Summoning Light (42 page)

It was what he most wanted. And it was what he must not do. "I will go."

Alwyn's fingers dug into his shoulders. "Teach me, then. Teach me your spell."

"No."

Alwyn shoved him away. "You're a traitor to the Code. You're not doing good. You're hiding. If Isabelle were here, she would stay with me. So would your father. But anyone with any guts around here seems to be dead."

Alwyn would not stop. Galen forced himself into movement, toward his ship. He had stood still for so long that walking seemed unnatural.

Alwyn's voice followed him, but Galen refused to hear, retreating within himself. After a moment he realized that G'Leel had run up beside him, and he stopped.

"Good luck, Galen," she said. "Keep the mages safe."

She thought he was leaving so he could protect the mages. Galen almost laughed.

"You're a strange, difficult person," she said. "I'll miss you."

"Take care of Alwyn," he said. "And yourself."

G'Leel's gloved fists tapped against each other. "If it weren't for you and Isabelle, I'd still be drunk with my crew in some bar. I'm glad I'm not. However this ends. I'm glad that I met you both."

Isabelle would say that G'Leel had transcended herself, that she had become a better person. Galen would argue that she must have always been so; they had just not seen it at first. It was impossible, by definition, to transcend oneself. They were what they were. He was what he was.

"Maybe when this is all over, we'll see each other again. In the meantime" – she gave him a friendly shove – "stay out of my dreams."

He couldn't imagine how he might see her again. If conditions were safe when the war finally ended, perhaps the others would emerge. But he could not. For him, this would never be over, so long as he lived. Whether or not the Shadows were abroad made no difference.

He nodded and moved quickly away. Blaylock stood beside the entrance to the bunker, watching. He could be reassured. Galen would go with them.

It was time to leave. It was time to withdraw from the universe. It was time to take their chaos and their destruction, and hide them where they would never be found. It was time for them all to vanish. He headed for his ship.

C
HAPTER 18

With a whisper the mage ships rose into the sky like a flock of birds. They were to fly in tight formation, sending no communications, moving as quickly as they could, stopping only once before they reached the hiding place. Those who had died on Babylon 5 had given their lives so the Shadows would believe their order had perished. That illusion must be preserved. Only with speed and stealth could they avoid detection and reach their goal safely.

This was the last journey Galen would make; these were the final hours he would spend outside the hiding place. A few months ago he could not have imagined the mages fleeing. He could not have imagined himself fleeing. But then he had been a stranger to himself. He had not known who he was or what he was. Now he did.

Through the ship's sensors, Galen took one last look below. A single mage ship remained on the plateau, Alwyn and G'Leel standing beside it. Before taking off, Galen had sent Alwyn all the information on the spell for listening to the Shadows. Perhaps it would help him in the war. Galen could offer him no more.

Alwyn's dwindling figure seemed to yell after him, even now.
You're the one person with the power to end all this. How can you go off and hide while the galaxy burns?

But if he stayed, he would be the one to destroy the galaxy in fire.

Galen tried to focus on the simple operation of the ship, on his speed, his course. As they shot up out of the atmosphere, he took a position near the back of the formation, away from Elric, away from the rest of the Circle. He didn't want to think about them, or what they had done. He didn't want to remember the look on Elric's face after he had said what he had said. He needed to regain his sense of stillness. He needed to leave all that behind.

Yet he could not. He had lost the fragile peace he'd had since Thenothk. His mind refused to be still, and once again the agitating undercurrent of energy was building, echoed by the ship, the cold inside him growing. He told himself to hold it in just a few hours longer. Then they would reach the hiding place. He could think no further than that.

Still Alwyn's words pursued him.
I thought you cared about Isabelle. And about Carvin and all the rest. How can you let their deaths go unavenged?

The memory returned to him. She lay dying. Her neck was tensed, head held up ever so slightly, eyebrows raised. Her cold hands weighed limply against his. And he heard her voice, her breathless, failing voice.
My only regret would be: if the fire that I see in your eyes now were to burn your soul to ash in the future.

But the fire would never burn itself out. It was merciless, endless.

He could have saved her so easily. He could have killed Elizar and Tilar with no more than a thought, and she would still be alive, would still be with him. But he had held to the Code when breaking it could have saved her, and he had broken the Code when holding to it could have saved him. Better to die than to become a mass murderer.

At the front of their formation, Herazade opened a jump point to hyperspace. Galen directed his ship toward the orange vortex, and the piece of chrysalis eagerly echoed his command, changed course.

He was reminded, jarringly, of Anna. Anna controlled the Shadow ship, coordinated its systems, just as the piece of chrysalis controlled his ship, coordinated its systems. When Anna had linked with him, he'd shared her thoughts of the machine and how she served it. She had thought of something called the Eye, something that gave her direction. That was the purpose he served, on his ship. He was the master, she the slave. Yet she was not some artificially produced technology, like the chrysalis. She was a living being.

He wished he could have brought her from Thenothk. But he'd been in too great a rush to find Elizar, to kill Elizar, to take the time to free her.

Following the rest of the mage ships, he passed through the black heart of the vortex into the roiling red currents of hyperspace.

The energy inside him continued to build, the cold to grow, and he found himself thinking of the cold, wire-thin strands of tech that had wormed inside of him at initiation, contracting and relaxing, insinuating their way down his arms, across his shoulders, along his spine, driving in intricate coils through his brain and settling there. They had carried the Shadows' programming into his body, where it grew and intertwined with him.

Burell, he realized now, had discovered that programming. Within each cell of the tech, she had found microcircuitry: some in the cytoplasm, more on the cell membrane itself. The microcircuitry seems to direct the growth and functioning of the implants, to impose control on each cell. She had compared the tiny dot clusters of microcircuitry on the cell membrane to the stippled discoloration that formed along each mage's spine and shoulder blades. The microcircuitry imposed its programming on the cell; the tech imposed its programming on the mage.

