"Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 3 - Courage Of Falcons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

He snarled again. The cold white fury that he felt toward the spying Falcons and the manipulative Dragons metamorphosed into something elseтАФsomething hotter and redder and more primitive. His blood began to simmer and his muscles burned and grew liquid beneath his skin. He had spent his life mastering the beast that dwelt inside of him, but now he wanted no such mastery. He embraced the animal that bayed for blood inside his Shifting skull; he offered himself up to its hungry, wordless passions.
Quickly he stripped off his clothes. He bundled them neatly, took a bit of cord, and slung the bundle around his neck. His clothes were light silkтАФthey made an unobtrusive burden.
He lusted for the taste of blood in his mouth, for the feel of bones crunching between his jaws. He yearned to maim, to rend, to destroy
whoever sought to kidnap his daughter. He slipped into four-legged Karnee form, and the world became hard-edged and clear, scents sharper and suddenly full of meaning, sounds broader and richer and louder. He panted, tasting the air, and turned his muzzle to the door.
He had to hurry. The kidnapper would certainly already be on his way to get Ulwe, and she would not know her danger. She was only a child, ignorant of the dangers of the city and those who dwelt in it. She would go trustingly with the first man who uttered the right phraseтАФand Hasmal had learned the phrase from Crispin's own mind. He had no hope that Hasmal's agent would get it wrong. His only hope was to be fast enough to get to Ulwe first.
Or that the scent trail remain unsullied long enough that he could track the kidnapper back to his lair.
Crispin loped through the long white corridors of the Citadel of the Gods, avoiding the hurrying Dragons, ignoring their obvious agitation and dismay. He would deal with them later.
First, he had a kidnapper to kill and a child to save.
Chapter 9
Silk Street after twilight seethed with life.
The silk shops for which the street had been named were closed, and om-bindili bands were set up in front of them on the high sidewalks above the cobbled road. The inhabitants of the apartments above the shops moved out to their balconies to enjoy the cool evening air. They drank and danced to the music or sang with the bands' singers, or made their way down to the street itself, where they bet on rolls of the dice or strolled hand in hand in the nightly promenade, wearing their finest to see and be seen.
The songs of Wilhene and Glaswherry Hala and distant Varhees, sung in the original tongues of those places and those people, blended into a rich and oddly comforting stew. The outlanders' ghetto would make a surprisingly good place to hide a little girl, Ry realized. These people accepted each other and looked out for each other because they knew that they were all they had. Not citizens of Calimekka, they wouldn't have access to the many protections such citizenship offered. They had become neighbors and friends out of self-defense.
The promenaders were watching him. He was a stranger to Silk Street's nightlife; they were remembering his face, his clothing, the
way he walked. He couldn't help being memorable. He couldn't make himself someone they knew. Inwardly he cringed, but outwardly he nodded politely, and made his way as quickly as he could through the gamblers and the chatters and the strollers.
His main landmark, the Black Well, sat in the midst of a square of greenery. Carefully shaped shrubs and sweet-scented flowers grew in boxes at the four comers of the square; the boxes themselves bore mosaics reminiscent of the bold, stylized street paintings that decorated the thoroughfares of the city-state of Wilhene. Benches surrounded the well itself, and on those benches old women sat talking to each other and watching the spectacle of the promenade, and old men told their old jokes and slapped their knees with laughter at tall tales they'd heard a hundred times already. As he walked past the square, their voices dropped to whispers, though, and he felt their eyes, too, fixed on his back.
When Crispin came looking for his daughter, a thousand people would be able to give a clear description of Ry.
He would have to find a way to render that description worthless.
Beyond the well and on the other side of the road, Ry saw the sign for the dyer's shop, and read the name Nathis Farhills scrawled out in Iberish and half a dozen other common scripts. On the balcony above the shop, a pretty girl stood, staring down at him. Small-boned, slender, and with hair that looked white in the twilight but that was likely pale gold, she leaned forward with her hands resting on the rail. Her eyes, light as his own, didn't seem to blink when he looked into them. He had intended only to glance in her direction, but her steady stare didn't waver, and he found that he couldn't look away. He would have thought her too old to be Crispin's daughter, but she had her father's features. She had to be Ulwe.
He came to a stop and stared up at her, feeling like a fool. He couldn't hope that she would believe he was her father. In his early twenties, he was too young to have a daughter already approaching womanhood, and he knew nothing of the past that she shared with
her true father. What could he hope to say to her that would not betray him as the imposter he was?
He almost turned away. But Crispin was . . . Crispin. And the Falcons would have to deal with him. And this girl, this watchful, still creature, was the key to controlling Crispin.
