Its a horrible sensation, Elizar said. But one can get used to it in time.
It was not possible for Elizar to do what he had done. WhatWhat have you
Ive turned off your tech, of course. And I can do it any time I want
* * *
chapter 14
In his quarters, Londo negotiated with Refa via a secure channel on the comm system. Refa was in the royal palace on Centauri Prime, and he was reluctant to admit he even owned the Ondavi , which made convincing him to turn it over quite a challenge.
Elric watched through the probe on Vir, who stood silently to Londos side. Elric remained still in the captains office, awaiting his return. But the endless wrangling of the two Centauri failed to hold his attention.
Through the growing throbbing in his head, he found himself worrying again about Galen, wondering if he still lived, if Alwyn would reach him in time to help. It would be so simple to do an electron incantation. In less than a minute he could have Galen beside him, talking to him, putting his fears to rest. It would be such a joy to see Galen one last time, to learn that Galen would be all right.
But he must not.
I cant believe you convinced him, Vir said.
The communication had been concluded. Apparently Londo had been successful.
What choice did I have? If I failed, I would be tormented for the rest of my life by foul-tempered holodemons and even more foul-tempered techno-mages. The smell in here, by the wayyou still havent gotten rid of it. His face wrinkling in revulsion, Londo began to scout around the cluttered, ostentatious room for the source of the odor.
Im working on it. Vir followed. But I cant understand why you went back to gamble with her. I told you she was a techno-mage.
Londo turned to him. I wastalked into it. I thought I couldnt lose.
Londo, how many times
Londo held up his hands. Dont say it, Vir. Dont say it. I was a fool, I was used, and now Im trapped in a situation that is beginning to look very bad. Its beginning to look very bad indeed.
What do you mean?
Londo shook his head. I have no time to explain it all to you. But these techno-mages have powerful enemies. I am afraid I am afraid this may not end well.
As much as Londo might wish it, he could not blind himself entirely to the truth. Morden would not have confided the Shadows intentions, yet Londo could easily deduce them. Nevertheless, he would do nothing to stop the Shadows plan.
Londo reached with irritation to the back of his head, pulled out a hair clip. The drooping lock of hair fell free. If you can stop badgering me with questions for a few moments, Vir, perhaps you can make yourself useful and do something about this embarrassment.
In Elrics minds eye, he saw John Sheridan coming down the hall toward his office. The Drazi had been taken to the brig, and the Zekhite sealed off until further notice. John had met with Susan Ivanova, then headed tiredly back.
Elric straightened, acutely aware of how little time was left. He believed John would not detain them, yet he could not be certain. In any case, he needed more than that. Again he must ask for a favor. And he could not tell John the whole truth of it, or the captain would surely refuse.
John hesitated in the doorway as he saw Elric, then continued to his desk. Elric. Im sorry to have kept you waiting. I would have understood if youd left.
Elric stood. I have no time to reschedule with you, Captain. We will leave this place shortly. Unless you intend to stop us.
John took a breath, and his lips rose slightly. Please sit, he said, and they both did.
John continued. I have no intention of detaining your group. Im afraid some people wont be satisfied with the answers youve given me, but thats going to be their problem. I believe youve dealt with me honestly, and as you said, you are free to go where you want.
I will not thank you for allowing us to do what it is our right to do. But I will thank you for the friendship youve extended me. Elric paused, noting Johns smile. Unfortunately, Captain, there are others who would stop us from leaving. They seek to use our power for their own ends.
Do you mean Ambassador Mollari? I think you scared him off.
He is but one of many. Im afraid I must ask for your help, Captain. Or we will not leave here safely.
Johns face hardened. Whos threatening you? Ill call in security, you can swear out a complaint, and well have them arrested.
He knew so little of what the mages faced, of what he himself would soon face. A confrontation would be too dangerous, Elric said. You dont want this station to become a battlefield, nor do I. That possibility would seem very real to John after the Drazi episode. We have a plan that will allow us to leave safely and peacefully, but we require the assistance of you and your security team. I assure you that no laws will be broken. We plan a simple misdirection, a sleight of hand, so that our enemies cannot stop us.
John picked up the orange blossom on his desk and twirled it between his fingers. Like this.
Yes.
You realize that not only am I not supposed to help you, Im supposed to stop you.
Elric gave a single nod.
How do you know you can trust me?
Because you believe in good, as do we. And because you still dream.
John laid the orange blossom on the desk. Tell me your plan. Dont leave anything out. If it breaks no laws, as you say, Ill give you everything you need.
Galens thoughts still felt fuzzy, disjointed. Hunched over on the floor, he panted in short, shallow breaths, each one stabbing sharply into his side. His sense of balance remained uncertain. He needed both hands braced on the floor to keep from falling over. Carefully he pushed himself back until his good leg was folded beneath him. His bad leg remained splayed out to the side. When he tried to bend it, an incredible pain shot through him.
Another one bites the dust, Bunny said. You guys are getting a bit boring at this point. Theres no challenge.
