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

by Jeanne Cavelos

  He knew they worked behind the scenes. He knew they found others to do their bidding, dark servants seduced by their own desires. And he knew those servants constantly searched for more.

  Had Morden been sent by the Shadows?

  And from that question inevitably came the next. Did the Shadows now know of Galen’s power?

  Elric found he had received a new message. It was from Galen. He opened it eagerly, realizing it was what he had hoped for since arriving home. He needed to know that Galen was safe, especially now that he’d discovered this new danger.

  We have more to tell you, Galen’s message read. Would you like to do an electron incantation?

  Yes, Elric responded immediately. I will do it now.

  A message was sent by means he well understood. Their network of relays monitored the location of every mage whose energy was within range and channeled each message to its recipient. But the electron incantation worked through a much more mysterious process. Instead of his message traveling to Galen, Elric felt as if he himself traveled to Galen. It was like a dream.

  He closed his eyes, focusing, centering. In his mind’s eye, he visualized himself stepping from his body, visualized the long journey: up out of the atmosphere of Soom, past the brilliant orange outer planets and out of the solar system, into the vast blackness of space, which cradled him like a bed of black velvet. He passed the star systems and nebulae that marked his way. He saw the Zafran star, a shining beacon in the night, the eighth planet of brown and green, the sprawl of the port city, Burell’s building, her penthouse apartment. In his mind’s eye, the apartment was empty. Yet, as in a dream, he knew Galen and Isabelle were there. He searched for the mage energy characteristic of Galen, felt a vibration as he came close to it. He visualized his hand reaching out to grasp the energy, drawing it inside him. Then he searched for Isabelle and did the same.

  For the location of their meeting he chose his circle of standing stones on a warm, bright day. The brilliant mist, the breeze, the ocean’s sharp tang usually served to lighten his heart. Everything within the incantation had a sense of heightened intensity and significance. He ran a hand down the moss-covered stone beside him. Velvety, damp, it was a part of the planet, and a part of him.

  Galen and Isabelle stood a few feet away. What he saw was not them, but their self-images, the way they imagined themselves to be. He was pleased to see that their heads were scoured. Their commitment to the Code had become part of their identity. Typically, their self-images looked a few years younger than they did. Galen’s image was a little fuller in the cheeks, carrying the baby fat he’d had when he was eighteen. Elric remembered him then, just into the chrysalis, so eager, at last, to do what he’d studied for so long.

  They looked well, and he took comfort in that. If something horrible had happened, he believed it would be revealed somehow in the self-image.

  “You are well?” Elric asked.

  “Yes,” Galen said. “We’ve met the manager of the Strauss Hotel, and we’ve begun watching the Narn crew of the Khatkhata.”

  Elric’s anxiety allowed him to wait no longer. He extended his arm and conjured an image of Morden standing beside him. “Have you seen this man?”

  “No,” Isabelle said.

  But Galen nodded and Elric’s heart jumped. “I saw him in the tents at the convocation. Just for a minute.”

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “In passing. I thought he might be lost. I asked if he needed help. He asked if I needed help. It was strange. I was in a hurry, so I left him behind.” Galen’s hungry eyes absorbed the image. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Morden. I believe he is a servant of the Shadows. If you ever see him, you must inform me at once. Do not approach him.”

  “What was he doing at the convocation?” Isabelle asked.

  “He was observing us, searching for allies, searching for ways to divide us. He asked questions of many of us. He asked ‘Why are you a techno-mage?’ and ‘What do you want?’” Elric hoped that Morden’s search had been fruitless. The techno-mages must remain united or they would fall.

  Galen and Isabelle exchanged a look, and in that look Elric saw that they had grown closer. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about that now. That was the least of his concerns.

  “We just had a conversation like that,” Galen said.

  The Shadows knew that Galen could be their greatest enemy, or their greatest ally. He was in a position of grave danger. And there was nothing more Elric could do to help. Galen must face his trial.

  “This conversation was with Morden?” Elric asked.

  “No.” Galen’s hesitation told Elric the answer was not one he would want to hear. “With Tilar.”

