"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 8 - Ithanalin's Restoration" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

known she was here! Didn't magicians all have mysterious sources of knowledge to keep them informed
of such things?
Eventually she got sufficiently bored to call out, "Hai! Is anyone here?"
Almost immediately, a young woman's head popped through the doorway at the back. Her face was
unfamiliar, but Nuvielle assumed this was the wizard's apprenticeтАФthough she was not wearing the
formal gray apprentice robes.
"You must be Lady Nuvielle!" the supposed apprentice said. "Please forgive us; we hadn't expected
you quite so soon. I'll be right out."
"That's quite all right," she said in reply, but the girl had vanished before the visitor had completed her
sentence.
She smiled wryly, then settled cautiously onto one end of the well-made couch, only to discover that
its upholstery of fine, oddly hued crimson clashed horribly with her own forest green velvet gloves, skirt,
and slippers. Always aware of her appearance, Lady Nuvielle spread her black cloak over the cushions
to provide a neutral buffer between the two colors.
This was a major reason she wore the cloak despite the late-summer weatherтАФa vast expanse of
black cloth could be very handy for adjusting appearances, even in the lingering heat of Harvest.
She was still straightening her skirt when the young woman reappeared. This time she entered
gracefully, stopped a few feet away at the far end of the couch, and curtsied politely.
"Hello, my lady," she said. "I am Kilisha of Eastgate, apprentice to the master wizard, Ithanalin the
Wise."
Lady Nuvielle smiled with a polite pretense of warmth. "And I am Nuvielle, Lady Treasurer of
Ethshar of the Rocks." She nodded an acknowledgment of the formalities. "Where's your master?"
"In his workshop, my lady, finishing up the spell you ordered. He should be out in a moment."
Then there was indeed a workshop, as she had suspected. "And the spell succeeded?" she asked.
Kilisha hesitated. "Well, to be honest," she said, "I'm not really sure. My master has not informed me
of the details. You wanted an animation of some sort?"
"A pet," Nuvielle agreed. "Just a pet, to ride on my shoulder and keep me company. Something out of
the ordinary, to amuse me."
Kilisha smiled with relief. "Then I think it's succeeded," she said, "and I think you'll be pleased."
"Good!" For a moment the two women stared silently at each other; before the silence could grow
awkward, Nuvielle asked, "How is it I didn't meet you before, when I summoned Ithanalin to the
Fortress to take my order? Shouldn't you have accompanied your master?"
"That was a sixnight ago? Oh, I was running some errands for IthanalinтАФfor my master," Kilisha
explained, with assumed and unconvincing nonchalance. She glanced about nervously, and tried to
unobtrusively use her skirt to wipe the worst of the dust from the square table that stood beside the little
sofa.
The truth was that Kilisha had been left to baby-sit her master's three children that night, as their
mother Yara had been visiting a friend in the countryside somewhere. Kilisha suspected the timing of that
visit had been deliberate, to keep her at home where she would not risk embarrassing her master in front
of the city's elite.
Sometimes she thought her master didn't need her to embarrass him. Kilisha hoped that Lady
Nuvielle hadn't noticed the dust on the furnitureтАФand in particular, that she hadn't noticed the footprints
visible in it. Kilisha recognized them as spriggan tracks, and some people thought spriggans were
disgusting, unclean creatures. Kilisha thought those people were probably rightтАФbut spriggans were
attracted by wizardry, and keeping them out of the shop was almost impossible. They seemed to be able
to get inside no matter how carefully doors and windows were closed and lockedтАФIthanalin's children
thought they came down the chimney, and Kilisha was not ready to rule that possibility out.
Warning spells could announce their arrival, but none of the wards and barriers Ithanalin
knewтАФwhich was admittedly not many, as that sort of magic was not his area of expertiseтАФcould keep
them out, any more than locked doors could. Spriggans ran hither and yon almost unhindered, and one of