"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 4 - The Blood of a Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

Then, abruptly, the smoke stopped, and the wizard dropped his hands. He took a
step forward, and then another, and with the third step Dumery realized that
his feet had left the ground. He was climbing up into thin air as if it were
solid stone steps!
When he had ascended to a height of about eight feet above the ground the
wizard stopped, and stood calmly unsupported in mid-air. He waved a hand
again, and a trail of golden sparks glittered behind it.
"Behold!" he cried again.
Behind him, the sands of the Arena rose up into a column, sweeping away the
last traces of the colored smoke. The column rose to a height of perhaps
fifteen feet, then burst apart into a flock of white doves that flew quickly
away, scattering in all directions and fluttering up out of the Arena. A
single snowy feather fell from one bird's wing, unnoticed until the wizard
turned and pointed at it.
The feather grew, and changed, and became a white cat that fell to the sand,
landing, catlike, on all fours. It did not run away or wash itself as an
ordinary cat would have, but instead began chasing its tail, spinning faster
and faster until Dumery could no longer make out anything but a blur.
When it suddenly stopped, the cat was black, from its whiskers to the tip of
its tail.
It sat back on its haunches, and the wizard waved at it.
It grew, and became a panther.
The wizard waved again and the panther was gone, leaving only a cloud of smoke
that rolled up the sky and dissipated.
Dumery stared, enthralled, as the performance continued.
To his right, Dessa was somewhat less impressed. Dumery could hear her humming
quietly to herself.
When the wizard conjured a naked man out of a seashell Dessa giggled; Dumery
ignored her.
To his left his father was dozing off in the bright sunlight. Beyond him
Derath and Doran were loudly whispering crude jokes to each other.
Dumery's lips tightened.
How could they fail to appreciate such marvels? How had he ever been born into
such a family of clods?
Finally, the wizard finished his performance, bowed, and then began climbing
up that invisible staircase in the sky again. He mounted higher, and higher,
and higher, while behind him the blue rakes emerged again-guided, this time,
by merely human hands.
Dumery paid no attention to the rakes, nor the servants wielding them, nor the
scenery being hastily erected for the play that would conclude the day's show.
He watched the wizard as he climbed upward into the sky, out over the side of
the arena, passing fifty or sixty feet above the family of Grondar the
Wainwright two boxes over, eighty feet above the outer wall of the Arena, and
on into the distance until he vanished.
Once the wizard was really, truly gone Dumery waited impatiently for the play
to be over, paying no attention to the clever dialogue-after all, even when he
could make out the words, half the time he didn't understand the jokes, which
usually seemed to involve sex. His knowledge of sex was still very limited and
entirely theoretical.
The sun was scarcely above the western rim of the Arena when the actors