Sorcerer's Son (29 page)

“Everyone dies.”

“And for yourself, lady?”

“I see my death, yes. At the moment, it is comfortably far away.”

“And

mine?”

“Do you really want to know, Master Feldar? I think not.”

“Is it by stoning? Hanging? Fire?”

The Seer shook her head slowly. “Where is the gold to pay me for this answer, Master Feldar? I give no free gift of the future.”

“Are you saying I will never be able to pay you?”

“Lad, these are foolish questions. Why so concerned with death, when you have scarcely begun to live?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and his arms crossed over his chest, and his hands gripped his own shoulders. He stared into the pool. “Of a sudden, I feel uncertain. What will I do when Cray apprentices to sorcery? Where will I go?”

“Why, with me, of course,” said Cray. Then he added, hesitantly, “If

that is your wish.”

“Go with you as what? Your servant? You think a sorcerous household would even let such as me in the door? There isn’t a scrap of magic about me—you’ve said that often enough yourself.”

Cray frowned. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, I have. Oh, yes, I have indeed. And so I ask the future, to know if the old, beggar’s life lies ahead of me, but my lady Seer tells me nothing.”

“You worry too soon, Master Feldar,” said the Seer.

“I have worried all my life,” he replied. “Why leave off now? While I have been with you, Cray, I have looked out at the world with both eyes, I have talked freely, I have known friendship for the first time in my life. Now I must give it all up. I must go back to jeers and terror and loneliness.”

Cray caught his shoulder. “Feldar, perhaps no one will take me as an apprentice.”

“Someone will,” said Sepwin. “You are one of them.”

“Then

” He looked to the Seer. “My lady, what is the chance of finding a sorcerer to change one of Feldar’s eyes to match the other?”

Sepwin’s head snapped up. “I have nothing to pay such a sorcerer with.”

“I will pay,” said Cray.

“Cray

”

“Whatever the price. Well, lady, what say you?”

“I will search,” she said.

“Diligently,” said Cray.

“Of course.”

Cray grinned at his friend. “Come, Feldar, we need a good gallop to stretch our bones. We’ve been underground too long. I feel my skin paling by the hour.” When Sepwin nodded, wordless, Cray linked an arm with his and drew him down the tunnel toward the sunshine. “We’ll be back for supper,” he called to the Seer.

“I know,” she said, but so softly that they did not hear her. She turned to the pool then and stroked the cool surface with the flat of both hands, crooning a tuneless lullaby, as if to a sleeping babe. Presently, the water cleared, to her eyes alone, and showed other times and other places, all scattered with the pinpoint reflections of the crystals set in the chamber walls. She was still there, watching distant events without much interest, when a flash of light in the depths of the pool heralded a change in the view it showed. Abruptly, the water was a cloud-flecked blue—the image of the sky just outside the entrance to the Seer’s home. Through the clear air fell an object like a sheet of parchment, its edges curling slightly as it wafted downward; but sunlight glanced from its surface as from polished metal, flashing about the cave again and again. The lady Helaine rose slowly from her perch on the pool’s rim and walked down the tunnel and through the tree trunk, arriving in real sunshine just as the object fluttered to earth at her feet. She stooped to pick it up, a sheet of the thinnest bronze foil, light as parchment, inscribed with a sorcerous message.

For Cray.

The lads returned with a kerchief full of mushrooms, a surprise for their hostess, gathered in the shady woods where they had rested after racing their mismatched steeds. But when they entered her kitchen, it was their own surprise that had to be smiled away, amid jesting on the futility of keeping secrets from a Seer, for she was waiting by the kitchen fire, with a pot of pale butter already melted for their forest bounty. Supper proved a simple meal, but Cray and Sepwin ate with good appetite after their afternoon’s exercise. When they had done, the lady Helaine brought out the message.

SMADA REZHYK DESIRES TO INTERVIEW CRAY ORMORU FOR APPRENTICESHIP. TRANSPORTATION WILL BE PROVIDED AT DAWN.

Cray fingered the foil. “What does he mean—transportation will be provided?”

“I presume he’ll send a demon for you,” said the Seer. “He’s master to any number of them and can surely spare one for this service.”

