Sorcerer's Son (23 page)

Sepwin looked at him with knitted brows. “Will you make us armor out of it?”

“I’ll make us weapons out of it.”

“What—swords? That won’t be much help to me.”

Cray smiled. “How good is your aim, Feldar?”

“My aim? What do you mean?”

“Can you hit a target with a stone?”

Sepwin shrugged. “As well as anyone else can, I suppose. We used to amuse ourselves by throwing stones at rabbits, back at the village where I was born.”

“Show me.” He pointed to a tree half a dozen paces away. “The knot on the trunk, the one at about a man’s height—hit it with a couple of pebbles. Here

” He scratched at the ground, uncovered several stones no larger than the nail of his little finger. “Use these.”

Sepwin weighed the pebbles in his hand. ‘These are hardly deadly missiles.“

“Go on.”

“Well, you’ve picked an easy enough target.” He tossed one stone, overhand, hard, and it ricocheted off the knot with a sharp cracking noise. He threw two more, and both struck the target, which was quite large. “Shall I carry a bag of stones with me from now on?”

Cray stood up and walked to the tree. “Throw one at me now. Aim at my shoulder. And throw softly, Feldar, as if you wanted the pebble to come to rest where it struck, not punch a hole there.”

Sepwin obeyed, tossing the pebble lightly, underhand, and it touched Cray’s shoulder gently and tumbled off, to drop at his feet.

“Now, can you do that to a moving target?” He dodged to one side, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, weaving, bobbing. “Come on, come on.”

Sepwin scratched up more pebbles and threw them, and in spite of Cray’s maneuverings, most of the stones found a mark somewhere on his body.

Cray called a halt. “You’ve done well so far,” he said, nodding. “We’ll try it with spiders next.”

“Spiders?”

“Do you think I mean you to throw pebbles at the bandits?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Stand still and watch.” He lifted his hand, cupped the palm, and a spider crawled out of his sleeve to crouch upon his bare flesh. Then, as if it were a stone, he tossed it at Sepwin. He tossed it in a high arc, and it spun as it sailed toward its target, a trail of fine silk playing out behind it. It landed on Sepwin’s arm and scurried across his chest to the other arm and behind his back, laying down silk that clung to him; when it reached its landing point once more, the strand drew snug about him, pinning his arms to his sides.

“Three or four spiders,” said Cray, “and you would be netted as surely as any animal I ever hunted.” He touched the silk lightly and it fell away to nothing. The spider jumped back to his sleeve.

“But

I can’t do that,” said Sepwin, massaging his arms where the silk had pinched.

“Of course you can.”

“You mean they’ll spin like that for me?”

“If I want them to. Will you try it?”

Sepwin grimaced. “I don’t like the idea of carrying spiders up my sleeve.”

“You didn’t mind them sitting on your shoulders.”

“Just at the moment I was too busy trying to save your life to care.”

“Well, this is the same sort of thing, isn’t it? The bandits won’t be playing games with us.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Or would you rather try to bash their heads with your cudgel? I guarantee you, this is more likely to succeed.”

Sepwin chewed at his lower lip.

“And you won’t get sore muscles from this, either,” said Cray.

“Let me think about it.”

“Hold out your hand, Feldar.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to give you a spider. Hold out your hand. I swear you’ll not be bitten.”

“Will the spider swear, too?”

“I’ve never been bitten.”

“I didn’t have your mother.”

“Hold out your hand!”

His face grim, Sepwin obeyed. His hand was steady, palm upward, fingers cupped, and he stared at it as if he had never seen it before.

Cray grasped Sepwin’s wrist tightly with his own left hand, and with his right he dropped a small black spider into his friend’s open palm. The spider froze upon the pale flesh, resembling nothing so much as a small, dark pebble.

“You see, it won’t do anything I don’t want it to do,” said Cray.

“I don’t mind it on my hand,” said Sepwin. “But in my clothes, hiding, crawling all over my body—how can you bear it, Cray?”

Cray shrugged. “I have difficulty understanding why it should bother you.”

