Бесплатный фрагмент - The Art of Dying
— Why do you, my son, always choose only black paint for your drawings?
— Because black is the strongest color.
It can conquer any other.
Chapter 1. The Prophecy of the Wind
The sun scorched the mountain slopes, burning away the last traces of green.
I, Ishtali, sat on the hilltop. The wind smelled of salt and dried grass as it pulled at my hair.
I was only ten, yet I already felt the weight of the world — a weight adults hide behind small talk about crops, hunting, and preparations for ritual celebrations.
I was born into the Roko tribe, in a small village lost among canyons and deserts in northern Mexico. My parents were farmers, simple people, but they believed there was something unusual about me. Even as an infant I never cried — I only watched the world with wide, black eyes full of inexplicable wisdom. My mother used to say I could see what others could not.
My earliest memories are of the wind passing through me as if I were made of smoke — a wind woven from the whisper of stones, the heartbeat of the earth, and the song of snakes beneath the cactus roots. At night I watched spirits walking the narrow paths toward the sacred plateau. Other children feared the darkness, but to me it was a refuge. In its silence, I felt at home.
Chapter 2. The Path of Spirits
When I was four, I wandered off during play. The other children grew frightened, and the adults raised the alarm. I still remember that day clearly. I followed a path no one else could see — a trail laid out for me by the spirits, winding through thick brush and dry riverbeds. When night fell, an even deeper calm settled over me. xI remember sitting beneath a tree in the darkness, listening to rustles that moved around me — now on the ground, now far away, now somewhere high above in the branches. And through it all, I felt protected, as though unseen hands were gently guiding me home.
When I finally appeared at the edge of the village, unharmed, people began to whisper. Over time, more and more of them came seeking help. I found lost animals, sensed coming droughts, and even eased illness — not through magic, but through understanding.
I see how energy moves. I sense illness the way one feels a cold wind — a sudden chill, a shift in the flow — and I know how to guide life’s warmth to the place where it is needed most.
Chapter 3. The Shadow Behind the Sun
Death… I had always felt its presence — like a shadow lingering just behind the sun.
To me, death was never an ending. It was a transformation, a passage from one state of being into another. I watched souls slip into eternity the way birds rise into the sky. They merged with the wind, with the stones, with the plants. They became part of the greater whole.
Life and death were two sides of the same coin — inseparable, forever turning in their silent cycle. The boundary between them was thin, trembling like the edge of an obsidian blade, and I could sense its shimmer. Sometimes that boundary would quiver, and the spirits would draw near, whispering the secrets of existence into my ear — of eternity, of the cycles that govern all things, of how everything passes… except life itself.
At sixteen, my tribe chose me as their shaman. It was not merely a ceremony, but a recognition — an acknowledgment of my bond with the spirits, of my ability to see the unseen and feel what lay beyond ordinary perception. I became the keeper of traditions, a healer, a guide between worlds. Yet I never forgot that day on the hill, when the wind whispered to me of the mysteries of the world — of life, of death, of the fragile line between them.
Only now do I truly understand: that moment was not an ending or a beginning, but the first step on a much longer path. A path toward the heart of eternity. A path toward the very pulse of the earth.
Chapter 4. The Hut Between Worlds
I sat beside my hut, its walls covered with a soft layer of moss, draped with animal skins, and adorned with wards crafted from the skulls of fallen warriors of our tribe. My hut stood apart from the village, wrapped in an invisible veil — a boundary between two realms: the world of people and the world of spirits. Here, among rustling leaves and whispering trees, amid the breath and hiss of wild creatures and the quiet murmur of ancestral spirits, I entered a different kind of silence — a ringing stillness filled with streams of knowledge.
This was where I moved along the boundary between the two worlds: the realm of flesh and stone, and the realm of spirits, woven from mystery and unseen currents. At times I would slip into the world of dreams, sinking into a muted conversation with eternity — a place where time and distance blurred, and where new realities were born.
Chapter 5. Xanta
It was on one of those days that I saw her. I still see her now as clearly as if it were yesterday. Her name was Xanta. Her skin, the color of ripe peach flesh, seemed to hold sunlight within it. Her hair, black as obsidian, fell in a heavy, glossy braid all the way down her back. And her eyes — deep as a dark ocean, touched with midnight-blue, held a quiet gravity that stilled everything around them. Her smile was so fresh, so innocent, that the world itself seemed to fall away. I forgot everything — my gift, my purpose, even the weight of my destiny.
When our eyes met, something extraordinary happened. It felt as if my consciousness brushed against hers — as if I stepped into her thoughts, into the soft rhythm of her heartbeat. And yet I remained myself, whole and unbroken. Through that brief touch I felt expanded, enriched by what she was. It was a miracle beyond anything I understood — beyond magic, beyond the spirit world, beyond every mystery I thought I already knew.
