Sorcerer's Son (16 page)

“He was bound south for Falconhill from the East March.”

“He was indeed! Bound for the hold of our very own lord with some business from the East March!”

Cray knelt by the grave and laid his hands upon it, as if some essence could pass from the corpse resting within to himself. He felt only grass beneath his palms, and the coarser texture of herbs scattered among the shorter growth. He touched the shield, the sword, and flakes of rust came away in his hand.

“He was my father,” Cray said, and he closed his eyes and curled his fingers into the grave mound, into the rich black soil beneath the grass. Of a sudden, the chain was heavy on his body, and he could not rise against its weight for a long, long time.

Beside him, Gildrum stood silent, his lips closed over toothless gums. He wanted to touch the kneeling youth; he wanted to take him in his arms and hold him close, but he held himself aloof instead, as a stranger would, leaving Cray alone in grief over a lie.

The demon had planned the simulated death well, thinking that Delivev would find some way to track her lover when he did not return. The victorious foe, a hulking knight in black armor, had been an illusion, the battle realistically wild, the witnesses frightened flesh and blood. But Delivev had not traced her lover, and in the years that followed the event, the witnesses had trickled away through marriage and death, until the hut lay abandoned, the fields overgrown, the graves lost in weeds and wild flowers.

Sitting on the high stool in Rezhyk’s workshop, Gildrum had known that Cray was approaching the place, following the innkeeper’s directions. With little time to spare, she had begun to voice a certain personal dissatisfaction to her master, a certain discontent with her own accomplishments. The steel plates, she had said, would be more easily translated if there were more of them, and so she offered to return to Ushar and search onward. She hinted, even, that she could almost guess where others might be found, and her arguments were so earnest and persuasive that Rezhyk agreed and gave the command she sought.

Gildrum had not lied to its master—the demon fully intended to return to Ushar, and it did have a notion of where to search next. But knowing that it would not be expected back at Ringforge soon, it went elsewhere first. It transformed the abandoned homestead into a place where an elderly man might live, for Rezhyk had given his servant that form once. If repaired the hut and cleared a patch around the structure, trimmed the sides of the road and tended the graves. Then it caused Cray’s horse to go lame. If Cray had not stopped at the hut of his own volition, Gildrum would have contrived to go out into the road after him.

Cray stood up at last, and he gathered the shield and sword in his arms, wrenching them from the earth that anchored them. “These belong to me now,” he said.

“I understand, young sir,” said Gildrum. “It is only right that his kin should know what became of him.” And to himself, he said, Tell her, my son. Tell her, and both of you will be free of someone who never existed. He watched Cray walk stiffly through the tall wild grain, toward the hut, and before he followed he allowed himself to sigh so quietly that the youth could not hear. But I, he thought, I shall never be free of you.

“Master Feldar,” Cray called hoarsely, “we shall not be going to Falconhill after all.”

She knew something was wrong when she stepped past the threshold of the chamber where the tapestry wove itself.. The whole room was dim, as if curtains of thick gauze veiled the bare windows, and the air was a heavy miasma that seemed to roll into the lungs like syrup. A thousand terrible thoughts filled her brain as she crossed the floor, images of Cray lying broken in some foreign land, robbed, tortured, dead. Even as she touched the cloth, tears were streaming from her eyes, and she could hear the blood of fear rushing in her ears. As her fingers met the threads, the shock of grief invaded her flesh, rising in her arms like poison from a snakebite. She shivered with ague and fell to the floor, powerless to move, her hands still clutching the cloth. She scarcely needed to see the bearings that the tapestry had pictured, the lances interlocked; she knew her son too well to doubt the source of that emotion. The knowledge she had never wanted was hers now, and the pain that it brought was fiercer by far than any she had ever known in so many years of uncertainty. She keened, harshly, brokenly, until her throat was afire, and even then she did not cease.

