"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 4 - Book of Silence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

him to imagine that it might not wholly be wasted on humans.
His musings were interrupted when his eye caught a sudden movement in
one of the village shops; he turned to see what had drawn his attention.
The last of the buildings that lined the street was a strange little
shop on the left, its mismatched windows full of whirling, whirring clockwork
toys. Fascinated, Garth stopped his mount, swung himself to the ground, and
went over for a closer look. He was in no real hurry, he told himself; the
dragon had reportedly gone its way for decades, and another few moments would
surely make no difference.
The shop's display held dozens of intricate toys, full of gears and
springs, which did amazing and delightful tricks. An armored warrior, with
head and hands of china, swung a miniature sword in long, swooping strokes,
narrowly missing the bent-over back of a mechanical smith striking sparks from
a half-formed steel rake with a stone hammer-the head of which, Garth
realized, must be flint, a clever method of creating the sparks that so
resembled those of a real blacksmith at work. Nearby, a toy dog wagged its
tail, its tongue moving as if panting, and a plaster witch stirred a tiny
copper cauldron. Elsewhere, dancers whirled, acrobats leaped, and animals
paced, in a glittering festival of copper and brass and silver and ceramics. A
few devices had no recognizable form, but were unabashed machines, tossing
arms and gears about in complex and fascinating patterns.
Garth had never seen so fine a display of machinery; northerners, either
the humans of Skelleth or the overmen of Ordunin, had little time for such
inessentials. Clockwork was used for clocks on ships, which needed accurate
timekeeping for navigation, but was seldom used elsewhere.
He could not resist a broad grin as he studied the things; he hoped that
no one noticed it, lest it destroy the image he had been cultivating of the
implacable inhuman warrior. Anyone who saw it, though, might not recognize it
for what it was; humans were not always able to identify the expressions of
overmen, being distracted from the fundamental similarities by the hollow
cheeks, thin lips, and noseless slit nostrils. The two species reacted
somewhat differently to various situations and emotions, furthering the
confusion. To the uninitiated man or woman, Garth's happy smile might appear
to be a ghastly grimace; his delight in the clever toys and machines to be
bitter disgust.
The shop window was not lighted, and Garth's own shadow blocked out a
measure of the morning sun; he peered in, trying to make out the shapes that
flopped and fluttered in the dimness at the back of the display. A brass
rooster crowed, with a flapping of wings, and he marveled anew.
"Would you like to buy one, my lord?"
Startled, Garth whirled to face the owner of the pleasant little voice
that had interrupted his studies. A small, whitehaired man stood in the door
of the shop, squinting and blinking in the bright light of day; he smiled,
revealing a jawful of randomly assorted gold and white teeth.
The overman stared at the man for a moment, then back at the window,
where the swordsman's blade continued to miss the smith's broad back and
swinging hammer by the breadth of a few hairs; where the yapping dog bounced
merrily along and the plaster witch grinned gruesomely.
"I think I might, yes," Garth said at last. "Are they expensive?"
"Oh, no," the little man replied. "I don't need much to live on. I have