Inside, Blaylock had delivered Elric's short eulogy in his cold, certain tone, yet his words had conveyed enormous respect for Elric, and the heavy loss of his passing. By its end, many were in tears. Had Carvin been there, she would have cried for Galen. Gowen's body had been burned fast, then Elric's.
Circe and her coconspirators had been disposed of earlier, without fanfare. The green flames billowed high, and Galen felt himself drifting away, as he had so many times in the past, when he desired to hide.
But he could not allow himself to drift, to be lax. He must remain in control. He pushed his exercises forward, built the walls of tunnel vision up around him, reviewed his schedule.
Once the ceremony was completed, Herazade would perform the procedure. It was fairly simple, the insertion of a tiny device carrying a high explosive charge. It would be placed on the surface of his heart. If his mage energy ceased, the explosive would be triggered. The mages' hiding place would remain safe, from all but the mages themselves.
Fed was preparing the supplies he'd requested. Within a few hours, he would be gone. Tomorrow Blaylock planned to gather the mages together and tell them the truth.
The fire at last declined, undulating back and forth over the flat stone like a caress. It drew together into a single, wavering flame, then went dark.
Galen turned and walked back across the powdery surface toward the air lock. He could not stand to hear whatever words of comfort the others might offer. Those words were empty. Elric was gone.
* * *
Galen awoke on the couch in Herazade's office, surrounded by lush, patterned tapestries. His chest throbbed as if he'd been kicked. A sharp sound beat out a steady rhythm. He twisted his head, found Fed in the armchair beside him, bouncing a rubber ball against a small floating platform. Herazade was not in sight, but she must have inserted the device.
Galen laid a gloved hand over his heart, and a feeling of relief washed over him. Everything had been taken care of. He had devised as much of a plan as he could. He had settled his affairs, had left his room as he had found it, except for his staff in one corner and the single plastic container sitting inside the door. Now he could go.
He began a mind-focusing exercise and sat up, the pain of his breath triggering a bout of coughing.
"Hey. You okay?" Fed divided his attention between Galen and the ball.
Galen nodded.
"Herazade said you're all set. They'll be here in a minute."
Galen drew shallower breaths, straightened.
"What did they give you? Some sort of tracking device?"
Galen said nothing.
Fed snatched the ball in mid-bounce.
"I'm sorry about Elric. He was a great mage."
"Yes."
"I hear Morden put Circe up to it, promised her power if she would join the Shadows. Everybody's talking about it."
Fed paused, tossing the ball from one hand to the other. "I saw Morden when I was on Babylon 5. Slimy character."
He looked over at Galen. "I hear you're going to kill him."
That was all the others were being told of his task.
"The mages must know that Morden can give them nothing."
Fed studied the ball in silence, uncharacteristically thoughtful. Then his beard shifted with a crooked smile.
"I put together those disguises for you, like you asked."
Fed jerked a thumb toward the door, where a suitcase sat beside Galen's smaller valise.
"They – may not quite be to your taste. But I guarantee you won't be recognized."
"And the gun?"
"I got you one of Tzakizak's specials. It's silent, very powerful, and won't show up on any weapon scan. But... I don't understand what you need it for."
Of course Fed didn't understand. Galen was a weapon himself, why would he need another?
"Thank you," he said.
Fed's eyes narrowed in humor.
"You better hurry back. Somehow I got drafted to take over your job. I'm not looking forward to sitting alone in a room all day."
An image came to him of the smoke-filled observation room, its walls running with molten metal. He forced it away. The door opened, and Blaylock and Herazade entered.
"Thank you, Fed," Herazade said. "Please excuse us."
Galen stood, and Fed stood with him.
"You know," Fed said, "our group of initiates hasn't done very well. We can't afford to lose any more."
"Good-bye, Federico."
Fed slapped him on the back. "Be keeping an eye on you. So please, keep it entertaining."
