"I know. I'm sorry. You surprised me."
Galen went to the door, pressed the control to open it.
"Thank you for your help."
"I was glad for the opportunity." Gowen stepped out and bowed.
"The blessing of Wierden upon you."
As Galen bowed, the door closed between them. He straightened and stood still for a time, the exercises running through his mind, narrowing his focus, strengthening the walls around him. And then he did something he had not done since he'd arrived in this place. He knelt before the bottom dresser drawer and slid it open. Inside, the bloodstained scarf lay folded in a neat bundle, alone. It did not affect him as he feared it might.
He pulled off his gloves, set them to one side. He scooped out the neat bundle, sat with it on the bed. He ran his raw fingers over the bumpy, smudged surface. She seemed so far away now. Her face, the sound of her voice, were lost to him. It was hard to believe that he had been in love, that she had loved him, and that they had been happy, even for a short time.
She had believed there was an order to the universe, a design. She had thought the design was revealed through scientific law, the order created by God. She'd hoped her research into the tech would give her greater insight into that order. She'd never known that their powers had not arisen through the design of any god, but through the design of the Shadows. If she'd known, she would have told him that the Shadows' design could be transcended, that he needn't destroy.
He was trying, had been trying for a long time now. It seemed like forever. But the tech wanted only to kill, and he was tired of fighting it. Only two more need die, if he could just get free of this place.
Galen accessed the healing organelles moving through his body. He selected one in his spinal cord, directed it down a capillary that wound around the transceiver and the surrounding nerves. The organelle's sensors created a visual image in his mind's eye, showing him the clear plasma streaming through the narrow capillary, the line of large, lozenge-shaped red blood cells tumbling ahead of and behind the organelle. Through the transparent wall of the capillary, he could see the thick golden rope of tech, and at its end, the swollen cluster like a bunch of grapes that formed the transceiver.
Reflecting variations in energy, the golden skin pulsed lighter and darker as the tech cycled through its processes. It was alive, was part of him. Carrying his DNA along with other, unknown DNA, it had intertwined with his systems, insinuating its way deep into him, growing to reflect him, to echo his thoughts.
Microcircuitry directed its growth and functioning, carrying the purpose of its creators, the programming of destruction. Once it had thoroughly infiltrated him, he had become something divided, something of two parts, a techno-mage. Without it, he was no longer complete, no longer whole. Losing a piece of tech – as had Elric, Blaylock, and many others – became a crippling injury.
Gowen might believe the tech a sacred path to enlightenment, but these golden ropes bound the mages to darkness. He wanted to burn them out of his body, to be free. As the tech's restless energy swelled, the gold flared to a dazzling, jaundiced yellow, and a hard shiver ran through him. Galen focused on his exercises, slowed his breathing, the pounding of his heart. Bit by bit, the brilliant yellow dulled, dimmed. The normal pulsing resumed.
The Shadows took life and twisted it to their own use, just as they had done with Anna. Whatever that life had been before, whatever it had thought or wanted or believed, was lost. Just as whatever he had been was lost. He could not be free of the tech, so long as he lived. Could he free himself, though, of just one tiny piece? He studied the spherical contours of the transceiver. It looked the same as the other transceivers in the tech, revealing no special purpose or capability. Data appeared beside the image: size of the transceiver, distance to it.
He could use the position of the organelle and the data from it to target the swollen cluster. How accurate he would be, he didn't know. Galen rocked back and forth, his hand pressed flat against the scarf. Perhaps it was time, now, to join her. She'd told him he needed to transcend himself in three ways: He must open himself to others, open himself to himself, and open himself to God. He'd done the first two in his own limited, unsuccessful way. The third he'd not even known how to attempt. He believed there was no God. And if there was a God, and He had willed all that had happened to happen, then Galen despised Him almost as much as he despised himself. So in that, her final task, he must fail, as he had failed in so much else. Besides, if he did open himself again, he knew what would come out. Destruction. Death was certainly his long-overdue punishment. If that was to be his fate, he only hoped the Circle would find some other way to stop Elizar. For Elizar must be stopped. Elizar and Razeel, he corrected himself.
