by Hogan, James
that the Lifemaker's chosen method for making true knowledge available couldn't
depend on inspired interpretations of sacred revelation by self-proclaimed
diviners.
The mental processes that had brought Groork to these conclusions seemed
uncomfortably like the methods of reason by which Thirg hypothesized and
evaluated possible answers to his questions—a practice that Groork had always
denounced as sinful. When Groork applied this newfound skepticism to the
question of the Wearer and the angels, he found only two possible answers to
explain their failure to materialize over Pergassos: Either they had been unable
to, or they had chosen not to. If they had been unable to, then their powers
were not infinite, and they could not have been sent by the Lifemaker; if they
had chosen not to, then they had lied, and that alone was enough to force the
same conclusion. Groork felt the first possibility to be the more likely since
the philosophy of living that the Wearer had expounded would surely have been
irreconcilable with any form of moral deficiency, but either way it meant that
the angels hadn't come from any supernatural realm. Since they were clearly not
of the known world, they could only be from some other, unknown one—a world
where, admittedly, arts and skills that were perhaps not mistakenly described as
miraculous seemed to be commonplace—which could exist only above the sky. So
again one of Thirg's long-standing insistences and convictions appeared to have
been vindicated. And if that were so, was not Groork obliged to concede also
that the arts and skills that the angels exhibited were not the results of any
magical abilities at all, but simply the consequences of applying knowledge
gained by the universally accessible, comprehensible, nonmysterious methods of
inquiry that Thirg had always propounded? He regretted particularly that he
would not see Thirg again; he saw the world so differently now, and there would
have been so much for them to talk about.
The muffled tramp of heavy footfalls penetrated from outside. They stopped just
beyond the dungeon door. Groork could feel his coolant recirculator pounding,
and a sudden tightness wrenched his insides. He rose to his feet as the heavy,
organic-fibroid door curled itself aside, and the jailer entered, accompanied by
a guard captain, two priests, Vormozel, the prison governor, and Poskattyn,
Frennelech's Judicial Chancellor from the Holy Palace. An escort of Palace
Guards remained outside in the passageway.
Poskattyn produced a scroll and read, "Groork, of the city of Pergassos, thou
hast been tried and found guilty of the crimes of heresy, blasphemy, and high
treason against the State, and sentenced to suffer death in the manner
prescribed by ecclesiastical law. Hast thou any final words to speak before thou
art taken to the place of execution?" Groork could only shake his head numbly,
"Hast thou prepared thyself and made thy peace with the Lifemaker, may He have
mercy on thy soul?" Groork made no reply. Poskattyn rerolled his scroll, stepped
back, and looked at Vormozel. "Proceed, Governor." Vormozel nodded to the guard
captain, and Groork was led into the passageway and placed between the two
priests, with the captain in front, the governor and chancellor behind, and the
guards forming a file on either side with torch-bearers at front and rear. Their
footsteps echoed hollowly from the gaunt walls as the procession walked slowly
toward the damp stone stairs at the far end of the passageway. Faces appeared
and watched grimly from the windows of some of the other cell doors along the
way, but none of them made a sound.
Groork's impressions were confused and fragmented—of drab, torchlit stairs;
massive doors being opened and gratings being raised; and the priests on either
side of him chanting monotonously as they ascended to ground level and came out
into the prison yard. There a legged wagon pulled by two black-draped, wheeled
tractors was waiting before a cordon of guards, while several carriages full of
dignitaries were lined up with a mounted escort just inside the main gate. Still
dazed, Groork climbed up into the wagon with the priests, the chancellor, two of
the guards, and the guard captain, while the rest of the detail and the governor
watched from behind. The cart moved away to form up with the other vehicles and
the riders, the gates were opened, and the cavalcade emerged to be greeted by
the roars of the crowd that had been waiting outside.
Past the Courts of the High Council they went, across Penitents' Square, and
over the Bridge of Eskenderom-the-Elder to the Thieves' Quarter on the south
side of the city, while the crowd closed and surged behind. Groork gripped the
handrail in front of him and took in his last glimpses of the city he had lived
in for most of his life. He was bewildered and unable to understand what he had
done that could suddenly turn fellow citizens and old schoolfriends into a
crazed mob whose only interest was to see him die. For the first time he saw the
reality of the savage mindlessness that could be engendered in a people who had
been conditioned to believe without questioning, to accept without
understanding, and to hate upon command. He remembered the few times he had
glimpsed the calm, dignified bearing of the citizens of Menassim, and in that
moment he understood how the tolerance and wisdom of Kleippur's realm were
products of the philosophy that Thirg stood for as inevitably as the ignorance
and brutality seen in Kroaxia were of the repression that he himself, until so
very recently, had helped to perpetuate. Indeed his conversion had come late, he
reflected sadly.
