Fa shrieked again and again. The cylinders undulated, inching up her legs.
"Do you feel them eating through your skin now? Soon they'll get to your muscles and tissue, your blood, and finally your bones."
"Gale! Gale! Gale!" Fa screamed.
He didn't think Razeel was touching the stone. If she wasn't touching the stone, the only way the ring might harm her was if it produced a generalized field. But in that case it would hurt Fa as well.
Fa's struggles grew weaker. She was sobbing, crying his name. He wanted to kill Razeel, wanted to save Fa. But he had only this one weapon. If it killed by contact with the stone, it would do nothing. If it killed the wearer, then he would kill Fa. She shrieked again, her voice growing hoarse.
"Gale. Gale."
He had to try it.
He selected the option, and the tech echoed his command.
Fa gasped, and her body bucked in a single, convulsive jerk. As the ring's image jumped, Galen saw the blur of Razeel's pale hand flying up, Razeel's cape billowing as she fell away. Then he was looking up at Fa, her neck muscles standing out in spasm, her eyes wide in terror and agony.
In his mind's eye, a schematic of Fa's body appeared beside her image. The ring's sensors showed a massive electric shock pumping through her, running up her arm, down her chest, and out through her buttocks into the ground. It was a high-voltage, low-frequency alternating current, the most lethal kind.
The muscles of her arm and chest had frozen in tetany; she couldn't breathe. As one second passed into the next, Fa's mouth opening wider and wider for air that would not come, tears running down her face, inside her heat built, tissues shriveled, burns spread down nerves, blood vessels, and muscles. Veins coagulated, blood clotted. With the internal resistance of her body breaking down, the current poured through even stronger. The image shook as Fa went into seizure. The schematic flashed, signaling ventricular fibrillation.
Fa's heart was failing.
And then, it stopped. Cardiac arrest. The electric storm died. As her muscles went slack, a long, soft sigh whispered from her mouth. She fell back onto the mak, still. The ring's sensors confirmed that Fa's heart remained in arrest. No further shock was necessary. The schematic vanished.
In one corner of the probe's image, he could see Elizar holding Razeel in a sitting position, examining her palm. She was still alive. She'd received a brief shock from her skin-to-skin contact with Fa, and perhaps a burn, but the involuntary movement that had jerked her hand free had saved her. The ring had been designed to attack its wearer, no others. The rest of the image showed only mist. He broke the connection, finding himself hunched forward, arms crossed over his chest, hands clenched.
His body was shaking, racing with the relentless, merciless energy. He wiped at his eyes.
He was furious at Razeel and Elizar, furious at this damned hiding place that allowed him to see but not to act. But above all, furious at himself. He'd had to prove to Fa the greatness of the techno-mages, had to show her his spells. He had promised to come at her call. And he had failed her.
He couldn't save anyone. He could only kill.
The blazing, brilliant energy raged through him. Galen wanted to reach out through the ring, to seize Elizar and Razeel and crush them to nothingness. Or, if he could not reach them, then to crush everything that was within his reach.
He turned his thoughts away from that, and in his mind's eye forced another equation to form. The tech eagerly echoed it. A ball of brilliant blue fire formed above him, shot downward. It seized him at the neck and rushed over chest, arms, legs like living lava, searing him, consuming the hair from his body.
Again.
The blue fire fell upon him with ragged claws. They raked down his skin, scouring the outer layer away.
Again.
Again.
Again.
He fell out of his chair, light-headed, gasping. His raw skin was overloaded with sensation, with pain. He was disgusted at himself, at the way he continued when everyone around him died. Why stop at these weak punishments? Why not just kill himself?
Why not bring the fire down until it ate through his body, until he suffered what Fa had suffered? He brought the fire down again, again. Something warm spread over his forearm, dampness stinging exposed nerve endings. From the sleeve of his coat a trickle of blood ran out onto his hand.
He felt warmth on his back now too, and his side. He would not lose control again. He would not hurt anyone else again. He called the fire down. The dampness spread, warmth enveloping him. He found himself fading into that warmth. It was hard to focus. But he knew there was one thing he must do, and he held fiercely to that one thing. And as consciousness left him, he brought the fire down one last time.
