When he called her forth, she made the ritual responses. Obeying his order, she stood and crossed from the larger to the smaller outline, skirting the central area as she went, then lay down again. Sam felt the surging power and struggled to guide it, trying with all his might to mold it to his desire. For all his attempts to control it, the power remained unfocused as they reached the crucial point of the song. Then the threshold had been crossed, the passage made, and there was nothing to do but sing the conclusion of the ritual. The voice of the flute softened to silence, while the drum, steady and insistent, shifted to a new rhythm that called Sam back from the realms of power.