"Brooks, Terry - MKL 3 - Wizard at Large" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

He hugged her close and nodded into her hair. "I know. Not while you're around. Anyway, I shouldn't worry. Something will come up."
Something did come up, but it wasn't until dinner was nearly over that it did, and it wasn't what either of them expected. Dinner was a sparsely attended affair. The G'home Gnomes did not show up--an astonishing occurrence--nor did Questor. Bunion dropped by briefly and was off again, and Parsnip stayed in the kitchen. So Ben and Willow sat alone at the great dining hall table, eating dutifully and listening to the silence.
They were just finishing when Questor Thews burst into the room, his owlish face so distraught that Ben was on his feet instantly.
"High Lord!" the wizard gasped. "Where is the bottle?"
"The bottle?" Ben had to think a moment. "In the garden room, in a display case. What's wrong?"
Questor was trying so hard to catch his breath that Ben and Willow felt obliged to help him to a chair. Willow gave him a glass of wine, which he quickly drained. "I remember now where I saw the bottle, High Lord!" he said finally.
"Then you did see it before! Where?" Ben pressed.
"Here, High Lord! Right here!"
"But you didn't remember that earlier when you saw it?"
"No, of course not! That was over twenty years ago!"
Ben shook his head. "You're not making any sense, Questor."
The wizard lurched to his feet. "I will explain it all to you as soon as we have that bottle safely in hand! I will not feel comfortable until we do! High Lord, that bottle is extremely dangerous!"
Bunion and Parsnip had appeared as well by now, and the bunch of them hastened down the castle halls toward the garden room. Ben tried to find out more as they went, but Questor refused to elaborate. They reached the garden room in moments and pushed through the closed doors in a knot. The room was dark, but a touch of Ben's hands on the castle walls brought light.
He crossed the room to the display cabinet and peered through its glass doors.
The bottle was gone.
"What, what in...?" He stared in disbelief at the empty space on which the bottle had rested. Then he knew. "Fillip and Sot!" He spit their names out like loose stones. "Those damn gnomes, they couldn't leave well enough alone! They must have stayed behind at the door to see where I put it!"
The others pushed forward, facing past him to the cabinet.
"The G'home Gnomes took the bottle?" Questor asked incredulously.
"Bunion, go search for them," Ben ordered, already fearing the worst. "If they're still here, bring them--quick!"
The kobold was gone instantly and back again just as quickly. His monkey face grimaced and his teeth showed.
"Gone," Ben cried in fury.
Questor looked faint. "High Lord, I am afraid that I have some very bad news for you."
Ben sighed stoically. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.

Graum Wythe
Abernathy came awake with a start. He didn't come awake in the ordinary sense because he had never really been asleep, just wishing he was, his eyes squinched closed, his breath held like a swimmer underwater. It seemed as if he came awake, however, because first the light was there, all around him, so intense he could feel its brightness even with his eyes closed, and then all of a sudden it was gone.
He blinked and looked around. A screen of shadows and half-light masked everything. He took a moment to let his vision clear fully. There were bars in front of his face. He blinked again. There were bars all around! Good heavens, he was in a cage!
He tried to scramble up from the sitting position in which he found himself and discovered that his cage would not permit it. His head was right up against the ceiling. He maneuvered one arm--he could barely move that either--to touch the ceiling experimentally, then the bars... Wait, what was this? He touched the bars again. They were set in glass of some sort--and weren't really bars, but some sort of latticework, very ornate, very intricate. And the cage wasn't square, it was hexagonal!
Who ever heard of a hexagonal cage?
He glanced down. A pair of delicate-looking vases were squashed between his legs and the glass, looking for all the world as if they would shatter with his next breath.
Nevertheless, he did breathe, mostly from astonishment. He wasn't in a cage; he was in some sort of display case!
For a moment he was so bewildered that he was at a complete loss as to what to do next. He stared out beyond the case into the shadows and half-light. He was in a massive stone and timber hall filled with cabinets and shelving, cases and pedestals, all displaying various artifacts and art objects. The light was so poor that he could barely make any of it out. A scattering of windows that were small and set high on the walls allowed in what little light there was. Tapestries decorated the walls at various intervals, and a floor of stone flagging was covered with scattered squares of what appeared to be hand-woven carpet.
Abernathy scowled. Where in the name of all that was good and decent in the world was he? That confounded Questor Thews! He might still be in Sterling Silver for all he knew, locked away in some half-forgotten room of old art, except... He let me thought trail away unfinished. Except that he wasn't, he sensed. His scowl deepened. That muddleheaded wizard! What had he done?
A door opened at one end of the room and closed softly. Abernathy squinted through the gloom. Someone was there, but he couldn't see who. He held his breath and listened. Whoever was there apparently didn't know about him yet. Whoever was mere was strolling idly about the room, moving very slowly, stopping from time to time, looking things over. A visitor, Abernathy decided, come to look at the art. The footsteps grew closer, off to his left now. His display case sat rather far out from the wall, and he could not see clearly behind him without turning his head and shoulders. If he did that he was afraid he might break something in the case. He sighed. Well, maybe he should. After all, he couldn't just sit there indefinitely, could he?
The footsteps passed behind him, slowed, came around, and stopped. He looked down. A small girl was looking up. She was very young, he decided, no more than maybe twelve, with a tiny body, a round face and curly honey-blond hair cut short. Her eyes were blue and there was a scattering of freckles on her nose. She was apparently trying to decide what he was. He held his breath momentarily, hoping that she might lose interest and go away. She didn't. He tried to stay perfectly still. Then he blinked in spite of his resolve, and she drew back in surprise.
"Oh, you're alive!" she exclaimed. "You're a real puppy!"
Abernathy sighed. This was turning out about the way he had expected it would--about the same as the rest of his day.
The little girl had come forward again, eyes wide. "You poor thing! Locked in that case like that, no food or water or anything! Poor puppy! Who did this to you?"
"An idiot who fancies himself a wizard," Abernathy replied.
Now her eyes really opened wide. "You can talk!" she whispered in a voice of conspiratorial elation. "Puppy, you can talk!"
Abernathy frowned. "Would you mind not calling me 'puppy'?"
"No! I mean, no, I wouldn't mind." She edged closer. "What's your name, puppy? Uh, I'm sorry. What's your name?"
"Abernathy."
"Mine's Elizabeth. Not Beth or Lizzy or Liz or Libby or Liza or Betty or anything else, just Elizabeth. I hate those cute abbreviations. Mothers and fathers just stick you with them without asking you what you think about it, and there they are, yours forever. They're not real names, just half-names. Elizabeth is a real name. Elizabeth was my great-aunt's name." She paused. "How did you learn to talk?"
Abernathy frowned some more. "I learned as you did, I imagine. I went to school."
"You did? They teach dogs how to talk where you're from?"
Abernathy was finding it hard to stay patient. "Of course not. I wasn't a dog, then. I was a man."
Elizabeth was fascinated. "You were?" She hesitated, thinking. "Oh, I see--a wizard did this to you, didn't he? Just like Beauty and the Beast. Do you know the story? There was this handsome prince and he was changed into an ugly beast by a wicked spell and couldn't be changed back again until he was truly loved." She stopped. "Is that what happened to you, Abernathy?"
"Well..."
"Was the wizard a wicked wizard?"