Elementals.

The Crystal Palace.

Phyllis Eisenstein.

For Martha and Hank Beck

Chapter 1.

Time had been kind to Castle Spinweb. A dense coat of ivy had covered the cracks in its pale stone walls, and all around it the forest had regrown, thick and tall. Only a scattering of charred stumps, half hidden by mossy undergrowth, hinted that a wild sorcerous battle had once raged here. Now, morning glories bloomed again along the parapets, birds nested among their twining stems, and insects of all kinds sheltered beneath their leaves.

Beneath one particular leaf, on this bright summer day, a large yellow caterpillar was spinning itself a cocoon. It worked quickly, steadily, back and forth, circling its plump body with thread after thread until only its blunt head was exposed, then only its mouth. Then, with a final convulsive effort, it pursed that last opening shut, and the cocoon lay still, glistening whitely in the morning sunlight.

A few moments passed, the space of three or four human heartbeats, no more, and then the silken enve-lope began to writhe. As if the seasons had run their course and come to summer once more, the cocoon split apart and its occupant emerged, transformed. The head was small now, with tapering antennae, the body was sleek, and the many stubby caterpillar legs had been replaced by six long, delicate ones. With these new legs, the creature took a few wobbly steps and clung, upside down, to a morning glory stem. Then it unfurled its yellow wings, each as large as a man's hand, and flexed them slowly.

There were nectar-bearing flowers all around, on the walls and in the garden enclosed by those walls, but the butterfly ignored them. Instead, it launched itself upward, broad wings flapping more like a bird's than an insect's. High above the treetops it flew, swiftly, purposefully, over rivers and lakes and rolling mead-ows, over grain fields and villages, walled towns and mighty castles, and at none of these did it stop, at none did it even dip downward. Only when it reached a line of mountains far beyond Spinweb's horizon did it slow its flight.

Among these peaks, the butterfly swooped and cir-cled, skimming over streams and water-worn gullies, sweeping past overhangs where landslides had recently exposed the soil, venturing into the dark mouths of caves. At last its preternatural senses detected the telltale signs of gold, and it lighted in a crabapple tree whose roots seemed to penetrate the deposit.

The tree was in full bloom. The butterfly selected a flower and sampled its nectar, seeking some trace of the special flavor of gold. Finding none, it examined the petals, the calyx, the stem. Delicately, it walked the branch that bore the flower, peering into other blossoms, tasting, smelling. It evenscraped at the bark with the tip of one slender leg. Nothing. It flitted to the ground then, to inspect the herbs and mosses that grew at the base of the tree, even the mushrooms that clung to the partially exposed roots, but there was not the faintest hint of gold in any of them. The nearby undergrowth was equally barren, and finally the but-terfly soared skyward to search elsewhere.

Three days it stayed in the mountains, questing in the sunlit hours, sleeping amid leafy branches at night.

It found more gold, but none in any plant. On the morning of the fourth day, it gave over its search and flew back to its birthplace.

The garden at the heart of Spinweb was home to many a butterfly. Open to the sky, it was filled with flowers, especially with sweet-scented roses. On this day, as on thousands of others, the mistress of the place sat upon a sun-warmed bench in the midst of her roses. Dressed all in blue feathers, she hummed asoft tune as she embroidered on a piece of bleached linen.

The yellow butterfly alighted on the bench beside her.

"Ah,"she said, smiling at the bright insect, "I was beginning to wonder when you'd be coming back."

The butterfly flexed its wings once, twice, and then they began to shrivel as if they had been made of wax and held too near a flame. The contours of the sleek body changed, four of the legs became stubbier, and the other two shrank into the torso even as the anten-nae shrank into the head. Abruptly, instead of a but-terfly, a naked manikin sat on the stone bench. A few heartbeats later, Cray Ormoru had grown back to his normal size.

For a moment, he stretched his arms up to the sky, letting the heat of the summer sun wash through him and ease the stiffness that the insect form had left in his muscles. Then he made a small gesture with one hand, and his clothes fluttered down from the high window of his bedchamber and scurried across the garden to him like so many puppies eager to greet their master. The woman helped him dress, and as she laced up his shirt, he kissed her forehead and grinned, saying, "You were right about my being hungry, Mother. I'm ravenous."

Delivev Ormoru laughed softly, "Yes, I've never found nectar very filling, myself. But there's a cold roast fowl and fresh bread waiting for you in the kitchen."

Linking arms, they strolled into the shaded coolness of Spinweb's corridors. They looked much alike, mother and son-both tall and fair, both young and vigorous. Only her eyes betrayed the extra centuries Delivev had seen.

In the kitchen, a creature made of cloth, with trews for legs and gloves for hands, served Cray his meal.

