The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World Read Online Free PDF Page B

prince was going to answer any but the easiest questions.
    “Suppose the enchanter finds out?” asked Damian, desperately.
    “I think we can arrange that he won’t,” said the prime minister, smoothly. “We can, I think, conduct the whole affair by mail. If we write immediately to Sirion Hilversun requesting that he send us the first question by return of post, and promise to deliver the answer forty eight hours later, together with our first question… and so on. I think we’ll have all the time we need, and we can get the answers how we please.”
    “He is an enchanter, you know,” said the king. “He may have ways of finding these things out.”
    “As a matter of fact,” said Coronado, “I don’t think that it will matter if he does. As I said, this is an old custom—probably no more than a formality. I do suppose he minds how we get the answers.”
    “I mind,” say Damian, hopefully. “I think it’s dishonest.”
    “Shut up!” said the king. “You’ll do as you’re told.” Damian sighed heavily. It was certainly no bed of
    roses being crown prince of Caramorn. Sometimes he wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off cataloguing libraries or some other such thing.
     
    Ewan was sitting quietly on a high stool between two colossal bookcases, reading by the light of a candle. It was the middle of the day, but the library windows were obscured by the ends of bookshelves, books stacked on the ledges, and by the dust of decades. The candle was necessary.
    He was so engrossed that he did not hear the door open and close. He was reading an ancient text by a failed alchemist who attempted to show that lead was much more useful and of greater value than gold. Not until a shadow fell across the page, when Coronado moved between the candle-flame and the book, did he realize that he was no longer alone.
    “Don’t stand up,” said the prime minister, in his best approximation of a friendly paternal tone.
    “I’m sorry, sir,” said Ewan. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
    “Hard at work, eh?”
    “Yes, sir.” Ewan blushed suddenly. “I wasn’t really reading it. Just—scanning through it. To see if…”
    “Of course,” purred the prime minister. “I understand perfectly. You have to describe books in your catalogue. The university want to know what they’re buying. Don’t worry a bit. You don’t tell me how to be prime minister, I won’t tell you how to catalogue a library, all right?”
    Ewan grinned weakly. He had never talked to a prime minister before. He was not intimidated, but he did feel that Coronado’s sickly tone of voice was unwarranted. Ewan didn’t like people to speak to him as if he was a child.
    “And how are you getting on?” asked Coronado.
    “Very well, thank you, sir,” replied Ewan.
    “You’ll get us a good price for it all, I hope.
    “That’s nothing to do with me,” Ewan was quick to assure him. “I only list the books. The archivists at the university will check through it and decide what price to offer.”
    “Oh, to be sure, to be sure,” murmured the prim minister, idly, maintaining the silky tone in his voice; His eyes ran over the shelves, noting the tide marks in the dust where books had been disturbed for the first time in more than a hundred years. The king and his forefathers had been great collectors, when they could afford the luxury, but very few people at the palace ever read anything except the newspapers. His gaze came to rest on the ink-pot and quill, which stood upon the parchment on which Ewan was compiling his list. To judge by the number of completed pages there was a very great deal of work still to be done.
    Ewan blinked, wondering what so august a person could possibly want with him, not liking to ask.
    “What do you do with your spare time?” asked the prime minister.
    “I don’t have a great deal,” said Ewan.
    “You enjoy your work?”
    Ewan shrugged. “I like books. I like reading. I even like making lists. I don’t