Invoking Darkness (35 page)

Galen looked out over the rocky landscape, seeing the shadowy figures of other stone fingers in the dust. Each mage marked his place of power with a circle of stones inscribed with the Code. Those circles were only the faintest echo of this place, yet the connection was clear.

Here was the source of their tradition, the genesis of the mages' tech, the mother of all places of power. He had come home to die.

Tilting his head back, Galen tried to see the entire inscription. The top half of the towering stone was lost in the currents of dust. As he waited, different pieces became clear, until at last he could read the entire message.

The Shadows' language was different than that of the Taratimude, but they were closely related; his study of the mages' ancient language allowed him to make a translation.

With every light is born a shadow.

He had tried to bring light, to do good, but it was not his nature. If there was a balance of light and dark in the universe, then it was his part, he knew, to represent the darkness.

He moved on, toward the entrance to the underground city. As the rocky outcroppings rose up before him, he found the opening in a cliff wall. It was covered by a membrane, similar to the one in Morden's air shaft. Patches of gray and black shifted slightly over its surface, creating an evolving pattern.

What was on the other side, he could not see. Holding tightly to his exercises, he stepped into it, allowing its flowing, probing examination. At last, it pulled away from him, and he found himself inside, in a vast, dim cave filled with activity.

The cave's atmosphere carried a safe mixture of gases, so Galen pulled off his breather. As on Thenothk, the floor of the cave was polished smooth, the walls rough and unfinished. On that planet, the Shadows had preferred to operate underground, because, as he now saw, that was how they lived at home.

They were creatures of shadow and darkness, mystery secrecy, and science. As were their creations, the techno-mages. The cave appeared to be a staging area. To his left, crates were stacked high in long rows. To his right ran a line of huge bins, the closest filled with black pods. Beside them stood several large dark spheres, perhaps twenty feet in diameter, with oily, fluid surfaces.

Drakh workers moved among the rows, going on about their duties. They paid Galen no attention. From behind a stack of crates, two angular black figures emerged, following a pair of Drakh. When he'd encountered the Shadows before, their appearance had always been veiled. He had seen only the head of one, for a moment, on Thenothk.

Yet on their home, they did not hide their presence. And he recognized them instantly. Their skin glistened a deep black. Six sharp legs scissored forward; fourteen brilliant white pinpoint eyes burned like tiny furnaces of malice, intelligence, and desire. More than that, though, they carried with them a strange sense of hyper-reality more present, more intensely alive than anything he'd ever seen.

Their sharp bodies cut through the pale illusion of reality, seeming to belong to a more fundamental level of existence. As he stared at them, at those brilliant eyes that orchestrated so much suffering and death, he felt dissolution spreading inside him, felt as if he might fly apart at any moment, as if everything might fly apart, spin into a wild fury of chaos. It was a feeling from the past, a feeling he must fight.

He forced his eyes away. For the first time, he realized the full extent of the Shadows' superiority, their ancient power and knowledge. He had been a fool for believing he could come here and accomplish any part of his task. Yet he was kin. As they carried power, so did he. As they worked behind the scenes, manipulating others, generating chaos and destruction, so did him.

He moved ahead through the cave. He didn't know how far he could get before they stopped him. If he'd gone unnoticed thus far, he didn't imagine it would last much longer. It might be that they already knew he was here. In any case, he must find Elizar and Razeel as quickly as he could. Then, one way or the other, he would be done. He discarded his breather, having no further need of it.

Once he got some distance from the Shadows, he flipped probes onto a few nearby Drakh. He hoped that the devices would go undiscovered here, where the Shadows believed themselves safe. He needed all the information he could obtain.

At the far end of the cave, two wide tunnels led in different directions. Focusing his sensors ahead and below, he searched for any sign of mage energy. The frequencies where that energy normally revealed itself were overrun with activity; Shadow tech radiated at those same frequencies.

A sound echoed down one of the tunnels, the regular beat of footsteps falling in unison. From around a curve, eight Drakh emerged, marching toward him. Galen took the other tunnel.

Day and night had little meaning underground; the complex was always busy. He passed through the mazelike corridors and tunnels, moving steadily deeper, spreading his probes, learning what he could.

The upper levels catered mainly to visitors: Humans, Centauri, Drazi, Narns, Pak'ma'ra. Rooms and corridors mimicked designs from the home planets of each.

Except for the lack of windows, one might forget one was underground. They gathered in various private meetings, these agents of the Shadows and their masters, where promises were made, plans designed, discipline administered.

One Human, named Justin, was involved in several of these meetings. Below, those vestiges quickly vanished, the walls of cave and tunnel bare. From regular vertical slits in the rock, light shone out, providing a dim illumination. A damp, moldy smell increased with depth. Although Galen saw few Shadows, workers – Drakh, Streib, Wurt, and many of species he couldn't identify – toiled unceasingly in the cause of total war.

He dared not stop to rest. He simply worked his way lower and lower through the claustrophobic passages, searching with his sensors, monitoring through his probes, limbs growing heavy, clothes prickling against his raw skin, exercises reinforcing the rhythm of his steps.

He passed another black membrane covering an opening in the rock. This one was thinner, semitransparent. Through it, he saw the thick bodies and strikingly white heads of several Streib. They moved among rows of beings laid out on black tables, examining their subjects.

Those laid out were Drazi, Centauri, Pak'ma'ra, Human – the very same species with whom the Shadows negotiated above. As one of the Drazi struggled, Galen realized the table had entwined itself around the Drazi's limbs, holding him down. Blood seeped out from between the gray scales of his face. He was ill. As were the others.

The golden skin of several Narns had turned into a crusty black ooze; a row of Centauri panted desperately for breath, their mouths dripping with mucus; some Human subjects looked healthy, but as Galen watched, one broke into a seizure, spasming so hard that he cracked his head against the cave wall, knocking himself unconscious. Even then, his body continued to convulse.

Galen found himself shaking, his breath panting in time with the Centauri. He wanted to kill the Streib butchers, to free the prisoners from their suffering. His body raced with outrage. He turned away, pressing himself against the jagged rock, and added a new exercise to the two he was already carrying. This was not why he had come. This was not why he had come. Would he again kill indiscriminately?

He must find Elizar and Razeel. They must both die, and he must see it happen to be sure. He would watch as they were crushed. Thoughts of his task calmed him, and he focused on it. He felt fairly certain, at this point, that Elizar was observing him and subtly controlling his course. By coordinating the movements of the Shadows' servants and blocking off various tunnels, Elizar manipulated him, just as Elric had once manipulated Vir through Babylon 5's Down Below.

Why Elizar desired to draw him so deep, Galen didn't know. But he would follow his appointed course. And as he did, he would see his home. He must see all of it, he realized, must know the enormity of the evil that had bred the techno-mages. There would be no more secrets. For was that not what he had decided was his place – to know all that should not be known, and to bear its burden? Once he had seen it, though, could he simply complete his task and allow all this to continue?

He moved on. Drakh ferried prisoners from below on floating black platforms. The prisoners lay still, each one fitted with the delicate metal interface device Galen had seen on Anna's head. They were brought to a vast hangar holding perhaps a dozen Shadow ships.

The Drakh stopped beside the nearest ship, its skin a dull black. A section of the platform broke free, holding a single prisoner, and the Drakh accompanied him into the ship's gaping opening. After a minute, a darker, richer black began to spread over the dull skin, and vibrant patterns began to shift across its surface. The Drakh emerged without their prisoner.

In the next tunnel, Galen came upon a group of scabrous-skinned Wurt. They conducted another group of prisoners deeper. These were unconscious, though Galen saw no interface devices on their heads. He followed, continuing to monitor the activities and meetings above, searching for Elizar or Razeel.

Talk of the war was constant, and several times visitors raised the issue of the Vorlons' interference several months ago, concerned that the powerful beings would interfere again. But their greatest source of anxiety was the alliance's recent victory, and the use of telepaths to jam Shadow ships.

In one such meeting, Justin tried to soothe several Humans. As he spoke of the heavy losses the alliance had sustained, Morden entered the room, and with a nod moved to stand at the back. Then Justin spoke a name: John Sheridan.

