I dont know. The Shadows must conceal their ships until theyre 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, GLeel 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.
GLeel 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 didnt think they did much, except tell fortunes and perform mysteriousnonsense.
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, Zhadum.
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.
GLeel pulled out her gun. You think theyre going to believe that?
If they dont, shoot them.
Oh.
Galen limped down the tunnel.
In his minds 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 didnt lay a hand on him. You can see theres 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. Were going to kill him. What difference would it make if I Tilar turned and delivered a vicious kick to Blaylocks 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 GLeel were just lucky, or if they were walking into a trap. It had occurred to him that Rabelnas 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. Didnt 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 minds eye, the argument continued.
This is ridiculous, Elizar said. He could have all the information we want, and somehow youve destroyed our opportunity. I dont think our associates will be pleased with that.
Tilar spread his hands. I havent done anything! Hes faking it. You know how he and his hairless holy order can turn their senses on and off. Hes obviously got some method of turning his brain off. Tilar looked down at Blaylock. Hell wake up if he really wants to. We just have to make him want to. He circled Blaylocks fallen body. After every few steps, as punctuation to his speech, he drew his leg back and kicked Blaylock, hard. You act like youre 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 Blaylocks hand in his. As he bent forward, he obscured Galens view.
What do you think youre doing, Elizar said.
Im waking him up. Come on, Blaylock, youre not going to sleep through this, are you?
Galens view shifted as Rabelna stood and walked around Tilar to see what was happening. He had Blaylocks wrist clasped between his knees, Blaylocks palm facing up.
Galen closed his eyes, but the vision remained. From somewhere Tilar had produced a knife, and he cut a deep channel from the heel of Blaylocks hand down the length of the index finger. Blood spilled down Blaylocks palm. Tilar dug into the wound with the knife, searching for the threads of tech within.
Blaylocks body remained limp, his lips slightly parted, eyes closed.
Cast me away, Tilar said. Tell me Im unfit. You and your pathetic cult of holier-than-thou pompous mono-pricks! Claiming the mages are blessed by God. Do you laugh at night, that so many believe you? Or do you really believe that manure you peddle? The knife point came out, pulling with it slender strands of gold intertwined with blood vessels, tissue, muscle. Tilar slipped bloody fingers around them, pulled. Do you hear God, Blaylock? He wants his tech back. Hes found you unfit. You ate that extra piece of cake last winter. He saw it. With a yank he ripped the threads out with slimy bits of tissue. A fresh gush of blood ran down Blaylocks hand, soaking into his jacket sleeve and the knees of Tilars pants, and dripping down onto the floor.
Tilar shook the threads off, started carving a second channel down Blaylocks palm. Better wake up, or youre not going to be a mage anymore.
Galen forced himself to limp faster, his body racing with fear and adrenaline, the tech echoing it back.
If Tilar wanted to inflict pain, why not use his chrysalis? Elizar had used his tech to flay Kell with clean, surgical lines. Tilar performed the same atrocity, but his method was brutal, monstrous.
Galen had dreamed of doing just the same to Elizar.
He heard footsteps ahead, around the curve in the tunnel. He would not hide; he would not slow. There was no time.
Two aliens came around the curve, wheeling a gurney toward them. The aliens were humanoid, tall and slim, with greyish skin, bulbous heads, large black eyes, and narrow mouths. They appeared unarmed.
The aliens raised their heads, regarding him curiously. GLeel shoved him forward. Move it, you low-rent fortune-teller.
Galen stumbled toward them, pain shooting up his leg. He could see, now, a body on the gurney. The woman wore a jumpsuit that looked as if it had once been orange but now was covered with a uniform greyish stain. It was much too big for her. Along her sides lay her hands, thin, almost skeletal. Her fingernails were several inches long, and they had begun to twist into spirals. Dark hair lay in an oily mat against her shoulders and head. Her eyes were closed, with half circles of dark skin below them. Fitted over her head was the delicate metal device hed seen being produced in a factory. The sculpted formation ran from cheeks to temple to forehead and disappeared beneath her hair.
He regained his balance as he came alongside the gurney. Some sort of energy was emanating from her, or from the device fastened to her. He slowed, trying to analyze it. The frequency of its vibration was strange, like a heartbeat, or the echo of a heartbeat.
GLeel laid a hand on his back, urging h
im ahead. Yet for some reason he couldnt look away from the woman.
