"Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Mitchell)

minds' rare talents — for warming themselves, and walking-in-the-air — also to make monsters in
women's wombs. On occasion, people of this territory have galloped after the few fliers that appear —
chasing those individuals by relays for many Warm-time miles — until the New Englander wearies or
loses attention, and descends or falls... to be seized and burned alive.
Monroe has put an end to that rough sport.
Finally, my lord Khan, a personal note. I had thought that Trapper cooking was shocking, and
Caravanserai's little better — mutton, mare's milk, and more mutton. I did not know when I was
well-off. Broccoli and goat-gut sausage... I'll say no more.
To you by my hand only — and otherwise unseen.
Neckless Peter Wilson

CHAPTER 3

Dieter Mayaguez, nine years old, heard singing in the sky. The sun dazzled him when he looked up.
His sheep shifted to left and right down the steep hill pasture as a shadow that might have been an eagle's
came out of the sun and raced up along the grass.
Dieter saw, a sling's throw high in the air, a girl wrapped in a long dark-blue coat, singing as she
sailed along the rise of the hill's slope. She flew sitting upright, yellow-booted legs crossed beneath her. A
curl-brimmed, blue hat was secured with black ribbons tied in a bow under her chin.
She held something across her lap, and flew slowly, steadily over him and away, her coat's cloth
ruffling as she went higher… then higher, to cross the ridge.
Dieter could still hear her singing. It was a song he didn't know. 'Mairzy doats.... dozy doats....'
Excited, he did a little dance in frost-browned grass. — Certainly a Boston person! He would tell
everybody, though only his mother would believe him. People were always saying they saw Boston
people, and usually were lying. Now he really had seen one, but only his mother would say it must be
true.
The sheep — so stupid — baaa'd and began to scatter. Dieter yelled, ran to circle them and hold
the ram. If his father had given him the dogs for high pasture, he wouldn't have to be running after the
fools.
A shadow came out of the sun — and he thought for a moment it was the singing girl come back.
But this was a much bigger shadow....
Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley, her song ended, settled into herself and Walked-in-air over the hills
— that 'pushing the ground away and behind' that fools called flying, as if fine-family New Englanders
were birds with wings.
True wings, an occa's, were following her, carrying her strapped baggage-packs and Webster's
basket. An occa stupid as all of them, but still an impressive result of mind-work on some debtor
woman's fetus. Cambridge-made in Cambridge Laboratory, Harvard Yard....
Patience closed her eyes a moment to better feel the slopes and outcroppings a hundred or so
Warm-time feet beneath her. She felt them rumble and bump, rough as she went over. But so much
soldier, so much better than the Gulf's shifting surface had been, its waves wobbling below her as she
went. That had been uneasy traveling — as had the whole several weeks of air-walking south from
Boston Town, when sailing a packet down and around and up into the Gulf would have been easier.
"Safer, too," her Uncle Niles had said. "But you will go the difficult way, and air-walk — or, by
Frozen Jesus, ground-walk — every mile south. It'll be good for you, Patience, knock some of the
Lodge-Riley hoity-toity out of you."
Her Uncle Niles loved her, just the same. She was his favorite niece.
And it had been good for her, those weeks of air-walking. The first weeks were on the ice-sheet,
then off it and down over warmer snowfields and sedge willow, past caribou ranches and little towns.
Air-walking, and when her mind grew tired, ground-walking. Then, the occa, too baggage-burdened for
her to ride, had circled overhead, hooting and honking as she strode along.