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

“I… I think I’ll bathe my hands first. They’re pretty badly scraped.” He edged to where the horses stood, his eyes never ceasing their search to one side and another, as if he thought he would see another wind coming. The horses stood unconcerned where they had been tied, not a hair of their manes or tails disheveled. “I wish I could be as calm as these two,” said Sepwin, reaching for a water flask.

“They were beyond the range of the effect,” said Cray. He sat on the ground now, the parchment spread across his knees as he studied it

“Effect?”

“The demon’s effect.” Cray looked up at him. “That was an air demon. It was just having some fun with us.”

“My hands don’t think it was fun.”

Cray tossed the parchment aside immediately and strode to where Sepwin was fumbling with the water. “Let me see.” He scrutinized his companion’s palms, found them abraded and bloody. “You shouldn’t have tried to hold on to anything.”

“Should I have let myself be blown away?”

“You wouldn’t have gone far.” He pulled the kerchief from Sepwin’s neck and, wetting it, dabbed at the wounds, which were superficial and soon stopped bleeding.

“Next time you expect something like that,” said Sepwin, “please warn me. Remember, I’m not as accustomed to magic as you are.”

“I didn’t expect such a playful demon.”

“Playful?”

“We’re neither of us really injured, so that was play. Air demons can be rough, but it’s all innocent enough, if you’re not an enemy. Be glad it wasn’t a fire demon—one visited my mother’s castle once, and when it left, all the leaves within ten paces of where it had stood were singed. She had a word with its master for that, I’ll tell you.”

“Dangerous creatures, these demons.”

“They have moods.”

“Like human beings,” said Sepwin.

“You might say that. Now come here and look at the map.” He spread it out upon the grass and pointed with an index finger to a meandering line on the left side of the sheet.

“This is the road we’re on now. Here we are, you see, there’s my name, and two horses to show both of us. The road goes south to Falconhill, down here, you see?”

“Certainly looks like a castle to me. I suppose those symbols say Falconhill.”

“Yes.” He looked at Sepwin sharply. “You can’t read?”

“Not many people can, Master Cray. You don’t need letters for farming.”

“Hmm. Well, yes, that says Falconhill. Now, before then, you see there’s a road crosses this one, and its eastward branch passes through the swamp and eventually meets another road here that veers northeast to our destination.”

Sepwin’s eyes tracked the route that Cray’s finger had indicated. “How far would you say that is, Master Cray?”

“Well… judging from the distance to my mother’s castle from where we are now… if the map is to scale… I’d say three months and more.”

“Summer will be gone by the time we arrive.”

“Nearly, yes.”