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

Hesitantly, he touched the creature’s neck with one hand, and the tendrils that immediately curled about his fingers made him jerk back as if he had thrust his arm into a fire.

“What power has sent this thing to me?” he asked loudly.

In answer, the creature knelt before him and bent its head to the ground at his feet.

“I am not afraid of you,” he said, and he climbed onto its back. Tendrils clasped his hips and thighs, his knees, his ankles, held them close to the creature’s body as it rose to its feet. He laid a hand on its neck, then pulled his fingers free of the clinging tendrils; his legs came free as well, with a sharp tug, but as soon as they touched the creature’s sides again, they were claimed. He sat stiff at first, but when nothing further happened, he slumped and kicked impatiently with one foot. “Well?” he said. “Will you take me somewhere or not?”

The creature tossed its head and, turning, began to move northward along the moonlit road. It had a smooth and sinuous gait, not like a real horse at all, and it rustled as it went, like wind soughing through a hedge. It sped like the wind as well, as fast as a real horse could gallop, untiring through the night, its rider secured without benefit of saddle.

The moon set, and first light dimmed the stars. Just after dawn the creature slowed, left the path to slide among the trees until it found a sunny, dew-decked glen, where it sank to the earth and fell apart, and he was left kneeling astride a pile of vines. He stood awkwardly and looked around, yawning and rubbing at his eyes with both hands. After a brief circuit of the open space, in which he saw no sign of human habitation, he eased his lute to the grass and himself after it, wrapping his body in his cloak as in a blanket.

His eyelids sagged, though he had only a stone for a pillow, and then they parted abruptly, wide, as he saw the vines take root in the grassy soil and slim, pointed wands nose out from among the stalks, unrolling themselves into leaves that spread, broad and green, in the morning sunlight. The troubadour slipped one hand under his cheek and waited, and when nothing further happened, he finally fell asleep.

He woke late in the afternoon, found a brook in a dip at the far side of the glen, drank deep and splashed cold water on his face and neck. Then he paced a circle about the vines, which sprawled across the ground beneath their coat of leaves like any innocent plant, and he spoke to them: “Is this the end of the journey?” They rustled in answer, lifted toward him briefly, as if blown by a gust of air that he could not feel, and he stepped back hastily. He sat down then, some distance from the vines, and drew from the pouch at his belt a chunk of hard cheese; he sliced a piece off with his dagger and began to chew it.

Another rustling sound, much nearer than the vines, made him turn sharply to his left.

Seeing the source of the noise, he froze in place, knife still poised over the cheese. A large snake approached him, sliding through rank grass and over stones, its body almost the thickness of his wrist. A loop of its heavy tail encircled a limp rabbit, which it dragged along the ground. The snake came to rest beside the troubadour’s knee, and it lifted its head till its darting tongue was level with his throat. Still, he did not move, only stared back into the lidless eyes, and at last the snake swayed, dipped to the ground, and slithered away. It left the rabbit behind.

Lorien waited until spiders had gathered about the rabbit and spun a web on the grass, with one word upon it in many thicknesses of silk:

EAT

He built a fire and cooked and ate.

At sunset, the vines began to move. Their leaves rolled themselves into thin cylinders and dived beneath the stalks, which humped up and formed a familiar shape. The vine-horse tossed its head and knelt that the troubadour might mount. He did so, and they returned to the road and the ride.

Days passed in this manner—the vines a steed by night and a cluster of plants by day, snakes bearing small game for Lorien’s meals each afternoon. Soon he was moving through lands he had never seen before, and one night, when the moon was on the wane, the road curved but the vine-horse did not. Into the trackless forest it galloped, and its rider was forced to duck low upon its back to avoid being swept off by hanging

branches. The wide road had been faintly lit by moon and starlight, but the depths of the forest were dark, even the trees less individual shadows than a continuous gloom, yet the vine-steed galloped a sure course among them. In the morning, instead of stopping, it sped on, and before the sun had reached the zenith, it stood before Castle Spinweb.

The vines slumped below Lorien, and as he watched they slithered across the ground to the green-clad castle wall, rooted, unfurled their leaves, and blended among the other vines clinging there so perfectly that no one could have picked them out as having led a mobile, magical life.

Lorien knocked boldly at the castle gate, and the third time his fists struck the carven panel, it swung smoothly open. Sunlight streamed past him, washing out the radiance of many flambeaux within, illuminating a tapestry-hung room with floor of polished stone.

He entered, and the door closed silently behind him. Turning about, he found himself facing a figure so cloaked and deeply hooded that no trace of human flesh showed anywhere upon it. Lorien inclined his head.

“You may tell your master that Lorien the troubadour is here.”

The figure made no reply, only glided silently past him, moving as bonelessly as if it slid across an ice-covered pond, and it beckoned with one gloved hand that he should follow.

He did so. Some distance down the curving corridor from the gateroom was a stairway, which they climbed. At the top, the figure paused at the first of two doors, opened it, and gestured for the troubadour to enter. Inside was a pleasant room, lit by the sun shining through tall windows. Tapestries covered two of the walls, and a third bore the windows, a cold fireplace between them. In one corner was a velvet-draped bed, in another a heavy table and two chairs; the table was set with wine flask and cup, saltcellar, and a platter bearing a whole roasted fowl.

“My dinner?” asked Lorien.

The cloaked figure bowed.

“I see two chairs. Will your master be joining me?”