Fed left, and Galen went to Blaylock and Herazade, who stood beside the door. Herazade fixed him with her gaze.
"We have put our trust in you."
She pressed her palm against his heart.
"We have made you our hand. With you, we reach out from this place to strike down our enemies. Morden must be killed to maintain our peace. Do not fail us."
"I won't."
Even with their fail-safe device implanted inside him, Galen didn't believe the Circle would have released him for the purpose of killing Elizar and Razeel. That brother and sister might use his spell to destroy was not sufficient reason for them. But once they'd realized that, even in the hiding place, Morden threatened them, they'd agreed to his proposal with amazing speed.
Herazade had told him, at least three times, that he must kill Morden first. Apparently she did not believe he would have the opportunity to kill Morden otherwise.
"Come," Blaylock said.
Galen retrieved the suitcase and valise, and followed Blaylock out.
"Though I agreed to it," Blaylock said as they walked toward the air lock, "I am not pleased with your solution. Clearly I have a greater regard for your life than you do. You have placed yourself in a precarious position. The enemy will attempt to manipulate you into a location where they can nullify your tech, as they did before. Instead, you must manipulate them. Elric was a master of such techniques, though he used them rarely. I assume he instructed you."
"Yes."
If they did trap him, at least the Circle's device might kill them with him.
"Remember what we spoke of on the way to the rim. If you are to succeed out in the universe, you cannot close yourself off from it. You must study the people around you, discover their intentions, and use them."
"Yes."
He would study them with the detachment of an astronomer cataloging remote galaxies. He would allow nothing to break through his defenses.
"You must remain focused on your task, above all. Do not stray. You have three to kill, and only three. The Circle will not overlook another loss of control. Accomplish the task you have been set, and return to us."
"I will accomplish it."
Blaylock was silent for a few steps. Then he continued.
"We have arranged for you to retain access to our probe network while you are outside."
Galen received a message with several files attached.
"Those are Elric's reports from his time on Babylon 5, including what information he gathered on Morden. Know that when you are in Morden's presence, you are in grave danger."
Blaylock stopped beside the air lock, and as they faced each other, Galen was startled to see a hint of stubble on Blaylock's cheeks. He must have been so upset with Elric's and Gowen's deaths that he had forgotten to scour himself. The gray bristles made him look vulnerable and aged.
"The Shadows believe most of us dead. But they know that I, too, may be alive. This task demands the skills of one of the Circle. I should be the one to go."
"The mages cannot spare you. Besides, this is what I want. It is my fault that Elizar may have the spell of destruction. My arrogance. And I must stop Morden, for Elric's sake."
"Elric desired only that you find happiness."
"If I am able to kill Elizar, Razeel, and Morden, I will be happy. I require nothing further."
"You may believe so now. Yet once you have left here, everything will change. I wish you were not the one to go. The outside is filled with temptations."
The tech echoed Galen's unease.
"If you believe in my control, then you have nothing to fear."
"Your control has much improved. That is why I wish you could stay. Perfect control, perfect discipline form the path to a perfect union with the tech. I believe you are closer than any of us to that goal. I hoped that once you were isolated from distractions, you might reach it, and show the rest of us the way."
Galen didn't know how Blaylock could believe such nonsense, especially after all that had just happened.
"I can lead no one to enlightenment."
"Regardless of the Shadows' intentions, good can come from the tech, if you remain its master. Good can come from you. Our destiny is not to serve as agents of death and destruction, but to become something greater."
Yet the Circle sent him to murder three people. Galen said nothing. At last Blaylock opened the air-lock door. With a stiff movement of his hand, he cast a containment shield around them both, and they entered the air lock.
"When you are ready to depart," Blaylock said, "give control of your ship over to Herazade and me. We will allow it to pass through the masking and confinement fields and send it on a programmed jump through hyperspace. As you emerge from hyperspace, record your coordinates. You must return to those coordinates in exactly thirty-five days. You shall have no longer for your task. A ship will arrive to guide you back through hyperspace to us. If you are not there when it arrives, it will return without you. You will have no method of entering the hiding place."
