struggled to enter the city.
“We’re going to make it!” he shouted to his compan-
ions as they merged with the rear of the mob. He was
afraid to look back lest an avalanche of brown-and-yellow
particles prove him a fatal liar. His throat felt like the
underside of the hood of a new Corvette after a day of
drag-racing, but he didn’t dare stop for a drink until they
were safely inside the city walls.
Then the ground fell away beneath him.
They were on a bridge, and looking down he could see
through the cracks in the wood. The lumber to build it
must have come from distant mountains. There was no
bottom to the moat, a black ring encircling the city.
His first thought was that Redrock had been built on a
hill in the center of some ancient volcanic crater. A glance
at the walls of the moat proved otherwise. They were too
regular, too smooth, and too vertical to have been fashioned
by hand. Something had dug the awesome ring. Who or
what, he could not imagine.
Thick smells and heavy musk filled the air around him.
The bridge seemed endless, the gaps between the heavy
timbers dangerously wide. If he missed a step and put a
leg through, he wouldn’t fall, but he would be trampled by
the anxious mass of life crowding about him.
Once within the safety of the city walls, the panic
dissipated. Lines of tall guards clad in yellow shepherded
the exhausted flow of refugees into the vast courtyard
beyond the gate. There were no buildings within several
hundred yards of the wall and the moat just beyond. A
great open space had been provided for all who sought