The Ariadne Connection

WHITE LIGHT SHIMMERS IN Ariadne’s hands, flowing from the stones of the earth, all colors blended to one smooth wave, ringing that pure ethereal tone. The world rings like a tapped crystal.

She cups the glowing white light in her hands. But the saints are frowning on the cracked ceiling of the chapel, climbing down to surround her, their dark stares stabbing, accusing—

Her eyes snapped open. She stared, disoriented, at the metal cubicle enclosing her. A coffin?

She bolted upright in the bunk and saw the bow wake slapping gently past the porthole. Letting out a shaky breath, she lay back again and closed her eyes.

Maze lines—electrical schematics, crystalline lattice matrix—glimmered afterimages behind her eyelids. She could still feel the forces pulsing through her, feel her hands funneling a laserlike light to guide Yanni back to life.

Had she gone too far? She’d finally had to accept what Dr. Singh had pointed out—she held some unexplained ability to affect the bioelectric fields of those wounded or ill, to help them heal. She respected the scientific method, and if she was indeed “the variable,” there had to be an explanation. But she was treading perilously close to some undefined boundary, losing grasp of the delineations of reality. What was happening to her? Was she becoming a divining-rod to minute electromagnetic, bioelectric field variations? She could feel them in her bones.

She raised her hands and pressed trembling fingertips against her aching skull. All she knew was the great need. She could feel the imbalance in the earth itself, in the sky. If she was mad, so be it. The old realities were obsolete.