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

by Jeanne Cavelos

  As he realized what she had done, the spike struck him. It skipped over the surface of the shield as it spun, sensing unprotected mage energy. Galen squeezed his body tight around her.

  No, he thought. How could she do this? It couldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen.

  The spike danced up to his shoulder, then down, burrowing between his arm and his body, sensing Isabelle below, Isabelle who had shielded him at the expense of herself. Galen crushed her to him, knowing there was no way to stop it.

  With a tickle against his arm the spike slipped into her. Her body convulsed, and she released a ragged cry. He cried with her. As she spasmed against him, her breath accelerated into harsh, quick pants. Then the slipperiness of his body vanished, and there was nothing separating them, nothing except that she had been wounded and he had not.

  Galen’s body was on fire now—with rage, and grief, the need to kill them all, to destroy everything. He felt the equation forming in his mind. It took everything he had to force it away.

  Isabelle was still alive. Isabelle could still be saved. He must take her away.

  He became fire. On the blank screen in his mind’s eye he conjured equation after equation in symbols of flame. Fireball. Motion. Fireball. Motion. Fireball. Motion. He fired out one after another. The direction was unimportant, as long as they stayed clear of Isabelle.

  He wanted to be surrounded by flame. Burn the place down, create chaos so they could not be pursued. The alcohol behind the bar exploded in a wall of fire. The tables, the curtains, all began to burn. The tavern filled with flame.

  As the fiery equations blazed one after the next, he conjured a platform beneath Isabelle, slid her out through the hole. To follow her, he had to stop the flow of fire, but he found his body inflamed with it, racing.

  He forced the pace of the equations, little by little, to slow, creating the fireballs, hurling them, creating them, hurling them, with longer and longer intervals between. He focused on Isabelle. She needed help. He could not help her with fire. He must go with her, now.

  At last he stopped the fiery equations. His control had turned shaky, uncertain. He grabbed his staff and crawled out after her on quivering limbs.

  On the other side of the wall he found a dark, empty room. In the dim glow of the fire, Isabelle was panting, her body curled up on the platform. Galen didn’t allow his gaze to linger on her. They had to move quickly, before they were trapped again. Elizar was probably waiting in the passage outside. Galen extended the platform and stood over her on it.

  His message to Elric was brief. Isabelle is wounded. Elizar and Razeel have betrayed us.

  Then he brought his staff down against the stone floor, and the building shook. The great slabs of stone cracked split. Fractures radiated outward spread across the room, widened into fissures. The floor buckled and huge chunks rained onto the level below.

  The only chance for escape was to get back to the freighter. He could force them to take off immediately, to call for medical help. Isabelle had to have help. Elizar could destroy the freighter easily with his ship, but Galen hoped he would not attack so openly. Elizar’s new partners, he thought, would not like that. The Shadows preferred to work more quietly.

  Galen guided the platform down through the largest of the fissures and found himself in a vast storage area. The area directly below him was unoccupied. Farther away, workers in coveralls drove lifts filled with crates. The workers were looking up, afraid that the spaceport was collapsing.

  Galen skimmed past them, following the trail of lifts and workers backward toward the promenade that lay below the one where they had disembarked. That was where the freighter was being unloaded.

  He came out of the storage area onto the promenade. The captain was standing beside the large cargo air lock as a lift drove out filled with supplies. Galen scanned the promenade for any sign of Elizar or the others. Nothing. He formed an equation of motion, raced toward the captain.

  As the lift moved out of the air lock, a tongue of fire licked out after it. Galen thought he must have seen incorrectly. Then a huge concussion rumbled out from the ship across the promenade. Galen’s ears popped, and across the floor one ring of stone tiles after another jumped up in a rapidly expanding wave. The air was sucked out of him, and for a strange moment the walls seemed to undulate.

