Phyllis Eisenstein - Elementals 01 - Sorcerer'S Son

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE.4

CHAPTER TWO..9

CHAPTER THREE.17

CHAPTER FOUR..28

CHAPTER FIVE.44

CHAPTER SIX..61

CHAPTER SEVEN..75

CHAPTER EIGHT.93

CHAPTER NINE.117

CHAPTER TEN..129

CHAPTER ELEVEN..141

CHAPTER TWELVE.159

CHAPTER THIRTEEN..180

CHAPTER FOURTEEN..189

CHAPTER FIFTEEN..205

CHAPTER SIXTEEN..216

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN..232

ABOUT THE AUTHOR..250

For Martha Eisenstein,

with gratitude

for her love and encouragement

CHAPTER ONE

BEHIND HIS WALLS of demon-polished bronze, behind his windows so closely shuttered with

copper scales that no sunlight penetrated, Smada Rezhyk brooded over a leaf. It was a bit of ivy, small

enough to fit within the palm of his hand, and written upon it in letters spun of gray spidersilk was the

single word, “NO.” A snake had deposited the leaf at the gate of Rezhyk’s castle, and he needed no

signature upon the smooth green surface to tell him who had sent the message.

His footsteps rang against the floor—studded boots upon the mirror-bright metal—as he strode to the

workshop, to the brazier that had never cooled since the instant Castle Ringforge had been completed.

His band passed above the flames, let go the leaf, which danced briefly in the upwelling heat until the fire

caught it, curled it, shriveled it to ash. In the flickering light, the jewels upon his fingers sparkled, the

plainer bands gleamed warm; each ring was a demon at his command—a demon of fire, a demon to

build or destroy at his whim. He tallied them slowly, his only friends in the universe. Then he summoned

one, the first and best of them all, faithful companion since his youth; the simplest ring, red gold, was

inscribed with that demon’s secret name: Gildrum.

From some other part of Ringforge, Gildrum came in human guise, entering by the door as a human

would. In appearance, the demon was a fourteen-year-old girl, slight and pretty, with long blond braids.

Rezhyk had given her that semblance when they were both young, and only he had changed with the

passage of the years. He kept her near him most of the time and spoke his heart to her. She climbed atop

a high stool by the brazier and waited for him to begin the conversation.

He was toying with glassware, with notebooks and pens and ink. He had not yet glanced up at her when

he said, “She refused me.”

In a high, fluty voice, Gildrum said, “Please accept my sympathy, lord.”

“She refused me, Gildrum!” He turned to face the demon-girl, lines of anger set around his mouth. “I

made her an honorable offer!”

“You did, my lord.”

“Am I ugly? Are my manners churlish? Is my home unfit for such as she?”

“None of that, my lord.”

“What have I done, then? How have I offended her? When? Where?”

“My lord,” said Gildrum, “I do not profess to understand humans completely, but perhaps she is merely

disinclined to marryanyone .”

“You are too soft, my Gildrum.” He leaned on a stack of notebooks, forehead braced against his

interlaced fingers. “She hates me, I know it. It was a cold reply, brought by a cold creature. She meant to

wound me.”

“And has succeeded.”

“For a moment only! Now I know my enemy. We most take precautions, my Gildrum, to make certain

she never can wound me again.”

The demon shrugged. “Never again ask her to marry you.”

“Not enough! Who knows what evil she fancies I have done her? I must protect myself.”

“I would think you are well protected in Ringforge.”

“How?” He clutched a length of his dark cape in both fists, “I wear woven cloth; she could turn my very

clothes against me.”

“Inside your own castle?”

“Am I never to set foot outside again, then? Must I wear plate armor every time I walk abroad? Or

felted garments hung together with bolts and glue? She rules too much, her hand is everywhere. What can

I do, Gildrum?”

She smiled. “A fire demon could keep you warm enough if your vanity would permit you to walk the

world naked, my lord.”

“A sorcerer naked as a beggar? Hardly!”

“A beggar would not wear rings of power on all his fingers. People would know your rank.”

“Don’t try my patience so, Gildrum.”

“Then I must think a moment, lord.” Pursing her lips, crossing her arms over her bosom, she looked up

at the ceiling. Just visible beneath the hem of her blue gown, her feet swung slow arcs between the legs of

the stool, pendulums measuring the time of her thought “My lord,” she said at last, “if you are truly

concerned about some danger from the lady, then I would advise you to construct a cloth-of-gold shirt, a

fine mesh garment, supple enough to wear next to your skin. It must be made of virgin ring-metal, and

you must draw and weave the strands yourself, without demonic help. Such a combination of your

province and hers would be impervious to her spells and to any of your own that she might try to turn

against you.”

