"02 - Sword Singer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

scrubbed a hand against her face and swept fallen pale hair out of blue eyes. "I
am in trouble enough because of the blood-debt. A man sent to fetch me back, to
kill me, could take my skills, my strength, my blade--all with a single word."
"But I know her name. You told me."
"I told you." The tone, now, was lifeless. "I had no choice. But you are a
Southroner, lacking the magic, the power, the knowledge; you know nothing of the
jivatma, and what it means. And yet you saw how it served you, how she served
you, answering your need."
"But not as she serves you."
"No. No, of course not." Distracted, frowning, she shook her head, and the
curtain of hair rippled. She had not braided it lately, leaving it loose to fall
over shoulders and down her back. "There are rituals--personal, private
rituals... no one else may know them. Only me, when I make the sword my own."
Her eyes were on the hilt poking above my left shoulder, freed by the slit cut
so deliberately in the seam of my russet burnous so that nothing would hinder me
if I required it. Theron's jivatma made powerless by his death. "Had Theron
known her name, he would have killed you. Killed me--"
"--and killed the sword." I nodded. "I understand, Del."
"No," she said, "you don't. But I cannot expect it of you. Not now. Not yet. Not
until--" And abruptly she shrugged, clearly choosing not to finish what she had
begun, as if I was not prepared to hear it. "It doesn't matter. Not the
understanding; not yet. What does matter is that you never again say her name,
not aloud, to anyone."
"No."
"No, Tiger."
I nodded. "No."
Her stare was so direct I wanted to look away, but I didn't. I saw her seek some
answer in my face, some expression she could trust, assurances unspoken but as
binding, if not more so, than the words. There had been many things between
us--death, life, survival; more than mere affection, more than simple lust--that
counted for very much, but I knew, looking at her now, that nothing counted to
her so much as a man who kept his word.
After a moment she turned her gelding north, toward Harquhal. She said nothing
more of the sword or my commitment to permanent silence, but I knew the slip was
not forgotten. Nor ever would be.
Hoolies, I hadn't meant it. But an apology wasn't enough, no matter how sincere.
In the circle, it means nothing to a dead man to hear his killer's apology.
Harquhal is representative of most towns in the South. Adobe walls ward it
against the wind, showing handprints and other geometric patterns laid in at
construction. Cracks are plugged with fresh gobs of claylike mud, meticulously
fingered into place, denying the wind and sand even subtle means of entry. But
walls, like intentions, are transitory; tents and stalls and wagons clustered
haphazardly around the perimeter of the walls like chicks around a hen, ignoring
the possibilities of such things as simooms and smaller sister storms.
Harquhal is also representative of most border towns. Serving Northerners and
Southroners alike, it has no nationality, and fewer loyalties. Ostensibly
Southron, Harquhal pays only haphazard allegiance to the land I call my home.
Here, wealth holds dominance.
Del and I had little. In the weeks since we had left Jamail with the Vashni in
the mountains near Julah, we had survived on wagers won and a few odd jobs here