"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 3 - The Unwilling Warlord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

And of course, where two could be seen having a game, others would sit in
for a round or two. A dozen besides poor Abran had contributed to Sterren's
winnings.
For perhaps the thousandth time in his career as a tavern gambler,
Sterren wondered whether he had been cheating. He honestly did not know. He
knew he certainly was not guilty of anything so common as using weighted dice
or muttering spells under his breath, but there were magicks that needed no
incantations, and he had been apprenticed to a warlock once -- even if it had
only been for three days before the warlock threw him out, calling him a
hopeless incompetent. His master had tried to give him the ability to tap into
the source of warlockry's power, and it hadn't seemed to work -- but maybe it
had, just a little bit, without either his master or himself realizing it.
Warlockry was the art of moving things by magically enhanced willpower,
moving them without touching them, and it was quite obvious that a warlock
would have no trouble at all cheating at dice. It wouldn't take much warlockry
to affect something as small as dice, and it was said only warlockry could
detect warlockry, so the wizards and sorcerers Sterren had encountered would
never have known it was there.
Might it be that he controlled the dice without knowing it, using an
uncontrolled trace of warlockry, simply by wishing?
It might be, he decided, but it might also be that he was just lucky.
After all, he didn't win all the time. Perhaps one of the gods happened to
favor him, or it might be that he had been born under a fortunate star --
though except for his luck with dice, he wasn't particularly blessed.
He stood, tucked the dice in his pouch, and brushed off the knees of his
worn velvet breeches. The night was still young, or at worst middle-aged;
perhaps, he thought, he might find another sucker.
He looked around the dimly lit tavern's main room, but saw no promising
prospects. Most of the room's handful of rather sodden inhabitants were
regulars who knew better than to play against him. The really easy marks, the
backcountry farmers, would all be asleep or outside the city walls by this
hour of the night; he had no real chance of finding one roaming the streets.
Other serious gamers would be settled in somewhere, most likely on Games
Street, in Camptown on the far side of the city, where Sterren never ventured
-- there were far too many guardsmen that close to the camp. Guardsmen were
bad business -- suspicious and able to act on their suspicions.
A few potential opponents might be over in nearby Westgate or down in the
New Merchants' Quarter, which were familiar territories, or in the waterfront
districts of Shiphaven and Spicetown, which he generally avoided; but to find
anyone he would have to start the dreary trek from tavern to tavern once
again.
Or of course, he could just sit and wait in the hope that some latecomer
would walk in the door.
He was not enthusiastic about either option. Maybe, he thought, he could
just take the rest of the night off; it depended upon how much he had taken in
so far. He decided to count his money and see how he stood. If he had cleared
enough to pay the innkeeper's fee for not interfering, the past month's rent
for his room, and his long-overdue bar tab, he could afford to rest.
He drew the heavy gray curtain across the front of his little alcove for
privacy, then poured the contents of his purse on the blackened planks of the