"Rachel Pollack - Immortal Snake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pollack Rachel)

Immortal Snake
by Rachel Pollack

Rachel Pollack is the author of Godmother Night, Temporary Agency, and
Unquenchable Fire. She is the author of several Tarot decks including a
surreal deck, See of Logos, that is due to be published soon, along with a
new collection of short stories entitled The Tarot of Perfection.
In her blog at rachelpollack.wordpress.com, Ms. Pollack said recently that
a lot of people use the word тАЬmythтАЭ to refer to old stories that have no
reality, but she prefers to use the word to mean тАЬa story that has an inner
truth that cannot be put into simple explanations.тАЭ YouтАЩll find that definition,
and an awareness of the power of story, at play in this gorgeous new
fantasy.

****

Long ago, in a time beyond memory, Great Powers owned the land, the
water, and even the air. Of all these empires, the strongest was a land
called Written in the Sky. The soldiers of this land, who called themselves
the Army of Heaven, traveled in rolling multi-level engines covered in
sheets of black glass so that pillars of darkness moved across the earth.

And yet, despite the strengths of its forces, the true power of the
country lay in the wisdom of a group called Readers, priests trained to
follow the tracks of heaven known as GodтАЩs writing in the sky. The priests
lived in an observatory called the Kingdom of God, high above the palace
of the countryтАЩs ruler. Every night they watched and calculated the slow
movements of the stars, and the swifter movements of the planets. If any
clouds dared to obscure the night, the Readers let loose their white bulls,
whose bellows of rage cleared the air of rebellious vapors.

Through their perfect knowledge the Readers could tell the Army of
Heaven where to strike, or the owners of mines where to dig for copper or
gold, or the creators of spectacles what grand images of beauty and desire
would entice audiences to love them and long for them.

Most of all, however, the Readers studied the sky for the greatest of
all messages, the secret that caused the finger of heaven to stroke Written
in the Sky with powerтАФthe death of its ruler.

Though the merchants and slave traders managed the empireтАЩs
wealth, and the Army commanded obedience, all power officially belonged
to the ruler who lived in a palace in the central circle of a city called The
Nine Rings of Heaven and Earth. The name of this man was always the
same, no matter who it was that sat on the Throne of Lilies. They called him
Immortal Snake.

During the time of his reign, each Immortal Snake enjoyed more
delights than any single person could imagine. Whole teams of people
worked beyond exhaustion to devise new pleasures for him to experience.