"Sheri S. Tepper - Dervish Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

and fogged by a dense cloud of ghost moths - and a
circle of rocks rimming a pool of ash. And the corpses.
Three of them this time; man, woman, and baby.
Starved to death, from the look of them, and with food
all round for the picking or digging - furry, thick-
skinned pocket-bushes full of edible nuts, a northern
thrilp bush - smaller fruit, and sweeter than the south-
ern variety - table roots just beside the tiny stream.
'Hell,' I said to Queynt, disgusted. 'I suppose they've
got those yellow crystals in their mouths, like all the rest.'
Half-right. In the lantern light we could see the male
corpse had one on a thong around his neck; the female
had one in her mouth, having sucked herself to death
on it. Their bodies were still warm. The baby was cold,
probably dead of dehydration after screaming his lungs
out for several days trying to tell someone he was
hungry and thirsty and wet.
Chance and Peter were dismounted by the corpses.
Peter gave me a troubled look, knowing I'd be upset by
the baby. Chance eased his wide belt and mused, 'I
suppose we could dig them in, though there seems
little sense to bother.'
At first we'd stopped to bury the human dead along
the road, but they had become more and more numer-
ous as we came farther north. There had soon been too
many to bury, but it still bothered me to let the babies
lie. 'I'll bury the baby,' I said in a voice that sounded


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CHAPTER ONE

angry even to me. 'Let the others alone.'
Queynt shook his head, but he didn't argue. All the
babies reminded me of one I'd taken care of in a class
back in Xammer. The one in Xammer had the same
baffled look when he fell asleep that many of the dead
babies did, as though it had all been too much for him
and he was glad to be out of it. I wrapped this one in
our last towel, reminding myself to buy towels the next
time we got to any place civilized - if there were any
place civilized in these northlands. I'd used up our
supply burying babies and children.
Queynt said, 'Jinian, if you're going to go on like this,
I'll lay in a supply of shrouds. It would be cheaper than
good toweling.'
I flushed, getting on with the half-druggled grave I
was digging with the shovel we used for latrine ditches.
'I know it doesn't make sense, Queynt, but otherwise I
get bad dreams.' He already knew that; we'd discussed