"Watt-Evans,.Lawrence.-.Ethshar.2.-.Single.Spell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Ah, my friend, the recruiter replied, you havent been listening! TheCrimson Star is a new vessel, fresh from the shipyards! He waved a hand toward the west, which Tobas assumed to be the direction wherein lay the shipyards. Who will sign?
The old sailor turned away, and saw Tobas at the outside of the crowd. Don't listen to him, lad, he said. Tintallions a cold and miserable place, and no richer than we are here. He stalked off.
Tobas had had no intention of signing up for a journey to Tintallion; he, too, turned away, but only to move on to the next group.
The next group was listening to a similar harangue this recruiter claimed he needed only three skilled sailors to replace men lost in a storm. The third was different a soldier in a yellow tunic and red kilt was announcing, in a loud but bored and monotonous voice, various recent decisions of the citys overlord, Azrad VII, that would affect the shipping industry.
The fourth group centered around a young woman in a flowing gown of white velvet, the hem spattered with mud; her hair was bound up in a manner Tobas had never seen before, held in place with jewelled clasps. She claimed to be a princess, apparently, and sought brave young men to restore her to her rightful inheritance in someplace called Mezgalon, whence she had been driven by treachery and violence. Tobas stared in fascination; he had never seen a princess before. Her story sounded much like some of the more lurid tales he and Peretta had heard as children at her mothers knee; he found it hard to take the woman seriously.
For one thing, quite aside from the difference he had always assumed to exist between fiction and reality, this princess did not quite fit the mental image he had always had of princesses; despite her finery, she was plain-faced and flat-chested, with an unpleasantly nasal voice and a singularly ugly accent. Some of the whores on the waterfront had looked more like the traditional storytellers description of a princess.
Well, Tobas told himself, notall princesses can be beautiful, can they?
It seemed very odd to be in a place where anyone could evenclaim to be a princess; he wondered if perhaps some of the old stories he had taken for mere tales were truer than he had thought, and seemed like fantasy to a Telvener only because Telven was an exceptionally dull part of the World.
Tobas moved on, intrigued by the idea that there might be far more to the World than he had realized. Perhaps, he thought, he would find an opportunity here that would be better than trying to make a living off wizardry. It seemed unlikely, but it might be possible.
The next group was again recruiting for a ship, and the one after that hiring miners to work in the diamond mines of Tazmor; Tobas began to lose interest. This was all very well, but none of it was getting him anywhere. These job opportunities were not what he wanted, and he berated himself for his momentary foolishness in thinking he might find anything worthwhile here. He had no money, no food, no place to sleep, and the afternoon was already on the wane; he had done nothing about learning more spells. If he really wanted to, he could come back here later; right now, though, he had more urgent matters to attend to.
What could he do, though? He had not thought this out in advance. He cursed himself for wasting all the time aboard ship that he could have spent thinking and planning for every eventuality.
He had no money, so he could get no food or shelter save by stealing or by selling something. He had nothing to sell save himself and his single spell, and he was not yet desperate enough to sell himself into slavery nowherenear it! and could not imagine why anyone in this vast and wealthy city would want fires lit by magic. He might find work of some sort would have to, he supposed but all the recruiters in this particular market appeared to be hiring for work outside the city, usually dangerous or unpleasant, and he was not yet ready to leave the city, nor desperate enough to sign up for anything that might get him killed. He would prefer to learn more spells, somehow, and become a proper wizard. To learn more spells he needed a teacher, and surely, if there were wizards anywhere in the world, there would be wizards in Ethshar of the Spices!
And that brought him to his one feeble hope of establishing himself without having to immediately undertake any hazardous or strenuous work. He could appeal to his guild-brothers, tell them his tragic tale, and hope that they could spare him enough to keep him alive until he could find a worthwhile position.
They might even teach him more spells at no charge.
First, though, he had to find them. Gathering all his nerve, he tugged at the sleeve of a man listening in amusement to a particularly incoherent speaker.
Excuse me, sir, Tobas said when the Ethsharite turned, but Im newly arrived ... ah, from Tintallion. Could you tell me where I might find a wizard?
Wizard Street, I suppose. The man stared at Tobas rather worn and dirty clothes with obvious disdain.
Of course, sir, I should have realized. Ah ... how do I get there from here?
The Ethsharite smiled unpleasantly. I'll be damned if I know, he said. Thats not my part of town. The Wizards Quarter is all the way across the city, down by Southgate. He pointed in a vaguely southeasterly direction.
Tobas thanked him, and looked about.
Seven streets radiated from the marketplace; three to the north, one each east and west, one to the southwest, and one to the southeast. He chose the last and began walking.
