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. . you made this?” Andrew stared at it.
    “I did. I have watched the Leather-woman grow old, and I have watched her bitterness rage. To reach out among the patterns of her life and alter them without her consent is a course of action that is denied me. But if I could in some way aid one of her own kind who wished to help her, if I could protect him and guide him, then I would be acting within my constraints. My hand can set a seal on whatever you do, Andrew, but it is you who must do it.”
    “Do . . . do what?”
    “I do not know.”
    The Elf stood in the firelight, his hands at his sides. The shimmer gleamed about him, the starlight shone in his eyes, but, for a moment, he seemed no more than a creature of the world, someone who was trying in his own, groping fashion to do good, who was baffled by the often vague and indefinite turns of events. Even the Elves could be unsure.
    Andrew hefted the stone, slid it back into its pouch. “I'll do what I can. I can't promise anything.”
    Varden bowed. “Nor are you asked to.”
    ***
    Christmas drew nigh, and the Leather-woman kept to her miserable hut. Late at night—despite the cold, despite her hate—Andrew would sometimes go to the edge of town and drop a bundle of firewood at her door. The bundle would be gone come morning. Still, he imagined that he could hear her voice carried along by the wind from the mountains, an old, dry voice, rasping as it had from infancy: I don't want your help. Far better it would be if I were dead.
    No, he thought as he turned away one night, far better it would be had you not suffered as you have. Far better it would be had you not been born in a body that made you an object of laughter. Far better it would be if those about you had remembered compassion and common charity.
    He trudged up the street, head bent, hood pulled well forward against the cold. It was but four days before the Nativity, and already, in defiance of the self-denial of Advent, the villagers were setting out their decorations: bunches of elder, mistletoe, and birch adorned the doors of many of the shops and houses.
    He felt again the shade of a headache that touched and departed, felt the beryl inside his shirt flicker and glow as it altered chance and destiny to protect him. The Leather-woman was still seeking vengeance for the good he had done her, and yet he found himself casting about in his mind for something more he could do to bridge the abyss of fear and bitterness with which she had surrounded herself. It seemed impossible. No matter what he did, he stood condemned in her eyes.
    The headache touched him again, and again the beryl glowed and turned it aside.
    How foolish! How wonderfully useless!
    Again, the headache.
    She had food, and she had warmth. Maybe that was enough for now. Maybe, in the spring, when the weather was better and the land was smiling with green leaves and early flowers, maybe then he could reach out to her and have his hand accepted. An improbably occurrence, but then had Varden not said that anything was possible?
    The headache strayed into him again, lingered for a moment . . .
    He stopped, shook his head slightly. The beryl flared . . .
    . . . and then his brain itself seemed to detonate, throwing him to his knees as a knife of pain buried itself in his skull. Hands to either side of his head, he gasped, for so great was the agony that he did not even have the strength to cry out. At his side, the beryl turned into a small star, shining even through cloth and leather . . .
    . . . and suddenly the pain was gone.
    Weak and shaking, he stood up, feeling sick, his vision blurry. But he gathered his strength and faced about, turning back in the direction of the mountains. It was going to be tonight. It had to be tonight.
    He returned the way he had come, pushing through the dry heather and bracken at the edge of the village, scuffing through the crusty snow that had covered the rude path to the Leather-woman's hut. When he reached the