"Cross CHILDREN Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

This day, he found himself actively wishing to be anywhere else. The water-dragon loomed over the bridge, mouth gaping wide, fangs dripping. Mayor Eyebright knew that he was going to die, a fact which he resented deeply. Rancor swallowed terror and he came storming out of the toll booth, shaking his fist and shouting, "Unnatural monster! You're supposed to be dead!"

"I am," the water-dragon answered.

Mayor Eyebright dropped his upraised fist to his chest and staggered backward. "That's my Ethelberthina's voice!" he exclaimed.

"Yum," the dragon agreed.

"How dare you devour my daughter?"

The water-dragon shook with laughter that sounded decidedly nonreptilian. "She was too delicious to pass up. As were the other children."

"OtherЧ?" The mayor's jowls looked like slabs of calf's-foot jelly.

"Every last one of 'em as they were on their way to school."

"How's that?" A fat merchant came waddling up to the mayor and poked him in the chest, dragon or no dragon. "All the toll revenue you Overforders gouge from us and you can't spare your own kids the hire of a crossing guard?"

"We do have a crossing guard," Mayor Eyebright sniped back. "Where is she? I'll have her salary for this!"

"You won't have much, then," the resurrected water-dragon chuckled.

Just then there came a thunderous cry of "Halt!" as a cloud of purple smoke erupted from one of the decorative pillars flanking the townward side of the bridge. The people's eyes turned towards the sound.

Looking more than a little fetching for a woman of her age, Zoli of the Brazen Shield stood balanced atop the pillar, shining sword in hand. With this blade, the crossing guard now pointed at the school side of the Iron River and intoned, "Behold where he comes, the true source of our grief! And his old man." A great roar of astonishment went up from the crowd as they saw two fully robed wizards being hauled bodily down to the riverbank by a hostile knot of armored swordswomen.

"This is unspeakable! An outrage!" Dean Thrumble bellowed as he and his son were chivvied along. "Just let me get my hands free and I'll smite you all with a vast and awesome spell of destruction!"

"Try," Pojandra Foeslayer snarled, giving him an extra shove that nearly sent him tumbling off the bank and into the river. "Won't work while you're wearing those enchanted manacles, though. Took ten of us to get 'em on you, but it's worth the peace of mind."

"Do you mean to kill us?" the dean demanded.

"Hardly," said the leader of swordswomen, one Lt. Vida Chookslaughter. "We just want to educate you."

The elder Thrumble drew himself up huffily. "Madam, I am the dean of Overford Academy. I don't need an education."

"No, but someone ought to teach you a lesson."

"Good people of Overford!" Zoli called out. "I come before you with a heavy heart. This very day, while I was doing my sadly underpaid job, the water-dragon surged from the Iron River and attacked. I was as shocked as our mayor to see again a beast I'd thought dead. The monster took advantage of my amazement to strike me a mighty blow which threw me headfirst against a tree. When I recovered my senses, the dragon was gone. Alas, so were your children!"

Above the people's cries of anguish, Mayor Eyebright sternly said, "Madam, the town council will be expecting you to refund us a suitable portion of your salary, in view of the insufficient performance of yourЧ"

A small but attention-getting pebble flew from Pojandra's sling and nipped the mayor's hat off his head and into the river. "Shut up, Baldy," she suggested.

"I loved those children as my own," Zoli went on. "Thus I resolved to avenge them. To this end, I sought the services of the greatest wizard in these parts."

"I never saw that woman before in my life!" Dean Thrumble spat.

"Not you." Zoli's contempt was epic. "I speak of Master Porfirio. From his wisdom I gleaned the reason for the dead water-dragon's return, and from his hands I received this." She yanked a small glass vial from her belt. "Behold the Elixir of Veracity! None whom it touches may speak aught save the truth!"