Rezhyk poked the coals in the brazier. “A fine notion, Gildrum, but what is to keep her from discovering

that the shirt is being made long before I finish it? I am no weaver, after all; it would be a slow process.”

“How will she discover ft? You will do it here in Ringforge.”

“How does she discover anything? Every spider is her spy.”

“Even here in your own castle?”

“Even my own castle is not proof against vermin. They come and go as they please.” He glanced about

nervously. “There are none here now, but they might get in at any time.”

“Well, then, you must do something about them. Post a watch of fire demons to burn every spider that

approaches the outer wall.”

“Shewill take that as an affront!”

Gildrum sighed. “Worse and worse. Perhaps if you just sent her a vase of flowers and begged her

forgiveness ...?”

Rezhyk paced a slow circle about the brazier. “If only we could arrange for her to take a long sea

voyage, or to go into seclusion in some distant cave for a while. How much time do you think the making

of the shirt would require?”

“As you said, you are no weaver. Perhaps a month. Perhaps two. No more than that, I think, if I show

you exactly what to do.” She held up a hand to stop his pacing. “There is a way to weaken her powers

for a month or two, my lord.”

“Yes?”

“If she conceived a child, the child’s aura would interfere with her own. She would be limited, severely

limited.”

“Enough ... ?”

“Enough that she could hardly speak to a creature beyond her own castle walls.”

Rezhyk shook his head. “She would abort the child. She would abort it as soon as she realized it

existed. She could not allow that kind of vulnerability.”

“A month or two, I said, my lord. Until she noticed the pregnancy. Until she noticed the curtailing of her

powers.”

“She might notice immediately.”

Gildrum spread her hands, palms upward. “I have no other suggestions.”

“We would have to work quickly. A month is too long. Could I do it in a week?”

“Working night and day, my lord, working with perfect efficiency, you might possibly do it in a week. At

the end, you would be exhausted.”

“I have no choice.” He opened the drawer where he kept his stock of ring-metal. Gold lay within, and

silver, copper, iron—wooden boxes held chips and chunks of each, surplus from old rings, and a few

small ingots. “I have a gold bar, never used. Will that be enough?”

“Yes.”

He hefted the bar in one hand. “This will be a heavy garment.”

“You will grow strong wearing it.”

He set the metal on his workbench. “We have only one problem, my Gildrum.” He glanced up at her.

“How to bring about this pregnancy.”

Gildrum smiled. “Leave that to me.”

Rezhyk’s gaze traveled the length of the demon’s girl-body. “You suit me well; but for her ... for her we

must give you another form.”

“Tall,” said Gildrum. “Tall and lean and just past the first flush of youth.”

Rezhyk worked two days and two nights to model Gildrum’s new form in terra-cotta. Life-sized he

made it, strong of arm and broad of shoulder, sinewy and lithe, the essence of young manhood. Other

sorcerers, when they gave their servants palpable forms, made monsters, misshapen either by device or

through lack of skill, but Rezhyk molded his to look as if they had been born of human women.

Complete, the figure seemed almost to breathe in the flickering light of the brazier.

Satisfied with his work, Rezhyk set his seal upon it: an arm ring clasped above the left elbow, a band of

plain red gold, twin to the one he wore on his finger, incised with Gildrum’s name. Gently, but with a

strength that would seem uncanny in so slight a body, were it truly human, Gildrum lifted the new-made

figure in her arms and carried it across the workshop to a large kiln whose top and front stood open. She

set the clay statue inside, upon a coarse grate.

Rezhyk nodded. “Enter now, my Gildrum.”

