Defiance and contrition warred in his face. He fumbled for words. I should have waited for them—I was responsible for this whole circle—but I felt too sick and drained to try. I said curtly, “Better see if any harm was done to the helicopter when it crashed.”
“From three inches off the ground?” He sounded contemptuous now. That also troubled me but I was too tired to care. I said, “Suit yourself. It’s your craft. If this is what comes of having you in the circle, I’ll make damned sure you’re a good long way away from it.” I turned my back on him.
Marjorie was leaning on Rafe. She had stopped crying but her eyes and nose were red. Absurdly I loved her more than ever like that. She said in a small shaking voice, “I’m all right now, Lew. Honestly.”
I looked at the ground at our feet. It was covered with more than an inch of snow. You always lost track of time inside a matrix. It was snowing harder than ever, and the sky was darkening. The shaking of my own hands warned me. I said, “We all need food and rest. Run ahead, Rafe, and ask the servants to have a meal ready for us.”
I heard a familiar clattering roar and looked up. The other helicopter was circling overhead, descending. Beltran was walking away toward it. I started to call after him, summon him—he too would be drained, needing the replenishment of food and sleep. At that moment, though, my only thought was to let him collapse. It would do him good to learn this wasn’t a game! We left him behind.
I’d have an apology to make to Kermiac, too. It didn’t matter that it had been done against my orders. I was operating the matrix. I had trained this circle. I was responsible for everything that happened to it
Everything.
Everything. Aldones, Lord of Light… everything: Ruin and death, a city in flames and chaos, Marjorie …
I shook myself out of the maelstrom of misery and pain, staring at the quiet path, the dark sky, the gently falling snow. None of it was real. I was hallucinating. Merciful Avarra, if, after three years at Arilinn, any matrix ever built could make me hallucinate, I was in trouble!
Kermiac’s servants had laid a splendid meal for us, though I was so hungry I could as readily have eaten bread and milk. As I ate the drained weakness receded, but the vague, formless guilt remained. Marjorie. Had she been burned by the flare of fire? I kept wanting to touch her and make sure she was there, alive, unhurt Thyra ate with tears running down her face, the bruise gradually swelling and darkening until her eye was swollen shut. Beltran did not come. I supposed he was with Kermiac. I didn’t give a damn where he was. Marjorie self-consciously thrust aside her third plateful, saying, “I’m ashamed to be so greedy!”
I began to reassure her. Kadarin did it instead. “Eat, child, eat, your nerves are exhausted, you need the energy. Rafe, what’s the matter, child?” The boy was restlessly pushing his food around on his plate. “You haven’t touched a bite.”
“I can’t, Bob. My head aches. I can’t swallow. If I try to swallow anything I’m afraid I’ll be sick.”
Kadarin met my eyes. “I’ll take care of him,” he said. “I know what to do, I went through it when I was his age.” He lifted Rafe in his arms and carried him, like a small child, out of the room. Thyra rose and went after them.
Left alone with Marjorie, I said, “You should rest, too, after all that.”
She said in a very small voice, “I’m afraid to be alone. Don’t leave me alone, Lew.”
I didn’t intend to, not until I was sure she was safe. A Keeper in training has stresses no other matrix mechanic suffers, and I was still responsible for her. Although emotional upheavals were common enough when first keying into one of the really big matrices, such frightful blowups as this between Beltran and Thyra were not common. Fortunately. No wonder we were all literally sick from it.