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

"Thank you. You are most kind," Phineas said, pocketing the
note. "If I can ever be of service again..."

"Yes, I'll remember," the kender assured him, stepping back into
the dim waiting room, happily holding his "minotaur" bone. "Well, I
really must be getting back to the prison now. It's not a prison,
really. It's actually very nice, if you like overstuffed chairs and
floral prints. I don't want to be gone too long or they'll worry over
me. If I can ever be of any help to you, just ask. I'm a close
personal friend of the mayor's, you know. My nephew is going to marry
his daughter. Tata!" With that, the kender slipped through the
darkness and out the front door.

Phineas stood, stunned and slack-jawed, staring after
Trapspringer Furrfoot for several moments. He'd been had! But by the
time he could react, he knew it would be too late to catch the kender.
Furrfoot was obviously an old eccentric who had escaped from the city
jail. Bank note, indeed! Marrying the mayor's daughter, bahh!
Strangely, Phineas wasn't very annoyed at Trapspringer for having
tricked him. In a way, he admired the kender's ability to get what he
wanted, just like he had admired the kender who'd tied everyone's
shoelaces to the bench.

With a shrug, Phineas blew out the candles and headed for the
stairs at the back of his shop that led to his quarters above. On the
way back, he took the worthless "bank note" from his pocket and tossed
it on his tool tray without looking. He'd throw it out in the morning,
along with the remaining rat skeleton he'd "sold" as minotaur bones to
the kender a few minutes before. Phineas had found the dried rodent
husk, long dead, in his medicine cupboard. He'd swept it into his
wooden dustpan and had been meaning all week to throw it out. But when
Trapspringer had begged for the finger bone of a minotaur, Phineas,
ever the con man, remembered the rat bones and thought the ploy worth
a try.

And Trapspringer had fallen for it!

Phineas smiled. Trapspringer Furrfoot was quite the shyster, but
he wasn't the only one who'd be laughing tonight.



Chapter 3

A light rain began falling at dusk as Tasslehoff, Gisella, and
Woodrow rode due east of Solace. The forest surrounding the village
quickly gave way to the foothills of the Sentinel Peaks. The wagon
traveled steadily uphill past low scrub pines and aspen, the air
scented with wet worms and bitter-sweet wild chrysanthemums. The road
ran through a narrow valley between two spurs of the mountains, but it