"Lisle,.Holly.-.Vincalis.The.Agitator1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)
Both boys nodded their agreement, and Velyn vanished down the hall.
Solander sat on one of his chairs and watched Wraith, who had gone to the door and was staring after her.
УWhatТs she like?Ф Wraith said, his back still to Solander.
Solander tried to figure out what to tell this strange boy. УShe likes men,Ф he said after long thought. УIТve never seen her show any interest in boys. SheТs very smart, and talented in her own way, but a lot of her talent seems to be in getting herself into trouble and then evading the consequences of itЧat least thatТs what my father told my mother. Her own parents have considered sending her to Berolis UnderseaЧthatТs a finishing school for young stolti womenЧfor a year or two to calm her down. Her mother and my mother are from the same great house and are either second or third cousinsЧI can never quite keep it straightЧbut theyТre also very good friends.Ф
Wraith seemed uninterested in any of that. УWhat does she like to do?Ф
Solander thought about the only things he had any real proof that she liked to doЧone of which she was probably on her way to do again in order to secure WraithТs friend an aircarЧand decided that he had better stick to the less inflammatory facts, and leave the more hurtful ones for Wraith to discover on his own once his puppyish adoration had found the time to dim. УShe likes to gamble. She likes to discuss philosophy. She likes to read and to dance. And sheТs very fond of running, for some reasonЧI cannot imagine why, but she asked that a track be laid for her through the stargarden, and every morning she goes out there and races around it in circles as if she were being pursued by the Lost Gods.Ф
УShe runs.а.а.а.Ф Wraith smiled when he said it.
УYou sound like you think thatТs a good thing.Ф
Wraith finally turned away from the door and looked at him. УI run.Ф
Solander laughed a little. УDonТt get your heart set on her. I like herЧsheТs a friend, and a good person, I think. At least mostly. Butа.а.а.Ф He stood up and headed back to his still-in-pieces distance viewer. УJust donТt get your heart set on her. SheТs going to end up taking oaths with a Dragon, IТd wager.Ф
Wraith said nothing, but in his eyes Solander could see the stirrings of defiance.
Velyn came back a very long time laterЧthe sun had moved to the middle of the sky, Solander had completed his kit, and both boys had eaten a large meal brought to them by Enry.
She erupted through the door and wasted no time on pleasantries. УNow, if you want to goЧboth of you after me, and try to keep up. We have almost no time, and I swear itТs our headsЧmine as well as both of yoursЧif we get caught.Ф
Velyn bolted back out and took off at a run down one corridor and then another. Wraith kept pace with her without any trouble, but poor Solander kept getting left behind.
УKeep up,Ф she called back, and the red-faced, gasping Solander would lift his hands from his knees, straighten out, and start after them again.
Velyn took them to a place she referred to as the Уprivate drive deck.Ф The vehicle waiting for them was huge, and of a black so dark it seemed to surround itself with a cloak of night in the middle of the day, and marked on each door with a circle of gold and green. Solander hobbled onto the drive, leaned over and gripped his knees, and stood gasping while Velyn got in and started the spells that made the aircar float just above the ground. Wraith tried to figure out the mechanism that opened the back door; Solander saw that he was having trouble and, still gasping, opened it for him. Wraith climbed in, and Solander flopped onto the seat behind him, clutching his left side and groaning, УIТm dying. IТm dying.Ф
УYouТre not dying,Ф Velyn snapped. УYouТre just lazy.Ф
Solander managed to sit up straight. УI may be lazy, but youТre simply mad. Do you realize that this is my fatherТs carriage-of-state? If we take this and he finds out, heТll kill us. All of us.Ф
УShut up. This cost me more than you can imagine. And this is the only one that we can count on to make it into the Warrens no matter what, without us getting stopped or searched or shot down when we come back out.Ф She glared at Solander with murderous eyes, and Wraith watched Solander shrink in on himself. The doors shut, and the windows instantly darkened. Wraith suspected that outside, no one would be able to see anything of the people inside.
All to the good. He held no illusions about how well two boys and a girl, none of them old enough to be people in positions of authority, would fare taking a car designed to draw attention to itself into the Warrens, and then back out. Best that no one could tell who hid inside the vehicle.
Wraith gave Velyn instructions on which roads she should take to get to the Vincalis Gate of the Warrens. He noticed, too, how tightly her hands gripped the steering posts, how tense she sat, with her back rigid and her jaw clenched, how she would not speak a word to either of them, except when she needed to know where next she had to turn. Wraith sensed both anger and fear in her, and he ached that it was for his cause that she should feel either of those things.
The great black aircar cruised up to Vincalis Gate, and the gate peeled back as if afraid. They slipped behind the walls, and Wraith noticed that now both Velyn and Solander stared around them as if unable to believe their eyes. They had wanted screaming mobs, painted women, fighting and madness and violence to fulfill their lifetime expectations of the place, and instead they got empty streets and silence. He was shocked, too, but for a different reason. On every corner two guards stood, and at every fourth corner a huge windowless ground vehicle sat, back doors flung open so that he could see peopleЧWarrenersЧalready sitting passively in the back. Accepting their fate, unquestioning because they were unable to question, or to fight.
