"Martha Wells - Wheel of the Infinite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells Martha)

Maskelle stood and eased the kinks in her back. She wasn’t hungry anymore, even for tea, even for
rice wine. And she didn’t want to answer all the same questions from the others, once the smell of supper
permeated the wagons and they began to creep out. She nodded to Rastim and Old Mali and limped
toward her wagon. It stood slightly apart the way she liked it, the two oxen unharnessed and dozing over
fodder. Old Mali drove it for her during the day, and had opened the light wooden side panels when the
rain had stopped, so the interior could air out. Maskelle paused at the dropped tailgate, looking into the
dark. She could see the temple from here.
The massive domed spire was black against the lighter shade of the sky, the moon shape of the portal
below it barely visible; male and female phallic symbols woven together. The detail of the terraced
carvings was entirely lost in shadow. They had passed small sanctuaries along the way, but this was the
first time in too many years that she had been so close to a true temple.
She moved away from the wagon, one of the oxen snuffling at her as she drifted past. The temple was
calling to her, not the stone shell, but what it represented, and the power that likeness gave it.
She walked through the sodden grass until she came to the edge of the baray and stepped up onto the
stone bank. The Koshan priests had the custody of the temples, but they were only static forms. It was
the End of Year Rite that remade the universe in its own image, and that was only performed by the
Voices of the Ancestors. The End of Decade rites were even more crucial.
This year would be the End of a Hundred Years rite.
Maskelle lifted her staff, holding it above her head. An echo whispered through her, a reflection from
the Infinite through the structure of the temple. After all these years, it still knew her. “I helped another
stranger tonight,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill anyone to do it. Not intentionally, at least. Is that enough
for you?”
A slow wave of darkness climbed the temple wall, the lamps in the windows winking out one by one.
She lowered the staff and let out her breath. No, it wasn’t enough. And now they will all know
you’re back. Oh, the delight in the power never died, that was the curse, and her true punishment,
whatever the Adversary had decreed. She shook her head at her own folly and turned back to the camp.
She reached the wagon and climbed up the back steps, closing the panels that faced the campsite.
She sat on the still damp wooden floor, looking out at the temple and the silver surface of the baray in the
distance.
She was facing the right direction for an illusion of privacy, though voices from the other campsites,
oddly distorted over the plain, came to her occasionally. The night breeze was chilly on her wet clothes,
the drying mud itchy on her legs. And someone was watching her. She knew it by the way the oxen,
caught in the firelight from behind the wagon, cocked their ears. She found his outline in the dark finally,
about twenty feet away, sitting on his heels just out of reach of the light. She might have walked within ten
feet of him on the way to the baray. Again, the shock of being so taken by surprise was like ice on her
skin. She waited until it drained away, then quietly she said, “Come here.”
The breeze moved the short grass. He stood up and came toward the wagon.
Her staff, as much a part of her as her hands or feet, lay on the wooden bench of the wagon. He
stopped just out of arm’s reach. Her arm’s reach. She was within easy range of his sword.
He stood in the shadow where the wagon blocked the firelight, but the moonlight was strong. The
heavy siri rested easily on one lean hip.
Maskelle stretched out her foot, her toes finding the staff where it lay on the rough planks and
gradually easing it toward her hand.
“What did you do?” he said.
He couldn’t be asking her what she thought he was asking her; after a moment she realized he meant
the lamps in the temple. “I’m a Voice of the Ancestors.” That was still strictly true, if it didn’t actually
answer the question. “What were you doing in the outpost?”
“Getting killed. Did it look like anything else?”
Instead of taking the bait, she said, “That’s a fine way to say thank you.”
“I was going up river and walked into them.”