"You are still a neophyte," old Kaliz said gently. "You have only begun to learn, and so you cannot understand why Gor Zan had to die. The answer lies there." He pointed a wrinkled hand to the Valley below.
Over the heads of the four priests who squatted on the ledge outside the priest-cave Ortho looked down into the Valley, the lush green miles of its even floor clothed in a faint rosy haze of vapor. The sun sat red upon the western wall; above the eastern rim the rising moon hung warm and turquoise-blue, its great encircling ring pulsing like an aura of living light. Under its glow the Valley-haze turned violet and then blue, and on the heels of its rising came the faint elfin voices of the People, leaving their caves to play in the meadow.
Ortho sat back upon his polished sitting-stone and met the high-priest's eyes defiantly.
"There is no reason down there," he said sullenly. "It is only the People, coming out to play under the moon. You killed Gor Zan because he was wiser than you, because he talked to the People and made clear to them things they did not understand before. You were jealous of him and you killed him lest he make your own wisdom seem small in the eyes of 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 deadly menace to their way of life. We took him from them reluctantly and only as a last resort, before he could start the People again on the bloody path of ambition, progress and the Machine."
Ortho cupped his still beardless chin in his hands and stared disconsolately 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 Valley and the People, who have always been and who will always be. Your words have no meaning."
"I have taught these others," Kaliz murmured. The blue moonlight pulsed warm across his wrinkled face, made his hooded eyes pools of reflected light. "I can teach you, too. You would know these things soon, because you are almost ready to read the Books; but I shall tell you now, that you may not be rebellious for lack of understanding."
He pointed again, this time at the moon with its restless blue halo.