[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
occupancy. Her base established, she found a lateopen tailor and ordered new
clothing, found one of her fa-vorite cookshops and ate standing up,
watching the life of the Harbor Quarter teem around her.
The next six days she prowled the night, in and out of houses, winding through
back alleys, following the stench of corroded souls, killing until her own
soul re-volted, drinking the life of her victims, feeding the chil-dren,
renewing her own vigor, drinking life until her flesh gave off a glow like
moonlight. As the children edged in their slow way toward maturity, their
capacity to store energy increased. Now they needed recharging only every
second year, but it took many nights of hunt-ing to fill their reserves. Back
when Slya forced the choice on her she hadn t realized the full implications
of her decision. She was, despite her appearance and the compressed experience
of the past months, only twelve years old when that decision was made; she
hadn t known how weary she could get of living (admittedly not every day, many
of her days were con-tented, even joyful, but the dark times came more often
as the decades passed), she hadn t known how crushing the burden of feeding
the children would become, she hadn t known how much their appetite would
increase, how many lives it would take to sate their hunger, how loathsome she
would look to herself no matter how careful she was to choose
badlives. Kings and merce-naries, counselors and generals, muggers, pimps
and assassins, all such folk, they seemed able to live con-tentedly enough
though they killed and maimed and tor-tured with exuberance and extravagance,
but at the end of her bouts, of gorging, she was so prostrated and
self-disgusted that she wondered how she could bring her-self to do it again;
yet when the children were hungry once more, she found the will to hunt; they
began as innocent victims of a god-battle they hadn t asked to join and
finished as victims of her confusion and her preference for her own kind; to
let them starve would be a greater wrong than all the killing lumped together.
On the seventh evening when her prowling was done for a while and her new
clothes had been delivered, she moved from the tavern to a better room in, a
better Inn in a better neighborhood, close to the wall that circled the
highmerchant s quarter, a four-story structure with a bathhouse and a pocket
garden for eating in when the days were sunny and the evenings clear.
Brann gave a handful of coppers to the youth who carried her gear and showed
her to the room she d hired for the next three nights; she watched him out,
then crossed to the single window and opened the shutters. Hunh, not much of
a view.
Jaril ambled over and leaned heavily against her. Nice wall.
Yaril squeezed past them and put her head out as far as she could; she
looked up and around, wriggled free and went to sit on the bed. Should be
bars on the windows. Bramble, our Host down there obviously didn t think much
of you, putting you in this room. Should we leave the shutters open to catch a
bit of air, anyone could get in here. The top of that wall is just about even
with the top of the window and it s only six feet off, if that.
Brann smiled. Pity the poor thief who breaks in here. She left the window,
prodded at the bed.
Better than the rack in that other place. My bones ache think-ing about it.
Uuuh, I m tired. Too tired to eat. I think I ll skip supper and spend an hour
Page 25
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
or so in the bath-house. Yaro, Jay, I d appreciate it if one of you gave the
mattress a runthrough before you bank your fires, make sure we ve got no
vermin sharing
the room with us. I can t answer for my temper if I wake itching.
Unlike Hina Baths, the House was divided, one side for women, the other for
men and the division was rig-idly maintained. The attendant on the women s
side (a female wrestler who looked more than capable of thumping anyone, male
or female, who tried to make trouble) didn t quite know what to make of Brann;
she wasn t accustomed to persons claiming to be females who wore what she
considered male attire. Half an-noyed, half amused, too tired to argue, Brann
snorted with disgust, stripped off her shirt and trousers. De-monstrably
female, she strolled inside.
The water was steamy, herb scented, filled with small bubbles as it splashed
into a sunken pool made of worn stones, gray with touches of amber and russet
and chalky blue. Nubbly white towels were piled on a wicker table near the
door into the chamber, there were hooks set into the wall for the patron s
clothing, a shallow saucer of soap and a dish of scented oil sat beside the
pool beneath a rail of smooth white porcelain, scrub-bing cloths were
draped over the rail. Brann hung up her shirt and trousers, dropped
her underclothing beside the towels, tugged, off her boots and put them on a
boot-stand beside the table. Stretching, yawning, the heat seeping into muscle
and bone, she ambled to the pool and slid into water hot enough to make her
bite on her lip and shudder with pleasure when she was immersed.
She clung to the rail for a moment, then began swim-ming about, brushing
through the uncurling leaves of the dried herbs the attendant had dropped into
the water as she opened the taps that let it flow from the hot cistern. She
ducked her head under, shook it, feeling the half-inch of new hair move
against her skull.
