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.
