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spot."
"There," Davina whispered. She pointed into the hole.
"The northwest comer."
Sandy saw nothing different about that part of the rav-
aged foundations and said so. Cass reached for her neck and
raised the bloodstone pendant to her eye.
"Some of the Sighted have the power to recognize the
gateways into the elfin realms." He looked at Davina with
great respect. "I did not know that she had the gift to such a
degree. If you will look through this, you will see what she
sees, my lady, and perhaps more."
The milky setting of the bloodstone was hollow in the
middle. It was like the frame around a lens, though until now,
Sandy had never thought of Rimmon's gift as anything so prac-
tical. She did as Cass told her, holding it to her right eye like
a monocle.
Deep in the heart of the vanished building, a heptagon
of purple light glowed. Thinner threads crossed and recrossed
it, a twinkling cobweb pattern. The filaments seemed frail, but
Sandy suspected that they would be rigid as steel if she put her
hand to them.
"I thought so," Cass was saying. "A gateway, the very
way by which my father stole the children out of the heart of
ELF DEFENSE 165
the fire. Look again, my lady, and you will see the road into
Elfhame Ultramar through the bars."
"I'll see it when I'm on it." Sandy sat on the edge of
the foundation and started lowering herself into the pit. The
others followed her lead. Cesare bounded down with scornful
ease and a grace that left even Cass looking clumsy by com-
parison. Lionel tried to ape the elf-prince's leap and landed
off-kilter, twisting his ankle. He bit back any cry of pain, and
when Sandy noticed him wincing as he walked, he claimed it
was nothing at all, or something else. Amanda and Davina let
themselves down with more circumspection and caution than
the menfolk. They all ranged up into a line in front of the
gateway.
"No, no. Back up a bit there." Cass made Lionel take
three painful steps to the rear. "If you are standing in the same
space as the gateway when it opens, it will tear you apart."
"I can't even see where it is!" Lionel protested. "How
can I be sure I'm standing okay now?"
Cass had a fox's smile. "You'll just have to trust me."
Sandy peered through the bloodstone again. "You're
fine, Lionel." To Cass she said, "Open it."
The elfin prince bowed. "My lady desires and it is so."
She had the odd feeling that he was making fun of her. In the
back of her mind was the galling notion that elves would al-
ways look down on mortals as only the very beautiful and the
very privileged feel entitled to do with their inferiors. Cass
might protest an undying passion and who better than he
should know the meaning of the word undying ? but she would
still be a mortal when the passion did die, and so to be readily
dismissed. She remembered all the times her mother had told
their pampered family spaniel, Pantagruel, that they were all
going for a nice drive in the country, only to stop at the vet's.
It didn't matter if you lied to a dog.
She touched the bloodstone. If things had turned out dif-
ferently, would you have loved me forever, Rimmon? You
weren 't of the same tribe as Cass an elf of a lost world called
Khwarema but you were still elvin. And though what I loved
of you was your ghost, it was more than capable of every act
of love. Your forever was death 's more endless even than
Cass's romantic notion of the word. But would that have made
any difference? Death's wisdom over the heart's whim? I would
have always been what I am: Sandy Horowitz, a mortal girl,
a mortal woman now. Could you have loved that to the end of
eternity?
166 Esther M. Priesner
She used the bloodstone as a lens again. Cass was at the
gateway, hands starred as wide as they could reach. He laid
them on two of the cobweb's points and let the purple glow
seep up through his fingers until his whole body was sheathed
in light. He spoke a word that might have been a birdsong, and
touched his forehead to the gateway. It fell into a sparkling
powder at his feet. Lionel and Amanda, unsighted as they were,
took a step back and breathed hard. Sandy lowered the blood-
stone. Even without its aid, she could see the border of the
gateway shining in the dark, and beyond it, a white road. The
way into Elfhame Ultramar was clear.
Cesare was the first one over. ' 'Eh, bene! Are you com-
ing?" He switched his tail impatiently.
The last one through was Davina. Though Cass urged
her to hurry, before the gateway closed itself, she lingered to
kneel in the dirt and scoop up a handful of the purple dust,
mingled with the ashes from the kindergarten fire. She tied it
up neatly in her handkerchief.
"You never know what will come in handy," she said.
"Nor when it will be needful."
"Or if," Sandy said irritably. "Hurry up!"
Davina came along, still wiping her sooty hands on her
skirt. The gateway closed, cutting off the light of the upper
lands. There was a dirty rose glow in the sky, and the sky was
all around them. Only the slant of the white road under their
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