moved too quickly to see, yet Galen could tell who its target had been.

The white carapace on the Drakh's head had been scorched black, and his armor ran down his body in thick rolls of sludge.

Smoke rose from around him, carrying the smell of charred flesh. The Drakh's arm fell to his side. He had been aiming his weapon at Galen. He collapsed in a smoldering heap.

Galen seized Drakh by the handful, the spells forming effortlessly in a neat column, the energy blazing through him, their bodies crumbling inward to nothingness. He remembered Blaylock's words.
What we have been given, Galen, is a mystery beyond our understanding, a true blessing. It taps into the basic force and fabric of the universe, into God, as some call it. Our place is to use that blessing in the best way possible, to be the best agents of the universe that we can. A mage who forms a perfect union with his tech will undergo an enlightenment in which he learns the will of the tech, and the universe. As one, they may carry out that will.

He had learned the will of the tech, and it brought no enlightenment. The tech had nothing to do with God, or the universe. It was programmed to destroy.

Blaylock shrouded the tech in mystery to prevent them from studying it. Galen should kill him for all the lies he'd told. But then, they probably had only a few minutes left to live.

Drakh continued to storm the room. They didn't know enough to stop, to withdraw. Eventually his attention would falter, and another one would get past him, and shoot him. Until then, he would kill as many as he could.

A sphere of brilliant fire streaked down the tunnel outside. It looked like the fireball of a mage. Could the Shadows generate them too? Another fireball shot past, and then a screeching, high-pitched cry echoed down the passage.

It was so strange to hear that sound in this place. The distortion from the spell of destruction made the cry muddier than it normally was, yet still he recognized it. It was the cry Alwyn had designed for his favorite illusion, the golden dragon.

Alwyn was here. Elric must have sent him.

Belching fireballs down at the Drakh, the wavering golden beast floated past the doorway like some kind of hallucination. Its wings were folded back to fit in the tight space.

Facing the dragon on one side and Galen on the other, the Drakh scattered down the tunnel.

Reluctantly, Galen stopped the flow of destruction. He was blazing with energy, racing with it. He held himself still. In the aftermath of the implosions, only the muffled cry of the dragon broke the silence. Time and space regained their regularity, solidity.

He went to the doorway. Though his leg remained stiff, the pain had again vanished. He conjured a platform beneath G'Leel. Alwyn could take her away – and Blaylock, if he wished. Then Galen would find Elizar. Then this would end.

The dragon passed by the doorway again, returning the way it had come.

The tunnel outside was clear of Drakh. He searched for the static-shrouded bodies of the Shadows and found none. He glanced back at Anna. The black gelatinous substance had extruded from the wall to encase her, reducing her to a shadow within its darkness. He would have liked to free her, to have Alwyn take her away as well, but he didn't know how to go about it. And if he did succeed in separating her from the machine, the signal that had nullified their tech might resume.

There was no time. Elizar could be escaping. She was happiest this way, anyway. Just as he was happiest in destruction.

Blaylock was sliding along the wall toward her. Galen didn't know why he bothered to speak to the liar; it was something in Blaylock's face, in the gaunt lines that revealed horror at Anna's body subsumed within the machine.

"If you want to leave, you'd better go now."

Blaylock turned toward him, the words taking a moment to register. Then Blaylock nodded, his face regaining its severity, and he pulled himself away from the wall. He walked with unsteady steps through the scoop-shaped depressions in the floor. "I told you not to come after me."

"You told me many things."

Galen stepped out into the dim stone tunnel. He scanned again for mage energy, but he could detect no clear signal.

"Elizar fled when our power returned," Blaylock said.

Galen was irritated that Blaylock knew what he was thinking. With an equation of motion he brought G'Leel out into the tunnel. To the left was the way back to the surface, the direction from which Alwyn's dragon had come.

Alwyn ran into sight around the curve, his silver hair gleaming in the dim light. He stopped and waved. "The cavalry is here! Hurry!" He turned and disappeared around the bend.

Galen limped quickly down the tunnel, bringing G'Leel behind him. Blaylock followed more slowly. Galen considered conjuring a platform for him, then grew angry at himself for thinking of helping. Let Blaylock conjure it if he needed it.

Galen received a message from Blaylock. It was a copy of a message he had sent to Alwyn.
Alwyn,
the message simply read.

Galen pushed himself ahead with his stiff leg, G'Leel and Blaylock falling behind. He craned his neck, glimpsing a flash of multicolored robe as Alwyn disappeared farther around the curve.

A response came from Alwyn.
I've been trying to reach you for ages. What happened to you?

Blaylock's response went to both Galen and Alwyn.
How did you know where we were?

I didn't,
Alwyn wrote.
I don't. Where are you?

Your golden dragon passed us only a minute ago.

That wasn't my dragon.

That wasn't Alwyn ahead of them. An illusion then, he thought eagerly. Created by whom? Elizar?

He ceased G'Leel's forward movement. He knew he should stop as well, but he didn't want to. Instead he continued a few more steps, the steps necessary to bring him around the curve and carry him into confrontation with his enemy, to reveal the trap that had been laid.

Drakh lined both sides of the passage, their weapons trained on him. Straight ahead, just a few feet away, stood the illusion of Alwyn.

