Disclaimer:  Crusade concept and characters belong to their creators and production company.  The following story is exclusive property of the author; no copyright infringement is intended.
Rating: PG-14.

Authors note:  Hi readers.  Well I have finally finished the Trilogy, there are of course many more stories left to tell, but I am going to leave those to other writers, my brain can't come up with anything else right now.  If anyone wants to run with an idea I have come up with, feel free to do so, I just ask that you run it by me first.  For those of you who have read all the stuff I have on this page, well done!  And thanks for sticking with it.  I would appreciate some feed back, love it or hate it I want to hear so e-mail me on [email protected]

Revelations

© 2000, Jo Taylor

Heavy mist obscured her view, making ghosts of the two men standing in the ruins ahead of her.  A slight breeze parted the damp grey screen, as though some giant hand had pulled back the curtain on a stage set.  Jagged outlines loomed over their small forms, dwarfing the scene set before her.

Gideon, his arms clasped protectively around a large box that gave off an eerie golden glow, stood a few metres away from the Technomage.  The dark garb and hood hid the Mage's face and figure from her view, and yet his silhouette was almost tangibly familiar.  Fear lived in the Captain's visage, teeth bared in angry denial.  Mouths moved but she could hear no words.  She tried to step forward, to hear the conversation, to stop what she knew would end in disaster, but found herself paralysed, her limbs heavy and immovable.  Panic swept through her as she watched the Mage's hand rise, power surging around him like snakes wrapped around one another in a mating frenzy.  The air crackled with energy, her head felt ready to explode with the pressure building around the combatants.  Blue light flashed out from the Mage's long fingers, surrounding his victim.  Gideon's terrified yell echoed in her head, her mouth opened and she screamed.

***

"Galen."

"Hum?"

His distracted reply did little to encourage Dureena in the course she had planned.  She had to talk to someone about the dream, and it had to be Galen.  Last night, when he had found her shaking and still off balance she had fobbed him off, telling him it was a recurrence of her nightmares.  He had been visibly worried as she crawled into his arms, and had held her until the tremors stopped.  Only her insistence that she never had the nightmare twice in a night persuaded him to leave her and return to his task.  The new scanner that the Circle had asked him to install was proving problematic.  The enhancements Galen had put in to his ship disliked the new technology, and for all his skill, it was interfering with the day to day running of his systems.  Earlier the computer had lost its fix on the Excalibur's position, leaving them temporarily directionless.  She had listened to his curses with amusement, admiring his fluency and inventiveness.  To her practical suggestion that he "give up and remove it", well, his expression had been unfriendly.  She smiled inwardly at the recollection until her present dilemma pressed itself to the forefront of her thoughts again.

"I need to talk to you, Galen.  It's important."  The touch of her small hand seemed to break his concentration, as her words had not.  Drawing himself up from his position under the console, he stood, his imposing figure towering above her, intense eyes scanning her face.

On leaving his home planet, Galen had donned the dark forbidding clothing that appeared to be every Technomage's trademark.  The clothes plus the almost palpable sense of power that surrounded him effectively cut him off from those who sought to get closer.  It was a warning not lightly ignored.  Even now, after the moments of tenderness they had shared, still she was aware of who and what he was.  Bravado only went so far, and right now, she was unsure of his reaction to the revelations she was about to make.  He believed in the tangible, in reality.  What she was about to relate bordered on the paranormal.  He might dismiss her out of hand though she hoped he would hear her out.  She knew what she had seen was real, would happen unless they did something to stop it.

She took a deep breath, put up her chin and was about to speak when he interrupted her.

"I see.  Maybe I should sit down for this?  When you get that look in your eye, Dureena --"  Suiting the action to the words he resumed his seat, folding his hands in his lap and seemed to almost will the words from her.

"The nightmare last night," she began.  He moved forward as if to take her hand, but she backed away not wanting the distraction his touch would bring.  "It wasn't the same dream, not the nightmare I -- well, you know --"

The amusement he had been showing left his face, his attention caught, he nodded but stayed silent.

