"Baker,.Scott.-.Ashlu.2.-.1987.-.Drink.the.fire.from.the.flames" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baker Scott)

"Moth!" She yanked at him. "Your father's furious. How could you have forgotten-oh!" She'd noticed the lion, stood staring openmouthed at it, her face gone old and grim.
Then: "Come along!"
"But, Mother, a lion, the King-the King, Mother!"
"Are you going to let a dead animal keep you from being sealed to the clay? What kind of son would your father think I'd borne him?"
"A good son, Mother."
She started firmly off along the path leading to the West Gate, her long muscular legs moving determinedly beneath her dress of scarlet linen. Moth looked wistfully back, but the children crowding around the lion hid it from his view.
He followed her, hurrying to keep up, through the city, down long dirty streets winding between close-packed buildings of sun-dried and kiln-dried bricks, out another gate. It was still very early and the day was not yet hot.
"But, Mother!" he cried, unable to restrain himself further. "But, Mother, the King!"
"Be quiet, son. Were you told that the King was coming? No, if he came he came in secret, by night perhaps, and most likely he'll leave the same way. You won't get to see him this time."
"Why did he leave the lion there, Mother? It was such a fine lion."
"Lions are the King's business, not yours. Today is the most important day of your life; you should be thinking of the clay, and nothing but the clay. Not about lions."
"Yes, Mother. Is it the most important day for all my life, or just for all my life until now?"
"For all of your life."
They reached their house. It was a big house -only Ri Cer Sil, of all the potters, had a bigger house. Moth followed his mother in through the narrow doorslit. They passed through the anteroom and into the central courtyard, then on into a room whose second doorslit on the far side, always hidden by a curtain of densely woven gray wool, gave entrance to the potting compound behind the house. Neither Moth nor his mother had ever seen the compound.
But the familiar curtain was gone, replaced by a gaudy scarlet one from which hung dozens of tassels, each ending in a ceramic disk. Some of the disks were unglazed red, buff, tan, or white pottery; others were glazed; still others had been painted. It was hard to make out the painted designs in the dim light of the room.
From the compound came the sound of a ceramic flute.
"May you return to me alive and a potter," Moth's mother whispered to him. She kissed him, then blindfolded him with a strip of black linen
wound seven times around his head.
"Mother?" Moth asked, suddenly afraid. There was no reply. He waited a moment, summoning up his courage, then pushed his way blindly past the hanging into the compound.
I must be brave, he told himself.
Once in the compound he stopped. "Father?" he asked. There was no answer. The music of the flute had ceased. He could feel the sun hot on his head, but he could see nothing. "Father?" he repeated.
Strong hands gripped his wrists, held them firm. "What is your name?" demanded a voice-his father's yet not his father's. The voice sounded harsh, cruel; it frightened him. He began to cry.
"Your name!" The voice not his father's was heavy with scorn.
"Moth, " he ventured.
"No! That is only what people call you in the world outside. Here you can have no name but your truename. Tell me your name!"
"I don't know, " Moth said, trying to stop crying.
"You are here today to learn your truename, if you have one. The name of your soul-in-clay. Without this name you are nothing, no one; you are only a hated outcast, accursed of Sartor. Do you understand what I am telling you?"
"Yes. "
"Do you want this name, this precious name?"
"Yes, " Moth sobbed.
The hands released his wrists. "Open your hands!" the fierce voice commanded. Something was pressed into his right hand.
"Do you know what this is?" the voice not his father's demanded.

Moth shook his head.
"Answer!"
"No."
"Feel it with your other hand. Do you know what it is now?"
"A toy cart."
"Whose toy cart?"
"Mine?"
"Yes. Do the other children envy you your toy cart?"
"Yes."
"Kneel." Moth knelt. "Place your cart in front of you on the ground. Open your hand again." Something cold and hard was pressed into Moth's hand. "Grip it tight. Do you know what it is?"
"A stone?"
"Yes. A stone born of the womb of the Earth Mother. Now, repeat after me: 'I take this stone-'"
Moth repeated, "I take this stone-
"-from the Earth Mother-
"-and with it I destroy-
"-this, my favorite toy-
"-of my childhood-"