Galen was shocked by his friend’s accusation. Elizar might have complained in the past that the Circle was overly conservative, but he had always respected their wisdom and leadership. “What kind of secrets?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Secrets of power, almost certainly. Of abilities we don’t know we have. But the most serious ...” Elizar glanced behind him, leaned over Galen. “Imagine a threat coming, Galen. A threat not only to us, but to everyone. A threat that could end our order forever. And the knowledge of it kept from us.”
“By the Circle? Why would they do that?”
“I think they are afraid. Things have grown quiet, things have grown safe. They have grown complacent. I think they are frozen to inaction by what they know. They’re not prepared to do what has to be done.” Laughter burst from the mages; apparently Fed was clowning again.
Galen couldn’t believe Elric would ever withhold information about a threat to the mages, or to those they protected. “If that is so,” he said, “then we would make our case to the Circle.”
“The Circle would deny.”
“Then we would make our case to the mages themselves.”
“They wouldn’t believe us.”
“What evidence do you have?”
Elizar glanced toward Kell. “We must discuss this later. But I tell you Kell is neither willing nor able to deal with what is coming. New leadership will be required.”
There were many with greater experience and wisdom than Elizar; it seemed presumptuous of him to think he was the only solution. His time to be elected to the Circle was many years off. Yet why was Elizar the only one to suspect this threat? Galen didn’t know what to say. “It will be many years before Kell leaves the Circle.”
“He is old. You don’t know, Galen. He’s not what he once was. The Circle has always included one of the line of Wierden. If not Kell, that would mean Razeel or I, and ...” He shrugged, dismissing Razeel.
“But the youngest ever to be elected to the Circle was Elric, when he was fifty.” And a new member could not be elected until a current member died or resigned, with resignation usually taking place very close to death.
“Kell waited too long to take apprentices. He should have done so many years ago. And he should have taken only one. But he believed himself infallible. I cannot help the fact that I’m young. And I cannot use that fact as an excuse to stand by and do nothing. Drastic action must be taken. I happen to be the only one in a position to take that action. I hope that, when the time comes, you will support me.”
“What kind of action?”
“The secrets”—he wiped a hand across his mouth—“must be uncovered. Power must be restored to us. The survival of the mages will depend on it.” His mouth hung open at a crooked angle, and his eyes drifted to the side, as if watching the future he contemplated. Like an apprentice about to cast his first spell, he seemed simultaneously terrified and excited. Then his eyes returned to Galen, and he laid a hand on Galen’s shoulder. “Wish me success. And speak of this to no one.”
Galen nodded.
Then Elizar was moving on, greeting others and giving embraces with that same anxious intensity.
Elizar had to be mistaken, Galen thought. Elric would have told him of any danger. And if there were a danger, the Circle would be doing their best to prepare them to face it.
He moved toward the shield. Razeel was training now, under the supervision of Kell. Galen didn’t have much of a memory of her from previous convocations. She had followed Elizar around a lot, a pale shadow of her brother. The thing Galen remembered most was that at each convocation she dressed in a different fashion, her hair dyed a new color, her clothes reflecting a particular subculture of a particular historical period on a particular planet. It was as if she were trying on different identities. Yet whatever the identity, she always seemed lost.
This time, her hair was its natural dark brown, and her velvet dress matched Elizar’s in style. Perhaps she had found who she was, or perhaps this time she had acquiesced to their requests. Yet the velvet dress hung shapelessly on her petite, slender form, too large. Even this identity didn’t fit.
Kell towered behind her. Razeel’s eyes were downcast, her arms hanging at her side. Galen couldn’t recall the sound of her voice; didn’t know if he’d ever heard her speak. Yet her small lips were moving now, in silent incantation.
