The message ended.
Galen sat in shock. He could not believe the Circle—and Elric—capable of such things. How could Elizar accuse the Circle and expect them to accept the charges without proof? Kell was their greatest leader since Wierden. He would not keep such secrets from them, would not have sent them into danger for nothing.
Yet at the same time, Galen realized that Elizar had been right before, in his warning about a threat. What if his accusations now were true? Galen’s heart pounded.
“Where is your proof?” Isabelle hissed. “Where is the proof that the Circle sent us—and let Burell die—all for nothing? To secure evidence of something they already knew?” Isabelle had said before that the Circle’s reason for sending them was irrelevant. They had agreed to go. Yet if sending them had been unnecessary, if they had agreed because they had been lied to, if Burell was dead for nothing—it would change everything.
“The proof is in Kell’s own files, which I can show you. All you need do is swear allegiance to me. I dare not show you without that, for you could take the evidence to Kell and he could hide everything he has done.”
This part of Elizar’s argument didn’t ring true. If Elizar had the evidence, why not just show it? Why not show it to all the mages? The more who knew, the harder it would be for Kell to deny it. Yet once Elizar released the information to all, then he, the source of it, would become unimportant. In keeping the information to himself, and perhaps a few others sworn to him, Elizar retained power. He could use the information as a base of power, gaining allies for a coming contest with Kell.
Yet all this supposed that Elizar spoke the truth, that he held evidence against Kell and the Circle. And if that was so, should they not support him?
“I have disagreed with some of the Circle’s actions in the past,” Isabelle said “yet I cannot believe them guilty of what you claim. They are conservative, stubborn, and secretive. But to send us without need, hoping we would fail—I must see the evidence. Show me that. Show me that, and if it proves what you claim, I will swear allegiance to you to my dying breath.”
Elizar wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “The allegiance must come first. You know you can trust me. I gain nothing by lying. If I have no evidence, you will forswear me soon enough. You must trust me. Else you will never know the true cause behind Burell’s death.”
Below the table, Galen reached for her hand. It was clenched into a fist. Don’t do it, Galen wrote to her. Whatever information Elizar had found he must be misinterpreting it. The Circle could not be guilty of what he claimed.
“Kell has been the greatest of us for many years,” Galen said. “He is of the line of Wierden. He has brought us peace and encouraged learning. Even if I could believe what you say of him, I can’t believe it of the whole Circle. I know Elric”—better than I knew my own father—“and he would not willingly have sent Isabelle and me into needless danger. He would not lie. He lives by the Code. I know that more than I know anything.”
Elizar extended a placating hand. “Perhaps I am wrong about Elric. Perhaps he knows as little as the rest of us.”
“Then come back with us and present your evidence to him.”
Elizar shook his head tightly. “You must join me. This is your only alternative. Without me, you will never know the truth.”
Galen suddenly had the feeling that his friend had made a horrible mistake.
He knows something, Isabelle wrote. And I will know what it is, if there is any way it can be known. But I will not swear allegiance to Elizar. I trust him less than I trust the Circle. I fear if you told him how to conjure your weapon, and I told him how to listen to the Shadows, he would have no further use for us.
“I know you’ve uncovered something important,” Galen said. “Show us what it is. Come with us before the Circle and confront them with it. I will support you. I will stand beside you and demand the truth. Give them the chance to answer your charges. You should not forswear them without giving them that chance; I know I cannot. They have made me everything I am. They have given me all I have. I have sworn to live up to their faith in me.”
Elizar slammed his fist against the table. “No. It’s not possible. I tell you that Burell is dead because of the Circle. They valued secrets more than they valued her. You must join me. It is the only way the mages can survive.” Elizar’s dark blue gaze fixed on him. “Galen, you and I share a dream. We want the same things. We want the mages to do good, not putter away their lives with petty magic tricks. You and Isabelle and I can stand together in the new Circle. I told you there would come a time when I would need your support. This is the time. And you need mine. I am your only salvation.”