Chapter 6. The Spark of Eternity
Once, after one of our long talks by the waterfall, we embraced. And in that moment, our wrists brushed against each other. Something unimaginable happened. A surge of energy burst through us — as if the force of the entire universe had struck at once. In the same breath, I saw a new light appear in Xanta’s eyes — a spark of understanding, a glimmer of knowledge that until then had belonged only to me. She had gained the ability to perceive what was hidden from ordinary sight. She had gained my abilities. And I… I felt my consciousness expand, stretching far beyond the limits I had ever known. A vastness opened before me — an endless space I had never been able to grasp until that moment.
With every touch, every embrace, every kiss, we crossed new thresholds and widened the boundaries of our awareness. Each step beyond the edge of existence brought us a deeper, more tangible sense of infinity — of the eternal rhythm and immeasurable depth of the universe. The world turned into a living, breathing fabric, threaded with secret signs and unfathomable mysteries. We became one whole — two sides of a single coin, bound by an invisible yet incredibly powerful thread of energy. It was a love that transcended everything earthly — a love that opened the doors to infinity. And I knew it was only the beginning of our journey: a journey of endless discoveries and transformations. A path that could become salvation… or ruin.
Chapter 7. The Dance of Shadows
The fire blazed hot, pushing waves of heat and light into the darkness.
Tall stone cliffs surrounded the plateau where our tribe had gathered for generations to hold rituals and festivals.
That night the celebration had already ended. People drifted away, but the fire kept burning.
Its flames climbed high, washing the rocks in warm, living color. Xanta remained by the fire, alone. She kept her gaze fixed on the flames, unable — or unwilling — to look away.
The firelight flickered unevenly, dancing across the stone walls.
Her shadow stretched across the cliff face, swaying with the flame.
And the deeper Xanta sank into the shimmering glow, the stronger an odd pull drew her toward that shadow trembling on the granite.
On this moonless night, her attention was completely claimed by it — the wavering silhouette dancing its strange, secret dance. At first it looked ordinary. But then she noticed how parts of it began shifting, merging into shapes that didn’t belong to her. The edges of her outline twisted, forming eerie, unnatural contours. Within those dark shapes something stirred — demonic forms revealed themselves, one after another, slipping in and out of the shadow’s body. Images flashed through the shifting silhouette. These were no simple visions. Each figure carried a story — dark, frightening, and all its own.
Chapter 8. The Trap of Oblivion
Serpentine faces with burning red eyes… goat-horned silhouettes exhaling icy breath.
Shadows made of lost souls — so twisted that Xanta could hardly bear to look at them.
They reminded her that this world held horrors far older, far darker, than anything she had ever imagined. Almost without thinking, she lifted her left hand to brush her hair back.
At that very moment, her shadow swelled. It spread across the cliff face, reaching toward the edge of the abyss. The shapes inside it thickened, sharpened — growing grotesquely clear.
The demonic outlines grew sharper still. For a heartbeat, Xanta saw dying faces — people who had once lived here, now trapped forever in anguish, fused into a shadow that radiated terror.
Trying to make sense of the shifting visions, she lowered her left hand and raised her right. Her shadow changed instantly. This time it resembled a Warrior of Light — tall, noble, holding a sword that shimmered like starlight. But what a disappointment he was.
Despite his shining form, a dull stillness clung to him, an emptiness draining all life from his movements. He lifted the sword with no will, as though simply waiting for time itself to end.
Curiosity overtook her. What if she raised both hands? Slowly, Xanta lifted her arms.
Both silhouettes began to transform. To her left, a new figure emerged — a goat-headed apparition, swelling like a ghost from the rock. Its features formed a skull with jagged teeth and hollow, bottomless eyes. The shadow writhed again, twisting into yet another horror.
A pig-like head surfaced — covered in rotting scars, its glistening greedy eyes hungry for flesh. This demon was not merely fear, but the embodiment of human vice itself — a devourer of corpses, a bottomless maw capable of consuming anyone. The forms kept shifting, revealing every nightmare one could imagine.
To her right remained the unchanged Warrior of Light, a lone island of calm in a storm of horrors. Xanta slowly began to bring her hands together.
Chapter 9. The Border of Worlds
As her hands drew closer, both shadows began to grow — stretching upward, rising higher and higher until they towered above the cliffs themselves. A wave of dizziness washed over Xanta. She tried to lower her arms, but her body no longer obeyed her. Her limbs felt carved from stone, moving only toward one another, as though some ancient mechanism had been set in motion — one that had to reach its end.
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