Babylon 5 17 - Techno-Mages 02 - Summoning Light (Cavelos, Jeanne)

by Summoning Light (Cavelos, Jeanne)

Galen knew the Circle had sworn him to secrecy, but Elric would not use that as an excuse. That just made Galen angrier. A thousand bitter responses came to mind, but Galen uttered none of them, willing the wind to carry them away.

  I learned that truth when I was elected to the Circle nine years ago. It made me question many things. But ultimately I knew that I believed in the mages. I believed in our ability to create beauty and wonder, to gain knowledge, to do good. The origin of the tech did not change that.

  Did they think they would never have to pay for what they took? Did they think themselves immune to the designs of the Shadows? How could they be, when they didnt have the least understanding of the tech?

  Galen tried to still his mind, to think nothing, to feel nothing.

  The truth did, however, reveal the fragile base on which our order is built. And it explained many things. I realized that control and obedience to the Circle and the Code were even more important than I had known. I tried to teach you those things. But they were no substitute for the truth.

  If I had learned the truth before taking an apprentice, I dont believe I would ever have taken one. I wasuncomfortable with the idea of training a student while withholding this secret. But I had already instructed you for two years. I had come to believe that you would be an exceptional mage.

  Elric took a breath, straightened. As my first act within the Circle, I argued that the source of the tech should be revealed. They refused. They believed the arrangement had worked successfully for a thousand years, and it might work for a thousand more. I submitted the proposal repeatedly, but was always defeated. In time I grew used to the secret. None of us ever thought the Shadows would return in our lifetimes.

  Now that the Shadows have returned, our time must be at an end. If the wisdom or folly of our existence is ever judged, it will be judged by the way we die. We must hold to the Circle and the Code, those elements that have allowed us to resist the purpose of the Shadows. We must not allow chaos to divide us.

  Elric hesitated, as if expecting Galen to respond. An awkward silence fell between them. Galen willed himself to reveal nothing.

  I know it is difficult, Elric said. I know that you would like to strike against the Shadows, and against Elizar and Razeel if they still live, but you must come with us to the hiding place. We must remain united.

  So that was their concern. They wanted him with them. They wanted their weapon.

  Again Elric hesitated. We are not the dream of beauty and magic we have pretended to be. But still. We have accomplished much of value. Elrics voice had lost its resonance. He cleared his throat. Please speak, Galen.

  It felt as if the blockage in Elrics throat had suddenly transferred itself to Galens. His anger caught there, and he found at last he must speak. You told me that you would never lie to me, he said, and then the words were rushing out of him in a torrent. You told me we stand for good, when instead we generate destruction. You told me we can spread light, but we are instruments of the Shadows. You told me you would make me a mage. And instead you have made me a monster.

  You have done nothing but lie to me. Only Elizar would tell me the truth. I feel nothing but disgust for the Circle, and pity for the mages.

  Galen bit out the words. But you need not fear. I will go with you. I have no choice. I am not fit to stay. Out here, I would destroy everything, happily. And there are too many innocents. If I go, at least I can destroy only mages.

  He was trembling. He forced his lips closed, forced the flow of words to stop. The energy was stirring, quickening. He couldnt let it take hold. He squeezed his hands into fists, his nails digging into the raw skin of his palms.

  Elrics mouth had fallen open as Galen spoke, and it hung now in a grimace. The lines between his eyebrows had vanished, leaving a horrible vulnerability. He stared at Galen for a long time, until Galen wanted to look away. But he did not. He had spoken the truth; let Elric live with it.

  At last Elric gave a single nod. Then he walked stiffly away.

  Galen forced his fists to open, his breathing to slow. He had said what he must say. Now let it be over. Elric was not his teacher. Elric was not his father. Elric was nothing to him. The Circle was nothing to him. The mages were nothing to him. He could retreat to that place deep inside himself, and no one could pull him back.

  Galen realized Alwyn had been yelling for some time. His words carried on the wind. Youre all cowards! Hypocrites! She died for nothing!

  Blaylock was backing away, his hands raised in acquiescence. GLeel stood between them. Some of the other mages had stopped their work to look on.

  We can fight them! Alwyn yelled. Galen proved it!

  Blaylock turned and started toward the bunker. With a fierce glance at a few mages loitering nearby, he drove them back into motion.

