"McIntyre, Vonda - Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

"Good-bye, Stavin. Will you remember later on that f you woke up, and that I did stay to say good-bye?"
"Good-bye," he said, drifting off again. "Good-bye, Snake. Goodbye, Grass." He closed his eyes, and Snake picked up the satchel and left the tent. Dusk y cast long indistinct shadows; the camp was quiet. She found her tiger-striped pony, tethered with food and water. New, full water-skins lay on the ground next to saddle. The tiger pony whickered at her when she approached. She scratched his striped ears, saddled -: him, and strapped the case on his back. Leading him, . she started west, the way she had come.
"Snake-"
She took a breath, and turned back to Arevin. He faced the sun, and it turned his skin ruddy and his t robe scarlet. His streaked hair flowed loose to his shoulders, gentling his face. "You will not stay?"
"I cannot."
"I had hoped. . ."
"If things were different, I might have stayed."
"They were frightened. Can't you forgive them?"
"I can't face their guilt. What they did was my fault. I said he could not hurt them, but they saw his fangs and they didn't know his bite only gave dreams and `
eased dying. They couldn't know; I didn't understand them until too late."
"You said it yourself, you can't know all the customs and all the fears."
"I'm crippled," she said. "Without Grass, if I cannot heal a person, I cannot help at all. I must go home. Perhaps my teachers will forgive me my stupidity, but I am afraid to face them. They seldom give the name I bear, but they gave it to me, and they'll be disappointed."
"Let me come with you."
She .wanted to; she hesitated, and cursed herself for that weakness. "They may cast me out, and you would be cast out, too. Stay here, Arevin."
"It wouldn't matter."
"It would. After a while, we would hate each other. I don't know you, and you don't know me. We need calmness, and quiet, and time to understand each other."
He came toward her, and put his arms around her, and they stood together for a moment. When he raised his head, he was crying. "Please come back," he said. "Whatever happens, please come back."
"I will try," Snake said. "Neat spring, when the winds stop, look for me. And the spring after that, if I do not come, forget me. Wherever I am, if I live, I will forget you."
"I will look for you," Arevin said, and he would promise no more.
Snake picked up the pony's lead, and started across the desert.