She found her eyes drifting, seeking the cloudy globe that rested so snugly in its alcove. There was no glimmer of light in the milky glass, nothing to suggest the powerful magic she had worked only a few minutes before. But the memory of her failure lingered like a sour taste, casting a pall over the rest of the day.
Decisively she rose and crossed to the magical sphere perched on a marble pedestal of classic simplicity. Belynda placed her hands on the smooth surface, already cool.
“Caranor… hear me. Please heed my call,” she whispered, using the pressure of her hands to squeeze the words into the glass, vaulting her magical message into the distant wilds of Nayve. She placed extra force behind the summons, a nudge that should awaken the enchantress if she were sleeping-though it was unthinkable that any dignified and proper elf would be asleep this long after the Lighten Hour.
And the sage-enchantress Caranor was a particularly industrious elf. She lived alone, as did all the most powerful spell casters, but she was ever laboring to help the less fortunate members of her race. Yet even at her busiest, Caranor should have heard, and replied to, the magical call of the sage-ambassador.
The knock on Belynda’s door was like a sudden crash of thunder and she gasped, sitting upright with a start that put a crick in her neck.
“What?” she demanded crossly, and then immediately regretted her harsh tone. “Please, come in,” she said in a more inviting voice.
For a moment there was only silence beyond the solid oak door to her apartments and meditation chambers. Finally, she heard one soft word:
“No.”
She sighed, smiling in spite of herself as she recognized the speaker. She addressed the door politely.
“I’m sorry, Nistel. I promise that I’m not mad at you-or anybody, really. Now, won’t you please come in?”
“You won’t yell?” The voice was injured pride tempered by a tremolo of worry.
“I promise.”
The door opened to reveal a person who was reaching upward to turn the knob. His face was masked by a bush of white whiskers, a beard that hung straight down to a point just below his belly. He continued to cling to the brass doorknob while he scrutinzed Belynda, clearly ready to flee at the first sign of displeasure.
“See. I’m not yelling.” Belynda forced herself to smile, coaxing the gnome forward with a gesture. “Now, was there something you wanted to tell me?”
“What? Oh yes,” Nistel admitted. “The delegates… you know, the elves from Argentian? They’re here. They’ve come to the College to see you. They said you knew they were coming.”
“Yes, I knew,” Belynda replied, her sigh this time reflecting deep exasperation. The elves were her own people, but even so she had to admit that they spent overmuch time complaining. Of course, in her role as sage- ambassador she was compelled to listen to those complaints, soothing worries as much as possible. No doubt that was why she had begun to find them so irritating.
“Should I send them away?” asked Nistel, concerned.
“No, no. Of course I’ll see them. Have them wait for me in the Metal Garden, beside the Golden Fountains.”
“Very well, my lady.” The gnome bowed stiffly, his rigid formality telling Belynda that he would just as soon have sent the elven delegation hastening back to their homeland.
He hesitated for a moment, and the elfwoman sensed that something else concerned Nistel. “What is it, my friend?”
“Just… well…” The gnome fidgeted in a great display of reluctance, but Belynda knew that he wanted to speak. Finally he could contain himself no longer. “A giant came. To Thickwhistle. I just heard.”
The news was startling. “What would a giant want in a big nest of gnomes?” wondered the sage- ambassador, thinking aloud.
“No one knows,” declared the gnome. “But it’s pretty strange, and that’s for sure.” The little fellow shivered nervously-strangeness was an unfamiliar occurrence in Nayve, and experience had shown him that it generally presaged trouble and disruption.
Nevertheless, the ever-dutiful assistant withdrew to carry Belynda’s message to the elven delegation.
Listlessly she returned to her reading table, but left the massive volume of the Tablets open to the pages of the Cosmic Order. It would be comforting, she hoped, to see those verses before her when she returned at the end of what promised to be a trying day.
She took her time getting ready, for a while merely wandering through the sumptuous chambers of her ambassadorial residence, eventually pausing long enough to drape a shawl of white silk over her slender shoulders. A word of command whisked a door closed across the entry to the messaging globe’s alcove. The panel matched the deep wood grain of the wall, and was virtually undetectable. Slipping tiny feet into diamond-studded slippers of silver foil, she examined herself in one of the full-length crystal mirrors lining the wall of her reception room. The shimmering gold of her ambassador’s robe rippled over her skin, outlining a figure that might have looked frail to one who did not know her: slender limbs, breasts small and firmly pointed, a belly that was flat and framed by narrow hips.
Her blond hair-the color maintained by a mixture of herbal dyes-was swept back from a high, unlined forehead. Belynda’s ears were typically small, delicately pointed at the lobe. It was the chin that distinguished her elven face as one of unusual strength and character. Square and stern, it lacked the narrowness common in her race, and many had remarked that it was this straightforward visage that had allowed her to progress to a position of such high honor.
Examining the serene expression, seeing her cool blue eyes reflected in the flawless glass, Belynda sighed again. She wished that she could actually feel the calm dignity embodied by the image in the mirror.
Her preparations were concluded as she donned a circlet of silver wire, a control for her long, golden mane. Still, she was in no hurry; instead of taking the direct route through the College halls she decided to take the outer paths to the garden. The glass doors opened soundlessly as she murmured the word of command, and she stepped into the private refuge of her small, walled garden-another mark of the status awarded to a sage-ambassador.
Trilling songbirds leapt into the air as she came outside. The canaries and bluebirds flew in cheery circles, a fluttering escort ready to herald her crossing of the grounds. Today, however, Belynda decided that she didn’t want the ostentation, and curtly shooed the birds back to their perches in her rose trees. Sulking, they settled to the branches, and she felt even worse than she had before.
Passing under the arched gateway that gave egress from her garden, she faced the Center of Everything, and here, at last, her mood lifted-at least slightly. The Silver Loom dominated the view, rising toward the sky from the center of the circular, verdant valley. Mounted in a broad dome of crystal that was surmounted by a higher dome of gold, the argent spire lofted every bit as tall as the summit of a great mountain, and symbolized the unchanging purity of the Fourth Circle.
For a few moments Belynda was content to know that within those domes the Goddess Worldweaver was busy at her weaving, and that her labors would assure the continuity of halcyon Nayve. Hearing a deep thrumming, a sound of power that she felt in the pit of her stomach, the elven sage knew that she had emerged just in time to witness the casting of the threads. She held her breath, as awestruck now as she had been the first time she beheld this daily ritual.
The songbirds grew still and it seemed that the very wind held its breath as a bright glow came into view at the base of the spire. The illumination flared into a ring of fiery intensity nearly equal to the brightness of the sun. Then, slowly at first, the glow began to ascend the lofty spike of silver. Faster and faster it climbed and, as always, Belynda found that she was holding her breath as the casting approached its climax.
Racing to the top of the spire, the bright glow reached the end and exploded into the air, sending balls of sparking fire crackling and weaving upward. A hundred or more of these fiery globes hissed into the air, each trailing smoke, spiraling upward and gradually vanishing into the corona of the sun. Only the smoky trails remained, and even those swiftly dissipated in the light breeze.
Belynda inevitably felt cleaner, knowing that a few more of the wild impulses, the untamed forces of the chaotic world, had been spun away from Nayve by the casting of the Goddess Worldweaver. Those threads would form the lives of a different place, affecting only an outer realm that held little importance for the halcyon Fourth Circle.
Only with reluctance did the elfwoman’s eyes lower from the majestic spire to behold the worldly
