"Liz Williams - Wolves of the Sprit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Liz)

rocks beneath the lighthouse. My mother nursed him back to health; they fell in love,
she fell pregnant.
He left anyway, when the next provisions drop came. They winched him up
onto the copter and that, my mother said, was the last she saw of him. She cried, but
not for long. There was too much to do. He did not come back.
She stayed, and brought me up, here at the Baille Atha light. We were not
confined to the lighthouse itself. We would skate out across the green expanse to
where the birds are, so thick along the ice cliffs that the air is one great shriek. And
beyond the birds are the selk, and in winter, the selk sing.
Until the arrival of the man, I heard them only once, when I was a child and
my mother had taken me out onto the icefield.
тАЬMother?тАЭ I said, when we had skated almost as far as the edge of the cliffs,
our high-proof slickskins barely keeping out the cold. тАЬWhere are we going?тАЭ
And she said, тАЬWhy, weтАЩre going to the end of the world.тАЭ
Beyond the cliff, the sea was like metal. As we reached the top and looked out
over miles of silver water, the seabirds came up in a cloud and settled back down
again. Their shrieking ended. The icefield was suddenly very quiet.
тАЬWhy have they stopped?тАЭ I asked. I looked up at my motherтАЩs face behind
the translucent film of her slickskin; it was rapt and distant, her grey eyes fixed on
the far horizon.
тАЬWhy?тАЭ I asked again, but she ignored me.
I didnтАЩt know what it was when I first heard it. It was thin and high, as cold as
the wind. It drifted out across the icefield and we stood still in its path, frozen in the
wake of sudden song.
тАЬMama?тАЭ but I never knew whether I had spoken the word aloud or whether
the song had conjured it, was speaking to me out of the air. But my mother reached
out and took my hand and drew me forward, to the very lip of the ice.
 The sea churned, hundreds of feet below. I felt dizzy if I looked down, so I
stared ahead instead, out to the bright line between sea and sky, and let the song go
on.
My mother nudged me. тАЬThere. Can you see them?тАЭ
I looked down, wished I hadnтАЩt, but she was holding tightly onto my arm and
then I realized that the song itself would not let me fall.
The selk lay on the rocks below. They are nothing like the sirens of old Earth:
there is little that is womanly or fair about them, although they were interbred with
human genes. Like seals, but larger and more tapered, with front paws that are
almost hands and with which they are able to manipulate basic tools. But they had no
real need of tools, not with that song. It crept into my head and it spoke to me of the
northern seas, the deep green, the dive and the rush. Listening to that song, I knew
what it was like to be something other than myself.
I donтАЩt know why they stopped. Perhaps they glimpsed us far above and took
us for predators. But abruptly, their song ended and they slid over the edge of the
rocks and into the water, one, two, three. A ripple marked the point of their dive and
we did not see them again. The weather was changing, a storm driving down out of
the north, and we skated fast before it, arriving back at the lighthouse just as the first
flakes of snow hit. We locked the doors behind us and looked out at white sea,
white sky.
тАЬThere,тАЭ I said. тАЬThat place, the cliffs. Is it really where the world ends?тАЭ
тАЬNo,тАЭ my mother replied. тАЬBeyond the sea is Darkland, the home of our
enemies, where the vitki come from.тАЭ