Sorcerer's Son (12 page)

“I don’t understand,” said Cray.

“Don’t you know what the evil eye means?”

“No.”

“Have you led such a sheltered life, Master Cray?”

“I suppose so. Tell me.”

Sepwin clasped his hands behind his back. “A cow dies, it’s my fault. A horse goes lame, a plow breaks, the children sicken, everyone blames me. They say I’ve gazed upon them with evil intent.”

“And have you?”

He looked up into Cray’s face. “I have willed evil a few times, for revenge. I have willed it with all my heart

and nothing has happened. The cows die and the children sicken and all the other unhappy things run their course without any help from me. These eyes lie, Master Cray. They have no power.”

“Very well,” said Cray, and he swung a leg over his saddle and jumped to the ground. He tethered Gallant to the nearest tree. “Now that we have settled that, Master Feldar, what do you say to a cheery fire and a hot supper? I stopped off some distance back and netted a fine pheasant among the grain. I’m sure that between the two of us we can pluck and dress it in a very short time.”

Sepwin took a single step toward him. “You are not an ordinary person.”

Cray pulled the bird out of one of his leather saddlebags. “Why? Because I believe you when you say you don’t have the evil eye?”

“An ordinary person would have left me to my fate back there in the village. After all, you don’t owe me anything.”

“I’ve vowed to be a knight,” said Cray. “How could I stand by and watch an innocent person killed?”

“I’ve been spat upon by knights.”

“Then they were not proper knights.”

“Who are you, Master Cray?”

Cray smiled. “No more than I seem—a boy looking to be a knight.”

“You are more than that.”

“Start the fire, Master Feldar, and I’ll begin the plucking.”

Sepwin stood motionless. “I’ve told you the truth about myself. Won’t you do as much?”

“What do you think I am?”

“A wizard of some sort.”

“Would you be frightened if I were?”

“Not now, my lord. Not now that I owe you my life.”

“You owe me nothing,” said Cray, “except the proper form of address.”

“As you wish, Master Cray,” said Sepwin. “I have never met a wizard before.”

“I am not a wizard.”

“Those spiders tell me you are. I see one on your hand right now.”

Cray glanced down and saw a black mite gingerly investigating the pheasant feathers that brushed his right wrist. He blew on the creature gently, and it retreated up his sleeve. “I shall have to hide them better,” Cray said, “if I want to move freely among ordinary mortals.” He laid his hand on a branch of the tree where Gallant was tied, gave his elbow a sharp jerk, and a line of spiders trooped from his body to the wood; they began to spin immediately, anchoring lines to various twigs for a rough, radial pattern. “My mother is a sorceress,” said Cray, “so don’t be surprised by what you see next. She’ll be interested to know that I’ve found a traveling companion.” He gazed sidelong at Sepwin. “I have, haven’t I?”

“You have,” said Sepwin, and he bent to gather tinder for the fire. But his eyes never left the spiders and the web that they fashioned together in the trees.

The tapestry had woven the semblance of a sword upon the road that Cray traveled, and when Delivev laid her fingers upon it, she felt the heart thunder in her breast. Her son had drawn his sword, she knew, and used it for the first time against human beings. Yet there was no blood upon the cloth, and his path continued past the symbol; he had fought and run, unharmed, slaying no one. Delivev relaxed as she comprehended that, and then she smiled as she touched the sword again and found no fear there, only excitement. If he had to be a knight—and she still felt pain at that thought—he would at least be a properly brave one.

She turned away from the tapestry. Down the corridor, up the stairs, Lorien was waiting for his evening meal to arrive, expecting her to join him for it, but she felt no hunger now. Instead, she went to the web chamber and sought her son. The webs hung dark around her as she reached for the spiders that rode with him, willed them to find a place for spinning, even if it were the pommel of his saddle. They were not her spiders but his, raised in the influence of his aura, obedient to his will; yet they were spiders still, and her power over their kind was great. At last a small, bright spot appeared in the center of a web: Cray’s chin and mouth, seen from below, swaying in and out of view with the rhythm of his steed’s gait. Then the image crumpled, swept away by wind or a sleeve or a flick of the reins.

