"Esther M. Friesner - Chicks 03 - Chicks 'N Chained Males" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

villagers left behind.

Although the ignorant assert that the man-drake has powers greater than the dragonborn, this is but
wishful thinking. Dragons born from the egg inherit all the ancient wisdom and power of dragonkind.
Man-drakes are but feeble imitations, capable of matching true dragons only in their lust for gold. So
poor Cavernous Dire, though fearsome to men, had not a chance of surviving in any contest with real
dragonsтАФand real dragons find few things so amusing as tormenting man-drakes.

'Tis said that every man has some woman who loves himтАФat least until she dies of his misuseтАФand so it
was with Cavernous. Though most of the children born into his very dysfunctional birth-family had died of
abuse or neglect, he had a sister, Bilious Dire, who had not died, but livedтАФand lived, moreover, with
the twisted memory that Cavernous had once saved her life. (In fact, he had merely pushed her out of his
way on one of the many occasions when his mother Savage came after him with a hot ladle.) But Bilious
built her life, as do we all, on the foundation of her beliefs about reality, and in her reality Cavernous was
a noble being.

She had been long away, Bilious, enriching the man who owned her, but at last she grew too wrinkled
and stiff, and he cast her out. So she returned to the foothills village of her childhood, to find it ruined and
empty, with dragon tracks in the street.

"That horrible dragon," she wailed at the weeping sky. "It's stolen my poor innocent brother. I must find
helpтАФ"
***

"So you see, it's the traditional quest to rescue the innocent victim of a dragon," Mirabel's sister said.
"Our sewing circle has taken on the rehabilitation of the faded blossoms of viceтАФ" Mirabel mimed
gagging, and her sister glared at her. "Don't laugh! It's not funnyтАФthe poor thingsтАФ"
"Isn't there Madam Aspersia's Residence for them?"

"Madam Aspersia only has room for twenty, and besides she gives preference to women of a Certain
Kind." Mirabel rolled her eyes; her sister combined the desire to talk about Such Things with the inability
toname the Things she wanted to talk about.

"Well, but surely there are other resourcesтАФ"

"In this city perhaps, but in the provincesтАФ" Before Mirabel could ask why the provinces should
concern the goodwives of Weeping Willow Street, her sister took a deep breath and plunged on. "So
when poor BiliousтАФobviously past any chance of earning a living That WayтАФbegged us to find help for
her poor virgin brother taken by a dragon, of course I thought of you."

"Of course."

"Surely your organization doessomething to help womenтАФthat is its name, after all, Ladies' Aid and
Armor Society. . . ."

Mirabel had tried to explain, on previous occasions, what the LAAS had been founded for, and why it
would not help with a campaign to provide each orphaned girl with hand-embroidered underclothes for
her trousseau, or stand shoulder to shoulder with the Weeping Willow Sewing Society's members when
they marched on taverns that sold liquor to single women. (Didn't her sister realize that all the women in
the King's Guard hung out in taverns? Or was that the point?)