The Wheel Is Death
By ROGER DEE
The little world was quiet at last.
Only one thing remained to be
done—Gor Zan must be slain, quickly.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
His thin scream keened away in the distance.
He was too late to stop them. Old Kaliz dropped his upraised arm, andat his signal the four naked under-priests flung the bound body of GorZan over the precipice. Ortho heard his friend's thin scream keeningaway until it dwindled in the distance and the muted roar of the fallsboiling at the cliff's bottom floated upward and drowned it.
He turned to run, but the horror of what he had seen numbed his limbsto nightmare slowness. Kaliz and the four under-priests caught himbefore he had taken a dozen steps.
"You are still a neophyte," old Kaliz said gently. "You have only begunto learn, and so you cannot understand why Gor Zan had to die. Theanswer lies there." He pointed a wrinkled hand to the Valley below.
Over the heads of the four priests who squatted on the ledge outsidethe priest-cave Ortho looked down into the Valley, the lush green milesof its even floor clothed in a faint rosy haze of vapor. The sun satred upon the western wall; above the eastern rim the rising moon hungwarm and turquoise-blue, its great encircling ring pulsing like an auraof living light. Under its glow the Valley-haze turned violet and thenblue, and on the heels of its rising came the faint elfin voices of thePeople, leaving their caves to play in the meadow.
Ortho sat back upon his polished sitting-stone and met thehigh-priest's eyes defiantly.
"There is no reason down there," he said sullenly. "It is only thePeople, coming out to play under the moon. You killed Gor Zan becausehe was wiser than you, because he talked to the People and made clearto them things they did not understand before. You were jealous of himand you killed him lest he make your own wisdom seem small in the eyesof the People."
Kaliz sighed and seated himself stiffly on his own sitting-stone.
"The young do not learn easily," he said. "But believe this,Ortho—your friend Gor Zan was a snare to the People and a deadlymenace to their way of life. We took him from them reluctantly and onlyas a last resort, before he could start the People again on the bloodypath of ambition, progress and the Machine."
Ortho cupped his still beardless chin in his hands and stareddisconsolately down into the blue-hazed Valley where the People played.
"Empty talk," he said contemptuously. "Priest-talk—ambition, progress,the Machine! I do not know the words. There is nothing but the Valleyand the People, who have always been and who will always be. Your wordshave no meaning."
"I have taught these others," Kaliz murmured. The blue moonlight pulsedwarm across his wrinkled face, made his hooded eyes pools of reflectedlight. "I can teach you, too. You would know these things soon, becauseyou are almost ready to read the Books; but I shall tell you now, thatyou may not be rebellious for lack of understanding."
He pointed again, this time at the moon with its restless blue halo.
"It was not always so," he said. His voice softened as his memorydrifted back across the ages. "Once it was yellow, pitted and airlessand dead, shining only with light reflected from the sun. Men changedthat, as they changed t