"Gray, Julia - Guardian 03 - The Crystal Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

The serious nature of this absence was brought home to Terrel shortly before the ritual was due to begin, when Vilheyuna was carried out of his tent and brought to the ceremonial arena. The shaman's headdress lay on his chest; Mlicki had remained true to his word and refused to even countenance putting it on again - but the fact that he had allowed his comatose master to be moved, when it was not strictly necessary, was testament to his understanding of just how important the presence of the old man was. If Vilheyuna could not play an active role in proceedings, at least he might be able to watch over them in spirit.
Once the shaman had been settled in his place of honour, Mlicki retreated into the shadows, determined that his own role should be as an onlooker and nothing more. Terrel saw the anxiety on his friend's face, and went over to stand beside him. Mlicki glanced at him and gave a slight smile, grateful for the company, but they did not speak until the ceremony began. The sound of the drums seemed to come from all around them, an insistent thunder rolling out of the darkness. Terrel found that his heart was beating faster, keeping time to the central rhythm, while the drummers wove a dozen patterns of sound around it - creating a whole that was both hypnotic and invigorating.
'Where are they?' Terrel asked, looking round in a vain attempt to see the musicians.
'Beyond the firelight,' Mlicki told him. 'Each one alone and blind. They don't need to see each other, or even their own hands. That way they become one with their drums.'
'That's amazing.'
Mlicki nodded, then turned his head again and cupped a hand over Terrel's ear so that he could be heard over the growling thunder.
'The dance will begin soon,' he said, pointing to a group of men who appeared to be dressed in rags and feathers.
'What are they eating?'
The men were all chewing vigorously.
'Qard,' Mlicki replied. 'The food of the pure.'
'It looks like leaves.'
'It is. Chewing them makes you feel dizzy and excited. The dancers believe it helps them to fly on the winds and experience pleasure in all things. Qard can bring dreams and even visions.'
'Have you ever tried it?'
'No! I have quite enough visions as it is.'
And I have enough dreams, Terrel thought, resolving to follow his friend's example and avoid the leaves at all costs. The memory of the last time he'd ingested a similar substance still had the power to bring him out in a cold sweat, and he had no intention of ever allowing Jax to take control of him again.
The dance began slowly, each man moving in a circle around the square of the moons. Their movements varied from the expressive to the frenetic, steering individual courses through the complex labyrinth of sound. As they passed by, Terrel could see that the dancers' eyes were glazed, as if they were all quite unaware of their surroundings. Their world seemed to be defined by the rhythms of the drums, and by their own motion.
Gradually, the beat at the core of the music grew faster and louder, the embellishments less important, and these changes were reflected in the dance. Each man still followed his own course, but their movements were becoming more and more alike, until - just as it seemed that they must succumb to exhaustion - they became perfectly synchronized. Although none of the dancers seemed to be paying attention to the others, it was as if they were all in the grip of an identical compulsion - each foot stamping at precisely the same moment, each hand waving in the same sweeping gesture. They even began to cry out in unison, wordless calls that seemed more avian than human.
As the drums roared to a crescendo, Terrel found that he was holding his breath, drawn into the knife-edged tension of the moment. The sweat-slick dancers leapt and whirled, nearing their own climax. Then with one last joint bound, they challenged the starlit sky and fell back to the ground as one just as the drums fell silent. For a few heartbeats everything was deadly quiet. Nothing moved except the shadows thrown by the flames of the campfires.
Finally, as the Toma came back to life, Terrel was able to let out a long breath and fill his aching lungs again. Groups of people moved forward, surrounding each of the now motionless dancers. Terrel heard the whisper of several conversations and then, as the performers were led away, he saw the look on the faces of both the dancers and their attendants. The air of disappointment was palpable.
'What's happened?' he whispered to Mlicki.
'None of them went beyond. Not to the past or the future.'
'No visions?'
'Vilheyuna should have led their quest. Without him the trance was bound to fail.'
Terrel wasn't sure what had been expected, but he found it hard to believe that such a spellbinding performance could be considered a failure. But before he could ask Mlicki about this, a new set of players entered the stage and he was forced to rein in his curiosity. The kappara-tan was about to begin.
The ceremony opened with a series of incantations in a language Terrel did not understand, and which seemed to be addressed to the night sky. One after another all the men of the Toma came forward to speak. Some uttered only a few words; others delivered complicated and obviously long-winded orations that made even those who could understand them fidget with boredom. However, there were no interruptions. In spite of the fact that the tribe relied heavily upon their elders for advice on many matters, Terrel knew that it was a matter of principle for the Toma that every man had the right to speak his mind on any topic - and on such an occasion it would have been considered unacceptable to deny anyone his moment at the centre of the ritual.
It was only as the last of the speeches ended that the leading actor in the play appeared on the torch lit stage. Zahir was dressed in a plain white robe that hung loose from his shoulders to his ankles. His head, arms and feet were bare. The expression on his face was both stern and proud, as if he was aware of the audience but didn't care to acknowledge them, accepting their attentiveness as of right.
Immediately behind him came Ghadira, dressed in her finest clothes and jewellery. She moved with a graceful, casual elegance, but her slight smile betrayed the fact that she too was well aware of being the object of the spectators' gaze. Because she was a girl she had come of age some time ago, but as she'd been born on the same day as Zahir, she was the obvious choice to act at his guide and partner in the symbolic journey he was to undertake. Behind her came several more women, some old, some young, each carrying various objects in their hands. Try as he might, Terrel couldn't make out what these were, and in the silence that held the camp in its grip, he did not like to ask.
