"Shadow of Makei" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burkitt John H., Morris David A.)

PROLOGUE

From everlasting to everlasting, the Circle of Life rolls on, encompassing all beings from the tiny termite to the tall elephant. It permeates them, entwining itself through their physical forms of Ma’at into their essences, the Ka itself. It is a stream, whose current binds all of Aiheu’s children together and sweeps them gently toward him.

But there are rocks in that stream. Rocks that resist the flow, stirring up eddies. And some of the larger ones create still pockets where all manner of unwholesome things grow tucked away from the tides of change.

Two leaves were swept downstream. One slipped safely by the rock. One spiraled in the eddy, being pulled toward the rock where helpless it felt the first signs of decay taking hold in the stagnant pool of its confinement. It looked below and saw the sludge of withered leaves that lined the bottom, those who had lost forever the power to float. That’s when the despair took hold, and it rarely struggled against its fate as it sank lower and lower into the water.

On the quiet savanna a meerkat was standing guard while his neighbors were enjoying a sunbath. Suddenly a shadow passed over the ground and a chill wind swept him. The guard looked around but saw no one. He glanced up, expecting a large bird of prey, but there was none. With growing horror he watched the shadow amble along the ground with no owner and he trembled. As soon as he could find his voice, he yelled, “All down! All down!”

Within seconds, all of the meerkats had taken refuge in their burrows including the guard who huddled next to his wife and young, shivering too violently to explain. The shadow of a makei had fallen upon the land.

But the dark ka of Melmokh was not after them. Slowly, stealthily he approached young Taka, the son of King Ahadi. Melmokh had followed him since the kingdom was promised to Mufasa. He fed off Taka’s heartbreak as a jackal shredding the warm flesh from a kill.

Melmokh felt his wandering days would soon be over. Driven from love and joy by an agony he could not understand, he sought peace among the angry and the grieving. He sought to harness Taka’s pain, drawing strength from it while it was still fresh.

“If I’m not careful, the child will soon forget his misfortune,” he thought. “I must strike while the prey is weakened. Something that will not cripple him, only shame him.... Maybe a scar, perhaps?” He trotted ahead of Taka and looked back over his shoulder appraisingly. Taka’s eyes were soft and bright and beautiful. “An eye. Yes, an eye! It would freeze the hearts and turn the stomachs of the females. They would stare at it--they couldn’t HELP but stare at it!” Melmokh laughed coldly. “Be careful, little cub! Accidents can happen!”