“I cannot do what you ask. Come with us back to the Circle. Together, we can uncover the truth. And with Isabelle’s weapon, we can convince them to fight the Shadows.”
Elizar turned to Isabelle. “It is your own mother who lies dead. Isabelle, surely you?”
She brought her hands together under Galen’s. “No.”
Elizar’s mouth hung open at a crooked angle. He seemed at a loss. Then his mouth wrinkled shut, and his gaze flicked between them. His confidence, which seemed to underlie everything he did, had vanished. He whispered. “You don’t understand. You can hear what they say. They can’t let you share that power with—” Elizar bolted upright. “No! No! Not yet!”
Galen jerked to his feet, Isabelle with him. Something slipped over Galen’s body, and a blast of plasma bloomed yellow across his chest, rippling through the shield Isabelle had conjured around both of them.
In the doorway to the tavern stood a dark shape, its head a distinctive outline, rising in the back into two craggy peaks, one above the other. Within its dark silhouette, a small spot flared repeatedly with brilliant yellow light as it fired at them. Across their chests, plasma blasts sank into the upper layer of the shield like a series of brilliant yellow stones thrown into a pond, radiating ripples over their bodies.
Frantic energy welled up in Galen, desperate to defend to counter with deadly force. He grabbed his staff and with fierce focus forced his mind to be still, to be blank. He would not endanger Isabelle and everyone else in this settlement—everyone else everywhere—by unleashing some uncontrollable power. He would not violate the Code. He would not make the same mistake he had made before.
“You gave them every chance,” a voice said from the back of the tavern. “They are fools.” In the doorway to the kitchen stood Tilar, the chrysalis affixed to his head, a subtle blue glow around him, and a PPG in his hand. Behind him, Galen saw one, perhaps two more.
In the tube station, Tilar had known all about them, had known Galen’s failure, Isabelle’s dream, because Elizar had told him.
Tilar began to fire, and Elizar stumbled away, a shield shimmering around his own body. Plasma blasts now sprayed over Isabelle’s shield from two directions. Her eyes had closed and her fingers were working rapidly.
The answer was escape, Galen realized. Too many to fight. Tilar edged farther into the room, and taking his place in the doorway was Razeel.
Galen took the staff in both hands. The shield made it feel slippery. Clenching it tightly, he visualized the equation, associated with it. He had to create an opening in the wall. He selected a high-intensity shock wave, brought the staff back over his shoulder, and slammed it into the wall.
The effect was instantaneous. The wall itself seemed to throw him back, blasting out a great wave of energy that tossed him up, spun him through the air. He slammed into the table, banged against the floor. As the wave spread outward, the room shook as if seized by an earthquake. Pictures jumped from the walls. Tables overturned. The bottles over the bar shattered, spraying their contents.
Galen tried to rise, but his body seemed unable to respond to his commands. He couldn’t tell if the room was still shaking or if he was shaking, but gradually the shaking stopped.
He lifted his head. Isabelle was already standing, her fingers moving to maintain th
e shield. Behind her, the wall was intact. It had completely repelled the blast. As Galen struggled to his knees, he focused his sensors on it. Though there had been nothing unusual about the wall when they’d entered, there was now. It was reinforced with a containment spell, just as Elric reinforced the walls of the training hall to prevent wild energies from escaping. It now formed an impenetrable barrier.
Galen climbed unsteadily to his feet, looking quickly to the other walls, the floor, the ceiling. All were reinforced.
They were sealed inside.
— chapter 15 —
“The room is sealed,” Galen said.
Isabelle’s face was tight with concentration as she maintained the shield around both of them. She gave no reaction. Plasma blasts continued to splash over the faint blue covering.
The two doorways were the only ways out. The front was defended by the Drakh, the back by Tilar. His mind racing, Galen desperately focused, visualized the equation to conjure a mist. It rose from the floor around Isabelle’s shield and spread outward. They would have to make an attempt on one of the exits, and this would help hide their escape. But it would take a few minutes to fill the tavern. In the meantime, he had to clear the way.
