The Shadow Matrix (69 page)

been altered.

She tried to remember the moment of contact between her hand and the ring. Margaret

had no clear impression of it, but her muscles quivered with memory. She had been

flooded with impressions for only an instant. No, not impressions. Information! How

had that transformed her matrix?

Deep within her, Margaret sensed a stirring of knowledge. It was very faint, vague and

elusive. It had something to do with her hands and her voice. There was another piece

—Dio! Her heart thumped. Could she actually heal her stepmother? Did she dare to

hope? And, if she could do that, could she help Mikhail now?

A hot tear rolled down her cold face. No, she couldn't. Not now, not yet. She had to

learn what she already knew. The information was clear, crystalline, perfect. And

utterly frustrating! There was no way to get to it. She felt as if she had a vast treasure

in a chest, and no key. If only she were not so damn cold!

Margaret grabbed that thought firmly. She had a flint in

her belt pouch, and her small knife. Theoretically, she could start a fire. She had done it

a few times on the trail with Rafaella. But there was nothing to burn! The timbers

scattered around her were drenched. The tree sheltering her was no good either—green

wood was hard to burn, even if she had dry tinder. Besides, she did not have a hatchet,

and there was no other way she could think of to get the branches off. As weary as she

was, Margaret doubted she could pull off more than a twig.

There must be another way to get warm. Margaret knew there were disciplines in every

human world for generating heat. Yogis on Terra had been using them for millennia,

and from some of the stories she had heard about the
cristoforos
up at Nevarsin, they

had developed them as well. Unfortunately, she had never studied any of them.

Heat was just energy, wasn't it? And
laran
was energy as well. So, if she was so clever,

why couldn't she think of some way to generate heat with her matrix?

Margaret glared at her hand, wishing that she had paid more attention in her physical

science classes. The mathematics of physics had not been difficult for her, for she had

always thought that equations were rather musical, and had even wondered if one

could not find a way to turn these elegant facts into song. But the practical side of the

subject, the nature of gravity, nuclear fusion, and even electricity, had eluded her. She

did not have the mind of an engineer, and she knew it.

At the same time, she realized, monitoring was merely the observance of the energy of

a body. That was what Liriel had told her, and Istvana as well. But where did the

energy to monitor come from? Was it in the starstones themselves, or did the monitor

draw them from within? Because a good circle monitor, she knew, could regulate the

energies of the others, keep them from injuring or totally exhausting themselves. It

seemed a shame she had only learned the rudiments, and that she had not asked the

right questions when she had the opportunity. If only Istvana were here—only she

hadn't been born yet, and two time travelers were more than enough!

Where did heat come from? The sun, obviously, but that was ho help. Darkover's

bloody sun was hidden behind thick clouds now. How long had they been in that round

house? It had not felt like a long while, but for all she knew, several days or even

several weeks had passed without her being aware of it.

What else? Food. That was the main source of energy for humans. It was not perhaps

the best thing to think about, because she was very hungry, and the gobbled stew she

had eaten—if it had really existed—seemed to be long gone. Had there been clouds

when they rode toward the place? She couldn't remember, even by flogging her tired

brain. Well, it was almost always snowing or raining on Darkover, so likely there had

been.

Briefly, she entertained the wonderful notion of somehow conjuring up a good meal

out of thin air, and discarded it with regret. If she had been telekinetic, perhaps, but she

was not, as far as she knew. Istvana said that occasionally
laran
produced people who

could move small objects, and that in the Ages of Chaos, it had been possible to use

the enormous relay screens to actually transport people from place to place. Now,
there

was a bit of technology the Terranan would love to get their grubby hands on, wasn't

it? It was fortunate that this was a lost art, she decided. Else there would have been

Federation Marines on Regis Hastur's stoop, demanding he surrender it.

If she had no food, and the sun was out of reach, what else was there? She might as

well try to reach the molten core of the planet.

This flippant idea flitted across her mind, then demanded her attention. Notions of heat

and dryness flitted around in her skull like lightning bugs, promising something she

could not quite grasp. Frustrated and angry again, Margaret made a fist and pounded

the mud and rotting pine needles.

Margaret was too weary and too cold to continue her unproductive behavior for very

long, and she gave it up reluctantly, wiping her hand across her soaked trousers. She

made herself breathe slowly and calmly, checked Mikhail once more, and returned to

the problem.

The blood of earth.
The words drifted though her mind, and she remembered that

Varzil had used that phrase to describe the copper
catenas
bracelets. And copper, she

remember from her physics classes, was an excellent conductor! Unfortunately, most

of what she knew about

conductors was musical. Really, for an educated woman, she was very ignorant!

Margaret gazed at the thick object encircling her right wrist, where her arm curved

over Mikhail's shoulder. She smiled a little in spite of everything, seeing this

irrevocable evidence of a real event, one that she had secretly yearned for, without ever

admitting it to herself completely. They were married, one person not two, and if she

regretted the absence of all the delightful parts of the celebration—the food—

especially the food!—the music, the wedding gown she was sure that Aaron would

have made for her—at least she had done the deed.

"Hell of a way to spend what should be the happiest day of my life," she growled.

Mikhail stirred a little at the sound of her voice, mumbled something unintelligible,

then fell silent. "Wake up! Come on, Mik! You are going to miss the wedding night if

you don't wake up!"

