"Mercedes Lackey - Owl Mage 1 - Owlflight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

experience, if you stalled long enough, people sometimes forgot their requests.
тАЬSit,тАЭ Justyn ordered. Darian slumped into a seat across from Justyn, taking the chair that
wobbled the least. There was a plate with an apple on it right in front of his chair, and sitting where he
could watch both the apple and Darian was Justyn. With a resigned sigh, Darian stared at the apple while
Justyn stared just as intently at Darian.
He looks like a real rag-bag today, Darian thought critically, looking down at the wrinkled,
winter-stored apple. He looks as if birds were nesting in his beard. Is this pan of his act, or is he
getting even more senile? Justyn was about the most ill-kempt male in the village, his only wealth that of
his untidy beard. He had three or four shabby and patched robes, all pretty much alike, with badly-made,
lopsided, Esoteric Symbols sewn on them by Justyn himself. If you looked closely, you could see little
rusty spots where Justyn had stabbed his thumb with the needle and bled on bis work. He kept them
clean, Darian had to give the old man that much credit, although he was always spilling things on them
that made stains that never would come out, rendering the garments into a mosaic of blotches of various
faint colors. It was difficult to tell how old the mage was; his hair and beard were gray rather than white,
with a few streaks of darker color in them, and his brownish eyes, very sad and tired, were sunken so
deeply beneath his shaggy eyebrows that it was difficult to see the wrinkles at the corners. He could have
been any age from forty to ninety, and since no one in the village knew anything of his history before he
came to ErroldтАЩs Grove in the company of a Herald on circuit, his true age was anyoneтАЩs guess.
тАЬWell?тАЭ Justyn said, showing a bit of impatience. тАЬAre you going to just sit there wasting time, or
are you going to actually do something?тАЭ
With another reluctant sigh, Darian stopped merely staring at the apple and began concentrating.
He narrowed his focus until the apple filled his vision and his mind, simultaneously relaxing and
tensing. He concentrated on the apple being above the plate, as if an invisible hand held it there. As he
concentrated, the apple began to wobble a little. The movement was so slight that it could have been
caused by someone bumping the table itself, except that neither he nor Justyn had moved.
After a long moment of tension, he felt something inside himself relax.
Slowly, agonizingly, the apple rose, still wobbling, but now doing so in midair. It hovered about
the width of his finger above the plate surface. Sweat broke out all over his forehead in beads, and he felt
the pinch of a headache starting just between his eyes. And behind the concentration, he seethed with
annoyance and impatience. This was a stupid waste of time; he knew it, and Justyn knew it, but Justyn
was never going to admit it, because that would be admitting that he had been wrong about Darian, and
Justyn would die before he admitted that. What on earth good would floating an apple about do? Would
it bring in more crops? Chase away sickness? Bring prosperity back to the village?
The answer, clearly, was тАЬnoтАЭ to all three questions.
Behind Justyn, the cat finished his grooming and began coughing, making gagging and strangling
sounds. Darian struggled to maintain his concentration, but the wretched creatureтАЩs noise was more than
he could ignore.
The apple wobbled and dipped, as DarianтАЩs control over it began to unravel. The cat hacked
again, more violently than before, until Darian was certain it was going to cough up a lung this time and
not just another wad of hair.
It was too much distraction, and he lost the тАЬspellтАЭ completely. The cat spit up a massive, moist
hairball with a sound that made DarianтАЩs stomach turn, just as the apple thumped down on the plate.
Darian swore furiously under his breath at the cat, the apple, and a fate that conspired to make a
mess even of things he despised. The cat sniffed, coughed once more, jumped down, and limped over to
the fireplace where it curled up on the ash-strewn hearth.
Darian gave the cat a look that should have set its fur on fire if there had been any justice in the
universe, and glowered at the apple. If heтАЩd had half the power Justyn swore he had, the apple should
have exploded from the strength of that glare. The fact that it didnтАЩt only proved to him that his Master
was a fraud and was trying to make him into another fraud. What is the use of this? he asked himself
angrily. WhatтАЩs the point? If a stupid cat can break a spell, how is anyone supposed to get anything