Free Summoning Light by Babylon 5 Page B

no desire to speak, about anything, to anyone.
    "If I feel the urge to talk, I'll make sure to let you know."
    He left Fed behind and walked toward the mages gathered in the passage. Perhaps fifty or a hundred of them blocked the way, crowding outside the closed door to Room 288, where the Circle now studied Kell's remains.
    Galen composed a message to Elric. I have destroyed Elizar's ship. Do you have need of me?
    Gowen stood in the center of a large group who seemed to be bombarding him with questions. They would want to know what he'd seen aboard Elizar's ship. Gowen's round cheeks were drawn up in dismay, his hands clenched together in white-knuckle prayer. He caught sight of Galen, fixed on him as if seeing a specter. Circe and Maskelyne, standing beside Gowen, stopped their questioning, and they too looked toward Galen. They would know that he had been with Elric, that he had seen Kell's body.
    Elric's response arrived. No. I am occupied with the Circle. You did well in getting us here. You should rest.
    A few feet away, Alwyn followed the gaze of the others to Galen. His tight jaw relinquished a smile. Alwyn looked the same as he had last month, at the convocation. He wore his favorite loud, multicolored robe, a long black cape over it. His receding silvery hair, the bags beneath his eyes, his generous girth – all suggested a softness that Alwyn often displayed, yet one that could vanish instantly when his anger was aroused. Galen didn't see any new weakness in Alwyn, though he too must have destroyed his place of power.
    Carvin seemed to sense that something had changed. She raised her face, wet with tears. "Galen!" she cried. She ran to him, seizing him with a rustle of her Centauri silks, and enveloped him in her sobs.
    Galen's body went rigid. As always, close contact made him uncomfortable. He did not like to be touched. And he did not want to be the dumping ground for her pain. Let her keep it to herself. He did not want to feel it. He refused to feel it.
    Her whisper ran down the side of his face. "It is one death after another."
    The words ripped the memory from him, the image of Carvin's face wet with tears, watching as magical fire consumed Isabelle's lifeless body. She had cried for Isabelle, cried when Galen could not.
    Alwyn came to stand beside her, and he rubbed her back in a circular motion. Carvin had never withheld her emotions. During Alwyn's visits to Soom, Galen and Carvin had often studied together. To Galen, she had always seemed strangely fearless – passionate, outgoing, open. She did not hide from life, but lived it. It was an existence foreign to him.
    At last she released him, and he let out a breath, trying to relax his muscles.
    Carvin wiped at her eyes. Her spell language was the language of her body. When she performed an elaborate conjury, she directed her power with strong, graceful movements. Galen remembered the perfect illusion she had created in the training hall on Soom with Alwyn's boots, the intricate patterns traced by her body. Now her shoulders were curled inward, her back hunched.
    Alwyn embraced him. "It's good to see you well."
    "And you," Galen said, wondering how he would ever get through the entire group of mages. But he could not pass without talking to Alwyn and Carvin. He set his valise down, rested the end of his staff against the floor.
    "Was it Elizar?" Carvin asked.
    Galen's throat was tight. He nodded.
    "We have to stop him," she said.
    Anger stirred inside Galen. Didn't she understand how hard it had been to put to rest? "That is up to the Circle," he said.
    "You don't know all that's happened," Alwyn said. "Djadjamonkh and Regana are missing. They should have arrived here last week. And as Carvin and I traveled here from Regula 4, we were attacked by an unmarked ship of great power. We barely escaped from it. The Shadows are determined to stop us."
    Galen didn't need Alwyn to tell him of the Shadows. It was their hand behind all that had happened, their hand