A Son of the Rock

Grafton, 1991, 444 p.

After Lady Delivev of Castle Spinweb turns down his offer of marriage, fellow sorcerer Lord Rezhyk of Castle Ringforce, ever one to think the worst of people, believes she wishes ill on him. He conceives a plan utilising his enslaved demon Gildrum to go to Spinweb, disguised as a knight called Mellor, to seduce Delivev and make her pregnant as under those conditions she will not feel Rezhyk weave for himself a protective covering of metal. Neither he nor Gildrum ever thought that she would go on to bear the child or that Gildrum would fall in love with her (a fact which Gildrum conceals from his master.)

Delivev’s special power is affinity with spiders and snakes. She can use spiders’ webs as a means to see far and wide across the world as they spin a sort of screen for her to witness what they see and hear. (Though the screens are temporary this is a literal world-wide web, but of course on first publication in 1979 no-one would have thought of it in those terms.)

The child she bears is the Sorcerer’s Son of the book’s title since, as a demon, Gildrum could not have provided the necessary procreative material, which came from Rezhyk. The child is named Cray Ormoru.

As he grows up, despite being close to his mother, he does not want to become a sorcerer but instead to find his father so he goes on a quest to discover the knight, whose shield bore three pink crossed lances on a white ground; a quest doomed to failure.

Deceived by Gildrum – through Rezhyk’s instructions – into believing his father is dead (Gildrum has a way with manipulating matter and appearances) Cray decides the only way he can find out who his father was is to conjure a demon himself and so must seek apprenticeship. Rezhyk wants the true situation to remain unknown to Cray but invites him to learn the arts but with the intention of misleading Cray. Many years of fruitless endeavour ensue until Gildrum reveals to Cray Rhezyk’s duplicity.

As with many such fantasy tales we are presented with a society having mediæval value systems and hierarchies, only here with sorcerers replacing Lords as the ruling class. This default fantasy setting I find irritating. I suppose they are trying to represent less enlightened times but can fantasy writers not eschew such lazy backgrounding? The effect is made worse here by the dialogue being couched in cod mediæval language.

The summoning of demons is presented as being akin to alchemy, with gold extraction its most important aspect. Again this seems somewhat lacking in imagination. Still, this sort of thing is not read for its newness of treatment. It slips down easily however.

There is a sequel, The Crystal Palace, and a third in the sequence which was never published.

Pedant’s corner:- “‘none of them ever know’” (none of them ever knows,) callouses (calluses.) “‘I an not one’” (I am not one.)