"(ebook) Anthony Piers - Xanth 11 - Heaven Cent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

Magician Humfrey looked annoyed. He gestured, and the four of them hurried to one more chamber. The smoke roiled up avidly, pursuing them. The stuff was out of control! As they squeezed through the door, so did it, closing in. In a moment the chamber was filled, and the picture of mat region blotted out.

This time Dolph played it on through. In a few minutes the smoke thinned and dissipated. But Humfrey, Gorgon, and Hugo were gone. Only the elf remained, plainly distressed. He had evidently lost track of the others in the smoke and did not know where they were.

When they did not reappear, the elf proceeded to shut down the castle, perhaps operating on standard emergency instructions. He opened the cage and released the dragons at the moat, who took off down the enchanted path with all the speed they could muster. That was a blunder, Dolph knew that dragons weren't supposed to be on that path. When things were wrapped up, the elf departed himself; apparently his own tour of duty was done now.

That was it, until the three querents arrived the next day. The Magician and his family had simply gone up in smoke! Holy smoke!

Dolph played it back to the smoke, trying to find some angle that would penetrate the obscurity at the key moment. Now he understood why the adults had not solved the mystery through the Tapestry; the smoke had stopped

6 Heaven Cent

them. But if his sharp eyes managed to see what theirs could notЧ

Dolph changed to griffin form. As a griffin he had excellent vision. NowЧ

"What are you doing in my room!?" Ivy demanded, bursting in upon him. "You brat of a brotherЧyou aren't supposed to be in here!!" Half her anger was real, half pretense; he could tell by the doubled punctuation.

Dolph reverted to human form. What a stew of a picklement he was in now! He had gotten so absorbed mat he never heard her returning. "I was just watching the Tapestry! If you*d let it hang in my room for a whileЧ"

"Never!!" she exclaimed. She was fourteen, and at the very total height of her bossiness; Dolph knew that nothing, repeat NOTHING, was worse than a big sister that age. Her talent was Enhancing, and it certainly enhanced her nature. It was futile even to attempt to reason with a creature like that.

Therefore he didn't try. He changed into a giant poisonous spider and stood over her, mandibles dripping.

Ivy screamed and retreated. "What utter ick!!" she cried in simulated horror. "He's finally reverted to his true form!! I always knew he was creepy!!"

Somehow he was still getting the worst of this! She always managed to do it to him. He reverted to boy form. "You mink you're so smart! I'm going to do something to make you look like harpy guano!" He tried, but he just couldn't manage doubled exclamation points, unfortunately.

"Yeah? What, you little twerp!?"

"I'm going to go find the Good Magician and rescue him!"

She did not retort. She was too sneaky for that. She simply burst out laughing. She fell on her bed, supposedly overcome by the mirthЧand abruptly sobered. "There's werewolf hair on my bed!!" she exclaimed, outraged. Her moods could shift from horror to sardonic mirth to outrage with incredible velocity.

Dolph realized that there was valor in judicious retreat. He changed into a mouse and scurried out, leaving (he screams of sisterly ire behind.

Heaven Cent

But the notion of searching out the Good Magician would not leave him. He had said it in the spirit of a dare, to daunt his imperious sister, but now he could not retreat from it without getting horribly razzed. Besides that, he was fed up with being the younger sibling, and wanted to get out to make his own mark. Why not seek Good Magician Humfrey? He was as well equipped to search as anyone; he was young, but he was a full Magician. If anything threatened him, he could change into something to stop it in its tracks.

So he decided: he would do it. He would go to the Good Magician's castle and see whether there was not some hint in that chamber that would show him where the Magician had gone. Then he could follow.

There was, however, one small problem: his parents. They thought he was too young. Their answer to anything ambitious was always that. While this was merely another proof of the opacity of adults, it did need to be handled. After all, his father was King of Xanth, so could not be completely ignored.

"Perhaps In a few years," King Dor suggested diplomatically. He was always the more liberal of the two, but that counted for little in the face of Queen Irene's certainty.

"But the Good Magician needs to be found now!" Dolph exclaimed. "Everyone knows that!"

"I don't," his chair said.