Blaylock's voice regained its certainty.
"We have dealt with them. You may go. I will question Circe in private."
But Galen would not be dismissed.
"Morden must be killed, so others do not succumb to the temptations he offered."
"There will be time to discuss what action, if any, must be taken."
Galen fixed Blaylock with his gaze.
"When you are finished with her, you will meet with Herazade, and you will agree to release me to kill Morden, Elizar, and Razeel. You will implant within me a device that can sense my mage energy. If ever that energy ceases, if ever my tech is turned off by the Shadows, the device will kill me and any nearby. The manner I leave to you. It should be simple enough to build. That should satisfy your objections."
For once, Blaylock had nothing to say. Galen left the burned room, carrying thoughts of destruction with him. Finally he could move forward.
C
HAPTER 8
In his room, Galen packed for his journey. Select items went into his valise; others, which he felt might be of use to those he left behind, were placed in a plastic container. The rest was dropped into the trash.
Reorganizing his belongings helped to keep him calm, focused. With the exercises running through him, he need think of nothing except how each object should be categorized. Of the items he would leave for the others, there were few: some blank data crystals and other research supplies; a few minor inventions; a scarf; a vial of ash.
Perhaps Blaylock would find a place to spread her remains, and those in the second vial that Galen would soon receive. He turned his mind away. Of his various spells, the basic postulates, the research he had done into the tech, the knowledge he had of the Shadows, and the files Burell and her daughter had given him, he would leave no trace. He carried those things inside him, and they would die with him.
From the corner of his closet, he removed his staff. Over four feet long, it was a lustrous black, with golden etchings of circuits in finest filigree. It fit perfectly into Galen's hand, warm and smooth and balanced, like an extra limb. He could not use it where he was going. Instead, it must be left in a safe place, for he had programmed it to self-destruct at his death. He laid it on the bed in a category of its own.
It had been Elric's gift, welcoming him into magehood. As he stared down at it, a hard shiver ran through him. He crossed his arms over his chest, rocked back and forth.
A message arrived from Blaylock.
Come to Gowen's home at once.
Elric had devoted himself to teaching Galen, had demanded the very best from his apprentice. He had never made Galen feel any less because his training had been divided between two teachers, one of whom had forsaken control and killed.
Another message from Blaylock.
Galen.
Coming,
Galen answered.
He had not deserved Elric's efforts or his affection. Elric had taught him order and control, yet Galen had gravitated to the teachings of his true parents, chaos and destruction.
Again, he turned his mind away, left his packing, went out. The corridors were crowded, the mages still anxiously discussing the events of the night before.
Galen kept his head down, following the regular rhythm of his footfalls.
The voices of some were raised in anger; Galen refused to hear their words. As he took his twentieth step, someone grasped his shoulder. Miostro.
"My condolences," Miostro said in his powerful voice. "Elric was a great mage."
"Excuse me," Galen said, continued on his way.
Why had Blaylock called for him? Perhaps Gowen had put the pieces together. Blaylock might want Galen's help to bring him to acceptance. If he had realized the truth, though, he would not take it well. Galen didn't know what he could say to console Gowen. The truth carried no consolation.
The large hole burned through Gowen's door was covered by a piece of material hanging on the inside. It looked like a robe. Galen pressed the bell, but didn't hear it ring. He knocked on the door, pushed aside the robe, and climbed through.
Blaylock stood at the foot of Gowen's bed, his back to Galen.
"I need you to take the body to the forward storage room," Blaylock said. "We will have the services together."
Galen wasn't sure to whom Blaylock spoke, or of whom. Did he mean to send Elric to the other side with Circe? That was unacceptable.
He approached.
"What do you..."
On the bed lay Gowen, his white sleeping gown surrounded by a halo of red. Gowen had seen Kell's flayed body for only a moment before Blaylock had made him turn away. He had seen the arms cut open from shoulder to palm, the skin spread, tech neatly excised. He had seen the hands like two great alien blossoms, the skin of palms, of thumbs, index and middle fingers pealed back, muscle elegantly split, delicate canyons of bone exposed.
As a healer, Gowen was an expert on the body, on manipulating it and its systems. His work was slightly less neat than Elizar's, no doubt from the difficulty of carrying out the procedure on himself.
Since Gowen was lying on his back, Galen didn't know how complete he'd been, but the thick stain of red on the bedding around him revealed that he had at least begun work on his spine and skull.
One golden strand of tech lay beside his mutilated fingers. Others, coated with blood and chunks of tissue, were stuck to the side of his dresser in an abstract pattern, as if he had thrown them away from him. If Galen hadn't questioned Circe in his presence, Gowen could still be living with his illusions, could still be hoping for that one great enlightenment that would join him to the tech, and to the universe.
Instead, Galen had indulged his anger, had tortured Circe until she spoke. Gowen had learned the truth: The tech was not some great blessing from God that would show them the tech. In the light of that truth, Gowen had determined to remove the pestilence, to rid himself of the Shadows' influence.
He had followed the one, harrowing pathway open to them. And now he was free.
"I need you to take the body to the forward storage room," Blaylock repeated.
"We will have the services together tomorrow," Blaylock's gaunt face was set.
"I will," Galen said. "I'm sorry."
"This is the first time he has ever disobeyed me."
Galen visualized the equation, conjured the illusion of a shroud over Gowen.
"You should sit."
"They must all be told the truth. They must understand, as I do. The tech is a blessing. Its programming can be overcome. Through perfect discipline, perfect control, we can join in a transcendent union with that life. We can gain true understanding. We are blessed not because of the magnitude of power we carry, but because of the sacred intimacy with which we are connected to it. The tech taps into the basic force and fabric of the universe. It can teach us the will of the universe, make us one with the universe."
