Sorcerer's Son (44 page)

Cray did so, and his rotation slowed.

“You will stop eventually that way,” said the demon.

“I wish I could just stand up,” said Cray. “Or lie down. I feel a bit dizzy. Is all the demon world like this?”

“You mean without weight?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes. You’ll get used to it. Personally, I prefer it—nothing to drag you down to that hard, lumpy surface. Of course, I can fly in your world, but it’s so much more tiring.”

“Well, I can’t fly there, but I don’t mind walking.”

“You’ll enjoy flying here, I’m sure. You’ll miss it when you get back.”

“Have you ever walked, Elrelet?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve done my share. My master used to like traveling. He gave me a horse’s form, and I did quite a bit of walking with him. Slow travel it was; I tried to suggest that we fly, but he’d have none of that. A very leisurely fellow.”

“What happened to him?” asked Cray.

“Happened? Why, nothing. He’s still there, settled into a huge castle with all the souvenirs he picked up in our wandering. I don’t see him very often. He has everything he wants and little use for a slave these days.”

“Oh. I thought perhaps you had been freed.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you have a home here. Because Gildrum gave me into your care. I supposed from that that you were here all the time, not enslaved by some human.”

“There are many of us here most of the time. We’re slaves still, but we have masters who don’t call for our services constantly, not like my poor friend Gildrum. We have homes. Gildrum has a home, too. You passed through it on your way here, though I suppose you wouldn’t have noticed with your human eyes. We have a whole way of life which is occasionally interrupted by some human whim.”

“Are there many like Gildrum?”

“I am at one extreme, Gildrum is at the other, and there is everything in between, Cray.” The demon made a sound like a human being clearing his throat. “And now, Cray, I must warn you about the Free.”

“The Free?” said Cray, lying quite still in the middle of the air, his arms at his sides, his eyes closed. Now that he had stopped moving, the dizziness was passing away. “Who are they?”

“They are the demons who have never been slaves. They spend their time amusing themselves, and I suspect they will consider you a great source of amusement very soon. They live in fear of the summons, and fear makes their jesting bitter. I hope you will not be offended by anything they may say. In any event, you would be wise to be polite to them at all times.”

“I always try to be polite to those who are stronger than I am.”

“Well, I will protect you, of course

”

“But you would prefer not to be given the opportunity. I understand. Is there anything special that I must not say to the Free?”

“Don’t ask their names. Only a slave will admit to a name.”

“And what of those former slaves whose masters are dead? Where do they fit in? Will they acknowledge names?”

“Some will, some won’t. Some rejoin the Free, some stay with the more relaxed society of the slaves. We, at least, though we are compelled by rings, no longer are in the fear of the unknown.”

“And those whose masters have freed them—where do they go?”

“There are only a few such fortunate creatures, they alone can live their lives completely as they choose, for a slave who has been set free can never be enslaved again,” The cloud contracted suddenly, made a very human sigh. “I asked my master for that once, but he put me off. He said he might need sometime. He’ll die without freeing me, I know, and then I will wait in suspense, wondering if and when another sorcerer will find me. Be glad you’re not a demon, Cray Ormoru.”

“The Free are not the only bitter demons,” Cray said softly.

“No, they are not. To be a demon is to be bitter, at least since the first sorcerer made the first pair of rings to catch us. Even I—and I am one of the lucky ones. I had a better humor than most, before the summons, and my slavery has not been so hard that I have lost it all. Still, even I cry out sometimes. Especially when he calls me. Which reminds me: should I be called, should I disappear suddenly without telling you, it would be best, at first certainly, if you did not wander too far from the house.”

Cray bent his legs, clasped his knees. “I should be afraid even to go out. I’d never find it again.”

“I’ll mark it for you.”

“Well, I don’t expect to go out much. I have my studies.”

“So Gildrum told me.” A thread of cloud extruded from the thunderhead that was Elrelet, stretching out and out, past Cray till it curled against the invisible wall beyond him. There the notebooks huddled, like sheep on a cold winter’s night. The strand of cloud retracted slowly, depositing the books beside Cray on its way back to the parent body. “Here are your lessons. Whatever else you might need, you have only to ask, and I will bring it.”

