"Watt-Evans,.Lawrence.-.Ethshar.4.-.The.Blood.of.a.Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Dumery stood, silent and woebegone, as Doran looked past the mage at him.
"You're sure?" Doran asked Thetheran.
"Quitesure," Thetheran said.
"Well," Doran said, "thank you for your time, anyway." He glanced at the silver tray, where the crystal goblet had clearly been used. "And theoushka, too; it was quite good, and just what I needed on a day like this."
"Thankyou, sir," Thetheran said, with a trace of a bow, "and I'm sorry I couldn't take the boy."
"Well, that's all right, I'm sure we'll find a place for him." He gestured. "Come on, Dumery, let's go."
Dumery stood, not moving.
His father said, "Comeon, Dumery!"
"It's notfair!" Dumery wailed suddenly, not moving from where he stood. "It's notfair!"
Doran glanced at Thetheran, who gave a sympathetic little shrug. "I know, Dumery," Doran said. "It'snot fair, but there's nothing we can do about it. Now, come on."
"No! He didn't give me achance! He said the words so fast I couldn't even hear them properly!"
"Dumery," Doran said, "I'm sure the wizard gave you a fair test. He's as eager to find an apprentice as you are to be a wizard, and he wouldn't send you away without good reason. Now come along, and we'll go home and figure out what's to be done about it."
Reluctantly, Dumery came.
Out in the street, during a lull in the downpour, Doran called, "Well, now that wizardry is out, you'll need to give some thought to what you want to do instead."
"No," said Dumery, emphatically, "I won't. I want to be awizard!"
His father glared at him silently for a moment.
"Youcan't be a wizard," Doran said. "You heard what Thetheran told us."
"That's just Thetheran," Dumery said. "He's not the only wizard in the World."
"No, he's not the only one," Doran agreed, "but he's a good one, and he knows his business. Don't be an idiot, boy; we'll find you something else."
"No," Dumery said again. "I want to be a wizard, and by all the gods I'mgoing to be a wizard!"
"No, you're not," his father said flatly. He could be stubborn, too.
Dumery didn't reply. He didn't want to argue any more.
At least, not right away.


Chapter Four
It took him a full sixnight to convince his father to try again.
This time, the master was to be a young wizard by the name of Zatha of the Golden Hair. Dumery was interested to see that she reallydid have golden hair-blonde, his father called it. Dumery had rarely seen anything so exotic, even in Shiphaven.
Unfortunately, the results of the interview were no different than what had happened with Thetheran. Simple analytic magic revealed no power at all in Dumery, and he utterly botched a few trial spells.
"I'm very sorry," she told Dumery, "but the talent just isn't there. It's something people are born with, like double-jointed fingers or green eyes, and you were born without it."
"But can't Ilearn it?" he asked, on the verge of tears.
She shook her head. "No," she said. "Really, I'm afraid not. If there were any skill at all, it could be nurtured, I suppose, and a few spells learned-but there wouldn't be much point in it. For someone with only a trace of talent it would take years to learn what a real wizard, or an apprentice, or anyone with the knack for wizardry can pick up in an afternoon-and in your case, Dumery, I don't think there's even a trace. You're one of those rare people with absolutely no talent for wizardry at all."
He managed not to cry, and didn't argue with his father on the walk back home.
At least it was sunny, with no rain soaking them through.
After that, his father was adamant. No third attempt would be made, and Dumery was to find some other career to pursue.
Dumery yielded to this, asked for time to think, and got it.
He then took all his carefully-hoarded savings-birthday gifts, Festival pickings, money earned running errands, his winnings from the kid down the street who couldn't play the finger game but kept trying to learn, all of it-and very early one morning, while out playing, he "wandered off."
Once he was out of sight, he headed straight for the Wizards' Quarter, and started going door to door, looking for someone,anyone, who would take him on as an apprentice.
In doing so, over the course of a very long day and well into the evening, he spent all but a few copper bits in honoraria and testing fees, and learned that not only did he have no talent for wizardry, but that he had no talent for warlockry, demonology, theurgy, witchcraft, or any other form of magic-except possibly sorcery. The only sorcerer he dealt with had no tests to perform, but merely looked him over carefully and asked him a variety of peculiar questions, mostly dealing with numbers and unlikely hypothetical situations.
Finally she shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but you won't do."
By that time Dumery had given up arguing. He nodded, thanked her, and went on.
Twice, as he prowled through the Wizard's Quarter, he glimpsed Thetheran the Mage, going about his business. Both times, Dumery tried to stay out of sight, ducking back into doorways; he was afraid that if Thetheran saw him he'd say something embarrassing.
Dumery felt he had been embarrassed quite enough already.
It wasn't fair, he thought, that Thetheran should be strolling about, so calm and collected and confident, after he had ruined Dumery's entire life! It wasn't fairat all.
If only there were something he could do about it! Some way he could get back at Thetheran for refusing him.
Couldn't the nasty old wizard have at least taken him on for a few days, to see if the talent might havedeveloped, or something?
He was sure that it wouldn't do any good to go and ask for another chance; after all, the great man had stated his position. He wouldn't back down from it just because one spoiled rich kid asked him.
Of course, Dumery didn't consider himself spoiled, but he'd noticed that whenever he asked a grown-up to do something for him, the grown-up always seemed to think that Dumery was being a spoiled rich brat. He ascribed this to the fact that the adults concerned hadn't grown up rich, and were jealous.
For himself, he thought he'd much rather have grown up poor-that would have eliminated the jealousy, and he'd be able to dress in comfortable old clothes he could get dirty instead of the fancy velvets that his mother always gave him. Sure, he'd have to live in a tenement instead of his father's house, and he wouldn't have his own room, but so what? Sharing a room with his brothers might have been fun.