Marley wove and built, with his will and with the thread given to him by Celia, as he had never done before, hurriedly yet deftly; it was like the constructiion grid of a sundial. Not just the mundane grid that showed the diallist where to place the gnomon and the hour lines, but also the grid of a Temporal mechanic, that captured the magic inherent in the site of the dial, and embodied the control, and containment, and strengthening of the bonds that held the will and rage of nature to the stricture of measured time's causality. Within the construct, both Reid's and Celia's flows were constrained and channelled; at the still-weaving and -knitting end of it, as if it were the end of a hose-pipe that was forming itself around a torrent, the flows raged forth, but become more and more controlled as the grid-construct took shape and gained the upper hand. The sweat of effort and concentration formed on Marley's brow and coursed down his limbs and body under his clothes, as the grid neared completion.
"Fear th' Morrigan, Lad," Bill said to Reid, his voice sounding as if it were spoken through clenched teeth instead of the beak of a young raven, one eye shut tight in... concentration, perhaps? "But accept 'er pow'r. Be glad offit, not every man serves 's 'er tool an' lives ter tell uvvit 's you 'ave. Be glad you're not a bird b'cause ovvit." The bird, or rather the being within the bird's body, gave energy to the Ranger and to Celia, to bolster their strength against the flow of power.
