Warlock and Son Read Online Free PDF

sound was the wind. Even the birds would not sing so close to the witch's lair; no doubt they shied away from the miasma of her malice. And certainly the musicrocks had been stilled by her rage.
    Magnus slithered against the bark of the tree, knowing for the first time in his life what was meant by the word "despair."
    At sunset, Rod came to a village in a small valley. Smoke from cook-fires drifted up into a clear sky; peasant men were making their way out into the fields, sickles in their hands, to gather in the last of the crop.
    It was very quiet.
    Rod frowned; this was wrong. Peasant farm laborers should have been singing as they went out to the fields, as they did in the rest of Gramarye. Granted, it was chill in autumn; their breath steamed, and they wore heavy woolen tunics; but even so, the peasants of Gramarye laughed and jested as they went to their work, and sang as they reaped. Their wives sang, too, as they went about their work-and the children chanted rhymes over their games.
    But no one sang in this town.
    Rod looked up at the sun, and saw the silhouette of a dark tower against it, at the top of a ridge. The local lordling? A tyrant, crueler than most? Could that be the cause of the silence?
    Page 15
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    One way to find out. He rode down into the town.
    The peasants drew back at sight of him, and the whisper ran. "A knight! A knight!" Rod frowned. Was a knight so strange a sight here? Well, he'd have to ask. But as he rode toward a housewife, she looked up in alarm, called her children to her, and shooed them into the house. Well! Rod had heard of peasant mothers telling their nubile daughters to turn their faces to the wall when the gentlemen passed by-but not their toddlers! He turned to an old man who was shuffling along the single street. "Good day, gaffer!"
    The man looked up at him warily. "What wouldst thou wi' me, sir knight?"
    "Am I so strange a sight? Are knights so rare here?"
    The old man launched into a windy and elaborate answer obviously disguised to hide the facts, but Rod was adept at extracting sense from circumlocutions, and ascertained that yes, knights were that rare-even the local baron visited only once a year, with all his men. Otherwise, he stayed away, for fear of the witch in the tower, and his bailiff came with a very strong guard only once a month. Other than that, there were never any knights who came this way, except for the very occasional wanderer who rode on up the trail to the tower-and was never seen again.
    Rod frowned. "What's so bad about this witch? Is she that cruel?" The old man explained that, yes, she was, and went on in some detail. When he was done, Rod rode on up the trail in his own turn, face set in very grim lines, resolved to rid the peasants of the hag's tyranny-and very much afraid for his son.

    3
    What do you do when you're a snake?
    Of course, Magnus's options were rather limited-he was bound to the tree by the same sort of subconscious compulsion that had him convinced he was a serpent. If he tried to slither away, he found himself moving counterclockwise, around the base of the trunk-and if he wanted to move clockwise, he had to squirm backwards. It struck him as ominous that the only direction he could go, forward, was widdershins, opposite to the direction of the sun's path; surely that was strengthening the spell, driving it deeper into his subconscious by use of a direction associated with magic. In a word, he was stuck. What had he done to deserve it? Nothing, except dream about women-and refuse the blandishments of a female. He had taken no action to hurt her; he had only preserved his own integrity, and kept himself from being used and eventually degraded (if the tapestry was any guide to her future plans) by saying "no."
    How to escape?
    He couldn't think of any way out except-and it galled him to admit it---to call for help. If anyone could help him, which for some