"Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 3 - Ptolemy's Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stroud Jonathan)

The assassin took his dagger from between his teeth. With quiet deliberation, he surveyed the
room, gauging its extent and the possibility of traps. It was large, shadowy, empty of
ostentation. Three pillars supported the ceiling. In the distance stood a door of teak, barred on
the inside. A chest, half filled with clothes, sat open against the wall. He saw a royal chair
draped with a discarded cloak, sandals lying on the floor, an onyx basin filled with water. A faint
trace of perfume hung on the air. The assassin, for whom such scents were decadent and

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 Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 3 - Ptolemy's Gate

corrupt, wrinkled his nose.3

3. The sect avoided perfumes for practical reasons, preferring to coat themselves with scents
appropriate to the conditions of each job: pollen in the gardens, incense in the temples, sand-dust in
the deserts, dung and offal in the towns. They were dedicated fellows.


His eyes narrowed; he reversed the dagger, holding it between finger and thumb by its shining,
gleaming tip. It quivered once, twice. He was gauging the range hereтАФhe'd never missed a
target yet, from Carthage to old Colchis. Every knife he'd thrown had found its throat.

His wrist flickered; the silver arc of the knifes flight cut the air in two. It landed with a soft
noise, hilt-deep in the cushion, an inch from the child's neck.

The assassin paused in doubt, still crouched upon the sill. The back of his hands bore the
crisscross scars that marked him as an adept of the dark academy. An adept never missed his
target. The throw had been exact, precisely calibrated ... yet it had missed. Had the victim
moved a crucial fraction? ImpossibleтАФ the boy was fast asleep. From his person he pulled a
second dagger.4 Another careful aim (the assassin was conscious of his brothers behind and
below him on the wall: he felt the grim weight of their impatience). A flick of the wrist, a
momentary arcтАФ

4. I won't say where he pulled it from. Let's just say that the knife had hygiene issues as well as being
quite sharp.


With a soft noise, the second dagger landed in the cushion, an inch to the other side of the
prince's neck. As he slept, perhaps he dreamedтАФa smile twitched ghostlike at the corners of his
mouth.

Behind the black gauze of the scarf that masked his face, the assassin frowned. From within his
tunic he drew a strip of fabric, twined tightly into a cord. In seven years since the Hermit had
ordered his first kill, his garrote had never snapped, his hands had never failed him.5 With
leopard's stealth, he slid from the sill and stole across the moonlit floor.

5. The Hermit of the Mountain trained his followers in numerous methods of foolproof murder. They
could use garrotes, swords, knives, batons, ropes, poisons, discs, bolas, pellets, and arrows inimitably,
as well as being pretty handy with the evil eye. Death by fingertip and toe-flex was also taught, and the
furtive nip was a specialty. Stomach-threads and tapeworms were available for advanced students. And
the best of it was that it was all guilt-free: each assassination was justified and condoned by a powerful