"I hope you're not saying that just to please me."

Aliza frowned. "Why should I do that?"

Delivev laughed softly. "Why indeed? I must remember what Cray said about your straightforwardness."

Aliza shot a sidelong glance at Cray. "What did he say?"

"That there was no guile in your soul."

Aliza folded her hands about her goblet. "And is there any in his?"

Delivev laughed again. "Some, but he doesn't choose to employ it very often."

"I am always honest with my friends," said Cray. "And since I am with friends here, I propose a toast to friendship." He raised his goblet.

Elrelet and Delivev drank with him and, after a moment of watching the others, so did Aliza.

As they were lowering their goblets, a line of cloth servants came marching through one of the doorways that led to Spinweb's interior. Single file they paraded, six of them, each bearing in its fabric arms a covered silver tray. They formed a ring about the table and, stepping close to the diners, swept the covers from their burdens to reveal steaming vegetables, roasted meats, crisp greens. Following Delivev's example, Cray, Elrelet and Aliza served themselves with deep-bowled silver spoons and sharp-tined forks.

"Ah, you are the finest cook I have ever known," said Elrelet, sampling the vegetables. "The smell of these dishes alone would be enough to hold me for days."

Cray chuckled. "Then why bother to eat them?"

"The eating will support me for months. Or until I am invited again."

Delivev smiled. "Somehow I can't quite envision you searching the human realm for fine cooks, Elrelet.

Peeking in at kitchen windows as a small gray cloud and asking the goodwives for a taste from their pots."

"Oh, I've managed it more often than you might think. One of the forms my old master gave me was that of a cat, a fine and fluffy gray cat, quite clean and an excellent mouser. Goodwives appreciated me, as well as some cooks in a castle or three I could name. I did my mousing, and I rubbed up against a few well-selected legs, and I had my taste of the pot often enough. I grew quite fond of onions cooked in butter, which I see my lady Delivev has generously provided here, along with this excellent beef."

"Why did your master give you the form of a cat?" inquired Aliza. "To spy. Cats can go anywhere, after all. And un-like dogs, they don't have to waste their time by squabbling over scraps under the dinner table. Noisy creatures, dogs. And as a cat, no one expected me to fetch sticks or go deer hunting or anything like that. A perfect existence, actually. Next to being a demon."

"Whom were you spying on?"

"Quite a few people, ordinary mortals all-my old master found them amusing. Three things he loved above all else in his youth-sorcery, travel, and gos-sip. He gave me a horse's form, and we traveled the human realm together for many years. He knew all the castles within fifty days' ride of his own, and he was well known in them, and always shown the great-est hospitality. They would give him wine and fine food and answer all his inquiries, even the most inti-mate, for he was a powerful sorcerer, and they feared his anger. And later, when he was no longer young, and travel itself no longer lured him, still he wished to hear the gossip; so he sent me to bring it back. I spent more years as a cat than I did as a horse."

"What an odd way to use a demon," said Aliza.

"Eventually he tired of gossip, too, and in his last few decades he hardly used me at all. But I employed the cat form on my own from time to time. I never had to give up onions in butter. My one bit of profit from all those years of slavery." Elrelet laughed, a very human-sounding laugh. "I'd say I was one of the few demons to make any sort of profit from slavery. I, and Gildrum, of course. Gildrum found love through slavery. Gildrum always says love is superior to onions."

"I'm not sure that one can fairly compare the two," said Delivev.

"I wouldn't know, myself, but here's the one who does." Elrelet lifted a cloud hand toward the sky.

High above their heads, a brilliant star was visible, and as they watched it, it waxed brighter and brighter, surpassing the other stars, the moon, even rivaling the vanished sun with its warm yellow luminosity. The flame that was Gildrum descended into the garden, drowning all the torches in a flood of radiance, banish-ing the night and dazzling the watching human eyes for a moment before it coalesced into the semblance of human flesh. When their vision cleared, the diners saw that Gildrum's arms were laden with fruits of yellow, red, and green, with sweet citrus and melons. He spilled his bounty onto one end of the table.

"I thought these might make dessert," he said.

"Gildrum," said Delivev, rising from her chair, and he went to her and embraced her and kissed her with passion.

"At times like these," murmured Elrelet, "I do believe that Gildrum's profit from slavery was greater than mine."

The man who was Gildrum first transferred his kiss to Delivev's forehead and then loosed her slowly, smil-ing into her eyes, until he held her only in the open circle of one arm. At that, he turned his smile on the others at the table. "Forgive me," he said, "if my glare hurt your eyes, but I couldn't help my happiness at the sight of all of you here. And especially my own dear lady." He pressed his lips to her forehead once again. "Being away from her, for any time, is a source of great pain to me."

"On the other hand," said Elrelet, "I never miss onions quite that much. I'm afraid I shall neverunderstand my old friend Gildrum's feelings toward your mother, Cray. I suspect that only another demon of Fire could."

Cray smiled. "Most mortals wouldn't have any trou-ble understanding it." He glanced sidelong at Aliza before reaching out to the fruit that Gildrum had set on the table. "What have you brought us here, Gildrum?"

