"Elizabeth Moon. The Speed of Dark " - читать интересную книгу автора

Suddenly I hear the music of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet , the
stately dance. It fills my head, and I move into that rhythm, slowing from
the faster movements. Tom slows as I slow. Now I can see it, that long
pattern he has devised because no one can be utterly random. Moving with
it, in my personal music, I'm able to stay with him, blocking every thrust,
testing his parries. And then I know what he will do, and without thought
my arm swings around and I strike with apunta riversa to the side of his
head. I feel the blow in my hand, in my arm.
"Good!" he says. The music stops. "Wow!" he says, shaking his head.
"It was too hard I am sorry," I say.
"No, no, that's fine. A good clean shot, right through my guard. I
didn't even come close to a parry on it." He is grinning through his mask.
"I told you you were getting better. Let's go again."
I do not want to hurt anyone. When I first started, they could not get
me to actually touch anyone with the blade, not hard enough to feel. I
still don't like it. What I like is learning patterns and then remaking
them so that I am in the pattern, too.
Light flashes down Tom's blades as he lifts them both in salute. For a
moment I'm struck by the dazzle, by the speed of the light's dance.
Then I move again, in the darkness beyond the light. How fast is dark?
Shadow can be no faster than what casts it, but not all darkness is shadow.
Is it? This time I hear no music but see a pattern of light and shadow,
shifting, twirling, arcs and helices of light against a background of dark.
I am dancing at the tip of the light, but beyond it, and suddenly feel
that jarring pressure on my hand. This time I also feel the hard thump of
Tom's blade on my chest. I say, "Good," just as he does, and we both step
back, acknowledging the double kill.
"Owwww!" I look away from Tom and see Don leaning over with a hand to
his back. He hobbles toward the chairs, but Lucia gets there first and sits
beside Marjory again. I have a strange feeling: that I noticed and that I
cared. Don has stopped, still bent over. There are no spare chairs now, as
other fencers have arrived. Don lowers himself to the flagstones finally,
grunting and groaning all the way.
"I'm going to have to quit this," he says. "I'm getting too old."
"You're not old," Lucia says. "You're lazy." I do not understand why
Lucia is being so mean to Don. He is a friend; it is not nice to call
friends names except in teasing. Don doesn't like to do the stretches and
he complains a lot, but that does not make him not a friend.
"Come on, Lou," Tom says. "You killed me; we killed each other; I want
a chance to get you back." The words could be angry, but the voice is
friendly and he is smiling. I lift my blades again.
This time Tom does what he never does and charges. I have no time to
remember what he says is the right thing to do if someone charges; I step
back and pivot, pushing his off-hand blade aside with mine and trying for a
thrust to his head with the rapier. But he is moving too fast; I miss, and
his rapier arm swings over his own head and gives me a whack on the top of
the head.
"Gotcha!" he says.
"You did that how?" I ask, and then quickly reorder the words. "How
did you do that?"