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«It’s too early for you, Valan, to know about it,» Radon interrupted. – First, let them learn how to hold hunting tools correctly.
«Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum,» the children hummed, disapproving of the head watchman’s talk.
Radon smiled.
– It’s not too early! the old shaman continued to insist. – Let them know! What is there. Who else can teach them? Varna will not teach unity! Taught already – now he walks without an eye!
Varnus looked at the old shaman in bewilderment, while adults and juveniles looked at each other.
– Well, you will, Valan! – Hord stood up for the offspring. – An old grumbler. Look, your tongue will dry up!
– All right, all right, – the shaman calmed down and turned to Unge: – Here you are, young man, which path did you choose? Shaman or hunter?
«Um…» Unga thought.
– Here! the sage hastily exclaimed. – To become a shaman, you need to understand what you want. What do you want to know from Pangea? What do you want to see? And it’s not so easy, my young friend,» said the old man. – The time will come – be a hunter and do not be afraid. Accept the first unity and remember what I said that night. You look – you will get stronger, and you will be a shaman.
The teenagers whispered among themselves, discussing the parting words of the old sage.
«Why didn’t you go to the Temple to look at the stars?» Unga suddenly asked.
Valan frowned and looked at the other elders.
«I have not been young for a long time, my boy, and unity takes a lot of strength. And what is going on among the stars? No one knows… I’m afraid if I look there, my consciousness will not come back, and I will become a burden for the tribe…
*shuffled – made a noise.
***
«Valan, tell me,» Elna timidly sat down closer to the sage, «why?.. Why don’t we have Zavrini’s eyes,» the girl pointed to herself and other children, «do adults have them?»
– Yes, Valan, why is that?
«We also want to see with the eyes of the hunters!»
The youngsters and maidens made an offended noise, and the adult relatives laughed in unison. The genuine feeling of annoyance of young people due to the inability to embody the eyes of Zavrin could not but cause a smile among experienced tribesmen. But this shortcoming had its beginning, and many remembered this beginning.
«It was in ancient times, when my and your ancestor, Alak, the last one, who adopted the eyes of reptiles by his kind, by origin, could still hunt and admire the Moons,» the old shaman suddenly began to say. «The eyes of Zavrini were passed on to Alak and his relatives by blood from the ancestors, and to the ancestors from the great-grandfathers, and to the great-grandfathers from Zavrini, and relatives and Alak could embody the eyes of reptiles from birth. But our blood and flesh change with the lived moons, like the stars in the skies. In some ways we become better and stronger, but in some ways we become weaker. So then blind hunters were born from the descendants of Alak, and I am among them. And the eyes of our ancestors were unknown to us.
You didn’t see anything at all, did you? Ronin asked, confused.
– No! Blind means we never had Zavrini’s eyes. So we saw, as you see now, young man, and the rest.
Ronin nodded.
«And no one then knew why this happened,» Valan continued. – And our relatives thought that we had an unprecedented disease, and old Alak went to Pangea to look for answers. For a long time he was in unity with Her, and when he came out, he weakened greatly and plunged into weakness from a slender month to the full moon. Then everyone was upset about it. They thought it would die. And in those days, only the children of Alak and his brothers hunted, who ran with the eyes of Zavrini from birth, and some relatives who did not lose their strength for the moons lived. Youths, boys, and I was among them, were sitting in the settlement. And young hunters, too – with a stern human look guarded the camp from lizards. Yes, Hord? – the sage turned to the experienced hunter.
«Yes, I remember that time,» Hord confirmed. – Then the relatives were afraid to go fishing without eyes. Any lizard far away from the ravines was noticed by people, herbivores did not let them near at all, and predators and Rasaurs with open mouths in those days lurked everywhere in the thickets – crawl in, do not be afraid!
– Where do you crawl? Unga asked.
The elders could hardly contain their smiles, and the young watchmen burst into laughter.
– Where where? Into the mouth of the Chameleon! Hord exclaimed. – I tell you – without the eyes of a hunter it was dangerous to leave the camp!
The children giggled and made noise.
