"Mary Kirchoff. Kendermore ("Dragonlance Preludes I" #2) (angl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

what do you want? You scared the wits out of me!"

"Trapspringer Furrfoot. Pleased to meet you." Phineas felt a
small hand shake his. "My friends call me Trapspringer. I'm truly
sorry I frightened you; humans are such a jumpy bunch, but I guess you
can't help what you are. Did you know your door is stuck?"

Phineas strained his eyes in the darkness to discern his
visitor. "It's not stuck; it was locked," he said sternly, having
composed himself. "And you're supposed to be on the other side of it.
You'll have to come back tomorrow."

"Could you light a candle or something?" asked the kender. "I
can't see a thing!"

"Didn't you hear me? I said the office is closed."

"I heard you, but I was certain you didn't mean me, since this
is a matter of life and death!"

Phineas sighed; emergencies like these came up daily in
Kendermore. "What is it this time?" he asked wearily.

"I've just lost my finger and -"

Phineas's eyes went wide with alarm. "Good gods, man, why didn't
you say so?" Phineas didn't know much about medicine, but he knew that
a kender bleeding to death in his office would be bad for business.
Groping for the kender's shoulders in the 'darkness, he ushered him
into the candlelit examining room. "Get up in that chair and hold your
hand above your head!" he ordered, collecting a large roll of white
cloth strips he used for bandages.

"This is awfully nice of you," Trapspringer said.

With the roll of bandages under his arm and clean water sloshing
from a bowl in his hand, Phineas turned to the kender, expecting to be
greeted by a fountain of blood.

Trapspringer Furrfoot sat in the chair, his hand - with all
five digits - held high above his head, as instructed. There was not
a drop of blood on him.

"All right, get out of here," Phineas growled, grabbing
Trapspringer by the scruff of the neck. "I'm not in the mood for
practical jokes."

Genuinely surprised, the kender twisted out of the human's
grasp. "I wasn't joking. I lost my finger. It was from a minotaur, or
maybe a werewolf; they're hard to tell apart. I collect interesting