  The air lock belched a stream of fire. It shot out across the promenade, instantly incinerating the lift. Galen wheeled the platform to the left, crouched to cover Isabelle’s body with his own. How could it be? Would they kill all these people, just to make sure he and Isabelle did not escape? Just to make sure she died?

  As he sped away from the ship, a second concussion spewed huge pieces of metal and fiberboard out across the promenade. The platform surged ahead on the shock wave, and shrapnel peppered Galen’s back. A flap of metal slammed into a worker ahead of them and swept him into Galen’s path. Equation of motion. Equation of motion. Galen jigged around the worker. Something stung him in the cheek.

  He crouched lower over Isabelle and flew away from the promenade. Her back fluttered with rapid breaths. Galen’s body surged with frantic, desperate energy.

  He was losing his ability to focus. He could feel it slipping away. He could find no help. He could find no escape.

  He would hide them, hide them where Elizar could not find them.

  Galen sent more organelles into Isabelle’s body, feeling them tingle through his fingertips.

  “It’s no use,” Isabelle said. “This is not a wound you can heal. It is a weapon inside me.”

  Galen ignored her. He was shaky, his body fighting shock, his mind exhausted from the constant, single-minded focus required to control the tech. But he could not give up. He could not lose her.

  He picked up his staff from the cold stone floor where he knelt and held it over her. He had no crystal to aid in directing the organelles. He was trying to make his staff serve the same purpose. He remembered again Ing-Radi’s words: You must understand the damage. You must find the shape of what needs to be done. And you must become that shape.

  He understood the damage. In fact, when he had first seen it through his sensors, it had done more to make him still, and clear, than any mind-focusing exercise. The spike had penetrated her side and worked its way inward, puncturing the small intestine as it entered, puncturing it again as it left. It had found its way to the spine, its head slipping between a vertebra and a disk into the spinal cord itself, where it had begun to work its way upward, severing nerve roots and artery branches along the way.

  The perforations of the small intestine had caused a rapid onset of peritonitis. Isabelle’s temperature had shot up, and despite her attempt to manage the pain, Galen knew it had been terrible. Once the spike had reached the spinal cord she had gained some relief from the pain, as she lost all movement and feeling below the spike. Now, with the spike, the paralysis was ascending. She had lost all sensation in her body from the chest down.

  From his sensors, it looked as if the entry wound had already healed. The cut that had run down the right side of her forehead into her eyebrow was healing as well. But the spike was causing damage much faster than the organelles could heal it. And more important than that, the spike continued to work its way upward, the organelles seemingly powerless to stop it.

  The spike had reached the sixth cervical vertebra, C6, just above the shoulders. When it reached C5, she would lose control of her hands. Worse, the spike would begin to cut off the phrenic nerves, which stimulated the movement of the diaphragm. The diaphragm’s regular contraction and relaxation caused the lungs to fill and empty. When the spike reached C3, the phrenic nerves would be completely severed. The movement of the diaphragm would stop; the lungs would fail.

  If he had access to medical equipment, he could keep the lungs operating, could keep Isabelle alive. Yet even then, the ultimate goal of the spike seemed clear. Once it passed C1, it would enter the brain. And there would be no saving her from that.

  The sp
ike was a much more sophisticated weapon than he had ever imagined. He would have thought it far beyond Elizar’s capability. Yet Elizar’s skills had rapidly improved. He had found secrets of power.

  You must find the shape of what needs to be done. And you must become that shape.

  As he held the staff over her, Galen visualized the spike winding up her spinal cord. He imagined the organelles forming a wall against it, stopping its forward progress. He imagined the organelles turning the spike out from her spinal cord, driving it out of her body.

  But the spike slid slowly, steadily upward.

  “Talk to me, Galen. Please.”

  Galen put aside the staff, visualized the equation, dissociated. He could not look at her. She lay on a narrow bunk, in one of the rooms meant to house miners. A few worthless possessions had been left behind: some blankets rotten with moisture, a sheer white curtain of insect netting, two rickety tables, a few candles.

