"Liz Williams - Banner of Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Liz)

Yskatarina knew then that there was nothing she would not do to keep the Animus beside her. Hadn't
they always been together? And after the dreadful experience of transformation, the Animus was the only
being on which she could rely.
There was another change, too. Before, Yskatarina had been afraid of her aunt: dreading the touch of
Elaki's pale, plump hands, hating the way her aunt's great eyes would gaze at her with such chilly
calculation. But after the trans-formation, she also became aware of how much she truly loved Elaki. The
feeling overwhelmed her. She sat shiver-ing on the cot, filled with longing, and when Elaki next came to
see her, she threw her new arms around her aunt's shrouded form. Elaki pushed her away, wincing.
"You must learn to operate your limbs with more care, Yskatarina. The servomechanisms are
powerful."
"Thank you, Aunt. Thank you." But she could not have said what she was thanking Elaki for. It
occurred to her, vaguely, that this should have bothered her, but somehow she dismissed it.
When she was well enough to venture forth, Yskatarina and the Animus wandered together through
the shadowy passageways of Tower Cold. They learned the secret ways between the walls; they slipped
past hidden chambers as Yskatarina's artificial feet crunched and crackled on the thousand-year-old
bones of mice. Concealed behind living tapestries, they watched as the Steersmen Skull-Faces bot-tled
up the canopic jars and dispatched them into the boats that would carry them to the gates, there to be
launched upon the Night Sea for their endless journey. They traveled down to the depths, where the
mute-kin slaved on the production lines, assembling haunt-devices. They sat for hours above the docking
bays as the service ships headed out toward the Chain. They scuttled through the Weighing Chamber,
while the mourn-women sang the ancient songs, conjuringтАФso they saidтАФthe spirits of the future dead,
untied from the rivers of time. But Yskatarina did not understand what they meant by that, and when she
asked her aunt, Elaki only laughed and said that the mourn-women were filled with superstitions and
non-sense. The only places Yskatarina and the Animus did not go were the haunt-laboratories of Tower
Cold, sealed be-hind horrifying weir-wards, open only to Elaki.
And it was the Animus who learned with Yskatarina, upon the eve of her nineteenth birthday, that it
was to be her task to seek out one girl from the teeming billions of Earth and Mars and the inner worlds.
To seek her out and slay her.
CHAPTER 3
Mars
Two days before her departure for Earth, Dreams-of-War left the Memnos Tower and made a short
journey across the Crater Plain to Winterstrike, in order to register her depar-ture documents, undergo a
necessary modification, and take a medical assessment for her suitability to withstand the temporal forces
of the Chain. This last was merely a for-mality; Dreams-of-War was in excellent physical shape. She
knew, however, that at least once a week some luckless passenger was found shriveled and wizened at
the end of a voyage, ruthlessly aged by the forces that governed travel within the confines of the Chain.
It was, after all, a form of haunt-tech, and thus little understood except by the technicians of
Nightshade and presumably by the Kami who had given it to them. It was alien and could not be trusted,
at least if you were Dreams-of-War. The only piece of haunt-tech with which she was prepared to deal
was the armor, and that only because its previous occupant had been such a great warrior. And while
Dreams-of-War trusted the armor's spirit, it still oc-curred to her to wonder whether this was wise.
She further distrusted the prospect of the modifica-tion that she was about to undergoтАФmore alien
techтАФ and she did not care much for Winterstrike, either. The city was ancient, dating back before even
the Lost Epoch. Its black-and-crimson mansions and narrow streets were a testament to its age: basalt,
iron, stoneтАФold materials for an old city The more recent buildings rose up around the edges, etched
metal towers and turrets connected by hang-ing bridges.
Dreams-of-War took a rider, crammed with standing passengers, in through the southern gate of the
city, past the clan holdings and mansions, and finally past the sunken fortress of the meteorite crater that
had given Win-terstrike its name. She looked neither right nor left, though when the rider rumbled by the
great lip of the crater, her head involuntarily turned and she gazed into the pit: a caldera of garnet stone,