"Michelle West - The Memory of Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

"And who taught you this, child?"

Her turn to frown, as if it were part of the conversation. She shrugged.
The merchant went away. But when he came back, he handed herтАФher and not
fatherтАФa small leather satchel. "You can keep these," he told her, "if you promise that I
have first pick of anything you make with them."
"If the price is right," her father told the man. "If we don't like the price, we're
to take them elsewhere."
"Done."

To find sunlight again was a blessing. Master Gilafas paused at the foot of the steps
bowed. Sanfred was at his side before his stiff spine had once again straightened. He fel
younger man's solid hand in the crook of his elbow, and was grateful for it: the memorie
that early passage through Fabril's reach had teeth, fangs, gravity. To struggle free of
today was almost more than he was capable of.
Once, that would have pleased him. And perhaps, if he were honest, it pleased him in s
fashion today. But triumph gave way to horror, and horror sent him scuttling away lik
insect evading boot.
He cleared his throat. "The applicants?" "Waiting, Guildmaster."
"Good."
Sanfred had never once asked him why he had chosen to oversee this testing. No one ha
By unspoken consent, the makers, fractious as only the creative can be, granted him the
privacy of their admiration. What he could makeтАФin theoryтАФno one among them could ev
hope to make.
A mage could, he thought, irritable. A mage of lesser talent and no ambition. But he
too great a love for his authority to speak the words aloud.
"Take me."
"Yes, Master."
"And bring the box on that desk. I do not need to remind you to handle it with care."

After that day, Cessaly's size was no longer a problem. Her father spent some
of the summer building a small addition to his barn, and he placed her tools, her paints
pieces of wood that he found for her use, beneath its flat roof. He had no money for glass
the doors themselves opened toward the sun's light, and Cessaly worked from the mome
crossed the threshold of the room, ceasing when it faded.
The merchant returned three times in the year, bringing different tools, different mater
different paints. He asked if she had ever seen metal worked, and when she shook her head
offered to take her to a jeweler in the largest of the Free Towns. It was an offer that was f
rejected by both her father and her mother.
They were very surprised when, two years later, that jeweler made the trek at
merchant's side when the caravan returned.
"This had better not be a waste of my time," he said curtly to the merchant.
 "I'm paying for your time," the merchant had replied, with a very small smile. "But I k
my business."
"Where is your young paragon of creativity, Gerrald?"
"In front of you."
"What, this girl?"
"The very one."
The jeweler frowned. He was balding, and the dome of his skull seemed to glow. "H
old are you, child?"