Читать книгу Immortals. Alma and Scythe of Death - Сергей Соловьёв, Ар'лан ис'Дрекхэм - Страница 5

Res looked at his dead wife, at Alma, who was sitting inconsolably nearby. It was hard on my heart, but you can’t do anything. Show his pain when others look at him — he could not. I didn’t want to be weak in front of people. I also noticed a snake wrapped around the baby’s neck, but did not want to interfere. Like — well, good. Did any of the giants offend the snakes? So is their progenitor, Ull-Veles was born from a snake. Let my daughter mess around if it makes her feel better.

— Let’s go, Alma. let’s go daughter, — and took her in his arms, — now the magi’s mother will be prepared on the last journey. The road is long, not simple. What could I walk along the ice bridge, where the Twins will meet her, Veles da Elena the Beautiful. Elena will light a light and illuminate the path, and Veles will lead to God’s abode, where souls are waiting for incarnation. Mom will come back later.

— And if I try to resurrect her, I will go to Ella — Elena, I will ask to let my mother back?

— Rarely can even the strongest witch get to that monastery in a dream. Basically, they lose their minds, and in reality they dream like poor Chrysa. She also tried to resurrect her friend, but could not go that way. And now she has become a fool.

— And if you ask Ilsa? Dead Princess? She also raises the dead?

“Would you like that?” Ilsa is kind, like Ella herself, but she cannot resurrect the deceased. He can heal, who is still alive. And so, the dead will remain dead, he will just walk, but do a simple job that the Princess will order.

Alma sat and listened, even tears stopped dripping from her eyes. She could not imagine this. No, I heard all the giants talking about Ilsa’s Dead Rati, and I saw the Princess herself. Her beautiful eyes cannot be torn off, but her face is always sad, and she will never smile. And the face is so white, and the lips are blue. But he loves children very much. Only now, she did not have time to come to their village to cure her mother, and Alma burst into tears again and hugged her father. Everyone knew that the Princess visits all the villages and fortresses in Priobye in turn, helping the suffering.

“Let’s go Alma, lay you down,” said the father, taking his daughter to other rooms.

The girl lay down on a straw mattress, put a pillow of soft sheep’s wool under her head, and her father wrapped her in a felt blanket. She looked at him, thinking that she would be left again, but a loved one was sitting next to her, and the girl calmed down and finally fell asleep.

***

This day has come, a sad day of farewell and funeral. Asna’s body was carried out on a stretcher so that her relatives could say goodbye to the departed one. They took turns coming up memorising expensive traits, Alma and Res were here too. Then the husband covered his dead face with a wooden mask, and the servants of the Magus Nargiz carried the body into the forest. The funeral custom of this kind of giants was not so simple — men were buried in the canopy of trees on canopies, placing the body in a wooden deck. Women and children were buried in the hollows of huge trees.

In this tribe, the Magi taught that the first people were created by the God of Heaven and the Goddess of Water from trees, having cut a log. In other tribes, further south, it was believed that the gods created people from the dust of the earth. Therefore, the southerners buried their dead, coating with clay. But for some southerners, the custom was even more complicated. The body was boiled in a huge cauldron until the meat and flesh moved away from the bones. Then the bones were covered with clay, painted and dressed in new clothes. They made a new body for the dead, preparing for the revival promised by Ella.

Res himself lifted his wife’s body, which became so light and naughty. The mask tree seemed to become part of his Asna, and she is part of this tree. The hollow was prepared, and he sat his wife on a seat in the depths of the trunk, and put a pot of drink on the road to the Ice Bridge. But here, the body was hidden in a tree, and music began to play. The stub concealed the burial site and the burial site was now not visible.

Horns and pipes screamed piercingly, and witches and magi began to dance a prayer, praising the Twin Gods with a plexus of arms and legs, to the melody that drove any person crazy. There were tables for commemoration, and relatives ate and drank, in memory of Asna.

Alma was sitting near her father, and her snake Skara was quietly lying in a bag, warmed up on the owner’s body. The girl ate with difficulty, she was sad and hurt. Honestly, for several months she felt that her mother was dying, but she still wanted that this would not happen. Every night she listened, she breathes or not, prepared a healing decoction. I walked with my mother by the hand so as not to leave her alone. Helped at home in everything that would rest more. Even a decoction of willow bark, which the girl did herself every day, adding mint and lily of the valley, did not help. Even the pigeon fried leg, so smelly, lying in front of her, did not please Alma. Even worse was what she had in front of her eyes.

An unfamiliar girl was sitting next to her father, imposing ritual food on him, and pouring mead from a large clay reaper into his wooden bucket.