"David Zindell - Requiem of Homo Sapiens 01 - The Broken God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zindell David)

into wives. There is nothing left of life, so how can we
remain?'
While Soli sipped his tea silently, Danlo continued, 'It is
wrong to let life end, yes? To grow old and never have
children? To let it all die тАУ isn't that shaida, too?'
'Yes, life, shaida,' Soli said finally. 'Shaida.'
Something in the way Soli stared into his tea made Danlo
feel a sharp pain inside, over his liver. He worried that Soli
secretly blamed him for bringing shaida to their tribe. Was
such a thing possible, he wondered? Could he, with his strange
young face and his wildness, bring the slow evil to the Patwin
tribe as well? He felt shame at these thoughts, then, felt it
deep in his chest and burning up behind his eyes. He tried to
speak, but for once, his voice had left him.
Soli stirred his lukewarm tea with his forefinger. The two
fingers next to it were cut off; the scars over the knuckle
stumps were white and shiny. To the east,' he said at last, 'is
the Unreal City. Some call it the City of Light, or ...
Neverness. We could go there.'
Danlo had slumped down into his furs; he was as tired as a
boy could be and still remain among the living. But when he
heard Soli speak of the mythical Unreal City, he was suddenly
awake. He was suddenly aware of his heart beating away as it
did when he was about to spear a charging shagshay bull. He sat
up and said, The Unreal City! Have you really been there? Is it
true that shadow-men live there? Men who were never born and
never die?'
'All men die,' Soli said softly. 'But in the Unreal City,
some men live almost forever.'
In truth, Soli knew all about the Unreal City because he had
spent a good part of his life there. And he knew everything
about Danlo. He knew that Danlo's blood parents were really
Katharine the Server and Mallory
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Ringess, who had also lived in the City. He knew these things
because he was Danlo's true grandfather. But he chose not to
tell Danlo the details of his heritage. Instead, he sipped his
tea and cleared his throat. And then he said, There is
something you must know. Haidar would have told you next year
when you became a man, but Haidar has gone over, and now there
is no one left to tell you except me.'
Outside the hut, the wind was blowing full keen, and Danlo
listened to the wind. Haidar had taught him patience; he could
be patient when he had to be, even when the wind was blowing
wild and desperately, even when it was hard to be patient.
Danlo watched Soli sipping his tea, and he was sure that
something desperately important was about to be revealed.
'Haidar and Chandra,' Soli forced out, 'were not your blood
parents. Your blood parents came from the Unreal City. Came to
the tribe fifteen years ago. Your mother died during your