They could resist that programming, of course. But to control it every minute of every day for the rest of their lives – How many could say chaos had not slipped out?

Galen crossed his arms over his chest. He had done much more than slip. He was drawn to destruction. He realized he'd known that, on some level, since he'd first attacked Elizar at the convocation. When he'd received the implants, he'd feared to use them, feared that violence would burst out. Later he'd decided it was not the tech he feared, but himself, his own instincts. Yet was there any difference? The tech, after all, carried his DNA. It grew to mirror him, as Burell had discovered. It reflected his brain, his thought processes. It echoed him. If he felt the urge to destroy, it was partly the tech; yet, he knew, it was also partly himself.

Elizar had said it was something in Galen's spell language, in his method of thought, that had allowed him to discover the spell of destruction. Its power had been hidden at the base of their spells, forgotten. But as he'd aligned his thoughts and his spells in neat, regimented columns, there, at the base of those columns, he'd found it. He had sought through his spells not to express himself, as Elric had taught him, but to hide himself. And in his attempt to hide, he realized, he'd built a spell language that was not so much a reflection of him, but a reflection of the tech and how its powers were structured. Instead of discovering spells original to him, he'd discovered the spells that had been placed within the tech, the spells they'd been meant to use, those of the Shadows.

There was an order to their powers, a design. But it was not the design of any god; it was the design of the Shadows.

Even now, the restless energy churned deep inside him, desiring to be released, to be loosed upon the universe. He could resist. But he did not want to resist.

Perhaps others could do good. Of himself, the most he could hope was that he would do no more harm.

And so he must remove himself from the galaxy, like the rest of the mages. Their history was filled with wars and violence. But in this war, at least, they would not fight. And that was for the best. For if they did fight, who knew within the fog of war what destruction they might wreak, what sides they might take, what chaos they might generate. Even in fighting against the Shadows, they would promote the cause of the Shadows.

Galen thought with longing of Soom, his home. He would have liked to return there. He would have liked to see Fa again. He thought that, if there were a place where he could find peace, it was on the rugged mak, along the cliffs that fell to the mist-shrouded sea. But he would never be there again. He could not.

He had wanted nothing more than to be a mage. He had wanted to inspire awe and wonder, to do good, to heal, to know all that could be known. He had wanted some measure of control over an uncaring, unthinking universe, a universe that had killed his parents for no reason. He had wanted certainties and order. Instead he had received lies and chaos.

He had gone to the rim hoping to find an end. Yet still he persisted. Instead he would leave, he would fade. And if there was anything for him to do with the remainder of his life, it would be to arrange the rest of their spells in his neat, regimented columns and discover what else lay at their base. Elric had taught that he must find his own work; now he had. This was his work. This was who he was. Kell had told him. You have hidden so well that any more you might have been is lost. You have become these regimented paths, and the places to which they lead.

Only when he knew all the Shadows had put inside him could he truly know what he was. He had already discovered three basic postulates; there must be more. And he would find them, because was that not his role in all this, to know all that should not be known, and to bear its burden?

Though they were supposed to remain silent, he found he had received a message.
Galen.

It was from Elizar. He still lived. A part of Galen took great satisfaction in that, the part that wanted to kill Elizar face-to-face, to rip his tech out with bare, bloody hands.

Another message.
Are you alive?

Another message.
Answer me, you bastard. Why didn't you warn the mages? Why didn't you stop them from boarding that ship? I told you it was a trap.

It seemed Elric's ruse had been successful. Or at least Elizar wanted him to believe so.

Another message.
I know you're alive. You didn't have time to reach Babylon 5 to die with the others. You let them die, didn't you? You let them all die out of spite, because of what I told you.

He had not killed the mages, but he had killed many more.

Another.
Everything I've done – it's all pointless now. How could you have killed them? And Elric?

All of Elizar's efforts were pointless now. He would have no mages to rule. Galen waited as minutes passed, knowing there must be more.

Come back and face me. Let us finish this.

At last, he and Elizar wanted the same thing. A thrill ran through him, and he shook with a quick, violent shiver. Here was his chance. They could kill each other. Finally it could end.

But he could not go back. If he did, if Elizar failed to kill him, he would not be able to shut himself down again. He would destroy everything. He wanted to destroy everything.

He did a mind-focusing exercise, tightening his arms across his chest. He would not respond. He would not act.

Know this. I will find you. And I will kill you.

I will say no more.

A jump point had opened ahead, and the ships were dropping back out of hyperspace. This was the one stop they would make before retreating to the hiding place, a last-minute addition to their plan. Galen's ship passed through the jump point, and the roiling red currents of hyperspace vanished, leaving him in the blackness of space. He must follow the others. He must leave before he was consumed by chaos. Let Elizar spend a lifetime looking for him. Elizar would never find him.

Ahead lay the Lanep system. Galen reviewed what he knew of it, striving again for calm. Elric had learned, while investigating Morden's records, that EarthForce's New Technologies Division had built a base here, to experiment with fragments of a Shadow ship. The fragments had been discovered during an archaeological dig in which Morden had participated. Galen couldn't believe the Earth scientists would risk manipulating such advanced technology. But apparently the desire for power was not limited to techno-mages.

When Elric had reported this to the remains of the Circle, they had quickly altered their plans. The Circle had decided that a probe and relay must be left to observe what happened here. Galen sensed the hiding place was not far; that would explain their concern. And perhaps they still wanted to believe they had some role to play in the universe. Perhaps they even hoped the researchers would discover some key to controlling the Shadow's technology, as unlikely as that was.