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 two 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