Anyone who had died in defense of the golden book (and he was sure he, the high priest of the sun-god's religion, had died thus) was a martyr. He sincerely believed that this great domed field (with a larger dome, an intense sea-green dome, stretched above it like so much sky) could be no place on earth (he was sure it could be no place on earth) for in no place on earth did a ground of dark-laced crystal exist; in no place on earth were there golden grasses that stretched and mounted in splintery tips to the green-bluishness of a concave sky. It must be heaven, or nearly heaven (Cartman thought), and he had only to wait for someone to come to lead him, to judge him.
Guessing this, Alexander Caine got from his hands and knees to stand erect. He swept back his wild hair with rough fingers and straightened the tunic stained with much running about on his hands and knees. Slavering, he broke through the golden grasses, kicking aside the rough-shouldered brutes that clawed their way toward him through the painful grass splinters that lay in dark shadows. He threw back his lean shoulders and dropped his heavy lashes so that they screened the ferocity of his eyes. He stepped on to the bright crystal of the field, avoiding the cold shadows that fell across it, and he approached the man who still sat, blissful, in the field's center. This was the last of them -- the last of the sun-god's priests. His vengeance was nearly done.
"I have come to judge you," he said.
"I did not think the one who came to judge me would have such a rough face," Cartman said, but despite his words he spoke in a glad voice and threw his arms out to welcome the gaunt man. "You see," his voice was warm, "I died a martyr not ten minutes ago -- tell me, it was ten minutes, wasn't it?"
"It was ten minutes," Caine said, throwing a fierce glance over his shoulder to the grasses where the rough beings crowded too close to the grasses' edge. They saw his bright eyes and moved back. When he waved a wild hand at them they let their harsh cries slide to a low whine that seemed to come from a single throat.
"I was fighting for the Sun Book, for what I believe, and that makes me a martyr, doesn't it?" Cartman ran his hands over the book with the golden cover, fondling the clasp as if he would
