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

all the gifts and pleasures that would pour into his life at every moment.
When they left him he stood on tiptoe, stretched his arms out to the sides,
and spun around until he fell down laughing. тАЬImmortal Snake,тАЭ he said out
loud. тАЬIтАЩm Immortal Snake. IтАЩm the ruler of the world!тАЭ

And indeed, over the next weeks countless marvels and delights
arrived from all the lands that owed tribute to Written in the Sky. There were
carpets woven from the wings of butterflies. There were bottles of wine
sprinkled with the tears of old women remembering the kiss of the first
person whoтАЩd ever loved them. Performers and teachers from every level
came to entertain and instruct the new ruler. Hermits whoтАЩd sealed
themselves in caves for half a century reported on what the shapes of
stalactites taught them about human longing. People marched in and
announced theyтАЩd committed atrocities just so they could come to The Nine
Rings and recount all the details to Immortal Snake, who laughed as he
pretended to cover his eyes in horror. Poets whoтАЩd been torn apart by wild
dogs and then brought back to life as babies floating on the sea arrived to
solve any riddle anyone had ever devised.

The spectacle lasted fifteen days, and in all this time only two things
wounded the SnakeтАЩs pleasure. The first was his minister, a man with
pinched features named Breath of Judgment, who insisted that Immortal
Snake consider his duties, a subject that did not interest the new ruler in the
slightest. As far as Immortal Snake could tell, these duties consisted
primarily in choosing his male and female companions. And that was a
subject he did not want to think about at all.

The second annoyance was his sister, an unpleasant young woman
named More Clever Than Her Father and Everyone Else. Even before her
brotherтАЩs glorious rise the woman had always done everything to make him
feel impure and trivial. She would never go to any of his parties, never laugh
at his jokes, never accept the boys he chose for her. She ate only the
simplest foods, drank only the smallest sips of wine, and spent her days
studying ancient texts, or writing poetry, or designing elegant furniture, or
filling the walls of her rooms with murals depicting the mysteries of
Creation. She wore long dark dresses buttoned to the neck (though they
always contained streaks or panels of intense color), and shoes made of
flat soles and worn leather straps that wound round and round her ankles.
When her brother and his friends staged elaborate parties, More Clever
Than Her Father would trace her way through the Nine Rings until she
emerged into the desert. There she would spend hours watching tiny
creatures scurry back and forth to no purpose.

And now that her brother had ascended to his glory, the woman
strode into the throne room, rudely ignored all the acrobats, contortionists,
and life-size wind-up giraffes, and simply demanded that he use the power
of Immortal Snake to raise the lives of the poor and helpless.

Her smugness made him want to jump off the throne and tear her hair
out. But then a better idea came to him. With a smirk he turned to Breath of