"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 2 - With a Single Spell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

 Seven streets radiated from the marketplace: three to the north, one each
east and west, one to the southwest, and one to the southeast. He chose the
last and began walking.
After half a dozen long blocks of shops, tenements, and warehouses, he
found himself in another market, this one a long, narrow triangle pointing to
the south, with its eastern side open to a canal. This market was more
traditional than the other; piles of goods were on display on all sides, and
no one in the milling throng was making speeches, though a raised wooden
platform stood empty on one side. The goods were obviously freshly arrived by
ship, furs, fabrics, jewelry, carvings of stone and wood, and boxes, jars, and
bottles of herbs and spices.
That meant, Tobas realized with a shock, that he was still in the
waterfront district, Shiphaven, the sailors had called it, when he had walked
a distance as great as the entire width of Shan on the Sea. The depth of the
city, as seen from the ship, had been no illusion. He marched on, deeper into
the metropolis.
The streets leading out the south end of the second market were a
confusing tangle, and Tobas found himself doubling back and going in
directions he did not care to go before he finally emerged onto a broad avenue
running due south. He followed this for a few blocks, then paused when it
crossed another avenue just as broad and busy, full of the clatter of
cartwheels and the acrid smell of hot metal from somewhere farther on.
By this time the shadows were beginning to lengthen; where the buildings
topped four floors, their shade reached clear across the avenue and partway up
the faces of the structures on the east side. Tobas was hopelessly lost and
knew it. Reluctantly, he tugged the sleeve of a strolling passerby and again
asked for directions to Wizard Street.
The Ethsharite, richly clad in black velvet, smiled at the ignorant
foreigner and explained, "Follow High Street through the New City, then turn
southeast on Arena Street, and about a quarter of a mile past the Arena you'll
see the signboards." He pointed east along the cross avenue to indicate High
Street.
Tobas thanked him profusely and set about following the directions.
By the time he arrived at his destination, he was tired, hungry,
footsore, and convinced that he could not be surprised by anything else the
city might have to show him; he had walked past mansions and collapsing slums,
past the huge arena, among people of every description, for a greater distance
than he had imagined could be enclosed in a city's walls. The sun was
invisible behind the buildings on the west side of the street, and the sky
above them dimmed to red, when he finally reached Wizard Street, just in time
to see torches and lanterns being lit to illuminate signboards and
storefronts.
He knew Wizard Street immediately, beyond question; he had passed any
number of signboards that afternoon, but none like these.
At a corner a broad green board announced, "TANNA the Great, Wizardry for
Every Need, Love Charms a Specialty." The next shop proclaimed in red letters
on peeling gold leaf, "Alderamon of Tintallion, EXPERT WIZARD"; a third was
labeled "THORUM the MAGE, Love Charms, Curses, Sundry Other Spells." Similar
advertisements hung on every shop on both sides of the street for as far as he
could make out the writing. Strange sounds, thumps, and flutterings, trickled