many as twenty of them were identical in every
detail except for numbers tattooed on their foreheads.
48 When The Priest of Priests made the announcement of the surrender,
one city refused to surrender. They loaded all of their people into
cars and buses, and put their city to the torch. They drove out to a
great hole in the wilderness. There, the men killed their women and
children, put their bodies back in the vehicles and drove them into the
hole.
49 Then they emptied fuel trucks into the hole and pushed them in, too.
Then, the men killed each other, until only two were left. These two
set fire to the fuel in the pit, then shot each other.
50 It was a horrible sight when The Children of Spirit reached the
scene several days later. The smell on the wind guided them from a
great distance away.
51 "It makes no sense," ordered The Warlock In Charge, "to try to clean
up this mess. Gather all the construction equipment we can find. Bring
in loads of dirt and sand. We'll make THIS their grave."
52 So they covered over the charred bodies and vehicles, later
returning to set up a marker in the people's memory. Slowly, over three
seasons, the people of The Oneness were scattered throughout all the
cities of Spirit. Only to the cities of The One did they not go. For
there was still much bitterness between them.
53 At first The Children of Spirit thought they would destroy The
Oneness' fortresses that had made up their barrier, but they found each
fortress was, in itself, a small village, and the barrackses could
easily be converted into apartments.
54 People just started moving in, and the former fortresses became kind
of stretched-out cities. One was called The Northern Barrier, and the
other, The Southern Barrier. It was many, many generations before the
original fortresses were destroyed, and new buildings erected in their
place