"(ebook) Anthony Piers - Xanth 14 - Question Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

"Oh, sure, you can ask! I asked him how I could find a good family to adopt me, 'cause I want to be a real boy, and I need a real family for that."

"You're not real?" she asked, surprised.

"I'm not a real boy. Not a flesh one, I mean. I'm made of water."

Question Quest 7

"Made of water?" Now she was really curious. "You can work with water, and control it, but that doesn't mean you're not human."

"I can work with water because I am water," he said. "See." Then he dissolved. His feet flowed away, and his legs, and the rest of his body, up to the head. "I look like a boy, but it's all water. I'd rather really be a boy, and have water control as my talent. And I will be, if a family adopts me. The Good Magician says."

She nodded. "So after your term of service is done, you will set out on a search for a good family that wants a boy your age."

"Sure! Do you think I'll find one?"

He seemed so eager that she didn't want to dash his hope. But it did seem doubtful. Most families preferred to raise their own ten-year-old boys. "Did the Good Magician say you would find one?"

"He said his Book of Answers said that I would, if I did my job well and was polite to my elders. So I'm doing those things."

He certainly was! He was effectively stopping her from crossing the moat, but he was being courteous about it, warning her rather than hitting her with water, and answering her questions. He seemed like a nice boy.

"Well, I hope that's right. But meanwhile, you know I have to find a way across despite your efforts."

"Yes. I wish you luck, but I have to stop you if I can. If you try to swim and my waves make you start to drown, I'll save you. I wouldn't want to hurt anybody."

"I appreciate that." There was no irony in her statement; it was clear that this was a challenge, not a duel to the death, and Ryver was just doing what he had to do.

She considered for a while, and pondered for a bit, and thought for a moment, while Ryver dissolved his head into water, then reformed into a whole boy, in-

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Question Quest

eluding clothing. He looked completely real, and she was sure he was real; he just wasn't made of flesh. If adoption into a human family enabled him to be transformed into flesh, that would nice for him. She understood that ordinary people were mostly water anyway; Ryver just took it farther.

She got a glimmer of a notion. "Ryver, can you read?"

"Oh, sure. The Sorceress Ivy taught me to read. She showed me how to start, and then Enhanced me into being competent. That's her talent, you know. But you know, most of the books they have at the castle are sort of dry, pardon the term, and not much fun, if you're not into arcana."

Lacuna had suspected as much. "It happens that my talent is changing print. I can also make print appear where there was none, and I can control what it says. Let me show you something interesting to read."

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "I won't make a deal to let you get through! That's not right."

"Dear boy," she said, "I am not trying to bribe you. I'm trying to trick you, which is fair enough. I am going to show you some print, and if you don't find it interesting, don't read it."

"It won't work," he said.

She glanced at the now calm surface of the moat. Abruptly words appeared on its surface, sliding across from right to left, forming a moving band of words. They disappeared as they reached the left margin, so that the whole moat wouldn't get covered with print.