"Since I was about twelve or thirteen I have had dreams, realistic, frightening dreams . . . perhaps prophetic.  Some I know have come true - maybe all of them.  I am not always there when they play themselves out."

Galen's brow twitched down as he absorbed her words.  He leant forward, silent yet encouraging her continuation.  If he had spoken then she may have stopped but he knew her too well, frighteningly well.  His silences worked more effectively than other people's oration ever did.

"Last night I saw the Captain and you, at least I think it was you - a Mage at least, surrounded by ruins and mists."  She took a pace around the room, gathering the wispy remnants of the dream.  "Gideon held a box or vessel of some kind, he was scared --"  Catching Galen's eye she continued.  "I've never seen him frightened before, not like this.  You - the Mage, seemed to want the box.  I saw you use your powers against him, I saw him consumed by your fire.  Galen, you killed him."  She looked at him now, trying to judge his reactions.

"And you are sure it was Matthew?  Sure it was I?"

That he accepted her story without hesitation did little to reduce her anxiety.

"It was the Captain and, although I didn't see the Mage's face, yes, I am sure it was you."  She would recognise him anywhere, in any guise she realised suddenly.

He was sunk deep in thought for a moment as he digested her words.  It was all she could do to stay quiet and wait for his deliberations to end.  Abruptly he sprang up, caught her hand in his and dragged her through the corridors to his own room.  From an overhead locker, he removed a tiny black sphere, its colour so dense that she felt she was falling toward it.  Galen pressed the ball into her hand, holding his own around them both.  It was much heavier than she could have expected, heavier even than ten ingots of gold.  The unexpected weight would have dragged her hand down had his not been there to support it.

"Show me!" he directed.  His normally soft voice harsh with authority.

Confused, Dureena began to get angry.  Galen's fingers on her cheek checked her words; his eyes met hers, compelling, over-riding her reluctance.

"Close your eyes, remember the dream in as much detail as possible.  I don't know if this will work with you, I have not tried this with anyone outside my order before.  Relax, take your time."  His grip tightened as though he understood the influence the orb exerted on her.  "I won't let you fall."

Closing her eyes Dureena became aware of the sphere in her hand.  It drew her thoughts inexorably toward it the way a black hole consumes matter.  Frightened, she tensed until the pressure of Galen's hand wrapped around her own calmed her enough to concentrate on her memories.  Vague shapes seemed to take form in her mind, not the dream but other more personal memories.  Galen by the falls, the huge cat stalking at their side, his hands on her body, anything but let her mind review the image of Matthew's death again.  Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Galen's voice gently speaking directly in her mind.

"The dream, Dureena.  Show me the dream."

Her eyes flew open and the moment was lost.  Springing away from him she instinctively reached for her knife, the violation of her mind as real as any physical attack.

"How did you do that.  You spoke in my head; are you a telepath?"

In her fear, the sphere dropped from her hand.  Instead of hitting the floor as it should, it hovered where her hand had been until Galen retrieved it.  He caught her hand in his and pressed the ball back into her palm.

"No, I am not a telepath.  This device allows me to share your thoughts.  I wasn't even sure it would work with you.  I can't read your mind, Dureena, nor would I want to.  I respect your privacy.  But right now, I need to see your dream.  I will see only what you allow me to see."

"You should have told me, Galen.  I don't want anyone in my head, not even you."  Especially not you, she thought.  Her feelings for him were still uncertain.  One moment she wanted him with every fibre of her being, and other times she was still afraid of him, of his influence on her mind and heart.  Until she knew what she felt, what she could safely give she did not want to share her thoughts with him, not verbally and certainly not with him rummaging in her mind.  She had never worried about Matheson during her stay on the Excalibur, he was hedged by rules and regulations along with his own strict moral code, but Galen --He was a law unto himself; she may love him but she wasn't sure, even now, that she trusted him.

His sharp tones brought her out of her reverie.

