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

And everyone loved him. Every house contained portraits of him, and
figurines to set above the bed, and there were statues in even the smallest
towns. Children were taught to write letters to him, grateful for his love and
protection. In every wedding the bride swore love to Immortal Snake and
then her husband, who in turn declared himself a stand-in for the beauty and
devotion of the ruler.

And yet, all of it, all the adulation and the pleasure, could end at any
moment. For as the Readers insisted, it was only the willing death of the
SnakeтАФthe тАЬshedding of the skinтАЭтАФthat convinced God of the countryтАЩs
worthiness.

No one knew when it would happen, but a night would come when all
the stars and planets locked into place. Then the Readers would put on
their purple hoods and march through the city, blowing copper trumpets
blackened by age, and driving their herds of white bulls maddened by
loneliness, through the streets of The Nine Rings of Heaven and Earth. All
through the city people doused their fires, even the lanterns in their
kitchens, and then locked themselves in rooms without windows or chairs.

At the beginning of his reign each Immortal Snake chose a male and
female тАЬcompanion,тАЭ two people who served only one function. They died
first. The Readers alone knew the exact manner of their death, but their
hearts and lungs and genitals went into a dish cooked in a stone pot. Every
Immortal Snake knew something very simple. If he wanted to live he must
resist the food the Readers brought to him. It was so easy. But lights
flashed in the bubbles of steam; and the smell excited tiny explosions all up
and down his tongue; finally, like every Immortal Snake before him, he
would tell himself that just a taste, just a drop, could not possibly harm him.

When he had eaten the entire dish he would begin to vomit. All his
insides would pour out, even his bones, which the food had turned to
brightly colored jelly. When nothing but the skin remained the Readers
would drape it over a wooden cross they then would carry through the city
back to the vaults underneath their observatory. And then, from the
directions written in the sky, they would choose a new Immortal Snake. And
everyone would celebrate.
 In front of the Kingdom of God the Readers would hoe a small patch
of earth, into which the new Immortal Snake would plant a seedling tree. As
the tree grew the people would take seeds from it to plant in their own
villages, a promise that they would never go hungry. When the new Snake
in turn would shed his skin the priests would uproot the tree, then prepare
the ground for the next planting.

So it happened once again, after so many times. The man who had
ruled for a span of years and months that no one was allowed to count (for
according to doctrine there was only one Immortal Snake, and his reign was
eternal) vanished into a torn skin flapping on sticks. A new ruler emerged, a
young man called Happier Than the Day Before. When the Readers came
to tell him of his ascension he shouted with joy, for he could hardly imagine