"Mike Resnick - The Lotus and the Spear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

I paused for dramatic effect, and made sure that I had everyone's attention.
 "Tell us who caused the thahu," said Koinnage, "that we may destroy him."
"It is not that simple," I answered. "Hear me out. The carrier of the thahu is
Murumbi."
"I will kill him!" cried Kibanja, who had been Ngala's father. "He is the reason
my son is dead!"
"No," I said. "You must not kill him, for he is not the source of the thahu. He is
merely the carrier."
"If a cow drinks poisoned water, she is not the source of her bad milk, but we
must kill her anyway," insisted Kibanja.
"It is not Murumbi's fault," I said firmly. "He is as innocent as your own son,
and he must not be killed."
"Then who is responsible for the thahu?" demanded Kibanja. "I will have blood
for my son's blood!"
"It is an old thahu, cast upon us by a Maasai back when we still lived in Kenya,"
I said. "He is dead now, but he was a very clever mundumugu, for his thahu lives
on long after him." I paused. "I have fought him in the spirit world, and most of the
time I have won, but once in a while my magic is weak, and on those occasions the
thahu is visited upon one of our young men."
"How can we know which of our young men bears the thahu?" asked Koinnage.
"Must we wait for them to die before we know they have been cursed?"
"There are ways," I answered. "But they are known only to myself. When I have
finished telling you what you must do, I will visit all the other villages and seek out
the colonies of young men to see if any of them also bears the thahu."
"Tell us what we must do," said old Siboki, who had come to hear me despite
the pain in his joints.
"You will not kill Murumbi," I repeated, "for it is not his fault that he carries this
thahu. But we do not want him passing it to others, so from this day forward he is
an outcast. He must be driven from his hut and never allowed back. Should any of
you offer him food or shelter, the same thahu will befall you and your families. I
want runners sent to all the nearby villages, so that by tomorrow morning they all
know that he must be shunned, and I want them in turn to send out still more
runners, so that within three days no village on Kirinyaga will welcome him."
"That is a terrible punishment," said Koinnage, for the Kikuyu are a
compassionate people. "If the thahu is not his fault, can we not at least set food out
for him at the edge of the village? Perhaps if he comes alone by night, and sees and
speaks to no one else, the thahu will remain with him alone."
I shook my head. "It must be as I say, or I cannot promise that the thahu will
not spread to all of you."
"If we see him in the fields, can we not acknowledge him?" persisted Koinnage.
"If you see him, you must threaten him with your spears and drive him away," I
answered.
Koinnage sighed deeply. "Then it shall be as you say. We will drive him from his
hut today, and we will shun him forever."
"So be it," I said, and left the boma to return to my hill.
All right, Murumbi, I thought. Now you have your challenge. You have been
raised to use the spear; now you will eat only what your spear can kill. You have
been raised to let your women build your huts; now you will be safe from the
elements only in those huts that you yourself build. You have been raised to live a
life of ease; now you will live only by your wits and your energies. No one will help