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know truly of our coming in and our going out and the grace that lieth with us
at exit and entrance."
The crowd was sighing, tike the wind through a grove of tall beeches. Ryan
felt a deeply uneasy prickling at the base of his spine at the strange, almost
hypnotic power of the man who watched over them.
"What is the reward of those who tread the righteous path, brothers and
sisters?"
"Light and life" was the chorused reply.
"And what shall be the lot of those who transgress against the word of Moses?"
"Darkness and death!"
Ryan's right hand had slipped down onto the cool butt of his 9 mm SIG-Sauer,
without his even being aware of the movement.
"How shall they enter that darkness, brothers and sisters? How?"
This time the shout was deafening. "Through the flame, Moses, through the
flame."
"Oh, Gaia!" Ryan whispered. "Look."
Suddenly everything had become very clear-the need for the willow branches,
the call for the flames, the path to the endless darkness for those who had
gone against the word and laws of
Moses.
The drumbeat became even slower, ceremonial and ponderous, like the steps of a
giant.
Or the beating of a huge, diseased heart.
The two victims appeared, surrounded by an honor guard of the tallest young
women in the ville, all carrying rifles at the high port.
The outlander rapist was first, naked, hands tied behind his back. His head
was sunk on his chest, and he shuffled his feet as be walked, not seeming to
be aware of where he was or what was happening to him.
Heinrich, the renegade youth who had chosen to try to defy Moses and his laws,
followed close behind. He walked with his head up, looking scornfully from
side to side, once spitting at someone who whispered something from the crowd.
The eagle eye of Moses missed nothing. "Let us have silence and dignity,
brothers and sisters of the ville," he called from his thatched aerie.
Dean pulled at his father's sleeve. "What are those things for, Dad?" He
pointed at a pair of large cages, roughly the size and shape of a man, made
from tightly bound, narrow strips of willow, being carried by a number of men
from the ville, toward two stout wooden stakes that were
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beneath the watching Moses.
Ryan didn't answer for a moment, though he knew the answer. "You'll see," he
whispered.
The older man, whose tongue had been torn from his mouth, kept making choked,
gobbling sounds. He stumbled as he was tied first to the stake, then the
wicker cage was strapped into place around him. One of the younger women
poured some clear liquid all over him and the woven container that held him.
The pungent smell drifted across the square.
"Lamp oil," J.B. said.
"They going to burn him, Dad?"
"Yeah. Both of them, Dean."
"Bastards!" The word was spoken loud enough for Jehu to hear him. The blond
man turned and glowered at the boy.
"You could've joined us, boy. You know that. And you turned your back."
I Wouldn't join you if you offered me all the jack in Deathlands!"
Ryan patted his son on the back.
Now it was the turn of Heinrich to be imprisoned.
Though he had seemed fairly passive, the sight of the stake and the wicker
cage brought on a violent and futile rage. He pulled himself away from the
young women guarding him and kicked out at them, buying himself a few moments*
breathing space. He stared wildly around him, looking toward the hidden figure
of Moses.
"Don't do this to me, friend!" he shrieked, his voice cracking with mortal
terror. "Spare me this ordeal. Let me go free and I'll never come back to
Quindley again. I swear it. Show me mercy, I
beg you."
"Silence him, sisters!" ordered the sonorous voice of the hidden Moses.
"It can't be wrong just to be old!"
The word died away as the nearest woman brought the butt of her rifle around
in a crushing blow to
Heinrich's groin. He doubled over, flat on his face in the trampled dirt, his
cries turning to a feeble, helpless mewing. His whole body convulsed as he
vomited.
"I regret that I have no wish to bear witness to this most barbarous
performance. I shall return to our quarters with anyone who wishes to
accompany me."
"You were warned, oldie!" whispered Jehu, starting to bring the barrel of his
own blaster around toward Doc. But he stopped when he found himself staring
down the gaping muzzle of Ryan's SIG-
Sauer, with J.B.'s Uzi nudging him in the ribs.
Doc smiled. "A little violence is a wonderful thing, is it not?" He raised his
voice toward the roof of Moses's temple. "Carry on with your bloody ritual,
but you carry on without me!" He turned on his heel and began to walk back
toward their quarters, pushing an angry young man out of the way with the iron
ferrule of his sword stick.
"Think I'll keep you company, Doc," Mildred called, striding after him.
It crossed Ryan's mind as a vaguely interesting fact that the two members of
their group who couldn't face the brutal chilling to come had both arrived in
the living enamel house of
Deathlands from earlier, perhaps more civilized, predark times. He also
wondered what Michael was feeling, across the far side of the square, in the
gloom.
"Dad?"
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"Yeah?"
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"Mind if I go after Doc and Mildred?"
"Course not."
"You staying with Krysty and J.B., Dad?"
"Guess so."
The boy nodded. "See you hi a while."
Ryan half turned to watch the slim, lithe figure of his son picking his way
through the darkness after Doc and Mildred.
"Best for him not to watch this, lover," Krysty said, taking his arm.
"I guess so." Jehu stood watching them, frozen in an impotent rage at their
betrayal of one of the most important of the ville's rituals. "You keep
looking at me like that, Jehu, and you'll miss the main event behind you."
"You speaking to me, oldie? You speaking to me?"
"Must be," Ryan replied, "You're the only one here."
Just for a spaced heartbeat he thought the pony-tailed youth was going to go
for him, and his finger took up the first pressure on the P-226. But then Jehu
managed to regain self-control and ostentatiously spun to watch the ceremony.
Both men were bound inside the cages of thin, strong osier branches.
The scent of the oil was strong in the still night air, filling the nostrils
with its rank odor.
The drum had stopped its beating, and the watchers were motionless. Ryan
listened carefully, and it seemed as though the entire world beyond the
fortified walls of the ville was holding its breath.
The calm, gentle voice of Moses drifted down over them all like a layer of
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