"Deborah Doyle - Circle of Magic 03 - The Wizard's Statue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

afternoons were cool, even though the season was not yet autumn. The River Donchess flowed through
the middle of town, and the wind brought damp air off the water. He paused at the corner and looked
quickly up the next street. A man he'd spoken with earlier had told him that Alured Carpenter had a
helper named Nicolas. That could mean only one thing: Randal's friend Nick, from the Schola
Sorceriae-the School of Wizardry in Tarnsberg-was still working here. In the old days, when Randal had
despaired of completing his own apprenticeship, Nick's help and advice had sometimes been the only
things that kept him going. But in the middle of Randal's second year, Nick had startled everybody by
leaving both the Schola and the practice of wizardry. Nick had traveled north, to Cingestoun, to work in
a carpenter's shop. This street, Carpenters' Lane, was the place. Randal looked into the open front of
each shop as he came to it. Then, at last, Randal spotted his friend-a young man with a curly brown
beard, leather-aproned, with a hammer in his hand and a trickle of sweat rolling down his forehead.
"Nick!" Randal shouted. The young man looked up. "Who ... Randy!" The journeyman carpenter put
down his hammer and hurried to the front of the shop. "Come in, come in. I never expected to see you
again after I left Tarnsberg, but I should have known someday you'd come walking in the door!" Nick
clasped Randal around the shoulders, nearly squeezing the life out of him with a friendly bear hug.
"Let me take a look at you." Nick stepped back and gave Randal an appraising glance. "And wearing a
journeyman's robes, too. So you made it. I knew that no one would ever beat my record as the
apprentice wizard who went the longest without becoming a journeyman." He steered Randal inside the
shop and over to a bench.
"Sit down and tell me the news. Cingestoun may be a big town, but not much word from the outside
world comes through the gates." Randal sat, accepted the cool drink that Nick offered, and began to tell
what he'd seen and heard on the road. "Times are hard," he said.
"Crops are failing from one side of Brecelande to the other, and robbers are everywhere."
"Then nothing much has changed since I last left the city," Nick said. "Now, tell me the news from
Tarnsberg. Whatever happened to Lys? Is she still playing the lute and singing at the Grinning Gryphon
Inn?"
"You can see for yourself," Randal replied. "We've been traveling together, and she's here in Cingestoun,
singing at the Green Bough." Nick's face lit up. "She is? That's wonderful! I have to watch the shop
tonight for Alured, but tomorrow, I promise you, I'll stop by and see her again." Randal smiled. Lys and
Nick were his two best friends from his days in Tarnsberg. In fact, aside from his cousin Walter, who'd
shared Randal's boyhood at Castle Doun, they were the best friends he had in the world.
"And how is everyone at the Schola?" Nick asked. "Mistress Pullen and all the rest?"
"Well enough," Randal replied. "Pieter's a master now."
"That's good news," said Nick. The former apprentice looked wistful for a moment. "Sometimes I
wonder what might have happened if I'd stayed ... but never mind the might-have-beens. Tell me what's
become of Master Laerg-head of the Regents and running the whole Schola by now, I shouldn't
wonder." Randal looked down, suddenly unable to speak. He flexed his right hand, where a raised scar
ran across the palm.
"No," Randal said quietly. "No, Master Laerg doesn't run the Schola." He looked up, directly into Nick's
eyes.
"You might as well hear it all," he said. "Master Laerg is dead, and I killed him. With a sword."
"You what?" Nick asked in disbelief. Of all the laws and traditions binding wizards, the rule against using
steel for attack or defense was the oldest and most revered. Randal looked down at his lap. "I didn't
have a choice," he said. "Laerg was summoning up demons ... he wanted to destroy the Schola, and then
rule all of Brecelande with the demons' help. He'd promised them a sacrifice and I was it."
"But to use a sword ..." Randal clenched his fist. The scar ached with the movement, as it always did-a
reminder of the choice he'd made, when he'd cut himself to the bone grasping the blade of Laerg's
ceremonial sword.
"I paid for it," Randal said quietly. "The Regents made me give my sworn word not to use magic until I'd
gone on a quest for forgiveness to Master Balpesh off in the eastern mountains. But Balpesh let me use