Cray clutched the books. “I’ll just read right now, thank you, while there’s still light.”

“There is always light,” said Elrelet.

“You haven’t any night here?”

“None. Nor do we sleep.”

“Well then, I’ll need some sort of mask if I’m to sleep.”

“I can darken the walls for that.”

“Good. Later I’ll ask for that favor.” Cray opened one of the books to the last page he remembered writing on. There were six beyond it, filled with minuscule script that even he might have mistaken for his own. He set a finger at the beginning of the new section and looked back at the thunderhead. “Oh, and if it’s possible, I’d like to get my belongings back—the saddlebags on my horse and the sword and shield which lie where Gildrum spirited me away from my own world. Can you do that, Elrelet?”

“Nothing simpler, if Gildrum approves,” said the demon. “But I can find you clothes and even a sword and shield if you really want them, all better quality than those you left behind. I don’t know what you need them for, though—there’s no one to fight with those weapons, and you can go naked, it’s warm enough.”

“I’m not really accustomed to going naked,” said Cray. “My clothes are good enough for me, and the rest

well, call it sentiment that makes me want them.”

“I see that there is a ring among your belongings.” The thunderhead sent a tendril of cloud to Cray’s hand, delicately touching the smallest finger, where the slim, inconspicuous band of gold rested. Cray felt a faint dampness at that touch, nothing more.

“There is a ring,” he replied, “but it is not important.”

“Yes, yes,” said Elrelet. “It means you have another ally here, and one who will be more faithful to you than either Gildrum or I could ever be. Don’t underestimate the value of a slave.”

“Just a small one. I have no further need for his services; I may as well set him free,” He twisted the ring on his finger. “Except that I don’t know how to do that yet. Perhaps you could instruct me, Elrelet?”

“How refreshing,” said the demon. “A master who wishes to free a slave without any prompting. Oh, I could instruct you, never doubt it. Any of us could. But I would suggest that you put the notion aside for now. You may find yourself needing a slave in the near future, even a small one.”

“It is my turn to be surprised, Elrelet. I never expected to hear a demon advise me to keep another in slavery.”

“I told you I would give you advice, Cray. I hope it will always be useful advice.”

“And I thank you for it.”

Elrelet left to consult with Gildrum on the matter of the saddlebags, sword, and shield and returned with the items themselves and with the large counterpart of Cray’s ring as well, which Cray had left behind in Ringforge. The demon spewed them into a space which seemed as open as any within the invisible walls; Cray’s questing hands discovered it to be an alcove sealed by a cushiony door that yielded to strong pressure.

“One object—you—is enough to be floating freely in my house,” said Elrelet. “I trust you will not leave your belongings scattered everywhere. The books can go in here, too, when you’re not using them.”

“I shall try to be neat,” said Cray. “But remember, I am not accustomed to all this floating.”

“You will learn.”

And he did learn. The mild dizziness passed quickly, as if his two flights with the great bronze bird had inured him to the vast openness of sky all around. After some initial floundering, he developed a smooth swimming stroke and a technique of turning corners by rebounding off an invisible wall. He found that he could read without touching the book save to turn the pages but that he could not write in it without using both hands—one to press the writing implement against the page and the other to keep the book from sailing away under that pressure. Elrelet gave him a silver-point for the writing instead of quill and ink, saying that the ink would not flow properly in the demon world. Ink was not the only fluid that would not flow without weight, Cray soon determined, and he became adept at shaking globules of wine and water from their containers and sucking them into his mouth before they could spread all over his face and hair.

He learned incantations, he learned procedures. He practiced gestures and tones of voice, rhythms and phrasing. He invented a scheme of notation that would recall details beyond the mere words when his teacher was not near to answer questions. Gildrum visited infrequently, testing him each time on the material he had been given before, leaving more pages and pages of lore that he must commit to memory. Cray began to wonder how long it would take to make him Rezhyk’s equal.