The demon-as-girl smiled once at her lord’s handiwork, and then she burst into flame, her body

consumed in an instant, leaving only the flames themselves to dance in a wild torrent of light. Billowing,

the fire rose toward the high ceiling, poised above the kiln and, like molten metal pouring into a mold,

sank into the terra-cotta figure and disappeared. The clay glowed red and redder, then yellow, then

white-hot

Rezhyk turned away from the heat; by the light of the figure itself he entered its existence, the hour, and

the date in the notebook marked with Gildrum’s name. By the time he looked back, the clay was cooling

rapidly. When it reached the color of ruddy human flesh, a dim glow compared to the yellow of the

brazier, if began to crumble. First from the head, and then from every part, fine powder sifted, falling

through the grate at its feet to form a mound in the bottom of the kiln. Yet the figure remained, though

after some minutes every ounce of terra-cotta had been shed—the figure that was the demon, molded

within the clay, remained, translucent now, still glowing faintly from the heat of its birth. The ring that had

been set upon the clay now clasped the arm of the demon, its entire circle viable through the ghostly flesh.

Then the last vestige of internal radiance faded, the form solidified, and the man that was Gildrum stepped

forth from the kiln.

He stretched his new muscles, ran his fingers through his newly dark hair. “As always, my lord,” he said

in a clear tenor voice, “you have done well.”

“I hope she thinks as much.” He slipped the ring from Gildrum’s arm and tossed it into the drawer from

which he had taken the gold bar. “There must be nothing that smells of magic about you—above all,

nothing to link you with me.”

Gildrum nodded. “I shall steal human trappings; I know of a good source.”

“You must not fail.”

“Have I ever failed yon, lord?”

“No, my Gildrum. Not yet.”

“And not now.” His form wavered, shrank, altered to that of the fourteen-year-old girl, naked in the light

of the brazier. “Will you give me the seed for the child, my lord? Or must I find some beggar on the

road?”

He took her hand. “I’ll give it.”

* * *

Rain poured down upon the forest from clouds crowded close above the treetops. On the muddy track

below, a large black horse, tail and mane matted with wet and filth, trudged toward the nearest sign of

life, a high-spired castle overgrown with ivy. The horse’s rider slumped forward over the pommel of the

saddle, one arm hanging limp on either side of his steed’s drooping neck. He was dressed in chain mail, a

mud-spattered surcoat plastered atop the links; he had no helm, and his shield hung by a loose strap,

bouncing against his leg in the slow rhythm of the horse’s walk. On his left side, where the surcoat was

ripped and the chain snapped to make a hole a hand-span wide, blood seeped out sluggishly, easing

down his thigh in a rain-diluted wash.

As they neared the castle, the horse picked up its pace, sensing the shelter ahead. The storm drove from

beyond the fortress, and so there was respite from both wind and wet in its lee. Almost at the arch of the

gate, the animal stopped and bent to drink from a puddle and to crop a bit of soaked grass; its rider fell

then, slid silently off its back and dropped to the mud in an awkward heap.

Inside, warm and dry and surrounded by the things she loved, was Detivev Ormoru, mistress of Castle

Spinweb. She expected no visitors, neither on a stormy night nor a clear one; no one had knocked at the

gates of Spinweb in many years, and she was pleased with that state of affairs. But when the ivy curled in

her bedroom window, when a small brown spider scurried across its tendrils to report a stranger outside,

she was curious. The stranger had not requested entry, had not pounded on the heavy wooden gate or

shouted or beat sword upon shield to attract attention through the noise of the storm, yet why would he

be there but to enter? She looked out her window, but the outer wall was too high for her to see anything

close beneath it. She could have spun a web to view there, but walking would take no greater time, so

she went.

The gateroom was wide, floored with polished stone, and hung with thick tapestries against drafts. Even

so, she felt the storm there. Through a peephole in the carven portal, she saw darkness, streaming rain,

and then, by a flash of lightning, him lying on the ground, the horse grazing nearby. She opened the door.

Her first impulse was to step outside and turn him over with her own hands to see if he were dead, but

she stifled that and sent a few snakes instead, in case he should be shamming with evil intent. The snakes

were not happy to be out in the wet, but they obeyed. They nosed about the body, which did not move,

and they reported it warm and breathing and leaking blood. She waved an arm, and they wriggled under

him, a living mattress, living rollers to move him over the rain-slick grass. They conveyed him through the

door. The horse shied at the snakes, rearing wide-eyed and snorting, and Delivev had to grasp its bridle

in her hands and murmur many calming words before she could coax it inside. She locked the gate

behind it then, locked the storm out and the stranger and his horse in her home.