The city's buildings fell behind, and now he could see the Cliff of Judgment
looming ahead, above the Spectators' Hill, its face black and menacing against a
setting of broken crags behind, sullen gray mountains in the more distant
background, and unsettled storm clouds overhead. The grim procession followed
the road around the hill, and on the far side the terraces facing the cliff were
crowded to capacity, with many more figures standing on the open ground above.
On a rock platform at the base of the cliff, the huge vat of acid fumed white
wispy vapors and bubbled in cackling anticipation. Groork found himself
trembling suddenly. He looked up, and high above, on the ledge at the top of the
long, tapering stairway, he could see the scarlet-robed figures of High Council
priests grouped before an unmoving line of Palace Guards, and in front of them
all, dressed completely in black and hooded, the Executioner, standing with arms
folded while he gazed impassively down over the scene below.
Both the King and the High Priest were present with their respective retinues in
the raised, canopied enclosure occupying the center at the bottom of the
amphitheater. Groork and those with him descended from the wagon and stood in
front of the enclosure while the spokesmen of the Head of State and of the Head
of Church delivered formal addresses. Groork was too petrified by the scene and
the mood of the waiting crowd to hear the words. Had he really caused such
turmoil that the nation's tw
o most powerful holders of office should take such
personal interest in the proceedings? Apparently so, but Groork couldn't think
why. He was incapable of thinking anything anymore. Everything was
disintegrating into a jumble of disconnected and incoherent sights and sounds,
colors and noises, words and faces. What was the point in trying to understand
any of it now? What difference would it make? A few minutes more, and nothing
would make any difference to anything ever again. He thought of his brother, he
thought of their parents, and he tried to compose a prayer to the Lifemaker. And
then he realized that the group was moving again and had begun to ascend the
broad steps below the stairway that led to the ledge high above. He could hear
the crowd growing noisier and sense its rising excitement.
In the dignitaries' enclosure, Eskenderom was watching Frennelech intently from
a distance. "Indeed, if this Enlightener is a product of the High Priest's
working in league with the aliens to hinder my expansion, then Frennelech is
displaying a most remarkable composure at his impending loss," he whispered to
Mormorel. "I am tempted to conclude that the architect of the machinations whose
consequences it has been our misfortune to suffer was none less than Kleippur as
we suspected."
"I too," Mormorel replied. "And now Kleippur shall learn of the fate that awaits
those who allow themselves to be enticed into conspiracy with alien criminals."
"Thus has the Lumian king chosen to demonstrate the folly of opposing his rule,"
Eskenderom said. "An illuminating lesson, the study of which will not be
restricted to Kleippur, I trust, or confined within merely the boundaries of
Carthogia."
"The news will be repeated rapidly far and wide," Mormorel assured him. "All
nations shall know that the powers of the gods have aligned themselves with
thee."
Groork's universe had narrowed to the silver-shod heels of the guards ascending
the steps ahead of him and the incessant chanting of the priests on either side.
He had lost all estimate of how high they had climbed or how far was still to
go. He didn't dare look up. Endless steps; endless steps; endless steps . . .
"The King's disposition seems strangely agreeable if this Enlightener was indeed
his chosen replacement for you," Jaskillion murmured in Frennelech's ear. "I
must confess my expectation was that Eskenderom would intervene to protect his
protege when I heard of his return posthaste from Gornod."
"A protege who has exhausted his potential usefulness," Frennelech replied. "And
what surer way could Eskenderom find than this to conceal all trace of his
involvement in the plot so recently frustrated and, at the same time, eliminate
all risk of embarrassing indiscretions and exposures in the future? The smugness
so evident upon the royal visage is not as deeply seated as it appears, I feel,
for it was against Eskenderom's plan that the Lumians elected to direct their
magic, not ours. If these aliens are indeed the god of which the Scribings
speak, then I think we can feel safe in claiming that He is with us."
Groork and his escorts had reached the ledge. A line of trumpeters along the
rear wall blasted a fanfare, and then everyone stood silently for what seemed an
eternity while more speeches were delivered inaudibly far below—deliberately
intended, Groork was certain, to prolong his anguish. A hush fell, and the
Executioner advanced onto the narrow, tapering platform that projected outward
from the ledge and held up a full-size effigy of a robeing. It was customary to
commence the proceedings with a dummy to test the quality of the acids; it also
added to the victims' terror and therefore helped excite the crowd. An expectant
stillness descended over the sea of upturned faces on the hill opposite. Very
slowly, the Executioner pushed the dummy forward to the edge of the platform,
held it steady for a few seconds, and then allowed it to tumble forward into
space. A thunderous roar came up from the spectators and sustained itself for a
long time. From where Groork was standing, he was unable to see what happened.
