"Ann Maxwell - Timeshadow Rider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

Kiriy weapon. Za’ar tabu.
Za’ar death.
“That was a tough one,” said Jode as the pilot’s cocoon retracted. He looked up at Kane who was
standing and stretching as though nothing had happened. “Even your Wolfin body must have noticed it.”
 Kane rubbed the back of his neck and flexed his powerful shoulders. “I felt it.”
“Does that mean you’re going to be more reasonable about the next one?” asked Jode curtly.
Kane hesitated. He closed his eyes, searching his mind for the source of the uneasiness that had been
riding him with unsheathed claws for several weeks. In the last few days it had become intolerable. With
a muffled curse, Kane rummaged through his mind again, asking, demanding. Why? he thought. What in
all the billion suns is driving me across the face of the known galaxy? Why did I put ship and crew
through an orange za’replacement just to save a few hours when I don’t even know where in time I’m
going?
Jode looked up sharply. The Jhoramon psi-master’s austere face became even more grim as he
measured his captain’s flaring psychic unease. Jode did not attempt to initiate the more intimate
communication of mindspeech. Kane had never offered it in the four years they had been together. But
now, at this instant, the captain’s questions rang as clearly in Jode’s mind as they did in Kane’s.
There was no answer in either mind.
“I don’t know if I can be reasonable,” admitted Kane.
Jode’s black eyes narrowed as he studied his captain. “You’re acting like an azir’s chewing through
time to get to your soul. What’s wrong?”
“Azir,” muttered Kane. “Myth.”
“Don’t count on it, Captain. The Dust is full of them.”
Kane shrugged. His long, five-fingered hand raked through hair that was filled with hidden currents of
energy and vagrant gleams of light beneath the black dye he used to conceal his Za’arain heritage. “I
don’t know why or how or what, I simply know all the way down to the bottom of time that something is
wrong.”
“The bottom of time.” Jode closed his black eyes, then snapped them open again. “An odd phrase
for a Wolfin.”
Kane made a casual, dismissing movement with his hand, though the effort not to show his unease
was great. Some habits were nearly impossible to break. Patterns of speech were one. Patterns of
speech a Za’arain exile could not afford. Like the memories he could not afford—a child/woman’s
laughter following him through the galaxy, haunting him, a sound as beautiful and unattainable as the color
of time itself. But he would not think of Sharia. He could not. Forgetting was all that had kept him sane.
“Not all Wolfins ignore time as a dimension of reality,” he said to Jode in a casual voice. “Colonists,
in particular, are prone to heresy. In fact, both of my parents—”
Kane uttered a sharp sound of pain and grabbed for the crystal concealed beneath his tunic. The
jewel was suddenly alive, tormenting him. There was an endless instant of agony, worse than any orange
za’replacement, worse than anything Kane had ever known except the instant when Za’arain had
vanished from view as a lightship hurled him into endless exile.
The agony passed, freeing Kane. He straightened slowly and realized that Jode’s lean body was
levering him back onto the captain’s couch.
“You’re Wolfin in one thing, at least,” muttered Jode. “Stubborn to the living core of your bones.”
But there was fear and affection in the Jhoramon’s voice. “Lie down and stop fighting whatever your
mind is trying to tell you.”
“What do you mean?” said Kane, breathing quickly, feeling sweat cool across his skin. “That wasn’t
my mind.”
“Then what was it?” demanded Jode, fear racing through him in a cold explosion. “What’s riding
you?”
Kane’s body convulsed again as the hidden jewel resting against his chest stabbed deeply into his
timeshadow, twisting it. He forced his hand to go beneath the black tunic. With fingers that trembled he