It was the way of Istar to finish what greed had started.

* * * * *

Now, in his waning years, the opalescence spread shy;ing and constant on his pale arms, Spinel could only guide as his companions combed the rubble for the missing child.

"I never thought it would come to this," he said. "Scarcely a century under the city, and the children are dying."

Heedlessly, the two younger elves continued at their task. They were spela, what the Lucanesti called the generation born and raised in the caverns under Istar. They remembered no sun, no paired moons in the starry sky. Many, fancying that their greatest ene shy;mies were the crumbling rocks and the nagas that lurked therein, had no recollection of the Istarians.

Spinel pitied them. They were as buried as the child they sought.

The older of the two spela, a young female named Tourmalin, held aloft a dark, shining stone.

"Glain," she said tersely, extending the gem to the older elf. "At least we will bring something home."

Reluctantly, almost ashamedly, Spinel took the opal from her and placed it in a pouch on his belt. Another stone to crush into powder for the King-priest's mysterious rituals.

"We'll find the child," the old elf asserted, his voice thin and wavering in the torchlit alcove. "By Reorx and the lamps of the eye, we shall find that poor creature!"

With pickaxe and dagger, they moved slowly and delicately through the ragged volcanic rock. The frail voice called to them faintly from somewhere behind the baffle of stone and darkness, the child begging for water, for her mother . . . finally, for Branchala and the Sleep He Brings.

When Spinel heard the hymn begin, the low bird-like keening that heralds the stonesleep of the Lucanesti, his orders became urgent. Intently, his hand on Tourmalin's shoulder, he guided the three diggers through convoluted layers of rock.

Steady, he told himself. Do not lose faith or judg shy;ment or the faint sound coming from somewhere beyond that wall of stone.

Barely audible, the stonesong continued. For a moment, Tourmalin seemed to gather strength. Muttering a mild oath, she redoubled the speed of her digging, and her companions followed her example, the corridor ringing with the sound of metal on stone, the shallow breathing of the four miners.

Yes, we are breaking through, Spinel thought as the sound of the pick took on a new resonance. Only a matter of minutes now, and if the child survives, if we can bring the poor innocent to air and light…

"Faster!" he commanded through clenched teeth.

And then, Tourmalin's hammer crashed through the last layer of rock. Exultantly, Spinel surged by his younger companions, reached for the new pas shy;sageway, his torch aloft…

But another wall of rock, not two feet behind the breakthrough, blocked his passage. He swore, scrab shy;bled at the hard stone with his nails, pushed madly against it with his shoulder …

As somewhere in the deep recesses of the earth, the stonesong of the child dwindled.

Spinel rested his forehead against the cold, divid shy;ing wall and wept. The years would take the child's bones and transform them. Someday, perhaps, descendants of those who dug for the babe in vain would find the form-small, curled, and glowing, in the midst of the rock that had swallowed her and made her its own.

"Opal," Tourmalin breathed, the light of compas shy;sion fled from her eyes. Her callused, pale hand touched the new, dividing wall. "Glain opal."

So they all would come to glittering dust, in the heart o.f this indifferent place.

Above the rocks and the rubble and the sorrows of elves, miles away in the city of Istar, the Kingpriest's armies watched and waited in boredom and uneasy readiness.

The Shinarion approached-the great festival of gaming, industry, and trade, the great time of com shy;merce and coincidence. Istar and all its tributaries came together to celebrate the glory of the goddess who, it was said, watched over the vast, interwoven economies of the region. As usual, the city was adorned with silk and gold leaf, the inns were swept and strewn with fresh rushes, and throughout the narrow streets of Istar, everyone-from the gray-robed, exclusive diamond merchants to the painted bawds and nimble pickpockets-readied their wares and skills for the coming week.

Even the Temple of the Kingpriest prepared spe shy;cial ceremonies in honor of Shinare. Jasmine incense billowed in the great square, and the tower bells chimed in the dawn carillon that dedicated each morning to the goddess.

It seemed that nothing was amiss in Istar-that the great business of ritual and trade continued gracefully and quietly, as though there were no nasty, ill-starred wars erupting in the desert. The mourning banners had come down in the noble houses, and the black cloth on the doors of the poorer dwellings had been replaced by the bright reds and yellows of Shinarion. The fallen soldiers, buried scarcely a week ago, were forgotten.

But the guards on the walls still watched ner shy;vously, the cavalry stopped and inspected all of the caravans, and in the high temple towers a thousand eyes turned regularly and apprehensively south. There were rumors that the rebel commander, the Water Prophet, stalked the city like a wounded lion.

He was coming, the rumors said. In a month's time, if not sooner. Fordus Firesoul was headed north, torch in hand and wading ankle-deep in Istar-ian blood. His goal was the city and the temple itself, its ornate walls to be ransacked and stained with still more Istarian blood.

For the first time in memory, the city was hum shy;ming with the threat of invasion.

Yet the Shinarion would take place as it always had. So the Kingpriest had decreed. Daily life would not give way to panic; the city would not become an armed camp.

And the city would profit, above all. Most impor shy;tantly, the metal from Thoradin, the silks from Ergoth, the grain from the Solamnic plains, would not have to go elsewhere to be sold.

Already the caravans had embarked for Istar, laden with expensive and exotic goods, and as the time approached, the first of the merchants arrived and the first booths and bazaars went up in the rapidly filling city. By the end of the week the num shy;bers would be greater still. Balandar claimed that the population of Istar doubled during the Shinarion.

Hidden by a carved screen, Vincus watched the arrivals from his master's library window. As wine steward for the Kingpriest's Tower, Balandar was busy all the time now, and Vincus was often left to his own devices. He divided his time between secretly reading obscure manuscripts and nosing through the crowded Marketplace, watching the preparations for the festival.

In most years, the arrivals were exotic-almost enough to make the young servant believe that the city did not go on forever-that the legendary lands that travelers described were actual and true.

The acrobats had come, and the fortune-tellers and dancers. A band of dwarven musicians was expected on the festival eve, and rumors even had it that Shardos, the fabled blind juggler, would attend and entertain.

But this year the first arrivals were somehow dis shy;turbing. Vincus wandered the Marketplace, seem shy;ingly casual, but totally observant. The acrobats, huge and hulking, practiced their stunts badly, the dancers seemed surly, and the fortune-tellers tight-lipped and private. The dwarves and the juggler were long overdue and the young servant began to suspect that the more famous, legitimate acts would not perform this year.

He saw few rehearsals, and the fortune-tellers' predictions, when they came, were tentative and vague:

Today is your lucky day.

You are more insightful than ordinary folk.

Your future is bright.