"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 2 - With a Single Spell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

WITH A SINGLE SPELL
by LAWRENCE WATT-EVANS (1987)


[VERSION 1.1 (Oct 06 03). If you find and correct errors in the text, please
update the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.]


Dedicated to my mother, Doletha Watt-Evans

CHAPTER 1

The little cottage at the edge of the swamp wherein old Roggit had lived
out his life was not, strictly speaking, a part of the village of Telven.
However, located as it was just over a hill from the edge of town, it was near
enough that Roggit had been accepted as a Telvener; no one had protested when
his apprentice, Tobas, had called on the villagers to attend his master's
funeral.
Of course, quite aside from any fine distinctions about the village
boundaries, it was never wise to anger a wizard, or even a wizard's
apprentices, not even one as untrained as Tobas surely was after merely a year
or two of study under a man who had been in his dotage and on the verge of
senility for as long as anyone remembered.
As a result of these considerations, in addition to the usual morbid
curiosity natural upon the cremation of one of the area's older and more
eccentric inhabitants, the ceremonies drew a good crowd, with more than half
the townspeople in attendance. As Tobas saw them all silently departing after
the fire died, he realized glumly that he could not say a single one -- old,
young, or in between -- had come out of honest friendship or sympathy for
either the dead wizard or for himself, the surviving apprentice.
He had had friends in his younger years, he told himself, but they all
seemed to have drifted away when his luck went bad. Since his father's death
he had been considered a creature of ill omen, not a fitting friend for
anyone.
He watched the villagers wander away in pairs, trios, or family groups
and then set out alone, back over the hill toward the cottage. The sun was
still high in the sky. The pyre had burned quickly, as the weather had been
dry of late.
As he topped the rise he tried to decide whether he, himself, actually
grieved over Roggit's death and found himself unsure whether his distress was
on Roggit's behalf or simply a reflection of his worries about his own
position.
His own position was still, to some extent, in doubt. As Roggit's
apprentice at the time of his death, Tobas was heir to everything the old man
had owned that had not previously been settled on others; and as far as anyone
knew, Roggit had had no children or relatives or even former apprentices to
leave anything to. What little there was all went to Tobas.
That, however, was not necessarily a great comfort. Roggit had not been
wealthy. He had owned a small piece of land, too swampy to be of much use, and
the cottage, together with its contents, and that was all.