Her skeletal hand shot out, seized his wrist. Her eyes snapped open, and she trembled with the intensity of her grip. She jerked his hand to the side of her face, to one of the sculpted strands of metal.
The connection formed instantly between them.
Anna.
She hungered for the machine. Without it, she was a bodiless spirit, lacking purpose or direction. She needed to coordinate, to synchronize, to strike, to fulfill the needs of the machine, to follow the direction of the Eye. She longed for the dizzying delight of movement, the exhilarating leap to hyperspace, the joy of the war cry. Even separated from her ship, she could think only of serving, of incorporating herself into the great body of the machine. She needed to have her body back again, to beat out the perfect, flawless march, to shriek the red ecstasy of fire. She and the machine must be one: a great engine of chaos and destruction.
Beside her, she sensed such a machine. Its touch promised all she desired. She must have it.
His breath suddenly became deeper, pain stabbing at his side with each inhalation. Deeper breaths, she judged, were more efficient. His chest rose and fell with hers. The heel of his hand was pressed against her neck, and through it, he felt the eager beat of her pulse. His own pounded in synchrony. His minds eye flashed with a rapid series of sensor readings, lists of systems and programs stored within him. His leg tingled, and he realized she had discovered the damage and was speeding his organelles in their repair. His control was slipping away, a startling, unnerving sensation.
GLeel had turned her gun on the aliens. Their black eyes were staring at him.
As if of its own will, his free hand rose, and he watched as it moved toward the other side of her head. She would coordinate his systems, serve as the central processing unit of his body. The bond between them must be made more efficient and complete.
Galen forced his minds eye to go blank, and with all his will he yanked his hand free. No! He stumbled back, the connection suddenly broken.
She reached for him, fingers straining.
Galen found hed backed against the wall. Yet she no longer frightened him. Shed had no chance of retaining control once he resisted. She was meant to be a slave, while hed been trained to be a master.
Her dark eyes were consumed with emptiness and hunger.
They had removed her from the wreckage. They were going to wire her into the excavated ship. That connection was what she most wanted.
Galen!
He realized GLeel had been calling his name. Yes, he said, still struggling to regain his equilibrium.
These two are unarmed. She had forced the two aliens away from the gurney, but seemed hesitant to kill them. The thin white scar across her nose was prominent in the dim light.
Bits of Annas memories seemed to have stayed with him. They are butchers. They turn intelligent beings into components for their machines.
The aliens stared at him. With their large eyes and thin, narrow mouths, they gave the impression of being sad. That, he knew, was not the case.
Galen suddenly realized hed lost contact with the probe on Rabelna. Quickly he accessed it. She had turned away from Tilar and Blaylock. All he could see was Bunny, sitting in the corner with crossed legs, the top one swinging impatiently.
I should be going, Rabelna said. This really is not my area of expertise.
Galen willed her to turn around. He had to see Blaylock.
We have need of you, Elizar said. Wait beside the door.
Rabelna did not move.
Are you finished yet? Elizar said. Hes not waking.
He will. Tilars voice was strained, as if with exertion.
Galen! GLeel said.
He forced his attention back to the stone tunnel. He had to immobilize the aliens, had to get to Blaylock. The smart thing to do would be to use a minimum of energy. Avoid detection as long as possibleif they hadnt already been detected. Giving Anna a wide berth, he went to the aliens. One held up a hand in seeming fear, his long, thick fingers trembling.
Galen palmed two of the tranq tabs from his coat pocket. He made a distracting flourish before the aliens face with one hand, while with the other he reached up to press the tranq on the back of the aliens neck. Then he did the same to the second alien. The tranqs were formulated for Drakh; he had no idea whether theyd do anything to these aliens, whether theyd knock the aliens out or kill them. All he cared was that they do something fast.
What good was that? GLeel asked.
The two aliens fell against each other, wilted to the floor.
Oh, GLeel said.
From the gurney, Anna watched him. He couldnt leave her, he realized. He couldnt allow her to be enslaved again to a machine. Killing her would probably be a mercy, but he wasnt prepared to do that. Perhaps there was some way, in time, to help her recover what she had once been. Of course, it was unlikely that any of them would get out of here alive.
Bring her with us. Galen limped ahead, the pain shooting through him with each step. Hurry.