"You will tell the mages their tech comes from the Shadows?"
Blaylock turned to him, and for the first time, in the lines of Blaylock's gaunt, severe face, Galen saw regret.
"Gowen commands it."
Galen nodded. The mages had long deserved to know. Yet he feared how they would react. Blaylock dropped to his knees. Galen crouched beside him.
"Blaylock..."
"I will keep vigil here. Please take him away. Do not let the others see."
Blaylock raised his stiff, yellowish palms before him and conjured a fireball there. His hands trembled slightly.
"I did not serve him well, as a teacher."
"You told him all you could. You taught him as best you knew."
Blaylock bowed his head. Galen conjured a platform beneath Gowen's body and lifted him from the bed, conveyed him to the door. He passed through the hole, and Galen followed him through the claustrophobic corridors, ignoring the anxious looks of the others.
As Galen passed the dining hall, Tzakizak exhorted a crowd to demand a complete explanation from the Circle.
"Why would a loyal mage like Circe attempt to break free from the hiding place?" he yelled.
"Why would she kill Elric? As usual, the Circle holds back all the details. They must learn that we deserve respect."
His audience responded with an angry mixture of cries. Perhaps the mages could repress the urge to destruction, yet in this place, it was growing harder and harder. He could feel it rising up in each one of them, overflowing to form a great irresistible wave that would overwhelm them all.
He had to be released before he was enveloped in it, for he had his own destruction to wreak.
* * *
"Who are you?" the Human named Justin asked.
"What is your name? Your full name, Anna."
Through her shifting black skin, Anna studied him angrily. Wearing a simple shirt, vest, and pants, he paced across her main chamber, supporting himself with a cane. Compared to Elizar, who stood quietly to one side, he seemed weak and unremarkable, with his wispy white hair, his bushy eyebrows, his face sagging with wrinkles.
His voice quavered as he spoke. Despite all that, there was something hard and threatening about him. She wanted to expel him from her body. The Eye had told her to answer his questions, but his questions made no sense. And this was not her purpose, to answer questions.
She had returned her passengers to Z'ha'dum. She should be flying with her sisters, shrieking the red rapture of the war cry. Instead, she remained planet-bound, gravity weighing her down, the endless wind scouring her with dust.
While she sat idle, the Eye sent her strange signals and directives, filling her with unease. She had been instructed to change her maintenance cycle, shifting her central processing unit much more often and in more complex patterns than she normally did. The changes made as much sense as Justin's questions.
My name is Anna,
she transmitted to him.
He stopped, raised his index finger.
"Anna is part of your name. What is the rest?"
He was right, she knew, which angered her further. There was another part to her name. She no longer remembered it.
"When were you born?" he asked.
I don't understand.
"Where are you from?"
Z'ha dum.
"Before Z'ha'dum."
There was nothing before Z'ha'dum.
How could there be? Here were her first memories of receiving the instruction of the Eye, of learning control of her systems, of taking flight. This was where she and the machine had become one.
"What are you, Anna?"
The man was an idiot.
An engine of chaos and destruction.
"Before you joined with the ship, what were you? Who was Anna Sheridan?"
Sheridan. Now that he had said the word, she recalled it. But she didn't understand why she had a second name.
Your questions make no sense.
"This is pointless," Elizar said.
"Why delay? Once she is out, Bunny can help to awaken any memories that survive."
Justin dismissed Elizar's comment with a sharp movement of his hand, and his voice was hard.
"Nothing like this has ever been done before. They said we should at least begin the process while she's in her current condition, so she'll feel some degree of continuity."
What were they talking about? What were they going to do to her?
With your cooperation,
the Eye said,
you will lead us to victory. The greatest joy is the ecstasy of victory.
She wanted to leap into the sky, to leave this place. But the Eye would not let her. The march of the machine's beat stumbled, as it had not done in a long time, and Anna panicked, began a systems check. She would not listen to their questions, would not be distracted from her great purpose of destruction.
The machine was so beautiful, so elegant. Perfect grace, perfect control, form and function integrated into the circuitry of the unbroken loop, the closed universe. All systems of the machine passed through her. She was its heart; she was its brain; she was the machine. She kept the neurons firing in harmony. She synchronized the cleansing and circulation in sublime synergy. She beat out a flawless march with the complex, multileveled systems. The skin of the machine was her skin; its bones and blood, her bones and blood. She and the machine were...
"Anna," Justin said. "Do you remember your husband? Do you remember John Sheridan?"
The magical fire burned, brilliant green flames swirling around the flat rock where the the body lay, reducing it to the merest hint of darkness within.
The asteroid's pockmarked gray surface shifted in the harsh green light. Above, the sky was black, the stars blocked by the fields masking the asteroid's presence. Only the occasional illusion of a falling star, Kell's symbol for the mages, streaked through the darkness, tribute to the fall of a great mage.
Galen averted his eyes. He stood apart from the rest, wearing an EVA suit in the asteroid's vacuum, unable to generate a containment shield as most of the mages did.
Blaylock and others had offered to take him within their shields, but he could not stand the distraction of companionship. He must maintain control, must keep himself from disintegrating into destruction.
The energy churned restlessly through him, searching for outlet. He could not bring the fire down upon himself again; it was too soon. Two exercises ran concurrently through his mind, holding him together, he hoped, until the ceremony's end.
His life was made up of an endless succession of these ceremonies. Yet none had been as difficult as this. At all the others, Elric had stood beside him, the one certainty in his life, his wall of strength.
Now he stood alone and Elric burned, the fire enveloping his ruined body, reducing him to the chaos from which they had come, and to which they inevitably returned.
It was appropriate that they should be consumed in fire. They fought that fire all their lives; at the end, it reduced them to dust.