"Frank Herbert - Soul Catcher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

wings glided across him, almost touched his head. David ducked, hurried to close the gap
between himself and that bobbing white loincloth.
Abruptly, Katsuk stopped. David almost ran into him.
Katsuk looked at the moon. It moved over the trees, illuminating crags and rock spurs on
the far slope. His feet had measured out the distance. This was the place.
David asked: 'Why'd we stop?'
'This is the place.'
'Here? What's here?'
Katsuk thought: How is it the hoquat all do this? They always prefer mouth-talk to body-
talk.
He ignored the boy's question. What answer could there be? This ignorant Innocent had
failed to read the signs.
Katsuk squatted, faced the trail's downhill side. This had been an elk trail for centuries,
the route between salt water and high meadows. The earth had been cut out deeply by the
hooves. Ferns and moss grew from the side of the trail. Katsuk felt into the growth. His
fingers went as surely as though guided by sight. Gently, gently, he pulled the fronds aside.
Yes! This was the place he had marked out.
He began chanting, low-voiced in the ancient tongue:
'Hoquat, let your body accept the consecrated arrow. Let pride fill your soul at the touch
of my sharp and biting point. Your soul will turn toward the sky ... '
David listened to the unintelligible words. He could not see the man's hands in the fern
shadows, but the movements bothered him and he could not identify the reason. He wanted
to ask what was happening but felt an odd constraint. The chanted words were full of
clickings and gruntings.
The man fell silent.
Katsuk opened the pouch at his waist, removed a pinch of the consecrated white duck
down. His fingers trembled. It must be done correctly. Any mistake would bring disaster.
David, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, began to make out the shadowy movement of
hands in the ferns. Something white reflected moonlight there. He squatted beside the man,
cleared his throat.
'What're you doing?'
'I am writing my name upon the earth. I must do that before you can learn my name.'
'Isn't your name Charlie something?'
'That is not my name.'
'Oh?' David thought about this. Not his name? Then: 'Were you singing just now?'
 'Yes.'
'What were you singing?'
'A song for you -- to give you a name.'
'I already have a name.'
'You do not have a secret name given between us, the most powerful name a person can
have.'
Katsuk smoothed dirt over the pinch of down. He sensed Kuschtaliute, the hidden tongue
of the land otter, working through his hand upon the dirt, guiding each movement. The
power grew in him.
David shivered in the cold, said: 'This isn't much fun. Is this all there is to it?'
'It is important if we are to share our names.'
'Am I supposed to do something?'
'Yes.'
'What?'
Katsuk arose. He sensed tensions in his fingers where Kuschtaliute still controlled his