"Bud Sparhawk - Magic's Price" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

On the western line he found a section of older wooden rails from his grandfather's time missing. It
looked as if a herd of mos-ox had blundered through. The rails were probably buried under the snow
nearby. He tramped around and, as he located them, pried them free, and worked them back into place.
By the time he was through his boots, jacket, and gloves were caked with mud.

He was halfway to the southern boundary of the field when he noticed a small figure kneeling down and
looking at the edge of a pillar she had cleared of snow. It was the woman magician—Tash Pallas.

Tash stood and waved at him. Jacob waved back and turned Dan toward her. “What are you doing out
here?” Tash asked. She pointed at his jacket. “You look like you've been working hard.” She had a
strange, lilting accent.

“Checking and fixing the fences,” Jacob replied in answer to her first question as he dismounted. “Can I
ask what you're doing?”

Tash laughed. “You can. It's a fair question. I'm just checking a subsystem.”

Jacob liked the way she laughed—a musical sound that ran up and down a scale, quite unlike Ev's
raucous bark or Pam's high-pitched giggling. This close the bronze-haired beauty didn't appear as old as
he'd first thought. As a matter of fact she looked to be close to his age, but so much more worldly, so
much more sophisticated, and so very, very beautiful.

He came abruptly to ground when he recalled that a magician had the power to be any age they wanted.
He could make no assumptions about Tash's age. She was no mere girl; she was a magician and that
alone demanded respect. “I didn't mean to pry, ma'am,” he said apologetically.

Tash laughed again. “You weren't. Most people I've met wouldn't have asked anyway.”

Jacob coughed. “Yes, that's what everybody says, that I ask too many questions about things. It's like
those old machines I keep trying to understand....” He stopped. Babbling was one of the things he hated
about himself.

Tash raised an eyebrow. “You want to know how the machines work? Is that it?”

Jacob blushed with shame. He knew he shouldn't have mentioned it. But it was too late to call back the
damning words. “Yes, ma'am,” he replied quietly. “I do.”

“Stop that ma'am business,” Tash snapped. “Why do you want to learn about them?” She leaned close,
quite close. He could smell the warm aroma of her, practically tasting her sweet breath.

She didn't appear to be angry, Jacob noticed. “I don't know,” he said. “I just want to see what makes
those machines work.” He grinned. “I even got one of them to start moving ... for a little bit, anyway.”

Just a few years earlier, when he'd barely a hair on his chin. It had been the big, dead harvester that
stood next to the town's common stable. He had been messing around in the cab when he jiggled a key
on the panel to see what would happen. Every kid in the town had done that at some time in the past, but
never before had anything happened.

This time, however, he heard a soft click and, before the sound registered, the harvester lurched forward
and threw him backwards. Before he could climb back onto the seat the prow of the harvester had