"01 - A Difficulty With Dwarves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Craig Shaw)

40 Crai'g Shaw Gardner

this one, Norei and I could live happily ever after!

'We had a fight over -' she paused - 'well, over something stupid. I don't know what came over me. I think I wanted this whole trip to Vushta, with all the fighting, and all the nights not knowing whether I'd wake up in the morning or end up as some demon's dinner - I just wanted all that to be over. When I found that it wasn't, I took out my frustration on the person closest to me. And I'm afraid that person was Wuntvor.

'Oh, the argument was so foolish.' She laughed as she looked about the room. 'I have to tell him, to make him understand. Is Wuntvor here?'

At that moment I finally rolled free of the canvas.

'Wuntvor!' My beloved cried. 'You heard me talking to the dragon, then? What can I say -' But her smile turned almost instantly to a frown.

'Norei -' I began.

Alea rolled out of the canvas and bumped into my posterior.

FOUR

'The truly professional wizard must consider the needs of not only humans, but every manner of creature he might come in contact with in the course of his sorcery. He is required to know, for example, precisely what sphinxes like to eat for a midnight snack; that trolls, as a rule, do not know the meaning of the word erudition, or that most fairies are violently allergic to horseradish. However, all these facts pale before the most important part of a wizard's knowledge, which is just exactly what each and every creature can afford to pay for your services.'

- THE TEACHING OF EBENEZUM, Volume XI

'What can I say?' my beloved repeated, although the tone of her voice had changed. 'I know just what I can say, but I'm too civilized to repeat it in front of others!'

Norei turned and stomped from the stage, her footsteps somehow even louder than the noise the tap-dancing dragon had made earlier.

'I'm glad she's gone,' Alea breathed on the back of my neck. 'Now we'll have time to get reacquainted.'

I didn't answer her. I was far too upset. Was Norei leaving me for the Western Woods? How would I ever see her again?

'Alea,' Hubert reminded her softly, 'we have to rehearse.'

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'Oh, Hubert! Honestly!' Alea pushed herself to her feet, somehow managing to lightly kiss my ear in the middle of the process. 'Sometimes, working with a dragon ..." She left the rest of the sentence unfinished as Hubert puffed impatiently.

'You'll forgive me, Wuntvor,' she murmured, 'but I have to get back to work. While you're very nice to dally with, the stage is my life.'

I somehow managed to get to my feet as well. I might not be able to dally with Norei ever again. I felt as though my life were over.

But I had to get back to my master! While Norei was gone, I still had a purpose - to save Ebenezum, Vushta, and the Western Kingdoms from whatever machinations the Netherhells had devised this time. I would go boldly into battle, heedless of life or limb, with no one to mourn for me after I was gone.

I marched from the stage, heading resolutely for the street.

'Hit it, damsel!' the dragon yelled behind me.

Alea's voice followed me as I made my way back through the storeroom to the stage door: