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

air with a variety of perfumes and stenches.
For the most part the villagers avoided the old man's unfortunate
apprentice, quietly ignoring him. Tobas was not so insensitive as to miss
this, or misinterpret it, and he accepted it as the final proof that the time
had come to do what he had been resisting for years. The time had come to
leave Telven, leave his native village behind forever, and go out into the
wide World to seek his fortune.
He shuddered. What an awful thought!
He had never wanted to leave. He was a homebody, happy with the people
and places he knew, with no particular desire to see any others. Telven had
been his home. He had always chosen to stay in Telven when his father went off
to sea, though time after time, before every voyage from infancy on, Dabran
had invited Tobas along. He had stayed in Telven when his father had died,
lingering in the village even while homeless, struggling to find a way to
remain in the only place he really knew. He had had no career, no steady
girlfriend or prospects for marriage, and no close friends, but Telven had
still been home. He had succeeded in staying by convincing Roggit that he was
still young enough to qualify for apprenticeship.
When he had accomplished that bit of deceit, Tobas had thought that his
place was secure and that he would live out his life in his native land. Right
up until he had opened the Book of Spells, he had thought he would stay.
Who could have known that the old man had put such powerful protective
spells on the thing?
He shook his head in dismay. He still didn't know exactly what he had
done wrong or how the protective spell had worked; he had never noticed Roggit
speaking any countercharms or doing anything special when he consulted the
book. The old man would simply reach over and open it, as he would any other
book. Tobas had just tried to do the same.
But the protective spell had obviously been there, and here he was,
watching the fire destroy his last link to the village.
All he had ever wanted was a home and a quiet, comfortable life; was that
too much to ask of the gods?
The front wall of the house sagged, bent, then crumbled inward with a
grinding crash, and Tobas turned away. He had nothing left here, nothing and
no one to keep him in Telven, and no way to live if he stayed. It was home no
longer. He saw no point in drawing out the ordeal; he trudged off into the
gathering twilight, away from the heat and light and sound of the fire, with
tears in his eyes that, he told himself firmly, were caused by the smoke.


CHAPTER 3

The sun was well up the eastern sky when he awoke. His first waking
thought was surprise at finding himself curled up in a field of tall grass
rather than in his own bed in Roggit's cottage, but he quickly remembered the
events of the previous day and night.
After leaving the swamp, he had wandered aimlessly in the dark with no
thought to where he was going, until at last he had collapsed and gone to
sleep. Now he was awake again, stiff from sleeping awkwardly, utterly dejected
over his loss, and still with no idea where to go.