Phyllis Eisenstein - Elementals 02 - The Crystal Palace

CONTENTS

Chapter 1.3

Chapter 2.19

Chapter 3.25

Chapter 4.38

Chapter 5.68

Chapter 6.99

Chapter 7.118

Chapter 8.147

Chapter 9.180

Chapter 10.191

Chapter 11.218

Chapter 12.247

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antennae, the body was sleek, and the many stubby caterpillar legs had been replaced by six long,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 a

soft 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 should

be 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 the

scales, 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?”

Cray thought of the gold-nourished tree and had to say no. “How many spiders do you need, Feldar?”

“Half a dozen, perhaps, to make the work go quickly. It may take some time to create just the proper

web, but I’ll know when it’s right. You’ll have to be here, of course, to guide them until they have it. For

the rest, I’ve already rigged a small bellows to spray the fine mist of water.”

Cray rolled to his side to consider the problem. Spiders he had in plenty, trainable to any kind of

spinning. But the artisan in him rebelled at the need to remake the web every time it was damaged and to

spray water on it for every use. Sepwin was not Delivev, who needed the purity of spidersilk in her

webs. Ulti-mately, there was nothing of spider sorcery to this mirror; there was just shape and sparkle

and the play of light in the viewer’s eye.

“Feldar,” Cray said, “what if we replace the water on the web with some silvery metal? Finely dispersed

metal droplets polished to the brightness of sunlit wa-ter. It seems to me that would do as well.”

“Metal?”

“I can promise you it would never tarnish, and it would be so much more permanent.” He looked up at

the high ceiling as he pondered the project. “Yes, I think we might be able to make you a fine mirror of

metal.”

Sepwin’s voice was doubtful. “I don’t know if it will work as metal.”

Cray propped himself up on an elbow. “If it doesn’t, we’ll try again with spidersilk and water. But I

think itwill work. Now, you’ll have to come to me, Feldar; I can’t work metal properly in your cave. I’ll

ask Gildrum to fetch you.” He sat up. “I’ll have everything ready by the time you arrive.”

“What—today?”

“Why not? The sooner started, the sooner finished.”

“But you must have your own work to do—”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

Sepwin hesitated just a moment. “You’re sure you couldn’t do it here?”

“You already know the answer to that, Feldar.”

Sepwin sighed. “All right, I’ll be waiting for Gildrum.”

* * *

By the time Gildrum returned, a light lunch had been laid in the garden, and Cray was waiting beside it.

The demon settled near him as a ball of flame, and from that incandescence Sepwin emerged, clutching

his wooden contrivance; only then did Gildrum co-alesce into his human shape.

Sepwin staggered as he took a step toward Cray. “I think I shall never become accustomed to flying,”

he said, reaching out with his free hand to clasp Cray’s arm, half in greeting and half to steady himself.

“Give me a horse anytime.”

Cray pulled a chair out for him. “You know it’s too long a trip on horseback, Feldar. Even with a

magical horse.”

Gently, Sepwin set the wooden form on the table. Then he closed his eyes. “I know you enjoy flying,

Cray, but my stomach does not. I think I would like to lie down for a little while.”

“I’ll carry you upstairs,” said Gildrum.

“No thank you, good Gildrum, no thank you. Cray, if you’ll just give me your arm, I think I can stumble

inside ... ”

“No need,” said Cray. “I can string you a hammock in a moment.”

“No, no hammock, please. Perhaps I’ll just stretch out under that tree ... ” He gestured toward the

gold-nourished one. Cray helped him, and by the time they reached its shade, several cushions had

tumbled from a tower window and hurried to make a bed there. Sepwin sank down upon them with a

sigh. “Oh, steady earth,” he murmured. “You know I was not meant to fly.”

Cray knelt beside his friend. “You’ll be all right.”

Sepwin moaned. “Next time Iwill take a horse, and never mind the extra time.I’m not in such a rush.”

He closed his eyes. “Is your sorcery so dull these days that any change draws you like an ant to honey?”

Cray rocked back on his heels. “Well, I’ll admit that freeing demons is not the fascinating occupation it

once was. And though I do have other projects to keep me busy, none is so intriguing as your mirror.”

Feldar opened one eye, the blue one. He gripped Cray’s arm above the elbow. “There is something

wrong, my friend. I feel it in you now. I thought I felt it even when I spoke to you in the web. What is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Feldar. Nothing is wrong.”

Sepwin opened the other eye and focused them both on Cray. “You don’t know your own mind. You

amass knowledge, but it doesn’t please you. You feel a lack.”

Cray covered Sepwin’s hand with his own, trying to soothe the stiffness he felt there. “Do you speak as

a friend, or as a Seer?”

“Both. I see it in your face, and I see it in your heart. The mirror is for you, Cray. You must look into it

and find your heart’s desire.”

Cray shook his head. “Not I. I know what I want—to hone my skills and be the best sorcerer that I can.

If I do feel some lack, it is that so much knowledge still remains beyond me.”

“No. Something else. Something more important than sorcery.”

Cray’s hand tightened on Sepwin’s. “Where is your pool, Seer? Where is the source of your power that

you can see so deep inside me? We have no water here for you to run your fingers through.”

“I don’t need it to read you, Cray. I know you almost as I know myself, and as I am content, I know

that you are not, no matter what you say.”

Cray looked up at the tree, whose dappled shade spread over them. Then he shrugged. “Perhaps you

are right, Feldar.” He reached out to snap a leaf off the lowest bough. “You see this? I made it, this thing

of green and gold. I practice a new form of sorcery here, and with every attempt, I find some small

im-provement in myself.” He tossed the leaf aside. “No, I am not content, my dear friend. But I do find

some pleasure in expanding my knowledge. And that, I think, is as much of my heart’s desire as I will

ever have. Come, look here.”

Phyllis Eisenstein - Elementals 02 - The Crystal Palace

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