Delivev rose from the velvet-covered bed with a sigh. The moving horse was too chancy a support for spiderwebs; she would have to wait until Cray stopped for the night. Yet, having seen him with her own eyes, even the fraction of his face shown in the tiny web, she felt easier somehow; he was all right, the tapestry did not lie. Abruptly, she realized she was hungry.

In the kitchen, a bundle of cloth in the shape of a human being bent close to the hearth, turning the spit that bore a roasting joint of venison. At Delivev’s signal, the cloth-servant removed the meat from the fire and set it on a platter; its glove-hands picked up an obsidian knife and began to carve the roast, heaping two trenchers with the steaming, fragrant slices. Delivev took one of the trenchers and ate, sitting on a stool by the table while the cloth-servant set the other on a tray with saltcellar and wine cup—that was Lorien’s meal. Delivev hoped he did not mind eating alone. The only person she wished to see right now was Cray.

She had scarcely finished her meal when a spider descended from the ceiling on a long strand of silk, landing on her shoulder, scurrying to her neck to tickle her with tiny mandibles. She threw the trencher down and fairly ran to the web room. The largest web showed Cray against a vista of grain fields golden brown in low sunlight. He raised his arm in greeting when he saw her enter the room.

“I had an adventure today, Mother,” he said, “at long last.”

“You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“Oh, no, not a scratch. And I want you to meet my new friend, Feldar Sepwin.” He gestured to someone out of sight, once, and then more vehemently. “Come on, Master Feldar, let my mother take a look at you.”

A thin lad of about Cray’s age edged into view of the web, his eyes downcast. Slowly, he sank to his knees, his hands clasped at the level of his waist. “Good

good health to you, my lady,” he said.

Delivev eyed his ragged, filthy clothing and said, “Good health to you, Feldar Sepwin. And good fortune to you—you seem to need some.”

“Master Feldar has had considerable trouble in his life, Mother,” said Cray, “because his eyes are two different colors. Show her your eyes, that’s a good fellow.”

Sepwin glanced up furtively. “I mean your son no harm, my lady.”

She leaned close to the web. “Two different colors indeed. How unusual. What sort of trouble does Cray speak of?”

“Folk say I have the evil eye, my lady,” Sepwin replied. “But it isn’t true.”

“The evil eye? You mean, blighting crops, bringing disease—that sort of thing?”

He nodded, and then he shook his head violently. “It isn’t true, really it isn’t!”

“Where are you supposed to have learned this power?”

“Learned? My lady, they say I was born with it. My parents cast me out from fear of it.”

“Merely because of your eyes? What ignorance!”

Sepwin looked at the ground. “It is widespread ignorance, my lady. I have met it everywhere.”

Delivev placed her hands on her hips and half-turned from the web. “Cray,” she said, “when I hear such foolishness, I am doubly saddened that you have forsaken the sorcerous life. Ordinary mortals know nothing of us. To think that a sorcerer would be marked with some physical sign, that he would have power from birth

”

“I am not a sorcerer!” said Sepwin.

“Of course not. Sorcery is not inborn; it is learned, and the learning takes more years than you have been alive. Accusing a child of sorcery is like accusing a cow.”

“Well, Mother,” said Cray, “I do know a few tricks.”

“Children’s games, my son. The evil eye is not acquired in a few summers of play. I knew of one who had it, and she worked long and hard.”

“Why would anyone want such a power?”

Delivev shrugged. “One who finds happiness in the misery of others

The one I mentioned, though, had another reason. She wanted silver and gold. She threatened her neighbors with her evil eye, and they paid, lord and peasant alike—they paid whatever she asked, to keep their lands and families secure.”

Cray nudged Sepwin. “See how you could have become rich, Master Feldar? You could have promised to keep your evil eye closed and wrung money from folk instead of beatings.”

“And when the promises were not kept, Master Cray? When the cows died anyway?”

“You would have had to move on quickly.”

“I would be homeless and friendless as I am now. But well-dressed.”

Cray laid a hand on Sepwin’s shoulder. “You are not friendless anymore.”

Sepwin looked up at him for a long moment, then at Delivev. “You don’t mind, my lady,” he said, “that your son has a beggar as a friend?”

“You’ll not have to beg while you’re with me,” said Cray.

