"Harry Harrison - Captive Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

rolled over and looked up at the sky where a vulture, like the black mark of an omen, soared silently out
of sight above the valley's wall. I was the boy, Chimal said, almost speaking aloud, and admitting to
himself for the first tune what had happened, and I was so filled with fear that I went inside myself' and
sealed myself in tightly like a fish sealed in mud for baking. Why does this bother me now?

With a quick spring he was on his feet, looking around as though for something to kill. Now he was a
man and people would no longer leave him alone as they had when he was a boy. He would have
responsibilities, he must do new things. He must take a wife and build a house and have a family and
grow old and in the end…

"No!" he shouted as loudly as he could and sprang far out from the rock. The water, cool from the
melting snows of the mountains, wrapped around and pressed onto him and he sank deep. His open eyes
saw the shadowed blueness that surrounded him and the wrinkled, light-shot surface of the water above.
It was another world here and he wanted to remain in it, away from his world. He swam lower until his
ears hurt and his hands plunged deep into the mud on the pool's bottom. But then, even while he was
thinking that he would remain here, his chest burned and his hands of their own thinking sent him arrowing
back to the surface. His mouth opened, without his commanding it to, and he breathed in a great chestful
of soothing air.

Climbing out of the pool he stood at the edge, water streaming from his loincloth and seeping from his
sandals, and looked up at the wall of rock and the falling water. He could not stay forever in that world
beneath the water. And then, with a sudden burst of understanding, he realized that he also could not stay
in this world that was his valley. If he were a bird he could fly away! There had been a way out of the
valley once, those must have been wonderful days, but the earthquake had ended that. In his mind's eye
he could see the swamp at the other end of the long valley, pressed up against the base of that immense
rabble of rock and boulders that sealed the exit. The water seeped slowly out between the rocks and the
birds soared above, but for the people of the valley there was no way out. They were sealed in by the
great, overhanging boulders and by the curse that was even harder to surmount. It was Omeyocan's
curse, and he is the god whose name is never spoken aloud, only whispered lest he overhear. It was said
that the people had forgotten the gods, the temple had been dusty and the sacrificial altar dry. Then, in
one day and one night, Qmeyocan had shaken the hills until they fell and sealed this valley off from the
rest of the world for five times a hundred years at which tune, if the people had served the temple well,
the exit would be opened once again. The priests never said how much time had passed, and it did not
matter. The penance would not end in their lifetimes.

What was the outside world like? There were mountains in it, that he knew. He could see their distant
peaks and the snow that whitened them in winter and shrank to small patches on their north flanks in the
summer. Other than that he had no idea. There must be villages, like his, that he could be sure of. But
what else? They must know things that his people did not know, such as where to find metal and what to
do with it. There were still some treasured axes and corn knives in the valley made from a shining
substance called iron. They were softer than the obsidian tools, but did not break and could be
sharpened over and over again. And the priests had a box made of this iron set with brilliant jewels which
they showed on special festival days.

How he wanted to see the world that had produced these things! If he could leave he would—if only
there were a way—and even the gods would not be able to stop him. Yet, even as he thought this he
bent, raising his arm, wailing for the blow.

The gods would stop him. Coatlicue still walked and punished and he had seen the handless victims of
her justice. There was no escape.