“Does he live so far away that I can’t ride my Gallant there?”

“Far enough. And why should he wait all those days for you to ride to him when his own devices can bring you there as swift as the wind?”

“But if he decides he doesn’t want me

?”

“He’ll return you here, I’m sure. Then you can wait for the next offer.” She leaned closer to him, across the supper table. “But you would be well advised, Cray, to be on your best behavior for Smada Rezhyk. Who knows how many other sorcerers will be in the market for apprentices in the near future?”

Cray smoothed the foil on the tabletop, ran his palm over the embossed writing in the mirrorlike surface. Among the words, he could see his own reflection, bronze-tinted. “What is he like, this Smada Rezhyk?”

The Seer shrugged. “Like most of the sorcerous breed, he avoids revealing much of himself to others. He is no longer young, I know. And he has considerable power. You could do far worse than becoming his apprentice.”

“But is he

pleasant?”

“As to that, I cannot say. But you shall meet him yourself and be in a better position to judge than I. And if he should prove too unpleasant

well, he will not force you to stay with him, I am sure.”

“I have never known any sorcerer but my mother.”

She touched his hand. “Are you afraid to meet him, Cray?”

“Not afraid. Just

uneasy.” He glanced at Sepwin. “I would feel more comfortable if Feldar could come along.”

“The invitation did not include me,” said Sepwin. “I’d rather not presume on a sorcerer’s hospitality.”

“He is wise,” said the Seer.

“Careful. I’ve always tried to be careful.”

“Listen, Feldar,” said Cray. “If things don’t work out

if you can’t come with me on my apprenticeship, and if

if the lady Helaine can’t find someone to make your eyes better, or if you decide you don’t want that

I’m sure my mother would take you in. You could learn weaving magic and be one of us, and your eyes would never matter again.”

“You mean, I should take your place back at Spinweb?” asked Sepwin.

“Yes, that’s it. She’s been lonely since I left, you know that.”

“She’s been lonely, but not for me, Cray.”

“It would be good for both of you, I know it.”

Sepwin looked away from his friend. “You want me to go and live in a castle full of spiders

and worse. If you were going there, I would consider it, but

”

“You don’t hate spiders any more, Feldar.”

“No, but I don’t love them either. Or snakes.” He shook his head. “That sort of magic is not for me, Cray.”

Cray looked long at the Seer. “You must help him,” he said at last.

“I will do my best,” said the Seer. “But ultimately, the choice of his future lies with him.”

Cray rose from the bench. He rolled the bronze foil into a thin cylinder and tucked it inside his shirt. “Dawn comes early, and I’ll have to be ready for it. Therefore I must take my leave of you.” He turned toward the door that opened on the outer chambers, the opposite direction from his sleeping place.

“Where are you going?” asked Sepwin.

“Outside. To spin a web and speak to my mother. It’s time I did that. Past time.”

“You can spin it here,” said the Seer.

“Thank you, but

I’d rather be alone.”

As Cray opened the door, he heard Sepwin remark to the Seer, “You know, he walks different now that he doesn’t wear the chain anymore.”

“And he speaks of the sorcerous kind as ‘us,’” she replied.

He shut the door firmly behind him.

In the first instant she saw him, Delivev wanted to reach out to her son and feel of his forehead. “You don’t look well,” she said. “Is that cave too damp for you?”

He shook his head. “I’m just tired. Mother

I have made a decision.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to apprentice myself to a sorcerer.”

Her mouth twitched, and she folded her hands tightly in her lap. “Have you met one, in your travels, that you have some special feeling for?”

“No. The Seer has cast about for me, and one has answered her call. I speak to him tomorrow about taking me on.”

“Who would this sorcerer be?”

“Smada Rezhyk.”

“Rezhyk? That slave master?” She frowned. “Why in the world would you want to apprentice to him, my son?”

“He wants an apprentice. He is willing to interview me.”

