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

of work. The cottage garden, with its handful of herbs, would not be enough to
keep him alive if that happened.
Fortunately, he did have Roggit's Book of Spells. But as he picked up his
pace, hurrying down the slope to the cottage, he found himself unwillingly
imagining reasons why he might not be able to use it. Had Roggit written it in
some esoteric wizardly tongue? Would the spells he needed call for ingredients
he could not obtain? The Book was old; might the pages have faded to
illegibility, leaving just enough to remind Roggit of what he already knew?
Was there some important secret he did not know?
He intended to waste no time. If he lost even a single day in mourning
poor old Roggit, something might go wrong. He would open the Book of Spells as
soon as he got home.
He crossed the dooryard impatiently, lifted the latch, and stepped into
the cottage that was no longer Roggit's. This was his now.
He looked around, reacquainting himself with the place. His own little
bed -- a pallet, really -- which he would no longer be using, lay in one
corner; Roggit's narrow bed, where he intended to sleep henceforth, stood in
another. A fireplace yawned at each end, both empty and cold; the weather had
been mild, and he had not bothered to do any cooking since Roggit's death. The
lone table, used for cooking, dining, and as the wizard's workplace, stood in
the center. The long walls on both sides were jammed with shelves, cabinets,
and cupboards, all packed with the necessities of the wizard's simple life and
arcane trade. The ceiling overhead was the underside of the thatched roof, and
the floor beneath his feet was packed dirt. The Book of Spells lay in solitary
splendor atop its reading stand.
The cottage wasn't much, he thought critically, but it was dry and, when
the fires were lit, warm. It was not at its best at present, the mattress on
the bed was bare, as the only blankets had been wrapped around Roggit's
remains atop the pyre, and the woodbin and water bucket were empty, as Tobas
had not paid much attention to the details of everyday life since the
catastrophe of Roggit's demise. A few spells that Roggit had cast might still
be going here and there, and a few potions or philtres might be tucked away
somewhere in the clutter, but no sign of anything magical showed. It looked
much like any drab, ordinary cottage.
Still, it was his.
His gaze fell on the Book of Spells and fixed there. That, too, was his.
Alone of all Roggit's possessions, that was the one he had never been allowed
to touch. The old wizard's sorry handful of semiprecious stones was hidden
somewhere in the cottage, hidden even from his own apprentice, but Tobas had
been permitted to handle them freely on the occasions when, for one reason or
another, they had been brought out. Only the Book had been forbidden.
He stepped over to the reading stand and studied it.
It was a large volume, and thick, bound in hinged tin plates of a dull,
dark blue-gray; a single large black rune that Tobas could not identify
decorated the front. He knew most of the pages were blank, but Roggit had
boasted that it held more than thirty different spells, and Tobas had glimpsed
several. This book, he was sure, would be the key to his future.
He hesitated, the force of the old man's prohibition still lingering, but
then reached out for the dented metal cover. He was well within his rights, he
assured himself, and acting in a perfectly reasonable manner in reading the