«It was hard to feed our tribe in those moons,» Valan continued his tale. «The first people did not yet know that the flame of Pangea was created from prana, and there was no Great Hunt at all. And it was then that my relative – Lasso, very young, who invented the lasso for baiting – for the first time on a hunt and knew the eyes of his ancestors. He then became bolder, did not want to put up with blindness and went alone to free trade! It means that he followed the Polosuns, and they are smart and sighted scoundrels. They see Lasso from afar, but they know his every step in advance. And at Lasso, nothing can be seen through the thickets until it comes close to the lizards. The lizards would wait until he discovered them, and immediately ran away – a hundred paces. And so the whole day – back and forth. Lasso realized that the reptiles were leading him by the nose, but he could not do anything to them with his nose. This made Lasso sad. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how he squinted, he could not see the sly one first.
«Uuuuuuuh,» boomed the fry condoling with their congener.
It was already getting dark, but Lasso did not give up. Decided to get around Polosunov at dusk! He peered, peered, and suddenly everything turned pale in front of him and his eyes appeared to him. And that evening he brought different carcasses, and told about his insight, but he thought that the twilight of the eye had awakened – he still did not know how to master concentration to perfection – at this tale, Valan turned his eyes into the eyes of a hunter, and the children gasped and began to stare consider the reptilian incarnation of the sage. – And after the epiphany, Lasso went hunting and took the young with him another moon at dusk, and then went alone into the night. And after that night he did not return. They found his body in a ravine gnawed to the bone…
The old shaman returned his human gaze and fell silent, remembering the past, while the children and older relatives groaned sympathetically.
– And when Alak gained strength, he told us about the eye. As if he understood in unity that the eyes of Zavrini with us and our descendants will now appear with the moons, as if Pangea itself is so re…
Suddenly, a bugle sounded from the direction of the southeast watchtower, a simple melody of several beeps.
The tribesmen involuntarily jumped up.
Brun is back! Radon exclaimed. «Brun’s squad has returned from the Great Hunt!
– So fast?! Hord was surprised.
– Let’s meet! shouted one of the teenagers.
A farce began, and the relatives, leaving the fire, advanced to the eastern loophole to greet the hunters.
***
– Elna, shh! Elna! Ronin whispered.
The blue-eyed girl followed her Clanmates down the path to the Hunter’s House. Hearing the call, Elna turned around warily.
Ronin, is that you? Why are you sitting there? she asked in bewilderment.
The youth hid in the fern thickets along the path. His face was smeared with a green infusion of cycad and looked like a camouflage color of a hunter.
– Shh, hush! Go with us?
– Where? Are you going to leave the camp again?
No, to the caves!
What caves? Elna asked already in a whisper, looking around and not understanding the mystery of what was happening.
– To the Temple of the Creator! Let’s look at the unity of the leader.
Immediately, Unga’s head appeared from the booth, and his face was also painted.
Elna, come with us!
– Are you seriously? The girl walked closer to the bushes.
Rhonin came out of hiding a little and held out his hand to her. Elna timidly looked at the youth. In the darkness, she could see his green eyes glittering. Peering into the features of a teenager, she thought for a moment about something of her own and froze.
– Do you trust me? Ronin suddenly blurted out.
– I? Umm…» Elna hesitated, and the young man immediately grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the thickets.
Unga chuckled.
– Can we go to the Temple of the Creator? the girl asked, frowning.
– Well, you already! They say you can’t, but we’ll go quietly and no one will know,» suggested Ronin. «Aren’t you interested in yourself?»
Interesting, but I’m afraid.
– We are not afraid! Let’s go see the leader! – Unga’s eyes burned with anticipation of a trip to the caves.
«And if one of the elders notices us?» Elna hesitated.
– They won’t notice. Most of the elders are in the Hunters’ House, and those left by the caves are most likely asleep, Ronin assured. «We’ll just see what the chief is doing there and then we’ll go back.» Nobody will notice!
«But what about the watchmen?»
We are future hunters! Unga exclaimed. «Let’s imagine that the sentinels are reptiles, and go around them!»
Elna asked a dozen more questions, but the young men had answers for all occasions, and they still persuaded the girl to go to the Temple.
The teenagers, making their way through the paths and vegetation, returned to the Pavilion of Flame, and soon came to the araucaria.
– Shh! Ronin hissed, crouching behind a rock. – Look – the lights are on the wires. Maybe there are some adults there?
