Sorcerer's Son (26 page)

Delivev could have had her spiders spin afresh, but she did not. Let them have their rendezvous if they wish, alone. She found herself wondering what the young woman thought of her lover’s action— perhaps that it was just a little quirk of his that he could not bear cobwebs in the corners of his room, nothing to pay any heed, even if it did seem to come over him at times when his mind should have been otherwise occupied. Delivev smiled sadly. In her observations of troubadours, she had noted that they never had any trouble finding love, no matter what their personal oddities, the ugly face, the crippled leg, the youth, the age; it was the music, she thought, and the tales they brought to women whose sole contact with the greater world they were. Only she, Delivev, with her silken windows to everywhere, was immune to the lure of the troubadour. She could hardly blame Lorien for thinking that she was the same as all the others, that she had brought him to her by magic for love.

I am too old, she thought, for love.

She raised an arm clad in black feathers and conjured a different castle upon the web, different faces, different voices. A piece of needlecraft rolled through the doorway of the web chamber and scrambled up the coverlet like a live creature, to give her hands something to work upon. In the web scene, too, a woman sat quiet in a high-backed chair, fingers busy with embroidery. But her clothing was bright, her smile as sunny as the spring afternoon that entered her home through slitted windows. At her feet, two small boys were tumbling with a pair of dogs, laughing, squealing in their pleasure. Occasionally, their mother cautioned them not to be too rough with the animals.

Delivev thought of Cray, of course. She wished that she could hear him laugh once more.

The sun shone bright and dusty on the waxy leaves of the Seer’s tree. Cray and Sepwin were dusty, too, from the long, dry ride. Gone were the chill, fast-flowing streams of the mountains, gone the muck that slowed their horses’ steps, gone the pale green of spring’s first growth, all far behind them. Summer had begun, hot, merciless, and the intermittent shade of the trees that overhung the road could scarcely moderate it.

In the entry to her home, she was waiting for them, a carafe of cool wine in her hands. “I knew you would come today.”

They drank gratefully, then followed her inside to the room of the dark pool and the sandy floor, where the sun never penetrated. It was cold there, by contrast with the blazing summer outside, and within moments Cray’s and Sepwin’s sweat-soaked clothing was chill and clammy against their skin. Seeing them shiver, the Seer brought blankets from behind the door at the far end of the room, and they wrapped themselves snugly.

“You have had the bad news,” said the Seer.

“I have,” replied Cray, “and it was full as terrible as you foresaw. Now I hope you can tell me what to do next.”

She sat him down on the rim of the pool, and seated herself beside him. With one hand she touched his forehead, where the sweat-damp hair clung in ringlets; with the other she caressed the surface of the water, as if it were a living creature to be petted. “How disappointing it was for you,” she murmured. “And yet you put your time at Mistwell to good use.”

“I took what I was offered, my lady. It was considerable.”

“And you paid the price that was asked. You polished armor and chopped wood and fetched water and even hurled offal in the frozen ground. And you did all these things without a word of complaint, without a surly glance, yes, with a smile and a cheerful word, though your heart ached within you. You are a good lad, Cray; I have seen that from the moment you first entered my house.”

Cray shrugged. “They were kind to me. I did not want to seem ungrateful.”

The Seer nodded at Sepwin, who sat huddled in his blanket on the sand at Cray’s feet. “And your friend worked as well, though not without complaint; still, he did his share.”

Sepwin looked up at her hesitantly. “He has muscles from swinging his sword, and I have none. It was harder for me. Still

I’d swear that both fireplaces in the main hall burned my choppings all winter. And not once did anyone kick me or spit on me for being a beggar. I’m not a beggar anymore. That’s Cray’s doing. What’s a little wood-chopping in return for that? Even if I did complain.”

Cray’s hand snaked out of his blanket and delivered a playful cuff to Sepwin’s ear. “You wouldn’t be yourself if you didn’t complain a bit.”

“They would have you back at Mistwell,” said the Seer. “Whenever you chose to go back, they would welcome both of you.”

Cray looked at her steadily. “And will we go back?”

