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

a pension of sorts-I suppose you could call it a pension. Enough to make do,
at any rate. But it does get so dull! So I keep making these toys, to amuse
myself. The children seem to like them. Have you any children, my lord?"
"Five; two sons. They're grown, though, old enough for families of their
own."
"Grandchildren, then?"
"Not that I know of; I haven't been home lately." He smiled wryly to
himself at that.
"A pity, a pity." The old man shook his head, looking downcast, as if it
were the greatest tragedy of his life that this fine overman should have no
grandchildren and should be so long away from home.
Garth's smile became a little less bitter; the man was amusing. "Did you
say that you find this village dull? What of the dragon, then? Does it not
provide enough excitement for you?"
"Oh, the dragon..." The man shrugged, as if the legendary monster were
beneath his notice. "I meant that doing nothing for myself was dull, not that
there had been no excitement in my life. I like to keep my hands busy when the
dragon is not about, my hands and my mind." He gestured, wiggling his fingers
to show that they were still agile.
Garth decided that he liked this fellow. "Have you children yourself?"
he asked.
"Oh, all long since grown, like your own, my lord; even my grandchildren
are married now, some of them." He glanced at the shop window. "Tell me," he
said, "which do you like the best?"
Garth turned back and studied the collection; his gaze wandered over
ships and horses, men and castles, women and machines. The swordsman had run
down, frozen in midstroke with his sword thrust out before him.
"I cannot say," Garth replied. "I have not seen them all run. Some are
not displayed to their best advantage here."
"Come inside, then, and I will show you more closely any that interest
you." The toymaker grinned and beckoned, and Garth followed him.
The building's interior was dim and smelled strongly of metal and oil
and herbs. A narrow passage led between two great tables that held the two
window displays; beyond, a fair-sized room contained a fireplace and oven, a
table, a few chairs, and a workbench. The last was cluttered with gears and
wheels and snippets of copper, chisels and scissors and knives, powders and
pastes, jars and vials, a potter's wheel, and a pedal-driven lathe. At the
rear, another door stood slightly ajar.
Garth looked over the two tables; dozens of toys were displayed, perhaps
a hundred or more. The toymaker wound up a spider that danced in circles as
the cauldron-stirring witch ground to a halt.
Everything was a maze of arms and legs and wheels, plaster faces staring
in the waxed-paper windows of wooden castles, and Garth could not imagine
picking a single favorite from the muddle. He let his eyes roam, and found
himself staring at a glistening copper shape that gleamed in one corner.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing. The object stood out because of its
smooth, curving surface, unbroken by flailing arms or whirling gears.
The old man followed his pointing finger and fetched the object in
question out into the light that poured through the window. It was a copper
sea gull; two eyes of smoky quartz stared unseeingly from its tapered metal