  As Alwyn started after Blaylock, GLeel grabbed him.

  Alwyns head transformed into the head of a golden dragon, with fierce red eyes and long, needle-sharp teeth. He let out a furious screech. GLeel jumped back.

  The illusion vanished, and Alwyn yelled out to the mages. Youre all going to die anyway! Our time is over! In three years youll know the truth!

  Blaylock stopped, faced Alwyn. Though his arms remained at his sides, the threat was clear. Alwyn must stop talking, now. The air around Blaylock seemed to boil.

  Alwyn returned Blaylocks hard stare, his jaw tight.

  Standing at Alwyns side, GLeel spoke to him. After a time Alwyn nodded once, then a few seconds later, again. Finally he looked from Blaylock to her. Then he turned, and they walked away.

  Blaylock resumed his journey to the bunker as if nothing had happened.

  Galen realized with displeasure that Alwyn and GLeel were coming toward him. He needed to regain his stillness, to send his anger away on the wind. He began visualizing the letters of the alphabet in his mind, one after the next. The cold was beginning to build inside of him. It was the chill of a fever, of heat held within.

  Youll stay with us, right, Galen? Alwyn said. The bags beneath his eyes were wet with tears, his face clenched in anger. After what the Shadows did After all theyve killed Alwyn jerked his head to one side. Those cowards would turn tail and run. They dont care about anyone but themselves. They let her die, can you believe it? They just let her die.

  He said it as if it were the first time such a thing had happened.

  Alwyn clutched GLeels hand, raised it. GLeel is going to fight with us. You know the truth now. Its our responsibility to stop the Shadows. Or else we are no more than their cowardly allies. We can strike cleverly, swiftly, in and out before they know it. Theyll never catch us.

  Galen crossed his arms. I cannot stay with you.

  There are a whole series of bases along the rim. With your power, we can wipe them out, one by one. And when the Shadows are weak enough, we can strike at their home, Zhadum, and annihilate the whole Alwyn shook his head. What?

  I shall leave with the others.

  Alwyn stared at him. What is this, some kind of misplaced loyalty? Youre just going to leave and let the Shadows get on about their business? What about Elizar? If he still lives, you simply wish him a happy life and fond farewell? I thought you cared about Isabelle. And about Carvin and all the rest. How can you let their deaths go unavenged? How can you go off and hide while the galaxy burns?

  How is irrelevant. I will go.

  Alwyn seized him by the shoulders and shook him. Wake up, you damned zombie! Wake up! Tears ran down Alwyns face. Youre a coward, you know that? The worst of them all. You would run away when youre the one person with the power to end all this. The power to destroy the Shadows.

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

  Alwyns fingers dug into his shoulders. Teach me, then. Teach me your spell.

  No.

  Alwyn shoved him away. Youre a traitor to the Code. Youre not doing good. Youre hiding. If Isabelle were here, she would stay with me. So would your father. But anyone with any guts around here se
ems 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.

  Alwyns voice followed him, but Galen refused to hear, retreating within himself. After a moment he realized that GLeel 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.

  Youre a strange, difficult person, she said. Ill miss you.

  Take care of Alwyn, he said. And yourself.

  GLeels gloved fists tapped against each other. If it werent for you and Isabelle, Id still be drunk with my crew in some bar. Im glad Im not. However this ends. Im glad that I met you both.

  Isabelle would say that GLeel 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, well see each other again. In the meantimeshe gave him a friendly shovestay out of my dreams.

  He couldnt 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.

  * * *

  chapter 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 ships sensors, Galen took one last look below. A single mage ship remained on the plateau, Alwyn and GLeel 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.

  Alwyns dwindling figure seemed to yell after him, even now. Youre 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 didnt want to think about them, or what they had done. He didnt want to remember the look on Elrics 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 hed 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 Alwyns 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, hed 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 hed 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 mages 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 hed known that, on some level, since hed first attacked Elizar at the convocation. When hed received the implants, hed feared to use them, feared that violence would burst out. Later hed 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 Galens 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 hed aligned his thoughts and his spells in neat, regimented columns, there, at the base of those columns, hed 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, hed 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, hed discovered the spells that had been placed within the tech, the spells theyd 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?