The Book of Silence by Lawrence Watt-Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

tapered metal head, and its wings were polished to mirror brightness. “Ah, my lord,” the old man said, “you have excellent taste.”
    â€œWhat does it do?” Garth asked.
    â€œWhy, what else would a bird do but fly?” He pulled a silver key from somewhere, inserted it in an opening in the mechanical gull’s back, then gestured for Garth to follow him back outside. “Let me show you.”
    The overman followed and watched as the toymaker turned the key. With a small click, the key stopped; the old man pulled it out and, with a proud smile, cast the gull away.
    Garth instinctively reached out to catch it, to keep its graceful curves from being scarred or broken by its fall, but it did not drop into his waiting hands. Instead, its metal wings caught the breeze and flapped once, twice, lazily, with the languid grace of a living sea gull, and it swooped away. Riding the wind, it glided upward, then looped back and circled slowly overhead. Garth gaped in astonishment.
    For several long minutes the gull soared overhead, flapping smoothly now and then, gleaming golden in the morning sun; then, gradually, it settled lower and lower, until at last, with a rueful smile, the toymaker reached up and plucked it out of the sky.
    Garth heard a click and a final soft whirr, and the gull was still.
    Garth stared at the man with deep respect. “It is very beautiful,” he said. “I was not aware that such things could be built of mere metal.”
    The toymaker looked down, obviously embarrassed. “Well, actually,” he admitted, “they can’t. I cheat. It’s not just clockwork.”
    â€œIt’s not?”
    â€œNo. I use magic.”
    â€œOh,” Garth said knowingly. He had seen magic before, more of it than he liked. At least, he thought, this magic was harmless.
    â€œI didn’t originally—at least, I don’t think I did. I started off using just clockwork when I was an apprentice, but I found right from the first that I could make machines that no one else could understand, things that worked when by all rights they should not have. Even when I built my clocks and toys in the usual ways, mine would run far longer and more smoothly than any of the others. I got better and better at it, too, until I was doing things that were plainly impossible to do with just clockwork. I had no idea how I did what I did back then; it simply came to me, as naturally as breathing, without my ever thinking about it. When I realized what was happening, I studied sorcery briefly; even though my teacher said I had a real talent, I didn’t care for it. It seemed too dangerous, too uncertain. I went back to clockwork, but now I know a bit more about what I’m doing. I even use spells intentionally now, though I still make them up, rather than follow the old formulae. As I said, I have the knack for it. A fellow who came through here last year, fleeing from Sland, a wizard by the name of Karag, told me that it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. He said that there are a lot of minor magical talents like mine scattered about; probably one of my ancestors back in the Twelfth Age, when magic was widespread, was a wizard of some sort, and I inherited a bit of his lingering power without knowing it.”
    â€œI had no idea it could work that way,” Garth said.
    â€œNeither did I when I was young, but it seems that’s just how it does work. That gull wouldn’t fly if anyone else had made it. I’ve shown other tinkers and craftsmen how to make flying toys, and they’ve done them just as I do, but theirs don’t fly at all, they just fall.”
    Garth reached out, took the gull from the toymaker’s hands, and turned it over, studying it. “Magic or not, it’s a beautiful thing,” he said.
    â€œYes, it is,” the toymaker agreed.
    â€œDo you wish to sell it?”
    â€œOf course; I have no use for it. Besides, I have