"01 - A Malady of Magicks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Craig Shaw)

Still, I didn't want to try anything too difficult for my first solo endeavor. Another spear whistled through the air, almost impaling the leader of the warrior band from the rear. The leader yelped and stopped his headlong charge. He was close enough that I could see the anger in his pale blue eyes.

Infuriated, he spun to lecture his men on appropriate spear-throwing technique. Ebenezum waved from the trees for me to get on with it. It would be a simple spell, then. I decided I would move the earth with my magic and create a yawning pit in which our pursuers would be trapped. I began making the proper movements with my elbows and left leg, at the same time whistling the first four bars of "The Happy Woodcutter's Song."

The warriors screamed as one and ran toward me with even greater speed. I hurried my spell as well, hopping once, skipping twice, scratching my head,

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and whistling those four bars again.

The sky suddenly grew dark. My magic was working! I pulled my left ear repeatedly, blowing my nose in rhythmic bursts.

A great mass of orange dropped from the heavens.

I paused in my gyrations. What had I done? A layer of orange and yellow covered the field and the warriors. And the layer was moving.

It took me a moment to discern the layer's true nature. Butterflies! Somehow, I had conjured millions of them. They flew wildly about the field, doing their best to get away from the warriors. The warriors, in turn, sputtered and choked and waved their arms feverishly about, doing their best to get away from the butterflies.

I had made a mistake somewhere in my spell; that much was obvious. Luckily, the resulting butterfly multitude was enough of a diversion to give me time to correct my error. I reviewed my movements. I had spent hours perfecting my elbow flaps. The hop, the skips, the scratch, everything seemed in its place. Unless I was supposed to lift my right leg rather than my left?

Of course! How stupid of me! 1 immediately set out to repeat the spell and correct my mistake.

The warriors seemed to have won free of the butterflies at last. Breathing heavily, some leaning on their swords, they gave a ragged yell and staggered forward. I finished my humming and started to blow my nose.

The sky grew dark again. The warriors paused in their hesitant charge and looked aloft with some trepidation.

This time it rained fish. Dead fish.

The warriors left with what speed they could

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muster, slipping and sliding through a field now covered with crushed butterflies and thousands of dead haddock. I decided it was time for us to leave as well. From the smell now rising from the field, the haddock had been dead for quite some time.

"Excellent, apprentice!" My master emerged from his place of concealment among the trees. He still held his nose. "And I had not yet taught you the raining creatures spell. You show a real talent for improvisation. Though how you managed a rain of butterflies and dead fish is beyond me." He shook his head and chuckled to himself. "One could almost imagine you were whistling 'The Happy Woodcutter's Song.'"

We both laughed at the foolishness of that thought and rapidly left the area. I decided I needed to hone my sorcerous skills just a bit before our next encounter, which probably wouldn't be all that long from now. King Urfoo simply wouldn't give up.

A bloodcurdling scream came from far overhead. I looked up in the trees to see a figure, dressed all in green, plummeting in our general direction. The wizard and 1 watched the man fall some ten feet in front of us, knocking himself unconscious in the process.

Ebenezum and I stepped gingerly around the fallen assassin. Surely another of King Urfoo's minions, incredibly bloodthirsty, and incredibly inept. Urfoo, it seemed, had offered a reward for our death or capture. That alone was enough to attract certain mercenaries. But Urfoo was the cheapest of cheap tyrants, keeping his purse strings tied in a double knot and giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "tight-fisted." The reward for our demise was not all that large, and none of it was payable in advance.

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Certain mercenaries, by and large, lost interest when they became familiar with the terms. This left only the foolish, the desperate, and the desperately foolish to pursue us. Which they did. In droves.

I looked down at my worn shoes and torn tunic, aware of every noise in the forest around me, careful of every movement I might see out of the corner of my eye. Who would have thought that I, a poor farm boy from the Western Kingdoms, would find himself in circumstances such as these? What would I have done, on that day when I was first apprenticed to Ebenezum, had 1 known I would leave the peace and security of a small, rural village, destined to wander through strange kingdoms and stranger adventures? Who would think that I might one day even be forced to visit Vushta, the city of a thousand forbidden delights, and somehow have the courage to face every single one?

I looked to my master, the great wizard Ebenezum, boldly marching by my side, his fine tunic, tastefully inlaid with silver moons and stars, now slightly soiled; his long white hair and beard a tad matted about the edges; his aristocratic nose the merest bit stuffed from his affliction. Who would have thought, on that summer's day a few months ago, that we would come to this?