"Liz Williams - The Age of Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Liz)

The Age Of Ice by Liz Williams
Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is
director of a witchcraft supply shop. She is currently published by Bantam Spectra (US) and
Tor Macmillan (UK), appears regularly in Realms of Fantasy, Asimov's, and other magazines,
and is the secretary of the Milford SF Writers' Workshop. Some of the author's most recent
books are Banner of Souls, Nine Layers of Sky, The Poison Master, and her short story
collection The Banquet of the Lords of Night, which was published by Night Shade Books. Her
forthcoming novels include The Snake Agent, The Demon and the City, and Precious Dragon.
Her latest science fiction story is set so far in the future that it seems to show the truth of
Arthur C. Clarke's famous maxim that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
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I was in a tea-house in Caud, head bent over the little antiscribe, when the flayed warrior first appeared.
Everyone stared at her for a moment, tea glasses suspended halfway to gaping mouths, eyes wide, and
then it was as though time began again. The shocked glances slid away, conversation resumed about
normal subjects: the depth of last night's snow, the day's horoscopes, the prospect of war. I stared at the
data unscrolling across the screen of the ├втВм╦Ьscribe and tried to pretend that nothing was happening.

That wasn't easy. I was alone in Caud, knowing no one, trying to be unobtrusive. The tea-house was
close to one of the main gates of the city and was thus filled with travelers, mostly from the Martian north,
but some from the more southerly parts of the Crater Plain. I saw no one who looked as though they
might be from Winterstrike. I had taken pains to disguise myself: bleaching my hair to the paleness of
Caud, lightening my skin a shade or so with pigmentation pills. I had also been careful to come
anonymously to the city, traveling in a rented vehicle across the Crater Plain at night, hiring a room in a
slum tenement and staying away from any haunt-locks and blacklight devices that might scan my soul
engrams and reveal me for what I was: Hestia Memar, a woman of Winterstrike, an enemy.

But now the warrior was here, sitting down in the empty seat opposite mine.

She moved stiffly beneath the confines of her rust-red armor: I could see the interplay of muscles,
stripped of the covering of skin. The flesh looked old and dry, as though the warrior had spent a long
time out in the cold. The armor that she wore was antique, covered with symbols that I did not recognize.
I thought that she must be from the very long ago: the Rune Memory Wars, perhaps, or the Age of
Children, thousands of years before our own Age of Ice. Her eyes were the wan green of winter ice,
staring at me from the ruin of her face. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged. I knew better than to
speak to her. I turned away. People were shooting covert glances at me, no doubt wondering why I had
been singled out. The attention drawn to me by this red, raw ghost was the last thing I wanted.

I rose, abruptly, and went through the door without looking back. At the end of the street, I risked a
glance over my shoulder, fearing that the thing had followed me, but the only folk to be seen were a few
hooded figures hurrying home before curfew. Hastening around the corner, I jumped onto a crowded
rider that was heading in the direction of my slum. I resolved not to return to the tea-house: it was too
great a risk.

Thus far, I had been successful in staying out of sight. My days were spent in the ruin of the great library
of Caud, hunting through what was left of the archives. I was not the only looter, sidling through the
fire-blackened racks under the shattered shell of the roof, but we left one another alone and the
Matriarchy of Caud had bigger problems to deal with. Their scissor-women did not come to the ruins.
Even so, I was as careful as possible, heading out in the dead hours of the afternoon and returning well
before twilight and the fall of curfew.