As he tore into the fowl, Delivev seated herself on the edge of the table. She said, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

He shook his head. "Just ordinary greenery. Not a single plant with gold in its structure."

She pursed her lips a moment. "Perhaps ... the deposits you located were too small? Or not close enough to the surface?"

"I wish that were true."

"Well ... " She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. "Then you've created something new in the world."

He sighed. "I would rather have found a natural model to give me some guidance. Still, I think I understand what's wrong now. I always assumed that at worst gold would be an innocuous addition.

Now I think that the gold itself is stunting my poor tree's growth."

Delivev stroked a stray lock back from his forehead. "It isn't so very stunted."

"I wanted it to be taller."

"It's tall enough. I wouldn't care for it to shade too much of the garden."

He smiled up at her, a wry smile. "Mother, you are too satisfied with things as they are. You have no ambition." She laughed. "My ambitions have all been fulfilled." Playfully, she tweaked a tuft of his close-cropped beard. "As you well know."

Cray finished the last of the fowl, then wiped his hands on the cloth servant's empty sleeve. "Come," he said, pushing away from the table, "now that I've a full belly and can think clearly again, let's see how my little beauty is doing today."

The tree grew in a corner of the garden. It was not a tree whose identity was easy to discern; rather, it was a composite of many different kinds of trees, fused together while still in seed by the power of Cray's sorcery. It was not tall or many-boughed or densely leafed, yet it would have stood out in any forest. It fed, as all trees did, on the nourishment of the soil, but to that soil Cray had added ensorcelled gold, which the tree had taken into itself. And so its bark was shot with flecks that sparkled in the sunshine; its leaves, whose upper surfaces were glossy green and broad as a sycamore's, shone a rich, translucent red when held up to light, with veins like golden wire; and its flowers resembled daffodils, but grown huge, the petals deli-cately edged with gilt.

The leaves rustled softly as Cray pulled one trumpet-shaped blossom close to his face and breathed of its perfume. Compared to the other flowers of the garden, the scent was faint, but he found it sweet. For him, it was the best part of the tree.

He had learned the sorcery of woven things from his mother, learned of spiders and caterpillars, of nesting birds, of twining snakes, of thread and cloth. And then he had moved beyond that knowledge, to per-ceive the structure of living things, to recognize that they, too, were patterned, but on some level deeper than the surface, deeper than the human eye could see. Life itself was woven of a multitude of twisting strands, of interlocking pieces, as surely as a tapestry, as surely as a suit of chain mail. Feeling this principle in his very being, Cray was able to use it to make living things grow and change, to make a thick forest out of ashes, to make a new kind of tree blossom in Delivev's garden.

Glancing sidelong at his mother, Cray smiled. The sorcerer to whom he had once apprenticed, Rezhyk the demon master, had scorned Delivev's powers. He had thought his own metallurgical skills superior to anything governing mere cloth and spiders. But if he had known where weaving could lead, he would never have been so arrogant.

Yet metallurgical sorcery had its strengths, not the least of them demon mastery. The smelting of power into a handful of rings could give a sorcerer absolute control over as many demon slaves. He could com-mand them to fetch whatever he desired, to build any edifice, to destroy any person or thing, and through them he had access to the vast knowledge that lay in the demon worlds of Fire, Ice, Air, and Water. Cray knew that sort of magic, but though he had cast hun-dreds of rings in his years of sorcery, he had done so only to give eternal freedom to their demons. He wanted no demon slaves. The raw metal itself was what he wished to command.

As in the tree which, just now, was the center of his life.

He sighed as he looked at it. It seemed such a poor, feeble thing, with its spindly boughs and sparse fo-liage. Yet, Cray thought, if sparkle pleased the eye, if an individual leaf or blossom could compensate in some part for the flaws of the whole, then the tree was not a complete failure. Gently, as if it were a small animal that could respond to his affection, he caressed the flower that he held, and the branch that bore it. Then he let them bob away, and he sighed again.

"It's so lovely," said his mother. He shrugged. "I'm glad it pleases you. I wish it pleased me more."

She slipped an arm about his shoulders. "Have pa-tience, my son. This is a new kind of magic for you, and you can't expect perfection all at once. I'd hate to tell you what my first tapestries looked like. There can be other trees, as many trees as you wish, as much practice as you need."

He shook his head. "I'm not finished with this one, yet."

She looked up at the tree, its top scarcely half again as high as her own head. "What more is there to do? It won't grow any larger."

"No. But it can bloom."

Delivev looked at him quizzically, then waved a hand at the tree, as if to say that it had bloomed already.

"You'll see," he told her. And he would speak of the matter no further.