Ry's heart raced. He looked away from that steady gaze, hurried across the street, and climbed the steps at the side of the building. The girl was waiting for him with the door already open when he reached the top.
Her father should have warned her about the danger of this place, Ry thought. Surely he must have let her know that she should never open the door for strangers.
"I felt you would come tonight," she said before he could say anything to her. "All day the air has whispered trouble. The ground trembles with changes brewing." Her voice was high and sweet. A very young voice. Up close she was younger than she'd looked standing on the balcony. Her actions, her movements, her startling grace and amazing beauty, all gave her a maturity that belied her true age. He guessed she was no more than twelve, and perhaps as young as ten. She had an odd accent. After a moment he placed itтАФshe had the drawling speech of the settlers of the Sabirene Isthmus. She'd spent the better part of her life in Stosta, he guessed, being raised by her mother, or strangers hired by Crispin. Things he didn't know and dared not ask.
"I'm ..." He wanted to say, I'm not who you think I am, but he stopped himself. He said, "A daughter is her father's greatest blessing, his greatest weakness, and his greatest fear."
She looked at him, and one eyebrow slowly rose, and the tiniest of smiles twitched at the corner of her mouth.
"So the birds told me," she said.
"We can't stay here."
She nodded. "1 know that. I feel danger following in your footsteps. Even now we have little time." Abruptly she threw her arms
around him and hugged him. "Thank you for coming for me. I've been . . . afraid."
He nodded, not daring to speak. She was a sweet child, and trusting. Damn the fact that she was so trusting. He would rather she had snarled at him and been hatefulтАФhe wouldn't have felt so horrible about snatching her away from her father and taking her off to serve as hostage in the trouble that was to come. She had every right to be met by her father; she had every right to have the world meet a few of her expectations. The world wouldn't, and in many ways it wouldn't because of him, and he felt guilty just standing next to her.
She smiled up at him, then turned away and stepped into the room and spoke to someoneтАФhe hadn't realized until that instant that she wasn't alone. He should have heard the other person breathing, should have noted her scent in the air, but he had been too distracted by Ulwe and his own doubts. He needed to regain his focus, and quickly.
He heard the clink of gold and Ulwe's soft voice saying, "You've been very good to me, Parata Tershe. I hope we'll meet again someday," and an old woman answering, "I hope you're happy, child. You deserve happiness."
Then she was back, a bag in each hand. "Would you carry one of these for me?" she asked. "They aren't heavy; my nante told me be certain not to pack too much before I left Stosta. She said I'd have plenty of new dresses and toys when I got here and I needn't bring any but my dearest things."
"That's fine," Ry said. "I'll carry both of them."
"Then you won't be able to hold my hand."
He looked down at her. The solemn face looked up at him. "You want to hold my hand?"
"Yes. Please."
"I'll carry one if you wish."
"We should go now," she said.
He nodded. "You're right." He took the bag she offered him. It was
light. He wondered what she'd brought across half a world with herтАФ what "dearest things" might have comforted her during a sea passage alone, on her way to meet a man whom she had never seen before who had claimed her and pulled her away from the only people she had ever known.
They hurried down the steps, and he was surprised that she set the pace, and set it so fast. She was walking so briskly that he had to lengthen his stride to keep up; he could as easily have jogged beside her. She waved to some of the promenaders, and they called to her, "Is that him?"
"It is," she shouted gaily. "Isn't he as lovely as I said?"
Now the faces that looked at him wore smiles. A few of the people waved. An older woman said, as the two of them hurried past, "You have a lovely daughter. I'm glad you returned safely from your voyage at last."
"So am I," he said. He was no longer a stranger in their midstтАФ by virtue of her presence and her words, he was Ulwe's father, and they knew Ulwe, liked Ulwe, accepted Ulwe. He could understand why. She squeezed the hand he held and looked up at him, and her smile was radiant. He wished at that instant that she was his daughter.
Then they were outside the outlander's ghetto, and the character of Silk Street changed. The people who hurried through the gathering darkness avoided each other's eyes, and stared straight ahead. The om-bindili bands were gone, the merry promenaders replaced by hollow-eyed women and gaunt-faced men who offered their bodies for pleasure, or who shilled for custom for the caberra-houses, or who waited for some unwary target to pass by. Ulwe moved closer to him. She didn't complain when he walked faster. He thought perhaps he should swing her onto his back and let her hook her knees over his elbows. He could carry both her bags that way and still run. He turned to her, ready to suggest it.
But she said, "We're going to have to get a carnage."
He said, "Are you getting tired?"
She shook her head. "Not me. I could run for days. But we're leaving a trail, and he's coming right now. And he's really angry." Ry frowned. "Who is?" "My father," she said simply.