As he pointed Velyn down a street toward his hideout, two guards came out of a building with an entire family of Warreners between themЧmother, father, and a dozen children from near-adult to passive, blank-eyed infant. Velyn stopped and watched and waited as the whole troop crossed the street in front of her, and Wraith saw her face lose its color.
Wraith, who had never seen adults from the Warrens outside of their tiny homes, had to agree. The adults and older children, all dressed in simple, sleeveless white shifts that fell about to their knees, all shoeless and hatless, carried so much fat on their frames that their feet disappeared beneath rolls of it, so that they looked like they walked on huge, quivering pillars. Their arms stuck out at near-right angles from their sides, their eyes nearly disappeared in rolls of fat, their heads sat on massive rounded shoulders, necks reduced to nothing but rolled tubes of fat stacked one on top of another. Outside of the Warrens, he had never seen anyone who looked even remotely like them.
УThose are the Sleepers. They canТt argue,Ф Wraith said. УThey canТt fight. They donТt really know where they are or what is happening to them. They spend their lives in a walking SleepЧthe food they eat makes them fat, and it keeps them in the haze they live in. If the daily lessons didnТt tell them to feed their children and wash themselves, or sleep at night and use the toilet to relieve themselves, they would do nothing but suck Way-fare from their little dishes all day until they exploded.Ф
Velyn watched the mother carrying the babyЧhow she seemed almost unaware of it, and how it seemed uncaring of her oblivion. УAre they even human?Ф
УYouТll meet Jess soon,Ф Wraith said. He was watching for Smoke, praying that Smoke wouldnТt be among those who marched towardа.а.а. vanishment. УShe was once like those people. I got other food for her, and kept her away from the teaching screens and the house altars. Eventually, she got better. I freed other friends, too.а.а.а.Ф His voice trailed off.
Solander said, УThen someone is doing this to them. This isnТt what we see in the nightlies. This isnТt anything like the Warrens that everyone talks about. This isа.а.а.Ф He sat in his seat, transfixed, leaning a little toward the guards and their captives. УThis is worse.Ф
УItТs the worst place in the world,Ф Wraith said. УIf I could save everyone here, I would.Ф
УHow could we? Cut off the food they eat? Bring in better food?Ф
Wraith shook his head. УMost of them would die without their Way-fare. I tried to save older people, but they donТt last without their Way-fare three or four times a day. They start tearing their eyes out and screaming and beating their heads against the walls, and if you donТt get them back on the Way-fare fast enough, they die. Some children do, too, and thereТs really no way of knowing which ones will, or when itТs safe to try to save them, or when itТs too late.Ф
He tried not to think about that. Not now. Not with some new horror being unleashed on the people of the Warrens, people who were being dragged from their homes helpless and uncomprehending and led off to unknown horrors. These were more people he could not save.
The car started moving forward again as Velyn got her nerve back, and Wraith guided her through the broad, clean white streets to the place where Jess huddled in near-darkness, waiting.
Guards were working their way down this street, too.
УWe should wait,Ф Velyn said. УUntil theyТve moved past. Once theyТre past, we can open the doors and get your friend out.Ф
УWe canТt wait,Ф Wraith said. УThe guards are going into basement apartments, too, and they might open the one Jess is hiding in. And then weТll sit here and watch as they shoot her with their stop-sticks and drag her into the back of one of their trucks. And weТll have to watch as they drive off with her. And weТll never know where they go, or what has happened to her, or anything.Ф
Velyn said, УShit,Ф under her breath, and pulled the car up onto the walkway, angling it so that it blocked access to the basement door from the street.
УGet her fast,Ф she said. УThe second a monitor comes up to this aircar and wants to see my identification or to know what IТm doing here, IТm leaving. And if youТre not in the car, IТll leave without you. Either one of you, or both of you. Your father, Solander, will just have to guess what happened to you.Ф
УYou canТt leave me,Ф Solander said.
УIТm not going to spend time in Refinement for you,Ф she said, eyes locked straight forward, resolutely not looking at either Solander or Wraith. УSo get this person and letТs get out of here.Ф
Wraith took a deep breath and opened the door nearest the basement.
Chapter 3
Solander had no difficulty imagining a disastrous outcome for this whole exercise. He wanted to stay in the aircar. Hells, he wanted to tell Velyn to forget the whole thing, leave Wraith with Jess, and get out of the Warrens before something horrible happened. But he wasnТt going to find another Wraith out there somewhere, just waiting to make him famous. Wraith was a miracle, and Solander knew itЧand above all, he had to protect him, as he would protect any other investment in his future.
SoЧunaskedЧhe followed.
Across the narrow strip of walk at a crouch, down the stairs, through the already opened door intoЧ
Gloom. A stink that rolled over him with horrific potency; filth and sweat and food gone bad, things he couldnТt pin down and didnТt want to. His eyes adjusted, and he saw a pile of dirty blankets, and a stick-thin person in white rags gathering up blankets and little boxes and turning to look in terror at him. He flattened himself against the wall, thinking with horror, That stinking stick is going to sit its filthy body in my fatherТs state aircar?
And then Wraith was dragging the girl and her things and the box of food heТd given them the day before up the stairs, and grabbing Solander by the shirt and dragging him along behind, and Solander, finding himself flung back into the aircar, could only think, Wraith didnТt need me along after all.
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