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

No one answered. He stuck his head in a doorway. It was a bedroom for
one of Rayner's mistresses: He had three and fistfuls of children.
Bedclothes were tossed on the floor, the room empty. He found the nursery
obscured by smoke. The children's short beds were empty, a cradle tipped
over.

Dimly, he recalled his nightmare. The smell of brimstone must have
been smoke; the demons' cries really the shrieks of women gathering
children. No one had roused the lowly apprentice in the attic, he noted
bitterly, but they'd been busy. Baskets and a doll strewn in the hallway
attested to that.

Hunched under a curtain of smoke, Byron scurried for the back
staircase, but it was a well of flame. Burning plaster crackled and spit, the
smouldering carpet gushed dusty smoke. He turned and scampered for the
front staircase. It billowed heat like a desert wind, hot enough to dry his
eyeballs, but the flames from outside hadn't eaten through the wall yet. In
blackness, he grabbed the brass banister for support, yelped because it
was scorching. Afraid to fall headlong, he crawled backwards down
invisible steps, sipping breaths rather than sear his lungs.

The second floor held the master's workshop. Below that was the
kitchen, dining hall, and maids' quarters. In the cellar dwelt Rayner's
other three apprentices, the piggish bastards who'd kicked him up to the
attic. Byron heard no cries for help, assumed everyone had evacuated
safely. Probably they clustered in the street in their nightclothes and
watched the house burn, having completely forgotten the fourth
apprentice.

No. WaitтАж

Halfway down the staircase, butt first, Byron halted, lost in thought. He
pictured the house and grounds. The front and back of Rayner's grand
house were of wood adorned with filigree and gingerbread and gold leaf
and murals and a phony heraldic symbol: layers of paint that would burn
like fireworks. The sides of the house, where no one could see, were plain
brick without windows or doors, close-packed by gardens and olive trees.

The front and back had the only doors, and both were engulfed in
flames.

So there was no way out.

Half-blind, drunk on smoke, and thirstier than he'd ever been, Byron
blundered off the stairs onto the second floor. Rayner's workshop took up
the whole floor. A hall ran all around it, so no walls touched the outside of
the house, a provision against spies. It had a locked door, too, a provision
against mistresses and children. Fortunately, Byron wore a key on a thong
around his neck, so he might fetch anything the master demanded day or
night.