"Esther M. Friesner - Puss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

wings, for the clean, knife-bright freedom of the air. Peace alone commands the
Change, and I was too much dominated by wrath, trapped in a skin once glossy and
sleek under a loving hand's care. Now drab and dirty, matted with filth, it would be a
relief to shed it once the compact was fulfilled.
It was very hard, the dying, and long. He did his part to hurry it on, standing over
me, driving a sprung-toed shoe into my belly. Air tore out of my lungs, scraped my
throat with agony as a shallower breath forced its way back in. These mortal bodies
cling to life too strongly.
"Stupid cat. Hell have you." I heard him stagger out of the stable, still cursing.
Clouds fell across my eyes. Alone, finally left in peace, I sought the hidden power of
the blood. Now the Change must come, in solitude, with the old sea's taste fresh and
metal-tangy on my tongue.
Change. The clouds darkened; only the savor of blood remained, the copper
bloom at the heart and core of being.
Change. Scent and touch followed sight and sound into oblivion. I felt my self
tearing free from the blood-woven web of the world. As my soul struggled, I sensed
without seeing that the filthy stable had faded away around me. Laved by the
shapetide, my dying shell lay upon the strand that lies between time and time.
Child? She came as I knew she must come, as she comes for all of us when the
Change is imminent. Some of my folk say she was the first to find the way to the
shore where the shapetide runs. Some call her goddess, all name her Mother. Her
voice was a tender hand upon me, dulling my failing body's pain. I felt the layers of
fur and flesh peeling away like the falling petals of a rose.
I am here, I answered in the only true speech. With more than eyes I saw her. She
loomed above me, her great yellow eyes warming me. Their fire seared all else away,
even the bones of evil memories. My spirit sprang from my broken chest, taking
wing against the wind.
Child, you must return. Keen as a hatchet blow, cold as a plummet into an
ice-crusted river, that sharp saying. My battered soul snapped back into its aching
vessel and my sightless eyes stared wide. What? But the compactтАФ
 Is unfulfilled. I heard the sorrow in her words. The debt is unpaid. You oweтАФ
I owe nothing! My spirit-self leaped up anew, still molded by my latest shape,
and hissed and spat defiance against her who may never be defied. What debt have I
ever owed that wasn't paid in full through my own blood? I gestured with a
phantom paw at my fallen form, at the blackening trail now sluggishly oozing from a
gaping, ashen mouth. You see his handiwork, O Mother. Can you call all accounts
anything but paid? I owe him nothing but death.
And that, I swear, was the first I ever thought about that sweet possibility.
Her sigh was summer's own breath. The debt was never owed to the son, but to
the father. It lies over you yet, as heavy as the earth now lying over him.
And I knew what she said was true, for there are no lies in the true speech.
I will heal you, she said, and you will remember your debt.
No! No! I did not seek memories, did not want them, would break my heart over
them if she forced them on me. But her hand was upon me, her wings over me, and
the great, scaley shelter of her body coiled around me. We are nothing in her
shadow. I felt bone grind in healing dance against bone, and as her breath penetrated
fur and flesh I was compelled to see.
Remembered firelight flickered amid the shadows in my eyes. A young man knelt
among old pillars. Few from his village knew that such a ruin stood so near the
plowland, fewer still would speak of it at all. But to come thereтАФ! And by night.