"Patricia A. McKillip - Naming Day" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

in both ears and its mouth, trying to disguise itself as a bush. It waved the
wand at her, shaking a sprinkle of light between them that Averil ran through
before she could stop. But nothing happened. She heard several deep,
familiar booms, then; the sounds echoed and rippled through the air with
viscous slowness, melting into AverilтАЩs heart, which grew iron with despair.
Second Bell. The Naming Hour itself. And where was she? Chasing an imp
through a world where nobody who knew her name could even see her.

A thought struck her. She missed a step, stumbling a little, so that the
greyling leaped ahead. It veered into a small forest of giant ferns and
van-ished.

YouтАЩre a student of magical arts, the thought said. Do some magic.

She slowed, panting. Eyes narrowed, she searched the stand of ferns
for a single quivering leaf, the slightest movement among the shadows and
shafts of mellow light. Nothing. She listened, tuning her ears the way she
had been taught, to hear the patter of a millipedeтАЩs feet across a leaf, the
bump of a beetleтАЩs back against a clod of dirt. She heard the faintest of
breaths. Or was it a butterflyтАЩs wings, opening and closing in the light?

She drew the rich, dusty light into her eyes and into her mind, where
she focused and shaped it into a brilliant, sharply pointed letter of an
an-cient, magical alphabet, and let it loose in a sudden shout, hoping she
was pronouncing it correctly.

The fern grove lit up as though someone had set off fireworks in it.
Within the glittering, spinning wheels and sprays of light, the greyling
ex-ploded from behind a trunk and scrambled to the very top of a fern tree.
It dangled there precariously, wailing at her, its eyes as huge as saucers.

She yelled back at it, тАЬHa!тАЭ and ran to get the wand.

She found it easily as her own fires died: the only glowing thing left on
the ground. She studied it puzzledly, carefully touched the puff of light. It
didnтАЩt burn her, or change in any way; she didnтАЩt even feel it. She smelled
something, though, that seemed peculiar in the middle of a fern grove.

Vanilla?

She looked up in time to see the greyling gather its spidery limbs and
rocket off the fern head in a desperate leap that sent it smack into
someone who had emerged out of nowhere to stare up at it. They both
tumbled to the ground. The greyling wriggled to its feet, but not quickly
enough. A hand shot out to grab its skinny ankle; a voice shouted
breathlessly, тАЬGotcha!тАЭ

Averil blinked. The newcomer transferred his grip to the greylingтАЩs
wrist as he got up off the ground. He smiled crookedly at Averil, who finally
found her voice.