"Daniel Marcus - Heart of Molten Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marcus Daniel)

river disappeared abruptly.Falls .

We looked at each other for a long moment. I wanted to say something to him, but I didn't know what.
Then he braced himself against the railing and I tightened my grip on the wheel.

We went over the edge and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. Ahead of me I saw a twenty meter
drop down a crystalline channel of glowing stone into a cauldron of roiling fire.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

A sheet of lava washed up over the bow of the barge, freezing into glassy stone as it hit the deck. It sent
a molten tongue lapping at my feet and splashing up my legs. I felt a moment of intense heat before my
e-field polarized, wrapping my thighs in a skintight funhouse mirror that faded to transparency as the lava
cooled. I kicked the crust from my legs and held on to the wheel.

Beside me, Flint lost his grip. I saw him tumble and slide back the length of the barge and grab the back
railing. He didn't have much of a grip, though, and I could see him struggling to hang on.

Leilani was back there, too, braced securely against the frame of the barge. She could have reached out
and helped him. I saw it clearly. There was the space of a heartbeat, maybe two, when she could have
reached out her hand and saved him.

His scream buzzed in my mastoid speakers as he lost his grip and disappeared into the fire.

Suddenly, everything was calm again. We were floating downstream bobbing on the lava current. The
falls behind us appeared impossibly high. I looked, but saw no sign of Flint. I turned the barge around
and sped back to the base of the falls. I got as close as I could, and looked for him long past the time his
e-field would have failed. He was gone.

Leilani had come up to the com. I turned to her and grabbed her shoulders. My ears popped as our
e-fields equilibrated and merged.

тАЬWhat's wrong with you?тАЭ I shouted. тАЬYou could have saved him!тАЭ

She looked impassively back at me. Her ebony skin glowed in the hellish light and her scars stood out in
bold relief.

тАЬLove...тАЭ she said. I'd never heard her speak before and her voice was like the sound of metallic bees,
low and without inflection.

I reached back and struck her with the back of my hand as hard as I could. Her head jerked back and a
trickle of blood flowed from the corner of her mouth.

тАЬNot...тАЭ

I struck her again. Her lip split open.

тАЬPower.тАЭ

I balled up my fist and struck her again. She staggered back, tripped over the railing, and fell into the