"Fruit from lands where the sun still heats the earth instead of hiding behind clouds of snow. Lands where the heat is so great that the people walk about naked and the sweat cloaks their bodies like garments."

"That sounds like the perfect place for you," said Elrelet. "A most wintry place, compared to Fire."

"I would much rather be here in Spinweb. I see you've eaten most of your meal already. Well, no matter, I'm no glutton like Elrelet here. But do try this melon, my lady Aliza," he said, indicating a yel-low oblong larger than a man's head. "I think you'll find it reminiscent of your Maretian wine."

She cut a thin slice and tasted it. "You're right. It's quite good."

"I'll show Regneniel where to find it, if you wish. It's a wild plant and grows quite thickly, so I'm sure the natives won't miss the number you'd be eating."

She nodded at him. "That's very ... obliging of you, Gildrum."

Loosing Delivev to return to her own chair, he took the seat opposite Aliza and poured himself a goblet of wine. "What do you think of Spinweb, my lady?"

"I've only seen this much, so far."

"Then Cray must take you on a tour. We have some beautiful rooms here, with beautiful hangings on the walls."

Delivev laughed softly and laid her hand upon his arm. "Time enough for her to look at my handiwork later on. We've scarcely finished with supper, and I for one prefer to sit here in the open air and talk a bit while my food settles. Tell us about yourself, my dear. Or tell me, for I know the least about you of all who sit at this table."

"There is little to tell," said Aliza. "Your son has convinced me that I have led a very uninteresting life."

"What interests him and what interests me are not necessarily the same. Tell me what it's like to be a mortal living in Ice. I've never been there."

Aliza shrugged. "For one who has never been there, it is difficult to describe. It is so different from this.

Ice is strong and solid and resists change, unlike this hu-man realm. One cannot use a spade to dig a hole in Ice as one could in common soil. Ice is a world without stars, without sky, without up and down." She shook her head. "You would really have to visit it to comprehend it."

"May I visit it, with you?" asked Delivev.

Aliza stared at her. "What? With me?" "What better guide could I find?"

"Why, an Ice demon, of course."

"They hardly know what a mortal would find inter-esting. I would so like to see Ice for myself, and this wonderful palace of yours as well. Cray has told me of it, but I cannot truly imagine living in such a place.

What was it like, growing up yourself and knowing that the palace was growing, too? What was it like to have new rooms branching off from the old ones where there had been nothing before?"

"It seemed strange at first," Aliza admitted. "Excit-ing and disturbing all at once. But I soon grew accus-tomed to it. In fact, I looked forward to the new room buds. I would crawl into them when they were barely large enough to hold me, and I would look out into Ice and try to see the demons there."

She went on to describe the slow transformation of the palace into the maze it now was. Under Delivev's skillful prompting, she spoke of her life there, and of her sallies into Ice. She spoke of her rejection of the human realm and of the creation of the mountains and the sand-field. She spoke of the growth of her powers and, at last, of her grandfather's expectations. "He wants me to be one of the greatest sorcerers who ever lived.The greatest, I think, though he's never actually admitted that."

"How unusual," Delivev murmured, "that he would want you to be greater than himself. How selfless of him."

"Study is everything to him," said Aliza. "He never stops. Perhaps I shall never actually catch up with him. Perhaps I shall only surpass him after he is dead."

"He certainly wouldn't care then," said Cray. "And until then, of course, he is himself proof against your sorceries. On that count he will always be more pow-erful than you."

"I accept that," said Aliza.

Delivev sighed. "It isn't a life I would have chosen for myself, or for my son, but you seem to have weathered it well enough. And I don't doubt, from what Cray has told me, that you will accomplish whatever goal you set yourself."

"My grandfather is reasonably satisfied with my ac-complishments. Though they seem like little enough to me, measured against his powers. They seem, to me, like a child's game." She picked up her empty goblet, turned it in one hand. "This goblet, for example. This is the stuff I know well. It's a pretty thing as it is, but I would have made it taller and slimmer." And in her hand, the goblet shifted, changed, elongated, became a thing of greater grace and fragility. "Such a simple power, isn't it?"

"You are young," said Delivev. "There is time for such simple powers to grow vastly. Still, you've done something here that I cannot. And that goblet shall be yours alone from now on, waiting for you here whenever you come to visit."

Aliza set it down before her. "It doesn't match the others anymore."

"That doesn't matter."

She looked at Delivev. "You are so certain that I'll come back again."

"Why not? You have friends here. And it's a pleasant place, or at least I've made it as pleasant as I could." She rose from her chair. "Come, I think it's time we showed you a little more of it than thegarden. Gildrum?"

The demon took his lady's arm, and the two of them led the others indoors.

Spinweb had been an ancient castle when Delivev inherited it, its pale stone walls yellowed with age, its thresholds worn into shallow grooves by the footsteps of generations, its hearths darkened with the soot of countless fires. But Delivev kept her castle bright with the power of her sorcery-almost every wall was hung with a tapestry, every floor softened by a carpet, every surface accented by embroidery, needlepoint, or weav-ing. Only Cray's workshop was not so embellished but was rather stark and bare and totally utilitarian, for sparks and molten metal splashed there.

