Sorcerer's Son by Phyllis Eisenstein Read Free Book Online Page B

his life’s goal. His father, he thought, would be proud of him.
    A breakfast of bread and cheese and milk was set out on a long table below the dais, and as Cray was eating his share, the steward approached and motioned him aside.
    “I have inquired, young sir, but there is none here who remembers your father. I am sorry.”
    Cray swallowed his milk at a draft. “I thank you for your efforts, good steward. Truthfully, I had no great hope of finding any trace of him here. But I could not visit without asking. Is my horse saddled and ready?”
    “It is.”
    Scanning the room, Cray said, “I see your lord is not about. You will have to give him my farewell.”
    “I will do that, young sir.”
    They walked together to the stables and then with Gallant to the gate. While the steward stood beneath the arch, flanked by the men who guarded the entry to their fortress, Cray led his horse out into the open sunlight and mounted.
    “Good luck with your quest,” said the steward. “There is a quest, is there not?”
    “There is,” said Cray. He raised a hand in salute and wheeled his horse about. Before him, the road between the fortress and the town stretched out full of foot traffic even so early in the day. He rode toward the town, but at the east gate, from which he had first seen the Great House, he turned Gallant aside and followed the wall around the settlement, to the track that had brought him there. He could not see the forest save in his mind’s eye, but he knew that afternoon would bring him to it. He would have one of his spiders spin a web then, between two trees, and he would tell his mother of his success. He hoped she had not waited up all night, worrying about him while her webs remained blank.
    The chain mail in his saddlebags rustled to the rhythm of Gallant’s pace, a metallic lullaby for a boy who yearned for knighthood. He daydreamed as he rode, of the years that lay ahead, of the feel of chain upon his body, of the heft of sword and shield. He would work hard and grow strong and sure, and then he would leave Spinweb for the wide world. Somewhere out there was his father, perhaps dead, perhaps alive and imprisoned by some enemy or enthralled by another woman—Cray would follow the trail to Falconhill, to the East March, to wherever it might lead. His mother had said she did not wish to know his father’s fate, but Cray could not rest so. He had to know the truth, no matter how painful.
    He did not plan to tell her of his quest, only that he intended to search for a teacher to help him be the best knight he could. She would weep anyway, when they bade each other farewell. He thought it better not to burden her more than that.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Ť ^ ť
    From the shelter of a tree hollow, a gray squirrel watched Cray practice combat against empty air. Its small head was turned sideways, one lustrous eye following the glint of the sword, both ears pricked to the sound of swinging chain mail. Its tiny paws balanced, humanlike, on the crumbling bark that rimmed its hiding place, and its broad, fluffy tail twitched over its back in rhythm to the boy’s movements. The squirrel came often to that tree, and to others nearby, to watch Cray fight imaginary foes in the dappled sunlight of the forest outside Spinweb. It would have come more often yet, but it had a master who required its frequent presence at his castle, in the form of a young, blond girl.
    Gildrum could see Spinweb’s walls from that perch. It had come to the forest to see them, to catch a glimpse of her standing at the gate or the parapet or leaning from a window. It had come as a squirrel, many months after leaving as a man. In those intervening months, the demon had sought to drown itself in work, to fill its days and nights with fetching and carrying and traveling to the far corners of the world, to blot her face from its consciousness. It had even taken over tasks that would normally be assigned to lesser demons, on the pretense that Gildrum could do them better,