“They’re ugly, filthy, evil—”

“Nonsense! They are as evil as your eye, Feldar! I would have thought that you, above all people, would not harbor silly superstitions. And they are clean, too, and—in their way—quite beautiful. There is grace in their movements, smooth as the sweep of a lady’s skirt in the pavane. And they create beauty as well: I have never seen a lovelier sight than a dew-drenched web, sparkling in the morning sun like strands of pearls. Now let’s have no more foolishness, Feldar. You can carry a dozen spiders, and if you don’t think about that, you’ll never be aware that they ride with you.”

“I’ll feel them,” said Sepwin.

“Only when they walk to your hands to be tossed. I’ll command them to be still otherwise. Observe.” He pointed at the spider in his friend’s hand, and it unfroze, moving slowly over his palm, across the wrist, up the forearm, to disappear in his sleeve. “It’s stopped now, and there it will stay until I tell it to move again.”

“I feel it there. I feel it standing on my gooseflesh.”

“You’ll soon forget about it.”

“I don’t think so,” said Sepwin. He flexed his elbow hesitantly. “Won’t I crush it accidentally?”

“They aren’t easy to crush

accidentally. Bending your elbow won’t do it. They have hard shells, after all.”

Sepwin stared at his arm, as if he could see the spider through his clothing. “Must I carry this creature until we meet the bandits?”

“Carry it a while today,” said Cray, “to become accustomed to it. I’ll take it back before we sleep. Tomorrow we’ll try you with several spiders. Then you’ll practice throwing them. By the time we meet the bandits, you’ll be comfortable with them.”

“I find that hard to imagine.”

That evening, as Cray spoke with his mother, Sepwin watched the fringe of the web instead of its heart; he watched the spiders that had spun it waiting for flying insects to blunder into the sticky strands. They fed each night like that, sharing the one large web, their bodies scattered like raisins on the gossamer surface. When a struggling insect became entangled in the silk, some spider would scurry to the spot, walking on the few strands that would not cling to its legs, to spin a cocoon about the prey. When all the spiders had done with their meals, the cocoons were left hanging in the silk, to be blown away with the web by the next day’s wind, after Sepwin and Cray had resumed their journey.

“How glad I am that I am not a fly,” Sepwin said before they went to sleep.

“If you don’t learn to use those spiders,” replied Cray, “you will be a fly, to the bandits.”

The following day, Sepwin carried two spiders. But after he had practiced throwing them, in the evening, he still insisted on a sparring match with staves and shields. “In case I miss,” he said.

The land began to rise, the trail to become rockier and more difficult to negotiate. The mountains loomed close, seeming every morning taller than the night before, and every day’s progress was slower than the last. On the sixteenth evening, they halted in a copse of oaks, a level place beside the steeply climbing road. After dinner, Cray set all his spiders to forming a fence of fine netting to enclose the trees.

“I think we should start to take turns standing watch tonight,” he said, “in the event that the bandits are not completely obedient to the Seer’s prophecy. I’ll take the first watch.”

“Do you really think they might strike early? In the night?”

“No, but why be unprepared?” He strolled along the silken fence, which was almost invisible in the moonlight. “This will keep them out if they do, at least until they decide to climb it. And by that time, we’ll both be roused and ready to deal with them.” He glanced at Sepwin. “Which means, my friend, that you’ll be sleeping with spiders from now on.”

Sepwin sighed. “I suppose that’s for the best.”

“Kneel down and put your hands on the ground. They’re waiting to climb into your sleeves.”

“Very well.” He knelt. “You know, if I close my eyes and pretend hard enough, they feel like dry leaves brushing my skin instead of spiders.”

“Think of them that way, if it makes you feel better.”

Sepwin lay down, wrapped in his cloak. “I wish you had some other animal to follow your magical orders. I wouldn’t mind sleeping with a cat or a dog or any number of other creatures.”

“I don’t think Gallant would care much for carrying a pack of dogs about.”

“One dog.”

“What good would one dog be?”

“A magic dog.”

“I suspect spiders are much more useful than any magic dog.”

“If I were a sorcerer,” said Sepwin, “I’d think of some use for a magic dog.”

“I thought you liked horses best.”

“A magic horse, then. It wouldn’t matter to me. Just so it was something pleasing to look at.”

“Spiders are pleasing to look at!”

“I will never understand sorcerers,” muttered Sepwin, and he rolled over and went to sleep.

