"Anthony, Piers - Xanth 04 - Centaur Aisle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

"Everyone in Xanth has his one magic talent; no two are the same," he
said as he wrote. Thirteen more words. What a deadly chore!

"That's not true," the table said. "My talent is talking. Lots of
things talk."

"You're not a person, you're a thing," Dor informed it brusquely.

"Talking isn't your talent, it's mine. I make inanimate things talk."

"Aw . . ." the table said sullenly.

Irene breezed back in with a seed from her collection and an
earth-filled flowerpot. "Here it is." In a moment she had the seed
planted-it was in the shape of the letter Land had given it the magic
command: "Grow." It sprouted and grew at a rate nature could not
duplicate. For that was her talent-the green thumb. She could grow a
giant acorn tree from a tiny seed in minutes, when she concentrated, or
cause an existing plant to swell into monstrous proportions. Because
she could not transform a plant into a totally

different creature, as could her father, or give animation to lifeless
things, as Dor and the Zombie Master could, she was deemed to be less
than a Sorceress, and this had been her lifelong annoyance. But what
she could do, she could do well, and that was to grow plants.

The letter plant sent its main stalk up the breadth of a hand. Then it
branched and flowered, each blossom in the form of a letter of the
alphabet, all the letters haphazardly represented. The flowers emitted
a faint, odd odor a bit like ink and a bit like musty old tomes.

Sure enough, a big bee in a checkered furry jacket arrived to service
the plant. It buzzed from letter to letter, harvesting each and tucking
it into little baskets on its six legs. In a few minutes it had
collected them all and was ready to fly away.

But Irene had closed the door and all the windows. "That was my letter
plant," she informed the bee. "You'R have to pay for those letters."

"BBBBBB," the bee buzzed angrily, but acceded. It knew the rules. Soon
she had it spelling for Dor. All he had to do was say a word, and the
bee would lay down its flower-letters to spell it out.

There was nothing a spelling bee couldn't spell.

"All right, I've done my good deed for the day," Irene said. "I'm going
out and swim with Zilch. Don't let the bee out until you've finished
your essay, and don't tell my mother I stopped bugging you, and check
with me when you're done."