BABYLON 5. Passing of the Techno-mages. Book 1 Casting Shadows by Jeanne Cavelos Issuance: mart 2001 getting : 儺き氅 潰 冟毵 formatting : Chilin upload : 03.VI.2006 To Lio F. Ferris... Who are you? Many folks for the first time saw itself in one's sleep. Anonym. NOVEMBER 2258 Chapter 1 Soon the war would come. With a cry of joy Anna swooped toward the barren moon, her sisters behind her. As her sleek body cut through the invigorating vacuum of space, she surveyed the training; site eagerly, hungry for challenge. The Eye had specified the coordinates to be attacked. This exercise was to be at close range, surgical, precise. Anna loved training, exploring her abilities, honing; her skills. She had learned the dizzying delight of movement, the exhilarating leap to hyperspace, the grace of flexion, the joy of the war cry. She had learned to deliver from their confinement great balls of destruction; to calculate the most efficient patterns of attack; to engage and never break off, not until the enemy was utterly destroyed. This would be the first time she uttered her war cry. As she wheeled toward the target, Anna held her body in perfect control. She felt tireless, invulnerable. The machine was so beautiful, so elegant. Perfect grace, perfect control, form and function integrated into the circuitry of the unbroken loop, the closed universe. All systems of the machine passed through her; she was its heart; she was its brain; she was the machine. The neurons firing in harmony. She synchronized the cleansing and circulation in sublime synergy. She beat out a flawless march with the complex, multileveled systems. The skin of the machine was her skin; its bones and blood, her bones and blood. She and the machine were one: a great engine of chaos and destruction. The rocky brown surface of the moon grew closer, taking on definition, detail. She located the seven targets, boulders within a wide, shallow crater. She and her six sisters were each to destroy one. She narrowed her focus to her assigned target, coordinated her speed with her course. Excitement gathered in her throat. She plunged into the crater and shrieked out her war cry. Her body rushed with an ecstasy of fire. Energy blasted from her mouth in a brilliant red torrent. The boulder was vaporized. Around her, her sisters fell upon the targets, their mouths screaming destruction. Chaos through warfare, the Eye said. Evolution through bloodshed. Perfection through victory. One of the targets was not completely destroyed. A fragment remained. Anna pounced on it, eager to scream again. She targeted it, screamed out chaos. The exhilaration shot through her. The fragment was obliterated, a hole scorched into the surface below. Excited by the activity, her sisters fell upon the vanquished target, shrieking out a cacophony of chaos. Particles of rock flew up as they blasted a great hole into the moon, firing again and again. Anna drew energy up into her mouth, screamed it out in blazing red. * * * The greatest excitement is the thrill of battle, the Eye said. The greatest joy is the ecstasy of victory. Anna's greatest desire was to feel it. And she knew she would soon. For soon the war would come. The ship sang of the beauty of order, of perfect symmetry and ultimate peace. It glided through the calm blackness of space, absorbing it. Energy circulated through its petals in a regular rhythm. The serenity of its silent passage, the unity of its functioning, the satisfaction of service wove through its melody. Ahead, a blue-and-white orb glowed in the blackness, the goal of the journey. The ship slipped through the stillness toward it, following Kosh's direction eagerly. Obedience was its greatest joy. Within the song, Kosh slowed the ship's speed, directing it to stop a safe distance from the planet, which was known to its inhabitants as Soom. Although most of the planet's inhabitants had little technology, two lived among them and served as guardians, two fabulists, who would detect his presence if he went too close. Soon more would come as the fabulists gathered for their assemblage. Long had Kosh watched them, for three hundred and thirty and three such assemblages. He had watched as different races had become dominant within the group, the most recent being Humans. He had watched as the fabulists gradually transformed from anarchy to order. They had achieved some admirable goals, had created fleeting moments of great beauty. But now the universe was gathering itself for a great conflagration. The forces of chaos had returned to their ancient home and had begun to build their resources for war. The Vorlons, Kosh among them, likewise prepared. The fabulists did not know the danger of their position. They carried great power. They could be the pivot on which the Great War turned. Many among the Vorlons thought the time for action. was now. They did not trust the fabulists. Yet Kosh felt they must watch just a while longer. The fabulists faced a difficult, decision, and they should be allowed to make it. If they chose wrongly, then they would die. But let them first choose. Heat power carried both great danger and great possibility. Kosh altered the ship's song, directing the ship to extrude several buoys, which would take up positions around the planet and observe it. Then he would return to Babylon 5. And he would watch this one, last assemblage. * * * Galen closed his eyes and focused on the equation. He thought of all his spells as equations, though they weren't anything like traditional scientific ones. The terms of his equations were complex and bizarre, impenetrable and irreducible. Yet to him they represented actions and properties, and if he could form an image in his mind of a particular equation, he could conjure the thing it represented. Like most spells, this one had many terms: several to generate a pinkish translucent sphere three inches across, another to generate energy within it, yet more to give that energy the appearance of a delicate flame. He'd done this one many times. Taking a deep breath, he imagined his mind as a blank screen, visualized the equation written upon it. The chrysalis, fastened to his head and spine, acknowledged the equation by echoing it back to him. Galen opened his eyes. The ball of energy floated in front of him. "Around the hall," Elric ordered from behind him, gripping the tail-like section of the chrysalis that ran down his spine. His teacher's voice, deep and rich, carried a power that had at first intimidated Galen. Later, when Elric taught him the techno-mage techniques of voice modulation, Elric's voice and the skill with which he used it amazed Galen. By extending certain sounds, pausing at specific places, and modulating his intonation to almost hypnotic effect, everything he said took on heightened power and importance. Holding the image of the original equation firmly in his mind's eye, Galen added another, a spell for movement. One equation took the ball of energy from the center of the modest training hall, where it hovered before him, to the hall's stone wall. Another equation sent the ball into a circular course around the hall. The ball circulated a few feet below the thatched ceiling, where several of Elric's light globes floated for illumination. "A second ball," Elric commanded. Holding the original equation and the equation for circular movement in his mind's eye, Galen conjured a second ball. The chrysalis echoed the spell, reflecting his thought. "Change the flames to flowers," Elric said. Galen concentrated on the equation for the second ball, specifically on the terms that generated the flames. Below them, he visualized the terms necessary to create an image of white kwa blossoms. Then he moved the new set of terms up, replacing the old. The flames changed to flowers. "Triple speed first ball." With intense focus, Galen kept the two equations for the two balls firmly in his mind, and at the same time altered the equation of motion, tripling the velocity of the first ball's circular course. The effort caused his breath to come faster now. "Second ball up and down." Maintaining the images of his three spells on the imaginary screen, Galen formed an equation that sent the second ball up to the thatched ceiling, then a new equation to send it back and forth between the ceiling and the woven grass mat that covered the floor. The ball of flowers began to zip up and down. "Third ball with a piece of lint in it." Galen held his focus. Elric tried to use odd requests to throw him off, to make him lose concentration. But he would not. He formed an equation for the third ball, giving it a dark interior so that the image of a tiny fleck of white lint inside would be visible. The third bal...
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