“Rezhyk!” She pursed her lips and stared out at Cray through the web. “And what is wrong with weaving, now that you’ve decided to come back to sorcery? And why? Why do you change your mind now, Cray? What happened to your quest for knighthood? I thought you enjoyed your winter at Mistwell.” Her knuckles were white with the strain of clasping her own flesh, and she sat at the very edge of the velvet coverlet, leaning toward the web as if she could thereby come closer to her child. “You have kept yourself from me these last months, my son. This winter you used the webs little, and I thought I understood that, for you were surrounded by ordinary mortals. But since you left the Seer on your quest to fetch

to fetch soil

you have been vague. And the tapestry, too, has been vague, as if you were walking through a fog, with nothing of any consequence going on about you. Only sorrow and more sorrow. I can hardly bring myself to look at the tapestry these days. I know what it will show me. I only glance

to know that you are alive. And now you tell me that you’ve changed your mind

”

“Mother, I have sufficient reason. The quest for knighthood has not brought me happiness. Perhaps I can find it in sorcery.”

“Of course you can. But

why choose Rezhyk’s kind of sorcery? You know nothing of it.”

“Perhaps that is why it lures me.”

“You have talent; I don’t doubt you’ll do well, Cray, but the demon-masters are cold creatures. They deal in metal and gems, lifeless things, and creatures as different from the flesh we know as stones are from butterflies. More so! You know something about the natural world; it is a healthier one, warmer, more real. If you want sorcery, my son, come home and I shall teach you marvels you’ve never dreamed of. There is so much to learn—”

“I have decided, Mother. I will be master to demons. Some of them are made of flame—surely they are warm enough.”

“It is the heart that is cold, my son, not the demons.”

“Do you know Smada Rezhyk?”

She nodded. “I knew him once, long ago. He is a hard and selfish man, and vain as well.”

“All sorcerers are selfish—you told me that yourself. As for vanity

the Seer tells me he has great power, and a man of such power comes by his vanity honestly.”

“I would be a more congenial teacher, I promise you.”

“I think I will work harder for a stranger.”

“Do you think, perhaps, that there is more power to be had in the mastering of demons than in the natural world? Is that the reason you choose this sort of sorcery, my son? It is not true.”

Cray reached out toward her with one hand. “Don’t think, Mother, that I love you any less because I have chosen another kind of magic than your own. But it is what I shall have, if he will take me, and you know you cannot change my mind.”

“I know.” She bowed her head. “Very well, Cray; if this is what you must do, I can’t say I understand it, but I accept it. If you have found your future

I accept it.” She loosed her hands, let them fall limp apart “His castle’s name is Ringforge; it is a vast place, far more impressive than Spinweb. If polished metal impresses you. The tapestry will cease the instant you step inside its walls. I won’t know

but then, what can happen to you there? You’ll be safer with him than out in the wide world as a knight. You’ll be safe. But

I won’t know what is happening to you.”

“I’ll try to speak to you as often as possible, Mother.”

She looked up at him, and her lips twisted into a sad smile. “He won’t want that, Cray. He knows, I suppose, that you are my son.”

Cray nodded.

“Then he’ll lock you fast away within his walls. He won’t want you giving away his secrets to another sorcerer. Even if she be your mother.”

“Well, if I must, I’ll call you only in his presence, so that he’ll see I give away no secrets. Surely he won’t deny me contact with my only family!”

“No? He has no family. Why should he care for yours?”

Cray frowned. “I’ll speak to him about it. And

if he is adamant

perhaps I shall seek some other, more lenient master.”

Delivev shook her head gently. “I have shielded you, Cray. Or perhaps it is that you have shielded yourself, with all those dreams of knighthood. You never gave yourself time to understand the sorcerous community, never wanting to be part of it You’ll find no more lenient master. Oh, Rezhyk will be harder than some, I don’t doubt it. I never cared much for the man—he wears a shell of bronze around his heart as well as his body. But you won’t find a master who’ll let an apprentice communicate with another sorcerer. Not and allow him to remain an apprentice. You must give up, you see, or else come home and learn from me as your teacher. Otherwise, we part now, my son, until you are a full-fledged sorcerer. And then

you may not want to associate with me, even though I am your mother. You may be as selfish as the rest of us.”

“Not I!” said Cray.

“When you have power, you may think differently. Especially when it is a different kind of power than your mother’s. You may even learn to look down on me as a lesser sort of creature who only manipulates the natural world and has no power over