"We are in need of transportation."
"To where?" said Elwyn, even more blankly than before.
"To the Passage that leads to Weerien! To the place where Morgana is probably fighting for her life with Thia Pendriel and Merlin this minute!"
Elwyn looked cautious, and Charles had a dreadful feeling that she was going to ask why. But "why?" was not a question that often occurred to Elwyn.
"What's wrong with the straightway?" was what she said, after a moment. She said it hesitantly, as if embarrassed about putting forward so obvious a solution.
"The what? What is it? Where is it?"
Elwyn looked at them doubtfully. She really was trying, Charles could tell. It occurred to him for the first time that these conversations were as difficult for Elwyn as for the rest of them.
"Where is it?" she repeated, with exactly the same intonation Alys might have used if Janie had demanded Where's my head? Then she suddenly looked both pleased and crafty, "It's a riddle."
"Oh, God," said Alys
"Look," said Charles to Elwyn hastily. "Is it around here? Can you just point to it?"
"Point to it." Elwyn gave a small, wan smile, and pointed upwards, her eyes still on them. Her expression now said thay they were obviously dangerous lunatic who must be humored. (Where's my head, dang it? It must be around here somewhere!) She said helplessly, "It's those lines. You see the lines?"
"No!" said Charles. In his frustration he grabbed her by one fragile shoulder. "I don't--"
He did.
He let go of her, stared, and clutched her again. He stood still, gaping upward. "Alys. Touch her. Then look."
Alys gingerly laid a hand on Elwyn's other shoulder. She gasped. Claudia grabbed Alys's hand and gasped too.
Janie walked quietly up to Charles and linked an arm through his, completing the chain. She looked up.
It was a latticework of lines thin as spider webs, gleaming like gold or silver though they were neither of these colors. A delicate lace skein stretching from horizon to horizon and as far up as they could see. It was the cosmic cat's cradle, the warp and woof of time and space.
Alys tore her gaze down from it to look at Elwyn. "Are you saying that can take us to Weerien?"
"Oh, no." Elwyn said promptly.
Before Alys could take a swing at her, Charles broke in.
"Can it takes us anywhere? Like to the Passage?"
"Oh, yes." said Elwyn, just as promptly.
"Okay, let's go! Let's go now!" he said gaily, taking a small shuffling step with his arm still linked through Elwyn's. As he had hoped, Elwyn smiled blithely and stepped out with him, and the next moment she was actually leading the rest of them. She stepped onto one of the spider webs and Charles suddenly saw it change, not as if it were growing, but as if it were rotating in space, as if what he had seen at first was an edge-on plane. It was now a glimmering road like a moonpath on still water, and as he stepped on it he instantly had the sense of moving swiftly but very smoothly. Wind blew in his face, bringing a tang of salt to his lips.
"The old straight track," murmured Janie. He looked at her and smiled. ---Heart of Valor

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