"Ken Rand - Pheonix" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rand Ken)

Phoenix / Ken Rand.

ISBN 1-894869-96-6

I. Title.

PS3618.A614P48 2003 813'.6 C2003-906641-X
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my children—Molly, Michael and Missy.
Lisan Navarroclan
Lisan Navarroclan had just filled the water pouch from the well a few meters outside Holy Mother Anna
Devlin's alcove when she heard the old woman cry in pain, a sharp-edged groan piercing the night. Lisan
set the pouch beside the well and ran the few short steps back to the alcove.

“Holy Mother Anna, are you—"

As she pushed through the woven-whipgrass gate in the alcove's low mud-brick wall—high enough to
keep the goats out—she saw the old woman on hands and knees in front of the stone bench where
they'd sat together a moment ago. The Holy Mother's sapbalm pouch lay on the ground, an indistinct
black splotch in the dim starlight, like a dead hedge chicken. A few yellow thumb-sized balls of waxy
sapbalm lay where they'd fallen from the open bag mouth, glowing. The Holy Mother's long blond hair
hung like a curtain over her face, so scarred on one side that many of the children had been terrified when
they first saw her.

“Holy Mother,” Lisan muttered—a prayer, in part—as she ran to the woman's side, knelt and clutched
her bony ribs. The narrow ribcage rose and fell in spastic arrhythmia. Lisan could feel the old woman's
body heat. One stick-like hand groped for the nearest sapbalm ball. Just out of reach. The Holy Mother
groaned in frustration.

Lisan grabbed the errant ball and put it into the old woman's hand. She popped it into her mouth and
gulped it down. In a moment, Anna nodded thanks, head still bent low, hair still curtaining her face; and
Lisan heard her raspy breathing become less erratic and tense, felt her sides loosen. The sapbalm did its
magic, as usual, and Lisan marveled.

“What happened? Are you all right now?"

Anna nodded and tried to stand. Her knees quivered. Lisan let the gnarled old woman lean on her as she
eased Anna back onto the bench. Not for the first time, Lisan was astonished at how little Anna weighed.
Her bones must be hollow, like a sawk's.

“Please...” Anna gestured at the sapbalm balls scattered on the ground. “Please..."

“I'll gather them."

Lisan knelt and gathered the waxy balls, counting them as she did so. She placed each one back into the
pouch, secured the drawstring and handed it back to Anna. She sat at the old woman's side.

“I counted three hands and two fingers of sapbalm, Mother—"
“Seventeen."