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.It’s mostly reeds there.”Ulanda looked up sharply.“Reeds?”“Not the purple Camerat reeds.Green reeds, with puffy heads that explodewith seeds if you touch them when they’re ripe.”“What was she doing?”“When I saw her, just wading.She had been up the spiral; I could see the pathshe’d made in the grass.The fog rolls in from the ocean each night, it’s the only moisture most of the wild plants get outside the spiral.The sun burns the fog into gray and silver strands that thin out as they rise, leaving white streamers in the blue sky, then nothing.You think it’s barely happening then it’s over.But it takes an hour or more past the dawn to dry the grass to ground level, and longer where bushes shade it.“I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been noticed and stopped but instead ofcalling for Security, I sat on one of the rocks and watched her.She knew I wasthere.”The woman had to have heard the bells on the girdle, but she didn’t turn tolook, not then.Bells were the only sound except for the murmur of water, slowbut stronger for the stream, and faster but barely heard for her legs as theypushed through the surface leaving eddies behind.And occasionally, the crick-crick of an insect in the grass, and further, another spiral path perhaps, ananswer to the small insect’s call.Even when she waded to the shore, she didn’t speak.Moving heavily, shestepped out and lowered herself to one knee before sitting, again heavily, asthough the dry ground had risen unexpectedly to meet her instead, and the forceof the impact had knocked the wind out of her.Pushing her hair back, she twisted it into a single long rope, but left it untied.The wind blew it out again in moments.“Are you fasting?” she asked, turningenough to see and unstick a flap of her roll at the same time.Her nose wassunburned.“Yes,” Li-Fu replied.The woman sighed and closed the flap over a black bun, but not before Li-Fuhad seen the shape of a crystal rifle, the red barrel spotted with crumbs.And saw now, as well, the wearing of cloth along the near thigh, the pant leg and on the tunic where the harness would rest.Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: Ri“I’ve heard it doesn’t help,” the woman said, and her head turned a bit more,enough for Li-Fu to see a lop sided smile, or a twist of her lips that could have been a smile or part of a frown.There was nothing in the tone of voice to saywhich.Li-Fu slipped off the rock in a shower of ringing bells and moved closer.“AndI’ve heard I didn’t have an option.”It was a smile, at least by then.“Is it tonight?”“Tomorrow.Sunrise.”A shrug and the woman looked away to the stream.Water-riders skated whereshe had walked, the water cleared to show eddies in the sand on the bottom, andher footprints almost vanished.And one more look: “Good luck, then.”Li-Fu started to laugh.“Luck?”The woman spoke to the water.“Luck.Hold your tongue right, whatever.Weara charm.How the hell should I know?”Moving onto her knees, Li-Fu looked towards the point of the diamond beforecontinuing.“I saw her one more time, the inner Temple this time, leaning against the pillar closest to the entrance, but on the counter-way side.I suppose she was there because of Father, even if she didn’t know it.I don’t think she needed to know things to do them.I don’t know what the guards thought letting her in, orperhaps they didn’t even see her, or saw of her what they wanted to.As theymust have when she was wading in the stream.”Li-Fu was looking at her hands as she spoke, at the braiding that formed ridgesfollowing the line of each finger back to the wrist.Ulanda didn’t think she could move them much.“The Simic style of the Initiation ceremony is very slow.I still don’t like the waiting.We don’t get Initiates from Lillisim so much as from other Simic worlds.That I survived mine draws them.” She turned her hands again in a shower of silk as she spoke.The effect, with a robe that matched her silver hair, the contrast with her amber skin, should have been beautiful, and on the ship, it had been.“Both my parents were there, my mother because my grandmother had saidshe could be, and my father, well.he was difficult to say no to even then.Icouldn’t bear to watch them, so when I needed to look away, I looked at her.She had her arms crossed and I couldn’t see her hands, but I didn’t think anything of it.” Stopping, Li-Fu tried to flex the thumb of her right hand.“Too tight?”“Very.I thought I could last it out.Clanny did his best, he’s pathetically eager to please.It’s not having an intact Net, I can’t give him the kind of feedback he needs.”“And you’re not Poultat.”“No.And I’m not her.”Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: RiWelcome to the club, Ulanda thought.But said, “Your vass’lt, he was Simic?And a goat herder?”“No, a tanner.Goat leather, of course.” She sighed.“And he lived close toTemple.He would have known my mother from when they were children.I foundthis out later, of course.Regardless of what Father invented of the story he told, some of it he made to fit what had happened.And as far as I know, it doesn’tmatch any of the books he collected [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]