Sorcerer's Son (48 page)

When both his mind and his arm were tired, he shoved quern and book aside to stretch. Then, to loosen his stiffening sinews, he took up the sword, called for Yra, and lost himself in mock combat. The wider, more sweeping motion required by swordplay limbered muscles tightened up by the close work of grinding, and he cut, slashed, and thrust till he was breathless and sweating, till the pulse pounded in his ears and beat at the inside of his chest. Yra, of course, betrayed no evidence of fatigue, but halted at Cray’s command.

He had not noticed when the Free first began to gather, but when he relaxed, opened his hand and let the sword float free of his flexing fingers, he realized that they were crowded about the invisible walls once more. They murmured their greetings, and one of them said, “Will you go on?”

“Sorry,” Cray replied. “I’ve no more strength left right now.”

“We would like to see more.”

“Well,” you shan’t. Come back another time.”

They withdrew, grumbling, and Cray dismissed Yra and sought the restoration of sleep.

After he woke, after he ate, after he had resumed grinding the green copper ore, the Free returned. They hovered silently beyond the boundaries of Elrelet’s house, while Cray devoted his entire attention to his books and the steady cranking of the quern. He knew they were there, saw then movement from the corner of his eye, but he ignored them until something familiar about their motions drew his notice at last. They had separated into pairs, faced off, and the pairs—though still clouds—had assumed vague human shapes, with puffs for arms and legs. On one arm of each cloud-person hung a rigid form, more solid to a human eye than the cloud itself—a sheet of hardened substance, as the cube had been hardened from the stuff of cloud. A shield. The other arm, which terminated in a stubby fist, grasped a thick rod of dull gray: a sword.

Cray had to laugh at the bobbing air demons pretending to be knights.

“Do we play so badly?” asked one of the demons.

Cray nodded. “As badly as small children with their first wooden weapons.”

One of the demons suddenly slashed at an opponent and cut the cloud-body in half; the halves rejoined almost immediately. “We will improve,” said the victorious demon. “Like the other game, this one only requires practice.”

“True enough,” Cray said, and he returned to his books and the quern.

Elrelet brought silver—gray-black pellets without a hint of sheen—and gold-bearing quartz that sparkled and glinted. Cray had ground them all long before he was ready to put them to use. Elrelet’s impatience waxed.

“Do you know something that Gildrum is keeping from me?” Cray asked his host “Some reason that time is growing short?”

Elrelet spewed out a flock of cloudlets that raced around the room, caroming off the walls. “No. No, But I wish they would go away.”

Cray grinned. “I find them amusing. They are so clumsy.”

“There will be no peace for me as long as you are here.”

Cray hesitated. “Is there somewhere else I can go?”

The cloudlets flashed back to they parent body.

“Nowhere as safe as this. No, Cray Ormoru, you won’t go somewhere else. Gildrum gave you into my keeping, and I must endure that responsibility. But my other friends avoid me now. They won’t come here while the Free are so close.”

“Then you must go to them.”

“I must watch over you! That comes first.”

“I am sorry.”

The visits from inhabitants of other domains had continued, and Cray had grown used to glancing up from his book and seeing not only a crowd of the Free of Air but the starlike shapes of demons from Ice, the glow of dwellers of Fire, the milky pearls that were the water folk. They had formerly been few, though, no more than one or two at any one time; now that the Free of Air had taken up arms, the others arrived more often, left more seldom. They seemed more interested in the air demons than in. Cray, the human being. They would float about the periphery of the battlefield, which was a sprawling territory centered on Elrelet’s house. In clusters they would dance through nothingness, moving as the nearest combatants moved, as if to maintain a good view of the fighting.

Once, Cray looked up from his studies, and a pair of ice demons had faced off, all their spurs but one retracted, thrusting and slashing with that one as with a sword. Not long after that, the fire and water demons took on armed shapes and challenged each other. And eventually, the combat became mixed, ice against water, fire against air, every possible permutation. The air about Elrelet’s house was filled with motion, as if a dozen flocks of birds had chosen to roost there.

“There’s talk of wagering now,” said Elrelet “Of using this to replace the game. The novelty of it appeals to them.”

