There was really no need for a physical circle, but I drew us close enough that the magnetic energy of our bodies would overlap and reinforce the growing bond.
I knew this was folly, a partly trained Keeper, a partly trained psi monitor … an illegal, unmonitored matrix … and yet I thought of the pioneers in the early days of our world, first taming the matrices. Terran colonists? Kadarin thought so. Before the towers rose, before their use was guarded by ritual and superstition. And it was given to us to retrace their steps!
I separated hilt and blade, taking out the matrix. It was not yet activated, but at its touch the old scar on my palm contracted with a stab of pain. Marjorie moved with quiet sureness into the center of the circle. She stood facing me, laying one hand on the blue stone … a vortex seeking to draw me into its depths, a maelstrom. … I shut my eyes, reaching out for contact with Marjorie, steadying myself as I made contact with her cool silken strength. I felt Thyra drop into place, then Kadarin; the sense of an almost-unendurable burden lessened with his strength, as if he shifted a great weight onto his shoulders. Rafe dropped in like some small furry thing nestling against us.
I had the curious sense that power was flowing up from the stone and into the circle. It felt like being hooked up to a powerful battery, vibrating in us all, body and brain. That was wrong, that was very wrong. It was curiously invigorating, but I knew we must not succumb to it even for a moment. With relief I felt Marjorie seize control and with a determined effort direct the stream of force, focusing it through her, outward.
For a moment she stood bathed in flickering, transparent flames, then for an instant she took on the semblance of a woman . . . golden, chained, kneeling, as the forge-folk depicted their goddess. … I knew this was an illusion, but it seemed that Marjorie, or the great nickering fire-form which seemed to loom around and over and through her, reached out, seized the helicopter’s rotors and spun them as a child spins a pinwheel. With my physical ears I heard the humming sound as they began to turn, slowly at first under the controlling force, then winding to a swift spinning snarl, a drone, a shriek that caught the air currents. Slowly, slowly, the great machine lifted, hovering lightly a foot or so above the ground.
Straining to be gone . . ,
Hold it there! I was directing the power outward as Marjorie formed and shaped it; I could feel all the others pressed tightly against me, though physically none of us were touching. As I trembled, feeling the vast outflow of that linked conjoined power, I saw in a series of wild flashes the great form of fire I had seen before, Marjorie and not Marjorie, a raw stream of force, a naked woman, sky-tall with tossing hair, each separate lock a streamer of fire … I felt a curious rage surging up and through me. Take the helicopter, hanging there useless a few inches high, hurl it into the sky, high, high, fling it down like a missile against the towers of Castle Aldaran, burning, smashing, exploding the walls like sand, hurling a rain of fire into the valley, showering fires on Caer Donn, laying the Terran base waste…. I struggled with these images of fire and destruction, as a rider struggles with the bit of a hard-mouthed horse. Too strong, too strong. I smelled musk, a wild beast prowled the jungle of my impulses, rage, lust, a constellation of wild emotions … a small skittering animal bolting up a tree in terror … the shriek of the rotor blades, a scream, a deafening roar. . . .
Slowly the noise lessened to a whine, a drone, a faint whir, silence. The copter stood vibrating faintly, motionless. Marjorie, still flickering with faint glimmers of invisible fire, stood calm, smiling absently. I felt her reach out and break the rapport, the others slipping away one by one until we stood alone, locked together. She withdrew her hand from the matrix and I stood cold and alone, struggling against spasms of lust, raging violence spinning in my brain, out of control, my heart racing, the blood pounding in my head, vision blurred….