"Nicola Griffith - Yaguara" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffith Nicola)

Jane looked at the photos again, tapped two glyphs of women
covered in what looked like blood. тАЬWhat does this mean? Some
kind of execution?тАЭ
тАЬNo. Look at them carefully. Both are wounds to the left
shoulder, on the muscle: ritual again.тАЭ
тАЬScarification?тАЭ
тАЬI donтАЩt know what the hell it is. I feel as though I should
understand, but itтАЩs just out of my reach.тАЭ
Jane touched the limestone carvings, weathered now, and
tried to imagine the glyphs fresh and new. The carver had squatted
out here in the ninety-degree heat with only soft bronze tools and
pieces of dirty string to make sure everything was straight. A labor
of months. Years. It was terrible to think that all that effortтАФthe
sweat and bruised palms, the pads of fingers callused and
permanently white with limestone dustтАФnow meant nothing
because no one knew what these enigmatic, bulbous figures
represented.
 The camera whirred, clicked, whirred again. Jane, stiff after
squatting so long, stood and stretched. Froze. Behind her, arms
folded, face dappled with tree shadow, stood Ixbalum.
They looked at each other. Jane could not speak Mopan Maya.
She lifted a hand in greeting. Ixbalum stared back impassively. Jane
cleared her throat. It sounded impossibly loud. She wondered how
long Ixbalum had been watching her. тАЬI have to take these
pictures,тАЭ she said, pointing at her camera. тАЬThe light wonтАЩt last
forever.тАЭ
Ixbalum did not move.
She cleared her throat again. She hesitated, then wiped the
sweat from her face and doggedly tilted the camera to a different
angle. She had a job to do.
IxbalumтАЩs gaze settled on the back of her neck, as hot as the
sun. She bent to the viewfinder, focused carfully on a jaguar figure.
All that workтАж
She straightened abruptly, turned to Ixbalum.
тАЬTell me what it means,тАЭ she said, pointing at the glyphs.
тАЬTheyтАЩre your people, Ixbalum. DonтАЩt you want the world to hear
what they had to say?тАЭ
Ixbalum might as well have been carved from the same stone
as the glyphs, but the breeze in the trees stirred and the leaf shadow
on the Mayan womanтАЩs face shifted. Her eyes were yellow, like
hammered gold.
Jane stepped back, bumped into her tripod, had to turn
quickly to catch it. When she turned back, Ixbalum was gone.


Later, when the sun was slipping behind the trees and the
light was more green than gold, when Jane was treading carefully
along the trail, camera slung over one shoulder, tripod on the other,
she felt that same heat on the back of her neck, as though she was
being watched. She stopped, turned slowly. Nothing.