"Anthony, Piers - Xanth 05 - Ogre Ogre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

Nevertheless, now she was able to sleep. She knew there
would be no more trouble this night, and her mother would
be home the next few nights. Fiant, for all his boldness
when he had his victim isolated, stayed clear when a re-
sponsible person was in the neighborhood.

Next day Tandy tried to talk to her mother, though she
was pretty sure it wouldn't help. "Mother, you know that
demon Fiant, who works at the rum refinery? He-"

"Oh, yes, the demons are such nice people," Jewel said,
smelling of mildly toasted sulfur. That was her magic: her
odor reflected her mood. "Especially Beauregard, doing his
research paper-"

"Which he has been working on since before I was bom.
He's a nice demon, yes. But Fiant is another kind. He-"

"They never make any trouble for me when I have to set
gems in their caves. The demons are such good neighbors."
The sulfur was getting stronger, beginning to crinkle the
nose; Jewel didn't like to hear criticisms. Ї

"Most are. Mother." Naturally the demons didn't bother
Jewel; without her, there would be no gems to find, and
the demons were partial to such trinkets. "But this one's
different. He-"

"Everyone's different, of course, dear. That's what
makes Xanth so interesting." Now she smelled of freshly
blooming orange roses.

"Maybe different isn't quite what I mean. He comes to
my room at night-"

"Oh, he wouldn't do that! That wouldn't be right." The
wrongness of such a thing showed in the smell of an over-
ripe medicine ball; even immature medicine balls smelled
unpleasantly of illness, and aging intensified the effect
"But he did\ Last night-"

"You must have dreamed it, dear," Jewel said firmly.
And the aroma of carrion of a moderately sated dragon
showed how distasteful any such notion was to Jewel.
"Sometimes those nightmares carry irresponsible dreams."

Tandy saw that her mother did not want to become
aware of the truth. Jewel had been a nymph and retained