him? the craftsman asked smiling.
«I’m here, Varn!» Roshan exclaimed as he descended the path. – Come on already! Show us the totem in action!
One-Eyed finally loosened the liana ropes and lifted the canopy. Heat surged from the tent in an instant, and Varnus barely had time to jump back. Everyone gasped at what was happening: on the other side of the entrance, something that looked like a fiery cloud of an infinite number of burning particles tried to escape from the building, but a through stream of air, rushing to the chimney, prevented this from happening.
Varnus lifted the veil of the entrance even more. The red-hot club leaned back. It was so dense that neither the Fireplace itself nor the slightest space inside the building could be seen behind it. The craftsman lowered the canopy and secured it almost to the very ground, leaving a small gap for traction. Under a light stream of blowing wind, the shining particles began to slowly exit through the chimney.
Women, elders, teenagers – everyone froze, watching what was happening. Rising to the sky, many lights created a continuous flow of light, a luminous whirlpool formed above the roof of the Flame Tent, and the higher the whirlwind rose, the wider its edge became. It seemed that the red-hot resin would not cease to go out and the whirlwind of glow would reach the stars. But already somewhere there, high up, the coals turned into ashes and dissolved into the night heights…
– Here it is, yes!
– Look, look! They fly to the stars!
The juveniles made a delighted noise, emotions overwhelmed the future hunters. Children enthusiastically looked at the circulation of shining grains, and their amazement and joy knew no bounds!
A light breeze blew. The pillar of the fiery vortex twisted slightly, but did not lose its shape. Only now the leader noticed that the edge of the luminous whirlpool looked like the glow of a stake in the sky, which, like particles of hot resin, flickered white. Roshan was struck by this incomparable resemblance. But suddenly the center of the stake lit up, so brightly that for a moment it blinded the first people: teenagers, women, old people – everyone who admired the fiery whirlwind at that moment – saw lightning. Covering their eyes and faces with their hands, the tribesmen groaned and groaned in shock, but immediately the dazzling glare in the gaze of each subsided, and fuss began among the relatives.
– Have you seen the light?
– What was it?
– Flash!
Teenagers began to fill up the elders with questions, trying to find out about what had happened. The adults tried to calm down the growing farce, but the juveniles, not responding to the calls, unrestrainedly asked everyone in a row who and what they saw and whether they saw something, until one of the youngsters cried out:
– Look!
Everyone looked up at the sky again. The accumulation of light in the middle of the star ring was gradually fading away, and it was noticeable how the glow measuredly moved away from the center of the circle. Soon it completely dissolved, and in place of the once shining stake, a bright, bizarre star lit up. Blazing with a red flame, it clearly stood out among other stars. An incomparable luminary, unseen before, as if alive, shimmering with shades of scarlet light, adorned the night sky.
Young people, women and sentinel hunters began to vigorously discuss the strange star, and only the leader and the elders thoughtfully exchanged glances.
Where the Great Fire was incinerated and the cold Moon hid, something unknown, visible and at the same time inaccessible, happened. And the spirits of Zavrini themselves warned the first people about this!
* eye – in the language of the first people means «eyes».
***
When the future hunters were sent to the huts, the elders and shamans made a decision: Roshan will go to the caves in the Temple of the Creator in the morning and, indulging in unity, will rise to the stars to learn the secret of the newborn manifestation. Through Her eyes to see what is inaccessible to humans. Something that no one has ever seen before…
Shelter of the first people
The Great Volcano – a mighty mountain, towering above the universe, proudly propped up the sky. A considerable part of it sometimes hid among the clouds passing by, and from below, at the pedestal, it seemed that the edges of the peaks did not exist at all. From the north, the volcano was surrounded by ridges covered with coniferous vegetation. They pierced the cloudy sky with their ends, but their greatness did not look as irresistible as that of the creation under heaven. An immense grove of araucaria stretched in a dense cover from the southeast to the foot of the mountain. She then rose to the heights, then fell deep into the ravines, creating an amazing variety of terrain. In the distance, the grove bordered only on the horizon, and closer to the Great Volcano it grew to its first cliffs, and only huge boulders, tens of thousands of moons lying at the base, in places interrupted the green cover of the creator. From all the western slopes of the mountain there was a plain. Covered with bennettitic plants, ginkgo trees, and steppe palms, it gradually grew into a liana forest in the southwest, and into a forest in the west. The north-west of the lowlands ended in a valley of wooded ridges and small jungle – the former path of a nomadic tribe.
The village of the first people stood at the southern foot of the mountain, on the lower cliffs of which underground cavities were once formed – caves, and the first people gladly arranged and settled them. Elderly relatives settled in the caves, since it was impossible to be in the camp during the day: there was a rumble of running children everywhere, militant cries of teenagers from the arena of the weapons mansion, motives of drumming, noise and other fuss were constantly heard. And the elders favored peace and quiet. But in times of heavy rains in the grottoes of the old people, it still became livelier: the buildings of the settlement could not withstand the raging elements, and the tribe more than once escaped from the tiring moisture in the dwellings of the ancestors.
From a rocky crevice under one of the high ledges, as a great favor of the creator, a small stream was beating. In some places, his fellow tribesmen directed his modest channel into makeshift canals. The channels filled leather-covered vats, wells built on the slopes. Filled wells from an excess of water through the same channels returned priceless life-giving moisture back to the stream. The channel went just below the settlement into a gorge under the slope, and here, among the vast cliffs and araucaria, the main part of the village was located.
On araucaria, the first people erected huts for juveniles. Small buildings – below a tall fellow tribesman – were given, like most buildings in the settlement, rounded shapes. For very young children, the structures were usually installed on short dense growths sticking out of tree trunks. The branches were crushed and tied with liana twine. So it turned out a stable flooring – a lead on which the frame of the hut was placed. There could be several such tales along the entire length of the trunk. The leafy cover of the flooring did not make it possible to detect buildings from the ground, and the arrangement of the floorings one above the other created shelter on the lower branches from the scorching rays of the sun and annoying rainwater.
For slightly older children, buildings were erected at the ends of large branches, where araucaria shoots gathered in dense clusters. The core of the branches was crushed, and the edges were left as is. The prepared floors for these dwellings resembled the nests of Pterosaurs. The installed frame in the center of the flooring was covered with leather soaked in fat. A layer of fat protected the dwellings from the rains, but, unfortunately, did not save them from powerful downpours. The finished hut from all sides, except for the side of the entrance to it, was enveloped by untouched ramifications of araucaria. To the huts, the hunters raised deep lime vats: in them, women made fires for cooking or heating. Huts, set in places of dense growth, could accommodate no more than four kids, and at the edges of the branches – no more than four teenagers. The children slept on soft, hay-stuffed leather bedding.
Young