The globes of light floating within the training area faded to blackness. A mist began to leak from the woven grass mat on the floor around her. The area quickly filled with it, and the dark figures of Razeel and Kell were lost. Seemingly deep within the mist, a light began to strobe on and off. Vague, dark shapes appeared in the intermittent light, their positions jumping between one flash of light and another. They looked a bit like the holodemons Alwyn occasionally conjured, but there was something different about them, something disturbing. With each flash their shapes seemed slightly changed, transformed. Yet each had at its center a constant hole of complete blackness: a mouth.
In a rapid series of jumps the shapes raced toward the shield, and within each the black mouth swelled. Galen took a step back. As the shapes swallowed themselves, they released a tortured, screeching cry.
Then the light of the globes returned, and Razeel and Kell were standing in an empty mist. With a final movement of Razeel’s lips, the mist slowly retreated into the carpet.
There was scattered applause from the mages. Something hit Galen on the back, and he jumped. It was Fed. “Does our group of initiates seem weirder than normal, or is it just me?”
The last thing Galen wanted to do was make small talk. He had to figure out what Elizar had been talking about, and he had to prepare for his own training session. It would be his turn soon.
The shield came down, and mages came and went from the hall. Galen saw an open space on the bench. “I’m going to sit down,” he said to Fed.
Fed followed. “You know what Razeel told Carvin? She said her chrysalis talks to her.”
Galen tried to judge whether Fed was joking or not, thought maybe he wasn’t. “Does she mean it echoes her thoughts?”
“She said it actually tells her stuff. I’m not sure what. Of course Gowen thinks the tech is a gift from God, so if she can hear it, maybe she can get the winning New Vegas lottery numbers from it.”
Galen sat in the empty space on the bench.
Fed squeezed in on his left. “I’ve been thinking of doing a study of lottery numbers, nonrandom factors in random number generation, get a drop on those losers who play.”
Fed was always thinking of different research projects. As far as Galen knew, he hadn’t yet completed any.
“There should be some sort of payoff for all the work we’ve gone through, don’t you think? And the pain. I hear the initiation hurts a lot. I’m warning you right now, I may scream like a girl. But if it were painless, then everyone would want to do it, right?”
“I suppose.”
Fed kept talking. Kell called Elizar into the training area, and the shield went back up. It made a faint hum, almost below the level of hearing. Elizar began with some simple exercises. Whatever Elizar thought the Circle was withholding, he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his initiation.
With the shield just in front of him, Galen studied it for the first time. It was uniform, solid, well constructed. He had met with only mediocre success in creating shields. He’d managed a few times to conjure the simplest type, one that mimicked the contours of his body like a second skin. It had been only weakly protective, though, and unstable. After a few minutes, the energy in his floppy shield had streamed down to pool along the floor. He’d never been able to perform more advanced tasks, such as unfolding the shield from around his body and sustaining it at a distance. This one might teach him something.
He took out his sensor-pad, magnified his view of the shield by ten thousand. At this scale, he ought to be able to see the shield structure, its level of integrity, and any irregularities. At this scale Galen�
��s shield—before it collapsed—looked like a rigid blue grid with fairly large square openings in it. The screen on the pad, though, showed a solid, blue field.
Amazed, he magnified by another one hundred. The bluish surface was still solid, yet he could see now that it was made up of tiny threads of energy. They were woven together, warp and woof, so tightly as to leave no opening. The strength and elegance of it, the simplicity, awed him. The woven shield was self-contained, complete, a work of art. He had no idea how it had been conjured, but the concept now made sense to him in a way it hadn’t before.
Using the sensor-pad, Galen searched for a connection between the shield and its maker. Perhaps he could receive further guidance from whichever master had made it. He found a tiny thread of energy extending from the shield followed it carefully. It led to the intertwined hands of the person sitting to his right. The strong, slender fingers made slight movements, maintaining the shield with diligent care. The mage wore a black robe, and Galen was amazed to see she had a chrysalis. She was an apprentice like him. Yet he didn’t recognize her. Long strawberry-blond hair was tucked behind her ear, which stuck out at an odd angle. A muscle traced the line of her neck. She turned to him, a curious expression on her face. “Hello,” she said.