“I’m sure he’s been lonely since he left our home,” said Delivev. “I know I have.”

“I was lonely, Mother.”

She smiled at him, a very small, sad smile. “But not so lonely that you wanted to turn back.”

“No, not so lonely.”

“And now you have a companion. That’s well enough. I have one, too

or at least, Spinweb has a guest.”

Cray cocked his head to one side. “A guest?”

“You would know him—Lorien the troubadour.”

“Lorien?” Cray frowned. “Didn’t he sing at Highmount last winter?”

“The same. He happened to be passing Spinweb, and I invited him to stay a while.”

“A troubadour in Spinweb! I’m sorry I can’t be there to hear him, Mother.”

“You could be.”

Cray shook his head. “You’ll not lure me back with that sort of bait. I’ll surely hear troubadours a-plenty on my journey.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then I’ll still have the memory of hearing them through the webs. Mother, this is hardly worthy of you.”

She laughed softly. “Can you blame me if I would rather have you here than him?”

“Even though I don’t sing at all well?”

“Even so.”

“I love you, Mother. You know that.”

For a moment she could not reply, her voice trapped by teeth clenched to hold back tears. Then, very low, she said, “Tell me about your adventure.”

He waved it away with an open hand. “It was really nothing, Mother, though exciting enough for a journey as dull as this one. Some ignorant louts were trying to do mischief to Master Feldar, and I taught them a lesson.”

“He saved my life, my lady,” Sepwin said. “They would have killed me.”

“What did you do to them?” she asked him.

“I showed them my eyes.”

She wagged her head sadly. “Have you thought of wearing a patch over one eye?”

“I have done so, my lady.”

“You move in the wrong world, Master Feldar. The sorcerous society would not treat you so poorly. You should have been born to us.”

He bowed his head. “One is born as he is born. We cannot change ourselves to something else.”

Delivev looked at her son. “I know one who thinks otherwise.”

“I was born of two worlds, Mother,” he said, “and I made my choice.”

“Your choice, yes. Your free choice.”

From behind her, Lorien said, “I thought I heard voices down here.”

She whirled to face him, one arm stretched out to keep him from the room. His own clothing became his prison, frozen in the doorway, and he could not move against it.

“That is Lorien,” Cray whispered to Sepwin. They had to look over Delivev’s shoulder, for she stood in front of the web, barring it from the troubadour’s view.

“You are not welcome in this room,” she said. “Turn around and go back to your tower. I will call you when I want you.”

Stiffly, without his volition, Lorien’s clothing turned him about and walked him away.

“That was hardly a proper way to treat a guest, Mother,” Cray said when the troubadour was gone.

“I will not share this room with him.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and clutched her shoulders, as if feeling a sudden chill. “Only those I love may come here. Let him find some other entertainment for himself in Spinweb. Let him play his lute and divert me. The webs are not for him.”

Cray bent and picked up a half-plucked pheasant from somewhere below the web’s view. “We’re about to prepare supper now, Mother. And soon the light will fail.”

“I can watch you by fireglow,” she said. “Make your supper. I’ll just sit here by the web, as if I were with, you.”

“As you wish.”

“Just for a little while.”

The velvet coverlet was too smooth for her imagination to transform into the coarse grass she saw all about them, the air of the chamber too close to pass for night-damp. Nor could she reach out to touch her son as he readied for bed, to kiss his forehead as she had for so many evenings through his life. He gave a last wave in her direction and rolled in his blanket by the fire. He slept quickly, she knew, and deeply. Sepwin seemed to do the same.

A gesture of her hand made the web opaque. She rose from the wide bed and made her way to the corridor. She paused at the foot of the stairway to the tower where the troubadour waited. Almost, she walked on, her mood too heavy for music, but after much hesitation, she climbed instead.

He lay upon his bed, the lute at his side, slow, mournful notes rising from it

At the doorway, she said, “Please accept my apology for treating you roughly, Master Lorien.”

He sat up. “Will you come in?” he said.

She inclined her head, entered, and seated herself at the table. “You interrupted a conversation with my son. He has been gone some time now, and I don’t speak to him often.”

“Please accept my apology for interrupting,” said Lorien. “Had I known, I would never have done so.”