"Then this experiment is over.  We have been down this road before, Dureena, about withholding knowledge, I won't go there with you again."  He removed the sphere from her hand returning it to the locker.

His disapproval cut at her; she could almost read "his" thoughts at that moment.  That she was a superstitious heathen, that he had wasted his time with her.  Why should he, a scientist, believe something that could not be proven?  No one made her feel inferior the way he did.  She knew she would capitulate, and hated herself for her weakness.  Damn the man!

"Okay, okay I'll do it."  Exasperation wrapped itself around every word.

"Well there's no need to be quite so tetchy!"

Ignoring her dagger like glance, he steered her back to her seat, retrieved the sphere and prepared to resume his experiment.  This time he explained what would happen.

"The sphere enhances and magnifies the electrical impulses that carry your thoughts and image processing functions.  It translates them, if you will, to a form that I will be able to interpret.  We both need to be in contact with its surface.  I will see what you see, so concentrate only on the dream."  His long fingers wrapped around her small hand, warm and tingling with energy against her flesh.

"It feels -- odd, as though something is tickling inside my head."  She repressed a shiver of apprehension.  "Will I be able to read you?"

"No."  Galen's sharp reply almost broke the fragile link between them.  He softened his tone, "No, I can ensure this is a one way process.  It would be too confusing for you to make this a two-way exchange."

The lie in his voice stirred up more qualms, and yet, with him so close, the power around him almost visible, she yielded to his request.

The dream flooded back exactly as she remembered it from the night before.  Galen and Captain Gideon faced one another, Galen surged with power, a bolt of energy struck out at his adversary and she screamed.

His hands slipped away from hers, leaving them suddenly cold and shaking still clutched around the heavy black sphere.  Galen uncurled her numbed fingers, prising it from her clutch, storing it away.  His face was unreadable, his Technomage mask firmly in place.  She had grown used to seeing the man not the Mage; almost she stepped back from him.

"What now, Galen?"

"We find the Excalibur and see if your dream is based in reality," came his terse reply.  "If he has an Apocalypse box, if he is under its influence in any way then his life, the fate of his mission, all is under threat."

"Then we have to help him --"

" -- whether he wants our help or not," finished Galen.

***

"Ship, locate the Excalibur and plot a course."

Galen waited impatiently for the computer to give him the information he required.  After a minute at most, his limited patience ran out.  Laying one hand on the console, he tapped in directly to the ships systems, its complex workings a smooth path to his adapted neural pathways.  Glitch after glitch littered his path, the scanner had infiltrated almost every system, slowing down and in some cases closing off some of the enhancements he had made.  It would have to be removed, and quickly.

Dureena watched closely as he manipulated controls, dived into circuitry and checked and rechecked system after system.  Asking constant questions that eventually received answers, she began to learn something of the technology that Galen used day to day.  Her grasp of the mathematical appeared to astound him.  Never had technology been a barrier to her profession; though she was ignorant of how a particular lock worked it was just an obstacle that had to be removed - and she did.

Fascinated, Dureena studied Galen's face as he stood immobile; eyes closed his hands placed in careful symmetry on the main console.  Furrows of concentration dug deeply into his forehead as man and machine linked.  She wanted to touch him, feel the power that was almost visible around him.  She wanted to experience the mesh of circuitry and mind.  Keeping still was the hardest thing she had done for a long time.  To distract herself she turned her attention to the small box Galen had brought out for her to study.  Carved runes ran around its circumference, banding the box with incantations.  Some of the meanings she seemed to know by instinct, though she was sure she had never read them anywhere before . . . the box almost made sense.  Curiosity turned her attention to the lock.  Galen had not wanted the box opened, just studied and yet she could not let this opportunity to test her skills pass her by.  Whilst his attention was engaged elsewhere she turned the box around and around, fingers seeking the hidden spring or catch.  She closed her eyes, letting her senses join her questing fingers in the search . . . there, under her thumb not a catch an incantation!  She concentrated; working her way through the levels until the suddenly sprung lid bounced open in her grasp.

