"Foster, Alan Dean - Spellsinger 03 - The Day of the Dissonance 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Something shattered and there was another high-pitched curse. He held his ramwood staff protectively in front of him as he emerged into the storeroom.

It was as spacious as Clothahump's bedroom and the other chambers which somehow managed to coexist within the trunk of the old oak. Pots, tins, crates, and beakers full of noisome brews were carefully arranged on shelves and workbenches. Several bottles lay in pieces on the floor.

Standing, or rather weaving, in the midst of the breakage was Sorbl, Clothahump's new famulus. The young great homed owl stood slightly over three feet tall. He wore a thin vest and a brown and yellow kilt of the Ule Clan.

He spotted Jon-Tom, waved cheerily, and fell over on his beak. As he struggled to raise himself on flexible wingtips, Jon-Tom saw that the vast yellow eyes were exquisitely bloodshot.

"Hello, Sorbl. You know who I am?"

The owl squinted at him as he climbed unsteadily to his feet, staggered to port, and caught himself on the edge of 'the workbench.

"Shure I remember you," he said thickly. "You... you're that spielsunger... spoilsanger. ..."

"Spellsinger," Jon-Tom said helpfully.

"Thas what I said. You're that what I said from another world that the master brought through to hulp him against the Pleated Filk."

"The master is not feeling well." He put his staff aside. "And you're not looking too hot either."

"Hooo, me?" The owl looked indignant, walked away from the bench wavering only slightly. "I am perfectly fine, thank you." He glanced back at the bench. "Is just that I was looking for a certain bottle."

"What bottle?"

"Not marked, thish one." Sorbl looked conspiratorial and winked knowingly with one great bloodshot eye. "Medicinal liquid. Not for his ancientness in there. My bottle," he finished, suddenly belligerent. "Nectar."

"Nectar? I thought owls liked mice."

"What?" said the outraged famulus. For an instant Jon-Tom had forgotten where he was. The rodents hereabouts were as intelligent and lively as any of the other citizens of this world. "If I tried to take a bite out of a mouse, his relatives would come string me up. I'll stick to small lizards and snakishes. Listen," he continued more softly, "it's hard working for this wizard. I need a lil' lubrication now and then."

"You get any more lubricated," Jon-Tom observed distastefully, "and your brains are going to slide out your ass."

"Nonshensh. I am in complete control of myself." He turned back toward the bench, staggered over to the edge, and commenced a minute inspection of the surface with eyes that should have been capable of spotting an ant from a hundred yards away. At the moment, however, those huge orbs were operating at less than maximum efficiency.

Jon-Tom shook his head in disgust and returned to the wizard's bedside.

"Well," asked Clothahump meaningfully, "what is your opinion of my new famulus?"

"I think I see what you're driving at. I didn't notice any of the qualities you said he possesses. I'm pretty sure he was drunk."

"Really?" said Clothahump dryly. "What a profound observation. We'll make a perceptive spellsinger out of you yet. He is like that too much of the time, my boy. I am blessed with a potentially brilliant famulus, a first-rate, worthy assistant. Sadly, Sorbl is also a lush. Do you know that I have to make him take a cart into town to buy supplies because every time he tries to fly in he ends up by running head-first into a tree and the local farmers have to haul him back to me in a wagon? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is for the world's greatest wizard?"

"I can imagine. Can't you cure him? I'd think an anti-inebriation spell would be fairly simple and straightforward."

"It is a vicious circle, my boy. Were I not so sick I could do so, but as it stands I cannot concentrate. Past two hundred the mind loses some of its resilience. I tried just that last week. All those methyl ethyl bethels in the spell are difficult enough to get straight when you're at the top of your form. Sick as I was, I must have transposed an -yl somewhere. Made him throw up for three days. Cured his drinking, but made him so ill the only way he could cure himself was by getting falling-down-drunk again.

"I must have that medicine, lad, so that I can function properly again. Otherwise I'm liable to try some complex spell, slip an incantation, and end up with something dangerous in my pentagram. It's hard enough making sure that idiot in there passes me the proper powders. Once he substituted lettuce for liverwort, and I ended up with a ten-foot-tall saber-toothed rabbit. Took me two hasty retraction spells to bunny it down."

"Why don't you just conjure the stuff up?"