She dipped her hand into the water and lifted a cupped handful of it. Though the pool was night-dark, the liquid in her hand was clear and colorless, and it sparkled in the torchlight as she flattened her palm and let it dribble away. “Do you want to go back?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“It would be a good place for you. You would make a name for yourself in service to the House of Ballat.”

“Will I?”

She gazed at him sidelong, her hand uplifted, droplets of water still falling from her pale skin, like teardrop gemstones. “You still want to find your father. You would not have returned to me if the House of Ballat had been enough for you.”

“Yes. Of course. Tell me what to do! You are my last hope. I have nowhere left to turn, my lady!”

“I could say

turn home. Or turn to Mistwell. But I know those are not the answers you seek.” Her hand on his forehead moved down his face, to his cheek, to the line of his jaw, across his throat to the back of his neck. She cradled his head in her hand. “You have courage, lad. Courage must carry you to the only other means of answering your question.”

“Tell me!”

Her wet hand touched his blanket-covered shoulder and gripped hard—through wool and chain and quilting he could feel the pressure. “You must go back to his grave,” she said. “And you must dig up his bones and bring them to me. Every one of them. I need them all, don’t leave a single bone behind.”

He started, shrank away from her, but only a hairs-breadth, for she held him, “His bones?”

“I must have them. Then I can tell you where he was born, where raised. And you will go there and seek yourself. I can do no more than that.”

“His bones,” Cray whispered. He looked down at the pool, where the surface still rippled gently from the drops that had fallen from her hand. “I must disturb his bones?”

“There is no other way. His sword and shield have told us nothing. What else remains?”

“My lady

this is a hard request.”

“I know.”

“To tear him from the peace of the earth like a weed from a field of grain, to bundle his poor bones in a sack as if they were no more than billets of wood

” He swallowed against a thickness in his throat. “And

to expose to the light of day that which no longer belongs in it, wormy, rotting

” He closed his eyes against the vision that his words conjured.

“I promise you,” the Seer said softly, “that after so many years in the earth there will be no worms. Just bones, clean bones. But you are the only one who can decide if your quest is important enough for this last effort.” Her hands fell away from him.

Cray looked into her compassionate face, into her pale eyes that seemed to hold all the sorrows of the world in their depths

or at least all the sorrows of his own world. At that moment, she made him think of his mother, though it was only the expression and not the face itself that called that memory. He thought of his mother, and of all the nights of weeping that he knew, and all the nights there must have been before he was old enough to notice. Then he looked at Sepwin, companion of so many travels. “Feldar?” he said.

Wide-eyed, Sepwin returned his gaze. “What do you want me to say?”

“Will you come with me?”

Sepwin glanced from his friend to the Seer and back. “It’s evil luck to dig up a grave. What has been buried must remain so, or the bones will curse you.”

“I don’t believe that,” Cray said firmly. “I do believe that it is the ultimate disrespect to disturb a grave.” He took a deep breath. “But he would understand that I have no other choice. I am too far along the trail to shirk now—I must follow it to the end, to whatever end.”

“Well, he was your father,” Sepwin said slowly. “I suppose if anyone has a right to disturb the grave, you have.”

“You needn’t come along if the prospect frightens you.”

Sepwin’s lips tightened. “I am not afraid. I, who have one eye blue and the other brown, am not afraid of silly superstitions! I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you, my friend.” Cray’s hand snaked out from beneath his blanket and met Sepwin’s in midair, clasped tightly. “I will never forget this.” He turned his face to the Seer. “What do you see now, lady, in my future?”

“I see a good friend,” she replied, smiling.

“And what else? More misery?”

She touched his hand, their two hands, lightly. “I see considerable travel yet ahead of you; though you have journeyed far already, your quest has scarcely begun. There is misery, yes; how not? You are unraveling a lie, and therein dwells much misery. But I will not give you the advice I gave you once before; I know you will not take it. A good journey to you, Cray. I think I need not say

have courage.”

Cray rose, throwing off the blanket, and he bowed to her. “I will see you again soon, my lady. Fare you well.”

The summer sun seemed pleasantly warm after the chill of the cave. The two companions had ridden some distance, and their clothing had dried in the warm air and begun to dampen again with their sweat when Sepwin cleared his throat to speak.

