"Michael Flynn - The Promise Of God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Michael)

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"'When you make the two into one, When you make the inner like the outer, And
the outer like the inner, And the upper like the lower, When you make the male
and the female into a single one. . . '"

Nealy had heard the words before, at synagogue, when the priest sang from the
Hermetic books, but they had meant nothing and still meant nothing.

"He is too young," said Mama through a quiet sob. (Oh, and Nealy bristled at
that. Too young? Why, he was seven! All of seven . . .)

"It comes on them at the age of reason," the priest said. "Best that his
training begin tonight."

"So soon?" Papa's voice had been laced with sorrow. "I had thought that. . . "
Papa's voice trailed off.

The priest was silent a moment. Then he spoke firmly. "Nothing is gained by
putting it bye. There is only loss. I shall have a mister come to tutor you, and
to select the rixler. Does the lad prefer girls or boys?"

"Let it wait for a moon or so. He is my son. I. . . "

"Delay too long," the priest warned, "and he may not bond with his rixler at
all." The priest's voice had gone soft and low. "Or have you forgotten what was
born within the Barrens?"

He heard Mama suck in her breath. Nealy did not understand. Only that the Pine
Barrens was a place Mama used to frighten him into good behavior. No one went
there. No one who ever came back. In two hundred years, no one had ever come
back.

"Tonight," the priest continued firmly. "Tonight you must open the need that
only his rixler may fill."



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"My son," said Papa in a choked voice. "How can I?"

"How can you not?" the priest insisted.

That evening, Mama did not come to kiss him and tuck him into bed as was her
wont. Nealy waited and waited and she did not come. He was afraid that something
had happened to her and he began to cry and still she did not come.

Later, when his sobs had stilled themselves by exhaustion, he heard from his