  He had lit the candles rather than conjure magical light; he wanted to focus all of his powers on Isabelle. For all the good they did. He was no healer.

  They were far, far below ground here, over two miles. Elizar could not find them here; at least, Galen had stopped sensing Elizar and Razeel on the surface after he had descended a half mile. That meant, too, that the nearest relay of mage signals could not detect him here either, so he could neither send nor receive messages. Only someone who ran a focused scan on each cubic foot of the interior, one at a time, would be able to find him. They were well hidden. Yet what was the point of it all? Had he brought her here just to watch her die?

  He received a message from her. Attached were her files: her work, her spells. He didn’t want them. He wanted her.

  “Thank you for killing the Drakh for me,” she said. “I was—occupied.”

  He should not have trusted Elizar. He should have discovered the way to escape sooner. And she should not have protected him with her shield.

  “You are angry with me.”

  He had to look up at her then. Isabelle’s hands were clamped together, her neck muscles taut. The illusion of hair remained even now, she was so focused on maintaining control, on not giving in to the pain.

  “No. Not at you. Never at you.”

  “You are angry with the universe, then. With God.”

  If God showed his face, Galen would gladly burn it to cinders. “Will you say that this, too, is part of his plan?”

  Her grey eyes fixed on him, intent. “Yes.”

  Galen looked out toward the dark hallway, restless energy pushing through him. This was not part of his plan. He had planned that they would die many years hence, and when they did pass, it would be together, not one leaving the other behind.

  “Do you know what I most wanted to conjure since I was a child?” she said. Her neck was straining to see him where he knelt.

  He sat on the bunk beside her and shook his head.

  “A shield. I have been fascinated since I can remember, with creating a barrier that could protect me from anything, that could keep me safe, beyond touching.” Her voice was brittle, and she paused irregularly with the effort of holding back the pain. Her eyebrows were raised, adding the emphasis to her words that her body could not. And still she strained to lift her head, as if she must be as close as possible to him to convey the importance of her words. He couldn’t imagine what could possibly be important in the face of the one all-encompassing fact: she was dying.

  “When I received my chrysalis, the first thing I conjured was a shield to cover my body. I felt safe in its cocoon. Whenever I wore my chrysalis, I always wore a shield. I suppose I was frightened of Burell’s illness, and the shield brought me security. Yet it was more than that, a basic mind-set that said ‘Protect yourself first, above all. Keep yourself safely away from others.’ Eventually I realized that was not the way I wanted to live my life. That was not who I wanted to be. I had to transcend myself.

  “And so I began to step out of my cocoon. When you sat beside me in the hall, you, whom I had long watched and admired, I knew that we should be together. I quickly came to love you—more than I knew I could.”

  And I love you, he thought, but could not say the words. How had she invaded his hiding place? How had she made him feel these feelings?

  “When I had the ability to protect only one of us, I knew it must be you. My first thought was no longer for myself. I could not have lived, knowing that I did not protect you.”

  And how am I to live? he thought. He bit out the words. “Does transcending oneself mean that one has to die, then?”

  She gave a weak smile. “I was merely—unlucky.” Her neck muscles tightened with pain, and she closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Galen’s gaze was drawn to her clenched hands. Against his will, her fingers one by one released their tight grip, grew slack. She had lost control over them. Her inhalations became shallower, more labored. The spike had reached C5.

  At last the pain seemed to fade and her neck relaxed, her lips parted. He wanted her eyes to open.

  “You said I had to transcend myself in three ways,” he said.

  She gazed upon him. “Yes. You have opened yourself to another. That was the first. Next you will open yourself to yourself. Finally, you will open yourself to God. To his design.”

  Galen shook his head. The only design or pattern he could see was one of his own failure. He had wanted to become a healer. Instead, he had discovered a weapon, a weapon that had not even helped him to save Isabelle. If this was God’s design, he wanted no part of it. “I don’t think that I can,” he said.