“Will you tell your mother about this part of the quest?”

“No. She’d only try to talk me out of it. She’d have good reasons, too—all the reasons I’ve already thought of and rejected. Truly, though, she doesn’t want to know who he was, nor anything about him. He was like a dream for her, and she doesn’t want reality to spoil the dream. Perhaps if I had known him, I might feel the same.” He shrugged. “But she will know, of course. The longer I am on this quest, the more I wish she were only an ordinary mortal, with no power to look over my shoulder, to know everything I do, everywhere I go. She will know, through her tapestry, but not until the deed is done.”

“What will you tell her, then, when she asks what we’re doing now?”

“I think

that the Seer asked for some soil from the grave to divine from. That I should have brought that before, along with the sword and shield, but I didn’t know, of course, that it might be needed.”

“You think she’ll believe that?”

“Why not?”

“She might ask the Seer herself what you had been sent for.”

“Only if the expression on your face is as it is now when next she sees you, Feldar. Perhaps you had best practice an innocent gaze until then.”

“Innocent?”

“Yes. Just now you look like you’ve stolen a handful of gems and are afraid their owner is coming after you.”

Sepwin looked down at his horse’s mane, “I’ll do my best.”

“I, too,” said Cray.

“You know,” Sepwin murmured, after they had ridden on a bit, “we don’t have a spade.”

“We’ll buy one along the way somewhere. There will be towns, Feldar, and wine and food and many a campsite between here and there.” Cray sighed. “For once, I could wish to be a sorcerer and have the power to fly where I would instead of this endless riding.”

“I’d rather ride,” said Sepwin. “The fall from a horse is considerably less than the fall from the sky.”

Cray smiled. “If I were a sorcerer, my friend, you would never fall. But I’d wager you’d keep your eyes closed the whole trip.”

“What—these eyes closed to sorcery? After the things they have seen already?”

“They’ve seen precious little, Feldar.”

“More than most mortal eyes.” He grinned at his companion. “There aren’t many ordinary folk who’ve had the chance to travel with such as you, Cray. You often say you’re not a sorcerer, but you are sorcerer enough for me, believe me, or for anyone who has only a mortal’s power over the world. When I tossed your spiders at those bandits, I felt your power, Cray, and though to you it is nothing, to me it was wondrous. Why you would give it up to be a mere knight is beyond my comprehension.”

Cray regarded him sidelong. “If you had grown up with my paltry skills at sorcery, if you knew the greater powers that exist that are so far beyond me that they would take an ordinary mortal lifetime to learn properly, you would not think my few skills so wondrous.”

“But you would have a longer life, as well, in which to learn them.”

“What is that to me,” asked Cray, “if I must spend that life in a way that gives me no contentment?”

“I could be content so, I think.”

“You know who your father was.”

“You care too much, Cray, about that. Yon are yourself, not him.”

Cray shook his head. “I am not myself until I know who he was. I am no one without that knowledge.” In his mind, he could hear his mother’s soft weeping. “I don’t expect you to understand, Feldar.”

“I don’t,” said his friend. “But I will follow anyway, and hope for your sake that we will find an answer this time.”

The hut was deserted. Its thatched roof had caved in since their visit the previous year, and the few pieces of simple furniture inside were ruined by snow and rain. Behind the hut, where the old man had kept his fire, where he had cultivated his grain and vegetables, was a tangle of weeds like the rest of the abandoned fields.

“He must have died this winter,” said Sepwin.

“Or perhaps one of his children came back and took him away to a cheerier home,” said Cray. He stood in the doorway, contemplating the ruined interior, lit by bright sunlight through the rent roof. “I don’t see any body. There is his bed

empty.”

“Some passerby may have buried him. Or he may lie in the fields somewhere.”

“We’ll look for him,” said Cray. “We owe him a burial, surely.”

They searched the overgrown fields and the woods nearby, but they found no trace of the old man, and at last they were forced to give up by the setting sun. In the twilight, they cleared the hut of its fallen roof, and Cray set his spiders to spin a new one of silk, to shelter them for the night.