He visualized the equation to create a translucent sphere, packing it with as much energy as he could without threatening its coherence. The ball coruscated with blue brilliance. He formed an equation of motion, fired the ball at the Drakh.
The Drakh had no time to react. Perhaps he had not expected them to fight back. Perhaps he had simply been foolish to expose himself. Perhaps he wasn’t a fighter. Galen didn’t know.
The ball hit him in the chest and slammed him onto his back. As his dry voice screamed the sphere of blue burned down into him. The light gained intensity until a brilliant incandescence shone up out of his chest. Then the Drakh’s scream faded like a dying breeze. The sphere finished burning its way through his body, and the light slowly died.
The mist was beginning to obscure things now. Behind the Drakh’s fallen body, Galen saw a dark figure peek through the doorway, fire off a shot before ducking again behind the door frame. He conjured another ball. Equation of motion. Fired it at the figure. It shot through the doorway, curved back to hit the spot where he believed the attacker hid. Galen couldn’t tell if he’d hit his target or not.
Elizar took up a position in the doorway. Would he help them to escape? He made a quick motion to someone outside. The figure hidden behind the door frame stood; it was Brown. Elizar extended his shield to protect the man. Brown smiled and aimed his PPG at Galen, fired off a series of blasts in quick succession.
Galen turned toward the back door. It was obscured now in the haze, but he could make out Tilar and Razeel. Tilar was firing burst after burst at them. Razeel’s lips were moving, vague forms of darkness taking shape in the mist around her.
Galen conjured another ball of energy. Another equation of motion. He hurled the ball at Tilar. It struck the center of Tilar’s chest, and he stumbled back in alarm, waves of red and yellow spreading from the impact as the shield struggled to absorb the attack. After a few seconds, the shield returned to its normal blue. With a few more attacks, Galen thought he could penetrate it. Yet while he did that, how many more blasts would Isabelle’s shield be forced to withstand?
He didn’t know, but he could think of nothing better. He had to drive away Tilar. He visualized the blank screen in his mind’s eye. With ferocious focus he imposed equation after equation on it. A ball of energy. Motion to hurl it at Tilar. Another ball. More motion. Ball. Motion. Elric’s voice drove into him, stressing control, control.
A flashing red-and-yellow shape in the mist, Tilar pushed past Razeel, retreated into the kitchen.
Razeel was barely visible, a faint blue form. Galen conjured a ball, hurled it at her. Then another. The play of light over her shield vanished almost instantly after each impact. Galen found himself racing with energy, his control growing shaky.
I can’t last much longer, Isabelle’s message read. Her body was stiff, face flushed teeth clenched. Her fingers moved rapidly.
Galen put an arm across her back. They should make a run at Razeel and Tilar. Tilar might now be too weak to fight, and Razeel hadn’t yet mounted a serious attack. “Come on,” he said, pulling at her. Then he stopped, looked back over his shoulder.
Something was buzzing.
Out of the mist came a swarm of spikes, thin, dark, sharp. Elizar was attacking them directly.
Although the mist should have made it difficult for him to aim the spikes accurately, they seemed to know exactly where to go, homing in on Galen and Isabelle’s mage energy. They drove into Isabelle’s shield in a hundred places, striking at heads, arms, chests. They began to drill their way through.
Isabelle had been able to hold off Elizar’s attack in the training hall, but now she was tired. Galen tried to remember what they had said. Her weave was tight; that was how she had held out the spikes. She would need all her concentration to maintain the shield. He couldn’t move her now, or the spikes would break through.
Clutching desperately to the tech’s wild energy, Galen conjured ball after ball, hurling them against Elizar’s shield. His shield had never been terribly strong, but now it showed no sign of weakening.
They needed a plan. They needed another way out.
