"Tepper, Sheri S - A Plague Of Angels - plangel4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

you, but she remembers Olly, and she knows Oily loved you very much." Abasio swallowed deeply. "You all seem determined to go somewhere."
"No point in staying here," said Coyote. "Everything's done and over with. As prophesied."
"Not as prophesied!" Abasio blurted. "Oracle says not. Arakny says not. Both of them say the story Tom told about Olly's seven questions was a-a--"
"A fable?" suggested Bear.
"A lie!" snarled Abasio. "A lie, a damned lie, and why would she lie to me?"
"Well, as to that," said Coyote, "she never intended to. That last night, before she left, she sent for me. She gave me something to give you, when you asked for it."
Abasio merely gaped at him.
"Why you?" he whispered at last.
Coyote shrugged. "Because she couldn't tell you then. She didn't want to spoil what had happened between you. She wanted to take that with her,
she said. She needed it unsullied and perfect.""Perfect," he cried. "So little time--"
"One perfect thing that would last forever, so she said. But she always meant for you to know what no one else knows. No one but me, that is."


 A PLAGUE OF ANGELS 419

Abasio slumped against the wagon.
Coyote sat down gingerly, easing his splinted leg. "She said she had to live in your memory, Abasio. She said her whole life had to be lived through you. All the years you might have had together. She said you had to know everything about her."
"Tell me, then!" he cried.
"No. It isn't for me to tell, it's for her to tell." Coyote stood up and tried unsuccessfully to get into the wagon. Bear came to give him a boost. Abasio heard him nosing around, and in a moment he came to the front and dropped
something at Abasio's feet."What's that?"
"It was Arakny's library," said Coyote. "But Oily and the old man changed it. Now it's Olly's library."
"Put it on," grunted the Bear. "Turn it on."
Abasio sat beside the wheel, emptied the silvery chains into his lap, and
saw them assume the cap shape."On your head!" said Bear.
He put it on his head. Bear pointed to the button on the packet, and Abasio pushed it.
She came around the corner of the wagon, smiling into his eyes.
"Abasio.t" she cried. She came close. He smelled her scent, felt the warmth of her body.
"Oily," he said, reaching out for her. "You went away.t"
"1 did, yes. I had to go, Abasio. But I've left my love behind. For you." "Why?" he cried. "Why did you do it?"
"For loving you, Abasio. For loving the life we had. For loving it enough to want others to have it too."
"If you went away, how can you be here?"
"Old Seoca helped me put myself here for you. My dreams, Abasio. My
memories. Everything I am, or was." ' "Not real.t Not the real Olly.t"
Olly laughed, somewhat ruefully. "Which Olly did you make p'nash with ?"
He only gaped at her, so she answered the question for him.
"Whatever Oily she was, 1 am that one.t"
She laughed herself into his arms, and he held her while chasing stubborn, half-angry notions around in his head, none of them sufficiently strong to move him to let go of her. She felt real. Oh, by heaven, she f~lt real. As real as he himself. As all the monsters stalking the earth probably were, and Coyote and Bear.
"Oracle said you lied to Tom."
"Not really. I just didn't tell the whole truth."


Sheri S. Tepper

"Will you tell me?"
"I always meant you to know."
"What happened when you u'ent before the thrones, that time that Arakny and I waited outside?"
Oily stood away.from him, still holding him, looking deep into his eyes. "Hunagor spoke to me. She said she had some questions she wanted ans~,ered by an ordinary person. I told her I was ordinary enough, and she laughed at that. She said that in all the history of the thrones, they have seldom had to go so Jbr as they went with man, and they were interested in understanding why I thought this was so.
"Hunagor asked me why man did not learn from the recurrent famines
she had sent upon the earth.""What did you say?"
"1 told Hunagor what others had told me: that children are proofs of virility, and solutions that leave virility in doubt were not acceptable; that children are a way of controlling women, and losing control over women was not acceptable; that children grew up to make money or armies, and that not having money or armies was not acceptable. I said that men will not solve a problem unless they can find an 'acceptable' solution, and there are no acceptable solutions.[br some problems.