She opened her eyes to find Galen observing her, maybe alerted by the audible snap of the releasing lock and she could not keep the guilty look from her face.

"Ah, Galen, is the computer working now?"

He removed the box from her hands, snapping it shut again before she had barely glimpsed the contents, placing it back by her side.  A searching curiosity lit his grey eyes.  "How did you open it?  It was no ordinary lock, Dureena.  The lid was held by nothing physical, there was nothing for you to un-pick."

"You are asking me to give away trade secrets.  I could be drummed out of the guild for that."

He raise and eyebrow in cynical disbelief.  "Tell me."

"I don't think I can explain it," she began.  "I see the lock; I can see the combination, the mechanism.  This was . . . different, but I still saw it.  I could hear the words surrounding the lock and I just "knew" what to do.  I know it doesn't make sense but that is how it has always worked for me."

"Can you understand the runes on the box?  Do they make sense to you?" Before she could continue, he held up a hand, "Ship, display current position of the Excalibur."

A three dimensional image sprang to life in the middle of the room a bright dot indicating his quarries position.  "Plot intercept course and display."  A slim red line wove through the image the calculated time etched into the bottom corner.  He seemed satisfied with the data, nodded to himself, then instructed the ship to proceed before turning his attention back to Dureena.

"Now, the box."

For the next hour he grilled her mercilessly on everything she could decipher, from its cover to the lock itself, until she was exhausted and close to tears.  Almost hating him at that moment his enquiries had been so intense.

"Enough, Galen.  There is nothing more I can tell you!"

He eased back in his chair, visibly relaxing, a rueful half smile on his lips.  His eyes lost their intensity, shading down from glittering dark grey to a gentler soft smoke.

"You should rest," his hand reached out in an apology he would not utter.  She hesitated for a second then accepted his supplication, placing her hand in his, feeling his warm fingers engulf her own.

***

She hadn't meant to eavesdrop; the ship had been quiet for hours now, the lights barely illuminating its dark interior.  Treading softly Dureena stole up the corridor, until she was level with the opening, she wanted one more look at the box away from Galen's prying eye.

"Are you sure, Galen?"

The voice echoed eerily around the small area.  Unknown to her yet familiar all the same.  Not the voice, she thought, the cadence, another Technomage.  Taking a silent step back, she hugged the wall, reducing her breathing to the merest whisper.

"It seems the Humans have the last box.  Captain Gideon must have had it in his possession for a long time.  You and I know which box this is."  Galen's voice sounded unnaturally calm.  She knew him well enough now, to realise he was holding back some emotion he did not want his fellow Mage to see.

"You should leave this to us, you are too involved, Galen.  We will leave him no choice but to give us the box."

"It is my right!" Galen's tone hummed with controlled anger.  "You will not stop me, Thane.  Gideon is my friend, I have set watch on him, you will not interfere!"

There was a moment of hesitation, as though the speaker were deliberating his reply.  "Very well.  The Circle will allow you seven days, no more.  If, after that time the box is still at large we will act.  Understand, Galen, the Circle will not allow your feelings to stand in their way -- On the other matter, this woman you have taken up with, what is her status?"

"Dureena is not an specimen!"

Galen's sharp retort sent her pulse racing.  These last few hours, she had wondered if his professed affection had been real, so harshly had he treated her; now, a warm satisfaction infused her veins.  His next words vindicated her wave of happiness.

"I have accepted her as my pupil, Thane."

"Even though she may be --"  Galen cut him off sharply.

"It is of no consequence . . . it may even be an asset.  My first concern must be the Excalibur.  She has changed course three times now, until I know her final destination and can deal with this I request you keep out of their sight.  You have given me seven days, honour that."

"Very well.  Seven days, Galen."

A thundering silence engulfed the room and she was afraid that he would hear the sound of her heart thudding in her chest so quiet had it become.  It seemed the quiet was too much for him as well, she heard his soft sigh and then his whispered command "Ship, music."

