"Sorcerer's Son" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phyllis Eisenstein)

understood them better than any demon he knew. Sometimes he wondered if he no

longer understood his own kind quite so well, for he had rarely been among them since he was captured by the power of the ring. He knew Rezhyk best, of course, through long contact, and he had puzzled over the sorcerer’s proposal of marriage to Delivev the Weaver when first it was made. Rezhyk was a somber man, given to long nights alone in his workshop, poring over books brought him by his demons from the hidden corners of the world. He sought knowledge; material things meant little to him, except as the necessary comforts of life. Gildrum had thought a demon consort was the only sort that could please him, available when desired, in precisely the form that his mind could envision and his hands mold, never making demands, never impinging upon his life as a mortal woman would. And yet, the moment he had opened his eyes to Delivev, Gildrum had understood her attraction, compounded of cool serenity, beauty, kindness, and more than a touch of melancholy. He had never thought that a demon could love a human being, and though he spoke of it eloquently—for he, too, had listened to troubadours’

songs, and to other things, in his travels about the earth—he was not sure that he knew at all what love was. He had never thought that a demon could want to be a man and stay forever with a human woman. He wanted that now, and if that was love, then he was a lover.

In the morning, he thought, I shall use my well-planned excuse.

He wished upon the fading stars that morning would never come, but the sky continued to brighten in spite of him.



“I understand” she said, but she sighed anyway. “You pledged yourself to carry the message to Falconhill, and you must go. I will not try to keep you against that pledge.”

He took her hands between his own. “Never doubt that I love you, sweet Delivev.”

“I have no doubts.”

“I shall return as soon as my duty is done. I would that were tomorrow, believe me.” He pressed her close against his heart. “I would not leave you out of choice, my love.”

“I will be here tomorrow, and the next day,” she murmured. “Whenever you return, I shall rejoice.”

He kissed her lips one last time, and then they parted. His horse was ready, shuffling from hoof to hoof in animal impatience to be moving. He led it out the gate and mounted. His cleaned and mended surcoat rippled about his thighs in the fresh morning breeze, and his remade chain mail rustled at every move of his body. He lifted a hand in farewell, then wheeled and rode off into the forest. He did not look back. He did not see the tears that welled up in Delivev’s eyes as the forest swallowed him.

She turned back to her home, bolted the door to shut the world away once more. Slowly she climbed the narrow flight of steps to the topmost tower, and there she set up her loom, to begin a tapestry to while away the days till he should return. She chose her colors carefully: pure black for the horse, white and red for the surcoat, and the deepest blue she had ever seen for his eyes. It would be a large tapestry, a long time in the finishing.

She did not discover her pregnancy very soon, for the tapestry held her attention and she lost track of time. One day, however, her stomach bothered her and she decided to lie down instead of working, to listen afar instead of dreaming along with her fingers. She lay down in the web-draped room, gestured with her hand, and the web she sought to transform into a window remained as it was. At first she thought the web at the other end of the rapport had been broken, and she tried another, and then another, but none responded. A little more testing showed her the newly circumscribed limits of her power, and then the roiling of her stomach and a swift count of days revealed the cause.

From the balcony of the highest spire of Castle Spinweb, she could see the tapestry if she turned toward the room—the horse’s legs were complete, and the grass beneath and behind them; she would not reach the face for some time, though she could see it every moment in her mind’s eye. As she turned away from the room, she could see the forest, and the path he would take returning to her. She had chosen the tower room because of that view. As he was leaving, she had thought of sending spiders with him but decided against it; she could not hang such chains upon her love, could not bear to torture herself with looking over his shoulder but never being able to touch him. The tapestry, an instant of his life frozen upon the threads, suited her better.

And now she carried his child. She pressed her hands against the flesh of her belly, as if she could feel the burgeoning life within. Her mother had told her how it was—the blindness to the outside world, the sense of being cut off from the creatures that had been her own, like losing the use of arms and legs for nine months. Her mother had accepted the experience once, for love, but never again, not though her father raged for a son to match their daughter.

She could rid herself of the child now. That was a simple matter. She could abort it and return to her usual life, and the feeling in her stomach would be gone. Instead, she sat down before the tapestry and began to weave. She touched his spurs today, twining her woolen strands with silk to give the metal silver highlights. The tapestry would be finished when her time came, she thought, and then she would have flesh of his flesh as well as the portrait.

Summer passed, and winter, and she was still alone when she bore the child.



“Good work, my Gildrum, is it not?” said Rezhyk, admiring the cloth-of-gold shirt one last time before slipping it over his head. It was supple, finely woven, and lighter than he had expected—a piece of the gold bar remained unused. “I have never known such

exhaustion.” His cheeks were sunken, his eyes circled and pouchy, his beard grown out in disarray. He had paused from his weaving only to bolt the bare minimum of food that would sustain his strength. He had not slept at all in eleven days.

“Good work, my lord,” said Gildrum. ‘“You would make an excellent weaver.”

“Bah! A tedious vocation, and I am glad to be rid of it. How long shall I sleep now?

Three days?” He blinked and rubbed his eyes. By magic he had stayed awake so long, but still he was unsteady on his feet, and his hands shook. “Help me to my bed.”

“Yes, my lord.” Gildrum, as the fourteen-year-old girl, climbed down from the high stool from which she had guided her lord’s activities. “Shall I carry you?”