"Janet Morris - Silistra 3 - Wind from the Abyss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

collar a moaning, pleading forereader. So do they punish wrongdoers at the
Lake of Horns. As long as she wore the band of restraint, the forereader could
not practice her craft. She was isolate. She was blind, deaf, and dumb to mind
skills. She could not sort. Neither could she best. She was helpless. She was
shamed. She was marked, disgraced. As was I.
When Carth had retrieved me, I had demanded to know, sobbing uncontrollably,
what it was I had done.
He had for me no answer, but that I wore the band for my own protection.
But after that, I began to wonder. I wondered until the child began to make
itself known within me, until I could think of nothing else. Ravening, it
tried to destroy me. In time, I tried to destroy myself, first, that perhaps I
would not spawn such evil upon the world. But it would not let me die. It
enjoyed too much the torture to which it could subject me from within.
When it was born, finally, after thirteen enths of labor, I refused to look
upon it. I would not feed it. They forced me twice, but the he-beast was ,so
agitated, red-faced, and howling, and its teeth so
10
Janet E. Morris
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
11
savage upon me, that they desisted. I had never heard of a child born with
teeth, but I had known it would have them. I felt their bite a full pass
before the thing demanded exit. I was glad to be rid of it, a pass before it
was due.
He could not blame me, surely, if he had seen it. If his mind had touched it,
he would not be angry. I leaned back against the window, waiting.
It was more than twice the third-enth Carth had given me before those doors
opened and he motioned me to him, his concerned eyes admonishing as I passed
by him into Khys's personal quarters.
The dharen stood by the gol table, stripping off trail gear as blue-black as
the thala walls. His copper hair glinted golden from the tiny suns,
Day-Keeper-made, that hovered near the hammered bronze ceiling.
Carth crossed the thick rust rug, soundless, to speak with him. Then only did
Khys look at me. I pressed back against the doors, trembling. His face, in
that moment, had been terrible with his wrath.
Carth made obeisance to himf and left the outer doors.
The dharen paid me no mind, but stripped himself of his leathers and weapons.
I watched him, the only man that had ever touched me. I had forgotten him, his
long-legged grace, his considerable mass so lightly carried, his ruddy,
glowing skin.
In his breech, he went and poured himself some drink and took it to his
rust-silked couch. Upon it he sat cross-legged, sipping slowly, his eyes
regarding me over the bowl's golden rim. The crease between his arched brows
deepened. He threw the emptied bowl to the mat, where it rolled silently upon
the thick pile. My throat ached, looking at him.
Then I recalled to myself that which he had done to me, and that which he had
not done. I
tossed back my hair and pushed away from the door.
"I was told you wished to see me," I said quietly, my fists clenched at my
sides.