"You have no right to be here." Caine's eyes were wide open now, and they flashed and pierced.
Backed against the globe where he had sat, Cartman tripped and went to his knees. The heavenly music seemed to fade. He reached out to Caine, and his lips formed an unfamiliar word. "P-please -- "
Caine began to smile. "You must go," he said.
Cartman began tugging at the chain around his neck. "Let me stay. I deserve to be here. I- I'll do anything."
"Anything?" Caine's gaimt face stretched into a many-toothed grin. He waited.
"I swear it." Cartman was almost crying now. (In the bushes the brutes keened no more; their cries were sharp and joyful.)
"Perhaps you do deserve to be here." Caine stepped forward, but still did not touch Cartman. His whole face glowed. "Give me the book."
Trembling, Cartman pulled at the chain. He wrenched the book from his neck, looking as he did so at the golden grasses. Now he could be at one with the grasses, the heavenly voices, the green sky.
"Throw it on the ground." The pitch of Caine's voice was intense. "Now soil it with your foot."
Cartman did so and Caine, who judged him, smiled at the act of disgrace. It was all he asked.
The sun priest smiled blissfully, waiting. Now...
Caine reached out now, and his fingers closed like steel hooks on Cartman's shoulders. "And so the last of the sun priests falls into my hands." His eyes were hungry. "I waited for you for a long time." He started to pull Cartman toward the grasses, pushing his brutes back with sweeping waves of his free hand.
"When the soldier stunned you my people brought you here.
"How I hated your religion!
"And now you have thrown away the book. And now you are mine. My mother will be well satisfied. You will be brought lower than she was."
In a small cavern at the edge of the big dome Caine opened
