The Dragonbone Chair Read Online Free PDF

long corridors.
    Simon’s musings were interrupted by a hideous eruption of noise echoing down the passageway—whistles, bangs, and something that sounded like the hungry baying of a hundred hounds.
    Morgenes jumped in surprise and said: “Oh, Name of a Name, I forgot to snuff the candles. Wait here.” The small man hurried down the hallway, wispy white hair fluttering, pulled the door at the end open just a crack—the howling and whistling doubled its intensity—and slipped quickly inside. Simon heard a muffled shout.
    The horrendous noise abruptly ceased—as quickly and completely as ... as ...
    As the snuffing of a candle, he thought.
    The doctor poked his head out, smiled, and beckoned him in.
    Simon, who had witnessed scenes of this type before, followed Morgenes cautiously into his workshop. A hasty entrance could, at the very least, cause one to step on something strange and unpleasant to contemplate.
    There was now not a trace of whatever had set up that fearful yammering. Simon again marveled at the discrepancy between what Morgenes’ rooms seemed to be—a converted guard-barracks perhaps twenty paces in length, nestled against the ivy-tangled wall of the Middle Bailey’s northeastern corner—and the view inside, which was of a low-ceilinged but spacious chamber almost as long as a tournament field, although not nearly so wide. In the orange light that filtered down from the long row of small windows overlooking the courtyard Simon peered at the farthest end of the room and decided he would be hard-pressed to hit it with a stone from the doorway in which he stood.
    This curious stretching effect, however, was quite familiar. In fact, despite the terrifying noises, the whole chamber seemed much as it usually did—as though a horde of crack-brained peddlers had set up shop and then made a hasty retreat during a wild windstorm. The long refectory table that spanned the length of the near wall was littered with fluted glass tubes, boxes, and cloth sacks of powders and pungent salts, as well as intricate structures of wood and metal from which depended retorts and phials and other unrecognizable containers. The centerpiece of the table was a great brazen ball with tiny angled spouts protruding from its shiny skin. It seemed to float in a dish of silvery liquid, the both of them balanced at the apex of a carved ivory tripod. The spouts chuffed steam, and the brass globe slowly revolved.
    The floor and shelves were littered with even stranger articles. Polished stone blocks and brooms and leather wings were strewn across the flagstones, vying for space with animal cages—some empty, some not—metal armatures of unknown creatures covered with ragged pelts or mismatched feathers, sheets of seemingly clear crystal stacked haphazardly against the tapestried walls ... and everywhere books, books, books, dropped halfway open or propped upright here and there about the chamber like huge, clumsy butterflies.
    There were also glass balls of colored liquids that bubbled without heat, and a flat box of glittering black sand that rearranged itself endlessly, as if swept by unfelt desert breezes. Wooden cabinets on the wall from time to time disgorged painted wooden birds who cheeped impertinently and disappeared. Beside these hung maps of countries with totally unfamiliar geography—although geography, admittedly, was not something Simon felt too confident about. Taken altogether, the doctor’s lair was a paradise for a curious young man ... without doubt, the most wonderful place in Osten Ard.
    Morgenes had been pacing about in the far corner of the room beneath a drooping star-chart that linked the bright celestial points together by painted line to make the shape of an odd, four-winged bird. With a little whistle of triumph the doctor suddenly leaned down and began to dig like a squirrel in spring. A flurry of scrolls, brightly painted flannels, and miniature flatware and goblets from some homunculate supper table