"Linda Nagata - Old Mother" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nagata Linda)

bit of embryonic tissue when his grandmother had taken him in. She'd raised him
in her womb, nursed him at her breast, filled him with her own primal vision of
the land as a mother-deity and they'd been happy -- until Asha came along.

From across the pavilion Electra seemed to sense Asha's gaze. Her head turned;
triumph sparked in her eyes. Then a drunk tourist whirled across Asha's line of
sight, blonde hair flying as she spun her own dance to the New Year. Asha tipped
her head back to look over her shoulder at Clay. He misread her mood and kissed
her, his scraggly black mustache rough against her lips.

"You two ought to be married!"

Asha looked around, startled to see the blonde tourist swaying in front of her.
The woman lifted a lei of knotted hala leaves from around her own shoulders and
held it up with a brilliant smile. Then she reached out and quickly tied it
around Clay and Asha's outstretched hands, binding them tightly together. "Make
your offering to the lion," she advised. "And leave the bondage on until it
falls off naturally. Then you'll be married well and long. I guarantee it! And I
am a licensed witch!"

She whirled away to spread her benedictions elsewhere, while their friends
laughed around them. "You have to marry him now, Asha!" "Go for it, Clay!" "Do
it for real! Log it on the P.A. net." Do it, do it, do it, the chant started at
once on all sides. Then the lion charged. People screamed and fell back. The
great beast wove up and down against the straining crowd, its mouth snapping
shut over gold foil after gold foil. "Feed the lion," Clay intoned in her ear.

Together they extended their offering. Asha stared at their bound hands for a
moment, touched by a sense of wonder. Clay's hand was trembling as it closed
over hers.

Suddenly, multicolored jets of flame ignited overhead. Paper lanterns began to
burn with the ferocity of rocket fuel. The lion snorted in fear and bounded
backward while Asha ducked instinctively, pulling Clay down with her. Within
seconds the fire cut through the rope that suspended the lanterns above the
pavilion. The rope fell to the concrete floor in neat, arm-length sections that
began to writhe, gleaming and hissing and rearing up, forked tongues tasting the
sudden scent of fear. Asha recognized the arrow-head and spiny tail of death
adders, serpents that had long ago cut a niche for themselves in the island's
deranged ecology. The crowd gasped and fell back before the snakes' collective
gaze. For a moment silence engulfed the pavilion while the angry snakes
flattened their coils against the ground and debated attack. But they waited too
long. The lion had recovered. It charged toward the line of death adders on
great, padded feet. They seemed to sense it and turned as if to flee, but too
late. The lion caught them and crushed them. One-by-one they exploded in purple
fire under its trampling feet, each ignition accompanied by hysterical screams
of approval from the crowd. Asha's throat was raw with her own passion as she
cheered the destruction of what must be Electra's artful demons.

"The lion!" Clay cried, reminding her why they were there. And suddenly it was