Surfacing, she pulled herself onto the edge of the pool and began soaping her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl karpacz24.htw.pl
occupancy. Her base established, she found a lateopen tailor and ordered new
clothing, found one of her fa-vorite cookshops and ate standing up,
watching the life of the Harbor Quarter teem around her.
The next six days she prowled the night, in and out of houses, winding through
back alleys, following the stench of corroded souls, killing until her own
soul re-volted, drinking the life of her victims, feeding the chil-dren,
renewing her own vigor, drinking life until her flesh gave off a glow like
moonlight. As the children edged in their slow way toward maturity, their
capacity to store energy increased. Now they needed recharging only every
second year, but it took many nights of hunt-ing to fill their reserves. Back
when Slya forced the choice on her she hadn t realized the full implications
of her decision. She was, despite her appearance and the compressed experience
of the past months, only twelve years old when that decision was made; she
hadn t known how weary she could get of living (admittedly not every day, many
of her days were con-tented, even joyful, but the dark times came more often
as the decades passed), she hadn t known how crushing the burden of feeding
the children would become, she hadn t known how much their appetite would
increase, how many lives it would take to sate their hunger, how loathsome she
would look to herself no matter how careful she was to choose
badlives. Kings and merce-naries, counselors and generals, muggers, pimps
and assassins, all such folk, they seemed able to live con-tentedly enough
though they killed and maimed and tor-tured with exuberance and extravagance,
but at the end of her bouts, of gorging, she was so prostrated and
self-disgusted that she wondered how she could bring her-self to do it again;
yet when the children were hungry once more, she found the will to hunt; they
began as innocent victims of a god-battle they hadn t asked to join and
finished as victims of her confusion and her preference for her own kind; to
let them starve would be a greater wrong than all the killing lumped together.
On the seventh evening when her prowling was done for a while and her new
clothes had been delivered, she moved from the tavern to a better room in, a
better Inn in a better neighborhood, close to the wall that circled the
highmerchant s quarter, a four-story structure with a bathhouse and a pocket
garden for eating in when the days were sunny and the evenings clear.
Brann gave a handful of coppers to the youth who carried her gear and showed
her to the room she d hired for the next three nights; she watched him out,
then crossed to the single window and opened the shutters. Hunh, not much of
a view.
Jaril ambled over and leaned heavily against her. Nice wall.
Yaril squeezed past them and put her head out as far as she could; she
looked up and around, wriggled free and went to sit on the bed. Should be
bars on the windows. Bramble, our Host down there obviously didn t think much
of you, putting you in this room. Should we leave the shutters open to catch a
bit of air, anyone could get in here. The top of that wall is just about even
with the top of the window and it s only six feet off, if that.
Brann smiled. Pity the poor thief who breaks in here. She left the window,
prodded at the bed.
Better than the rack in that other place. My bones ache think-ing about it.
Uuuh, I m tired. Too tired to eat. I think I ll skip supper and spend an hour
Page 25
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
or so in the bath-house. Yaro, Jay, I d appreciate it if one of you gave the
mattress a runthrough before you bank your fires, make sure we ve got no
vermin sharing
the room with us. I can t answer for my temper if I wake itching.
Unlike Hina Baths, the House was divided, one side for women, the other for
men and the division was rig-idly maintained. The attendant on the women s
side (a female wrestler who looked more than capable of thumping anyone, male
or female, who tried to make trouble) didn t quite know what to make of Brann;
she wasn t accustomed to persons claiming to be females who wore what she
considered male attire. Half an-noyed, half amused, too tired to argue, Brann
snorted with disgust, stripped off her shirt and trousers. De-monstrably
female, she strolled inside.
The water was steamy, herb scented, filled with small bubbles as it splashed
into a sunken pool made of worn stones, gray with touches of amber and russet
and chalky blue. Nubbly white towels were piled on a wicker table near the
door into the chamber, there were hooks set into the wall for the patron s
clothing, a shallow saucer of soap and a dish of scented oil sat beside the
pool beneath a rail of smooth white porcelain, scrub-bing cloths were
draped over the rail. Brann hung up her shirt and trousers, dropped
her underclothing beside the towels, tugged, off her boots and put them on a
boot-stand beside the table. Stretching, yawning, the heat seeping into muscle
and bone, she ambled to the pool and slid into water hot enough to make her
bite on her lip and shudder with pleasure when she was immersed.
She clung to the rail for a moment, then began swim-ming about, brushing
through the uncurling leaves of the dried herbs the attendant had dropped into
the water as she opened the taps that let it flow from the hot cistern. She
ducked her head under, shook it, feeling the half-inch of new hair move
against her skull.
Surfacing, she pulled herself onto the edge of the pool and began soaping her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]