They needed to break through the wall. Perhaps Elizar’s reinforcement of the walls wasn’t as strong as it should be. If the weave of his energies wasn’t as tight as Isabelle’s, perhaps something small could break through, could create a tiny breach that could then be expanded.
Galen grabbed his staff from where he had dropped it, aimed its end at the wall. The spikes drilled up and down his arms, over his body, searching for any weakness.
He conjured a narrow beam, similar to the one he’d used to cut through the Drakh’s window, but even smaller in diameter and higher in intensity. The brilliant thread of light shot out at the wall, cut straight through it. He tried expanding the diameter of the beam. He was able to enlarge the hole a tiny bit; then the reinforcement stopped any further progress. He terminated the beam. The hole was perhaps an eighth of an inch across.
He sent a quick message to Isabelle. I’ve made a tiny hole in the wall. If you can push your shield through it, you might be able to break open a larger hole.
Her eyes flew wide and she turned to him. Her face was flushed and shiny with sweat, and the muscles in her neck stood out with tension. Spikes skated over the surface of her shield. She looked to the wall. The shimmering blue of her shield extended to the hole there, pouring itself through.
The buzzing of the spikes intensified. Then suddenly they broke off their attack, unsuccessful, and flew back into the mist. Galen aimed his staff toward the front door. If its fine beam could break through the reinforced wall, perhaps it could also break through Elizar’s shield. There was so much energy and activity in the room, Galen’s sensors were of little use, but he believed Elizar was still there.
He fired the beam.
Something slid over Galen, like a scarf slipping over his face. It was Isabelle’s shield, he realized. It no longer protected him. A rumble grew in the wall behind him. The floor shook. As Galen looked over his shoulder, the wall exploded in a great hail. He jerked his head back around, raising an arm to protect himself. Something heavy slammed into him.
He found himself again on the floor, which now seemed to be tilting beneath him. His ears were ringing, and the air was heavy with dust. The fine beam still shot out of his staff. He stopped it, grabbed the staff, and dragged himself out from under the rubble.
Isabelle, he wrote.
She, too, was pulling herself free. In the dim light, he saw a trickle of blood running down beside her eye. He pushed the debris away from her, glanced toward the wall. The hole was about a foot above the floor, big enough to crawl through. Go, he wrote.
He pushed her toward the hole and crawled after, looking back over his shoulder.
&nbs
p; The mist and the dust were clearing. Galen could see Elizar standing near the doorway, a shimmering skin of blue protecting him. His cheeks had grown taut, his mouth turned down. His eyes met Galen’s, and for a moment Galen thought he saw in them regret.
Elizar bent forward, cupping his hands to his mouth. With a jerk of his body he cried out, releasing a harsh, sustained syllable. A single thin spike emerged from his hands, not short as the others had been, but stretching out and out, over two feet long before its end appeared. It buzzed with high, oscillating intensity. Elizar removed his hands from his mouth, straightened. He blew on the spike. It shot toward them.
Suddenly Galen remembered explaining to Elizar why his spikes had been held off by Isabelle’s shield. Your strategy would have worked well on most shields, but with Isabelle’s, the best attack would be one with all the energy concentrated at a single point. If that energy is greater than the energy of the shield, it will have to fail.
Galen spun on his knees to face Elizar, conjured a ball of energy, hurled it at the spike. The spike passed through it, unaffected.
The spell of destruction. It could stop the spike. He forced his mind’s eye blank. The spell was too dangerous. And he had sworn himself to the Circle, sworn not to use it. He would not let them down again.
Galen threw himself at Isabelle, pushing her flat beneath him. His hands slipped off her. She’d been able to restore a shield around herself, he realized. Her strength was not completely gone. The spike would drive into him, but she could escape before Elizar conjured another.
He pressed his arms against the floor on each side of her, blocking off any opening the spike might find. But something was wrong. His hands were slippery against the floor.
His hands had slipped from Isabelle. The shield did not encompass both of them; it was between them.
Casting Shadows (The Passing of the Techno-Mages #1) Page 30