Searching for Dragons - Wrede Patricia Collins (чтение книг .txt) 📗

The canyon flowed and melted into a sloping meadow halfway up a mountainside. "Much better," Telemain said. "No rock snakes, trolls, ogres, or other dangerous wildlife. I guarantee it."

Mendanbar was inclined to believe him. Trolls and ogres liked places where they could jump out from behind things or pop out from under rocks. An open meadow didn't have enough cover. Besides, Telemain was no longer surrounded by the hum of magic, which meant he had dropped his guarding spell.

"Now," Telemain went on, "how did the two of you get into a ravine full of rock snakes with a defective magic carpet? Having rescued you, I think I am entitled to some explanation."

"We were on our way to the Enchanted Forest ," Cimorene said carefully, pushing wisps of loose hair out of her face. Mendanbar noticed with approval that she said nothing about Their reasons for wanting to go there.

"How did you happen to come by at such a convenient moment?"

"I was-looking for some people I thought might be in this area," Telemain said. "By the way, what are your names?"

"This is Cimorene and I'm Mendanbar," Mendanbar said. "Who were you looking for?"

"You, I think," Telemain said, smiling. "That is, if you're the same Cimorene and Mendanbar who visited Herman the dwarf earlier today."

"That was us," Cimorene said cautiously.

"Good! Then I can settle this quickly and get back to my work. How did you-" "Excuse me," Mendanbar interrupted. "But how do you know Herman? And how did you find us?"

"I know Herman because he bought his house from me," Telemain said. He was beginning to sound irritated. "I also maintain certain defensive enchantments, which are especially designed to prevent incursions by noxious creatures, around the house and neighboring areas for him.

When someone demolished the scrying spell I had established on the attic window, I felt obliged to investigate. Herman was in the middle of an explanation about visitors and dragons when I sensed an extremely interesting sorcerous flare to the northwest."

"I knew that dratted sword was going to get us in trouble," Cimorene muttered.

"Before I had time to locate it precisely, there was another burst of magic, which I recognized as a transportation spell," Telemain continued.

He frowned disapprovingly. "A rather confused one. It has taken me all afternoon to disentangle the traces and discover your whereabouts.

Does that satisfy you?"

"I think so," Mendanbar said. "I'm sorry if we seem overly suspicious, but we've already had some trouble with one wizard and we've reason to expect more. So you see…"

"I am not a wizard," Telemain said emphatically. "I'm a magician.

Can't you tell?"

"No," Cimorene said. "what's the difference?"

"A magician knows many types of magic," Telemain said. "Wizards only know one, and they're very secretive about it. I've been researching them for years, trying to duplicate their methodology, but I still haven't managed a workable simulation."

"What?" said Cimorene, looking puzzled.

"He's been trying to figure out how the wizards work their spells," Mendanbar explained, "but he hasn't done it yet."

"Why do you want to know that?" Cimorene asked Telemain with renewed suspicion.

"Because that's what I do!" Telemain said. "I just told you that.

And if you'll answer a few questions for me, I can go back to doing it.

How did you shatter that window?"

"We asked it to show us something," Mendanbar said. "It couldn't, so it broke."

Telemain shook his head. "Impossible! That particular glass was enchanted to reveal anything, anywhere, even in the Enchanted Forest .

If it couldn't discover the object of your inquiry, the viewing plane would display an empty information buffer."

"What does he mean?" Cimorene asked, frowning.

"He means that if the window couldn't find what we were asking about, it should have just stayed blank," Mendanbar explained.

"That's what I said." Telemain nodded emphatically. "It should not have broken."

"Well, it did," Cimorene told him. "And we don't have time to stand around arguing. We have to get to the Enchanted Forest and rescue a friend of mine. So could you just tell us what's wrong with our carpet?"

"Nonsense," Telemain muttered. "You must have done more than frame a question." He intercepted a look from Cimorene and sighed. "Oh, very well, I'll examine the carpet. Spread it out so I can see all of it at once."

They unrolled the carpet the rest of the way. Telemain's eyebrow's rose in surprise at the sight of the teddy bears, but he did not comment, for which Mendanbar was grateful. When the carpet was stretched full-length on the meadow, Telemain paced twice around it, frowning and gesturing occasionally. Then he turned to Mendanbar and Cimorene and shook his head.

"The landing compensator has a gap in it, and the flight regulator has completely deteriorated," he said. "It needs more than I can do without special tools and yarn for re-weaving. You'll have to take it to a repair shop."

"Wonderful," Cimorene said sarcastically. "This would happen with a borrowed carpet."

"Can you recommend a good place?" Mendanbar asked Telemain.

"Preferably somewhere close," he added, noting the pink tint of the sky to the west. The sun would be completely down in another hour, and he didn't want to wander around the Mountains of Morning in the dark.

"Or can you send us straight to the Enchanted Forest?" Cimorene asked.

"We're in kind of a hurry."

"The Enchanted Forest requires a complex and destination-specific enhancement to the basic transportation spell module," Telemain explained.

"But the repair shop is simple."

He raised his left hand and made the same circular gesture he had before. "Gypsy Jack's," he said, and clapped, and the meadow and the mountain melted and flowed. The mountain bulged higher, and the meadow flattened and grew rockier. A long, rectangular section of ground squeezed upward and settled into the shape of a narrow house on wheels.

"There," Telemain said with great satisfaction. "We've arrived."

12

In Which Yet Another Wizard Tries to Cause Trouble

They were standing in front of the wheeled house. At least, Mendanbar assumed it was the front because there was a door at the end of the long side facing them. Two iron steps, black and worn with age, led up to the door.

The house itself was painted a cheerful blue with yellow shutters and a yellow trim around the door. There were four windows on the side facing Mendanbar, lined up in a neat row next to the door like chicks following a hen. The roof above the windows was low but not quite flat, and covered with wooden shingles that looked brand-new. There were four pairs of wheels, too, the rims painted blue to match the house and the spokes painted yellow to match the shutters. A beautifully lettered sign on a stick had been pounded into the ground next to the door: "Ask About Our Low prices!"

Mendanbar looked at Cimorene. Cimorene looked from Mendanbar to the wheeled house to Telemain.

"Don't do that again without asking first," she said to the magician.

"I thought you'd be pleased," Telemain said. "Look at all the time you've saved."

"Asking doesn't take much time."

"Where are we, exactly?" Mendanbar put in before they could start arguing. "And what is that?" He pointed at the house on wheels.

"That is Gypsy Jack's home," Telemain answered. "If anyone can mend that carpet of yours, he can. As to where we are, all I can tell you is that we are still somewhere in the Mountains of Morning. If you want a more precise location, you will have to ask Jack. Assuming he remembers; he moves around a lot."

"How did you find him, then?" Cimorene asked.

"Oh, Jack supplies me with unusual things now and then, when I need them for a spell or an experiment," Telemain said. "I pay him by enchanting his house for him. Any good magician can find his own spells."