"Martha Wells - Fall of Ile-Rien 02 - The Ships of Air" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells Martha)

тАФ "Ravenna's Voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
V. Madrais translation




Tremaine picked her way along the ledge, green stinking canal on
one hand, rocky outcrop sprouting dense dark foliage on the other.
She was exhausted and footsore and at the moment profoundly
irritated. She said in exasperation, "All they have to do is get on the
damn ship. Is that really going to be so hard?"
"It's the eyes," Giliead told her obliquely. He and Ilias were just
ahead of her on the narrow shelf of rock, both men having a far
easier time of traversing it than she was. The mossy water a few
feet below was foul-smelling and stagnant, inhabited only by weeds
and the occasional brightly colored snake. These canals cut through
the rocky island in several directions, leading to and from the stone
buildings that housed entrances to the deserted waterlogged city that
wove through the caves below. The builders, whoever they were,
had used black stones twenty or thirty feet long to line the
watercourse, stacking them like tree trunks in the same way they
built their underground walls and bridges.
"The ship doesn't have eyes." Tremaine struggled along, sweating
in the damp air. The canal was overhung by the twisted dark-leaved
trees; the overcast sky made it even more dim. For years the island
had been a trap for seagoing vessels and the crews who sailed them;
the whole place felt as if the corruption in the caves below had
crept up through the roots of the stunted jungle.
"That's the problem," Giliead said, glancing back at her as he
brushed a branch aside. "She just looks likeтАФ"
"A big blind giant," Ilias supplied, balancing agilely on the slick
stones. They were both Syprians, natives of this world on the other
side of the etheric gateway from Ile-Rien. They were brothers,
though only by adoption, and they looked nothing alike. Ilias had a
stocky muscular build and a wild mane of blond hair, some of it
tied into a queue that hung down his back. He wore battered dark
pants and boots with a sleeveless blue shirt trimmed with leather
braid. Giliead was built on a bigger scale, nearly a head taller than
Ilias, with chestnut braids and olive skin, dressed in a dark brown
shirt under a leather jerkin. Both wore more jewelry than had been
fashionable for men in Ile-Rien for many yearsтАФcopper earrings,
armbands with copper disks. Ilias also had a silver mark on his
cheek in the shape of a half-moon, but that wasn't meant to be
decorative.
Tremaine let out a frustrated breath as she ducked under a heavy
screen of pungent leaves. She was the odd woman out, with short
mousy brown hair and sunburned skin. She was wearing Syprian
clothing too, a loose blue tunic block-printed with green-and-gold
designs and breeches of a soft doeskin. Her clothes were a little the
worse for wear but in better shape than the unlamented tweed