During the next day, he was nervous, always looking back over his shoulder, to one side or the other, peering ahead. He used any excuse to halt and listen for the sounds of horses other than their own. But there were none, only the whistling of the wind among the trees, and an occasional fall of loose stones somewhere out of sight.

That night they slept surrounded by silk again, though Sepwin hardly slept at all; he rose at last and took the watch far earlier than midnight. Cray did not argue with him over it, merely rolled in his blanket and went to sleep, leaving Sepwin to start at every hooting owl, at every cricket chirp, at every unidentifiable rustle. In the morning he was red-eyed, and his limbs shook.

“You haven’t slept enough,” said Cray. ‘Take a nap; we’ll start out later in the day.“

Sepwin shook his head violently. “I’d rather ride now, and get it over with.”

“Well, today is the eighteenth day, isn’t it?” Cray looked his friend over. “You won’t be much use to me in this state.”

“I’ll be all right. Let’s be off.”

“Have something to eat. Here’s cold pheasant from last night’s dinner.”

“I couldn’t eat.”

“Where will you find strength for your defense, Feldar, if you don’t eat?”

“I’ll eat afterward. I don’t think it would stay with me right now.”

“As you will.” Cray made his own breakfast without haste, then tore down the webs that had surrounded their camp. When he mounted Gallant, Sepwin was already astride his own animal, waiting, and his anxiety had communicated itself to his mount, which rocked from leg to leg and snorted with flaring nostrils at every whisper of wind.

They were high in the mountains now, and the trail swung back and forth, transforming steep ascents into gentle but interminable inclines. The peaks were all about them, treeless and wind-scoured. Frequently, the path narrowed to a mere ledge, with granite wall rising on one side and sheer drop falling away on the other. At these places, Cray rode first, and Sepwin followed, always looking behind him for pursuit. It was Cray who called a halt at the barrier. Sepwin pulled up beside him; the road was wide enough for both of them here, and neither cliff nor rock wall hemmed them in, though the slopes to either side looked to be rough climbing for horses. The barrier was a gate of logs laid across the road. Beyond it, two men waited. Their mounts were small compared to Gallant.

“Good day!” shouted one of the men.

Cray leaned forward in his saddle. “Good day to you, sir. Is there some danger ahead, that you’ve put up this obstruction?”

“This is a toll gate,” said the man. “You must pay the toll to pass.”

“And what is the toll, sir?” asked Cray.

“How much silver do you have?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. No more than a piece or two.”

The man smiled. He wore a dark beard, and his teeth were very white within its compass. His clothing was leather, as was his companion’s, and he wore several knives about his person. In a sling attached to his saddle, just brushing his right knee, was a heavy club. “Only a piece or two?” he said. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” said Cray. “We live off the land and have little use for money.”

“What a pity,” said the man. “In that case, you will have to pay with your horses.”

Cray’s fingers tightened on the reins. “Our horses? Good sir, my horse has been my friend for a considerable time. I could not give him up. And how would we pass through the rest of the mountains without horses?”

“You have sturdy enough legs, lad. You can walk.”

“You ask a high toll, sir.”

The man shrugged. “Not higher than you can pay.”

“I think it is,” said Cray. A sharp tap on the knee caused him to turn to Sepwin, who had struck the blow and was now looking back at the road behind them. A dozen strides away, a pair of riders moved toward the young companions; Cray knew they must have come from nearby concealment, else he and Sepwin would have heard their horses’ hoofbeats before this. Two of them wore beards, making a total of three bearded men among the four mounted strangers, just as the Seer had predicted.

“You will pay the toll,” said the spokesman for the group.

Cray looked at him. “Are you the lord of this land?”

“There is no lord here.”

“Then what right have you to collect a toll?”

“The right of strength, lad. What other right is there?”

Cray sought Sepwin’s eye, caught it briefly and tilted his head toward the men on the far side of the gate. He could see his friend’s hands clenching and unclenching in his horse’s mane, and as soon as their mutual gaze broke, Sepwin’s eyes returned to a restless search to left and right. He seemed to be looking for a way out.

“Off your horses, lads,” said the spokesman of the bandits, “and be grateful we haven’t asked for more than that.”