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

Cheap and popular, people with grudges bought themтАФ

Here it was. On a red-rimmed card, etched in black and washed gray,
stone blocks cascaded from a castle wall. Crumble was the spell. With
shaking fingers, in dim flickering light, Byron felt the rough bricks, found
a slit in which to wedge the card. Madly he picked up the remaining cards
and stuffed them in his shirt. When the spell triggered, he'd need to move
fastтАж

But in his panic, he'd forgotten something else.

To trigger the magic, he needed the card's token, its secret ingredient.
He recalled Rayner instructing a client in the card's use. Swearing, Byron
squirmed like a singed rat back through the ragged hole he'd broken.

In the workshop, Rayner was rapidly melting. Soon, Byron knew, the
man would topple like a shot duck. As the flames consumed the walls and
floor, his skin would char, his skull and bones smoke, then igniteтАж just as
Byron had burned in his dream. The apprentice shook his head. Better not
dwell on it. He might roast for real, soon.

Scurrying around tables, he found a pot of white dust, sniffed it. Lime,
used in mortar. Handy and cheap.

Grabbing a fistful of silky powder, Byron wiggled back into the dark
hall. Flames ate the carpet at each end. If he didn't get out soonтАж

Careful not to spill, he crawled to the magic card wedged in the brick
wall, trickled lime on it. He hoped Rayner hadn't changed the formula
without telling himтАж
 Like a musketeer's "dragon gun," the lime sparked, then the card
flashed and went white. Magic, bound into the card by Rayner's will,
rippled outward from the card.

Impressed despite his distress, Byron grinned. Magic was always so
thrilling.

Radiating from the card, as if dwarves wielded invisible hammers,
magic crumbled the mortar between the bricks. The white lines cracked,
crumbled, snapped, spat, trickled to dust. Unsettled, bricks cracked under
the tremendous weight of the wall and roof above. The wall groaned,
bowed.

Byron crawled back from the wall as red brick dust began to spurt. All
the mortar within sight had turned to sand and sifted down like snow.
Byron recalled that Rayner had guaranteed the card. Triggered in any one
spot, the magic started a chain reaction that travelled through all adjacent
mortarтАФall the way around a building or castle if not interrupted.
Merchants bought the card to sabotage rivals' houses and warehouses and
shops, or to sabotage their own and collect the insurance. A great leveller,