They flowed around Peter in a circling dance, making him the center of a whirlpool of light and movement. He heard their music as they danced, a music in which the sound of the sea in all its moods, the wash of wave on shore, the singing of the sands as the tide ebbed and flowed above them, and the slow, cold booming of the deeps was mingled with harp and flute and instruments for which he had no name. There was something in it of the familiar, but only enough to make it seem utterly alien and inhuman.
It called to him in a way that no land music ever had or ever could, and he gave himself up to it, allowing the dancers to spin him. And as they twisted him in their midst, he became the spindle upon which they spun the thread of their power.
Around and around he spun, faster and faster, as the dancing grew wilder and wilder and the music followed the dancers to some climax only they could foresee. It all became a blur, of light and sound and power, power, power that no one who was not a Master could ever conceive of, much less hold. Like a spring wound tighter and tighter, this could not continue, something was going to break, and yet he didn’t want it to break, he wanted it to go on forever, this intoxication, this exhilaration like nothing on earth because it was not of this earth—
Crack!
Lightning struck in reverse! He flew up, catapulted out of Sul Skerry, out of the Water, into the world again, and into the sky and into his body, flung there with such force that he was flung back against the wall, arms spread to catch his fall.
His eyes flew open. He had not moved, nor had anyone else in the room. But in the center of the circle was the Cone of Power, a glowing smooth-sided construct that pulsed with the collective heartbeat of its creators that called, demanded that he pour into it that which he now held. As the others, each in his own measure and to his own ability, were doing now.
Obedient to its demand, he opened the vessel of his soul and let the Power of Water, green and fluorescing, join the electric blue of Air and the blazing scarlet of Fire in the dance of the Elements. Only the gold-brown of Earth was missing, and he felt that lack as an obscure ache in his soul.
The Power flowed from him, pouring in a stream that seemed endless, swirling into the Cone and building it, strengthening it, giving it a depth it had not possessed before. Alderscroft stood in the middle of the circle now, in the center of the Cone; Peter did not envy him his perilous place. If the Power got out of his control, it would destroy him with no warning whatsoever, as indifferently as a man would step on a microbe and destroy it.
Then, suddenly, Peter was empty.
Now he moved, sagging back against the wall, as no few of the others were doing. The White Lodge Circle was broken, but it didn’t matter; the magic Circle, the shield that contained it held, Alderscroft had the reins of the Power in both hands, and it was all his show now.
The last trickle of Power flowed from the last member left standing. It was only Alderscroft and the Cone—
“Fiat!” the old man shouted, and flung up his arms.
The Cone expanded—so suddenly, and so swiftly, it felt like an explosion. The wall of Power rammed through Peter, taking his breath and thought with it for a moment. It felt very like being slammed into the rail by a Force Five gale-wind.
Damn!
Silence. A silence profound enough to be a thing, a presence in itself.
The room was empty again. The Old Man sagged against his staff. When did he pick that up? I didn’t see him get it—
“Well,” Alderscroft said, his voice hoarse with effort. “That’s done it for now.” He straightened with an effort, and looked around at the rest of the members of the Circle, who were, one by one, getting back to their feet and putting themselves to rights. He smiled, and Peter felt as if the Old Man had smiled at him, alone, although he knew very well that every other member of the White Lodge felt the same at that moment. It was part of Alderscroft’s personal magic, his charisma, that had made him the Head of the Council for so very long and kept him there.
“Well done, old chaps,” the Old Man said, in tones that made Peter glow and forget every grievance he had ever had for that moment. “Well done. Now, who’s for a drink? I damned well think we’ve earned it.”
Peter sighed, and followed the others out into the War Room, certain he had earned his drink, but equally certain that there was nothing to celebrate.
Chapter Fifteen
MAYA was hiding in the hospital linen closet, wishing that the day was over and she could go home to a cold supper and a colder bath.
It had been a long, exhausting day—first at the clinic, then here at the hospital. To begin with, London had been suffering from a heat wave for a week, and today had begun not just warm, but hot, even by her standards. After spending the morning sweating and panting in her black linen suit through one emergency after another, she came home drenched and ready to drop. She hadn’t been able to face food, or even the thought of food, only glass after glass of tepid sweet tea. There was no ice; the ice man hadn’t yet made his delivery. There was no breeze, and she had ordered Gupta to send a boy to the baker for precooked pies they could eat cold so that he could put out the fire in the kitchen stove.
The suit she had worn all morning was ready to stand by itself; she took it off, took everything off, and couldn’t face putting all that hot black linen on again, nor the corsets, nor the layers of petticoats and camisoles. Retiring to the bathroom, she took a full cold bath, which finally made her feel less like a doll of melting wax, and wished that she could just stay there for the rest of the day.
But she had duty this afternoon at the hospital.
Finally, at the last possible moment, she pulled herself out of the bath and rummaged in the back of her closet for the garments she had brought from India, the clothing of coolest cotton gauze that she had worn when helping her father at the height of summer before the monsoons came. No corset, only a modesty vest and a lacy camisole to disguise the fact that she wasn’t wearing a corset. One petticoat, and short drawers, with the lightest of silk stockings. Then a girlish, cotton “lingerie dress” of the kind worn to garden parties in the stifling heat—loosely woven, reflective white, embellished with a froth of cotton lace, airy enough to be bearable. With this dress, she broke strict mourning. At the moment, it was either that, or die of heat stroke. If she looked more like a debutante at a garden party than a doctor, right now everyone else was so hot that no one seemed to have noticed what she was wearing. This dress was almost as comfortable and practical as her saris.
Almost as comfortable as a sari is not enough, not today. And she couldn’t wait to get back home and put one of her saris on, for even the white dress seemed an unbearable burden.
The wards were full of cholera and typhoid patients; weather like this, with no rain for a week and none in sight, was ripe for an outbreak as water supplies grew stagnant and tainted. She made Gupta boil every drop of water they used, and tried to convince her patients to do the same, but it was a fruitless battle. Her people couldn’t afford the fuel it took to boil water, even when it came from a pump that put out murky liquid that smelled like a cistern. That assumed they had something to boil it on; the poor often didn’t even have much of a fireplace in their little rooms, just a tiny grate barely big enough for a single pot or kettle. When they cooked for themselves, they often made up a dish and left it at the baker’s, to be put in the oven for a fee. Mostly, they ate cheap fare from street vendors—who also weren’t washing their hands or boiling their water.