"Liz Williams - Empire of Bones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Liz)

She wondered whether she had imagined the whole thing, but she had become too used to telling what
was real from what was not: the legacy of the conjuror's child. Her throat was dry with the thought that
there might be something be-yond the tricks after all.

But then, with a bitter pang of disappointment, she learned what she at that time believed to be the
truth—that the magi-cal locust, and the voice she heard, were nothing more than the result of sickness.
That night, she woke in a fever, and the next few days passed in a blur of heat and pain. Her father's
worried face swam above her, begging her to get well; promis-ing her that if she did he'd give up the
tricks and listen to the gods. Even in the depths of the fever, Jaya didn't believe him. She heard a
woman's calm voice saying in poorly articulated Hindi, "I'm giving her a dose of antibiotics; we'll see if
that brings the fever down."

"But what's wrong with her?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. We're seeing a lot of new diseases; some people say it's due to the crops
they're growing now, the genetic modifications… No one knows for sure."

And later, her father's uneasy, shifty voice: "I don't know where I'll find the money to pay, you see."

"The mission will pay, don't worry. That's why we're here."

Eventually, Jaya woke and found that the fever had gone. Light-headed, she stumbled through the door
of the hut into the compound. Chickens were scratching in the dry earth and a small child, one of the
neighbor's babies, stared at her with an unblinking gaze. Then suddenly the child's eyes became as yellow
as the sun, and Jaya screamed, but no sound came. The baby's gaze was abruptly soft and dark.
Shaking, Jaya leaned against the wall of the hut. Her joints burned and ached, and when she reached for
her plait of hair she was horrified to find that it was gone. Tears welled up in her eyes. Then her father
was there, with the nurse from the mission.

"Where's my hair?" Jaya shouted, and saw the nurse stifle a smile.

"Don't worry, sweetheart, it isn't gone forever. It'll grow back. We had to cut it, you see; it was full of
lice. You wouldn't want that, now, would you?"

In a little voice like a child's, Jaya heard herself say, "No."

"Well, then. Now, do you feel better?"

"A bit. My hands hurt."

The nurse took Jaya's hand in her own pale fingers and turned it over, as though she was going to read
Jaya's palm.

"How does it hurt?"

"It burns."

"Your knuckles are swollen—you poor little thing! I'm go-ing to leave some medicine with your dad;
we'll see if that works. We'll soon have you feeling better, won't we?"