"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 6 - The Spell of the Black Dagger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

richly furnished, uncluttered, and, so far as she could see by candlelight,
spotlessly clean; the room behind the half-closed door was the utter opposite.
It was large enough, but it was jammed to overflowing with books, papers,
boxes, jars, bottles, and paraphernalia of every kind. The walls were almost
completely hidden by shelves and drawers and pinned-up charts. Spills and
stains, old and new, adorned the floor and various other surfaces.

Somebody's workroom, clearly—this would be where the household accounts were
kept, and all the little things that go into running whatever business the
house's owner was in. Those jars were probably old preserves, spare pins, and
other such things.

There was sawdust, or some other powder, on the floor, she noticed, and tiny
web-toed footprints making a beeline through it. That was probably where that
creature had gone when she startled it. She raised the candle higher, to see
if the little beast might be lurking somewhere amid the clutter.

For the first time she noticed what hung from the ceiling and paused to stare
at it in wonder.

Why would someone have a dried bat hanging in his workroom?

She looked a bit more closely at the contents of the room, and saw an
assortment of bones on one shelf, from tiny little bits that could have been
from a mouse or shrew, up to what was surely the jawbone of a good-sized
dragon. A large jar nearby, she now realized, held not pickles or preserves,
but mummified spiders the size of her hand. The red stuff that she had taken
for jellies and jams was an assortment of blood—she could read the labels. The
biggest jar was dragon's blood, the next one was virgin's blood ...

She shuddered in sudden realization. No wonder this place had that magical
teapot, and the waving palm, and the little web-toed creature.

She was in a wizard's house.

CHAPTER 2

Tabaea crept silently toward the door at the far end of the workshop.

The sensible thing to do would be to flee, of course. Messing with magicians
was dangerous. Everyone knew that, and Tabaea was no exception. A tempting but
slightly riskier alternative would be to snatch a few nonmagical treasures,
and then flee.

But she was unable to resist. She was not going to be sensible at all.
Wizardry had always fascinated her, and here she was in a wizard's house. She
couldn 't leave without exploring further!

She would never have dared enter if she had known it was a wizard's house.
Since she had noticed the house on her way to and from Grandgate Market, where