"Philip Jose Farmer - Flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

At that moment, a whip cracked across her bare shoulders and breasts and left a line from which
blood oozed.

тАЬWhat do you think you are doing?тАЭ screamed an older priestess.

The young priestess crouched low, head averted, but she did not dare to hold out her hands to
protect herself from the whip.

тАЬI was exercising my right,тАЭ she whimpered. тАЬGreat John Barleycorn is dead. I am an incarnation of
the Great White Mother; I was going to reap the crop.тАЭ

тАЬAnd I would not stop you,тАЭ said the older priestess. тАЬIt would be your right to castrate himтАФexcept
for one thing. He died by accident, not during the Planting Rites. You know that.тАЭ

тАЬColumbiaforgive me,тАЭ whimpered the priestess. тАЬI could not help myself. It is tonightтАЩs doing; the
coming to manhood of the son, the crowning of the Horned King, the defloration of the mascots.тАЭ

The stern face of the older priestess splintered into a smile. тАЬI am sure thatColumbiawill forgive you.
There is something in the air that takes us all out of our senses. It is the divine presence of the Great
White Mother in Her aspect as Virginia, Bride of the Sunhero and the Great Stag. I feel it too, andтАФтАЭ

At that moment there was a bellow from the second story. Both women looked up. Down the steps
poured the mob of Elks, and on their shoulders and hands they bore the Sunhero.

The Sunhero was a naked man magnificently built in every respect. Though he was sitting on the
shoulders of two Elks, he obviously was very tall. His face, with its prominent supraorbital ridges, long
hooked nose, and massive chin, could have been that of a good-looking heavyweight champion. But at
this moment anything that might have evoked such terms as тАЬhandsomeтАЭ or тАЬuglyтАЭ was gone from his
face. It bore a look that could only be described as тАЬpossessed.тАЭ That was exactly the term anybody in
the city ofWashingtonof the nation of Deecee would have used. His long red-gold hair hung to his
shoulders. Out of the curly masses, just above the forehead and the hairline, sprouted a pair of antlers.

These were not the artificial antlers that the Elk frat wore. They were living organs.

They stood twelve inches above his head and measured sixteen inches from the outer tip of one to the
outer tip of the other. They were covered with a pale shiny skin, shot through with blue blood vessels. At
the base of each a great artery pulsed with the throb of the SunheroтАЩs heart. It was obvious that they had
been grafted onto the manтАЩs head very recently. There was dried blood at the base of the antlers.

The face of the man with the antlers would have been distinguished instantly in a crowd of citizens.
The faces of the Elks and of the priestesses were individual, but all had a look that belonged to their era
and could be called cervine. Triangular, with large dark eyes and long eyelashes, high cheekbones, small
but full-fleshed mouths and tapering chins, they were cast in the mold of their times. But a sensitive
onlooker would have known that this man on the shoulders of the cervines, this man with the face
emptied of intellect, belonged to an earlier era. Just as a student of the portraits of humanity can say by
looking at this face, тАЬHe belongs to the Ancient world,тАЭ or тАЬThis man was born during the Renaissance,тАЭ
or тАЬThis man lived when the Industrial Age was just getting its stride,тАЭ so the student could have said,
тАЬThis man was born when the Earth swarmed with humanity. He looks vaguely insectal. Yet there is a
difference. He also bears the look of the original of those timesтАФthe man who managed to be an
individual among the insects.тАЭ