"Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis - Ill Met by Moonlight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

to a stark but plainly marked Gate. That Gate had six exits, all equally unpleasant; two of those six could
be fatal. It was a trap for the unwary, a clever way of disposing of any who thought to spy upon him or
worse, and make a quick getaway. The side path took several turns and even crossed the kitchen garden
before it petered out. A few steps beyond the little square that seemed the termination of the path, two
slender white-barked saplings stood about two feet apart, exactly like similarly paired birch trees all
along the path. Pasgen stepped between them, and was gone.

He emerged in a narrow alley that led to a quiet back street from which one could hear the sounds of a
busy market. The alley was empty, as it had always been since Pasgen cast an aversion spell on it. The
two doors that had once opened into the alley were boarded up. The street beyond the alley was not
always empty; only a little of the aversion spell leaked into it, but people using it had a tendency not to
linger and those whose houses backed on it tended to use their front doors. Today the street as well as
the alley was empty, and Pasgen strode toward the sound of the market.

It was not large, an open area perhaps three or four streets square, but then the merchants were
diminutive, the tallest coming only to Pasgen's elbow, so each booth did not take up much space. The
customers, however, were of all sizes, many of them Sidhe, and a few even larger folk, which made the
market seem very crowded. Pasgen did not mind at all. He slowed his pace to a shopping stroll and was
soon indistinguishable from the many other Sidhe. Seleighe, or Unseleighe? There was no telling. Anyone
who came here was careful to make his—or her—costume as neutral as possible.

He even stopped at a booth displaying a wide variety of amulets. Most were simply small carved figures
of everything and anything, even of every religious symbol—the Christian cross, the Moslem crescent, the
Hebrew six-pointed star, and the symbols of every pagan god Pasgen knew . . . and a number that he
did not recognize. Curiously, he touched the cross.

"Fine work," the little brown merchant said. "Won't burst if you put a spell on it. Sold a lot of them. Seem
to like love spells they do. Seen them glow a little with a love spell."

The little man had an inordinately long and pointed nose that drooped a bit toward his long and slightly
upturned chin. His ears were too large, the lobes hanging a bit below his chin and his hair was thin and
scraggly. Pasgen shook his head but smiled and took up four anonymous-looking ovals, a wooden rose,
a ceramic coiled serpent with lifted head, a leaping horse of bone, and a glass Sidhe head, with open
eyes and mouth, that clearly split apart just behind the pointed ears to hold something small.

"How much?" Pasgen asked, reaching for his purse. He spoke in the common trade-tongue used in every
marketplace Underhill that was not large enough to have a universal translating spell.

"Gold I have, master," the gnome replied in the same language. "Bespell for me an amulet and you will
have paid."

"Or overpaid," Pasgen said, still smiling, but with his voice turned hard. "What kind of spell?"

"Sleep. That should be easy enough for you, master."

It was easy. Pasgen looked down at the table, saw several more charming or frightening figures. "For
what I have in my hand, one use," he said. "If you want an amulet that will always bring sleep . . ."
Suddenly he realized that very few Sidhe were capable of creating such a spell. To do so would mark
him in the gnome's memory. He shook his head. "I cannot do that," he said, "but for five uses . . ." He
narrowed his eyes as if considering what he had offered. "Yes, for five uses, I will take these—" he