"Clayton Emery - Card Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

Byron screamed as he fell, until he died.

Byron crashed on the cool, amazingly cool, floor. He opened his eyes.
Alone. Safe. Lying on the cool wooden floor of the attic. Blankets entangled
his legs, and he kicked them off. He'd been hot on this spring night, gotten
snarled in blankets, had a nightmare, fallen out of bed. Just a dream. A
nightmare.

He sighed with relief, but coughed, choked. He squinted at the hazy air.
Had he left a candle burning? Was the nightmare not over?

Not quite. The house was afire.

Most junior of the apprentices, Byron got the attic, the highest part of
the great house, musty and cramped, torrid in summer, freezing in winter,
home to rats and cockroaches all year.

But not for much longer. Both ends of the attic blazed. Flames licked at
the tiny lathed windows.

If Byron had a failing, it was massive curiosity. That both ends of the
house burned nagged his brain for a second. Why was that significant?
 Then a more sensible panic took over. He scrambled off the floor and
smacked his head on the rafters, as he did four mornings out of seven.
Cursing, clutching his sore pate, snorting smoke and sneezing dust, he
fumbled on his trousers and shirt, grabbed up his cape and round hat.
Fashion for cardsmiths required that every article be jet black, almost
impossible to find and don at night in a smoke-filled room. He'd mention
that at the next guild meetingтАФprovided he survived the next few
minutes.

His shoes, kicked under the bed, were black, too. He grabbed one and
tugged it on, groped for the other, bumped it with his fingers. It skittered
across the floor and dropped off the floorboards into the eaves.

Really cursing now, and coughing, Byron let it go. He had to get out or
be cooked.

Crawling, he swung his legs through the trapdoor hole for the top rung,
remembered too late it was missing, and fell. He touched the ladder just
once, with his chin, before crashing on the floor. Damn Master Rayner and
his parsimony, too cheap to have a ladder repaired!

The air was clearer on the third floor, but gray clots of smoke swirled
when Byron waved his arms. The light was bad, only flickers of flame
casting illumination and distorted shadows. Stumbling down the main
corridorтАФclumping and padding with one shoe missingтАФhe hollered,
"Fire! Fire! Rouse all!"