Invoking Darkness (14 page)

"You can't." she said.

The energy fell upon her, a thick, undulating wave of blue rushing down head, torso, legs, scouring away the remnants of her clothes and brushing over her skin. Circe shook, releasing a startled, warbling cry. The tiny conjury provided him no relief. Gowen jerked his hands back, wide eyes on Galen.

"What are you...? How can you... Galen, you have to stop."

"I will not stop. And if you abandon her to fight me, she will die."

Galen conjured a second blue ball.

Circe's eyes jerked up to face it in fear.

"Where did you plan to go?" he asked. "Whom did you plan to see?"

The energy raked down over her, scouring away blisters and skin, and she grunted, her breath coming faster. Gowen extended the crystal again over Circe and bowed his head, eyes closed.

"Why don't you use your great spell on me?" she said. "Kill me."

Galen sent the scouring energy over her again. Her body spasmed, and she grit her teeth. Her skin was turning a rich, shiny purple. Blood welled up in spots, ran in rivulets across her body. Gowen bent lower, as if in concentration.

"More organelles," he mumbled.

Galen went to her side, crouched, and seized her hands, squeezing them so tightly that he trembled. He cast the spell, sent his organelles inside her. His grip became slick with blood.

"Know," he said, "that I will go to any lengths to learn the truth from you, and I will not let you die until I do. If you prefer death to come soon, then tell me now."

He stood over her once again. In the absence of an answer, the blue fire undulated down her body, and her skin split in whisper thin lines of red – across the lip, across the chest, down the arm. She whimpered, and at last her bleeding lips began to move, her voice a rasping whisper.

"Babylon 5 – was our destination. Morden. He promised – at the convo..."

She shook with wet, choking coughs. Morden. He played on their weaknesses.

He found his way into the deepest recesses of their hearts. He offered possibilities devastating in their mere contemplation.
Choose carefully, Galen,
he had said.
Many would give all they have for such an opportunity.

Morden had offered him what he most desired. And he had declined.
I wonder whether you'll be able to live with that decision.

Galen wrapped the exercises tighter about him. If he had killed Morden then, if he had reported to the mages that Morden was dead, Circe might have given up her ambitions. Elric might still be alive. But he had not attacked. Morden and his promises remained, a temptation festering within the ranks of the techno-mages.

"Have you spoken to him since then? Have you had any contact with the Shadows? Or Elizar and Razeel? Have you told them where we are?"

Still coughing, she turned her head slightly from side to side.

"Who aided you?" Galen asked.

Circe closed her bleeding mouth, stifling her coughs, and her dark eyes narrowed on Galen.

"Those also treated unfairly. And those smart enough to realize" – she glanced at Gowen – "there is no future for us without the Shadows."

She knew. How could she know? Had Morden chosen her, of them all, to tell?

Gowen remained bent over the crystal. He showed no reaction to Circe's words. Galen shivered, hard. He was burning, churning, surging with energy.

"I want the names of those mages who aided you, nothing else."

Her broken lips stretched into a smile.

"I came to the truth only recently – unlike you or the privileged Circle. Morden hinted. Claimed allies in the past. Then Alwyn..."

"Silence!"

Galen visualized the equation, and the blue fire appeared above her, hovered there.

"Alwyn said three years and – we would all know. Then you – returned from the rim so angry at Elric."

"Silence!"

He brought the fire down. She gasped as the lines of red spread, intersected.

"In time – I realized the truth. And the folly of rejecting them."

Gowen opened his eyes, and he looked from Circe to Galen, his round cheeks drawn up in horror and confusion. Galen wanted to crush her, crush her. But that was what she wanted: an escape. He would not give it to her.

"You will tell me the names of the mages who assisted you."

She looked up, waiting for the blue ball of energy to appear. She would not answer. Galen obliged her. The thick, undulating wave of blue fell upon her. As it flowed down her body, though, yellow appeared along the leading edge, spread quickly to encompass the rest. His fire was interacting with a shield, penetrating the upper layers and diffusing. Gowen was protecting her. The yellow faded, vanished, leaving just the subtle tinge of the shield.

