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.Until Cassa, all the change was slow, with time to adjustbetween.You must know this.How far back in the Temple records have youread?”“Whatever was required in my training.”Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: Ri“That’s not an answer.” Despite the sharpness of his tone, he still looked moreamused than irritated.“I’m sure you’ve read more than I have,” he continued.“At least of the kinds of things that have to do with Priests.Enough to know whatthat kind of power means, what the Unity means.And overpattern, well, it’salways existed, it isn’t a made thing like the Unity is.”He hesitated.“The human part, the conscious part, is like a skin over what aPriest is.You have to be aware that most of an Initiate’s training is learning to let go to what is underneath that skin without having it kill them.To be a Priest is to just ‘be’ all of what they are.All of what their people are.But most are limited in what they can access directly: a single world-pattern, or at most, a few related ones.They hear a single note clearly and the remainder of the Unity as a kind of an echo, when all around them is a chorus they don’t hear at all.”“And the Empress hears all of them? Not just the Unity?”“Just? It’s a very large ‘just’.” He laughed.“The noise.That’s what she said.An awful racket.” And more serious again, “There wasn’t very much in-between forher.When she went into deep pattern, she often did so suddenly.or she drifted, barely skimming the surface of her potential.Just enough to increase herawareness of what ‘fit’ and to snag bits of things, most of them unconnected toanything else that I could see, not those leaps into the weave of life that a Priest makes and which are different than the kind of pattern access a Salin has.Andwhen she was deeply into overpattern, there was very little of her remaining atall.Barely enough that her body remembered how to breath.Touching her thenwas like touching.” His voice died with the memory unvoiced.He took a deepbreath and let it out slowly.“Come sit here, with me.Eat your soup.I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up at you.”The reeds were gone; apparently it was just a rug now.She sat and picked upthe spoon just not to have him prompt her again like she was a child.Do this, do that.Irritation bubbled, prickling her skin.Then anger followed, burning along the same nerves.Taking the spoon from her hand, he kissed her palm.“I meant for you to eat,not play with the soup.”“Don’t.,” she began on an intake of breath, the word rising like steam fromthe heat of her anger.Irrational, stupid anger, but her head swum with it.Since yesterday, since.The rattle of a cart started abruptly as it appeared as through an open door,except there wasn’t a door.Bolda was pushing it.“We’re under attack,” Bolda said, frowning as he looked behind him.“You’vegot ten seconds to shut this thing down.The outer warding just went.”Dropping her hand, Garm was on his feet faster than Ulanda would havethought he could move and stepped to where they had marked the portal withtowels, one at either end of where they had come through.Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: RiTen seconds.Temple.She got to her feet just as a fragment of Net passed through the portal.“Temple Net,” she said, the words coming out louder than she meant them to.Her heart was pounding.Temple Net with the shreds of another hanging on it,slowing it, she could feel the resonance.There were shouts from the other side, then a sizzling sound.Seven seconds.Garm’s hand was tracing something in the air.Another piece of the Netswarmed in, an intact thread, questing as it stretched, looking for a node, then it suddenly snapped and faded.She was at the portal; she felt it against her, more in her mind than what herbody could feel.And before her fingers, air like reaching into water.Five seconds.An eternity in which to take a step.She expected Garm to try tostop her, or Bolda, wondered that they didn’t.And fractions of moments more inwhich to wonder what she would step into.And then the wings swept in from the walls, veins of light coalescing into asilver stroke of wings that blasted water thick air at her, pushing her onto her back.She rolled onto her side, fetal position.The sounds were gone, and anytrace of Net.When she opened her eyes, Garm was waving both hands in the air, bothstaying visible.Then he stepped back, a look of relief fighting with one ofconfusion.“What?” he queried softly, apparently to no one.Picking up the nearest towel, he started to fold it as he walked from side to side.“Where’s the portal?” Bolda asked.Garm shrugged.Confusion had apparently won the battle.“I don’t know,” hesaid.And picked up the other towel.Then another shrug and he threw the towelsto Bolda.Bolda tossed the towels onto the cart.“You didn’t say anything about thisbeing one-way.”“I didn’t know.It never was before.”“Why aren’t I surprised.” Bolda looked around, the ends of his long pendulousears darkened to a brick-red.Ulanda tried to stand, but fell to her knees.“There is a way out, isn’t there?”And asked it again when no one paid any attention to the first question.The face Garm turned to her was that of the Empress’s San.“The way herewas formed of pattern energies [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]