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

Book of Spells he had inherited, so that he might teach himself more magic and
make a living. It was his now.
He stroked the book gently, as if expecting to feel its magic, but it
felt no different from the side of the water bucket. He smiled at his own
folly in thinking he might be able to feel the Book's magic, if it even had
any of its own. At last, more excited than he cared to admit even to himself,
he grasped the worn edge and pried at the heavy tin-coated cover.
Without warning, the black rune on the front exploded loudly and
violently in his face, throwing hissing gobbets of orange flame in all
directions; none struck him, though one seared away a stray hair as it passed.
Astonished, Tobas simply stepped back at first, staring at the
smoldering, blackened face of the Book of Spells. Roggit had, it seemed, put a
protective spell of some sort on it to frighten away thieves. Then the scent
of smoke reached him, and he realized that the fireballs had not been pure
illusion.
Puzzled and dismayed, he looked about; scattered sparks were dying on the
hard-packed floor, and one had singed the table top, but seemed to be expiring
without doing much damage.
Where, then, was the smell of smoke coming from?
He sniffed again, then looked up at a faint crackling-sound, and saw that
one of the fiery projectiles had set the roof afire, right up near the
ridgepole. The dry thatch was already burning vigorously.
On the verge of panic, he spun his head about, looking for some way of
extinguishing the blaze before it spread. He had not bothered to fetch water;
that meant that he had none on hand to douse the fire, and, by the time he
could make a trip to the well, or even the swamp, half the roof might be gone.
He snatched up Roggit's old spare tunic from a nearby shelf, but could not
reach high enough to beat at the fire with it. The large blanket, which might
have reached, had been on the old man's pyre.
He clambered atop the table, the tunic wrapped about his forearm; as he
reached upward, one of the legs snapped beneath his weight, dumping him
roughly back to the floor. He rolled aside, unhurt, then got to his knees,
looking for something else he could stand on.
There was nothing. The chairs, he saw instantly, would not be tall enough
to help.
He had to do something; the cottage was almost all he had. He was a
wizard, more or less, yet he felt utterly helpless as he watched the flames, a
few feet out of reach, licking at the age-blackened ridgepole.
The sight of the spreading fire spurred him to frantic desperation, and a
thought occurred to him. He was a wizard; he knew a spell, just a single
spell, and it was a fire spell. Didn't the proverbs say to fight fire with
fire?
Quickly, he snatched the dagger from his belt, fumbled in his pouch for
brimstone, and flung his spell at the burning thatch.
The resulting explosion dwarfed the first; half the roof vanished in
flaming shreds, and the force of the blast knocked Tobas to the floor hard
enough to daze him.
When he recovered his wits the whole cottage was ablaze, dripping bits of
burning debris on all sides. Panicking, he forgot all concern for his
inheritance and for anything except saving his skin; he ran out the door,