  For the better part of two days, Galen and Isabelle had sat at the table in the Strauss lounge, telling fortunes, monitoring probes, and searching for information. They had told many fortunes, they had witnessed incredible feats of drinking and dexterity, but none of the Narns had approached them. Galen thought that he and Elizar had been all too right in their fear that people had lost their respect for the mages.

  He and Isabelle had adopted some of the trappings common to Narn fortune-tellers in an attempt to lure the crew over. The table was covered in black lace. A short pedestal in the center of the table was draped with a white cloth. A deck of Narn fortune cards sat on top of it.

  The Narns laughed, and sang, and drank, and fought, and spent outrageous amounts of money. But they did not approach.

  Through the probes in the hotel, they had heard other guests speak of money to be made, power to be had. But nothing of Shadows. They had learned of illegal operations, of traffic to the rim. They had traced leads, made connections. But none to Shadows.

  They had seen nothing of Tilar since their initial encounter. Isabelle’s probe had ended up in the garbage, either because it had failed to attach itself properly, which was unlikely, or because he had deduced it was there and disposed of it.

  Elric had been alarmed when they’d told him of their meeting. He believed that Tilar, like Morden, had become a servant of the Shadows. If it was true, then agents of the Shadows were all around them. Galen was shocked to think that Tilar could have so fallen since being cast away. Tilar had almost become a techno-mage. He knew the mages, and he knew their ways. If he was a servant of the Shadows, then the Shadows would know much.

  Burell had determined to trace Tilar’s movements, but found no record of his arrival or departure, no record of housing or expenditures, no record, in fact, of any activity, on planet or off, for almost a year and a half.

  One thing they had accomplished was planting probes on all the Narns without arousing their suspicion. The Narns’ private conversations hadn’t turned out to be any more illuminating than their public ones, though. They argued about sexual conquests, discussed the best ways of spending large amounts of money, and compared the most disgusting things they had ever seen.

  The visuals from the probes, however, provided plenty of views of the exterior of the ship, as the crew rotated in the guarding of it, and even a few glimpses of the interior. Hopefully, soon, they would get a view of those passengers who seemed to have been left to their own devices in the hold. And eventually, if all else failed, they would discover where the ship was bound, once it reached the end of the jumpgate line, and to whom its contents would be delivered.

  The microelectronic probes weren’t powerful enough to transmit over such vast distances, but the mages commonly employed faster-than-light relays, about two feet square and a few inches thick. These were usually put into orbit around a planet they wished to observe. In the case of a ship, the relay was often planted onboard or attached to the hull. It would collect the data from the probes and hold the information until a mage signaled for retrieval.

  But how to plant the relay? As he and Isabelle had considered different methods, Galen had recalled a classic case where Maju had planted a relay in a gift for an important passenger on a ship.
From there, it had taken Isabelle only seconds to apply the idea to their own situation. The gift would be given by Cadmus Wilcox to the Narn captain, Ko’Vin. The gift would be of great value. The gift would inspire great desire. The gift would be breen.

  Which led to Galen’s current predicament.

  “Quit pretending you’re busy and come over here and taste this,” Isabelle said. Across the kitchen, she held out a small plate with a single spherical brown lump covered in gravy.

  Galen stuck his spoon into his bowl, which contained a foul-smelling brownish paste. It was his latest attempt at mixing up something that tasted like breen. The spoon stood upright in the curdled mass.

  He approached Isabelle’s plate with more dread than he’d ever faced a training session. He’d eaten at least a dozen of the greasy, pungent orbs by now, each worse than the one before.

  The gravy looked a bit thicker on this one, as if it had begun to coagulate, and as he tilted his head he saw it had a kind of jellied sheen. The sphere below was shrouded in mystery. He tried to remember if this was the batch in which they’d done the extra protein processing for added texture, or where they’d replaced the artificial proteins with some local mealworms. Did it really matter, though?