Slowly, her creatures joined her, the spiders and snakes creeping close to her prostrate form, the vines sliding in the window, the birds lighting on her shoulders and hips to peck at the feathers of her clothing, at her hair, her ears. Only the pony did not come, locked in its stall near the garden, but it sensed the pall that flowed from that room, and it whinnied its uneasiness. After a long time, she heard it, and she rose, heavy with the age she had never felt before, and went out to comfort it.

Ť ^ ť

When he saw her in the web, Cray perceived some change in his mother. The soft, pale plumage she had always favored for her garments had been replaced by glossy raven feathers, and in contrast her skin seemed ashen. She sat too still and straight upon the velvet coverlet, only her fingers moving, the slender needles poised in their grasp twitching rhythmically upon some half-completed knitting. She did not smile, not even the sad smile that he knew so well, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes, as if she had been awake far too long.

“I know what you found, my son,” she said. “You need not speak the words. What will you do now?”

“I’ll go to the East March, Mother. He swore fealty to its lord, and I shall do the same. Surely they will accept his son.”

“I don’t know what ordinary mortals will accept,” she said.

“Well, there’s no point in going on to Falconhill now.”

“No. No point. But the East March is far.”

“Other places are farther.”

She looked down at her knitting. “I suppose it is your proper destination now.”

“I don’t know of another.”

“You can stop at home on your way. Rest. Replenish yourself. I can think of a few favorite foods you can’t have tasted in quite some time. I’ll even welcome your friend, if he’s still with you by then.”

Cray shook his head. ‘I’m not coming home, Mother. I’ll take a different route.“

She looked up at him. “Another route? But any other route would be longer.”

“Once at home,” he said, “it would be very hard to leave again. Even if you didn’t cook any of my favorite foods.” He smiled, hoping the expression would prompt an answer from her lips, but it did not. “I know you understand, Mother.”

She lowered her eyes once more. “I understand. Do you plan to pass north or south of Spinweb?”

“South, I think. We have come some distance south already, and we can strike directly east from here.”

“To the south, where the forest thins, there is a great swamp. Both men and roads have entered and never emerged. You must detour far around it, unless you have an excellent map.”

“I have no map at all,” said Cray. “I was hoping that you could provide me with one.”

“I am no mapmaker,” she said.

“Perhaps not, but I’d guess you know one.”

Her fingers paused, stilling the needles. “Human roads and settlements have little interest for a sorcerer. And demons need no maps.”

“A demon of the air could easily make a map,” said Cray. “What of the sorcerer who sent Gallant for me? He has many such demons, and he has dealt fairly with you before.”

“He has. But he does no favors. He would have to be paid.”

“Give him something that belongs to me, then. Tapestries from my room, the rug, the coverlet. I don’t care.”

“You don’t care,” she murmured. “Because you’ll not be using any of it again.”

“Please, Mother. Do this for me.” He reached out toward her with an open, pleading hand.

She sighed heavily. “Of course. Have I ever denied you anything?”

“Thank you, Mother.”

“Stay where you are a day or two. The map shall come to you.” Her image faded away, and the web became just a web strung between two bushes, bellying gently in the morning breeze.

Cray fumed to Sepwin. “I have hurt her terribly,” he said. “After so many years, she was still hoping that he might be alive.”

“As you were,” replied Sepwin.

Cray nodded. “At the very least, I never expected the trail to be so short.”

Sepwin shrugged. “He was young, and youth usually means inexperience. He was pitted against a better man. And an angrier one, if we can believe the old man’s tale.”

Cray glanced down the road. They were some hours travel from the hut, from the grave, and they had passed two other homesteads, both abandoned and overgrown with weeds, before stopping in a grove of trees. He had not wanted to speak to his mother where the old man might overhear, and then he had not found the heart to set his spiders spinning until the hot morning sun had burned some of the tears from his eyes. The corroded shield hung on Gallant’s saddle behind his own, and the sword was wrapped in a linen shirt and thrust into one of the saddlebags; he could not look at his father’s arms without feeling his heart tighten in his breast.

“He was young,” Cray said at last. “Even by mortal standards.”

“Not younger than you are, though, I’ll warrant.”

“Than I? No. But he was a knight, of course. If I started my training tomorrow, it would be years before I could be knighted.”

