"Patricia A. McKillip - The Snow Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

to think of. A word in a puzzle. Four letters, the clue is: the first
word schoolboys conjugate."
"Schoolboys what?"
"Conjugate. Most likely Latin."
"I don't know any Latin," she said absently.
"I studied someтАж but I can't remember the first word I was taught.
How could anyone remember?"
"Did you feed the angelfish?"
"This morning."


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"They eat each other if they're not fed."
"Not angelfish."
"Fish do."
"Not all fish are cannibals."
"How do you know not angelfish in particular? We never let them
go hungry; how do we really know?"
He glanced at her, surprised. Her hands tightened on her arms; she
looked worried again. By fish? he wondered. Or was it a school of
fish swimming through deep, busy waters? He touched her arm; it
felt cold as marble. She smiled quickly; she loved being touched.
The school of fish darted away; the deep waters were empty.
"What word," he wondered, "would you learn first in a language?
What word would people need first? Or have needed, in the
beginning of the world? Fire, maybe. Food, most likely. Or the
name of a weapon?"
"Love," she said, gazing at the snow, and he shook his head
impatiently.
"No, noтАФcold is more imperative than love; hunger overwhelms it.
If I were naked in the snow down there, cold would override
everything; my first thought would be to warm myself before I died.
Even if I saw you walking naked toward me, life would take
precedence over love."
"Then cold," she said. Her profile was like marble, flawless,
unblinking. "Four letters, the first word in the world."
He wanted suddenly to feel her smooth marble cheek under his lips,
kiss it into life. He said instead, "I can't remember the Latin word

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for cold." She looked at him, smiling again, as if she had felt his
impulse in the air between them. His thoughts veered off-balance,
tugged toward her fine, flushed skin and delicate bones, something
nameless, blind and hungry in him reaching toward another