Suddenly he wanted to know everything about her, about the spells she performed how she had learned to do them, what she liked to eat, what shapes she saw in the stars, whether she’d ever been in love, and why she wanted to be a techno-mage. He was filled with a great care and tenderness toward her, for her jug ears, her warm gray eyes, her strong, slender hands. He didn’t want her spell to fail because of his interruption.
His stomach defied anatomy and moved into his throat. He was falling. “Hello,” he said.
“You must be Galen.”
“Can you talk?”
“I do it quite often, actually.” She smiled, her lips pressed together in a mysterious, delightful way. He got the feeling she knew everything about him, but for some reason it didn’t bother him. What she knew, she seemed to like.
“I meant—the shield.”
“Oh, yes. If you don’t mind me being slightly preoccupied. It’s kind of like knitting.”
“It’s beautiful work.”
“Thank you. Shields are my specialty. I’m trying to get over it.”
He should have studied the list of mages more carefully. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize you.”
“Isabelle. Burell’s apprentice.”
Of course. How could he have been so stupid? He was such an incompetent around people.
“I missed the last convocation,” she continued. “Burell was ill, so we stayed home. Kell came with Elizar and Razeel, and”—she paused to concentrate on the spell—“he performed a special ceremony to bring me into chrysalis stage. The last time I saw you, I was fifteen. I preferred to stay with the younger girls.”
Her image finally came to him. “You were always knitting!”
She gave that mysterious, closed-lip smile again. “Yes. And you were always reading.”
“Yes.” Strange thoughts tumbled through his head. Could she possibly ever feel anything for him? And if they both became mages, could it ever endure? In the last two hundred years, only one pair of techno-mages had maintained a long-term relationship. And that had been cut short.
“Will you train soon?” she asked.
“Inevitably.” He realized Isabelle was conjuring without her teacher. He looked around for Burell, didn’t see her. “How is it you’re allowed to work without Burell?”
“She was here this morning. Got me started. She wasn’t feeling well, so she made an arrangement with Elric. He was comfortable with my ability to make the shield. I’m not allowed to do more without supervision.”
Her voice had risen as a buzzing filled the room. Galen turned toward the training area. Elizar stood at the center of a circling swarm. He bent slightly forward and brought his cupped hands to his mouth, as if to warm them. With a jerk of his body he cried out, releasing a long, sustained syllable. A thin dark spike emerged from his hands and began to sail around the room, joining the rest of the swarm. The spikes made a fierce metallic buzzing. With one cry of power after another, Elizar generated spike after spike, until they formed a whirlwind surrounding him.
Kell spoke into Elizar’s ear, and Elizar shook his head. His chest was heaving, sweat running down his pale, angular face.
Elizar released a deeper syllable, drawing it out. The fluctuating volume created a momentary ringing in Galen’s ears. As Elizar terminated the sound he jerked his body. With one movement the spikes surged outward, as if alive.
Three sides of the training area were enclosed by the stone walls of the hall, which were reinforced with Elric’s containment spell. The spikes struck them and became stuck, like darts in a dartboard. Slowly they were sucked inward and disappeared, their energy absorbed by Elric’s spell.
The fourth side of the training area was enclosed by Isabelle’s shield. The spikes had been stopped by it as well, but tiny pinpricks of the shield were being pushed outward. Elizar loosed another harsh syllable, and the spikes spun like tiny drills, pressing their advantage. Galen turned to Isabelle. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed, fingers moving rapidly. The spikes pushed farther into the shield.
But Elizar was tiring. His yells were hoarse, the jerking of his body weak. He had begun fighting both Elric and Isabelle, and he had little energy left to sustain the contest with Isabelle. Elric had warned that some would test their strength against others, and Galen had seen many such contests at previous convocations. But Galen didn’t understand why Elizar was doing this, or why the result seemed so important to him. Was he trying to prepare for the threat of which he’d spoken? He was still in the chrysalis; his power could never be as great as Elric’s.
