Sorcerer's Son (41 page)

She bent to lay a pale hand on his shoulder. “But, Cray, you knew that if your father were alive he would not acknowledge you. He had years for that but never did it; why would he suddenly change his mind?”

“Lady, I thought that if I showed myself worthy

”

Her eyes were sad and infinitely old in her pale face. “And so, when you thought him a knight, you trained yourself for knighthood. And when you thought him a sorcerer, you found yourself an apprenticeship for that. What if he had been a merchant, Cray? Or a peasant? Or a beggar? What would you have done then?”

“What shall I do now, lady?” he whispered. “Tell me. Give me the good advice that you give to others.”

“I gave it once, and you would not take it then.”

“Go back to Mistwell? Or

home?”

“You must decide what you want from life, Cray. And what you have the courage to pursue.”

“Look into the pool, my lady, and tell me what lies ahead.”

Her hand slipped from his shoulder to his cheek. “No,” she said. “I will not read the waters for you again.”

“Why not? Is it because I’ve never paid you? Yet you yourself always said to wait, to pay later, always later. Name your price, lady, and I will bring it to you.”

“You have paid me well,” she said, and she glanced at Sepwin, still standing with the carafe and an empty mug in his hands. “You have paid me for a thousand futures.”

Cray rose to his knees before her. “Then why will you not give me one more?”

Her hand pressed his cheek, her fingers curling under the curve of his jaw, hooking there, holding his head as if it were a naked skull. “Listen to me, Cray Ormoru: you are too young to let an old woman command your actions. How many men have come here for cheer and left wishing they had never asked their questions? How many have given up their fight in life because of a few moments by this pool? I was young once, and I would have given you what you ask then. But not now. Through me you have found your father, and that is the end of my work for you. Leave here, and make your future what you will, not what I say.” She loosed his head suddenly, and he rocked back in reaction, catching himself with one outstretched hand before he could tumble over on the pale sand.

Sepwin set the carafe down and extended a wiry arm to help his old comrade up. For a moment, the two young men stood eye to eye, regarding each other over the handsbreadth that separated them, and the years.

“I suppose I can’t ask you to come along,” said Cray.

“No. I have my place here. I am content.”

Cray dusted his tunic and trews of the clinging white powder. “Can you find me a horse, since I haven’t magical transportation anymore?”

“There’s Gallant,” said Sepwin. “I have kept him trim for you, ridden him every day.”

“I gave him to you, Feldar.”

“And now I give him back. I have the other horse, if I should need a mount. But I don’t foresee leaving here.”

Cray gripped Sepwin’s arm. “You are a good friend, Feldar. Better than I have been.”

“You did your best, Cray.”

“Perhaps

for you.” He turned away. “I’ll leave now, my lady, if that is well with you.”

“It is best, I think.” She transferred her gaze to her apprentice. “Feldar, get the packet of food for his journey.”

He went through the far door and returned in a moment. The parcel was a large one, provisions for many days.

“You knew I would be leaving immediately,” Cray said, tucking it under his arm. He reached for the saddlebags, but Sepwin hefted them first. Cray was left with only his sword and shield in addition to the food.

“I know what happens in my own home,” said the Seer. She followed the two young men down the corridor and out into the morning sunshine.

Sepwin set the saddlebags down. “I’ll fetch Gallant. I built him a stout shelter among the trees; it isn’t far.” He crossed the road and entered the forest that grew thick on the other side. Shortly, he returned, with Gallant saddled for the trip, though there had not been time for the saddling.

Cray stroked the horse’s neck and murmured, “Do you remember me, I wonder, my good old Gallant?” Sepwin had a carrot in his pocket, and he gave it to Cray to feed to the animal. “I’ve changed with the years, haven’t I?” Cray whispered, as Gallant’s warm, soft lips moved against his palm, his strong teeth grinding the hard carrot to mush. “But you haven’t changed at all. It might have been yesterday that I left you here. So, Gallant, my old friend, we travel together once more, just you and I.”

