Casting Shadows (The Passing of the Techno-Mages #1)

by Jeanne Cavelos

  Fa came close to his hand her eyes shifting from it to Galen’s face.

  “If she does not abuse it, it will watch over her always. And if ever she is in great need, she may call my name three times, and I will come.”

  Fa looked at him with such hope, such dreams. While her attention was on his face, he dropped the ring into her pocket, quickly reclosing his fist.

  “Say the words now, and never say them again unless such need comes.” He activated the recording device in the probe.

  “Gale! Gale! Gale!” she cried. Elric looked toward them.

  Galen inserted the sound of her words into the program, so that he would be informed if ever she said them. “You will care for it.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “You will not abuse it.”

  “Yes!”

  He opened his hand. It was empty.

  “Ah!” she cried.

  “What?” he said. “Where is it?” He patted himself down. Fa watched him, half excited, half worried. “Do you have it?” Galen asked.

  Fa began patting herself down, stopped her hand on her pocket. Wonder lit up her face. She reached inside, pulled out the ring. “Oh!” As his mother had given it to his father, he gave it to Fa. It was a great relief, finally, to be free of it.

  Galen stood, picked up the staff and valise. Fa looked up at him, then at the valise, and her face fell. She bolted across the mak. He watched as her orange jumper faded into the mist.

  Galen approached Elric and Isabelle. Isabelle was wearing a small golden amulet, an eye surrounded by the curving flames of a corona. On each flame was engraved a scientific symbol. He wondered if it had been a gift from Burell, as his staff from Elric.

  “Burell is inside,” Elric said. “She is ready.”

  Galen nodded, and Isabelle started up the ramp into the ship.

  “Contact me daily,” Elric said. “I will relay your findings to the Circle.”

  “I know.”

  As Galen was about to start up the ramp, Elric seized him in an embrace. Galen took an awkward step to keep his balance, his hands holding staff and valise in midair. The close contact made him uncomfortable. He could not remember Elric ever holding him, not even at the deaths of his parents. He’d received no more over the years than the occasional hand on the shoulder. He’d grown accustomed to seeing little emotion, and to showing little. It was what he preferred.

  Elric embraced the other mages in greeting, of course, or in departure. But those were like friendly handshakes. This embrace was more than those, Galen thought, and it threatened to bring up emotions whose acquaintance he did not wish to make.

  Elric spoke softly. “Remember the reprimand of the Circle.”

  Galen pulled back, startled. Why would Elric say that here, now? Elric knew that he had vowed to obey the Circle, to maintain control, to hold the spell of destruction uncast within him. Galen had thought the Circle, and Elric, had given him another chance because they believed he could succeed. Did Elric fear that he would fail?

  Galen stepped away and lowered his arms to his sides. “I shall,” he said.

  Elric nodded. Galen turned and climbed up the ramp into the ship. Isabelle showed him a seat in the plain, dark interior, and within a minute they had begun to shoot up through the atmosphere. It felt strange, leaving Soom without Elric for the first time. As if he had forgotten that which he needed most.

  Galen visualized the equation to access one of the probes to which Elric had given him the key. It was on the west side of one of the great stones that marked Elric’s place of power. The probe requested the key, and he gave it. An image appeared in his mind’s eye. The mak stretched toward the sea, the mist brilliant in the morning light.

  And there on the open plain, a shadow shrouded in mist, stood Elric, alone.

  — chapter 8 —

  “Before I let you in,” Burell said at the doorway, “I need your assurance.”

  “My assurance,” Galen said.

  “I didn’t know that I’d be bringing a guest home. I could make you stay elsewhere, but that would be highly inconvenient, and I’d worry about you constantly.”

  Galen nodded, hoping an explanation would come.

  She sighed, realizing he still didn’t understand. “I have—things—inside that are not intended for anyone else to see. You must give me your word that you will tell no one what you find.”

  Her research, he realized. She must be doing even more than the mages knew, work that many would condemn if they discovered it. “I give you my assurance. No one will know.”

