Dark Benediction

He heard the executioner chuckle and stand up. He heard the man’s footsteps approaching slowly, and the singing hiss of the knife as Slubil swung it in quick arcs. The executioner moved about him slowly, teasing him with the whistle of steel fanning the air about him. He was expected to beg. Slubil occasionally laid the knife against his skin and took it away again. Then Asir heard the rustle of the executioner’s cloak as his arm went back. Asir opened his eyes.

The executioner grinned as he held the blade high—aimed at Asir’s head! The girl had tricked him. He groaned and closed his eyes again, muttering a half-forgotten prayer.

The stroke fell—and the blade chopped into the post above his head. Asir fainted.

When he awoke he lay in a crumpled heap on the ground. The executioner rolled him over with his foot.

“In view of your extreme youth, thief,” the knifeman growled, “the council has ordered you perpetually banished. The sun is setting. Let dawn find you in the hills. If you return to the plains, you will be chained to a wild hilffen and dragged to death.”

Panting weakly, Asir groped at his forehead, and found a fresh wound, raw and rubbed with rust to make a scar. Slubil had marked him as an outcast. But except for the nail-holes through his forearms, he was still in one piece. His hands were numb, and he could scarcely move his fingers. Slubil had bound the spike-wounds, but the bandages were bloody and leaking.

When the knifeman had gone, Asir climbed weakly to his feet. Several of the townspeople stood nearby, snickering at him. He ignored their catcalls and staggered toward the outskirts of the village, ten minutes away. He had to speak to Mara, and to her father if the crusty oldster would listen. His thief’s knowledge weighed upon him and brought desperate fear.

Darkness had fallen by the time he came to Welkir’s house. The people spat at him in the streets, and some of them flung handfuls of loose dirt after him as he passed.

A light flickered feebly through Welkir’s door. Asir rattled it and waited.

Welkir came with a lamp. He set the lamp on the floor and stood with feet spread apart, arms folded, glaring haughtily at the thief. His face was stiff as weathered stone. He said nothing, but only stared contemptuously.

Asir bowed his head. “I have come to plead with you, Senior Kinsman.”

Welkin snorted disgust. “Against the mercy we have shown you?”

He looked up quickly, shaking his head. “No! For that I am grateful.”

“What then?”

“As a thief, I acquired much wisdom. I know that the world is dying, and the air is boiling out of it into the sky. I wish to be heard by the council. We must study the words of the ancients and perform their magic, lest our children’s children be born to strangle in a dead world.”

Welkir snorted again. He picked up the lamp. “He who listens to a thief’s wisdom is cursed. He who acts upon it is doubly cursed and a party to the crime.”

“The vaults,” Asir insisted. “The key to the Blaze of the Winds is in the vaults. The god Roggins tells us in the words—”

“Stop! I will not hear!”

“Very well, but the blaze can be rekindled, and the air renewed. The vaults—” He stammered and shook his head. “The council must hear me.”

“The council will hear nothing, and you shall be gone before dawn. And the vaults are guarded by the sleeper called Big Joe. To enter is to die. Now go away.”

Welkir stepped back and slammed the door. Asir sagged in defeat. He sank down on the doorstep to rest a moment. The night was black, except for lamp-flickers from an occasional window.

“Ssssst!”

A sound from the shadows. He looked around quickly, searching for the source.

“Ssssst! Asir!”

It was the girl Mara, Welkir’s daughter. She had slipped out the back of the house and was peering at him around the corner. He arose quietly and went to her.

“What did Slubil do to you?” she whispered.

Asir gasped and caught her shoulders angrily. “Don’t you know?”

“No! Stop! You’re hurting me. Tokra wouldn’t tell me. I made love to him, but he wouldn’t tell.”

He released her with an angry curse.

“You had to take it sometime,” she hissed. “I knew if you waited you would be too weak from hanging to even run away.”

He called her a foul name.

“Ingrate!” she snapped. “And I bought you a huffen!”

“You what?”

“Tokra gave me a ritual phrase and I bought you a huffen with it. You can’t walk to the hills, you know.”

Asir burned with full rage. “You slept with Tokra!” he snapped.

“You’re jealous!” she tittered.

“How can I be jealous! I hate the sight of you!”

“Very well then, I’ll keep the huffen.”

“Do!” he growled. “I won’t need it, since I’m not going to the hills!”

She gasped. “You’ve got to go, you fool. They’ll kill you!”

He turned away, feeling sick. She caught at his arm and tried to pull him back. “Asir! Take the huffen and go!”

“I’ll go,” he growled. “But not to the hills. I’m going out to the vault.”

He stalked away, but she trotted along beside him, trying to tug him back. “Fool! The vaults are sacred! The priests guard the entrance, and the Sleeper guards the inner door. They’ll kill you if you try it, and if you linger, the council will kill you tomorrow.”

“Let them!” he snarled. “I am no sniveling townsman! I am of the hills, and my father was a renegade. Your council had no right to judge me. Now I shall judge them!”

The words were spoken hotly, and he realized their folly. He expected a scornful rebuke from Mara, but she hung onto his arm and pleaded with him. He had dragged her a dozen doorways from the house of her father. Her voice had lost its arrogance and became pleading.

“Please, Asir! Go away. Listen! I will even go with you—if you want me.”

He laughed harshly. “Tokra’s leavings.”

She slapped him hard across the mouth. “Tokra is an impotent old dodderer. He can scarcely move for arthritis. You’re an idiot! I sat on his lap and kissed his bald pate for you.”

“Then why did he give you a ritual phrase?” he asked stiffly.

“Because he likes me.”

“You lie.” He stalked angrily on.

“Very well! Go to the vaults. I’ll tell my father, and they’ll hunt you down before you get there.”

She released his arm and stopped. Asir hesitated. She meant it. He came back to her slowly, then slipped his swollen hands to her throat. She did not back away.

“Why don’t I just choke you and leave you lying here?” he hissed.

Her face was only a shadow in darkness, but he could see her cool smirk.

“Because you love me, Asir of Franic.”

He dropped his hands and grunted a low curse. She laughed low and took his arm.

“Come on. We’ll go get the huffen,” she said.

Why not? he thought. Take her huffen, and take her too. He could dump her a few miles from the village, then circle back to the vaults. She leaned against him as they moved back toward her father’s house, then skirted it and stole back to the field behind the row of dwellings. Phobos hung low in the west, its tiny disk lending only a faint glow to the darkness.

He heard the huffen’s breathing as they approached a hulking shadow in the gloom. Its great wings snaked out slowly as it sensed their approach, and it made a low piping sound. A native Martian species, it bore no resemblance to the beasts that the ancients had brought with them from the sky. Its back was covered with a thin