C
HAPTER 4
Anna closed her orifice and, with a cry of joy, shot up into the sky. The gases of the atmosphere, layers of moisture and dust pressed against her, fighting her forward motion. She strove upward. Beneath her, cities had been flattened to desolate plains, life exterminated. A great victory.
The atmosphere thinned, her weight grew light, and the cold sent exhilarating tingles across her skin. Then she was free, cutting through the invigorating vacuum of space.
Her sisters had taken flight, speeding to Z'ha'dum to drop off their prisoners, so they could return to this sector and wait in delicious anticipation of the next attack.
For Anna there would be no such joy. She must remain with her passengers on Z'ha'dum.
She had extended chairs and benches from the walls of her largest chamber, and there they sat, heat and oily excretions soaking into her. Through her skin, she watched them.
The hated Bunny sat apart from the others, with a screen on her lap. Using a stylus, she dashed off line after line of strange symbols. Even occupied as she was, Bunny challenged Anna's ability to concentrate, to carry out her tasks.
The pressure of Bunny's thoughts pushed at Anna's mind, generating a dull, pulsing pain. Bunny was a disruptive, intrusive presence. She vexed Anna. Because of Bunny, Anna had to stand idle on Z'ha'dum in case her passengers required transportation. Anna was the only one the Eye trusted to carry Bunny. Once, another of her sisters had been ordered to transport a telepath.
As soon as the telepath had boarded, she'd taken off and flown into the nearest sun. If Bunny were not among Anna's passengers, any ship could take them. She could return to the war, where she longed to be. Elizar sat beside Razeel on a bench.
Their weight pressed against Anna.
"You've perfected the cylinders," Elizar said.
"They were beautiful, weren't they? Two great mouths of hunger. They would have consumed her utterly."
He watched her silently for a moment.
"They served their purpose well."
"I wish Galen had not interfered. Their need has gone unsatisfied."
"Galen will pay his price."
Elizar took her hand and examined it. A dark red discoloration ran along the length of her index finger and over her fingertips.
"Why don't you rest and allow your hand to heal?"
Their bodies were so inferior, their pale skin vulnerable to nearly any attack, unlike Anna's brilliant black skin. Elizar stood, and Razeel lay on the bench, her face to the wall. As she traced a finger over Anna, she whispered.
"The shadow of death stretches out its hand. And upon its palm I sit. The queen of shadows."
She began to hum. Elizar let out a heavy breath and went to Bunny. He watched over her shoulder as she scribbled symbol after symbol. After a time, her hand stopped.
"Is that all?" Elizar said.
Bunny jerked her head around, her mouth tightly closed.
"Those are all the spells the girl remembered. Galen explained to her what some of them did. I can tell you what he said."
Bunny looked back down at the screen, and for some reason, Anna got the impression she was afraid.
"Is it enough?"
"I'm not certain."
"Whether it is or not, I got all there was to get. You can tell them. I did a good job."
Bunny's voice carried an odd quality, quite different from the lightness it used to have.
Anna was glad Bunny was afraid, for whatever reason. Elizar came to stand before her.
"I have always fought for you to remain with us. You have been of great assistance."
"Maybe I didn't get everything out of Galen, but I got enough that we might win the war because of it. Especially about..."
Bunny jerked her head upward, as if indicating Anna.
"If they ever do anything about it."
Did Bunny think she knew something about Anna? She didn't know anything.
"Our allies work on their own timetable."
"I just wish we could go somewhere else. We had some good times on Thenothk. But Z'ha'dum" – she flipped her hair over her shoulder – "it's hard to keep a party going there."
"They may not be comfortable with telepaths, but they too realize your value."
"They realize how valuable I could be inside a ship. I know that's what they're thinking, every time they look at me. Since John Sheridan used a telepath to jam one of their precious fleet, they've been wiring in every telepath they can get their hands on. And they don't have any as powerful as I am."