Unga and Elna hid nearby, examining the branches of coniferous trees.
«Yes, everything seems to be quiet,» Unga said. – There is no one there. Everyone heard the horn. Just went to the House of Hunters.
«Then the main thing is not to wake the kids,» Elna whispered. Otherwise, they will get scared and start calling for help. Don’t get stretch marks!
«Let’s follow me,» commanded Ronin, resolutely jumped over the boulders, passed on tiptoe under the araucaria, deftly bending between the stretched rattles, and again jumped into the thicket.
The youths followed him.
The quieter the children tried to walk, the louder, it seemed, was the crackling of dry leaves, twigs, stones and the rustle of grass under their feet. Even the chirping and clatter of nocturnal cicadas and other living creatures was not as audible at that hour as the crunch of vegetation under the sandals of future hunters, as if the night itself listened and followed every step of the young relatives, illuminating the untouched by torches surroundings with the moon.
So – from one tree to another, from ledges to thickets, from huts to huts – the children made their way through the village. Miraculously, they bypassed two sentinel detachments, and this was a real test! After all, no one has yet managed to sneak past the sentinels unnoticed! True, no one has ever tried to do this before…
Elna was very frightened when the hunters met on the way. She had no idea what would happen if they were discovered, and a premonition, which adults called the feeling of Zavrini, at that hour seemed to speak to her for the first time. As if an inner voice whispered to the young maiden that all this was not good. But Unga and Ronin constantly encouraged her and assured her that there was nothing shameful in their journey.
Soon a cheerful mood picked up Elna. Teenagers thought up a game of hunters and imagined that someone was following them. Children were fooling around, giggling softly, pretending to be reptiles and trackers, hiding among boulders and thickets. The youths pursued each other, hiding in the bushes and setting up the expected ambushes. And after a while, the young relatives reached the very path at which the ledges and the ascent to the caves of the elders began. The path uphill was illuminated by hammered torches, and it seemed impossible to go unnoticed.
The young hid in the thickets.
– And how next? What we shall do? Elna wondered.
«Hmm… If we crawl through the bushes along the path near the cliff, then we won’t be particularly noticeable,» Ronin realized.
What if someone falls?
– Come on, Elna! See how much space. Let’s crawl carefully. If so, let’s help each other. Let’s go, – Ronin answered confidently and took Elna by the hand.
Suddenly there was a rustle behind the children. The teenagers jumped in surprise! Terribly frightened, they slowly turned around.
The Watchmen was the first thing that flashed through Ronin’s mind. And Unga even thought it was a reptile. But from the thickets of ferns, shaking off the clinging twigs and leaves, a little girl looked out.
Elna, take me with you! I want with you! – the leader’s daughter looked plaintively at her older relatives.
– Omi? In the name of Pangea, how did you end up here? The young girl ran up to the child and hugged him.
Ronin and Unga looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.
«In the name of Pangea, I was so scared!» Unga breathed, and his eyes nearly filled with tears.
«Omi, why aren’t you in the hut?» How did you get here? Ronin asked.
«I had a terrible dream, and then I started thinking about Pa. And then I heard someone walking downstairs, and I saw you. I was scared to call you in the dark, and I just followed you,» Omi rattled, almost crying.
– What a news! Ronin was delighted. – You came from the most araucaria? Omi, you are a real hunter!
«It’s good that it happened and we didn’t reach the caves,» Elna said, looking at the youths. – It is not known how it would all end. Need to come back!
«Hey, what about the Temple of the Maker?» How is the leader? Ronin was outraged.
– I want to go to Pa, let’s go to the leader! the girl exclaimed.
«Hush, hush, Omi, don’t scream!» Ronin, don’t tell me we’ll take her with us.» Elna stared at the teenager, waiting for a clear answer.
– Why not? She is already an adult. She followed us from the very araucaria, bypassed the sentinels. Nobody heard her, not even us! Let her go, especially since her leader, her father, is there. We’ll take a look at the leader and we’ll be right back!
«Yes, yes, I want to go with you,» Omi rejoiced.
«Yes, yes, Omi will come with us!» Unga picked it up.