  “Good.” She extended her hand, and the door to the penthouse apartment opened. “Welcome.”

  Burell entered first, in the wheelchair illusion she had created after she’d parked her ship in a private hangar at the spaceport. She had agreed to the deception that Galen had come back with them because she was in ill health. But she had refused to let the people between the spaceport and her apartment see her true condition. Galen had still not seen it himself, though he understood from Isabelle that Burell was very ill. The trip to Soom had made her much worse; Isabelle hoped that returning to Burell’s place of power would improve her health.

  At the spaceport, Burell had altered her usual, glamorous image to create a greyish pallor, lank greasy hair, and a quite unpleasant odor. The odor sold the illusion, Galen could see as they passed through customs. The officials left her alone, speaking in hushed voices with Isabelle. Burell acted the role with gusto. On the tube ride home, she had gone into a fit of wet, phlegm-filled coughs that made it sound as if she might drop dead right there.

  Galen followed Burell inside, Isabelle coming last and closing the door behind them. Galen was relieved to find Burell’s odor immediately vanished. The pallor and greasy hair went as well. She appeared healthy, wearing a tight-fitting red dress, dark hair in a short, sophisticated style. The wheelchair was replaced with a yellow armchair that floated a few feet off the ground.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Burell said, moving toward a screen on the far wall.

  The apartment was about as different from Elric’s simple, Spartan house as it could be. The living room/kitchen was large but crowded. An overstuffed couch and several armchairs were scattered about the room, covered with boxes, newspapers and magazines, electronics, tubes, and other unidentifiable items. Jammed in among the normal living room furniture were various pieces of sophisticated scientific equipment. He recognized a muon microscope, an image processor, a genetic sequencer, a portable magnetic resonance imager, gain amplifiers, and a compact particle accelerator. Boxes and piles of materials had encroached onto the floor, so that Galen had to follow a circuitous path to get from one end of the room to the other. The one hint that anything had once been done to decorate the room came from the colorful tapestries hanging on the walls. Galen realized Isabelle must have woven them, as she must have made the tapestry on which they’d picnicked and the robe for Elric.

  Galen always kept his room in perfect order. He was uncomfortable with the disorder. The restless energy of the implants increased his unease.

  Isabelle came up behind him. “You’ll stay in my room. It’s the first door.” She pointed toward a narrow hall to their left. Galen found a path that led to the hall. Isabelle followed.

  The room was a small island of order amongst the chaos. A loom took up the far half of the room. A simple bed covered by a knit afghan ran along the wall to the right, and along the side wall were several shelves with skeins of different colors and materials. The arrangement of the threads held some kind of symmetry he couldn’t quite identify. A tapestry hung on each wall, and a woven carpet lay on the floor.

  Isabelle opened the closet, which contained a row of drawers on the right. She took a couple of sweaters from the top drawer, pushed them into the bottom. “You can put some things in here, and then hang up what you need.” Along the bar hung several plain black robes and a couple of simple dresses.

  He had never stayed in anyone else’s h
ome. When he traveled with Elric, they usually slept aboard the ship. Or when they couldn’t, in a hotel. It seemed a terrible invasion of her privacy.

  “I could stay in the ship,” Galen said.

  Isabelle’s eyebrows had begun to grow back during the few days’ trip, and now they contracted in a frown. “It’s safer if we all stay together. Besides, this apartment is strongly tied to Burell’s place of power, which lies below. We have best access here to events everywhere on Zafran 8.”

  She seemed a bit irritated and Galen realized he’d said something wrong. “I hate to put you from your room.”

  “It’s all right. I will stay with Burell. She often needs me during the night, and with the stress the trip has put on her, I’ll feel better staying near her.” As she looked toward the living room, her fingers intertwined nervously. Galen tried to imagine what it would be like if Elric were seriously ill. It was hard to envision, since Elric had always been healthy. Yet there would come a time, many years in the future, when age would cause major decay that the organelles would not repair.