They were dining in the garden at sunset, two beeswax candles lighting the meal, when a flame appeared in the sky above them. A ball of yellow fire the size of a horse, it swooped down to settle beside their table, banishing dusk from the garden but shedding no heat. In a moment, it had begun to elongate and to pinch in at the middle, and then its glow faded as it transformed into a tall young man with dark hair and ruddy cheeks. He was Gildrum, a Fire demon set eternally free by Cray Ormoru. Over one shoulder he carried a sack almost as large as himself.

Gildrum threw his burden down and, smiling, opened his arms to Delivev. They embraced, two ageless peo-ple who had lived together ten years already and could look forward to centuries yet; they embraced like young lovers in the first flush of devotion. Cray smiled to see it, for he loved them both.

When he loosed Delivev at last, the demon gave Cray a hug, and then he opened the mouth of the sack.

For all its bulk, it had not been a heavy load-it was sheep's wool, cleaned and carded, ready for spinning.

"She struck a hard bargain, your shepherdess," Gildrum said to Delivev. "I had to promise that the coverlet for her bed would be worked with silk embroidery."

"No matter. I have plenty of silk." Stooping, she picked at the surface of the fluffy, cream-colored mass, testing the fibers between her fingers. "She knows the value of her harvest."

Gildrum laid a hand on her head and stroked the brown hair that was as soft as the downy feathers of her dress. "My dear, she knows you must have it, and she dares to set the price accordingly. She's com-pletely lost her fear of you."

She looked up at him. "And of you?"

"Oh, yes. She was as friendly as if I'd been her lord's tax gatherer come to give her payments back. It seems you've made her rich; since last year, her two-room hut has become a mere annex to a much grander house, and she has acquired two servants as well. She doesn't even shear her own sheep any more."

Delivev stood up slowly. "All that from a few em-broidered hangings? I'm flattered that my work shouldbe worth so much at market!"

Gildrum laughed. "The hangings decorate her new home. It's the wool that brings her wealth-her won-derful wool that's fine enough for sorcerers. It's in demand and therefore carries a high price even for ordinary mortals. And plenty of herdsmen have paid even better for the use of her rams as breeding stock." He circled her waist with one arm. "She made a good bargain with you."

She leaned against him, her head tilted to his shoul-der. "Let her be rich. As long as she sells me wool."

He kissed her forehead. "My dearest Delivev, how many other sorcerers would say something like that?

Most of them would just take all her wool and leave her poverty." He kissed her nose. "But then, you are a most unusual sorcerer, in every way."

Cray picked up the load of wool, slung it over his shoulder. "I'll put this away for you, Mother."

"If you like," she replied, but her eyes were all for Gildrum.

Her workroom was a tower chamber. There, her spinning wheel and looms stood, and a multitude of half-completed projects awaited her pleasure-tapes-tries, fabrics, hoop after hoop of embroidery, crewel, needlepoint. And everywhere were skeins and spools of every sort of fiber, coarse and fine, dull and shiny, and every color of the rainbow. Cray dropped his bundle beside the loom that held a silk brocade, a rich maroon and black fabric worked with golden threads. It was for a dressing gown, he knew, a gift for Gildrum. The demon needed no clothing, of course; it could manufacture garments from its own substance. But Delivev took pleasure in creating such things, and in seeing them used. She had already made Cray a sim-ilar gown, and he wore it sometimes to please her, though it was really too magnificent for his own taste. She had made him many gifts over the years. And though he had given in return gold and wood given form by his own hands, still he felt it had never been enough.

He had meant the tree as another gift. From a window of the tower chamber, he could see it, candlelight glimmering faintly on its gold-flecked trunk. He leaned in the window for a time, looking down, frown-ing. At last, the candles guttered.

Patience,he told himself.Patience.

When he returned to the garden, it was empty and silent; Delivev and Gildrum had retired for the night.

By starlight alone, Cray made his way to the tree. He could barely see it, but that did not matter. He knew every twig, every leaf; he had touched it a thousand times, guiding its growth with the warmth of his flesh and the words of his spells. He reached out for the branch he had chosen, the flower he had caressed. The blossom was gone; he knew it must lie shriveled somewhere near his feet. In its place was a new bud, as small and hard as a pearl. He whispered to it. "My beauty," he called it, and it warmed beneath his touch. He could feel the force of life within it, stronger than in any other flower of the garden.

He smiled in the darkness.

Patience,he thought.

Some days later, he was in his workshop weighing odds and ends of gold when a small spider scuttled across the windowsill and leaped to his arm. It was a brown mite speckled with white, one of the web cham-ber spiders, and it never came to Cray unless some communication was waiting for him there. With all of his family at home, that communication could only be from one person. Leaving the gold on thescales, Cray hurried off to receive it.

