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

“How do spiderwebs satisfy your needs?”

“In many ways. You shall see one of them shortly. Come, sit down; you must be

exhausted from that walk.”

“Somewhat exhausted,” he said.

The center of the room was occupied by a wide bed with thick velvet coverlet and mounds of cushions. Delivev seated Gildrum and herself upon it, and all around them the webs formed gossamer curtains. She pointed out one of the spiders, a tiny black creature sitting in the center of a web. At a gesture from its mistress, it scurried down a strand to spin a patch in a large open section of the net.

“Breezes sometimes break the silk,” said Delivev, “or a bird or a snake will wander in here.”

“Why don’t you close off the room, then, and seal the window?”

“How would insects enter if I did that? My spiders have to eat, Mellor.” She pressed him back against the cushions. “Relax now, and watch that web.” She pointed to a fairly symmetrical segment of the drapery, eight strands radiating from a central point, joined by a myriad of closely spaced concentric rings. She stretched her hand out toward it, fingers splayed, palm parallel to the flat of the web, though many feet from it. Her hand moved slowly in a circular pattern, as if wiping a vertical surface with an invisible cloth.

The center of the web became hazy, the strands blurring together into a uniform gray sheen, and upon that sheen dim shapes began to coalesce. As from a great distance, voices sounded in the web-draped room, then words, indistinct at first but growing clearer, as if the speakers approached. The dun shapes turned into men, and their lips moved to match their voices. Gildrum and Delivev viewed a scene in the main hall of some castle as they would see through a window into the courtyard of Castle Spinweb.

“Pay no attention to their conversation,” said Delivev. “Those two never discuss anything interesting. But there in the back—” One slim finger pointed to the left side of the scene. “There is the troubadour who is spending this season at the Castle of Three Towers. He will sing soon; it is almost time for dinner there.”

“How are we seeing him?” asked Gildrum.

“There is a spiderweb on the wall beside the fireplace. The scullery maid cleans it off occasionally, but the spider keeps spinning afresh. It is a very industrious spider. The troubadour doesn’t know that it hides in his pack every time he travels to a new castle.”

“We are seeing this through that spiderweb?”

“Yes. And hearing, too. Ah, listen now; he is really quite a good singer.” She leaned back on the cushions beside him and closed her eyes for the music. “You see,” she said between songs, “I am not so isolated as you thought.”

“Can you see anywhere in the world?”

“Oh, there are limits. I must know where to look, I must be interested in looking there. I know of many places that I could look, but I wouldn’t want to bother. There must be spiders, of course. I will never see the kitchens of certain very cleanly cooks because they don’t give spiders a chance to spin more than a strand or two before they kill them.

My curiosity is not piqued by such kitchens. And then there are the homes of other sorcerers—we respect each others’ privacy, although I could look in on them if I wished to be rude.“

“I can’t imagine you being rude, my lady.”

“Ssh. He sings again.” He sang of love, as he had before, most plaintively. “I will weave a tapestry for that song someday,” she murmured. “I see it as red and gold and brown—

autumn colors.”

“And send it to him?”

“Send it? Why should I? What would he do with it, a troubadour? Carry it on his shoulder from castle to castle?”

“Give it to someone, I suppose, to display for him. To insure that his memory outlives him.”

“I shall remember him after he is dead. I don’t care beyond that.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “There are others, some better even than he.”

“You have spiders traveling with them, too?”