"Deborah Doyle - Circle of Magic 02 - The Secret of The Tower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

about four thousand to go."
The late-afternoon sun beat down on the Basilisk, a small country inn a few days' ride from Tattinham,
near the eastern mountains of Brecelande. Inside the stable, the air was thick with the stink of manure and
rotting straw, and throbbed with the buzzing of heavy, slow-moving flies. Randal had once been a squire
in his uncle's castle of Doun, and most re cently had been an apprentice wizard at the Schola Sorceriae,
the School of Wizardry, in Tarnsberg on the western sea. Now he heaved another pitchfork load of
manure over his shoulder and wondered why he'd ever left home.
Randal was about fifteen, with the height and the sturdy build that come of being well-fed from earli est
childhood. At the moment, however, a film of gray dust covered most of his face, and sweat plastered his
long, untrimmed brown hair to his head and neck. Soon after a pair of merchants departed, Randal had
begun working in the empty stables. The Basilisk's regular hostler-who should have been working with
him-had never arrived.
"It's no good," Randal muttered. "I have to rest."
He leaned the pitchfork against the wall of the stable and rubbed his hands down the front of his tunic.
His right palm ached, as it did whenever he performed hard physical work these days. He looked down
at the hand, at the raised, red scar that stretched across it-low on the side away from his thumb, higher
on the other side-so that it actually crossed the first joint of his forefinger.
Randal clenched and unclenched his hand, trying to ease the cramp in the scar-stiffened flesh. If only he
hadn't grabbed the sharp-edged blade of Master Laerg's ceremonial sword ... if only he hadn't used the
magical object like a knightly weapon to kill the renegade wizard Laerg before his spells could destroy
not only Randal, but the entire School of Wizardry ... if only ... but if he hadn't done those things, he
would be dead now, and the kingdom of Brecelande would be held fast in Laerg's sorcerous grip.
Even working here for the rest of my life, thought Randal, glancing around the filthy stable, would be
better than that.
He took up the pitchfork again and returned to mucking out the straw. As he worked, he took some
comfort in knowing that tomorrow or the next day should see him on the road again, well away from the
Basilisk and its stinking stable, and within reach-at last-of his goal.
Magic.
More than anything else, Randal wanted to be a wizard, a worker in spells and enchantments that could
change the texture of reality-or, more practi cally, make short work of clearing out a filthy stable.
He had spent three years at the Schola in Tarnsberg studying the magical arts before he broke the oldest
law of wizardry-the one that forbade a wizard to attack or defend with steel.
His action had saved the Schola from destruction, and the Regents-the master wizards who con trolled
the School of Wizardry-had not been un-grateful.
They'd made Randal a journeyman wizard, setting him on the second stage of the long road that led from
apprenticeship to mastery. But they'd also done something else.
They'd taken his magic away from him. Until he could get permission from the wizard Balpesh, once a
Regent of the Schola and now a hermit living near Tattinham in the eastern mountains, all Randal's skill
and training had to remain untouched, no matter how great the need.
Randal slapped at another fly. Back in Tarnsberg, any second-year apprentice could get rid of these
flying nuisances with an elementary spell. He could do it himself right now.
Nothing prevented him except his own will.
The Regents of the Schola hadn't put him under any kind of enchantment or binding spell when they
barred him from the use of magic; they had done something far simpler, and far less kind. They had
asked for his sworn word, and he had given it.
A wizard doesn't lie, thought Randal, bending again at his work.
Even if I can't work magic right now, I'm still a wizard. The Regents said so.
Randal had wanted to be a wizard ever since a master wizard named Madoc the Wayfarer visited Castle
Doun. The training that kept Randal true to his promise, however, had begun a long time before.
Lord Alyen, who was Randal's uncle and brother of the baron who ruled over Doun, had never spoken