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

ramming his bear spear into the snow, but the
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force of his near fall sent a shooting pain into his shoulder.
(Sometime in the night, while he was thawing his toes for the
third time, he had set his poles down and lost them. It was a
shameful lack of mindfulness, a mistake a full man would never
make.) His joints clicked and ground together. He made his way
over the wind-packed ridges of bureesha running up and down the
length of the beach. Little new snow had accumulated on the
island; the wind, he knew, must have blown it away. The
bureesha was really bureldra, thick old ribs of snow too hard
for skiing. He would have taken his skis off, but he was afraid
of losing them, too. He peered through the white spindrift
swirling all around him. It was impossible to see more than
fifty feet in any direction. Ahead of him, where the beach
ended, there should be a green and white forest. If he were
lucky, there would be yu trees with red berries ready for
picking. And stands of snow pine and bonewood thickets, birds
and sleekits and baldo nuts. From somewhere beyond the cloud of
blinding snow, Ahira called to him. He thought he could hear
his father, the father of his blood, calling, too. He stumbled
on in a wild intensity of spirit far beyond pain or cold or the
fear of death. At last he fell to the snow and cried out, 'O,
Father, I am home!'
 He lay there for a long time, resting. He didn't really have
the strength to move any further, but move he must or he would
never move again.
'Danlo, Danlo.'
Ahira was still calling him; he heard his low, mournful
hooing carried along by the wind. He rose slowly and moved up
the beach toward Ahira's voice. Closer he came, and the sound
drew out, piercing him to the bone. His senses suddenly
cleared. He realized it wasn't the voice of the snowy owl at
all. It was something else, something that sounded like music.
In truth, it was the most beautifully haunting music he had
ever imagined hearing. He wanted the music to go on forever, on
and on, but all at once, it died.
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And then, at the head of the beach, through the spindrift,
he beheld a fantastic sight: a group of six men stood in a
half-circle around a strange animal unfamiliar to Danlo.
Strange are the paths of the Unreal City, he reminded himself.
The animal was taller than any of the men, taller even than
Three-Fingered Soli, who was the tallest man he had ever seen.
He – Danlo could tell that the animal was male from the
peculiar-looking sexual organs hanging down from his belly – he
was rearing up on his hind legs like a bear. Why, he wondered,
were the men standing so close? Didn't they realize the animal
might strike out at any instant? And where were their spears?
Danlo looked at the men's empty hands; they had no spears. No