“To me, Master Cray, you are already a knight. And a better one than most.”

“Nonsense, Master Feldar. How many knights have you known?”

“I have never known one before, but I have encountered them a-plenty, thank you. Big, fierce men, without a care for anything but themselves. I once saw one trample a small child that happened to be playing in the road. He just rode over it, as if it had been a weed.”

“He must not have seen it. Those visors, you know—sometimes they obscure the vision enormously.”

“He saw it. But he didn’t care. The mother cared, though. She screamed loud enough. But he rode on.”

“Well, I suppose there must be evil knights as well as good ones, as there are of other men. You must not judge them all by the actions of a few. In the webs I have seen them courteous and kind, helping ladies with their knitting, playing with children, laughing, joking. The oath of knighthood demands that they be good and true to their friends. In battle, of course, toward their enemies, that is something quite different.”

“Where did you see these knights?” Sepwin wondered.

“As I told you

in the webs.”

“No, I mean where were they?”

“In various castles. Perhaps a dozen in all. So you see, I have seen a goodly number of knights.”

“Well, I have never been in a castle, Master Cray. I only know the knights who have passed me on the road or in villages. Perhaps they are as you say among their own. A man would hardly do evil to the lady or children of his host, or to the man who might guard his back in battle. But among the peasants, among the people who are of no consequence, these knights are not so kind and courteous. I will not go so far as to say they are evil, no. But they are selfish and uncaring, and we who do not belong in castles, in fine clothes and jewels, we do not matter to them an eye blink.”

“They protect you,” said Cray.

“They protect themselves. We work the land to make them rich. Well

my father does. He pays his taxes promptly each year. I am not in a position to make anyone rich. Perhaps that is why they spit on me. A beggar pays no taxes. He is worth less than the poorest peasant.”

Cray said, “You have had some bad experiences, Master Feldar. You see the world in a twisted way.”

“Ah, no, Master Cray. It is you that sees the world twisted. The webs have limited your vision to the best side of these men, and you know nothing of the rest.”

“You are wrong, Master Feldar,” said Cray. “I know that evil exists in them; I do not delude myself on that score. The webs have shown me ugly things as well as beautiful—theft and betrayal and even murder. Yes, murder. Still, I don’t believe that every knight would ride down a child playing in the road. Perhaps if you did not have eyes of two different colors, you would see a more balanced version of the world.”

Sepwin fingered the kerchief which had served as an eye patch; he had worn it about his throat since they had left the old man behind. “Perhaps because I have eyes of two different colors, I have seen things that you have not.”

“I don’t doubt it. Fear, I’m sure, is a potent force for evil.”

“I am fortunate, then,” Sepwin said, a slow grin curving his mouth, “that you have no fear.” He touched the shoulder of his shirt, one of Cray’s clean linen shirts. His trews, too, were Cray’s. His old clothes, save for the worn cloak and sandals, had been thrown away; as predicted, they had not survived washing.

Cray folded his arms across his chest. “I have fears, Master Feldar, but I don’t fear nonsense. And I don’t fear magic, as you should not.”

“It’s easy to fear what one doesn’t understand,” said Sepwin.

Cray gestured up at the sky. “Do you fear the sun because you don’t understand what keeps it aloft? Do you fear clouds, rain, the moon and stars?”

“But these are natural things,” said Sepwin.

“As is magic.”

“Not to me. I know that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west, and the moon and stars, too. I know that clouds float across the sky and sometimes loose rain, which falls down and makes me wet. But magic

”

“Magic is a tool,” said Cray. “Like fire. Human beings make fire serve them, and they do the same with magic. One must treat the sorcerer with respect, as one would a man with a blazing torch in his hands. Each is in a position to do harm, but neither will attack the innocent.” He frowned slightly, then added, “Unless, of course, he is mad.”

“Of course,” echoed Sepwin. “Tell me, Master Cray,. are there many mad sorcerers about in the world?”

“I’ve heard of one or two.”

“Only one or two?”

“How many would you expect? How many mad ordinary mortals do you know of?”