Circe let out a breathy laugh. But Galen was no longer in that room. Inside him, something was happening. A scouring fire raced over the surface of a shield, but this fire was red, not blue. As the fire was absorbed by the shield and the red turned yellow, and the yellow faded, vanished, a woman's bold laughter rang out.

Two dark figures towered over him, the pale blue of shields protecting them, their powerful voices booming through the air. The man's hands were huge, with blood vessels that seemed swollen with rage. His face, high above, was hidden in shadow.

His father.

The woman – his mother – wore a long black silk dress, whose tight material shimmered in waves as she moved. Her hands, too, struck him with odd clarity, her thin fingers bent like spider legs.

She raised her hand with a flourish, and between his parents a brilliant pinpoint light formed, grew in intensity. Lines of electrical discharge shot out at his father, following the direction of her fingers, poking at his shield to test its strength. As the electricity crackled over him, another scouring ball of red energy appeared in the air above her, streaked downward. For a moment, as the energy raced over her shield, it seemed to consume her, and again she laughed.

Memory after memory fell upon him, one on top of another, images and sensations, overwhelming, smothering. Fire, screams, stillness. Powerful voices raised in argument while he sat in the darkness of his bedroom. Harsh words at the dinner table; a fireball delivered to punctuate a remark, energy diffusing harmlessly across a shield. Scorch marks on the walls, on the furniture, a new couch ordered in haste before visitors arrived.

His corner, the comer of the living room where he retreated when they forgot to send him to his room and he couldn't safely reach it. The sparks of conflict ignited in an instant, died as quickly. He sat and pressed himself into the wall, not wanting to hear, not wanting to see. It was all his fault. If only he behaved better, worked harder. He would be quiet and still, would give them no more reason to fight.

Another fight, and he was taller now, his father's face clearer, the sharp nose and intimidating blue glare of his eyes. The arguments became longer, the violence more frequent and intense.

His father and a young Alwyn stumbling into a plush corporate office suite, drunk, two strange women behind them. Galen followed, his screen clutched to his chest, and retreated into a small side office. His mother leaning over his bed, whispering him to sleep.

"Your father would have me cast out if he could. I built the corporation from nothing, and he wants it all for himself."

His father, a dark silhouette against the bright sky, standing over him during one of their endless training sessions.

"You will obey me, and you will not question me! You're my apprentice. She's nothing to you!"

Each told him the sins of the other, the corporate machinations, the elaborate deceptions, the ruthless power plays. Each tried to secure his allegiance. Perhaps they'd once had love, of a sort, but they'd become locked in an endless battle for power.

He paced back and forth around his bed, hearing the crackle and whine of energies in the living room. His father yelled, more furious than ever. Shifting light leaked beneath the door, the red of scouring fire struggling for dominance with the blue-white of lightning. Galen did not want to hear, did not want to see. Yet he could not be still. This fight seemed different, their attacks more vicious, more determined. He wished he were a mage; then he could stop them. Then he could make them stop.

His mother's vibrant, angry voice: "I will not be treated this way!"

A brilliant blue-white flash beneath the door, burning an afterimage in the darkness. An answering roar of red, and she cried out. Galen punched the door control, ran from his room. As he raced toward them, neither seemed injured, yet in the brilliant blaze of their attacks, he barely recognized them, their faces painted in harsh patches of light and shadow, features cast into distorted shapes, filled with hate. He came between them, and the fire struck him. Later, his mother's fingers dug into his burned arm, healing him.

"We will have our revenge, my darling. Don't you worry."

In the heightened reality of an electron incantation, Elric's hand rose from his chest, and with a turn revealed the ring, with its silver band and ragged black stone. It carried a secret. A secret he knew.

Galen entered the lab where his mother sat working.

"I'm busy," she said. "Go away."