  Galen tried to take her mind from her worries. “Your amulet. Can you associate with it?”

  She smiled, touching it. “Yes. Like your staff, I suppose. Burell made it for me.” And so the worry returned to her face. “You can leave your things in here,” she said and went out into the living room. Galen set down his valise and leaned his staff into the corner, then followed.

  “Are you ready to get to work?” Burell asked. “I’ve a few secret weapons to share with you.” Her yellow chair hovered in front of a large screen built into one wall. The screen was divided into twenty rectangles, each showing a different image. Isabelle stood to one side, and Galen stepped through the clutter to end up beside her. The tiny hairs that had sprouted on her head accented the graceful curve of her skull, her slender neck. He brushed against a basket of data crystals, nearly upsetting it.

  Burell turned her head toward them, though it turned only a few degrees, as if its movement was restricted. Burell caught Galen in the corner of her eye. “As Isabelle well knows, I guard my secrets carefully. But you’ve already seen the evidence I have gathered. Since you are to continue that work, I’ll share with you some of my methods for obtaining it.”

  Over the next few minutes, Burell shared a wealth of information. She gave them the key to access certain of her information systems. She led them through her extensive network of probes, planted in places both public and private, reputable and disreputable. She had probes throughout the spaceport. She had probes in the home of the planetary governor, and she had probes in the home of the planetary governor’s mistress. She had probes in warehouses and industrial plants; she had probes in bars and gambling houses. She had a probe in the jewel in the navel of the port’s most popular belly dancer.

  She pointed out those that might be of most use, then reviewed what records the port kept of spacecraft traffic, passengers, and cargo. She gave them the names of people who provided useful information, knowingly or unknowingly.

  “Last but not least, let me introduce you, Galen, to a little computer demon I conjured. He’s been the one to sneak his way into the spaceport records and retrieve all their information. He’ll be very useful for you. He’s quite a hard worker, and easy on the eyes too. Johnny?”

  The large screen went black, and in the center appeared a male figure. He fell to one knee, bowed his head. “I live to serve, Enchantress.” He stood. He wore a skimpy red bathing suit and nothing more. His physique was that of a bodybuilder, with huge biceps and quadriceps, and rippling abdominals. “Greetings, Daughter of Enchantress.”

  Isabelle nodded, a slight smile playing across her face.

  “What have you found, Johnny?” Burell asked.

  “The ship Khatkhata arrived yesterday. According to port records, it’s bound for the last jumpgate on our route, near the rim. It’s got a four-day layover in port before continuing its journey. The crew is Narn, and they’re staying at the Strauss Hotel. The Khatkhata is a cargo ship, carrying several heavy pieces of demolition and construction equipment. But at least some of the cargo is passengers. I haven’t been able to get any information on them. They aren’t leaving the ship.”

  Johnny’s face and voice seemed familiar somehow. Galen studied the figure and found that the head and body didn’t quite go together. The head had a more normal amount of body fat in its cheeks, and a slightly lighter skin tone.

  Johnny went through some additional information on ships that had arrived or departed while Burell was away. When he was finished, he lowered himself again to one knee.

  “Thank you, Johnny,” Burell said.

  “It is my great pleasure, Enchantress.”

  “Good-bye, Johnny,” Isabelle said.

  Johnny vanished, and the other images returned to the screen.

  “His face...” Galen said.

  “Yes, he is a beauty, isn’t he? The body is Tidor Puentes, Human bodybuilding champion. The face and voice belong to a military man from the newsfeeds who caught my fancy. EarthForce Captain John Sheridan.”

  The newsfeeds had called him the hero of the Earth-Minbari War. Galen remembered Elric saying he was “a noble man fighting an ignoble war.” And Burell had grafted his head onto the torso of a bodybuilder. Galen must have looked shocked, because Burell let out a sharp laugh.

  “Even older women need to have their fun.”

  “Burell,” Isabelle said, “why don’t you show him the Strauss Hotel?”

