Dancer 1 - Fire Dancer - Elizabeth Lowell by Elizabeth Lowell

Author:Elizabeth Lowell
Language: bg
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-05-13T20:36:30+00:00

VII

With a hoarse cry, Rheba jerked free of Kirtn’s grip and ran away, her eyes dry, blinded by fire. She wanted to run until she was free of feeling and memory, responsibility and revenge. But she could only run until her body convulsed from lack of oxygen, and then she crawled into a concealing thicket.

She wrapped her arms around her knees, shuddering and gasping until her breath returned. With breath came memories, Deva and Loo and children burning, a man breathing fire and Second People screaming, dying. She wanted to weep and scream but could not. Her eyes were wild and dry, the color of flames. She sat without moving, holding on to herself in the mist. She heard Kirtn’s urgent, questing whistle, but her lips were numb, unable to shape an answer.

And then softly, ever so softly, she heard the velvet murmur of a hunting brushbat. Behind her, the thicket quivered as though at the passage of a large hunting beast.

She remembered Jal’s dry voice describing the Darkzoi, certain death on clawed wings and nimble feet, an animal voracious and invulnerable except for eyes and genital slit. She knew she should run or walk or crawl away, should do anything but turn and stare over her shoulder into predatory eyes. Yet she turned, and stared, too numb to do more than see what kind of death had called her name.

The sounds continued, sly velvet rustles, hiss of air over wings, muscular windings of flesh and bone through branches. She stared, but could see only the dark wood of the thicket, its many branches as tangled as her hair. Against the silvery backdrop of the sky, she should have been able to see an animal as big as her hand, much less one fully as long as Kirtn.

Yet she saw nothing except a slight thickening of a branch overhead, a subtle flexing that was too sinuous to be wood.

She leaned closer. Gradually the shape of an animal longer than her arm and as thin as her finger seemed to separate from the angular brush. The snake quivered and enlarged. The brushbat sounds came closer.

“You’re not a Darkzoi,” she whispered. “You’re as frightened as I am, aren’t you? Hiding behind brushbat noises and scaring everyone. You should be ashamed.” Her words were sharp, but her tone was gentle, as beguiling as a Bre’n whistle, “Come to me. I’ll protect you. You, don’t have to be afraid.”

As she spoke, she slowly reached up toward the branch where the snake wound helplessly around cold wood. It opened its mouth and hissed threateningly. The sudden movement revealed delicate scales tipped with metallic copper, silver and gold.

“You’re a beauty,” she murmured, “and you can’t scare me. If your bite was as bad as your hiss, you wouldn’t have to hide.”

With a deft swoop, she captured the snake. It stiffened, stared at her out of opalescent disks, then gave a soft cry and went limp. She looked at the dark, slender animal dangling lifelessly from her hands.

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