"... believe in the purchase of everlasting peace with the blood of the young; in eternal adherence to the regime of the Prelatinate because it is the sole existing concept in which to adhere; in sacrifice of thought upon the omnipotent altar of Belief to Government Almighty, and in the everlasting spirit of the Founders, to whom we daily pray for the strength to forever remain unchanged, unchangeable, despite the temptations of knowledge, progress, and human feeling: Sobeit. I believe in the infinite divinity of the two parties, and in the concept of truth as they shall dictate, rather than as it may seem to exist through exercise of mere reason; in the...."
The sing-song tones droned with heavy monotony through the hidden speakers, as though weaving some hypnotic spell to insure the captivity of the young myrmidons upon whose ears they fell, unintelligible, but Law.
The sea of young heads was bowed and a million eyes were focused unmoving on the ground, for to view the heavens and to think upon their unbounded freedom, with which they sought to lure the mind away from the patterns which had been decreed for it, would be tantamount to heresy.
And then suddenly the drone had ceased. There was movement in the balcony. Two of the Inner Prelatinate, cloaks swaying heavily with the weight of the precious metals with which they were gaudily embroidered, took posts as though sentinels at each side of the Prelate General's shoulder-borne sedan. The naked broadswords in their hands swung upward slowly until their lips touched directly above it. And the Latin came again, in low, swift cadences.
"... You who are about to die, go forth ..."
And as the words were intoned, the broadswords were brought level, were swung slowly, in wide, horizontal half-arcs above the high-held heads of the regimented multitude.
"God ..." Doug thought, "God! A blessing!"
Then the ceremony was over, and the strains of the hymn again burst forth, and Doug caught himself almost too late. He whirled.
"Troops pass in review!"
Tayne returned the salute, relayed the order until within seconds it was a surging, shrieking thing, the more frightening for its perfect unison. Hysteria, Doug thought, by the numbers!