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ever, what about Elizabeth? What about the children?”
    “Her anger,” said Varden, “is directed at you alone. There is nothing to cause her to attack your family.”
    “Except revenge.”
    “Elizabeth and your children have the protection of my people. They are beyond the reach and power of the Leather-woman. What, then, is your will, Andrew? Do you wish to end this matter now, and leave the Leather-woman to her fate? Or do you wish to continue?”
    In the back of his mind, Andrew felt the beginnings of a headache—a sharp pain, then a dull throbbing—that rose and fell quickly, then departed. He sensed that it was not natural, that it came from somewhere outside of himself. “It's . . . it's too late now. I plastered her hut, I've spoken kindly to her, I've given her food. Even if I turned back, she'd still hate me, and she'd still work against me.”
    Varden did not speak.
    “So I'm going to have to go and meet her, one way or another, sooner or later. I can feel her around me, testing me. And look at this.” He pulled out the leather pouch, displayed the beryl. It was palpably shining, filled with a radiance as of sunlight. “It's been getting brighter,” he explained.
    “It counters her working,” said Varden.
    “For how long?”
    Varden stood up slowly, went to Andrew. Extending his hands, he clasped them around Andrew's, around the beryl. For an instant, the carpenter stared into the Elf's starlit eyes, and then his vision blurred. He saw the stars, shining brightly, remote and yet close. He was floating in a night sky.
    He saw a web again, as he had at the smith's house, but it was a different web now, and as he examined the strands, he felt certain that it had to do with the Leather-woman. He heard Varden's voice in his mind.
    “Each life is many lifetimes,” came the words, softly, almost wearily. “I told you that before, and now this is what you see before you. Each weaving of the lattice you see is a choice in the Leather-woman's life: past, present, and future. The web is herself, all of her. Look back at the past, and see the tangled interactions that forced her along the paths she now travels. Look to the future, and see the possibilities she once had. There is a strand there that represents you, Andrew. See how it changes the pattern.”
    “I can't interpret the change.”
    “Nor can I. There are many possibilities that branch from that intersection.”
    As Andrew looked, the stars brightened, and their light flowed into the strands. The pattern shifted subtly, and he saw that, although the Leather-woman's futures remained hazy, his own thread traced its way through the intersection and on into another maze of possibilities.
    “There is nothing she can do to harm you,” said the Elf. “As she exerts her powers, so the stone alters the futures so that you are shielded.”
    The room flashed back into existence around him, and he shook his head to clear it. Elizabeth's brow was furrowed, and she seemed half of a mind to rise and draw him away from their strange visitor, but he smiled thinly at her. “I'm all right.”
    He turned back to Varden. “You're very sad. And very tired,” he said simply.
    Varden released his hands and stood back, nodding. “You see clearly, Andrew. It is so. For a minute, though, you have seen with our eyes, and so you should understand our feelings. We see what is, and we also see what might have been. There were many futures that led to peaceful coexistence between my people and yours, and instead we have the present situation. The Leather-woman might have been loved, and yet she was not. Missed opportunities. Wrong choices. We see them all. We delight in the good that has happened, and we grieve for that which has been missed, ignored, lost.”
    “But I saw the strands change, Varden. Why can't you—”
    The Elf shook his head. “Our power is limited. Terribly limited. Still, though, we try as we can. That is why I made the stone you hold.”
    “You .