GLeel wheeled Anna, and they found their way through the maze of tunnels to Blaylocks level without encountering anyone else. At this depth, the tunnels were about twice as wide as before. They should have been heavily trafficked. Galen had become certain they were walking into a trap. But there was no time for strategy or deception. He had to reach Blaylock.
They were within fifty feet of Rabelnas probe now; the door to the white room had to be around the next curve.
Galen heard the hint of movement behind them. He looked back. The curve of the tunnel concealed the sounds source.
He stilled GLeel with a touch, hurried to one of the doors in the side of the tunnel. He pressed a few buttons on the keypad. The door required a specific code. He had no time to decipher it.
Get against the wall, he whispered to GLeel. Quickly.
She wheeled the gurney to the side of the passage, and Galen pressed up against the cold stone beside her. He visualized the equation, conjured an illusion that the stone wall was in front of them rather than behind them, that the curve of the passage was slightly sharper than it actually was. Be silent, he said.
From their point of view, the illusory wall was no more than a dark screen. GLeel turned her head anxiously from side to side, looking for whatever Galen had heard. A few seconds later, several aliens came into view, traveling in the same direction Galen and GLeel had been. They were clearly soldiers, protected by black body armor and carrying heavy-duty weapons of an unfamiliar design. After a moment, Galen recognized them as Drakh.
They were not the same type of Drakh hed seen before; they had no protuberances on the backs of their heads. These were the second Drakh type described by the mage Osiyrin in his ancient treatise, those who did not speak. Their eyes glowed brilliant red. Jagged white exoskeletons covered most of the grey skin of their heads. They were shorter than the other Drakh, more muscular. Osiyrin had said they were soldiers and workers.
More came down the passage, about two dozen in all, and they passed by Galen and GLeel, disappearing around the next curve. The Drakh were not trying to keep them from the room where Blaylock was held; these soldiers were here to ensure that they reached it.
Galen looked back the way they had come, saw no more Drakh. He was about to dissolve the illusion when he picked up a hint of static. A sharp-edged shape came into view, moving in the same direction as the Drakh, following at a safe distance. Its silhouette crawled with white dots of interference. The static shifted with that same suggestion of scissor-like action hed sensed before. He could almost make out legs, ahead.
Beside him, GLeel shifted, and he realized that she believed they were safe. He pressed her back.
Several other Shadows followed this one. He thought he could see them swiveling their heads, studying the tunnel.
In his minds eye, Rabelna at last turned, and Galen saw Tilar bent over Blaylock. Tilar was at work on the other hand now, the brilliant white of his s
hirt drenched in blood up to the elbows. Rabelna moved quickly away to stand near the door.
In the tunnel, one of the Shadows stopped its forward movement, its head tilted toward them. The body of static grew larger as it approached. Galen stopped breathing. He was racing with energy, desperate to reach Blaylock, cursing himself for getting into such a position.
The other Shadows hesitated now, looking toward this one.
The Shadow stopped in front of the false wall, and its head turned back and forth. It moved closer.
Stop, now, Elizar said within the white room. This is pointless. Hes just going to bleed to death.
The static shape bent toward them, its head arching forward, coming up against the illusion of the wall, penetrating the wall. Something happened to the Shadow as it passed through the plane of the illusion. Through the dark screen came a head of shining blackness, its own veil of illusion vanished.
GLeel jumped.
Fourteen pinpoints of light formed its eyes, and as they turned from Anna to GLeel to Galen, they glowed like tiny furnaces of malice. The creature let out a high, piercing shriek.
Galen dissolved the illusion as the spell of destruction formed in his mind like a thunderclap. Energy fell upon him with crushing pressure in layer upon layer upon layer, then shot out, capturing the Shadow in a sphere. Its shriek hushed as the sound was sealed within. Yet other Shadows took up the call.
The sphere began to redden and darken, the Shadow a fading body of static with a head of pure blackness. GLeel pushed Anna away from it, and Galen followed. Space became fluid, and the back of GLeels head rippled as if something beneath were pushing to escape. The tunnel began to distort, stone walls undulating in waves. Twisting and flowing, the other static shapes glided back the way theyd come.
They were responsible for all that had happened. They wrapped themselves in shadows, working behind the scenes, manipulating others. And from that safety, they encouraged treachery, provoked wars, inspired murder.
Galen had held in his anger, his need to act against them, all this time. But he would wait no longer.
The Shadows could hide no more.
Babylon 5 17 - Techno-Mages 02 - Summoning Light (Cavelos, Jeanne) Page 23