Cray shook his head. “WelI, they are all equally bad at it. If their strength and weapons were on a human scale, a decent man-at-arms of my world would lay waste to the whole lot in short order.”

A noise quite close to Cray, like a quarterstaff striking the bole of an oak, made him start. He turned toward the sound and saw an air demon floating just beyond the nearest wall, hardly more than an arm’s length away; its cloud sword was raised, and as Cray watched, it struck the wall a second solid blow.

“I challenge you, human!” it shouted. “I will use strength and weapons no better than yours. Show me what a decent man-at-arms of your world can do! Or are you something less?”

“I am something more,” Cray replied mildly. “But I am not here to accept challenges of any sort.”

“I have vanquished half a dozen already,” said the demon. “I am ready for you!”

“I think not,” said Cray.

“You are afraid of me!”

“No, not if you abide by your offer and limit yourself to ordinary steel and mortal muscle—if you pit your skill against mine and not your power.”

“I swear it. Come then!”

“Yes, yes!” shouted the other Free, in all manner of voices.

Cray smiled. “You’ll need more than this short practice if you mean to face me.”

“You are afraid!”

Cray’s smile faded away. “Very well,” he said. “I will fight you.”

“No!” cried Elrelet. “Your sword can’t harm a demon, but the demon’s sword can kill you!”

“Don’t worry about me,” Cray said, swimming to the alcove where his arms waited.

“I have to worry! How will I ever face Gildrum again if something happens to you?”

“Tell her it was my own idea.”

“I won’t allow it!”

Cray slipped his shirt of chain over his head. “I know what I’m doing.”

“No you don’t! Even if you win, the others will scramble to fight you next. You’ll have to beat every one of them.”

“I think I could do that.”

“But it will waste so much time!”

“I’ll try to be quick.”

The miniature thunderhead expanded to twice its usual size and darkened, and tiny flickers of lightning showed in its depths. “I forbid it!” said Elrelet.

Cray held his helm between his hands, staring at it meditatively. Then he raised his eyes to his host “You forbid it?”

“Yes!”

‘Then I shall have to cease my studies, Elrelet, and tell Gildrum that it is your fault.“

“Gildrum would agree with me!”

“I shall study no more. I shall stay in the demon world forever. Actually, I find it a very pleasant place.”

Elrelet’s voice was low. “You won’t find it so pleasant if you never eat again.”

“You told me yourself that I have no need for food here, that I only eat from habit.”

“Cray!”

“I must do this, Elrelet. Don’t you realize that they will never leave me alone until I do? They’ll stay at the walls, trying their best to keep me from my studies, taunting me, shouting. Let me do this and be done with it. Even if I have to beat every one of them.”

The thunderhead rumbled like a dog growling at a stranger. “This is foolish.”

“Yes,” said Cray. “Will you watch for me, Elrelet, and make sure the fight is fair?”

“Yes. Yes.” Elrelet shrank, staying dark and ominous. Then it raced to the nearest door and waited there for Cray to gather his arms and come on.

Cray floated from Elrelet’s house, and immediately the Free drew back and formed a sphere about him and his challenger. Cray inspected his opposition, a cloud of the approximate dimensions of a heavy thewed man, tall, broad of girth. The legs were mere stumps at the bottom of the long torso, but the arms were well-proportioned, with three fingers on each hand. The shield was a duplicate in shape of Cray’s own, and the sword was the same length, though a trifle thicker and blunter. As Cray raised his own weapon in salute, the demon’s sword slimmed and sharpened to a better likeness.

“What are your rules among yourselves?” asked Cray.

“There is only one—that the blow which cuts the demon through wins the match.”

“I accept that,” said Cray, “only if one or the other of us may also yield if the fight is going against him. I assure you, I would much rather yield than be cut in two.”

“You look forward to losing already, human?”

“No, but one can never tell what may happen. I don’t want this to be a fight to the death. I will die, you know, if you cut me through.”

“I have heard that humans are so fragile,” said the demon. “Very well—you may yield if you wish, and I will be the winner. But I shall not yield.”

“I would not expect it. Shall we begin?”

