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“Are you okay, Guyan?” Zaine asked gently.
Her attention flicked to him, but she didn’t acknowledge his question. She stared at him for a few seconds, and then frowned as if she had only just seen them. “We don’t have much time.”
Guyan turned and walked slowly back into her wooden castle, leaving the three visitors outside. She made no effort to shut the door, and Zaine took that as permission to go inside. Aldren plucked a light-sphere from one of the trees and they all followed the golden-haired princess into her castle. She paused briefly to see if they were following before heading up a set of spiral stairs.
The stairs led to a circular room that peeped out over the top of the trees. In the daylight you could see the entire valley from her viewing room. As he emerged into the room behind Guyan, Zaine saw that it was still dark enough for the view of the valley to be just dark shadows and shapes. Nobody spoke as they filed into the small room and waited for Guyan to speak.
Instead, she took the light-sphere from Aldren and threw it back down the steps, then sat down, cross-legged, and stared up through the clear roof.
“What are we looking at?” Maata whispered to Zaine a few minutes later.
“The stars,” Guyan replied quietly. “Watch the stars.”
As Zaine’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that Maata was looking as confused as he felt. Just as he returned his gaze to the night sky, Guyan drew in a sharp breath. A star shone brighter then shot across the sky.
“That’s the second shooting star I’ve seen tonight,” Zaine said. “It must be good luck.”
“Not really,” Guyan replied. She watched the star as it neared the horizon and faded from view. She stood up, looked up at the sky one more time, and then headed back down the stairs.
“What does that mean?” Aldren asked as he hurried after the princess. “You’ve been acting strangely for days.”
Zaine and Maata followed them down, waiting to see if Guyan would answer Aldren. The old weaver had lived down in the valley with her for the past year and knew her better than anyone.
“Do the days seem longer and the nights to drag on forever?” Guyan asked as she walked out onto a wooden deck and was swallowed up by the darkness.
Zaine picked up the light-sphere and went out to where Guyan was leaning against the wooden banister. She was looking down into the night at where her circle had been.
“The night seems to be lasting a long time tonight,” Zaine agreed. “We just thought it was because we had to wait to give you your present.”
“A present?” Guyan’s odd manner vanished as she turned to Zaine with a smile that lit up her pretty face. “For me?”
“We wanted give you something to remind you of your home world,” Maata said. “It took Zaine a long time to find the right runes.”
“So you finished it?” Aldren asked, grinning. Guyan seemed both excited and a little irritated that everyone knew about her present except her.
Zaine drew the chunk of glass from his pocket and held it out to Guyan.
“It’s from the dragon stones,” Guyan said, taking the glass as if it were the most precious object she had ever seen. The edges glowed with a tinge of pink.
“When the lightning of the storm dragons hit the stones, it mutated part of the structure of the rock and turned it to glass,” Aldren explained.
“Zaine has polished up one side and added some runes,” Maata added, as Guyan examined the rough side of her present. She was running her finger down the large single rune that was still visible from when it had been part of the dragon stone. Then she turned it over to the polished side and drew in a breath of surprise and delight.
“You can see your world in it,” Zaine said, as the princess sank to sit on the wooden boards and stare into the shiny surface.
“The runes call up memories that the stones have absorbed over hundreds of years,” Aldren said. “Zaine is the first one to ever do such a spell.”
“I’m afraid it’s not a real window into your world, but it’s as close as I could get,” Zaine explained softly.
Guyan continued to stare into the glass that showed the form of a woman standing weeping at the edge of a field of grass. The woman, Guyan’s mother, looked up suddenly, as if surprised by a sound, and she cried out soundlessly and flung her arms open wide. Flying into view were six golden dragons, and on the back of one of them was a golden-haired little girl. A smile of delight lit the woman’s face.
The vision faded, and then a few seconds later it returned to the view of the woman standing alone by the field, crying.
“It repeats it,” Maata explained.
“I thought you might like to see your sister, Jelena, arriving home and your mother happy. I can change the runes to show a different memory if you want,” Zaine offered.
“No,” Guyan said slowly as she dragged her attention away from the glass. A fresh tear was rolling down her cheek. “It’s perfect.”
She cupped both hands around the glass and drew it in to hold it close to her chest as the happiness faded slowly from her eyes.
“I will cherish it for as long as we have left,” she said sadly.
“What do you mean?” Aldren asked.
“The stars shooting across the sky are supposed to be a happy occasion,” Guyan explained. “Each star represents a world that the starweavers and timeweavers are looking after. When they shoot across the sky, it means that that world has reached a point where it no longer needs the timeweavers to manage time for it. The world streaks off to find its own place and time to exist in.”
“So it is a good sign?” Maata asked, seeming confused.
“Usually, yes. But I have seen at least a dozen in the past three days. Something is going very wrong in my world. The starweavers and timeweavers are not tending to their tasks, and the worlds are breaking free before they are ready,” Guyan said sadly. “Time in those worlds will slow down until it stops forever.”
“And here the days and nights are longer.” Zaine was beginning to piece together what the princess was so upset about. “Our time is slowing down as well.”
Guyan nodded. “It will not be long before we, too, are cast into the sky and time ceases to have any meaning.”
Silence fell as the three youths and the old weaver turned their attention to the night sky, expecting to see more shooting stars but hoping that they wouldn’t.
“Surely there’s something we can do?” Maata said. As a princess she was used to being able to fix things rather than sit by and watch them fall apart.
“If we knew where the link to my world was, we might have a chance,” Guyan said with a sigh and walked back into the dark castle.
Zaine followed, and lit a few lamps to bring some light to the extended night-time. As he lit the last one, he turned to where Guyan was sitting on an oversized cushion.
“The circle was destroyed by the lightning of the storm dragons,” Zaine pointed out. “All that is left is that piece of glass.”
Guyan shook her head. “No, that was just a mirror image of the real one. Somewhere in this world is the real link. It looks exactly like the circle that was here. The weavers of my world couldn’t use the real one as there was something blocking it, so they created a copy of it that only went one way.”
“So all we have to do is find the original circle and we can go and see what the problem is?” Maata asked, looking brighter at the prospect of fixing things.
“I had the storm dragons search for it for almost a hundred years when I was trying to find a way to send Jelena home. Even they could not find it.” Guyan paused. “It was supposed to be very close by, as the weavers needed to create it as close as possible to ensure a good link. I have searched this valley a hundred times but I cannot find it.”
“How long do we have?” Aldren asked the question they all were afraid to ask.
“It’s impossible to tell,” Guyan answered quietly. “A month, a week, maybe only a single day.”