"Watt-Evans,.Lawrence.-.Ethshar.6.-.The.Spell.of.the.Black.Dag" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

There was light coming from beneath that door—not very much, just a little—and she wanted to see what was causing it. Very slowly, very carefully, very silently, she knelt and lowered her eye to the crack.

Behind the door were stairs going down, stone stairs between gray stone walls. She blinked and looked again.

Stairs going down?

Most buildings in Ethshar of the Sands did not have cellars; the sands on which the city was built, and for which it was named, made digging difficult. Excavations had a tendency to fall in on themselves. That was also why structures were almost never more than three stories in height: anything taller than that tended to sink or fall over. Some people had cellars dug for cold storage—root cellars, wine cellars, and the like—but such extravagances were generally small, and reached by ladders rather than by stairs.

Tabaea had heard about cellars and basements all her life, in tales of faraway places, but had never been in one, unless you counted crawlspaces or the gaps between pilings. The whole idea of cellars tended to put her in mind of the overlord's dungeons—she had heard about those all her life, too, or at any rate as long as she could remember—and of secrets and exotic places. She stared at the stone step and wished she could see more; from her vantage point at floor level she could see the iron rail, the walls, the sloping roof, but nothing below the topmost stair.

However, she could, she realized abruptly, hear something.

She held her breath and listened intently, trying to ignore her own heartbeat. An older man's voice, speaJdng quietly and intently—she couldn't make out the words.

Could it be the wizard in whose workshop she was?

Of course; who else would it be?

Could he be working a spell? Was that an incantation she heard, the invocation of some spirit, the summoning of some supernatural being? She could only hear the one person, no answering voice, but he seemed to be addressing someone, not just muttering to himself.

A shiver of excitement ran through her.

He had to be doing something secret, down there in the cellars. He couldn't just be fetching a bottle; he wouldn't be talking like that, and she'd be able to hear him moving around. His voice was steady, as if he were standing or sitting in one place. And he wouldn't be doing his regular work, or just passing the time, in the cellars—cellars were for secrets and mysteries, for concealment, and protection.

Something rustled, and she leaped away from the door, sprang to her feet, the candle in her hand almost, but not quite, blown out by her sudden motion.

That little greenish creature was watching her from atop a stack of papers. It squeaked and scurried away into the darkness, scattering papers as it went.

She watched it go in the dimness and made no attempt to follow. All around her, the shadows were flaring and wavering crazily as her candle flickered; she feared that if she moved anywhere she might trip over something unseen, or bump into something, in that tangle of black and shifting shapes.

Worse, her candle might go out, and the wizard emerge from the cellars before she could relight it. She stood by the cellar door, shielding the candle with her hand, until the flame was strong and steady once more, and the animal, or imp, or whatever it was, was long gone.

At last she turned back to the door, intending to listen again, and caught her breath.

The line of light across the bottom had become an L She had bumped the door when she sprang up, and it wasn't latched; it had come open, very slightly.

She knew she shouldn't touch it. She knew she should just go, get out of the house while she could—but a chance to watch a wizard at work was too much to give up.

Who knows, she thought. Maybe if things had gone a little differently for her, she might have been a wizard. She might have had the talent for it; who could say?

Well, she supposed a master wizard could say, but she'd never had the chance to ask one.

Or maybe she'd just never had the nerve to ask one.

She snorted, very slightly, at that. She was Tabaea the Thief, she'd taken the cognomen for herself just last year, she was a promising young cutpurse, burglar, and housebreaker, and she was here in a wizard's house planning to rob him, but she'd never had the nerve to talk to one.

Of course, it was too late now, anyway. She was fifteen, and nobody would take on an apprentice who was past her thirteenth birthday.

If her family had been willing to help out when she was twelve, if her stepfather had offered to talk to someone for her ...