"doyle, deborah - mcdonald, james d - circle of magic 02 - The Secret of The Tower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

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 plas
tered 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