"Thieves World - Beyond The Veil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

He shivered, told both agents to back off a bit. "I need quiet, room to relax."
They did, and he saw Critias's hand slip into his pouch where the Stepson
carried his charms and amulets.
Then Randal touched his own amulet, whispered a ward so that his mind could not
be snatched or tainted by hostile forces while he gave it up to a dead man, and
folded into a squat beside the corpse who'd been called Belize.
His fingers brought incense out of his belt. He lit it with a flint and steel,
feeling the tingling of trance begin in his toes, and put the joss stick in the
dead man's mouth.
Even before his palms had gone to the temples of the dead man, as he felt the
cool lips touch his fingertips, he got an impression: another pair of lips the
dead man had seen, lips with a gold coin between them, teeth biting down on a
Tysian half-crown to prove it was no gold-washed copper: he saw the face of the
head groom.
Then it faded. Randal's heart was pounding, pushing the trance-calm away. He
called it back, breathing deeply of the joss, causing his knees to feel as if
water ran over them and wondering why the "he" he sought could not remember that
Belize was its name. He called that name thrice, got no further impressions, and
then realized he was trying too hard.
He didn't want to call back the dead, only visit a fading mind. He closed his
own eyes and felt the cold flesh, telling the corpse he would avenge its death,
if only the murderer could be determined. Then he was in a stable with the smell
of marsh hay in his nostrils, then coming out.
Belize was not this man's real name, he realized as he recalled like his own
memory the rooftops and escape routes this sharp-eyed operator had detailed
before he climbed the steps. Then he lost all sense of "Randal." His palms were
sweating and he was wondering if the bad luck he'd had in meeting a Stepson who
fastened on him like a leech in the souk was an evil omen as he climbed the
stairsЕ
He'd heard a footfall, he was sure. Snnk! His throat stung. He slapped a
mosquito. Then there was a burning pain and a determination to beat back death
and see his assailant. The dart in his palm. Falling. Being turned, paralyzed,
helpless. Wanting to hold the mugger off; then hands at his belt, at his wallet.
Belize saw the face of his attacker, but it was swimming in pain and death: pale
eyes, pale hair, dirt obfuscating what the poison did not. A child; a girlish,
beardless face; a youthЕ "Randal? Randal!"
He knew that voice: Critias. He opened his eyes, knowing he couldn't yet feel
his extremities, and then realized he was sprawled on top of the corpse in the
exact position as was the body under him.
Legs like wood, his heart pounding loud in his ears, he scrambled off it and
sat, arms around his knees, to quell his shaking. "What did I say?"
"Nothing," Grillo replied. "Not a thing."
"He'sЕ he wasЕ up here to contact someone, deliver a message. He wasn't thinking
about that until the girl, or boy, or whatever, robbed him. Then he was just
thinking that he'd been at pains to protect the message."
"The face, Randal. Did you see a face?" Crit asked.
"Blond. Pale eyes. Teenager. Girl or boy, can't say. Very dirty face. And he was
partiallyЧalmost fullyЧparalyzed by then. But it was a child, an urchin, a
street waifЧsomeone from the free zone. Or a Rankan." Randal looked at Grillo:
There were many blond Rankans; even Grillo's dark ash-blond head might once have