But this was not the music she had grown up with, nor yet any of the songs or melodies that she had listened to on the Excalibur.  This strange fractional tune set up images in her head, pathways leading nowhere.  The longer she listened the more sense its tortured message made.  Not music but equations!  It drew her forward until she stood a few feet from where Galen sat, cross-legged on the floor.  His form bathed in darkness, his hood shadowing his face as though shutting out the world around him.

Foolish to think she could approach without his knowing yet his soft chuckle took her by surprise.

"Is that the best you can do?  The soft life on board Excalibur has eroded your skills!"

He rose and came to stand before her; he must have caught the guilty look she tried to hide from him, for his expressive face changed away from the humour he had been exhibiting.

"How much did you hear?"

"Something about the Apocalypse box being personal to you.  That you had accepted me as your pupil and --"

Galen had tensed when she mentioned the box flinching as though even the word hurt him.  It had been the merest flicker on his face but she had been studying him so long now that she could read him like a book.  He would have moved away from her then, but her hand on his sleeve stopped his retreat.

"Talk to me, Galen.  Don't shut me out any more.  I know this involves Isabelle and I know I behaved badly before.  She is a part of your history and I can't change that, but I can try and understand."

Silence descended again as he gazed into Dureena's eyes, as though trying to decide how much he could give without hurting either of them too much.  With a sigh, he sat in the pilot's chair, swivelling it around until he faced her.

Kneeling before him, she watched as he gathered memories, seeing his eyes grow bleak as he told her all that he had kept hidden.  She had thought he had told her all on his home planet but now he related every detail, every action he had taken from the moment they had been attacked until the last of his enemies had been destroyed.  By the time he had finished tears were streaming down her face unheeded.  Not for his victims or for Isabelle, but for the pain he felt even now, and for herself, knowing that she could never be to him what his lost love had been.  She could not consume his heart as Isabelle had done, nor would he grieve at her loss as he still did for the Mage he had shared his soul with.

Galen's fingers on her cheek, wiping away her tears brought her back from her misery.  He pulled her up and into his arms, burying his face in her neck, his hands tangled in her hair and she felt his tears on her skin.

The experience was cathartic for them both; when he finally pulled back from her his eyes were calm and the cloud that had hung around him had lifted.  A gentle kiss from his soft lips left her trembling.

"Thank you," he murmured.

Reaching behind to the console he brought the casket out and placed it into her hands.  With a smile he said, "I believe you were looking for this?"

She was reluctant to take it now, but he insisted, wrapping her hands around it with an amused look on his face.

"Open it."

She hesitated, and he chuckled softly, "Don't worry, it won't bite."

Closing her eyes, her mind felt its way through the lock, untangling the web that kept her from the casket's contents.  An audible click signalled her success and she quickly raised the lid.  Nestling inside a bed of velvet was the most beautiful gem she had ever seen.  Deep amber, the stone was as large as an Ekot egg, ovoid in shape and matching the hue of her eyes exactly in its tawny colouring.  The gold setting was inlaid with a myriad of runes and sygils that she could not decipher though power radiated from the talisman.  Deep in the stone she could make out a rune, unknown to her, though admittedly she had a limited knowledge of the ancient writings.  She looked to Galen for an explanation.

Picking up the necklace on its heavy gold chain, Galen bid her to turn around as he clasped it around her slender throat.  The rune was her own, he had designed it and made this for her whilst she had slept in his bed back in his home.  He did not explain the glyphs to her in detail, just that they were a protective incantation and that she should wear it always.  His fingers lingered on her skin and she reached up to catch his hand in hers, enjoying the strength he radiated.  She turned again, her eyes locking with his, one hand wrapped around the wonderful gift he had given her, feeling its smooth surface warm at her touch.  He was suddenly serious, leaning forward to catch her lips with his, her heart beating fiercely as she gave herself over to the still new pleasure his touch brought.

The ship's computer beeped discretely, breaking the moment; the Excalibur had finally taken up a long-term orbit around a planet, and the new course had been laid into the navigational controls; they could be there in a matter of hours.

Galen was again all Mage.

Continued

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