She looked down at his hand again. "But you've already given me one gift."

"That doesn't prevent me from giving you another." He glanced at the tapestry for just an instant. "A wall hanging is a fine thing to have, and it does this room a great deal of good, but that was a gift from one sor-cerer to another. This ... this is a gift from me to you, from Cray to Aliza. I know you said you don't wear ornaments, but it isn't one, really. It's a very practical gift. Take it." He stretched his hand out toward her, till the open palm and the offered ribbon were almost touching her. "Go on, my lady. It's such a little thing. Take it."

She closed her fingers around one dangling end and slowly pulled the ribbon from his grasp. Then she wound it loosely about her hand. "Breakfast is wait-ing," she said. And she turned on her heel and went out. They ate quietly, fruit and bread and cheese. Regneniel, who must have laid the meal out, was nowhere in sight. Afterward, Aliza walked with Cray toward the outer rooms of the palace, silent, her eyes downcast. But as they passed through the room where he had slept and where he picked up his bundle of wool, she stopped at the cabinet where the wine was kept. Opening its double doors, she took out a crystalline decanter filled with red Maretian wine. She held it out to him.

"Since you like this so much, take some with you," she said. "Perhaps your mother will like it, too."

He accepted the container with a small bow. "Thank you. And thank you on behalf of my mother." He turned the decanter in his hands. It was tall, its six-sided body tapering smoothly to a narrow neck, its stopper massive and gemlike with broad facets. "You made this?"

"Of course."

"Then it will be a beautiful permanent addition to Spinweb."

Aliza shrugged and led him on, outward, toward the rim of her palace.

At the outermost room, Cray saw that the demons were waiting where he had left them, pressed up against the palace wall, a hollow cylinder of ice, a sun-yellow flame, and a gray puff of cloud. At Cray's appearance, Elrelet protruded a stubby-fingered hand and waved to him. He waved back and smiled broadly. Then he turned to Aliza.

"Iwill see you again," he said.

She inclined her head. "Sometime."

"Soon."

"Have a pleasant journey."

"Will you give me your hand in farewell?"

Her expression grew puzzled.

"Ah," he said. "Another of those mortal practices that you don't know." He held out his free hand.

"Take my hand. Go on. This is a very widespread custom, my lady, believe me."

Stiffly, she touched his fingers with her own. She offered the wrong hand, the left, for he had extended his right, but he did not tell her that. Instead, he very slowly pulled her hand toward him, bent over it, and brushed the backs of her fingers with his lips. Then he released her.

"Am I supposed to do the same to your hand?" she asked, frowning.

He smiled. "No, my lady. This custom only goes one way, man to woman."

She clasped her hands together, the right covering the fingers that Cray's lips had touched. "Very well,"

she said. "Farewell."

Cray felt a sudden cold breeze, and when he looked around, he saw that there was an open doorwayinto Ice where the demons stood. "Farewell," he said, taking a sidelong step toward it. "Farewell until I see you again." He backed through the opening, one hand raised in his goodbye, and then abruptly it was closed before him, and Elrelet and Gildrum were swamping him, blurring his vision as they surrounded him, warm-ing him, hugging him with their insubstantial bodies. Beyond the blur of light and cloud, he saw Aliza turn and leave the outermost room, and then the doorway to it closed and he could see her no more.

Elrelet and Gildrum were speaking at once, their words tumbling over one another, occasionally punc-tuated by a remark from Leemin, but Cray could make no sense out of any of it. "Stop, stop, one at atime! Please!"

Gildrum withdrew from him then, leaving Elrelet to keep him warm. "We didn't know whether to worry or not," it said. "We've been hanging about at the bound-ary of Ice and Air, trying to decide what to do if she told us to come back on yet another day."

"And did you decide anything?" asked Cray.

"It was just talk," said Elrelet. "There was nothing wecould do, and we all knew it. I wasn't worried, and Leemin certainly didn't care. But you know Fire demons-they always expect the worst."

"I was thinking of what I would say to your mother," said Gildrum.

"His mother," said Elrelet, "is perfectly aware that Cray isn't a baby anymore.And that you can't protect him every moment of the day."

"Did you really think there was danger?" Cray said.

"Where sorcerers are concerned," said Gildrum, "anything is possible."

"The tale! The tale!" cried Elrelet. "You are going to tell us all about your adventures inside this strange place, aren't you?"

"I'll tell you everything," Cray said, "when we get back to Feldar's cave. I don't intend to go over it more than once. So let's get moving."

