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

in supply wagons would be something else again." "You sound much more yourself, suddenly." He laughed, sounding almost joyous. "What'?" she demanded.
"I figured it out," he said, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder. "The tunnel. The bit-part players. It wasn't Oily who went at all! It was one of them. Dressed in her clothes. Looking like her. She was Werra's kindred. The old man wouldn't just let her go off like that! He'd have sent one of those things instead!"
Arakny stared at him in the starlight. "Why didn't they tell us?" "Couldn't. For fear we wouldn't react right. Everyone's told us how suspicious Ellel is. If we hadn't grieved, fussed, cried--Ellel would have known. It was important for her to go. They couldn't risk telling us."
"Do you really think so'?" Arakny whispered. "I could have sworn it was Oily who went out to the shuttle." It had been, she was sure. But... what if Abasio was right?
Abasio turned to face forward, rejecting all doubt. "It wasn't her," hc said firmly. "That's what her message meant: be resolute. She was... she was telling me she'd see me again."
Arakny's question stayed on her tongue, for the way steepened as thcy neared the road, and she had to hold on to keep from falling. Big Blue dug in his hooves to lunge upward, once, twice, again, and they were on the road, going toward the hidden canyon where they'd left the wagon.
Once there, Arakny slipped from Big Blue's back, intending to continue


A PLAGUE OF ANGELS 381

the conversation about Oily. One look at Abasio's face dissuaded her. Now wasn't the time. She reached up to touch his arm in farewell, then trotted off down the road toward the ArtemisJan lines. Behind her, Big Blue stepped carefully around the buttress of stone and past the wagon itself, headed up the wandering trail to the top of the mesa. Intermittent flashes of lightning came more frequently as the storm moved closer, each flash silvering the narrow way before them. Several brilliant flashes came simultaneously with a crash of thunder as the storm moved past, and then they were upon the
mesa top, the walls of the Place looming blackly off to their right. A voice came from somewhere around Big Blue's feet. "Whatso, Basio?" "Coyote?" "Who else?"
Abasio slid from the horse's back and crouched. In the next lightning flash he saw Coyote's face inches from his own, tongue lolling. "Who've you got out here?" Abasio asked.
"Bears. Big ones. And moose."
"What's moose?"
"Like elk. Only bigger." "Can they kill walkers?" Coyote shrugged. "Not likely." "So? What are you planning?"
Coyote's plan had to do with deep caverns and underground rivers and walkers being enticed to become lost or drowned therein by this stratagem or that artifice.
"We thought of some of that stuff, but not all," Abasio remarked. "You're clever."
"We like to think so," said Coyote modestly. "My hermit always told me to take advantage of the terrain. What are you doing out here?"
"We thought coordinating our strategy might help our cause. At least that way we'll all know what the others are doing."
Coyote scratched his ear. "You don't need to worry about the monsters. The Artemisians are disciplined and accustomed to taking orders. The ones you need to convince are the Heroes and the gangers. They're both a bunch of rugged individualists."
"I don't know what the hell gangers are even doing here," puzzled Abasio. "Where did they come from?"
"CummyNup brought them."
"CummyNup! How'd he--"
Coyote told him how, in the fewest possible words.
"Sybbis is down there?"
Coyote laughed at him without answering.


382 Sheri S. Tepper

Sybbis here! Abasio fought down an urge to howl, to scream, to throw himself off some convenient precipice. Ironic, wasn't it! The one he wanted with all his heart hidden from him; the one he didn't want not only present but searching for him. He couldn't deal with it now!
"If you'll help me get around to the west," he managed to say, "I'11 try
to talk some sense into the Heroes.""Don't tell them about Oily!"
"What... what about Oily? What do you know about Oily?"
Coyote examined him narrowly, cocking his head. "Why nothing, Abasio. Nothing you don't know."
"What am I not supposed to tell the Heroes?" he shouted.
Coyote nodded slowly to himself. "Shhh. I'm reminding you that rescuing maidens is what Heroes do. That's why they're here. Don't... confuse them about their mission."
Abasio shook his head, swallowing the lump in his throat. All right. So he wouldn't say anything to the Heroes about Oily being... being all right. Besides, she did need rescuing. She had to be somewhere in Gaddi House, and Gaddi House needed rescuing. "If you say so," he told Coyote. "You'd know best."
Coyote trotted off to the west. Abasio patted Big Blue and urged him in the same direction. They went steadily among the low trees of the mesa top, slowing only when they saw the glimmer of scattered campfires.
"Who goes there?" came a voice from the darkness.
"A friend of the maiden," called Coyote, flashing his teeth at Abasio before he went back the way he had come.
A bronzed and muscular form with a crested helm stood into the firelight and beckoned Abasio forward.
"Are you Orphan's Hero?" asked Abasio, when he came close enou[2h to be heard.
"We are all at the service of purity," replied the Hero. "We are all Orphans' Heroes."
"I'm the one from her village," said another Hero, who looked much like the first, "if that's what you meant."
"That's what I meant," Abasio acknowledged. "I've come under the wall, around the walkers' lines, to see if we can coordinate our strategy."
"Strategy!" cried Orphan's Hero, outraged. "Since when have Heroes stooped to strategy?"
Abasio considered this, taking his time. "It's unworthy of you, I know. If you were facing men or monsters, it would be inappropriate for me to suggest it. If we weren't so badly outnumbered, we'd not think of it. But we're not facing men or monsters, we're facing machines, and what might