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

'When Danlo was nearly fourteen years old, a terrible illness
called the 'slow evil' fell upon the Devaki. One day, during
deep winter, the men and women sickened all at once with a
mysterious, frothing fever. It was a fever that stole away
sense and lucidity, leaving its hosts paralysed and leaking
fluids from the ears. Of all the tribe, only Danlo and one
strange man named Three-Fingered Soli remained untouched. It
fell to them to hunt and prepare the food, to melt snow for
drinking water, to keep the oilstones burning so there might be
a little light to warm the sick inside their snow huts. Danlo
and Three-Fingered Soli loved their near-brothers and sisters
as they loved life, and for six days they worked like madmen to
perform the hundreds of little daily devotions necessary to
keep their tribe from going over too soon. But since there were
eighty-eight Devaki and only two of them, it was an impossible
task. Slowly тАУ for the Alaloi are a tenacious, stubborn people
тАУ slowly Danlo's tribe began to die. His near-sister, Cilehe,
was one of the first to make the journey to the other side of
day. And then his near-fathers Wemilo and Choclo died, and Old
Liluye and many others. Soon the cave was full of rotting
bodies waiting to be buried. Danlo tried to ignore them, even
though, for the Devaki, the care of the dead is nearly as
important as that of the living. He lavished his energies on
his found-father, Haidar, and on Chandra, the only woman he had
ever known as a mother. He made blood-tea and dribbled the
thick, lukewarm liquid down their throats; he rubbed hot seal
oil on their foreheads; he prayed for their spirits; he did
everything he could to keep them from going over. But to no
avail. At last, the slow evil stole them from life. Danlo
prayed and wept, and he left their hut intending to go outside
the cave to find some fireflowers to put on their grave. But he
was so exhausted that he tripped into a
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snowdrift and fell at once into a deep, dreamless sleep. Later
that day, Three-Fingered Soli found him there, covered with
layers of fresh new snow.
'Danlo,' Soli said as he brushed the sparkling soreesh from
the boy's furs, 'wo lania-ti? Are you all right?'
'I was just sleeping, sir,' Danlo said. 'Mi talu los
wamorashu. I was so tired.' He rubbed his eyes with his
powdered mittens. Even sitting in the snow, he was tall for a
boy thirteen years old; he was taller, leaner and more angular
than any of his near-brothers. In truth, he did not look like
an Alaloi at all. He had the long nose and bold face bones of
his father. His eyes were his mother's eyes, dark blue like
liquefied jewels, and even though he was very tired, they were
full of light. In almost any city of the Civilized Worlds, his
fellow human beings would have found him fiercely handsome. But
he had never seen a true human being, and he thought of himself
as being different from his near-brothers. Not exactly ugly,