Elna frowned and reluctantly agreed:
– Well, okay… But only there and back. Promise, Ronin? She looked humbly at the teenager.
– I promise! Roundtrip!
***
A refectory fire was burning in a niche near the entrance to the cave. The fading tongues of flame sometimes shuddered from sharp gusts of wind, and the crunch of charred wood after sudden breaths dragged out the crackling melody of the fiery element. Either igniting the fire, or suppressing it altogether, the eastern monsoon caught in the haze of smoldering logs the aromas of recently eaten meat and carried them along the paths of the Great Volcano. Not far from the fire, along the sharp-angled walls, the elders slept on the bedding. Their snores echoed across the cliffs of the mighty mountain. From time to time, the echoes of deep dreams of elderly tribesmen merged into a monotonous thundering rumble, as if somewhere among the rocks an ancient Gigantosaurus had taken refuge for the night.
On the instructions of Radon, young hunters – Barda and Veles – guarded the passage to the Temple of the Creator that night. When the elders, after dinner and informative conversations, fell into a dream, the sentinels left the grotto and settled down in the open air on a ledge at the very edge.
– Amazing, right? Veles pointed to the pillar of fire. And how did he come up with this? I can’t imagine…
The stream of incandescent particles of the Flame Totem swayed from the gusts of wind and at the same time held back its integrity, as if an unknown force forced the flames to cling to each other. A strange phenomenon – an original element, not similar to any other element – stretched out from the chimney of the tent, barely visible from the height of the caves. The dim glow of the fiery column barely illuminated the way of the settlement and the sloping slopes of the Great Volcano, as if the hot particles held back the streams of light in themselves, not releasing them beyond the whirlwind. But in the center, the glow was bright and blinding. From the hill, it seemed that the whirlwind, shrouded on all sides by the darkness of the night, arose from the void – from the blackness of the night. Only the lights of the camp in places illuminated the omnipresent darkness.
Well done Varn! exclaimed Barda. «Now hunting parties can easily find their way home.
– That’s for sure! – picked up a relative.
«Veles, did you happen to hear the bugle while we were having dinner?» I thought it was a signal that the rangers had returned from the Great Hunt.
«No, brother, I haven’t heard,» Veles answered puzzled. – Yes, it was hardly a horn. Sixth night in total. So quickly no one could return. There is such a wind here – anything can seem.
«Hmm… it must have seemed…» Barda hesitated and flattened himself on the ledge.
The cliffs of the Great Volcano revealed a marvelous view of the southeastern lands. In the daytime, one could see hills and lowlands from here, on which there was a coniferous forest, edges and conditional paths. Rocky boulders covered with moss and fern thickets could be seen in places among the trees, dilapidated dead wood flashed among the thick of araucaria, and even stunted ginkgo trees were visible. But at night the view from the caves of the elders was especially attractive. Here, as if two worlds merged together – the world of Pangea and the abode of the stars.
Below, from the pedestal of the mountain and to the infinity of the grove, the silhouettes of Her expanse were buried in darkness. Even the glow of the moon made it impossible to see the details of the distance. Only a black haze, diluted with the lights of the camp, stretched from the foot of the volcano to the horizon. And where the horizon merged with the skies, the star harmony began. An infinity of luminaries hung right over the forest, and it seemed that if you get to the limits of the araucaria, you can find yourself at the edge of the earth – step into the starry sky. And once every ten moons, when under the cover of night more stars lit up than usual, an indescribable sight took place in the firmament: night luminaries descended from heaven!
Once every ten moons – between two full moons – every night the tribe gathered on the ledges of the Great Volcano to watch the starfall. The elders and sages-shamans believed that the souls of hunters who left this world not by their repose, but from the paws of reptiles or by chance, at night these returned back to Her abode and took on new guises in their descendants or those that Pangea would accomplish, live a new life until real death. And it was gracious and wise on such nights for men to decide to continue their kind!
Do you see this, Veles? Don’t you think it has grown?
Veles, dangling his legs over the abyss, was sitting next to him. Kindred raised his head and looked up:
«I don’t know, brother. That’s what she was…
– Strange… What do you think this sign is?
– When the soul leaves the abode of Pangea, a new star lights up in the sky – so the elders and shamans say, – answered Veles.
