"Michelle West - The Memory of Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

And when she opened her mouth, when she began to speak, she left bruises there, aro
his lips, where her fingers grazed flesh. There, and in the dark of his eyes.

They kept her until the harvest's end, and then they traveled east, east to the Em
of Essalieyan. Her father and mother had argued three daysтАФand nights, tucked in
battleground of their bed, their voices loud and rumbling, their words muted by log wallsтАФ
in the end, her mother had won, as she often did. Her brothers were to stay; she was to tr
with the caravan until she reached the city, and from there she was to seek the Guild o
Makers.
"ButтАФbut, DaтАФ"
"It's your mother's decision, not mine. I don't send my kin toтАФ"
"Father," her mother had said, clipping both ends of the words between tight teeth.
Cessaly wanted to be happy. Or she wanted him to be happy. She wasn't sure. "But if I
makerтАФwe'll be rich. We'll be rich, Da."
 "You'll be rich," he said gruffly. "And we'll be farmers, here, in Durant."
"I don't have to live there."
He looked at his wife. His wife said nothing.
She did what any sensible girl would do. She went in search of Dell. Bryan was older,
minded his father's commands.
"Dell?"
"Aye, Cessaly."
"Why can't I live here?"
"They think you're maker-born," he said.
"But all of the makers don't live in the Empire."
"No."
"Then why do I have to?"
"Because you made that damn box, is why."
She wanted to tell him to burn the box, then, but she couldn't quite say the words. W
certain why. "I did bad?"
"You did too good," he told her, when he heard the tone of her voice. "And now they'r
afeared. Master SivoldтАФ"
"What?"
He shook his head. "It's nothing. They think you'll go crazy, Cessaly."
"Then why are they sending me?"
He shrugged. "Because all the crazy people live in the Empire?"
So she hit him. Lots. He wasn't supposed to hit her back.

The crowds wavered like a heat mirage in Gilafas' vision. The great doors had been ro
back, and light skittered off the sheen of marble and brass, abjuring its smoky green, its bla
its curling grays. Beyond the open doors, the grapple of a thousand people moved and twist
like the ocean's voice; he could make out no words because he could hear them all so clear
"Master Gilafas?"
He lifted a hand. "I thinkтАФI think, Sanfred, that I will have my pipe. Now."
"YourтАФah. That one. Yes, Guildmaster." He hesitated for just a moment, and the
waved another maker over and relinquished his grip on Gilafas' elbow, forgotten until
moment.
Everyone hovered. It was annoying. Their shadows against the floor, the fall of their
the drifting haze of their cloudy beards, made him think of the storm. He waved them a
Ocean voice, he thought. What am I to do today? It is not the time.
Sanity. That was his curse. He listened to confusion dispassionately, refusing, as he