"Destroyer 024 - King's Curse.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

THE DESTROYER: KING'S CURSE
Copyright (c) 1976 by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
An original Pinnacle Books edition, published for the first time anywhere.
ISBN: 0-523-41239-8
First printing, July 1976
Second printing, lune 1977
Third printing, April 1978
Fourth printing, April 1979
Fifth printing, May 1980 . '
Cover illustration by Hector Garrido Printed in the United States of America
PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.
2029 Century Park East
Los Angeles, California 90067
For:
Amnon, Judy, Sharon, Uriyah, Joseph, Gilli, Naomi, Ruthi, and most of all the awesome magm'ficence of the House of Sinanju.

KING'S CURSE

Chapter One
The stone was old before the pale men on four high legs with metal chests and metal heads followed the path of the sun in from the big water you could not drink.
Before the king-priests, the stone was; before the warrior-kings, it was. Before the Aztec and the Toltec and the Maya, it was. Before the Ac-tatl, who served it and acknowledged it as their own personal god, the stone was.
The stone was a king's height, and if you did not know that the circle outlined in its belly was carved by the very gods themselves before man came from the mouth of the turtle, if you did not know that, then you were not Actatl. And you would not be allowed in the palace of the god, and
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you would not be allowed near the sacred stone, lest the god be enraged by an unbeliever's finger touching it.
And the people called the sacred stone Uctut.
But only the priests knew its real name.
In the first years of the pale men the warrior king of the Actatl called the five priests of Uctut to the palace, which was 142 steps high and protected Uctut from the north wind and the north light. He asked the priests what they thought of the new pale men.
"Moctezuma says they are gods," said one priest
"Moctezuma thinks the gods breathe when he vents air after a feast," said the king.
"Moctezuma is a king that is more to god's way," said another priest reproachfully. "It is known that the Aztec of Moctezuma follow their gods better because their king is a priest."
"Life is too short to spend it preparing for its end," the king answered. "And I believe that the rain falls without a baby's heart being thrown into the well that feeds Uctut, and I believe that new babies come even if the hearts of women are not sent into the well, and I believe that I win victories, not because Uctut has been fed with blood, but because my men fight from high places and others from low."
"Have you never wanted to know the name of Uctut? The real name? So that he could speak to you as he speaks to us?" another priest asked.
"What for? Everyone has a name for something. It is just a breath of air. I have not called you here to say that after so many years I have
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come to your way. Let it remain at this: You give the people your gods, and I do not take the people away from you. Now I ask you, what do you think of the men colored like clouds?"
"Uctut thinks he must have their hearts for his water," said one priest.
"Moctezuma thinks we should give the tall ones with four legs the yellow metals they seek," said another.
And another said, "Moctezuma has also said we should give the hearts of these white men to Uctut."
"Did Moctezuma say the Aztec should give the hearts of these white men with their death sticks?" the king asked. "Or did he say the Actatl should take these hearts?"
"He said it was such a good sacrifice, we should be pleased to make it to Uctut," said a priest.
"Then let the great Moctezuma take their hearts," said the king, "and he may offer them up to Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god."
Another priest responded, "He said the Aztec honored the Actatl by not taking this rich sacrifice for themselves but allowing us to take it for Uctut, to make our god rich and red with the finest hearts."
"Then this I tell to Moctezuma, great king of the great Aztec, from his most respectful neighbor, king of the Actatl, holder of leopards, who protects Uctut from the winds of the north, con-querer of the Umay, Acoupl, Xorec. To Moctezuma, I say, greetings neighbor. We appreciate your generosity and in turn, we give gifts to the Aztec and their great king."
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While the king spoke, the priests all made sacred marks, for they were knowing of the mysteries, how one man could place a mark on a tablet of stone, and how another man seeing that mark could divine a thought from it, even though the maker of the mark had gone many years before to the other world.
Five hundred years later, in a land where almost everyone read and there was no mystery to it, archaeologists would engage in a favorite pastime of wishing they could talk to inhabitants of the dead cultures they studied. They would say they could get more from a half-hour conversation with someone who lived in that culture than they could get from a lifetime of studying the marks on the tablets they had found.
Yet, if they had talked to the average Actatl, they would have gotten only that the marks were mysteries, that the king lived high, the people lived low, and the priests served Uctut, whose real name only the priests knew and were allowed to speak.
But the stone that was Uctut would last. The Aztec would be no more, the Maya and Inca would be no more. The name of the Actatl would be destroyed, and the Umay, the Acoupl, the Xorec, the inland people they had conquered, would not even be remembered.