"Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea 2 - The Tombs Of Atuan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

throne.
"O let the Nameless Ones behold the girl given to them, who is verily the
one born ever nameless. Let them accept her life and the years of her life until
her death, which is also theirs. Let them find her acceptable. Let her be
eaten!"
Other voices, shrill and harsh as trumpets, replied: "She is eaten! She is
eaten!"
The little girl stood looking from under her black cowl up at the throne.
The jewels inset in the huge clawed arms and the back were glazed with dust, and
on the carven back were cobwebs and whitish stains of owl droppings. The three
highest steps directly before the throne, above the step on which she had knelt,
had never been climbed by mortal feet. They were so thick with dust that they
looked like one slant of gray soil, the planes of the red-veined marble wholly
hidden by the unstirred, untrodden siftings of how many years, how many
centuries.
"She is eaten! She is eaten!"
Now the drum, abrupt, began to sound again, beating a quicker pace.
Silent and shuffling, the procession formed and moved away from the
throne, eastward towards the bright, distant square of the doorway. On either
side, the thick double columns, like the calves of immense pale legs, went up to
the dusk under the ceiling. Among the priestesses, and now all in black like
them, the child walked, her small bare feet treading solemnly over the frozen
weeds, the icy stones. When sunlight slanting through the ruined roof flashed
across her way, she did not look up.
Guards held the great doors wide. The black procession came out into the
thin, cold light and wind of early morning. The sun dazzled, swimming above the
eastern vastness. Westward, the mountains caught its yellow light, as did the
facade of the Hall of the Throne. The other buildings, lower on the hill, still
lay in purplish shadow, except for the Temple of the God-Brothers across the way
on a little knoll: its roof, newly gilt, flashed the day back in glory. The
black line of priestesses, four by four, wound down the Hill of the Tombs, and
as they went they began softly to chant. The tune was on three notes only, and
the word that was repeated over and over was a word so old it had lost its
meaning, like a signpost still standing when the road is gone. Over and over
they chanted the empty word. All that day of the Remaking of the Priestess was
filled with the low chanting of women's voices, a dry unceasing drone.
The little girl was taken from room to room, from temple to temple. In one
place salt was placed upon her tongue; in another she knelt facing west while
her hair was cut short and washed with oil and scented vinegar; in another she
lay face down on a slab of black marble behind an altar while shrill voices sang
a lament for the dead. Neither she nor any of the priestesses ate food or drank
water all that day. As the evening star set, the little girl was put to bed,
naked between sheepskin rugs, in a room she had never slept in before. It was in
a house that had been locked for years, unlocked only that day. The room was
higher than it was long, and had no windows. There was a dead smell in it, still
and stale. The silent women left her there in the dark.
She held still, lying just as they had put her. Her eyes were wide open.
She lay so for a long time.
She saw light shake on the high wall. Someone came quietly along the
corridor, shielding a rushlight so it showed no more light than a firefly. A