"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 9 - The Spriggan Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

years older than you and a master wizard; I can take care of myself.”
 “I don’t want anyone thinking I sold you anything that wasn’t exactly as described,” Gresh
protested. “If you turn yourself into a toad, then I don’t want a bunch of wizards whispering to each other
that it happened because I sold you a bad batch of baby’s blood.”
“The blood was bad?” a new voice asked, worried, and brother and sister turned to see Twilfa,
their youngest sister and Gresh’s assistant, emerging from the rear passageway with the freshly filled coal
bucket. She set it on the hearth, then looked at Dina. “I thought you said a spriggan spilled it on the cat.”
“No, the blood was not bad,” Gresh said, with a hint of a growl.
“Is the cat all right?” Twilfa asked, as she transferred coal from the bucket to the grate.
“Is anyone... Are you open?” an unfamiliar voice called from the still partially open front door.
Gresh sighed. “Why don’t you two discuss it all while I see to my customer?” he asked, dropping
the key back into his purse and heading for the door. “Come in, come in!” he called.
“I can’t open the vault!” Twilfa called after him. “I can’t open the explosive seal.”
“I’ll be right back,” Gresh told her, as he let in the tall, black-haired woman in a red dress. He
did not recognize her, and he was quite sure he would not have forgotten a face like hers.
“The door was open, and I heard voices,” the new arrival said uncertainly. She spoke with an
odd accent, one that struck Gresh as somehow old-fashioned.
“I was just preparing to open the shop, my dear,” Gresh said with a bow. “Do come in.” He
stepped aside and ushered her into the center of the room.
She obeyed and stood on the lush Sardironese carpet, looking around curiously.
Gresh was aware that Dina and Twilfa were both standing by the iron vault, staring silently at the
stranger, but he ignored them. “Now, what can I do for you?” he asked.
The stranger tore her gaze away from the endless shelves of boxes and jars and said, “We want
to hire you.”
“Hire me?” Gresh smiled indulgently. “I’m afraid I’m not for hire, my lady. I sell wizards’
supplies; I don’t run errands.”
“I’m not a lady,” the stranger said. “I’m a witch. We were told that if we wanted something hard
to find, something magical, something wizardly, then you were the man to see.”
Gresh considered her for a moment.
He had assumed she wasn’t a wizard, from her attitude toward him, toward his shop, and toward
her own belt-knife; she did not wear her knife quite the way wizards wore their magic daggers, though
Gresh could not have explained the difference coherently. Besides, he knew most of the wizards in
Ethshar of the Rocks by sight, if not always by name, and he was sure he had never seen her before.
It hadn’t occurred to him that she might be some other sort of magician. From her appearance
and slightly stilted pronunciation, he had assumed she was just another wealthy ninny, perhaps a princess
from the Small Kingdoms, looking for something exotic to impress someone, or trying to hire adventurers
for some foolish scheme.
But witches were rarely ninnies—and for that matter, rarely wealthy. They were also not
ordinarily his customers, but perhaps this person had her reasons for coming here. He decided she could
indeed be a witch, and telling the exact truth.
“Who is ‘we’?” he asked.
“My husband and I. Really, he’s the one who wants to hire you, but he’s busy with the baby, so I
came instead.”
The husband was busy with the baby, so the wife was running his errands? The beautiful young
wife who claimed to be a witch and whose slim figure showed no evidence of having recently borne a
child? Gresh glanced at his sisters. He wanted to hear this explained, but he had his business to attend to.
“I do not run errands,” he said.
“Fine,” the woman said calmly. “Then let me put it this way. My husband is a wizard, and he
wants to buy a specific magical item from you.”
Gresh could hardly deny that that was exactly his line of business. “Could you wait here for a