"03.Time Streams" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGough Scott)

It looked like a seagull's wing, only too large. A pelican?
A white sea lion? Jhoira blinked, rubbing her eyes. The sea
and sky were dazzling here. Maybe it was only a glaring bit
of foam.
No, it was more than that. It looked like fabric-perhaps
another student? Jhoira slid from the sandstone ledge and
eased herself down the tumbled hillside. One edge of the
white fabric was tied to something rigid-a spar. It was a
sail. Jhoira descended more quickly. Her sandal soles slid
on pea-gravel and sand. She thrashed past a brake of grass
and clambered down the cleft between two wind-carved stones.
The space gave out onto a wide beach of beige sand,
broken by rills of craggy black stone. Above one such rill,
a lateen-rigged sail jutted flaglike from a shattered wooden
hull. The impact had staved the boat's prow and splintered
the timbers amidships. Since then, the rocks had chewed away
at the frame, each new wave grinding the hull again on the
ragged stones.
Jhoira approached cautiously. So few ships arrived at
Tolaria. Most were the academy's own supply vessels,
captained by seamen hand-picked by Master Malzra. The island
was too remote, too removed from trade routes to attract
other ships. This boat must have drifted for some distance
off course before crashing. Perhaps it was abandoned.
Perhaps its crew had been washed overboard. Jhoira craned
her neck as she neared, looking for signs of life in the
ruined hulk. Her sandal prints filled with salty water
behind her. She reached the stony outcrop and climbed up
above the pitching wreck.
It was a small craft, the sort that might have been
manned by a crew of five or a crew of one. The deck was in
disarray-lines lashing loosely, small barrels rolling with
each sea surge. The hatch was open, and in the dark hold
Jhoira glimpsed gulls fighting over bits of hard-tack that
had spilled from broken crates. The mainmast was cracked,
though it still held aloft the raked sail, and the
mainsail's sheet was cleated off, as if the boat had been at
full sail when it struck the stone. It must have run aground
last night, when the Glimmer Moon had been obscured by a
midnight storm. The bow was gone entirely, but the stern
remained. A narrow set of stairs led downward to a small
doorway. The captain's quarters would lie beyond.
"What are you doing?" Jhoira asked herself worriedly as
she clambered down the boulder where the ship was impaled,
lifted one leg over the starboard rail, and hauled herself
onto the pitching deck. "This thing could come loose any
moment and roll over and drag me out to sea."
Even so, she crawled forward, reached the set of stairs
that led down to the captain's quarters, and descended. She
pulled open the red door and cringed back from the hot,