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

“I will try not to forget you, Mother,” said Cray.

She kissed his forehead, then wrapped the threads about his temples, his eyes, his ears, his lips. In two years she had spun spool after spool from virgin wool, dyed with her own hands rather than by disembodied magic, and now she imbued the thread and the loom with Cray’s aura by wrapping them together.

The loom was small, never before used. She had made it recently, felled the young tree with a stone axe, carved the straight-grained walnut with a blade of sharp obsidian, rubbed it smooth with fine sand, pegged it together lovingly. Metal had never touched it, nor was there a nail or a screw needed to hold it together. It lay wholly within her domain, responsive only to her will. She would command, and it would weave the

thread into a tapestry of her son’s travels.

She freed him slowly, one color at a time, winding the threads back onto the spools that were racked above the loom; only the uttermost end of each spool had participated directly in the magical process, yet the whole was affected, his aura seeping into the rest like oil penetrating silk. By the time he had ridden out of sight, the thread would be ready for weaving.

He stood up and drew on the gauntlets that had hung at his belt during the spell-making.

“Well,” she said, “I can keep you no longer.”

He kissed her cheek. “Be of good cheer, Mother. Think of the wonderful adventures that lie ahead of me. Don’t weep.”

“I lost you two years ago,” she said, her hands flitting lightly over the sleeves of his surcoat, smoothing them against the chain mail beneath. “Why should I weep at losing you now?” Still, her eyes glittered, and her lips trembled as she spoke.

“The spiders will be with me, Mother. I’ll talk to you often through the webs.” Two years of growth had given him his full height, and now he looked down upon the top of her head when she stood so close to him. Two years of exercise with sword and shield and forty pounds of chain on his body had deepened his chest and filled out his limbs.

He could lift her in the crook of one arm. He could swing the sword tirelessly, blow after blow; there were trees in the forest deeply gouged by his blade.

“Will you go to the Great House you visited before?”

He shook his head. “I think they fear me too much there. Almost as much as they fear you.”

“I don’t know why they should fear me. Except that all ordinary mortals fear our kind.”

“They fear what they cannot understand.”

She smiled sadly. “They would never fear you, then. You are one of them. Oh, my son, I would call you back to sorcery if I could!”

He took her hands in his own. “I am half of their kind. And that half is the stronger, Mother. I can’t help it.”

She pulled away. “No, Cray. It is the strangeness of that life that draws you, not your father’s blood. And the first time you cross swords with another human being, you may wish you were here, safe in sorcery.”

“I think not. I think I have the courage to face an armed adversary. And perhaps a fraction of the skill, too.”

She turned from him. “Go then. I have my pets, still, to love; at least they will never take up arms and leave me.”

“I must do what I must do.” He touched her shoulder. “You were alone before my father came to you. You were alone for a very long time.”

“And I was content. I will be content again, Cray. We have nothing to gain from further farewells.”

He passed through the arch of the gate to where Gallant waited, cropping spring grass.

Cray mounted easily, remembering how arduous that simple action had seemed when first he donned the chain. Now he wore at least the shirt almost all the time, unless the day was very hot and the padding that separated the chain from his skin made him sweat too much. Shield and helm hung at his saddle, the sword was buckled at his waist, the saddlebags were full of provisions; nothing remained to keep him at Spinweb. He lifted a hand in final good-bye, but his mother was not there to see it, she had not followed him out. Only a gray squirrel saw his farewell from a branch high above the forest track; he chirruped at it as he passed, but it scrambled away from him, claws clicking against the bark.

His first goal was Falconhill, to ask the lord what had become of a young knight named Mellor. He had only a vague notion of where it lay: to the west, his mother had told him when his was only a child’s curiosity; some leagues to the west. He had hesitated to question her more recently, fearing that she might guess his motive. He had not reckoned on the tapestry tracking him, had not realized the extent of her power, though he had lived so close to it all his life. Yet he could not deny her the peace of mind she craved.