They circled each other warily, each waiting for the other to strike the first blow, neither willing to make that commitment. Cray fell easily into the proper frame of mind, treating his opponent with the respect due to danger, not the lighter attitude of one who participates in a sport. He had trained for this at Mistwell, with seasoned veterans behind the opposing sword and shield, men who were not afraid to deal out maiming injuries to their students. Only the best had dared to fight those teachers, and by the end of his winter season at Mistwell, Cray had won their respect.

He had never fought for blood in a world without weight. There would be no blood on his sword this day, whether he won or not; his only care was that there be none on the demon’s either.

He crouched in the blue sphere that was clear save for himself and his opponent. He crouched to make himself a smaller target, to draw his legs out of temptation’s way. Scooping air with the shield as an oar, he turned slowly, and the demon turned, too, as if they were two weights at either end of a weathervane. The demon struck, a sweeping blow at waist level. Cray deflected it easily with his shield, and as he sailed to one side from the force of that blow, he jabbed experimentally at the demon’s torso. He did not mean the thrust to be of any significance, just a feint to test his opponent’s reflexes, and he was satisfied by the slowness of response to it; he touched the merest surface of the cloud, where thigh would be on human being, before the demon could bring his shield down and slide one edge along the blade to push it away. The sword would have bitten deep had there been any real force behind it. Cray backed off, pedaling with his feet, then ducked low with a sharp jerk of his shield, his body drawn up as small as possible, only his sword arm lifted away, back, for a slash. Before the demon could tilt to meet his attack, he had cloven it in two from groin to shoulder. The two halves floated apart, letting go the sword and shield, which lost their sharp-edged shape and became cloud once more. The four cloud masses united into an irregular form like a sack of cabbages. “I yield,” said the demon.

Cray stretched his limbs slowly. “When I was as new at the art as you are now,” he said, “I, too, thought I had some skill. Later, when I was pitted against better fighters, I learned how little I knew.”

“Teach me,” said the demon.

Cray stripped off his helm and shook his head. “I have no time.”

“Yes, yes, teach us!” cried the demons who marked the sphere of combat. So many shouted that Cray could barely make out their words, they moved a trifle closer to him, shrinking the sphere, and Elrelet slid to Cray’s side, dark and rumbling, as a warning for them to stop. “Teach us,” they murmured. “Teach us.”

“I cannot,” he said. “My studies are too important for me to spend my time in teaching demons the techniques of human combat.”

“Your studies are only important to Gildrum!” shouted the demon who had been Cray’s opponent. “Gildrum cares nothing for us! Gildrum will be freed and we will be the ones to suffer!”

“Any demon I enslave will be freed immediately after Gildrum is.”

“So you say,” said the air demon. “But why should we believe you?”

“I swear it.”

“A human’s vow. What is it worth?”

“As much as a demon’s.”

The demons muttered among themselves, and then one of them in the distance, one with the crackling voice of an inhabitant of Ice, said, “And if Gildrum is not freed? If you fail? What will happen to your slaves then?”

“They’ll be as free as you are, of course,” said Cray, “because I’ll be dead.”

There was silence then, and after a long moment, an air demon whispered, “You would fight to the death for a demon?”

“I must,” said Cray. “Lord Rezhyk ordered my death; when he discovers I live, he won’t rest till his wish is carried out.”

“But you could stay here,” said another demon, a very faint voice. “You would be safe here forever.”

“Would you stay in the human world forever if there were some chance of returning home?”

“No, no, no,” echoed about him, voice upon voice.

“Then I must do what I must do. And I have little time for play.” He glanced at Elrelet. “I have spent enough away from my studies for now. Shall we go in?”

Elrelet swooped toward the nearest door, and Cray, using the shield as his paddle, followed. But at the opening he turned, clinging to the invisible jamb. The demons had closed ranks behind him, edging closer, jostling one another with their swords and shields of cloud; almost, they looked as if they wanted to follow him inside, which was impossible without Elrelet’s permission.

“Will you have time later?” asked one of them.

Cray looked out at them, his eyes skimming from one side of the group to the other. The air demons, in their own element, hovered closest; the scattering of ice and fire and water demons danced beyond, like children trying to catch a glimpse of some great event between their elders’ legs. They had no faces, but he thought he could read entreaty in their very stance.