"Tell me," she said, raising her cup.
So I did, including everything Merlin had told me, up through the confrontation at the primal Pattern and my flight to the Crystal Cave. We went through the entire pot of tea in the process, and when I was finished we just sat for a time in silence.
Finally, she sighed.
"You have charged me to deliver major intelligence," she said.
"I know."
"Yet I feel it is but a small part of much greater developments."
"How's that?" I asked.
"A few small things I have heard, known, guessed at, and perhaps dreamed-and a few, I suppose, I simply fear. Hardly a coherent shape. Yet enough, perhaps, to query the powers of the earth I work with. Yes. Now that I have thought it I must try it, of course. At a time such as this."
She rose slowly, paused, and gestured high.
"That shall be the Tongue," she said, and a draft stirred one of the mobiles causing it to produce many tones.
She crossed the studio to the righthand wall--small figure in gray and green, chestnut hair down to the middle of her back--and ran her fingers lightly over the sculpted figure that stood there. Finally, selecting a broad-faced statue with a narrow torso, she began pushing it toward the center of the room. I was on my feet and moving in an instant.
"Let me do that for you, Your Highness."
She shook her head.
"Call me Vialle," she said. "And no, I must position them myself. This one is named Memory."
She placed it below and somewhat to the northwest of the Tongue. Then she moved to a knot of figures and selected a thin one with slightly parted lips, which she placed to the south on Tongue's compass.
".And this is Desire," she stated. Quickly locating a third-a tall, squinting figure-she placed it to the northeast.
"Caution," she went on.
A lady, her right hand boldly extended, went to the west.
"Risk," she continued.
To the east she positioned another lady, both arms spread wide.
"Heart," she said.
To the southwest went a high-domed, shaggy-browed philosopher. "Head," she said.
...And to the southeast a smiling lady-impossible to say whether her hand was raised in greeting or to deliver a blow.
"Chance," she finished, fitting her into the circle which had come to remind me both of Stonehenge and of Easter Island.
"Bring two chairs," she said, "and place them here and here,"
She indicated positions to the north and south of her circle.
I did as she'd said, and she seated herself in the northern-most chair, behind a final figure she had placed: Foresight. I took my place back of Desire.
"Be silent now," she instructed
Then she sat still, hands in her lap, for several minutes.
Finally, "At the deepest level," she said, "what threatens the peace?"
From my left, Caution seemed to speak, though the Tongue chimed his words overhead.
"A redistribution of ancient powers," he said.
"In what manner?"
"That which was hidden becomes known and is moved about" answered Risk.
"Are both Amber and the Courts involved?"
"Indeed," answered Desire, from before me.
"Ancient powers," she said. "How ancient?"
"Before there was an Amber, they were," stated Memory.
"Before there was a Jewel of Judgement--the Eye of the Serpent?"
"No," Memory responded.
She drew a sudden breath.
"Their number?" she said.
"Eleven," Memory replied.
She grew pale at that, but I held my silence as she had instructed.
"Those responsible for this stirring of ashes," she said then, "what do they wish?"
"A return to the glory of days gone by," Desire stated.
"Could this end be realized?"
"Yes," Foresight replied.
"Could it be averted?"