Reaching the mosaic of the White Moon, Zahir walked slowly round it three times, while Ghadira and the other women looked on. Then, still without a word being spoken, Zahir strode across to the depiction of the Red Moon and repeated the process around its incomplete circle. Having finished his third orbit, he knelt on the ground beside the stones and waited until Ghadira came to stand over him.
'May the sky's fire give you strength,' she said in a clear voice that rang out in the silence, carrying easily to everyone present. 'Strength in war. Strength in love.'
Some things don't change, Terrel thought. In his homeland the Red Moon was thought to control the realms of violence, fire and passion - and it seemed that the same was true here. He could not help recalling the festival at Tiscamanita and his own alarming brush with the potency of the Red Moon, but then he turned his attention back to the drama unfolding before him. Ghadira had turned to two of her followers and taken the objects they carried. These were a small brush and a pot of crimson paint, with which she deftly outlined several shapes on Zahir's left cheek. The markings glistened like blood in the flickering light, and it was hard for Terrel to see what - if anything - they represented. He guessed that they might be intended as flames, but they reminded him of something else. It was a few moments before he realized that they looked like the decorations on the red dome of the sharaken's fortress, and his sense of wonder deepened. It seemed that certain aspects of reverence for the moons were indeed universal.
Ghadira finished her handiwork and passed the materials back to her attendants. Zahir then got to his feet and made his way to the Amber Moon. Once more he made three circuits of the mosaic, then knelt.
'May the winds watch over you,' Ghadira said. 'In the hours of waking. In the hours of sleep.'
For Terrel the Amber Moon was linked to the spirit realm - to intuition and dreams - and it had also held a special significance for the sharaken, the 'dream-traders' of Macul, so he was not really surprised by Ghadira's reference to sleep. What did surprise him was the golden symbol that she painted at the centre of Zahir's forehead. It was a crude but unmistakable outline of an eye, echoing the sleepless tattoos that the sharaken wore on their eyelids.
Before he could work out the implications of this new parallel, the procession moved on to the crescent shape of the Dark Moon - and Terrel felt a stirring of unease. This was the moon most closely bound up with his own fate, and it was also the most mysterious, not least because of its recent erratic behaviour, but also because of its connection to the invisible forces of the world - and to death itself. Even its name in the nomad tongue - 'the Invisible' - was a reflection of its ominous and enigmatic nature.
'May the black light shine for you,' Ghadira intoned. 'In motion. In stillness.'
This time, having received the necessary implements from her companions, she anointed the right side of Zahir's face with another emblem. After what had gone before, Terrel was not surprised that he recognized it - but he still found himself growing excited and a little afraid. He had seen the design of the dark star before, at the ruined temple near Tiscamanita and on the mountaintop at Tindaya. He also knew that it appeared in several places in the Tindaya Code, and that it had some uncertain connection to the Ancients, but he was unable to guess the significance of its use here. Looking at its five points, each extended in tapering wavy lines, like tentacles, he was aware that he had begun to tremble.
He was still shivering when Zahir returned to the White Moon, completing his journey around the square, and Ghadira's words and the final symbol that she painted did nothing to set his mind at rest.
'May the bringer of change grant you good fortune. As one life is ended, so another begins.'
This was obviously a reference to Zahir's transition from boy to man, but Terrel felt as if Ghadira were talking to him too, and he couldn't help but wonder what his own future held. When he saw the smaller, white star that she painted on Zahir's chin, he felt another surge of anxiety. Without thinking, he looked down at his left hand, but the amulet - the bright star that he carried within him - was not visible. It could only be seen during an eclipse, or when he was inside one of the elementals. At any other time there was nothing to mark its presence.
Terrel forced himself to concentrate on the ceremony. He saw that Zahir was standing now, and had loosened the collar of his robe to expose the upper part of his chest. And there, over his heart, Ghadira was placing her final image; four concentric circles, one in each of the colours of the moons. Terrel had seen that before too; in the jasper of the fog-bound valley - and on the back of his own hand. His own tattoo was permanent and of a single dark colour, but the symbolism was the same.
'Only the moons have eternal life,' Algardi stated, stepping forward and looking around at the entire clan. The implication of his words was obvious. The moons might live for ever, but men do not. 'Time does not touch them. Their changes are constant.'
Or they used to be, Terrel thought, instinctively glancing up at the sky.
'This is a turning point,' the old man declared. 'For the White Moon, and for my son, Zahir.'
At these words, the audience broke into cheers and applause, and Algardi's face creased into a smile of delight. Zahir's answering grin was equally broad as the two embraced, and the Toma took up an insistent chant.
'A child no more! A child no more!'
Taking this as his cue, Zahir strode over to the sand picture, then hesitated, milking the drama of the moment.
'A child no more!'
Zahir began a manic dance, stamping and kicking with glee, until the picture was gone and he had said goodbye to his childish past.
More cheering greeted his performance, and the tension vanished from the atmosphere. Now that the formal part of the ritual was over, even Terrel was able to relax a little as he watched Zahir receive the more worldly trappings of manhood. A wide belt was fastened around his waist, with a sheath and a splendid curved dagger attached. New sandals were put on his feet, and a band of colourfully embroidered material was tied round his head, so that the amber eye was covered. All this was accompanied by a great deal of good-humoured noise, as everyone seemed to want to chatter at once now that the enforced silence had ended. Only Terrel remained quiet, too astonished by what he had witnessed to ask any of the questions that were now teeming inside his brain.
After a short interlude, the feasting began. Everyone ate their fill - and then, at the urging of their fellows, they all ate more, as if their appetites were suddenly being used as a measure of their self worth. Terrel soon abandoned the attempt to keep up, marvelling at the nomads' capacity for devouring such enormous portions of food. The atmosphere was cheerful now, almost rowdy, and even though he was still conscious of being an outsider, Terrel felt his spirits rising at the evening progressed.