Galen could see the quality of the illusion was very good – reproducing Alwyn's thin hair, the bags beneath his eyes. Too good to be created from a distance. Someone was within the illusion, either Elizar or Tilar. He must know which.

Several things happened very quickly.

Alwyn smiled. "Fire!"

With the whisper of silk, a shield slipped down over Galen. Blaylock was protecting him. A platform pushed up against his feet. Blaylock was going to pull him back down the tunnel.

At this short distance, Galen could finally detect mage energy from the figure before him. He had sensed this energy before. It held the distinctive signature of a chrysalis.

Tilar.

Galen visualized the screen in his mind's eye, imposed the spell of destruction upon it. The tech's response was instantaneous. The energy struck out, seized Tilar. As hot plasma sprayed yellow across Galen's field of vision, a spherical area around the false Alwyn began to redden and darken. Galen glanced at the roof of the tunnel, cast the spell of destruction within the rock there.

Blaylock's platform began to pull him back around the curve, while within the sphere the false Alwyn dissolved, revealing Tilar beneath. The silvery chrysalis on his head ballooned upward. His mouth rippled out in a silent scream. His arms – white from shoulder to elbow, dark red from elbow to hand – elongated downward, stretching like taffy to curl and pool beside his feet. In the last moment before the tunnel eclipsed Galen's view, the sphere begin to fade and collapse, and within its great invisible fist – the fist of Galen's will – Tilar's body was crushed.

He found it very satisfying.

As the platform raced back, a thunderous crack split the air. A rush of dirt and rocks shot down the tunnel at him, slamming into the shield.

Galen turned to face his direction of motion, found Blaylock and G'Leel on a platform beside him, speeding down the tunnel away from the cave-in.

When they reached a safe distance, Blaylock stopped both platforms, dissolved them and the defensive shields he'd conjured. He took a single, stumbling step, then recovered his balance and stood still, head bowed. He'd pulled off the tourniquets at some point; the bloodstained scarf hung around his neck. His face was shiny with sweat.

The energy still burned through Galen, racing, endless. He had to get G'Leel and Blaylock out of here.

He realized he had a series of messages from Alwyn. Ignoring them all, he created his own, sending a copy to Blaylock.
Where are you?

Would you please stay in touch? You two are going to be the death of me. I'm at this City Center building you mentioned in your message to Elric. I've been flying around it searching for you. I got away with it for a while, but the locals would really like me to leave now.

With a brief steadying touch to Blaylock's elbow, Galen conjured a platform beneath the three of them, sent them down the tunnel the way he and G'Leel had originally come.

He sent a quick response to Alwyn.
There's a hole in the ground in back. An excavation. Land inside it. We'll meet you there.

Alwyn replied.
You'll find some irony in your choice of landing place when you get here.

Galen traced his way back as quickly as he could. Each moment allowed Elizar to get farther and farther away. But he couldn't get far enough. Galen would find him.

They glided past the two greyish-skinned aliens, still asleep where he'd left them. As they approached the tunnel that led to the excavation, Blaylock gave him a sharp look, and a shield slipped again over him. There was the sound of movement in the tunnel ahead.

His body burned eagerly with the chance to release its energy once again. As the Drakh came into view, he registered their positions one after the next, equations pouring down the screen in his mind's eye, spheres of destruction boiling out of him, enfolding the Drakh in their dark embrace. He didn't know if there were twenty, or fifty, or a hundred. He simply continued until there were none.

They had not fired a single shot.

Blaylock's shield slipped away. The tunnel that led to the excavation was now empty, its surface covered with smooth scallop-shaped depressions. At the far end was the walkway leading to the blackness of the open Shadow ship.

Galen sent them down the tunnel. He realized he was shaking, his heart pounding, breath coming in short gasps. He felt overloaded, accelerated, as if the slightest thing could set him off.

He'd cast more spells in the past hour than he had in the rest of his life. He realized how exhausted he was, beneath the racing energy of the tech. He must marshal his energy; he must remain focused and in control if he was to find Elizar and kill him.

An odd, irregular thumping was coming from the excavation area. They reached the end of the tunnel and skimmed out over the walkway. Behind them, a sheer rockface rose up toward the surface. Before them, the Shadow ship formed a huge, curving black wall. Far above, between ship and stone, shone a sliver of smoke-filled sky. The hole seemed deeper than Galen remembered.

A thump came from the ship, and it shook a bit. A cascade of loose stone rained down. It was almost as if the great vessel were being fired upon from above. Alwyn must have landed on top of it, as Galen had directed, and he must be under attack. Galen hoped there weren't other Shadow ships in the area. A mage ship couldn't survive one of those blasts.

He sent the platform shooting upward along the massive side of the Shadow ship. Its skin remained a dull black. It waited for a central processor to connect to it, to bring it to life.

They reached the point where Galen thought the top would be, but still the ship went on. As they continued up, its skin looked different. It was vibrant, shifting, reflecting the light in the same strange way as the walls of the City Center. Galen studied the surface and discovered this was not a Shadow ship at all, but the illusion of one. Alwyn had disguised his small ship as a much larger Shadow vessel, and he'd landed it on top of the one in the excavation. A lighted opening appeared in the illusory Shadow ship, though the entry looked much like the ramp of a mage ship.