She led the animal to the roofed-over courtyard that sheltered many of her own pets and left it there with

a mound of towels rubbing it down sans human assistance. She returned to the gateroom to find the

snakes arrayed in a ring about the injured knight, who lay unmoving upon the floor, his limbs at odd

angles, water dripping from his flesh and clothing. A red stain was forming at his left side. Delivev found

the wound quickly, guessed it a mighty sword cut so to cleave through heavy chain mail, and wondered

why the young knight’s opponent had not finished him. Because the linking pattern of the chain lay within

the province of her magic, though the metal itself did not, she scattered it with a nod. His clothing parted

as well, exposing him naked to her ministrations, and while she bound his side she could not help

admiring his youthful beauty. She felt of his head for fever and found none, though her fingers lingered

long upon his cheeks. She leaned her ear against his chest and heard his heart beat strong and steady

beneath the smooth skin, beneath the firm muscle. She chafed his wrists and spoke softly to him, and at

last his eyelids flickered.

His eyes were the deepest blue she had ever seen.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“I am Delivev Ormoru. Your horse brought you to my home.”

“You are kind to take me in.”

“I could not leave a wounded man to the storm.”

“My name is Mellor,” he said, and then he gasped and clutched with weak hands at his side.

“You must not speak. There will be time for that later.” She summoned a blanket, wrapped him in it,

motioned the snakes to crawl under him once more and transport him to an inner room and a couch. His

eyes widened at the sight of the snakes, at their undulating touch, but he said nothing. “I am a sorceress,”

she said. “These are my servants, and they will not harm you.”

He smiled his trust, and she smiled back, and as the snakes bore him into the heart of her castle, he

found himself staring at her. She walked beside him, her gown of green feathers swaying with each step.

She wore feathers, he knew, so that no one could turn her magic back upon her person, and even her

hair, cut to many lengths, seemed like a crown of brown feathers on her head.How beautiful she is ,

thought Gildrum, who called himself Mellor.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE FOUND HIM walking in the small garden that her castle walls enclosed. The day was sunny and

warm, the climbing roses were in full bloom, the morning glories just closing their, petals to the noon light

“Don’t you think it too soon to be so far from your bed?” she asked, stepping close to take his arm and

support him.

“I was feeling well. I heard the birds singing and I couldn’t lie still any longer.” He wore the robe of blue

silk she had woven for him, to match his eyes.

“You look well,” she said. “You heal quickly. Youth always heals quickly.” She smiled. “Come, sit

down with me. Don’t push yourself too far; a wound like that needs gentle care.”

“I can never thank you enough foryour gentle care, Delivev.” Stiffly, he eased himself to the sun-warmed

stone bench. “I would have died that night if not for you.”

“It was a foul night for swordplay.”

“The swordplay was in the daytime, under a clear sky. It was quite finished when the storm began.”

From the lush growth at her feet, she plucked a handful of varicolored flowers and began to twine their

stems together in a wreath. “You have not told me your tale yet—where you come from, how you

received that wound, what happened to your adversary. I have waited patiently while you slept the days

away and drank my soup. I hope I won’t have to wait any longer.”

“I don’t consider it a very interesting tale.”

“Let me judge it.”

“Very well. I am the younger son of a younger son, so far removed from nobility that I inherited nothing

but the right to become a knight. When I gained my arms, I left home to travel the wide world. Since

then, I have roamed far, serving petty men in their personal wars, surviving partly through skill and partly

through luck. Most recently, I swore two years’ allegiance to the Lord of the East March, a better man

than some. I had been with him almost a year when he entrusted me with a message to his cousin at

Falconhill—I was on my way there when I was stopped on the road and challenged by a rather large and

angry-looking knight. I don’t know what I did to provoke him; perhaps his teeth hurt and he was trying

to find something to take his mind off the pain. We fought on foot, sword to sword, and he was a good

fighter, but I was better. He did catch me in the side, but it was too late for him: at almost the same

instant I struck him a mortal blow. At first, I hardly noticed that I had been touched, but when I tried to

dig a grave for him, I almost fainted. I knew then that he would have to remain unburied, and I climbed

on my horse and started out to look for help. I remember the sky darkening and the rain wetting me, but

no more until I woke in your castle.”

Delivev settled the wreath on her hair. “Knighthood,” she said. “You like it?”

“I know nothing else.”

“There are other trades. Safer trades.”

“My father was a knight; I have no entry to another trade. Nor do I know of one that pleases me as

well. Would I wish to be a tinker or a smith? I think not.”

“You enjoy risking your life for petty men? You yourself called them petty.”