He strapped the saddlebags in place, the sword and shield. He grasped the pommel of the saddle in one hand and the cantle in the other and was about to mount when he thought better of it and let his arms fall to his sides. He looked down then, at his horse’s feet, peering at the bare earth of the road. After a few heartbeats, he moved half a dozen paces away, into the grass, and he stooped there, squatting on his heels, touching his fingertips to the moister, green-cloaked soil. He closed his eyes. Nearby, he could hear Gallant snorting and easing from foot to foot, as if impatient to be off. He heard the soft breeze rustling the leaves all around him, and the creak of branches swaying before the force of mere air. He heard a squirrel chittering far away,

Before long, a tickle on his right index finger advised him of a new presence: a small spider. Of all the spiders he had discharged in the road before the Seer’s home, only this one had been near enough and long-lived enough to hear his call. As he straightened, it scuttled up his sleeve. He turned back to Gallant. “Now there are three of us,” he said.

Sepwin watched him vault into the saddle. “I would you had stayed with us a while,” he said.

Cray gazed at him from the great height of Gallant’s back. “But you knew I would not.”

“She knew. My skills are still quite limited.”

“He does well,” said the Seer. “As well as any apprentice I’ve ever heard of.” She smiled at Sepwin, who smiled in return.

“I owe my life to you, Cray,” he said, his hand resting lightly on Gallant’s reins, on the pommel of the saddle. “I’d still be a beggar if not for you. A beggar or worse.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” said Cray. “You kept faith. I couldn’t ask more.”

“I looked into the pool for you, Cray. I’m not very good at it yet, but I saw danger ahead.”

“What sort of danger?”

“I don’t know, but you’ll raise your sword and shield to it.”

“Well

a bandit perhaps. Or a wild animal.” He shrugged. “I haven’t forgotten how to use the sword.”

“Be careful.”

“I shall.”

“Where will you go now?”

“I don’t know. Ask her, after I’m gone. Take care of yourself, Feldar. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

“Good luck to you, my friend. I have never stopped thinking of you. I never shall.”

“And good-bye to you, my lady. And thank you.” Cray wheeled Gallant about and guided him westward, away from the golden morning sun. He looked back twice, and both times Sepwin and the lady Helaine still stood in the road, their arms upraised in farewell. The third time, the road had bent, and they were beyond his sight.

The horse felt strange to him, after so many years of sitting on chairs and stools, and he knew that on the morrow the muscles of his thighs would protest the unaccustomed exercise; still, he did not cut his day’s travel short because of that. He ached already, as he stopped with the advent of twilight, but he welcomed the ache, as he had welcomed the steed—a sign of the end of the apprentice life and the beginning of the unknown. His route led toward Spinweb, but he could as well have turned south to Mistwell from that road, or to somewhere new. He had passed the day without thinking beyond it, without thinking of more than the next five strides of his horse. Now, as he gathered dry twigs and struck sparks to kindle a small fire, he found himself contemplating other fires that burned only in his mind’s eye, until a tickle at his wrist reminded him that with his freedom from Ringforge came other responsibilities. He dropped his tiny passenger at the fork of two branches on a drooping oak limb, and he watched for a time while it anchored its web among the surrounding twigs. When he turned away to eat his dinner, the sun had set completely, and the spider had only finished the radiant strands that would support its close spiral; alone, though it spun swiftly, it could not finish before Cray settled for sleep. He ate his dinner and left the mite working, left his use of the fruit of its labor for morning.

When he woke, he ached, but he ignored that. The web hung above his sleeping place, glistening with a myriad of dewdrops. The spider rested in its center, a black spot, with dew glinting, too, on legs and back. Cray took it up in his sleeve, dampness and all, and then he stretched his hand to the web, palm parallel to the plane of the spiral, halting just a finger’s width away from the diamond-speckled surface. Silently, he called to her.

Time passed while he stood stiff, his arm upraised, and at last the web turned misty gray, opaque, and a familiar image coalesced upon it. The first thing that Cray noticed was that she still wore black.

“Where are you, my son?” she said. “Is something wrong?”

He looked at her across the vast distance that separated them—a distance not of space but of knowledge. He said, “I’ve left Ringforge, Mother. I’ve ended my apprenticeship with Lord Rezhyk.”

A frown creased her brow. “Did you quarrel?”

“No. But

as master and apprentice, we were not suited to each other. He was

too chill for me.”

She nodded. “Chill indeed, in spite of his mastery of fire demons. They don’t warm the heart, Cray; you understand that now.”

“I don’t think he liked me, either.”

“Did you behave ill to him, my son?”