Leave us, Elizar said. Galen and I must speak privately.
Galen struggled to focus, to understand.
This was how theyd subdued Kell, he realized. And hed walked right into the trap.
They must have done the same to Blaylock. But for some reason Blaylocks higher brain functions had been shut down along with the tech. Why? He remembered Gowen saying somethingsomething about Blaylocks health. In his quest to become one with the tech, he has encouraged his systems to intertwine with it more intimately than most of ours do . Perhaps Blaylocks brain had become so linked to the implants that only its most basic processes could function without them. In that case, if the tech was turned back on, Blaylock might recover.
Being without it was an awful, sickening sensation. Galen might have imagined a simple loss of power, a return to the way his body had felt before receiving his implants. But he now recognized the radical change his body had undergone since initiation. The tech had spread itself through all of his systems, had become a part of him. Without it, he was no longer complete.
Galen had thought at first that Elizar had cast a spell to deactivate his tech. But he realized that Elizars tech was turned off too. That was why Elizar appeared weakened. That was why Elizar had not used his powers to attempt to revive Blaylock or to torture him. That was why Tilar had forgone his chrysalis. Without it, he would not feel the disorienting effects.
Some external device had deactivated the tech in all of them. But how could that be so? How could there be such a device?
Tilar shoved Blaylock over onto his side and stood. Galen vaguely realized Elizar and the others had been bickering, but he didnt know what had been said. Hed been concentrating so hard, hed lost track of them. He had to regain his bearings.
Im getting tired of being treated like an inferior, Tilar said. I bet I could get more out of him than you.
Youve certainly proven that with Blaylock, Elizar said.
At least I tried something. Tilar stepped over Blaylocks body and came toward Galen and the door. As he passed by, something thin and w
et fell on Galens cheek. A souvenir, Tilar said, and token of things to come.
Galen shook his head and it fell to the floor, a golden filament of tech coated in tissue and blood.
Tilar left with Bunny and Rabelna. The door slid closed behind them.
Whatever device overrode their tech, it seemed to operate only within this room. If he could get himself and Blaylock out of here, perhaps their power would return.
Fighting disorientation, he crawled toward Blaylock, his leg dragging behind him. Thick streaks of red were smeared over the floor around Blaylock. Hed lost a lot of blood. In the wetness, one of Galens hands slipped out from under him. He regained his balance, turned Blaylock onto his back. Blaylocks face was ashen, his lips a greyish blue. The rise and fall of his chest was barely visible, his pulse beneath Galens fingers rapid and weak. Thin streams of blood continued to run from his hands out onto the floor. Galen had to stop the bleeding.
Blaylock had a handkerchief in his jacket. Galen took hold of Blaylocks cold wrist. He pushed up the jacket sleeve, tied the handkerchief tightly about the forearm as a tourniquet. To slow the bleeding from the other hand, Galen pulled her scarf from his pocket. He leaned unsteadily across Blaylocks body, yanked the scarf tight, leaving bloody fingerprints. Then he pushed himself out of his coat, laid it over Blaylock. If Blaylocks tech wasnt restored soon, so that his organelles could operate, Galen didnt know if he would survive.
Galen believed GLeel had to be dead, but he made his way over to her, hoping that Elizar merely thought him concerned. Shed been holding her gun the last time hed noticed. Her guncase was open, but her hands were empty, the weapon was nowhere to be seen. For show, he checked GLeels pulse and was amazed to find her still alive. She had a chance to survive. He rolled her onto her side to check the plasma burn. The wound was deep, the yellow of bone visible at its center. She couldnt last long. He had to find her gun.
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. Theyre 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 Galens. He appeared unarmed. A sign of his arrogance. Still, Galen was in no condition to overpower him without a weapon.
You dont know how glad I was to find you were here, Elizar said.
The feeling was mutual.
Elizar sat. Youre injured.
Galen met his gaze. Your plan is to kill us all, is it not?
Not if you will join me.
Galen couldnt 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 didnt want to tell me then. Unless I swore loyalty to you.
I feared you would tell the Circle. I didnt want Kell to find out all I had learned. If only Id 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 dont care what you found. Youre a butcher, and youre in partnership with butchers.
Elizar looked toward Blaylocks limp body. You wont 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 usa 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 techs 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.
Galens 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 couldnt 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 upa sign of honesty, as Blaylock had told him. Ive never lied to you, Galen. Everything Ive said to you is true.
The Shadows told you this? And you believe them?
I learned this from Kells 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 theyve 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 insi
de. 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 hed 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 didnt want to believe it either. I was furious at Kell, just as you must be at Elric. I felt betrayedby Kell, and by the entire lineage of mages, back to the ancients we so admired. I wasnt sure what to do.
Thats 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.
Kells 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.
Elizars 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 hadnt 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 possibilitythat the mages might lose control of their own techterrified 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.
Babylon 5 17 - Techno-Mages 02 - Summoning Light (Cavelos, Jeanne) Page 25