He plucked a single blossom and held it cupped in his hand, looking down at its pale yellow against his

ruddy flesh. “Someday I will find a lord I can love, and him I will serve without complaint.” He glanced

up at Delivev. “Shall I hearyour tale now, my lady?”

“Mine?” She shook her head. “I have none to tell.”

“What, a sorceress all alone inthis ,” he waved an arm to include the whole of Castle Spinweb, “and no

tale at all? Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I am a sorceress. They call me the Weaver sometimes. The castle was my mother’s, and her mother’s

before her. None but my family have ever lived here, and I seldom leave. I lead a quiet life—you see all

my world around you.”

“The Weaver. What does that name mean?”

She pointed to a nearby trellis, cloaked with climbing roses. “You see the pattern there, the interlacing

tendrils, the stems weaving in and out of the wooden support? Those roses are mine because of the way

they grow. I could make them climb to my topmost tower in a few moments, or I could make them reach

out to you, envelop you in their thorns, scratch your life away. Birds are mine, too, if they weave their

nests, and snakes because they twine like living threads, and spiders that make webs—you’ll find them in

every room of Castle Spinweb.”

“And cloth?” asked Gildrum.

“Cloth of course,” and she nodded toward him, causing his silken robe to tighten in a brief embrace.

He laughed. “Do your guests ever worry that the blankets on their beds might turn against them?”

“If my guests meant me harm, they would do well to worry so. But I rarely have guests. You are the first

... in a long time.”

Softly, he said, “Is that your choice, my lady?”

“I have no need of human companionship. I have my plants, my pets.” She gazed about her garden,

stretched to pluck a rose from the trellis; carefully, she stripped the thorns from its stem and then

presented it to Gildrum. “Perhaps you would be surprised at how all this fills my life.”

He accepted the rose and twined its stem with that of the yellow bloom he had plucked himself. “I

wonder that you shun human society. Ordinary mortals, yes, I can comprehend how they might bore you,

but there are other sorcerers—I know of several, at least by reputation, and once I even saw one from

afar, casting a spell for the lord I served at the time.”

“We know each other, we sorcerers, but we do not keep company. It is better so. Such powers would

make for wild arguments, would they not, for even friends argue sometimes, and surely married couples

do so. An argument over the seasoning of the soup might light the sky for miles, uproot trees, flood the

land, destroy all that both of them held dear. Of what use would such a match be?”

“If that is your view of marriage, kind Delivev, then I, who have never married, cannot disagree.”

“Between sorcerers, yes. The sorcerous breed have quick tempers, Mellor. They are happier solitary.”

“You speak as if from experience. Forgive me if I pry, my lady, but ... did you ever marry?”

She shook her head. “My mother married, to her sorrow. I saw, for a few years when I was very young,

what life could be like for a sorcerous couple. We were better off, she and I, after my father died.”

“And your mother? What happened to her?”

“She died, too. She was very old when I was born, though of course you could not tell from looking at

her.” She looked into Gildrum’s eyes. “I am old, too, Mellor. Much older than you imagine. We

sorcerers are a long-lived stock.”

He held the flowers out to her on his open palm. “You are younger than these blossoms in my sight. And

far more beautiful.”

She took the blooms from his hand, her fingers resting warm against his flesh for a moment “Is a

flattering tongue part of your knight’s weaponry, Mellor?”

“One learns soft words when the object is worthy of them, my lady.”

“You should be a troubadour, then, instead of a knight, and spread soft words about the world instead

of blood.”

“What do you know of troubadours, my lady who rarely shelters a guest in her home? Are troubadours

the lone exception to your aversion to humanity? If so, I might consider the change.”

“I need not let the world into my castle; I can see it well enough if I wish, and hear it, too. Shall I show

you a marvel?”

“Yes. I haven’t seen many true marvels in my travels.”

She rose. “Can you walk now?”

“I think so.” He stood shakily.

“Lean upon my shoulder.”

“With pleasure.” He let his weight fall lightly upon her, just enough to let her feel that she was helping

him. They moved slowly through the nearest doorway, down a corridor, and into a large room. Light

spilling through a high window revealed the walls of the room to be festooned with spiderwebs. Gildrum

hesitated at the threshold. “How long has it been since you last visited this place?”

“A few weeks,” she said. “These webs are not signs of abandonment, merely of busy spiders. They do

their best to satisfy my needs.”

Phyllis Eisenstein - Elementals 01 - Sorcerer'S Son

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