"Without him, the alliance is nothing. Within the next forty-eight hours, he will either be fighting for our side, or he won't be fighting at all. Babylon 5 will be ours, or it will be gone. The alliance will be subverted, or it will be crushed."

The Shadows were moving against John. With dread, Galen accessed the FTL relay aboard his ship, and through that, the relay on Babylon 5. It offered him a menu of all the probes, cameras, and systems on the station. He selected a probe on John. The probe did not respond. Either it had been destroyed, or John had passed out of range.

Galen checked the security database, found John had left the station three days ago. He scanned back through the probe record stored in the relay, reconstructing what had happened. Anna. Anna Sheridan.

The interface device had been removed from her head, the dark, hungry look around her eyes disguised by makeup, the greasy hair cleaned and cut into a fashionable style, the soiled orange jumpsuit replaced with a perfectly tailored business suit that was all too familiar. Here was Morden's "girlfriend." Here was the Shadows' plan to destroy John. They used John's love against him. Just as they had done to so many others.

Galen had thought Anna's true self lost irretrievably beneath the Shadows' programming. Had they somehow managed to restore her? As he watched Anna's initial encounter with John, though, his hopes quickly faded.

This "restored" Anna carried a superficial, mechanical warmth. Beneath it, though, he could still see her hunger, her craving for the machine. She seemed almost to have transferred that hunger to John, for when she spoke to him, her face was alight with fanatical eagerness. Of the caring, curious, adventurous woman he had seen in recordings, nothing remained.

Although the Shadows had freed her from the ship, nothing had been left of her to free. Her past had been lost in her complete subjugation to the Shadows' programming. In that, he and Anna were much alike. Although he fought the Shadows' programming, maintained control over it, in the process he too had lost the person he had been. And with his attention narrowed tightly on containing his energy, holding to his task, he had forsaken John to the Shadows' plans.

Soon after Anna arrived, John brought her to medlab for an examination by Stephen Franklin, who'd finally ended his walkabout and resumed his duties.

Medical records and DNA tests revealed that she was undeniably John's wife. But Stephen recognized the marks of the interface device, which he had seen before. He confided in John his suspicions that Anna had been wired into a Shadow ship. John struggled to reconcile the memories of his lost wife with the woman who confronted him, who sat on his couch and explained, so reasonably, why he must go with her to Z'ha'dum.

When she stood and came toward him, stopped before him, he flinched. He knew. He knew as well as Galen that this was not his wife. Yet, incredibly, he agreed to go. Galen rushed through the probe record, determined that John must not come to Z'ha'dum. Surely he knew it was a trap. Surely he knew that with his latest victory, he had proven himself too great a threat for the Shadows to ignore.

Of John's colleagues, none dared talk to him about it. They were all at a loss over what to say about John's wife returning from the dead. Even Michael Garibaldi, never known to keep his opinion to himself, remained silent. John recruited his assistance on several tasks. As Galen followed Michael's activities, he saw the security chief load two thermonuclear devices onto the White Star. They were extremely powerful; each could destroy Babylon 5 several hundred times over.

Later, John and Anna boarded that ship. They formed a jump point, passed out of range. They were on their way. John would learn what he could from the Shadows. Once he had, if they would not let him leave, then he intended to stop the war at its source. It was a suicide mission. It would fail to destroy the Shadows, just as G'Leel's attempt had failed.

John had constructed his own Trojan horse, but this one would not be admitted into the enemy's stronghold. The Eye would never allow a ship as powerful as the White Star to pass. The Shadows would force him to take a shuttle, or send a ship to pick him up. Galen searched for John's probe in the vicinity of Z'ha'dum, but they hadn't yet arrived.

From what he'd seen of the White Star ships, he believed it might be another day before they reached the rim. He could not allow John to land here. John must fight the war, must win it. John should leave Z'ha'dum to him. But how could he stop it? What could he do, except kill as many Shadows and destroy as much of their stronghold as possible before John arrived, so there would be no need for John's sacrifice?