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

“Yes, yes, all of us.” Cray laid a hand on Sepwin’s horse, and all the spiders skittered to his dripping sleeve.

“Let’s find a dry piece of road and set up a camp.” He pulled his sword from its sheath.

Mud clung to the pommel, and he rinsed it in the water at his knees. Then, using the blade as a staff, he tested the hidden ground all around, found rocks to walk safely upon, and led his horse a long and circuitous route toward the nearest visible section of the road. Sepwin followed almost precisely in his footsteps.

They staggered out of the water, horses and humans, dripping, muddy, exhausted.

Sepwin collapsed upon the dry ground, but Cray pulled up some handfuls of dry grass and began to rub his horse down with them.

“Where do you find the strength for that?” Sepwin muttered. “It must be magical.”

“I wish it were,” said Cray, and doggedly he rubbed on, until Gallant was dry. Then he leaned against the animal and closed his eyes. When he felt himself slipping, his legs giving way, he shook his head sharply and straightened. Sepwin was asleep curled in a patch of grass; his horse stood beside him, nibbling at his green mattress. Cray wanted to lie down, too, but he did not. The sun was still high, but if he slept they might be caught unprepared by night. With heavy limbs, he took up his sword and shield and set them as tent posts on either side of his sleeping friend. He set the spiders to spinning then, and they spun the tent with a human being already inside. He blindfolded the horses next, and made their shelters, and at last he was free to strip off his clothes and chain and to lie down beside Sepwin and sleep.

He awoke to find his mother’s face looking down at him from one wall of the tent. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes. Gray light filtered through the dense webbing. “Is it morning?” he asked her.

“Late afternoon,” she said, “and cloudy where you are. I saw that you were safe and decided not to wake you. I saw water danger in the tapestry. What happened?”

Briefly, he told her.

Her eyes narrowed. “Someone shall hear about this. I asked for a good map; I did not expect one that neglected the dangers of the road.”

Cray stretched, yawning. “Would a demon of the air have seen such danger from

above?”

She pursed her lips. “Perhaps not.”

“And I really should have known better than to walk right into the water without a thought. I shan’t do that again, I promise you.”

“I hope not.” She sighed softly. “Oh, my son, the journey is not so easy as you thought it would be.”

He grinned. “I’m learning a great deal, Mother. And think of the stories I’ll have to tell to the lord of the East March. Surely he’ll look favorably upon me for not being turned back by these things.”

“There will be adventures enough, I’m sure, after you are a knight, Cray. Adventures and to spare.”

“Yes,” he said, and he lay back, interlacing his hands beneath his head. “Just think, Mother… someday a troubadour like Lorien might set my adventures to music. How

wonderful that would be!”

“Wonderful indeed, Cray. And the adventures set to music might be considerably more wonderful than the adventures really were.”

He tilted his head to look at her. “Are you saying that troubadours tend to exaggerate the deeds they sing of?”

“Lorien admitted as much to me.”

Cray chuckled quietly. “Well, Mother, I never did believe that one man could slay a dozen lions single-handed.”

“Lesser things than that.”