"Joan D. Vinge - Mother and Son" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Joan D)

MOTHER AND SON
By Joan D. Vinge
Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

****

Part 1: The Smith
All day I have lain below the cliff. I canтАЩt move, except to turn my head or twitch
two fingers; I think my back is broken. I feel as if my body is already dead, but my
head aches, and grief and shame are all the pain I can bear. Remembering Etaa . . .

Perhaps the elders are almost right when they say death is the return to the
MotherтАЩs womb, and in dying we go back along our lives to be reborn. Between
wakings I dream, not of my whole life, but sweet dreams of the time when I had
Etaa, my beloved. As though it still happened I see our first summer together herding
shenn, warm days in fragrant up-land meadows. We didnтАЩt love each other then; she
was still a child, I was hardly more, and for our different reasons we kept ourselves
separated from the world.

My reason was bitterness, for I was neaa, motherless. The winter before, I
had lost my parents to a pack of kharks as they hunted. My motherтАЩs sisterтАЩs family
took me in, as was the custom, but I still ached with my own wounds of loss, and
was always an outsider, as much from my own sullenness as from any fault of my
kin. I questioned every belief, and could find no comfort. Sometimes, alone with just
the grazing shenn, I sat and wept.

Until one day I looked up from my weeping to see a girl, with eyes the color
of new-turned earth and short curly hair as dark as my own. She stood watching me
somberly as I wiped at my eyes, ashamed and angry.

тАФWhat do you want? I signed, looking fierce and hoping she would run
away.

тАФI felt you crying. Are you lonely?

тАФNo. Go away. She didnтАЩt. I frowned. тАФWhere did you come from,
anyway? Why are you spying on me?

тАФI wasnтАЩt spying. I was across the stream, with my shenn. I am Etaa. She
looked as if that explained everything.

And it did; I recognized her then. She belonged to another clan, but everyone
talked about her: Etaa, her name-sign, meant тАЬblessed by the Mother,тАЭ and she had
the keenest eyesight in the village. She could see a bird on a branch across a field,
and thread the finest needle; but more than that, she had been born with the second
sight, she felt the MotherтАЩs presence in all natural things. She could know the feeling
and touch the souls of every living creature, some-times even predict when rain
would fall. Others in the village had the second sight, but not as clearly as she did,
and most people thought she would be the next priestess when she came of age. But
now she was still a child, minding the flocks, and I wished she would leave me alone.