"A. E. Merritt - Dwellers in the mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

to shoulder on guard.

Early next morning, a delegation of the lesser priests called for me.
We went into the same building, but to a much smaller room, bare of all
furnishings. The high priest and the rest of the lesser priests were
awaiting me. I had expected many questions. He asked me none; he had,
apparently, no curiosity as to my origin, where I had come from, nor
how I had happened to be in Mongolia. It seemed to be enough that they
had proved me to be who they had hoped me to be--whoever that was.
Furthermore, I had the strongest impression that they were anxious to
hasten on to the consummation of a plan that had begun with my lessons.
The high priest west straight to the point.

"Dwayanu," he said, "we would recall to your memory a certain ritual.
Listen carefully, watch carefully, repeat faithfully each inflection,
each gesture." "To what purpose?" I asked.



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"That you shall learn--" he began, then interrupted himself fiercely.
"No! I will tell you now! So that this which is desert shall once more
become fertile. That the Uighurs shall recover their greatness. That
the ancient sacrilege against Khalk'ru, whose fruit was the desert,
shall be expiated!"

"What have I, a stranger, to do with all this?" I asked.

"We to whom you have come," he answered, "have not enough of the
ancient blood to bring this about. You are no stranger. You are
Dwayanu--the Releaser. You are of the pure blood. Because of that, only
you--Dwayanu--can lift the doom."

I thought how delighted Barr would be to hear that explanation; how he
would crow over Fairchild. I bowed to the old priest, and told him I
was ready. He took from my thumb the ring, lifted the chain and its
pendent jade from his neck, and told me to strip. While I was doing so,
he divested himself of his own robes, and the others followed suit. A
priest carried the things away, quickly returning. I looked at the
shrunken shapes of the old men standing mother-naked round me, and
suddenly lost all desire to laugh. The proceedings were being touched
by the sinister. The lesson began.

It was not a ritual; it was an invocation--rather, it was an evocation
of a Being, Power, Force, named Khalk'ru. It was exceedingly curious,
and so were the gestures that accompanied it. It was dearly couched in
the archaic form of the Uighur. There were many words I did not
understand. Obviously, it had been passed down from high priest to high