The web chamber was bright with morning sunshine, the thick spiderweb draperies that festooned its walls shining translucently like the finest human-woven silk. Cray seated himself on the velvet-covered bed at the center of the room, then waved one hand toward the nearest web. It began to turn opaque, a soft gray sheen spreading over its surface, and upon that sheen a human face took shape: a man's face, as young and unlined as Cray's own and, because of their friendship, as certain to stay so for many ordinary lifetimes.

Smiling, Feldar Sepwin said, "Good morrow. I hope the day is as bright and beautiful at Spinweb as it is here." Behind him, as if to belie his words, there was no day at all, just the torchlit limestone interior of the cave he shared with the Seer Helaine.

Cray studied his friend's smile a moment. There was some news behind it-he knew that by the dimples in those beardless cheeks and by the animation in those eyes of two different colors. With a smile of his own, he said, "How are you, Feldar?"

"Excellent. Never better. But I need some spiders."

Cray leaned back on his elbows. "I thought I left you a dozen the last time I was there. Did you forget to feed them?"

Sepwin shook his head. "I don't mean the kind that spin these webs. Special ones, to spin a special web of my design."

"Yourdesign?" Cray chuckled softly. "Feldar, what do you know of spider magic?"

"More today than a week ago, I think." His expres-sion became more serious. "Three days ago I was walking in the forest not far from here. And upon this one tree, spun among its branches, there was a spi-der's web, just an ordinary one, but quite large. It was early morning, with dew everywhere, on every leaf, every flower, and droplets of dew outlined the web. And even though it was so early, the sky was clear and the sun was bright already, and the light made those dewdrops glitter like faceted diamonds.

And as I stood there, admiring the beauty of the web, the notion came to me that there was something special here. Something very special." An unfocused look had come into his eyes, as if instead of seeing Cray within the magical web in his cave, he was seeing that other web in the forest again. "I stood there ... quite a long while. Directing my skills toward it. I knew it would answer them somehow. All it needed was ... myself, standing just so, thinking just so ... " He blinked and shook his head, and he was looking at Cray once more. "It was a mirror, Cray, and it showed me myself."

"A mirror?"

"Yes. The angle of the light, the shape of the web, and myself standing in just the proper position made it a mirror. But not like a mirror of polished metal. No. By the chance configuration of branches, by the chance selection of anchor points by that spider, the web had the shape of a shallow cup with its mouth toward me. The image of myself hung in the empty air within it, and vanished if I took one step to left or right. And that image was not of Feldar Sepwin standing in the forest and gawking but of Feldar the Seer sitting by the pool in this cave, his hand trailing in the water. I saw ... what can I call it? My essence. No, more than that. My heart's desire."

Cray said, "Yourself at home, doing what you usu-ally do, is your heart's desire?" "Yes, exactly."

"And ... what do you want these special spiders to do for you?"

"To spin another such web in my cave."

Cray frowned, puzzled. "But since you know your heart's desire, what future purpose could such a mir-ror serve?"

"It would showanyone his heart's desire, Cray-anyone who stood in the proper place and looked when the dew was fresh. I thought that here in the cave I could spray a fine mist of water on it whenever I wanted to use it. I've made a form for the web, with the anchor points marked, as you can see ... " He lifted a kind of openwork basket into view. It was as wide as his outstretched arms and made of thin wooden hoops joined by struts into a shape that was not conical, not hemispherical, but somewhere in between. White pigment marked nearly a hundred places upon the wood. As Cray looked at the thing more closely, he realized that the hoops were actually one continu-ous spiral, deformed by the struts.

"I see," he said. "But I don't understand why anyone would be interested in looking into this mirror. Or at any rate, in traveling any great distance to do so. I mean ... don't most people already know their hearts' desires?"

Sepwin smiled slightly. "I didn't know. When you met me, I thought all I wanted from life was a full belly and a warm bed. But I really wantedthis, and I didn't even know it existed."

Cray shook his head. "How could you have wanted it if you didn't know it existed?"

"The heart knows, Cray. Fifteen years ago, if I could have looked into the mirror, I would have seen what I saw in the forest. I have no doubt about that."

"But would you have understood what you saw?"

"Ah." His smile broadened. "Only a Seer could have told me what it meant. And that is why a Seer should own such a mirror." He lowered the wooden form. "They come to me to find out who they are, where they should go, whom they should love, whom they should kill. They come as you came to the lady Helaine, to be told what to do with their lives. Heart's desire is part of that, isn't it? They'll come to see the mirror."

"But what of the pool?" said Cray. "Can't you see enough in that to satisfy your visitors?"

Sepwin shrugged. "The image in the mirror will be visible to their own eyes; it won't be just a pool of black water." He glanced down at the wooden form. "More than that, I feel Imust make the mirror. It lies within my power to produce something marvelous. Why should I not do so?" He looked up. "If you were in my place, would you shy away from it?"