"I understand."
The outer door opened, and they walked out across the powdery, pockmarked surface to Galen's ship.
Galen had not entered it since he'd arrived at the hiding place. He had thought he would never use it again. He visualized the association spell, and the command echoed once from the tech, echoed again from the ship.
In the past, the additional echo had often threatened his control, sending thoughts and feelings reflecting back and forth between ship and implants, building in a rapid, swelling reverberation. Now he felt only the elements of his mind-focusing exercise echoing back to him, orderly, reassuring.
A menu of options appeared in his mind's eye. He lowered the ramp, climbed it beside Blaylock. They passed into the ship's plain, black interior, and with the whisper of silk Blaylock's shield withdrew.
"Elric would want a long life for you," Blaylock said.
Galen set his things down against the wall.
"I opposed him in many things, and I regret nearly all of them. He advocated revealing the origin of the tech long ago. I thought it would encourage capitulation to those instincts. You have proven me wrong. And Gowen paid the price for my lack of faith."
Blaylock did not understand. The instincts were there, and the mages were succumbing to them. Knowing the truth would make no difference.
"Elric once said this, and I agree with him. All paths lead to our destruction."
"In that, I will hope he was mistaken."
Blaylock studied him in silence. When Blaylock spoke again, his voice was harsh.
"If you do not return, Galen, your loss will be sorely felt."
He withdrew into the air lock and bowed.
"The blessing of Wierden upon you."
Galen inclined his head.
He closed the door and turned his mind to departure, selecting one option after another on his menu, the ship eagerly echoing his commands. Quickly he powered up the engines, activated the sensors, checked the long-unused systems. When everything was ready, he contacted Blaylock and Herazade, directed the ship to accept their control.
In his mind's eye, the sensors provided an image of the space all around the ship, as if the ship's walls were transparent. He sat, watching as the ship lifted off, pulling away from the circular gray structure of the hiding place, the barren surface of the asteroid.
He had thought he would never leave. But he had one more task, and it would be his last. A message came from Herazade.
Protect us at all costs.
He would kill their enemies, and he would keep secret the mages' location. He wondered, though, how long they could endure, within those curving, claustrophobic corridors, before they fell upon each other in a great frenzy of destruction.
The jump engines kicked in, an immense, churning orange vortex forming ahead. Control of the ship flowed back to Galen. As it continued on its preprogrammed course, the ship passed through the jump point, and the roiling red currents of hyperspace surrounded him.
He was free. He was back in the universe.
He accessed the probe network, eagerly searched for Elizar and Razeel, or any signs that they had used the spell of destruction. He needed to find them quickly. He searched through the many places where the Shadows might show aggression, where wars were being waged, or resistance organized. He saw no sign of brother and sister, yet conflict and destruction were all around him. Explosions, battles, massacres – one war merged into the next, revealing the vast dance of death consuming the galaxy.
Each image carried a new sense of immediacy, for he no longer watched from the detached, conscience-soothing confinement of the hiding place, but from amidst the destruction.
He accessed a probe in orbit about the Kaikeen Confederacy's capital planet. The Centauri had declared war on the confederacy nearly a year ago, but as just one of a dozen wars the Centauri had been prosecuting, the Kaikeen had received little attention beyond a few minor attacks on their outer planets.
Over the last months, the Centauri had pulled many of their troops back to strengthen the defenses around Centauri Prime. The Kaikeen had, optimistically, interpreted the withdrawal as sign of impending victory, and struck a blow against a Centauri colony in disputed territory. Apparently that had shot them to the top of the list of Centauri priorities. For the Centauri Republic's allies, the Shadows, had arrived to deliver the counterattack.
A fleet of Shadow ships cut down through the atmosphere of the planet, their spidery silhouettes stark against the gray stone of the major continent.