Anna didn't understand what Bunny was talking about, but she wanted Bunny to stop talking. Now. She bent her mind to Bunny, trying to make the telepath as uncomfortable as she was.
"Your power makes you valuable to them outside a ship as well," Elizar said.
Bunny glanced upward. She stood, twirling a lock of her finger.
"I'm just want that all we have gone to someplace away from... all that." She pressed against him.
"Someplace with decent food, and drink, and light, and music. See what develops."
Good, Anna thought. She had stopped her talk of ships.
"You'll get what you want, as will I, if we are both patient. The force that I have built so carefully is nearly ready. They were very pleased with the last test. It will be sent out to fight. I will be sent at its head. And you will come with me."
He caressed her face, at the same time moving slightly away from her.
"I have been promised that if I complete my final task for them, then once the war is over, I will be given the force to do with as I please."
"This hasn't turned out like I thought. I figured, with all the talk about chaos, we'd be able to do whatever we wanted. Instead, we just follow orders."
"You must be patient. For now, we return to Z'ha'dum."
He lifted the screen between them.
"Tell me what Galen said to Fa as he explained these spells."
Bunny pressed the screen against her chest with a small smile.
"If you do learn Galen's spell, you better remember who you have to thank for it. You better not use it on me."
"Don't be ridiculous. I would never kill you."
He turned his hand palm up, waiting for her to relinquish the screen. At last she extended it, though she did not release it.
"I'd like to know sometime what you're really thinking."
Elizar took her hand, pulled it away from the screen.
"Scan me, sweet Bunny, and you'll find you have lost your only ally."
They continued to talk, but Anna had lost interest. She thought of their great victory today, of the red rapture of the war cry. Another attack would come soon. Perhaps, when she reached Z'ha'dum, the Eye would finally realize that Bunny was an enemy just like all telepaths. Perhaps the Eye would kill her. Then Anna could return to the war, could know the ecstasy of victory. Above that, there was no greater joy.
Now it was time to go home. Anna pushed through the shimmering black membrane of space and with an exhilarating leap, joined the roiling red chaos of hyperspace.
* * *
"Galen!" a muffled voice called.
"Galen!"
Fa?
He pushed himself up on shaky arms. He was on the tiled floor of the observation room. Someone was knocking on the door, and as the voice called out again, he recognized it.
Gowen.
"Galen! Can you hear me?"
Fa was dead. Soom was destroyed. Elizar and Razeel had likely acquired the spell of destruction. And he hadn't killed himself. But then, he had known that he wouldn't, hadn't he. If he truly wanted to kill himself, he knew the spell that would do it, that would end everything.
He realized, in a moment of perfect clarity, that it was the only solution. It would be the logical last step in the process he had begun when he'd entered the hiding place: withdrawing from the universe, building up the walls, drawing them closer and closer around him. Even sealed away, he continued to spread his chaos and death. To stop the destruction, once and for all, he must draw the process to its inevitable conclusion. Crush himself in the fist of his own will.
He gained a measure of peace from the thought. He need not hurt again. He need not spend the next hundred years walking in circles. Gowen continued to knock.
The door was sealed to all but Galen and the Circle. Still Galen burned to reach out, to kill Elizar and Razeel. Though the tech's energy had subsided somewhat, its agitating undercurrent drove endlessly through him.
He began a mind-focusing exercise. A smear of blood revealed where his arm had lain. He wiped at it with his black coat until it was barely visible.
"Galen!"
He must accomplish one more task, stop his mistake from causing any further harm. Then it would be over, at last.
"Galen!"
"Just a..."
His voice was hoarse, barely audible. He cleared his throat.
"A moment."
Gowen stopped knocking.
Galen grabbed on to the chair with red, raw hands, worked his way to standing. Dark spots danced before his eyes. He steadied himself, took a few calming breaths. Although he'd had the presence of mind not to scour his head, any moderately close inspection would reveal what he had done.
He found he had received a message – the Circle, calling for his report. He was late. Gowen had come after him. He thought of opening the door, of dismissing Blaylock's former student with a few quick words. But he couldn't face Gowen, couldn't face anyone yet. He called out.