«Yes, I remember… But last night there was too much light for one soul,» Barda doubted the sign of the sages. «First multicolored aurora… flash… now this red star. Maybe the soul of some extraordinary reptile left our world? Maybe we haven’t seen any lizards yet?
«Maybe it’s Zavrini’s soul?» Welles suggested. – The leader said that the spirits of Zavrini ask him for something… to find out what kind of radiance it is or… I don’t remember exactly. Hord found traces of ancestors. Maybe the last Zavrini died somewhere?
«Didn’t the Zavrini leave this world tens of thousands of moons ago?»
«I don’t know… Maybe they didn’t leave, or maybe the soul isn’t Zavrini at all. Roshan will return – he will tell.
– Yes… Don’t you think that he has been gone for too long? There are underground creatures living in the tunnels. Maybe go check? Bard suggested.
– Check? I wouldn’t do it, brother. Valan taught that unity must not be interrupted. He said that once someone, being a child, interrupted the unity of one of the shamans. Having made his way into the tent, the kid, without realizing it, touched the vital threads of Pangea with his hands. Azis – that was how that shaman was called – went crazy from unconsciousness, and after a few moons he died altogether. What if we interfere with an alarming sound or our appearance? And the creatures… Barriers have been standing in the Temple for more than a dozen days. Strongly stand, and to this day have been motionless.
«Then you just have to wait. I wonder who this kid who broke the unity? Did he live to see our moons?
– No one knows. Some elders did, but no one ever talked about it… Better show your symbol, brother. Are you done with the engraving? Welles asked.
«Oh right, how did I forget?! – exclaimed Barda, in two jumps he reached the leather bag that lay near the smoldering fire, and instantly returned back. From the bag he took out the tip of the Verge.
Stone of the Edge – this is how the first people called a very rare and resistant to Her flame stone. The forms of the stone, whatever it was and wherever the hunters found it, were always composed of many regular measured faces, as if the stones were created and carved intentionally by Pangea herself and scattered in all corners of Her abode. It even happened that when butchering herbivorous giants in the hunt, the rangers found the Edge in their stomachs. How they got there, at first no one knew. But Viksha, the old shaman of the tribe, when the hunters found the Facets several times in the stomachs of reptiles, in unity he knew that the lizards had swallowed them on purpose, and suggested that they needed it so that it was easier to digest the tree bark!
For thousands of moons of nomadism, on the way to the Great Volcano, hunters encountered stones of the Verge of various sizes. And from the palm came across, and those that could not be carried away. And it hardly seemed possible to carve a stone of the Edge into the desired shape for a weapon! Therefore, if there was a stone with more rounded warehouses, then they adapted it for a club, and if with sharp ones, then for a cutting or piercing tool. It was possible to carve a symbol on the weapon of the Edge only with the same edge of the Edge. None of the people imagined what could be stronger than this stone!
The stones of the Edge were used mainly only by staunch trackers, and there were enough points and shock parts for many hunts. Unlike ordinary stone or bone fishing tips that crumbled into dust from the first manifestation of the creator’s flame, the stones of the Edge withstood hundreds of flames, so the hunters used mystical symbols only on these stones – there was no point in others. But the Edges were not eternal. Over time, they split from the flame, and these fragments were used for arrows. Such points served the first people for a very long time, until they turned into powder.
Do you see this ornament? It means «Split the Skull»! said Barda. «Glyph of Crushing Skulls!»
Veles took the workpiece Facets and began to examine the carved drawing. A skillfully engraved symbol of a flying spear was in contact with an equally finely carved rounded skull of a reptile – rounded forms of engraving of various limbs of lizards in the symbols and sketches of the first people always indicated the creature’s herbivory, and predators were indicated by pointed drawings.
– Well done! Welles praised. «And when will the flame ignite in it?»
«I figured it would exude prana after sticking my spear to death in two dozen herbivore heads in a row without a single miss!» Barda confidently hit himself in the chest with his fist, showing his younger brother the mood and seriousness of his intentions.
«That is an imposing symbol, brother!» Welles said in amazement. You are a worthy hunter!
Thank you, Veles. Someday the symbol will awaken the flame, and this ornament will be carved on the tablets of the Temple of the Creator.