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.That rather spoiled the effect.One of them sportedLove-lace's horrid mug; another looked like Sholto Pinn.Elsewhere, I spied myerstwhile248captor, Jessica Whitwell, riding a white mare.Trust Lovelace to spoil aperfectly good work of art with such an ingratiating fancy.Nodoubt the prince was[1]Devereaux, the Prime Minister, and every important magician was pictured amonghis fawning throng.[1] How the weavers of Basra must have loathed being commissioned to createsuch a monstrosity.Gone are the days when, with complex and cruelincantations, they wove djinn into the fabric of their carpets, creatingartifacts that carried their masters across theMiddle East and were stain-resistant at the same time.Hundreds of us werePage 192 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmltrapped this way.But now, with the magical power of Baghdad long broken, suchcraftsmen escape destitution only by weaving tourist tat for rich foreignclients.Such is progress.This curious floor was not the only odd thing about the circular hall.All theother windows that looked onto it had shimmering defenses similar to the onethrough which I spied.Reasonable enough: soon most of the Government would beinside the room had to be safe from attack.But hidden in the stonework of mywindow frame were things that looked like embedded metal rods, and their pur-pose was not at all clear.I was just pondering this when a door at the far end of the auditorium openedand a magician walked swiftly in.It was the oily man I had seen passing inthe car:Lime, the boy had called him, one of Lovelace's confederates.He carried anobject in his hand, shrouded under a cloth.With hasty steps and eyes flickingnervously back and forth, he crossed to the podium, mounted it and approachedthe speaker's stand.There was a shelf inside the stand, hidden from the floorbelow, and the man placed the object inside it.Before he did so, he removed the cloth and a shiver ran down my scales.It was the summoning horn I'd seen in Lovelace's study on the night I stoletheAmulet of Samarkand.The ivory was yellow with age and had been reinforcedwith slender metal bands, but the blackened fingerprints on its side werestill[2]quite visible.[2] The only remains of the first person to blow the horn, it being anessential re-quirement of such items that their first user must surrender himself to themercy of the entity he summons.With this notable design flaw, summoning hornsare pretty rare, as you'd imagine.A summoning horn.I began to see daylight.The magical bars at the windows, the metal ones em-bedded in the stonework, ready to spring shut.The auditorium's defensesweren't to keep anything out they were to keep everyone in.It was definitely time I got inside.With scant regard for any overflying sentries, I scampered up the wall andover the red-tiled roof of the mansion to the nearest chimney.I darted to therim of the pot and was about to duck inside, when I drew back, all of aquiver.A net of spar-kling threads was suspended below me across the hole.Blocked.I ran to the next.Same again.249In considerable agitation, I crossed and recrossed the roof of Heddleham Hall,checking every chimney.Each one was sealed.More than one magician had goneto great lengths to protect the place from spies.I halted at last, wondering what to do.All this time, at the front of the house below, a steady stream of chauffeuredcars had drawn up, disgorged their occupants and headed off to a parking lotat[3]the side.Most of the guests were here now; the conference was about to begin.[3] In a perfect example of most magicians' dreary style, each and everyvehicle was big, black, and shiny.Even the smallest looked as if it wanted tobe a hearse when it grew up.Page 193 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlI looked across the lawns.A few late arrivals were speeding toward the house.And they weren't the only ones.In the middle of the lawn was a lake adorned with an ornamental fountain, de-picting an amorous Greek god trying to kiss a dolphin.Beyond the lake, thedrive[4]curled into the trees toward the entrance gateway.And along it three figurescame striding, two going fast, the third faster.For a man who had recentlybeen knocked about by a field mouse, Mr.Squalls was racing along at a fairpace.Son was doing even better: presumably his lack of clothes encouraged himon his way (at this dis-tance he looked like one big goosebump.) But neither of them matched the paceof the bearded mercenary, whose cloak swirled out behind him as he strode offthe drive onto the lawn.[4] Inadvisable.Ah.This might spell trouble.I perched on the lip of the chimney pot, cursing my restraint with Squalls andSon and debating whether I could ignore the distant trio.But another lookde-[5]cided me.The bearded man was coming along faster than ever.Strange his pacesseemed ordinary ones, but they ate up the ground at blinding speed.He hadalmost halved the distance to the lake already.In another minute he would beat the house, ready to raise the alarm.[5] I'd thought my blows would keep them unconscious for at least a couple ofdays.But I'd fluffed it.That's what comes of hurrying a job.Getting into the house would have to wait.There wasn't time to be discreet.Ibecame a blackbird and flew purposefully from the mansion roof.The man in black strode nearer.I noted a flicker in the air about his legs,an odd discrepancy, as if their movement was not properly contained within anyof the planes.Then I understood: he wore seven-league boots.After a fewmore[6]paces, his trajectory would be too swift to follow he might travel a mile witheach step.I speeded up my flight.