But he didn't have to; he'd seen executions before. After the dummy, a
succession of sacrificial animals was led forward and dispatched, one by one,
from the platform. With each the crowd grew wilder.
And then the last of the animals was gone. Groork stared in horror at the
platform, and felt himself freeze. The priests had formed a solid wall
immediately behind, and to the rear the line of guards was closing up and moving
forward. The Executioner left the platform and removed his long lance from its
stand beside an altar bearing fire, while behind Groork the line of priests drew
into a semicircle that drove him outward toward the end of the tapering
platform. Then he was standing on a tiny island of ice that seemed to float high
in the air, nothingness yawned in front of him and on both sides. Groork's
senses reeled. He recoiled instinctively from the drop, but something sharp
prodded him in the back. He looked back desperately. The Executioner had leveled
his lance, and behind him the stone-faced priests had closed ranks to the very
edge of the platform. There was no way back.
Goaded by another jab with the lance, Groork tottered a step forward and for the
first time found himself looking straight down the sheer cliff face. Far below,
the acid vat was foaming and boiling, with the last of the animals still
writhing and convulsing in their death agonies. Groork shook his head wildly in
protest. This would serve no purpose. It would achieve nothing. There was no
point, no reason. If he was going to die, he pleaded inwardly, let it not be for
no reason. "No!" he shouted. "This is not the Lifemaker's will. This is
savagery! This—"
"Know all ye here that in this way shall all heretics and blasphemers perish!"
the Executioner shouted, and lunged hard with the lance. The landscape wheeled
around him as Groork pitched forward into emptiness. Brilliant violet lights
flared in the sky above, but Groork didn't see them. A roar of voices rose to
meet him. He felt himself scream, but couldn't hear. Land and sky spun together.
And in the same instant, something pointed and streamlined swooped down from the
clouds above the clifftop.
"Four-zero-zero on vertical boost. Gimme more flaps!"
"That's one through four at full. Take it down! Take it down!"
"Harder to starboard! Faster with that line, Joe!"
"It's at max now."
"You've got it. Easy, easy! Coming round fine. Hold that turn, Clarissa. Hold
that turn!"
As the flyer dived out of the blackness and banked into the full glare of the
light from the flares, the net trailing on a line from its rear portside door
swung out in a wide arc and scooped the tumbling figure of Moses from the air.
The tangle of robot and net dipped low to swing past the base of the cliff, rose
again like a pendulum, and then swung back in a wide, rising curve as the flyer
began to lift again. The return trajectory carried back up to the ledge, where
robots were running to and fro in confusion and waving things in the air, with a
few—p
resumably the radiosensitive types that Dave Crookes had speculated about—
writhing around on the floor under the close-range influence of the flyer's
mapping radar. Lower down, visible at the edge of the glow being generated by
the flares, the hillside opposite the cliff seemed to be alive with deranged
figures waving, running hither and thither, and throwing themselves to the
ground in all manner of agitation and commotion.
Then the swinging net caught on a construction of steel girders standing at one
end of the ledge, and the line tightened. Joe Fellburg, who was with Drew West
in the flyer's opened aft compartment—both of them suited up, as were all the
flyer's occupants—crashed the winding mechanism into neutral, and the power
winch whined in protest as it was jerked abruptly into reverse. "We're caught!"
Fellburg yelled. "Level out and slacken it off for chrissakes!"
"Back it off, Clarissa!" West shouted, and Clarissa slammed into reverse thrust,
throwing everyone violently forward against their restraining harnesses. The
line went taut, yanking the winch off its mounting and trapping the line in a
mess of crushed supports, buckled floorplates, and a seized winding drum. "The
winch is wrecked!" Fellburg shouted. "Everything's screwed up!"
In the copilot's seat, Abaquaan increased vertical boost to provide lift while
Clarissa slowed frantically and banked into a tight turn to take the strain off
the line. "Christ, those missiles!" Abaquaan yelled. "We can't hang around here.
You'll have to cut the line."
Zambendorf fought his way uphill across the tilted floor and pulled himself into
the aft compartment. "We can't give up now," he bellowed. "We've got him. Drew,
give me the end of that auxiliary line and then reel me out. I'm going down
there to attach a magnetic grab."
"You can't go down there, Karl," Fellburg protested.
"There isn't time to argue. Give me that line."
Fellburg clipped the auxiliary line to Zambendorf's harness, then took a
rigger's tool belt from the doorway locker and attached it over his own suit.
"You're crazy, but you'll still need some help," he said. "I'm coming too."
"Get right above the net and steady up, Clarissa," West called over the
intercom. "Karl and Joe are going down with a magnet."