The wedding night. Margaret found herself shuddering. The years of Ashara's

overshadowing rushed through her mind. She had never even kissed anyone until

Mikhail had embraced her the previous summer, so powerful was the admonition to

keep herself apart. She was almost glad for a moment that Mikhail was in no condition

to consummate the marriage, then, suddenly, unreasonably, furious at him. "Wake up,

damn you!" She jiggled his shoulder with her hand, trying to shake him enough to

rouse him out of his stupor. Why couldn't she make up her mind one way or the other?

There was no response, and she sighed a little. Then she lifted her arm off his shoulder

and stared at the bracelet. It was ornate, even more complicated in design than that

which encircled the wrist of Lady Linnea. It appeared to be an elongated beast of some

sort, biting its own hindparts. She held it closer to her face, trying to see what it was.

Not a snake, she decided, though she knew that this animal was often depicted with its

tail in its mouth. More like a panther or some other catlike creature.

The eyes of the beast glittered, and she now saw there were small starstones set into

the metal, not only in the orbs, but miniscule ones spread along the curving tail, like

fine, shining dust. It was a very beautiful thing, the verdigrised sheen gleaming with

rain.

Margaret reached out with the fingers of her left hand and turned the bracelet slowly,

looking at all the details for the first time. When she placed her thumb and forefinger

around one side of it, she had the sensation of movement, as if it were alive at her

touch. She snatched her fingers away, alarmed for a second. No, not that. The bracelet

was reacting to the energy of her shadow matrix.

For a moment she was lost in the wonder of the thing, that an inert bit of metal and

gem should respond to her touch. There was something very important in this, if she

could only grasp it.
Copper is an excellent conductor
her weary mind reiterated. I

know that,
she mentally shouted at herself,
but what does it mean?

Before she quite knew what she was doing, Margaret set her right hand down flat

against the mud, and clasped her left around the bracelet so hard it made small

indentations in her icy fingers. Nothing happened. Well, why should it? She cursed, but

she did not draw her hand back. Margaret could sense that in the back of her mind

there was something she was overlooking. What was it? A piece of music— hardly

likely. Why was she thinking of music when what she wanted was warmth! It was not

music.; but something like that—an equation?

Rain runneled over her face, making her blink, then shake her head vigorously,

spattering drops from her tangled hair all around her. It was right on the tip of her

tongue, on the edge of her mind. Something. What was an equation? A symbolic

representation of ... of an idea, a mathematical concept of how the universe worked. A

= b, and e = me squared, and all the rest of those economical statements of reality. And

musical notation was equationlike, expressing the concept of melody.

For as long as she was taking the required physical science classes, she had kept a

great many equations in her mind, until she passed the tests. There was one for fusion,

she remembered, and another for fission, and even a rather complex one which

described electricity. Margaret wondered what would happen if she could just

remember that last one right this second. It did not seem like a very good idea to try

while sitting in the middle of a puddle. If it

worked at all, she would probably electrocute herself and Mikhail at the same time.

And she wanted heat, not electricity. Surely she could remember that one, if she tried

hard enough. Unfortunately, she seemed unable to find the formula for heat in her

disordered mind.

I
am being too literal,
she decided. I
am forgetting that all of this stuff is symbolic
—
it

is not the equation that matters, but the concept! The equation is not the thing, but the

idea of the thing. This stuff gave me a headache ten years ago, and it still does!

Margaret twisted her head from side to side to release the tension in her neck, and

flexed her shoulders. She returned to her deep breathing, focused her mind on the

notion of warmth, and squeezed her matrixed hand around the bracelet. The critical

portion of her mind informed her that she was a fool, that there was nothing she could

do, . that she was incompetent and was going to die of cold or hunger, and she

struggled to silence that voice.

Time seemed to stand still, as if she were hovering on the edge of some precipice,

unable to make the leap across the abyss. She felt as if there were glue around her,

muffling her energy, her breath, everything. And then, without any perceptible

alteration, Margaret felt herself move in that timeless space in her mind, slip between

places which she would never be able to describe, and blunder into a sense of heat that

was incredible.

Her body shuddered a little, flinched at the sudden feeling of warmth that raced along

her flesh, and seemed to sear her to the bone. It only lasted a moment, but that was

long enough! Then she snatched her matrixed hand away from the bracelet and let

herself scream. The sound was startling, a shrill call that rang through the pouring rain,

across the stony ground, charging into the air like brightness before it faded into

silence. Both horses jerked their heads up, and regarded her nervously.

She looked at her hands, expecting to find them burned, but they seemed normal

enough. Then she noticed that the bracelet on her arm was no longer green, but was its

natural, shining copper color, as if her recent experiment had burned away the

verdigris, and restored it to its original condition.

Margaret leaned back against the trunk of the tree, too tired for a moment to do

anything except rest. Then she realized that her body was not only warm, but heated,

as if she had a slight temperature, and that her clothes were almost dry. It was a very

peculiar sensation, and she decided that she had been very lucky not to have torched

herself, and Mik as well.

He was still resting on her lap, but his curls were dry, and his face seemed to have

more color than a few minutes before. She stroked his hair gently, patted his cheek,

and just gazed at him, her heart swelling with emotion. Her feelings had been confined