"Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 1 - The Amulet of Samarkand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stroud Jonathan)

stripling, and in such a foolish high voice too. I bit back the temptation to give him a piece of my mind
and intoned the usual response. Anything to get it over with quickly.

"What is your will?"

I admit I was already surprised. Most tyro magicians look first and ask questions later. They go
window-shopping, eyeing up their potential power, but are far too nervous to try it out. You don't
often get small ones like this squirt calling up entities like me in the first place, either.

The kid cleared his throat. This was the moment. This is what he'd been building up to. He'd
been dreaming of this for years, when he should have been lying on his bed thinking about racing cars
or girls. I waited grimly for the pathetic request. What would it be? Levitating some object was a
usual one, or moving it from one side of the room to the other. Perhaps he'd want me to conjure an
illusion. That might be fun: there was bound to be a way of misinterpreting his request and upsetting
him.[3]

[3] One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

"I charge you to retrieve the Amulet of Samarkand from the house of Simon Lovelace and bring
it to me when I summon you at dawn tomorrow."

"You what?"

"I charge you to retrieveтАФ"

"Yes, I heard what you said." I didn't mean to sound petulant. It just slipped out, and my
sepulchral tones slipped a bit too.

"Then go!"

"Wait a minute!" I felt that queasy sensation in my stomach that you always get when they
dismiss you. Like someone sucking out your insides through your back. They have to say it three
times to get rid of you, if you're keen on sticking around. Usually you're not. But this time I remained
where I was, two glowing eyes in an angry fug of boiling smoke.

"Do you know what you are asking for, boy?"

"I am neither to converse, discuss, nor parley with you; nor to engage in any riddles, bets, or
games of chance; nor toтАФ"

"I have no wish to converse with a scrawny adolescent, believe you me, so save your
rote-learned rubbish. Someone is taking advantage of you. Who is itтАФyour master, I suppose? A
wizened coward hiding behind a boy." I let the smoke recede a little, exposed my outlines for the first
time, hovering dimly in the shadows. "You are playing with fire twice over, if you seek to rob a true
magician by summoning me. Where are we? London?"

He nodded. Yes, it was London all right. Some grotty town house. I surveyed the room through
the chemical fumes. Low ceiling, peeling wallpaper; a single faded print on the wall. It was a somber
Dutch landscapeтАФa curious choice for a boy. I'd have expected pop chicks, football players.... Most
magicians are conformists, even when young.