He turned to leave.

"No, wait." Her voice softened. "Why don't you come and watch? I'm making your father's birthday present."

He came and sat across the worktable from her, scratching at the edges of a patch of burned skin on the back of his hand. It hadn't yet healed.

"No, come and sit here beside Mother."

He came around the table, climbed onto a stool beside her. She held up an unfinished silver band.

"It's a ring. It will have a stone here, which will copy any data crystal it touches."

"How can it do that?"

She gave a tight smile, the expression seeming unnatural, and pointed to the small black stone clamped to the worktable.

"The inner layers store information, just as a normal data crystal. The outer layer will look the same, but function differently."

She continued her explanation as she added layer after layer to the stone. When she was done, she turned to him, and a hardness came into her face.

"Not a bad teacher, am I?"

"No," he said.

"Now we need to insert the stone in the ring, and connect it to the microcircuitry in the band."

She worked over it with spidery fingers.

"You're not angry with him anymore, then?"

"He claims he's turned over a new leaf. I can do that too."

She made another connection in the band.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Some additional memory."

She looked up at him.

"I know your father tells you horrible things about me. But you love me, don't you, my darling?"

"Of course."

"Tell me."

"I love you, Mother."

"Show me."

He leaned forward and kissed her lips. She crushed him in a smothering embrace.

"I'm the only one who really loves you," she said.

Her fingers kneaded his back.

"Do you believe he's turned over a new leaf?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Do you believe I have?"

He didn't know how to answer. No would mean he disbelieved her. Yes would mean she had been at fault in the past. As was often the case, she would not be pleased with either answer.

"I love you," he repeated, wishing she would release him.

"Your father's a selfish, power-hungry bastard. He wants the corporation. He wants you. He wants any woman who catches his fancy."

That was true. But then why was she spending such time on his present?

"Why do you stay with him?" She released him, pulled back.

"I stay with him for you, darling. I couldn't leave you. I want only the best for you."

She took his hand, rubbed the burned skin there. Pain shot up his arm.

"I have to protect you. And I can't just give over the corporation to him."

She picked up the ring, slipped it onto his finger.

"There. How do you like that."

He nodded, though it was far too big for him, and the stone had fallen to one side as soon as she'd put it on. He pulled his hand away from hers with the excuse of righting it.

"The ring should be very useful."

She fixed him with her cold blue gaze.

"A Trojan horse," she said, in the ancient Greek dialect she'd taught him so they might share secrets.

She continued in English.

"No one would guess what it can do. We wizards are subtle."

Down the hall, the front door opened.

"Apprentice!" his father yelled.

He jerked to his feet, quickly returned the ring to his mother. He ran to answer his father's summons. He stopped a few feet away from the tall, dark figure, surprised to see that his father was accompanied by Elric. No one had told him Elric was visiting. Whenever they had a guest, things became much more complicated. His father came at him and embraced him, wrapping him in the smells of sweat and resin soap. Embraces between them happened only in front of company, and he found his body going tense.

"My boy. Look who's here. Elric has come for a visit."

Elric came about every three months, on some sort of mage business. His father released him and stepped aside.

"Hello, Apprentice," Elric said with a nod.

He bowed.

"Hello, Elric."

Elric was not unpredictable and emotional like his father, but still he was frightening, with his powerful voice and cold, commanding presence. His father snatched up his hand, as if seeing the wound for the first time.

"What have you gotten into now, you clumsy boy?"

He knew better than to answer.

"Never mind. Your mother and I have business to discuss with Elric. Make yourself scarce until dinner. Then Elric has offered to watch you while your mother takes me out for my big birthday surprise."

"Yes."

It was that night, that night they died. He turned away, finding himself back in the blackened observation room, Circe's eyes on him, Gowen bent in concentration.

Galen stumbled, disoriented, and sat hard on the floor. He was panting, heart pounding. The ring – he had watched her make it, had seen the unusual design but failed to understand.
We will have our revenge.