“Time passes differently here,” said Gildrum. “Without night to separate the days, time stretches out, and not just for us, who never sleep, but for you, too. If I took you back this instant, what season do you think you would find at Spinweb?”

Cray shook his head. “I have lost track completely. If you told me I had been here a century, I would believe you. Yet my beard hasn’t grown an inch.”

“And will not,” said Gildrum. “Nothing grows here. Nor do you have to eat, Cray, except that you are used to it.”

“And will I age?”

“No.”

“Then it scarcely matters what season it is at Spinweb. Except

I wonder if my mother is worrying about me.”

“I think not. You haven’t been gone very long.”

“She has a magical tapestry that shows her my travels. When she looks at it next, will it tell her I’m here.”

Gildrum hesitated. “I should think not. No earthly eyes but yours have ever seen the demon world, Cray.”

“What will it show then?”

“I don’t know,” said Gildrum. “I don’t know.”

Delivev looked down at the weaving, at the glinting bronze that represented the feathers of a great bird, at the green-fringed darkness that was the entry to the Seer’s cave, at the crimson threads that marked Cray’s route westward from there. It ceased abruptly in the forest. A sword was woven in silver beside that end point, to mark a fight, but there was no red of blood to show that Cray had been injured. There was simply an end to the line, as if he had settled himself in that spot to wait out the season or the year or eternity. Delivev wondered whom he had fought, but she would not allow herself to call to him to ask. In his own good time, she thought, he would tell her.

Some Free came at last, to view the first human to visit the demon world. Various slave demons had passed by already, according to Elrelet, but had not chosen to shed their invisibility and disturb him. The Free were not so courteous. They cut off the light that poured through the transparent walls of Elrelet’s house, great dark clouds crowding close, like a sudden summer storm. Cray closed his book and let it float away; he could not see well enough to deposit it in the alcove where his other possessions were. Elrelet had gone out earlier, leaving Cray with instructions not to go out alone.

Elrelet had told him he was completely safe inside the house, but Cray felt a chill creep up his back anyway, and it was not from any change in the warmth of the air. He touched the ring on his hand and whispered its demon’s name, Yra. Presently, a gap showed among the dark clouds, and a ball of mellow light squeezed through the throng. It did not enter, could not without Elrelet’s own permission, but it pressed against the invisible wall, shedding yellow light in the gloom. Cray took up his book once more, though he could only pretend to read.

“So you are the human,” came a deep voice, like distant thunder. “A puny creature indeed. I expected something greater.”

Cray turned his head toward the voice. He could not guess how many demons surrounded him; there seemed to be no clear divisions between individuals. He thought, in fact, that the cloud might be one vast demon until another voice spoke in a different timbre, and he decided that, like a gang of children, they would find no pleasure in approaching him singly.

“Hard to believe,” said the second voice, “that one such as this could enslave one of us.”

Cray executed a slow bow in mid-air, tumbling completely head over heels till he arrived at his original posture, where he stopped himself with a flick of his leg. “Good day,” he said.

“I could tear him apart with a light crosswind,” said the voice that had spoken second.

“Come out,” said the first voice. “Come out, little human, and play with us.”

Cray smiled, swiveling his head slowly so that most of them could glimpse his face. “I thank you for the invitation, but my host has forbidden me to go out of his house without him.”

“Forbidden?” said another voice. “A demon forbids a human something?”

He is afraid of us, this human,“ said someone else. ”And he does well to be afraid.“ The voice laughed gustily, rippling the clouds all around it like a sudden gale. ”This paltry little fire demon would do you little good if we chose to be unfriendly.“

“I hope you will be friendly,” said Cray. “I mean you no harm.”

“No harm?” The voice laughed louder than ever. “What are you doing here, then? No harm! You can’t lie to us, human. We know all about you.”

“Then you must also know that I plan to free one of your number.”

“So you say. But you’ll change your mind once you’ve enslaved a few of us. Gildrum is a fool to believe you.”