“No. I tried very hard to be useful and obedient and friendly. But

he was cold from the first. Mother

did you and he have some sort of conflict years ago, perhaps even before I was born, that he would be so cold to your son?”

“We knew each other, years ago.” She shrugged. “I never cared much for him, but I was civil. He took that civility for friendship, at one time, knowing nothing warmer himself. He even proposed marriage. I refused. I didn’t want to marry anyone then.” She looked down into her lap, where her hands clasped each other. “That was before I met your father.”

“You never told me,” said Cray

“It never seemed important.” She lifted her head again. “Oh, when you said he had accepted your apprenticeship, I thought perhaps there was some remnant of his feeling for me after all these years, that he was doing it to show his good will—such good will as a man like him might have. It’s a rare sorcerer who takes on another’s child for apprenticeship.” She shrugged. “I suppose he changed his mind after you had been with him a while. I suppose he decided that the gesture was too much for him—”

“I suppose so.”

“What will you do now? Find another master?”

Cray shook his head. “I don’t know yet. I thought

I might come home for a while.”

Delivev smiled. “I would be very happy to welcome you.”

“I’m not sure, Mother. I want to travel a time yet. I want to

to think out my life.”

“I understand, my son. I am grateful that you called me. If you want to come home

well, it is always open to you. And I will teach you sorcery, if you wish it.”

“I know, Mother.”

“And Cray

I like the beard.”

He grinned at her. “It makes me feel full-grown.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure it does.”

“You look well, Mother.”

“I am well. You look like you could do with a bit of sunshine.”

“I’ll get it now,” said Cray. “Good-bye, Mother. don’t worry about me. I love you.”

“And I love you.”

Her face faded, and the web was just a web, dewdrops shrinking in the gathering sunlight. Cray left it on the tree for the wind to tear apart, and he resumed his westward travel. He walked for a time, leading Gallant, until his legs had limbered enough to climb into the saddle without gritting his teeth.

Afternoon shadows were long across the road when he met the stranger. He had seen no human beings since leaving the Seer’s home, save his mother; only a few rabbits and squirrels and a flock of calling birds had crossed his path. On a stretch of road no different from any other, the stranger moved out from behind a thick-boled oak to block the way: a tall, broad person in night-black plate armor, riding a horse of the same hue, so that Cray could scarcely discern where rider ended and horse began. The stranger carried a blank black shield.

“Hold!” he said in a deep, rumbling voice,

Cray pulled Gallant up short.

“No one passes this way without facing me,” shouted the stranger.

“Good sir,” said Cray, “I know I am no match for you. I am a man of peace. Let me pass, I beg you; I have no wish or skill for a fight.”

“Draw your sword or I strike you down where you sit, and that fine horse, too!”

“Sir, I wear no armor! Hold off!”

The black knight spurred his mount, which launched itself as if from a crossbow, nostrils flaring, teeth bared. Cray twitched his reins, and Gallant stepped aside, letting the black knight thunder past. And then the chase began, as Cray raced westward with the black knight, wheeling quickly, in hot pursuit. Their horses were well matched, and Cray thought that the heavy armor of his pursuer would hold the man’s mount back, but it gained instead, slowly, steadily, until the horses raced nearly side by side. In desperation, Cray turned off the road, guiding Gallant among the close-packed trees, but he lost speed there, and the black knight drew near once more, near enough to swing his blade and miss Cray’s neck by a narrow margin. Cray answered with a flick of his right arm, tossing his lone spider at the knight in hopes of catching the sword and tangling it fast with webwork to the helm, the shield, the saddle pommel, anything, but the stranger batted the tiny creature aside, as if he knew how dangerous it could be.

Gripping Gallant with his knees, Cray eased his shield from its hook and slung it over his left arm just in time to deflect a blow from his opponent’s sword; then Cray drew his own blade and returned a stroke. The horses slowed as the men joined combat, until they were barely walking, and neither animal shied from the force of sword on shield, though both riders were rocked in their saddles by the blows. Cray looked for an opening, but the black knight was sealed into steel while he himself was nearly naked to a heavy blade, without even chain to turn the edge. He drew his exposed leg up behind the shield. The motion overbalanced him a moment, and before he could recover, a solid strike at the top edge of his shield sent him tumbling off his horse.