After half a dozen long blocks of shops, tenements, and warehouses he found himself in another market, this one a long, narrow triangle pointing to the south, with its eastern side open to a canal. This market was more traditional than the other; piles of goods were on display on all sides, and no one in the milling throng was making speeches, though a raised wooden platform stood empty on one side. The goods were obviously freshly arrived by ship furs, fabrics, jewelry, carvings of stone and wood, and boxes, jars, and bottles of herbs and spices.
That meant, Tobas realized with a shock, that he was still in the waterfront district Shiphaven, the sailors had called it when he had walked a distance as great as the entire width of Shan on the Sea. The depth of the city, as seen from the ship, had been no illusion. He marched on, deeper into the metropolis.
The streets leading out the south end of the second market were a confusing tangle, and Tobas found himself doubling back and going in directions he did not care to go before he finally emerged onto a broad avenue running due south. He followed this for a few blocks, then paused when it crossed another avenue just as broad and busy, full of the clatter of cartwheels and the acrid smell of hot metal from somewhere further on.
By this time the shadows were beginning to lengthen; where the buildings topped four floors their shade reached clear across the avenue and partway up the faces of the structures on the east side. Tobas was hopelessly lost, and knew it. Reluctantly, he tugged the sleeve of a strolling passerby and again asked for directions to Wizard Street.
The Ethsharite, richly clad in black velvet, smiled at the ignorant foreigner and explained, Follow High Street through the New City, then turn southeast on Arena Street, and about a quarter of a mile past the Arena youll see the signboards. He pointed east along the cross-avenue to indicate High Street.
Tobas thanked him profusely and set about following the directions.
By the time he arrived at his destination he was tired, hungry, footsore, and convinced that he could not be surprised by anything else the city might have to show him; he had walked past mansions and collapsing slums, past the huge arena, among people of every description, for a greater distance than he had imagined could be enclosed in a citys walls. The sun was invisible behind the buildings on the west side of the street, and the sky above them dimmed to red, when he finally reached Wizard Street, just in time to see torches and lanterns being lit to illuminate signboards and storefronts.
He knew Wizard Street immediately, beyond question; he had passed any number of signboards that afternoon, but none like these.
At the corner a broad green board announced, TANNA the Great, Wizardry for Every Need, Love-Charms a Specialty. The next shop in proclaimed in red letters on peeling gold leaf, Alderamon of Tintallion, EXPERT WIZARD; a third was labelled THORUM the MAGE, Love-Charms, Curses, Sundry Other Spells. Similar advertisements hung on every shop, on both sides of the street, for as far as he could make out the writing. Strange sounds, thumps and flutterings, trickled from the surrounding shops; colored lights flickered eerily in one nearby window, and a smell resembling fresh lye soap but somehow not exactly right reached him.
Tanna the Great sounded slightly intimidating, so Tobas skipped by that door and knocked at the next, beneath the board announcing Alderamon of Tintallion. He hoped, also, that a fellow foreigner might not be upset by a Freelander accent.
The door opened to reveal a large middle-aged man wearing a black tunic, brown suede breeches, and a carefully-trimmed reddish beard. An odd, squarish black cap adorned his head and, Tobas guessed from the visible expanse of gleaming brow, hid a sizable bald spot.
May I help you? he asked.
I hope so, Tobas replied. Im a wizard myself sort of and Id like to ask a favor. He looked hopefully up at the red-bearded wizard.
Alderamon stared at the stranger for a moment, seeing a ragged and exhausted youth plainly on the brink of despair. He stood aside. Come in, he said, and tell me about it.
The interior of the shop was draped in red velvet and gold brocade, and furnished with three low black tables and six velvet-upholstered chairs. Tobas noticed, even in his weary state, that the upholstery looked somewhat worn; he could not decide if that was good, because it meant the man had a lot of customers and was therefore presumably a success, or bad, because it meant that he was too poor or too lazy to pay for new fabric.
It was clean, at any rate.
At Alderamons invitation he sank into one of the chairs, infinitely relieved to be off his feet; the wizard sat across the table from him.
A little wine? he offered.
Yes, please, Tobas agreed.
The wizard rose again and vanished through a draped doorway at the back of the shop, to emerge again a moment later with a tray bearing a decan'ter, two glasses, and a few small cakes.
Im afraid the cakes are a bit stale, he apologized.
Tobas saw no need for the apology as he wolfed down all but one of the cakes and drained a glass of thin golden wine.
When he had recovered himself somewhat he sat back, a little shame-faced at his display of ill manners, and tried to think of the best way to begin.
You said you're a wizard? Alderamon prompted.
In a way; I was apprentice to Roggit of Telven, but he ... he died, before the apprenticeship had gone very far.
Oh? How far had it gone?
Tobas was too tired and desperate to lie. A single spell; he taught me one spell.
Which one?
Thrindles Combustion.