"Patricia A. McKillip - The Old Woman and the Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

Now that's strange, Arram thought.

He continued his walk. The rain fell, drenching, warm as a lover. He opened his mouth and drank; he
walked through water as through air, for who could know how many times his soul might have been a
fish? He had dwelled in water, under the earth. He had died again and again, and been reborn to the
same earth. Now he was a man, with a head full of misty memories. Dreams of other lives. There was
nothing in the world to fear; he had been, or he would be, every shape in the world. But still, when two
boulders crashed and split over his head, and the sky flashed a frosty color that was no color, the man
decided it was time to run.

He reached the lacework of caves in the rock just as eggs made out of ice began to fall out of the sky.
One struck him, a hard blow on his shoulder that drove him to his knees. He crawled the rest of the way
into the cave, sat against the wall in the dim light, rubbing his shoulder and wondering at the force of the
storm. The rock above his head seeped into his awareness. It had been battered times past counting,
nothing could destroy it. I would like to be a rock now, Arram thought. A puff of smoke made him
cough. A stone-painting on the cave wall was no longer a painting. It was the Old Woman. She lifted her
pipe, made lightning flash, and Arram saw her face.

He stopped breathing. She was the ugliest woman in the world, as well as the meanest, and he wasn't
sure what to say to her. He wanted to move very quietly and take his chances with the ice-eggs. But he
hesitated, and as he sat motionless, the Old Woman passed him her pipe.

He took a puff, not knowing what else to do, and passed it back to her. "So," she said in her croaky
voice, "you want to be a rock. Go ahead. Walk outside. You won't be a man very long. You won't be
anything recognizable." She laughed a reedy insect-laugh. Her hair was white as river-froth, her nose
humped and battered like the rock they sat under. She was shriveled, light as a bundle of twigs. She was
crazy with jealousy of the Sun, and she was dangerous. Her eyes were the color of lightning.

Arram sighed. He thought with longing of the butterflies along the river, of his love putting her hands on
his bare skin. Who would have thought a walk in the morning would have led to death? "The storm will
end," he said softly, and she answered, "I am the storm."

His eyes flicked at it. The sky was growing darker, the ice was still falling constantly as rain. His throat
closed suddenly. He wondered how far it could spread. It could batter homes to the ground, it could kill
children ....

"You're so angry," he breathed. "Why are you so angry?"

"You made me angry!"

"Me? What did I do?"

"I saw how you looked at the Sun this morning! She rose and touched your face and you followed her
without a thought .... "

"No, that isn't the way it was! She-I-"

"How was it? You looked at her as if she had never risen before. I saw you."

He nodded, confused. "That's the way it was. She was-But I-I was only remembering, the way I must