Elizar and Razeel must be stopped.
The golden cluster of the transceiver shifted, taking on Elizar's face.
"This is your own fault, Galen. If you had joined me, if you had shared your secret, none of this would be necessary."
Galen jerked erect, disoriented. He had nearly fallen asleep. It was late. He suddenly realized how exhausted he was. It must be the organelles, pushing him to sleep so they could better perform their healing tasks.
He had lost track of his exercises. He began a new one, trying to rouse himself. But he was too tired to do what he planned.
He needed to rest.
He broke contact with the organelle and lay down, his head hitting the pillow before he expected it.
More than anything, he wanted to kill Elizar and Razeel. How good it had felt to kill Tilar. And how much better it would feel to kill them.
C
HAPTER 6
Elric lay in the dark, his body throbbing with emptiness. He no longer fought it; he simply allowed it to fill him, to define him. He found no point, anymore, in struggling against it. Some of the others had gone this way. They had spoken to him of their weariness, of the effort to endure.
He had always thought it worth the effort, to continue to do what good he could. Yet he no longer felt himself able to accomplish anything of worth. He had not been able to save Soom, had not been able to help any of the countless other planets targeted by the Shadows. The mages were safely hidden away; they no longer needed him. He had done his duty. Let them find new leadership at last. As for Galen, Elric could offer no help.
He had chosen duty over Galen time and again, had lied to the boy, and ultimately had destroyed their relationship. He wished that, somehow, Galen could find a path to happiness, but he didn't see how it might be achieved.
Perhaps Blaylock could help him. They had formed a relationship during their trip to the rim, and if there was any in whom Galen might confide, it would be Blaylock. Not him. In his mind's eye, Elric shifted from one scene of destruction to another. Even now, he wanted to feel his old closeness to Soom. As he had shared in the death of his place of power, he needed to share in the deaths of all those on Soom.
He could not allow them to pass alone. They, in turn, would provide him companionship in his death. The images from the planet were frustratingly distant; he could not feel the rush of magma through its veins, nor the ragged wounds cleaved deep into its heart, nor the wind blasting over its ruined skin. Yet he felt his own pain, and perhaps it was not much different. Of the dead, there were few remains.
He moved from place to place, remembering them, striving for the unity he had once felt. The town of Lok was a graveyard of blackened ruins. The residents had been good people, had brought him much joy. He wished them peace. Beyond, the mak beckoned, his old home. Jab marched across the rocky plain, her probe looking out on a world of vibrant lime-green moss shrouded in gray mist. As she moved forward, a bluish shadow took on shape and substance. It was one of the Soom, lying on the ground. A child dressed in a blue jumper.
Fa.
Jab sniffed along Fa's side. After a brief examination, she burrowed her nose under Fa's arm, lay down beside her.
Elric imagined himself lying next to them, the soft damp moss beneath, Fa's hand in his, Jab's body pressing against him with every inhalation. He imagined the breeze running over his body, running through his body, blowing away the blackness, blowing away the pain.
His body sank into the mak, passing through moss and stone, descending through groundwater and microorganisms, whispering through caressing fingers of magma, drawn gently toward that warm heart from which he had separated.
A voice reached down to him in that place, disrupting his rest.
"Elric! The destruction of Soom was all a deception," the voice said. "Galen has uncovered it. Elric!"
With a supreme effort, Elric opened his eyes, and the pain returned, throbbing through him in time with his heart. In the darkness beside him was not Fa, but Circe. The silhouette of her pointed hat hung over him, and a hint of light played over her mouth, revealing the gleam of her teeth, the tiny lines etched above her lip.
He had seen her earlier, but surely that was outside his room, in the hallway, and it must have been hours ago. She had commented he did not look well. He didn't feel as if he could move, or speak, but he opened his mouth, forced air out.
"Soom?"
"Yes. Those images were a deception. Galen has asked me to bring you to the observation room. He will show you the proof."
