"Dickson, Gordon - Dragon And The George Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

He was finally beginning to get close to the wood now. He could make out separate trees. They were all pine, spruce and balsam, growing close together. For the first time a doubt crossed his mind. If he had to search through that forest on foot... But then he reassured himself. He could not have been expected to know exactly where this Tinkling Water place was, or Smrgol would not have reminded him that it lay to the northwest. On the other hand, if it had been a hard place to find, the older dragon, with the low opin- ion he had of Gorbash's mentality, would have given more explicit directions and double-checked to make sure his grand-nephew had them straight.

Possibly there would be something he could see from the air, Jim thought, as he began to swoop down on a long arc that would bring him in close above the treetops.

Suddenly, he saw it: a tiny clearing among the trees with a stream running through it and cascading over a small waterfall at its upper end. Beside the stream was a pool with a fountain, and a small, oddly nar- row, peaked-roof house surrounded by grass and flower beds, except where a gravel path led from the edge of the dense woods up to the house's front door. A signpost of some sort stood to one side of the path just before the door.

Jim set down on the path with a thump.

In the silence that followed his rather heavy land- ing, he distinctly heard the sound of the water of the fountain falling and splashing in the pool. It did, in- deed, tinkle-not like the sound of small bells, but with the very distant, fragile notes of glass wind chimes, clashing in the light breeze. The sound was somehow inexpressibly lulling to the nerves, and the rich and mingled odors rising from the blossoming flowers in the flower beds reinforced the effect; so that all at once Jim felt as if he had been plunged into a dream place where nothing was quite real and cer- tainly nothing was overly important.

He moved slowly up the path and paused to read the signpost before the house. The sign itself was a plain, white-painted board with black lettering on it. The post on which it was set rose from among a riot of asters, tulips, zinnias, roses and lilies-of-the-valley, all blooming in complete disregard for their normal seasons. Printed on the board in black, angular letters was the name S. Carolinus. Jim went on up to the front door, which was green and sat above a single red-painted stone step.

He knocked.

There was no answer.

In spite of the soothing effect of the fountain and the flowers, Jim felt a sinking sensation inside him. It would be just his luck and Angie's to arrive at the residence of S. Carolinus when S. Carolinus was not within it.

He knocked again-harder, this time.

The sound came of a hasty step inside the house. The door was snatched inward and a thin-faced old man with a red robe, black skullcap and a thin, rather dingy-looking white beard stuck his head out to glare at Jim.

"Sorry, not my day for dragons!" he snapped. "Come back next Tuesday."

He pulled his head back in and slammed the door.

For a moment Jim merely stared. Then comprehen- sion leaked through to him.

"Hey!" he shouted; and pounded on the door with some of his dragon-muscle.

It was snatched open furiously once more.

"Dragon!" said the magician, ominously. "How would you like to be a beetle?"

"You've got to listen to me," said Jim.

"I told you," Carolinus.explained, "this is not my day for dragons. Besides, I've got a stomach ache. Do you understand? This-is-not-my-day-for-dragons!"

"But I'm not a dragon."

Carolinus stared at Jim for a long moment, then threw up his beard with both hands in a gesture of despair, caught some of it in his teeth as it fell down again, and began to chew on it fiercely.

"Now where," he demanded, "did a dragon acquire the brains to develop the imagination to entertain the illusion that he is not a dragon? Answer me, 0 Ye Powers!"

"The information is psychically, though not phys- iologically, correct," replied a deep bass voice out of thin air beside them and about five feet off the ground -causing Jim, who had regarded the question as rhe- torical, to start.

"Is that a fact?" said Carolinus, peering at Jim with new interest. He spat out the hair or two still remain- ing in his mouth and stepped back, opening the door. "Come in, Anomaly:-or do you have a better name for yourself?"

Jim squeezed through the door and found himself in a single cluttered room which evidently took up the full first floor of the house. It contained pieces of fur- niture and odd bits of alchemical equipment indis- criminately arranged about it. S. Carolinus closed the door behind him and walked around to face Jim again. Jim sat down on his haunches, ducking his head to avoid hitting the ceiling.