  Her thin brows raised, Isabelle handed him the fork, handle first. He wished now he’d learned how Blaylock turned off the taste center in his brain. He stabbed the ball, swirled it in the gravy, and jammed the breen into his mouth. He closed his eyes, focusing on the texture they were trying so hard to reproduce. Narn cooking literature spoke of the texture of breen in great depth and complexity, praising the sensation of the teeth sinking into the perfectly cooked breen, “the playful hint of a crunch followed by the incomparable juicy meaty moistness.” The literature cautioned that “Breen should be neither too loose and crumbly, nor too firm and stodgy.”

  Galen just tried not to gag. After an incomparable amount of time, his mouth was finally empty. Though the taste lingered. “I think I felt it that time.” Galen opened his eyes. “The crunch. The juicy meaty moistness.”

  “Really? You think that’s it?” She ran the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a brown smudge there. Her robe was covered with powders and stains, as was his.

  “I think I felt it. You try it.”

  Dread filled her face, then resignation. She jabbed a ball in the frying pan, swirled it in the gravy, inserted it into her mouth. As her face contorted, down the hall a door opened. Burell floated out on her yellow armchair.

  Her jaw frozen in midchew, Isabelle exchanged a worried glance with Galen. Burell had not been sleeping well since they returned, and though she hid it well, Galen sensed that her condition was worsening. Isabelle’s concern confirmed it.

  Burell wore an elegant golden robe, her hair and makeup fixed immaculately in the illusion. Galen wished they had not awakened her. It was 4 a.m. They’d left the lounge at 1 a.m. to begin working on the breen project. The Khatkhata was scheduled to leave port at 4 p.m.

  “What’s going on out here?” She swirled around the counter into the kitchen. “I smell”—her face wrinkled up—“something.”

  Galen explained the situation while Isabelle chewed.

  Burell took a look into the frying pan, then retreated several feet. “So you’re using chemical equivalents to the Narn ingredients, and trying to reproduce the texture through processing.”

  Isabelle nodded, a lump still visible in her cheek.

  “But how do you know if you’ve got it right?”

  “We’ve found descriptions in the foremost Narn culinary texts,” Galen said. “We’re matching appearance and consistency with them.”

  Burell took in the mess that they had made. “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but a book is not going to tell you if you’ve made good breen. Narns are fanatical about it. They’ve written love poems to their breen. If it’s not exactly right, they won’t touch it. The only way to know if you’ve got it right is to have a Narn test it.”

  As soon as she’d said it, Galen knew she was right. They’d been fooling themselves into thinking they could do it on their own.

  Isabelle looked from Burell to Galen, bent over the sink, and spit out the last remaining chunk. She grimaced. “Why didn’t we think of that two hours ago?”

  “As mages you should know,” Burell said. “If the execution is not absolutely perfect, the deception will not work.”

  After a few minutes of consulting and staring at the breen with a kind of repulsed fascination, Burell returned to bed.

  Galen and Isabelle had only a few more hours to get this right. Yesterday, they had devised a container for the breen, with a false bottom in which the relay could be hidden. Isabelle had decorated the container with ornate engraving to minimize the chance that it would be thrown away after the breen was eaten. Yet if the breen was bad the Narns would likely jettison the container out of anger. They needed to make sure their breen was good. And to do that, they needed a Narn close by, but not too close, one without ties to the port or the Narns on the Khatkhata.

  Narns were rare on Zafran 8, and even more rare outside the port city. As Galen searched for one, Isabelle formulated their plan.

  Within an hour, they were outside a high-priced apartment in a town to the west of the port. The inhabitant was Ko’Dan, a retired engineer who had moved from the Narn homeworld to Zafran 8 three years earlier. He had traveled extensively for his career, including a long stay on Earth, so no translation would be necessary. While his choice of retirement spots was unusual, he seemed perfect for their needs.

  “Ready?” Isabelle asked.

  They were surrounded by bags of ingredients and cooking equipment. Behind them floated the illusion of a camera, a saucer the size of a dinner plate. The promise of appearing on the newsfeeds might encourage Ko’Dan to cooperate. Both Galen and Isabelle had conjured full-body illusions to disguise themselves as chefs, with the traditional white shirts and pants, and white chef’s hats. They had both restored their hair as part of the illusion, Isabelle’s pulled back in a neat braid. It was strange seeing Isabelle in white after she had been so long in black. Her face seemed to glow. Galen held the certificate and a stay-warm container with the last batch of breen they’d made. He held his breath, removed the cover, and nodded.

