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

each one. In the early days, they had written bottom-to-top and left-to-right, but somewhere around the
Age of Children this had changed. I was not sure how much difference, if any, this would make to the
antiscribe's pattern-recognition capabilities: hopefully, little enough. I tried to keep an ear out for any
interference, but gradually I became absorbed in what I was doing and the world around me receded.

The sound penetrated my consciousness like a beetle in the wall: an insect clicking. Instantly, my
awareness snapped back. I was crouched behind one of the stacks, a filmy fragment of documentation in
my hand, and there were two scissor-women only a few feet away.

It was impossible to tell if they had seen me, or if they were communicating. Among themselves, the
scissor-women do not use speech, but converse by means of the patterns of holographic wounds that
play across their flesh and armor, a language that is impossible for any not of their ranks to comprehend.
I could see the images flickering up and down their legs through the gaps in the stack--raw scratches and
gaping mouths, mimicking injuries too severe not to be fatal, fading into scars and then blankness in
endless permutation. There was a cold wind across my skin and involuntarily I shivered, causing the
scattered documents to rustle. The play of wounds became more agitated. Alarmed, I looked up, to see
the ghost of the flayed warrior beckoning at the end of the stack. I hesitated for a moment, weighing
ghastliness, then rose silently and crept toward it, setting the ├втВм╦Ьscribe to closure as I did so in case of
scanning devices.

The ghost led me along a further row, into the shadows. The scissor-women presumably conversed and
finally left, heading into the eastern wing of the library. I turned to the ghost to thank it, but it had
disappeared.

I debated whether to leave, but the situation was too urgent. Keeping a watch out for the scissor-women,
I collected an assortment of documents, switching on the antiscribe at infrequent intervals to avoid
detection. I did not see the ghost again. Eventually, the sky above the ruined shell grew darker and I had
to leave. I stowed the handfuls of documentation away in my coat. They rustled like dried leaves. Then I
returned to the tenement, to examine them more closely.

The knock on the door came in the early hours of the morning. I sat up in bed, heart pounding. No one
good ever knocks at that time of night. The window led nowhere, and in any case was bolted shut behind
a grate. I switched on the antiscribe and broadcast the emergency code, just as there was a flash of
ire-palm from the door lock and the door fell forward, blasted off its hinges. The room filled with acrid
smoke. I held little hope of fighting my way out, but I swept one of the scissor-women off her feet and
tackled the next. But the razor-edged scissors were at my throat within a second and I knew she would
not hesitate to kill me. Wounds flickered across her face in a hideous display of silent communication.

"I'll come quietly," I said. I raised my hands.

They said nothing, but picked up the antiscribe and stashed it into a hold-all, then made a thorough
search of the room. The woman who held the scissors at my throat looked into my face all the while,
unblinking. At last, she gestured. "Come." Her voice was harsh and guttural. I wondered how often she
actually spoke. They bound my wrists and led me, stumbling, down the stairs.

As we left the tenement and stepped out into the icy night, I saw the flayed warrior standing in the
shadows. The scissor-woman who held the chain at my wrists shoved me forward.

"What are you looking at?"