"Eisenstein,.Phyllis.-.Elementals.2.-.1988.-.Crystal.Palace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

Fire, Ice, Air, and Water. Cray knew that sort of magic, but though he had cast
hun­dreds of rings in his years of sorcery, he had done so only to give eternal
freedom to their demons. He wanted no demon slaves. The raw metal itself was
what he wished to command.
As in the tree which, just now, was the center of his life.
He sighed as he looked at it. It seemed such a poor, feeble thing, with its
spindly boughs and sparse fo­liage. Yet, Cray thought, if sparkle pleased the
eye, if an individual leaf or blossom could compensate in some part for the
flaws of the whole, then the tree was not a complete failure. Gently, as if it
were a small animal that could respond to his affection, he caressed the flower
that he held, and the branch that bore it. Then he let them bob away, and he
sighed again.
“It’s so lovely,” said his mother.
He shrugged. “I’m glad it pleases you. I wish it pleased me more.”
She slipped an arm about his shoulders. “Have pa­tience, my son. This is a new
kind of magic for you, and you can’t expect perfection all at once. I’d hate to
tell you what my first tapestries looked like. There can be other trees, as many
trees as you wish, as much practice as you need.”
He shook his head. “I’m not finished with this one, yet.”
She looked up at the tree, its top scarcely half again as high as her own head.
“What more is there to do? It won’t grow any larger.”
“No. But it can bloom.”
Delivev looked at him quizzically, then waved a hand at the tree, as if to say
that it had bloomed already.
“You’ll see,” he told her. And he would speak of the matter no further.
They were dining in the garden at sunset, two beeswax candles lighting the meal,
when a flame appeared in the sky above them. A ball of yellow fire the size of a
horse, it swooped down to settle beside their table, banishing dusk from the
garden but shedding no heat. In a moment, it had begun to elongate and to pinch
in at the middle, and then its glow faded as it transformed into a tall young
man with dark hair and ruddy cheeks. He was Gildrum, a Fire demon set eternally
free by Cray Ormoru. Over one shoulder he carried a sack almost as large as
himself.
Gildrum threw his burden down and, smiling, opened his arms to Delivev. They
embraced, two ageless peo­ple who had lived together ten years already and could
look forward to centuries yet; they embraced like young lovers in the first
flush of devotion. Cray smiled to see it, for he loved them both.
When he loosed Delivev at last, the demon gave Cray a hug, and then he opened
the mouth of the sack. For all its bulk, it had not been a heavy load—it was
sheep’s wool, cleaned and carded, ready for spinning.
“She struck a hard bargain, your shepherdess,” Gildrum said to Delivev. “I had
to promise that the coverlet for her bed would be worked with silk embroidery.”
“No matter. I have plenty of silk.” Stooping, she picked at the surface of the
fluffy, cream-colored mass, testing the fibers between her fingers. “She knows
the value of her harvest.”
Gildrum laid a hand on her head and stroked the brown hair that was as soft as
the downy feathers of her dress. “My dear, she knows you must have it, and she
dares to set the price accordingly. She’s com­pletely lost her fear of you.”
She looked up at him. “And of you?”
“Oh, yes. She was as friendly as if I’d been her lord’s tax gatherer come to