  Isabelle pressed the bell. After a minute, she pressed it again. This was the first time either of them had truly tried a deception. For his part, Galen was nervous. Isabelle jumped as a voice bellowed over the speaker.

  “Who’s there?”

  “This is Isabelle from the new Chemical Culinary Institute.” Her voice was strong, assured, though her hands were clenched together. “I’m excited to inform you that you have just won our grand prize in the Great Breen Eat-Off Sweepstakes. For the—”

  “I’m sleeping. Go... Did you say breen?”

  “Yes, sir, I did. We are at your door with a huge bowlful of breen and the makings for much, much more. For the next three hours, we’ll make you as much breen as you can eat. It’s all—”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Isabelle shot Galen a nervous smile, then straightened before the door, putting her hands to her sides.

  The door opened. Ko’Dan stood there in a robe and pants.

  “Congratulations!” Galen and Isabelle yelled. The camera zoomed up to Ko’Dan’s face, and he jerked a step back.

  Isabelle took the certificate from Galen and presented it to Ko’Dan. “You have won our grand prize in the Great Breen Eat-Off Sweepstakes. For the next three hours, we will make you as much breen as you can eat, using our new patented process.”

  Ko’Dan looked from the certificate to Isabelle to the camera. “This is all—I must say—Thank you so much. I’m overwhelmed.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even know I was in the running.”

  Galen extended the breen and a fork, and Ko’Dan eagerly stabbed a piece and closed his mouth around it. Galen imagined his teeth entering the orb, the hint of crispiness followed by
the juicy meaty moistness. Ko’Dan’s jaw made only one chewing motion, then stopped, allowing him to savor the taste.

  “Oh that’s terrible. Truly terrible.”

  Isabelle attributed the bad breen to the travel time and offered to make a fresh batch. Soon they were setting up in Ko’Dan’s spacious, state-of-the-art kitchen. A large photograph of Ko’Dan’s deceased mate, Na’Rad, hung over the table. Aside from the rather dim lighting, the apartment seemed more Human than Narn in style. Perhaps he’d become accustomed to that during his time on Earth.

  Age had paled the spots on Ko’Dan’s head and chest, but he seemed in good health and good spirits. He watched with curiosity as they unpacked their ingredients.

  “What are these powders? You can’t expect to make breen out of powders. Where is the meat?”

  Isabelle unpacked their pans and bowls. “The goal of the Chemical Culinary Institute is to re-create culinary delicacies without the original ingredients. We use these chemical equivalents and process them for appropriate texturing.”

  “Why?”

  “So that people like yourself, far from home, can enjoy the delicacies of home.”

  Ko’Dan put his hands on his hips and surveyed the ingredients, frowning.

  It wasn’t long after he’d gagged on their second batch that he’d taken over the cooking. Although the ingredients were strange to him, he quickly began adjusting and improvising to get the result he desired. The mealworms, when he discovered them in an overlooked bag, excited him the most. “Real meat!” he said, pinching one between his fingers.

  Ko’Dan had a great passion for breen, and he lectured them as he worked. “The exterior of the ball must be firm but not too firm. The interior needs to have a certain ... chunkiness.”

  Galen stood on one side and Isabelle on the other, and over the cooking breen their eyes met. Isabelle smiled.

  Batch after batch failed to meet Ko’Dan’s standards. But he was determined, now that he had begun, to unlock the secret of the perfect breen. Under his direction, Galen stirred up another batch, while Isabelle cooked the previous one. Ko’Dan stuck a spoon into Galen’s batter and tasted a sample, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth. “That, I think, is our finest mix yet.” He reached into the frying pan and removed one of the cooking balls with his fingers. He squeezed it between thumb and forefinger. “Better. We are getting closer to that perfect composition—soggy but meaty.”