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

Maskelle leaned on her staff. “Because I said so.”
“Oh.” Rastim contemplated the wagons thoughtfully, then looked down at his shirt where the
downpour was making the cheap dyes of the embroidery run, and sighed heavily.
Maskelle would have promised him better, if she made promises.
He glanced at her, brows lifted. “So, there’s no chance of just stopping and drowning here, say?”
“No, I think we’ll keep moving for now and drown a little further up the road.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Then can you come and take another look at Killia’s poppet? She thinks she’s
worse.”
Maskelle rolled her eyes to the Ancestors. Rastim was an Ariaden, and they never believed in giving
bad news without a lot of preamble, no matter how urgent it was. She started down the hill and plunged
back into the mud river.
Killia’s wagon was painted with geometric designs in bright red and yellow, now splattered with dirt
from the long journey. Maskelle caught the handhold at the back and stepped up onto the running board,
which barely cleared the soupy mud. She knocked on the shutter and it was immediately cranked
upward. Killia extended a hand to help her in, and Maskelle discovered she needed it; her light cotton
robes were so drenched that they added an unexpected amount to her weight. She sat on the bench just
inside the entrance so she could wring them out a bit and wait for her eyes to adjust to the dark interior.
Various wooden bowls caught the leaks from the roof, but there were still puddles on the lacquered
floor. Overhead, cooking pots banged into empty cage lamps and the bags that held costumes and
drapes for the scenery, bundled up to keep them out of the water. Killia’s daughter was huddled in one
of the two narrow bunks under a mound of damp blankets. Maskelle leaned over and burrowed in the
blankets until she touched warm skin. Too warm. She swore under her breath.
“Bad?” Killia asked. She was a tiny woman with the pale skin of the Ariaden and long dark hair
caught back by a number of clips and ribbons. Her face had the perfection of a porcelain doll’s and to
Maskelle she looked hardly more than a child herself, but her eyes were old.
Maskelle shook her head. The priesthood took oaths to the truth, but she had broken all her oaths
long ago and Killia had enough to worry about. “I’ll have to go down to the river for some more
ivibrae—the real river, not the one under the wagon.”
Killia smiled briefly at the feeble joke. “Ivibrae for lung rot?”
“Ivibrae is good for any fever, not just lung rot. The girl doesn’t have lung rot,” Maskelle told her, and
thought, Not yet, anyway.
Killia didn’t look reassured. Maskelle gathered her sodden robes and jumped down off the
wagonbed.
Rastim had been walking behind it and the spray of mud as she landed splattered both of them. They
eyed each other in mutual understanding; it had been one of those days. She said, “Camp in the Sare if
you can make it before dark. If you’re not there, I’ll look for you along the road.”
He swept her a theatrical bow. “Yes, O Great Protectress.”
“You’re welcome, Rastim,” Maskelle said, and splashed toward the heavy dark wall of the jungle.



Two hours later Maskelle wasn’t so sanguine herself. The thick clouds made the night fall faster under
the jungle canopy, and though the broad-leaf palms protected her from heavy rain, the going was still
laboriously slow. She reached the river while the jungle was still a deep green cave, dripping and quiet,
and stood on the bank to watch the swollen waters. The river was running high and drunk on its own
power, gray with mud and crested with foam. It was the source of wild magic, especially as bloated with
rain and powerful as it was now; it would be a channel for any dark influence that cared to use it.
It was none of her business. Maskelle shook her head. Keep telling yourself that. The ivibrae
proved annoyingly elusive; usually it grew at the very edge of the treeline above the river, but there were
no patches to be found in the usual spots, and she found herself having to slide dangerously down the