Dragonspell: The Southern Sea. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ dweomer mind, deny it all you want. When most people brood over things, they see pictures in their mind or hear the voice that they consider their self talking, but it all stays in the mind where it belongs. When you’ve got this raw power pouring into you, you begin to see the pictures and so on outside of your mind, don’t you?’

      ‘I do.’ She made the admission reluctantly. ‘I saw fire running before us down the street.’

      ‘Well, that’s cursed dangerous. Dweomerfolk see images, too, and work with them, but we’ve learned how to control them. If you go on blundering around this way, you could go stark raving mad. Images and voices will come and go around you of their own free will, and you won’t be able to stop them.’

      Since she could barely control them even then, she went cold all over at the prospect. With a dramatic sigh Salamander sprawled onto the cushioned divan.

      ‘Food,’ he said abruptly. ‘Eating somewhat generally helps shut things down. It’s tediously difficult to work any dweomer on a full stomach. Drink dulls the mind right down, too. But I doubt me if that’s going to be enough. I’ve no right to do anything of the sort, but I’m going to have to teach you some apprentice tricks of the exalted trade.’

      ‘And what makes you think I want to learn them?’

      ‘Your basic desire to stay sane and alive, that’s what. Don’t be a dolt, Jill! You’re like a wounded man who’s afraid to have the chirurgeon stop his bleeding because pressing on the wound might hurt.’ He paused, and he seemed to be studying the air all around her. ‘Well, you’re too worked up now to try a lesson. How about food, indeed? The Great Krysello is famished. If you wouldn’t mind assuming your guise of beauteous barbarian handmaiden, go down and ask the innkeep to send up a tray of meats and fruits. And a flagon of wine, too.’

      ‘I’m hungry myself.’ She managed to smile. ‘Oh mighty master of mysterious arts.’

      Salamander was certainly right about the effects of food on her visionary state of mind. As soon as she’d eaten a couple of pieces of meat and some cracker-bread she felt a definite change, the dulling, as he’d called it, which she needed so badly. Although the colours in the room seemed unusually intense, the constant shimmerings disappeared. A couple of glasses of sweet white wine finished her involuntary dweomer-working completely.

      ‘When are we getting on the road?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t mind leaving tomorrow, when the city gates open at dawn, say.’

      ‘I know your heart burns with impatience, Jill my turtledove, but we must consider what Zandar, prince of the spice trade, is going to do next. Mayhap he’s heading home to Danmara, mayhap he’s travelling this way and that about the countryside, unloading his goods upon the commerce-minded public. If he is, we could be going one way while he’s going the other. If we go to Danmara to wait for him, we could sit around there for weeks. On the other hand, we can’t sit around here either, doing naught while evil villains scheme, plot, work wiles, or even machinate. Whichever way we go, we’ll have to travel slowly, stopping often to perform, like the showmen we call ourselves.’

      ‘Well, true spoken. We’ve got to get some coin before we go anywhere, though. I can’t believe how much you’ve spent!’

      ‘Good horses are not cheap in this rare and refined land.’

      ‘We haven’t even got the horses yet, you wretched wastrel. Our show had best go well tonight, or you’re in for it.’

      From a couple of jugglers Salamander had learned that any showman was welcome to perform in the public squares, provided he turned a quarter of his profits over to the archon’s men. When it grew dark, they hauled their newly-acquired props down to the market, which was just coming alive again in the cool. Oil lamps flickering among the gaudy sun-shades and banners cast coloured shadows on the white buildings while the merchants and their customers stood in little groups, talking and joking over cups of wine and snacks of spiced vegetables wrapped in fresh-baked rounds of thin bread. After a little asking around Jill and Salamander set up on the terrace at the top of a flight of steps leading to a public building. While Jill laid charcoal into the braziers and sprinkled it with incense, Salamander spread out the fancy carpet, then picked up the cloth-of-gold drape and began doing tricks with it, making it swirl in the air and catch the light, or suddenly turn stiff and billow out like a sail before the wind. Down below a crowd gathered to watch.

      ‘I am Krysello, Barbarian Wizard of the Far North. Look upon my marvels and be amazed!’ He flicked the drape one last time, then let it settle on the steps. ‘Jillanna, my beauteous barbarian handmaiden, and I have travelled far across the seas from the wondrous kingdom of Deverry to amuse, delight, and mystify you with magic that your otherwise splendid city has never seen before.’

      By now some fifty people were gathered at the foot of the stairs. Salamander slowly raised one arm and pointed at the first brazier. In a perfumed tower flames leapt up high, then fell, leaving the charcoal burning red and the sweet resins smoking. When the crowd gasped in honest awe, other people came running to see. Salamander waited until the crowd was steady again to light the second brazier.

      ‘Shall I proceed with my humble show, O good citizens of Myleton?’

      The crowd laughed, dug into their purses, and flung a shower of copper coins. Jill scooped them up, then took a place out of the way as Wildfolk of all sorts flocked to the improvised stage and clustered around Salamander. Her grey gnome appeared, did a little jig of excitement, then jumped to her shoulder and settled down to watch.

      ‘Now behold the marvels of the north!’

      Salamander pulled a long silk scarf out of mid-air – or so it seemed – and began to do the ordinary sort of tricks that any sleight-of-hand artist might do. First he made it disappear, then pulled it out of Jill’s hair; he tossed it up in such a way that it looked like a bird, flapping down to his shoulder; he turned it into three scarves, sailed them around his head, then held them up to show that they were mysteriously knotted together. All the while he sang, snatches of a long wailing elven war chant, bits and pieces of Deverry ballads, and fragments of songs in some guttural tongue that Jill thought might have been dwarven. After a few minutes he switched to doing stunts with silver coins – again, just standard trickster’s fare. He wanted to impress upon the crowd that he was only a showman and nothing more, to plant in their minds the idea that there had to be a rational explanation for everything he did.

      Finally, when they were starting to get restless, Salamander flung up his arms and sent a glowing waterfall of many-coloured sparks high into the air. As it poured down in a double rainbow, the crowd shouted and surged closer, a sea of sweaty faces in the rippling light. With a howl of elven delight Salamander drifted great red and blue washes, shot with silver and gold, across the stage, then followed with miniature lightning bolts and thunder growls. On and on the show went, with bursting flowers of light in many colours and purple cascades, while the crowd sighed and gasped and Salamander alternately sang and joked. When Salamander announced that he was growing weary, the crowd threw another rain of coins, and most of these were silver with here and there a gold. After some juggling tricks with hens’ eggs, he gave another good display of real magic, then announced that this time he truly was weary and the show over. Still, a good many more coins came their way.

      As the crowd drifted away, still talking over the marvels they’d seen, one of the archon’s men – he had the city crest painted on his cheek – appeared to claim the official cut. While Jill rolled up the carpet and folded up the cloth-of-gold, Salamander sat down with the official near a brazier to count the haul.

      ‘That was the best show I’ve seen all year, wizard. Just how do you do it? Some kind of powder in СКАЧАТЬ