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

For answer, the figure glided through the doorway and pulled the door shut behind it.

Lorien strode to the door, found it unlocked, and pulled it ajar. Then, tossing his lute to the bed and seating himself in the chair that faced the entrance, he consumed his meal.

He had scarcely finished when the cloaked figure returned with a tray and bore away the scraps and tableware.

After it had gone, he went to the window and looked out upon the forest. His eyes were level with the tops of the shortest trees. Leaning out, he could see that he was in one of the castle’s towers; above was another pair of windows, and beyond them a parapet.

Below, too far to leap without breaking a leg, was the banquette, the narrow walkway just behind the outer wall.

He faced the room once more. “Am I a prisoner here?” he asked of tapestries red and gold and brown. They did not reply. One by one he turned them back, but he found nothing behind them save blank stone walls and cobwebs. He walked out the door then, and down a few steps; there was no sound from below, nor did he see any motion. The upper staircase was silent as well. On the landing once more, he hesitated a moment and reached for the handle of the second door.

He found himself in a room of mock weapons, wooden sword and shield, wooden mace and axe—they hung on the walls like hunting trophies. Beneath them stood chests, table, chair, all covered with a fine layer of dust. He opened one of the chests and found a boy’s clothing laid neatly away, shirts and trews too small for a grown man, and tucked among them a stuffed animal so bedraggled that its identity was impossible to

determine. He shut the chest, tried another, and found clothing more suitable to a man.

He shut that, too, and having exhausted the room’s secrets, he went out.

He yawned. “If no one objects,” he said loudly, “I shall try the bed.”

He slept soundly beneath the velvet cover.

The cloaked figure woke him. He had slept through the night, and morning light upon the tapestries made the room seem warm. Warm, too, was the glow of a small fire upon the hearth grate, and the room was filled with the rich scent of eggs frying in butter. The figure slipped away from the bed and bent to remove a pan from the flames. The table had already been set with bread and milk. Lorien pulled on his boots and shirt and sat down to eat.

“Your master is very generous,” he said to the figure. “The bed is soft, the food is excellent. Shall I meet my host this day?” When the figure remained silent, he caught at its sleeve. “Can’t you speak?” he asked.

The figure bowed to him and tried to pull the sleeve away, but his grip was too firm.

“Look at me!” he said sharply.

The hood turned to him, its rim hanging so low that it touched the front of the cloak.

“How can you see with that hood?” he asked, and with a swift movement of his free hand, he threw it back.

Beneath, the figure’s head was a swaddle of cloth, lumpy, misshapen. There were no slits for eyes or nose or mouth.

Lorien stared, and his fingers loosened their hold on the sleeve and the figure pulled away, but not completely, not before he grasped at its gloved hand. The glove came off in his fist, revealing that the figure had no hand. The glove, which had picked a pan out of the fire and set it upon a trivet on the table, had been empty. He dropped the glove, now quite limp, as if it were a severed hand. The figure retrieved it with its other gloved hand, and in a moment it had two, as mobile as before. It used both to pull its hood up.

Then it bowed and left Lorien to his breakfast. He ate slowly, his eyes upon the door, but no one entered as long as he was at the table.

Afterward, he sat on the bed, the lute cradled in his lap, and he plucked aimlessly at the strings. “You called me here,” he said at last, no more loudly than if he were speaking to a person in the very same room. “Won’t you show yourself?”

Long moments passed, and when no one came he began to relax, to stroke runs of

melody from the lute, to hum with them. He was looking down at the strings when he heard the voice.

“Good morning. Welcome to Castle Spinweb.” His head jerked up, and he saw a woman standing in the doorway, a brown-haired woman in a long dress made of white feathers.

He tossed the lute aside and scrambled to his feet. He bowed. “You are the lady of the castle?” he inquired.