[6] Potent magical devices, invented in medieval Europe.At the wearerscommand, the boots can cover considerable distances in the smallest ofstrides.Normal (Earth) rules of time and space do not apply.Allegedly, eachboot contains a djinni capable of traveling on a hypothetical eighth plane(not that I would know anything about that) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.That rather spoiled the effect.One of them sportedLove-lace's horrid mug; another looked like Sholto Pinn.Elsewhere, I spied myerstwhile248captor, Jessica Whitwell, riding a white mare.Trust Lovelace to spoil aperfectly good work of art with such an ingratiating fancy.Nodoubt the prince was[1]Devereaux, the Prime Minister, and every important magician was pictured amonghis fawning throng.[1] How the weavers of Basra must have loathed being commissioned to createsuch a monstrosity.Gone are the days when, with complex and cruelincantations, they wove djinn into the fabric of their carpets, creatingartifacts that carried their masters across theMiddle East and were stain-resistant at the same time.Hundreds of us werePage 192 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmltrapped this way.But now, with the magical power of Baghdad long broken, suchcraftsmen escape destitution only by weaving tourist tat for rich foreignclients.Such is progress.This curious floor was not the only odd thing about the circular hall.All theother windows that looked onto it had shimmering defenses similar to the onethrough which I spied.Reasonable enough: soon most of the Government would beinside the room had to be safe from attack.But hidden in the stonework of mywindow frame were things that looked like embedded metal rods, and their pur-pose was not at all clear.I was just pondering this when a door at the far end of the auditorium openedand a magician walked swiftly in.It was the oily man I had seen passing inthe car:Lime, the boy had called him, one of Lovelace's confederates.He carried anobject in his hand, shrouded under a cloth.With hasty steps and eyes flickingnervously back and forth, he crossed to the podium, mounted it and approachedthe speaker's stand.There was a shelf inside the stand, hidden from the floorbelow, and the man placed the object inside it.Before he did so, he removed the cloth and a shiver ran down my scales.It was the summoning horn I'd seen in Lovelace's study on the night I stoletheAmulet of Samarkand.The ivory was yellow with age and had been reinforcedwith slender metal bands, but the blackened fingerprints on its side werestill[2]quite visible.[2] The only remains of the first person to blow the horn, it being anessential re-quirement of such items that their first user must surrender himself to themercy of the entity he summons.With this notable design flaw, summoning hornsare pretty rare, as you'd imagine.A summoning horn.I began to see daylight.The magical bars at the windows, the metal ones em-bedded in the stonework, ready to spring shut.The auditorium's defensesweren't to keep anything out they were to keep everyone in.It was definitely time I got inside.With scant regard for any overflying sentries, I scampered up the wall andover the red-tiled roof of the mansion to the nearest chimney.I darted to therim of the pot and was about to duck inside, when I drew back, all of aquiver.A net of spar-kling threads was suspended below me across the hole.Blocked.I ran to the next.Same again.249In considerable agitation, I crossed and recrossed the roof of Heddleham Hall,checking every chimney.Each one was sealed.More than one magician had goneto great lengths to protect the place from spies.I halted at last, wondering what to do.All this time, at the front of the house below, a steady stream of chauffeuredcars had drawn up, disgorged their occupants and headed off to a parking lotat[3]the side.Most of the guests were here now; the conference was about to begin.[3] In a perfect example of most magicians' dreary style, each and everyvehicle was big, black, and shiny.Even the smallest looked as if it wanted tobe a hearse when it grew up.Page 193 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlI looked across the lawns.A few late arrivals were speeding toward the house.And they weren't the only ones.In the middle of the lawn was a lake adorned with an ornamental fountain, de-picting an amorous Greek god trying to kiss a dolphin.Beyond the lake, thedrive[4]curled into the trees toward the entrance gateway.And along it three figurescame striding, two going fast, the third faster.For a man who had recentlybeen knocked about by a field mouse, Mr.Squalls was racing along at a fairpace.Son was doing even better: presumably his lack of clothes encouraged himon his way (at this dis-tance he looked like one big goosebump.) But neither of them matched the paceof the bearded mercenary, whose cloak swirled out behind him as he strode offthe drive onto the lawn.[4] Inadvisable.Ah.This might spell trouble.I perched on the lip of the chimney pot, cursing my restraint with Squalls andSon and debating whether I could ignore the distant trio.But another lookde-[5]cided me.The bearded man was coming along faster than ever.Strange his pacesseemed ordinary ones, but they ate up the ground at blinding speed.He hadalmost halved the distance to the lake already.In another minute he would beat the house, ready to raise the alarm.[5] I'd thought my blows would keep them unconscious for at least a couple ofdays.But I'd fluffed it.That's what comes of hurrying a job.Getting into the house would have to wait.There wasn't time to be discreet.Ibecame a blackbird and flew purposefully from the mansion roof.The man in black strode nearer.I noted a flicker in the air about his legs,an odd discrepancy, as if their movement was not properly contained within anyof the planes.Then I understood: he wore seven-league boots.After a fewmore[6]paces, his trajectory would be too swift to follow he might travel a mile witheach step.I speeded up my flight.[6] Potent magical devices, invented in medieval Europe.At the wearerscommand, the boots can cover considerable distances in the smallest ofstrides.Normal (Earth) rules of time and space do not apply.Allegedly, eachboot contains a djinni capable of traveling on a hypothetical eighth plane(not that I would know anything about that) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]