  “I was right about Cadmus. And I am right about you. I know that you can, Galen. That is why I was put in your life.”

  Galen heard something from the hall, a faint whisper of sound. He used his sensors to increase his sensitivity. Hard measured footsteps echoed through the passageway. Isabelle didn’t hear them yet.

  He stood. “I’m going to the mine shaft. See if I can reach Elric from there.” He saw the dismay on her face. “I’ll be gone only a few minutes. Rest, and I’ll return quickly.”

  Before she could respond, he drew the sheer white insect netting across the bunk. He unwrapped her scarf from about his neck, let it fall to the floor. He stepped out into the hall, closed the door behind him.

  The hall wasn’t completely dark, as it had been before. A light shone from a corridor that branched off farther down. A figure reached the end of that corridor and stepped into the dark hall. Lights flashed on up and down the hall. Galen remembered the vision Kell had sent him, in which he’d searched through a grey maze for himself, for the part of himself from which he hid.

  It was a Human, a man, of compact build and dark hair. He was the man Galen had seen in the tents of the convocation. His name is Morden, Elric had said. I believe he is a servant of the Shadows. If you ever see him, you must inform me at once. Do not approach him.

  Morden walked toward him, and Galen mirrored the action. Perhaps he and Isabelle would die together. Energy gathered within him, eager to be used.

  They met under the harsh lights of the bland metal-grey corridor, two miles beneath the surface.

  Morden folded his hands in front of him. “She can still be saved.” His smooth voice echoed down the passage.

  Galen had expected an attack, not an offer. He found he could not respond. It was what he wanted more than anything else, wanted with an intensity that made everything else irrelevant. And perhaps they could do it; Elric had said their powers were great. He imagined Isabelle restored to health, walking with him hand in hand giving him that private, knowing smile.

  It was another offer for his allegiance, as Tilar had made.

  Turning down Tilar’s offer had been easy, since Tilar had offered only knowledge, which Galen believed he could acquire himself. But this ... was not something he could do himself.

  Morden stood with a mild smile of curiosity on his face. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  The Shadows had done this to her.
And now they offered to undo it. His energy grew hot with rage. “You offer to heal her, after you have Elizar...”

  “Elizar said you would swear loyalty to him. That’s what we wanted. But he is a fool.”

  “And what do you ask in return?” Galen couldn’t believe the words had come from his mouth. He was negotiating with the Shadows, the same who had killed Burell.

  “Just that at some point in the future, we may come to you and ask you for a favor of equal magnitude.”

  And what would that favor be? Fighting for the Shadows? Killing another mage? Overthrowing the Circle? They could ask him to destroy the universe, and it would still be of lesser magnitude than what they offered him.

  And what did he owe the Circle? If they had knowingly sent Isabelle and him to fail and die, he would kill them anyway, one at a time, down even to Elric. The rage raced through him, urging him to act. He held tightly to it, refusing to let it free.

  Morden’s face grew serious, shadows pooling beneath his eyes. “Choose carefully, Galen. Many would give all they have for such an opportunity.”

  Galen had been able to turn down Tilar easily. It was Isabelle who had been tormented with the hope of saving Burell. Now he was in the same position she had been.

  But she had known what to choose, and with that realization, now so did he. She had chosen death for Burell, and he must choose death for her. She would never forgive him if he chose otherwise. Besides, if she were here, he knew what she would say. If he accepted Morden’s offer, it would ruin the entire plan of the universe.

  But perhaps the plan could include his death as well.

  “I decline the offer.”

  Morden regarded him with a slight frown, and Galen waited for the attack to come. He would not defend himself. He would not fight.

  “I wonder,” Morden said “whether you’ll be able to live with that decision.” He turned and began to walk back down the hall with those same hard, measured footsteps.

  Galen called after him. “Why don’t you kill me?” The rage, the heat, began to spread out from him, no longer able to be contained. How could he be left here, left with nothing?