One of the spikes near Galen popped out of existence. Then another, then another. Elizar was losing his focus. Galen thought the contest might be over. Then Isabelle’s shield began to vibrate. He glanced down and saw the sensor-pad still in his hand. The screen showed that the threads of energy were breaking, tiny holes opening up. The shield was unraveling.
Elizar gave one last, guttural shout, doubling over. The spikes vanished.
Isabelle made one final motion with her fingers, dissolving the shield, then laid her palms flat against her legs. With one great heaving breath, she straightened and fixed her gaze on Elizar.
The mages broke into applause.
“A contest well fought,” Kell said. “Congratulations to you both.”
Elizar ran the back of his hand over his face. He gave a short bow, extending a hand toward Isabelle. She nodded. As Elizar left the training area, his eyes met Isabelle’s. Galen thought he might see anger in Elizar’s gaze, or frustration, but he sensed instead an intense interest.
Elric stepped into the training area.
Galen stood, his dread returning full force. After everything that everyone had done thus far, was he to conjure a misshapen sphere? Isabelle took the sensor-pad from his hand.
“Excuse me,” Galen said, and entered the training area.
Kell took Galen’s seat on the bench and exchanged a few words with Isabelle. She nodded, and he generated the shield in her place.
Elric took hold of Galen’s chrysalis. “Control. Presentation. Originality.”
Galen focused inward, slowing his breathing, relaxing his muscles, straightening his posture. He closed his eyes, picturing his mind as a blank screen on which equations could be written.
He did some warm-ups first with balls of fire. He maintained control, although Kell was sitting right in front of him, his intense dark gaze distracting.
Galen tried to ignore him and went on to conjure his tribute to Wierden. He knew Elric would be impatient, but he wanted to show Kell—and Isabelle—that he could do something. Isabelle held the sensor-pad up to study his work. The tribute came off perfectly. Isabelle and a few others clapped; Kell showed no reaction.
Elric cleared his throat impatiently. Galen could visualize him with the three frown lines between his eyebrows. No point delaying further; it was time to try the equation he’d discovered, the one with the single term.
He didn’t bother with any fancy gestures. If the spell did nothing, he’d look even more foolish. He closed his eyes, saw the blank screen. On it, he imposed the simple equation.
He expected the faint echo of confirmation from the chrysalis. Instead the instant he visualized the equation, energy surged up around him in a massive, overwhelming wave. It seemed to gather itself, for a moment. Then it fell upon him, layer upon layer upon layer, the energy crushing him with suffocating concentration. He gasped his eyes snapping open.
The molecules of the air had somehow become impossibly distant. He couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet, nor even the weight of his body.
With a great rush the energy shot out from him, pushing him back against Elric. Once again he could feel the weight of his body. He stumbled to regain his balance. As the energy concentrated around the coordinates he’d specified a spherical area began to redden and darken.
Yet his body still did not feel normal, and more than that, the hall did not feel normal. The air felt charged and time itself felt wrong, as if it had become sluggish, distorted. As the spherical area darkened the faces of Kell and Isabelle on the far side of it became oddly distorted as if he were seeing them through a soap bubble. He felt distorted as well, his left arm longer than his right, his left eye bulging outward as if his body had become ductile. Something was deforming space and time.
This wasn’t the translucent globe conjured by the two-term equation. This wasn’t some magical dream made manifest through ancient technology. This was something misshapen, something horribly dangerous. His thoughts seemed fuzzy, out of focus. He had to stop it, he realized. This was his responsibility. His creation. Yet a quenching spell could unmake something only after it had been made. With the strange distortion of time, this spell was still taking shape, still making itself. What it was making itself, he didn’t know.
Casting Shadows (The Passing of the Techno-Mages #1) Page 7