"You're not going to tell us anything?" inquired Leemin.

"Not now."

"But ... just to satisfy my slight curiosity about why she let you in ... "

"You're welcome to come along with us," said Cray.

"I?" said the demon.

"Why not?"

In the end, Leemin did come along, though it rested in a dim corner, apart from the others, as Cray related his experiences. Cray himself sat on the rim of the Seer's dark pool, the lady Helaine beside himand Sepwin at his feet. Gildrum, in human form, sat cross-legged on the white sand nearby, with Elrelet like a gray wreath about his neck.

At the end of his tale, Cray produced the chunk of amethyst and handed it around for examination. "I've never seen such concentrations of gemstones anywhere," he said. "The place is none I've ever even heard of before, not from sorcerer nor from ordinary mortal. The animals, the plants-it was a whole new world to me. Where can it be that the very stars in the sky are different from ours?"

The lady Helaine took the amethyst and closed her fingers about it, then thrust that fist into the dark pool. Ripples ran one way and then the other as she waved her hand beneath the surface, her eyes unblink-ing, and as she stared, her pale face seemed to become paler still in the wavering torchlight. She did not turn her head as she answered him. "I see a land of strange names. Farther than a man can ride in a thousand days. Farther than a bird can fly or a ship can sail in as long a time. No one has ever come to me from there. No one has ever asked me about it before." She sighed softly. "And I do not know where it lies." She lifted the amethyst into the air and shook the water from it. "Far indeed, my child, if I cannot guess the distance."

"And that is why Feldar couldn't find her," Cray said.

The Seer nodded. "Even our greatest powers have their limits."

"What does it matter?" said Elrelet. "We know how far away it lies through the demon worlds. No more than that is necessary."

Cray shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't really matter. Except for the way I felt when I was there, when I looked at those stars. I felt ... alone and so far from anything I understood. I felt that if Aliza was of that place, then there might be a distance between us that I could never cross."

"Yet the mortals you met in that village were just ordinary mortals, weren't they?" said Gildrum. "They didn't have three legs apiece or an eye in the middle of the forehead."

"No. But they lived in a land where the rivers ran with gems, and not an ornament did I see among them."

Gildrum laughed lightly. "A human place. My own experience among humans has convinced me that they lay no value on the common, no matter how pretty itmight be. Why should they ornament themselves with mere gravel?" He clapped a hand on Cray's knee. "What does it matter that the land is far away? The human realm is wide and contains many parts. Why should you be surprised that Aliza's part has a nature slightly different from your own? The demon realm has four sections of considerably greater diversity.

What are a few stars, a few animals, a few plants, compared to the divergence of Fire and Ice? Yet one can travel from Fire to Ice, just as I'm sure one could travel from here to Aliza's neighborhood, if only one had the proper map." He smiled at Cray. "If you really insist upon a map, just to know the exact distance and direction from here to there, I can piece one together, I'm sure. But it will be a tedious task, and in the end, the most important thing you'll know from it will be that the route through the demon worlds is much quicker. What is important is not where Aliza is, but can you get there. We already have the answer to that."

"You're right, of course," said Cray. "She is a mor-tal. And I am a mortal. What do a few stars matter beside those facts?"

Gildrum's smile broadened. "Greater distances have been bridged. After all, the land I come from hasno stars at all."

Cray smiled back at him. "True enough." Then he turned to the lady Helaine. "Very well, if you cannot tell me anything more about her homeland, perhaps you can tell me something of herself." He picked up the decanter, which, along with the bundle of wool, had been lying at his feet beside Sepwin. "She made this."

Wetting both her hands in the pool, the Seer took the crystal decanter between them and folded her fingers about its slender neck. She was very still for a moment, looking at the faceted stopper as if there were some message engraved deep inside it. Then, without shifting her gaze, she reached out toward Sepwin with one dripping hand. He took it, rising to his knees, and let her wrap his fingers about the decanter with her own. He closed his eyes.

"She is still an apprentice," the lady Helaine said in a low voice, "and her palace is an apprentice's home, or I would see nothing. Yet she and it are near their maturity, for the vision is mist-laden and indistinct.

Already there is a barrier within her, hiding her heart from me, and all I can see outside that is pride and a fierce sense of independence. In the past was great sorrow, grief, and loneliness, a towering pain for a child. But I see no such pain in her now, only the barrier. She is young to have it so well-developed." She sighed. "So much for what can be learned from a piece of crystal. Not much, I fear. Thank you, Feldar, my dear."