Elric did not understand how all the images could be false. But perhaps there was hope. Soom might still be whole. More than that, Galen had asked for him. He was filled with the pain, though, overwhelmed by it. Circe conjured a platform beneath him, lifted him from the bed.
"I will help you."
She folded the platform into the shape of a chair. His body slumped. In his mind's eye, Jab remained snuggled against Fa, and Jab's regular breathing sounded softly in his ear. Circe opened the door and, with a touch to the platform, directed it out into the empty hallway. The warm mist wrapped around him, comforting him. The next thing he knew, they had stopped. He floated before the observation room door.
"Can you admit us?" Circe said.
Elric visualized a connection between himself and the room's systems. They requested his authorization, and he sent the key. The door opened. Galen was not there. The chair propelled him inside. With effort Elric turned his head back toward Circe. She closed the door behind them and, with a precise motion, touched her withered index finger to it. A pale blue shimmer spread from the point of contact to cover the door and the surrounding wall.
Elric's head drooped forward. The platform chair turned until he faced her. Beneath the brim of her hat, Circe's face was in shadow, but for her lips. They stretched in a smile.
"Galen must have gone to tell the rest of the Circle. He told me where the evidence was. If you give me access to the system, I will find it for you."
Slowly Elric felt his mind returning to him. She had conjured a defensive shield, sealing them inside. Her claim was a ruse. Circe had abandoned her commitment to good, and to solidarity. The small ember of hope she had ignited in him died. He took a deep breath, focused through the pain, and pulled his tired body erect.
"I will not give you access." Circe shook her head with exaggerated puzzlement.
"But don't you want to see the images? Galen believes them proof Soom is undamaged. Of course, he could be mistaken. Only you will know for certain."
Circe's deceptions were as clumsy as her overtures for political power.
"I may be dying, but I am not a fool. There are no images. There is no deception, but your own." Circe frowned.
"Very well. I preferred to send you to the other side with a pleasant fiction. But if you insist, the harsh truth. I must have the key if I and my supporters are to depart this place in peace. Give it, and we will board our ships and leave you be. Withhold it, and all the mages will die."
"And how do you plan to kill them?"
Elric quickly composed a message.
Circe has sealed me with her in the observation room. She desires the key so she can leave this place. She claims other mages are in league with her.
He visualized it traveling to both Blaylock and Herazade, and the tech echoed his command.
"Your own student made it possible."
Circe tilted her head, and the harsh light revealed a map of lines crisscrossing her dry cheek. Then she shifted, and the shadow of her hat fell back over her face.
"If you recall, as we gathered for our exodus, Blaylock chose me to go with him to the rim. A dangerous task, and one that would surely bestow added esteem and power upon any who survived it. I was honored to be chosen, and well willing to risk my life in service of the Circle. But your precious Galen took my place. Instead I was delegated to Herazade, to come in advance to the hiding place and set up these very machines, and the larger ones to which they are tied."
Her thin hand gestured to encompass the curved, metallic devices that covered one wall. They shimmered with the subtle blue glow of a shield.
"While carrying out this task, I implanted within the largest machine, the energy generator for this place, my own addition, an explosive."
Elric received no response to his message. He didn't want to involve Galen, but Galen's powers might be required. He sent another copy of the message. Circe crossed her arms, sliding her hands up under her sleeves.
"If you do not give me the key, I will trigger that device. The Circle's protections and shields will collapse, the gravity will fail, the temperature will drop, the air circulation will cease. You may think that still some mages could reach their ships, could survive. Or you may think even now they come to your rescue, in response to your messages. Neither is the case. A sleeping potion has circulated through the air in all rooms but yours and this one. The others are deep into their dreams and cannot help you or themselves."
He had underestimated Circe. This stratagem was far more convincing than her first. He had no way of knowing whether she truly had the ability to destroy the generator or not. The machines were well shielded now, yet during their assembly they had been unprotected. The sleeping potion, he believed, was real, for otherwise his message would have received some response.