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

He was numb again, which was good. If you did not feel you could not be hurt His knife was on the rock
where he had left it and he remembered to pick it up because it had cost him many hours of hard work to
shape the blade. But the fish were forgotten, as was the firewood: he brushed by the dead tree without
seeing it. His feet found the trail and in welcome numbness he started back through the trees to the
village.

When the trail followed the dried up river bed he could see the temple and the school on the far bank. A
boy, he was from the other village of Zaachila and Chimal did not know his name, was waving from the
edge, calling something through his cupped hands. Chimal stopped to listen.

"Temple…" he shouted, and something that sounded like Tezcatlipoca, which Chimal hoped it was not
since the Lord of Heaven and Earth, inflicter and healer of frightful diseases, was not a name to be
spoken lightly. The boy, realizing that he could not be heard, clambered down the far bank and splashed
through the thin stream of water in the center. He was panting when he climbed up next to Chimal, but his
eyes were wide with excitement.

"Popoca, do you know him, he is a boy from our village?" He rushed on without waiting for an answer.
"He has seen visions and talked about them to others and the priests have heard the talk and have seen
him and they have said that… Tezcatlipoca," excited as he was he stumbled over speaking that name
aloud, "… has possessed him. They have taken him to the pyramid temple."

"Why?" Chimal asked, and knew the answer before it was spoken.

"Citlallatonac will free the god."

They must go there, of course, since everyone was expected to attend a ceremony as important as this
one. Chimal did not wish to see it but he made no protest since it was his duty to be there. He left the
boy when they reached the village and went to his home, but his mother had already gone as had almost
everyone else. He put his knife away and set out on the well trodden path down the valley to the temple.
The crowd was gathered, silently, at the temple base, but he could see clearly even where he stood to the
rear. On a ledge above was the carved stone block, cut through with holes and stained by the
accumulated blood of countless years. A youth was being tied, unprotesting, to the top of the block, and
his bindings secured by passing through the holes in the stone. One of the priests stood over him and
blew through a paper cone and, for an instant, a white cloud enveloped the young man's face. Yauhtli, the
powder from the root of the plant, that made men asleep when they were awake and numbed them to
pain. By the time Citlallatonac appeared the lesser priests had shaved the boy's head so the ritual could
begin. The first priest himself carried the bowl of tools that he would need. A shudder passed through the
youth's body, although he did not cry out, when the flap of skin was cut from his skull and the procedure
began.

There was a movement among the people as the rotating arrowhead drilled into the bone of the skull and,
without volition, Chimal found himself standing in the first rank. The details were painfully clear from here
as first priest drilled a series of holes in the bone, joined them—then levered up and removed the freed
disk of bone.

"You may come forth now, Tezcatlipoca," the priest said, and absolute silence fell over the crowd as this
dread name was spoken. "Speak now, Popoca," he told the boy. "What is it that you saw?" As he said
this the priest pressed with the arrowhead again at the shining gray tissue inside the wound. The boy
replied with a low moan and his lips moved.