Sepwin let his hands drop away from the decanter. "I sensed a coldness to her, a coldness such as I have never seen in any other mortal."

"She is too much in Ice," said the lady Helaine. "It has crept into her very being. Perhaps that is why her barrier is so effective."

"She is cold," said Cray. "Yet I think that may be because she hasn't known warmth in such a long time."

"And you intend to devote yourself to warming her," said the lady Helaine.

"What have I to do that is more important?"

She set the decanter down and lifted both her damp hands to his face. She cradled his cheeks in her palms and looked deep into his eyes. "You have made your choice," she said. "But the road will not be as easy as you hope. There is danger ahead. I can see it like a beacon in your life."

"What sort of danger?"

"Sorcery."

"Then I will answer it with sorcery of my own. I am not afraid."

"I know. But perhaps you should be."

His eyes were puzzled. "This is only a growing friendship we are talking about, not a quest to kill some fire-breathing monster."

"The quest has scarcely begun, Cray." "The quest is over, my lady. I've found her."

"Finding her was the merest beginning. You will know when you have come to the end." She smiled at him and let her hands drop away from his cheeks. "This is your heart's quest, Cray, not a mere search for gold or jewels. Your heart will know when it is satisfied."

"If such a woman can satisfy it," said Sepwin. He touched the decanter lightly with one finger. "So cold, so very cold. Perhaps this is really a fruitless quest. Perhaps ... if I had known this much about her at the beginning, I wouldn't have pushed you so hard to look into the mirror, to find her." He looked up at the lady Helaine. "It's my fault."

"Yes," she said. "And if the quest is finally unsuc-cessful, he will blame you. You never thought of that, did you?"

Sepwin shook his head. "I believed the mirror."

"No. You believed in Cray. You're a true and loyal friend, my Feldar, but you can't make a woman's mind up for her."

"So now you change your tune, do you, Feldar?" said Cray. "Now, after all these years, after all the effort I've expended on your project."

"The bottle is so cold, Cray," he said. "I never dreamed it could be so cold."

"Then drink some of the wine, my friend; you'll find that warm enough."

"I must meet her," said Sepwin. "She must be wor-thy. The mirror wouldn't have shown her to you if she weren't worthy."

"Feldar, you are taking this ... thisbottle too much to heart. Yes, she is cold, but there is a spark of warmth within her, I know it. All it needs is nurturing. You shall meet her, if I can persuade her to visit here, and then you'll be able to judge her by her whole self and not just by a piece of crystal trash."

Sepwin held the bottle high. "You think this doesn't tell me the truth?" he shouted.

Cray clutched at his friend's arm. "Feldar, Feldar, I don't doubt your abilities. But she's of the sorcerous breed. The lady Helaine admitted that her life was unclear. The bottle may tell some truth, but not the whole of it. Do you think that I could spend so long with her and not discover something with my ordinary senses? She is starved for contact with the outside and she doesn't even realize it! She wants warmth, but she doesn't know how to generate it within herself yet. She won't be transformed in a single day. You're afraid for my sake-I understand that. But I'm all right. I like Aliza, and I think she likes me, and I'm happy with that. Don't you understand? I'm happy."

Sepwin looked into Cray's face, looked deep with his Seer's eyes wide and unblinking, and then he touched Cray's shoulder with his unencumbered hand, fingers curling tight into the fabric there. "Yes," he whispered. "You are happy now. But the future is cold and violent. You will be afraid."

"Of what?" Cray whispered.

"You will be afraid of sorcery. You will be afraid, but not for yourself. For her." "Feldar ... "

"The danger is yours. And the danger is hers, because of you."

Cray gripped his friend's arm harder. "What is the danger, Feldar? Where does it come from? Why?"

"If only I could give you those answers!" Sepwin cried. "Why do you ask a Seer to tell you of magic?

You know it's impossible. You know there's a wall between my sight and sorcery. I only know that it exists!"

"Yet you read one sorcerer well enough! You read me as if I were an open book!"

"I read Cray the man, not Cray the sorcerer."

"Feldar, what kind of warning is this? I won't know which way to look!"

Sepwin shook his head. "I know only one more thing about the danger-that I will share it with you."

"What?"

"You'll need me."

Cray looked to the lady Helaine, an unspoken ques-tion on his lips.

"Yes," she said. "I told you as much, if you'll recall, on the day you first saw your Aliza in the mirror."

"When will the danger come?" Cray demanded.

"I don't know," said the lady Helaine.

"I don't know," said Sepwin.

"Then how can I protect her?" Cray shouted.