Aliza lingered there for a time, looking at the sacks of ore and the bars of pure copper, tin, silver, and gold, at the brazier that always held glowing coals and the smelting furnace that was now dark and cool.

On one wall, protected by metal-sheathed cabinets, were Cray's notebooks; he opened a door to show them to her, but she made no attempt to touch them.

The last room she saw was the web room, and Delivev demonstrated the power of the webs, conjur-ing up a scene in a distant palace for her. After she had watched for a moment, she said, "Elrelet's old master would have been pleased with something like this."

"It has many uses," Cray said. "I speak to my human friends this way, and they can call to me whenever they like. Perhaps ... you would wish to take one of my spiders home with you to Ice, so that you can call to me wheneveryou like. Then I can visit you at your convenience rather than at my own whim."

Aliza's lips curved slightly. "And you could look in on me whenever you wished, without my knowing it."

"If you fear for your privacy, Aliza, you have only to set the spider in some room you never use or, even simpler, place a screen in front of its web. As you can see, an opaque wall shields the web from whatever lies beyond."

Aliza rubbed her lower lip with one forefinger. "It might be a convenience at that. To eliminate your unpredictability. But I'm not accustomed to having animals about the palace."

"A spider requires very little care. Just a morsel of food once in a while no bigger than a crumb that might slip off your table. And spiders are very clean."

"Not quite like a dog or cat, hmm? More like ... a stuffed toy?"

"Very much like."

"Well, I'll think about it."

They went up to the parapet finally and, after Elrelet had snuffed the torches in the garden, Cray pointed out the stars that were familiar to him and unknown to Aliza. And he tried to speak of the feelings he had experienced upon realizing how far her part of the human realm seemed to be from his own. The stars were bright and crisp in the winter sky, but they shed little light, and she was just the faintest of shadows standing beside him. Some distance away, he knew, Elrelet and Gildrum and his mother looked up at those same stars, but they were invisible in the dark-ness; he and Aliza seemed to be alone with the night.

Gildrum, he thought, surely had his arm about Delivev's shoulders, his cheek bent against the top of her head. Almost, Cray wanted to put his arm around Aliza, to make some sort of tangible bond between them there in the darkness. But he did not. "What does it matter what stars are up there?" she said. "The stars are only lights in the sky, with no more effect upon us down here than a breath of air a hundred days' journey away. Do you worry that the stars of early morning are different from those of early evening? How foolish that would be. I do not truly understand how you can feel lonely and isolated in any part of the human realm, for everywhere above it there are stars, and everywhere upon its surface there are human beings. The demon realm has no stars and no humans. It is so much farther from here than any place in the human realm could be-don't you feelthat distance when you visit Air or Water?"

"I have friends in the demon realm. I can never feel far from home where I have friends."

She touched his arm lightly. "You have a friend where my palace is, remember?"

He found her hand in the dark. "I have one now. I wasn't so certain of that then." He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. "Will you come down into the garden now? I have something for you.

Something special."

"What, a gift?"

"Yes."

"You've given me enough gifts already."

"This one is very special."

"Oh, if you wish."

He did not loose her hand as they descended an open stairway to the garden, which seemed a pool of blackness with the torches extinguished.

"It's so dark," Aliza said, lagging behind him on the steps.

"Gildrum?" said Cray.

Gildrum did not answer, but a flame emerged from a doorway on the opposite side of the garden, and when it had rekindled the nearest torch, Cray saw that it was a burning brand held aloft by Elrelet. The Air demon moved about the perimeter of the garden, methodically relighting the torches that had illuminated their supper. "Gildrum and the lady Delivev have retired for the night," it said, "and I think that if you have no need of me I will do the same."

"I'll need you to take the lady Aliza home," said Cray.

"No," said Aliza. "I'll call Regneniel when I wish to leave."

"Very well, then. Good night, Elrelet."

The gray cloud sprang out of the garden and van-ished in the starry sky.

"Here," said Cray, pulling Aliza along by the hand. "Come over here."

In the corner of the garden stood the tree with the gold-shot trunk. It was still a stunted thing, its topmosttwigs standing well below the parapet. But, like all the other plants of the garden, it was fully leafed in spite of the season. And it glittered in the flickering torchlight.

Cray caught one of the lower branches in his free hand, pulled it toward him. "Watch."

Upon the twig nearest his hand, a swelling appeared, a knot that seemed to gather all the glitter from the surrounding twigs and concentrate it in a single spot of metallic sheen. As they watched, it grew, a nodule of gold, like a soap bubble fattening at the end of a child's pipe, but opaque. When it was the size of a man's fist, it opened suddenly into a golden blossom, its petals as thin as beaten foil, petal upon petal swad-dling its shimmering heart. Though it grew on a tree whose other blooms were most like daffodils, this flower was a rose. And like the other roses of the garden, it gave off a sweet, delicate scent.

With gentle fingers, Cray plucked the blossom from its branch and, cradling it in his palm, offered it to Aliza.

She took it with her free hand and stared down at it. "What shall I do with this?" she whispered. As she spoke, she tilted it one way and then another, catching the torchlight on its gleaming petals.