  “Yes, yes.” The images on the screen changed. “Isabelle and I used to visit the Strauss often. Most of their guests are ships’ crews or those doing trade with the ships. For a while I even did some fortune-telling in their lounge. It was a great way to pick up information.” Different images showed the hotel’s lobby, lounge, restaurant, and various guest rooms. They changed quickly as Burell flipped through them. “These days I mainly work from here, watching through the probes and receiving gossip from the manager, Cadmus Wilcox. Cadmus is a bit of a ninny, but he has a good eye for detail. He’s one of the few who have realized that something has changed in the last several months.”

  Burell pressed her palms against the arms of the chair and pushed herself up, readjusting her position. “He contacted me just a few weeks before the convocation and begged me to put a spell of protection on the hotel. He was afraid of some of the dangerous-looking clientele checking in. I sent Isabelle down to plant probes, sensors, and sonic generators throughout the hotel. We told Cadmus she had to go through every room as part of the spell, of course.

  “The system is set up so that the blast of a PPG or any other sophisticated weapon will set off the sonic generators, whose sound waves are strong enough to vibrate the internal organs of most intelligent species, stunning them, causing spasms, or liquefying their bowels. Of course Cadmus is probably overreacting; I don’t think his guests want to draw any attention to themselves. But he sleeps better at night, and I have a much more complete intelligence-gathering system in place.”

  Isabelle pointed to one section of the screen. “There’s a Narn.”

  The Narn was standing in one of the guest rooms, staring at herself in the mirror. She looked grim. A pale scar ran across the middle of her nose.

  “I wonder what she’s thinking,” Isabelle said.

  Within seconds Burell had retrieved her record from the Narn Transport Organization and displayed it beside the picture on the screen. Her name was G’Leel, and she was second-in-command on the Khatkhata.

  “Interesting,” Burell said tapping her upraised index finger against her lips.

  Isabelle read from G’Leel’s record. “She’s been crewing on cargo ships for seven years. Six months ago she switched to a non-Narn shipping company. Based on Stabota 5. Where is that?”

  “I’ve run into this company before,” Burell said. “They’ve been involved in several of the other shipments I followed. Stabota 5 makes us look centrally located. The only thing there is a colony of nud
ist Drazi. The shipping facility is nothing but a communications relay. I haven’t been able to trace it to its true source, which suggests some very sophisticated technology is involved.”

  Isabelle continued reading from the record. “Her base pay tripled, not counting bonuses. Closest relatives are two parents living on the Narn homeworld. They are the beneficiaries of her life insurance policy.”

  G’Leel went to the door of her hotel room. Several Narns stood outside, in a jovial mood. Burell added sound to the image. A brief exchange followed in Narn, and G’Leel left with them.

  “Do you speak Narn?” Burell asked.

  “No,” Galen said.

  “You should learn. But until you do, you should at least be able to translate. Isabelle, give him the program.”

  Isabelle’s strong, slender hands came together, and her fingers moved slightly. Galen found he had a message. It was a few words in Narn, and attached was the translation program. He accessed the program, translated the message. I can’t speak Narn either, she had written.

  He’d spent the journey from Soom studying all they knew of the Shadows, and information that Isabelle and Burell had provided about Zafran 8. He hadn’t thought learning Narn would be a priority.

  With the translation program, he could have text or conversations translated, with the translation appearing in his mind’s eye. It wasn’t as good as learning the language, but he hoped it would be enough.

  Accessing various probes, Burell followed the Narns down to the lounge. They were a rough-looking group, dressed in dark leathers with weapons openly displayed. They pushed other guests out of the way to make room for themselves at the bar. It looked like they were in for a night of drinking.

  Burell swiveled her chair to face Galen and Isabelle. Even with the illusion of health, her face appeared drawn, fatigued. “I have given you all I can. Now it’s your job to find the evidence the Circle requires. It’s not my place to do more, unless my help is absolutely necessary.”