The knifeman grinned and looked at Asir. “Are you ready for me yet, thief?”
Asir hissed an insult. The girl had betrayed him.
“Evidently a coward,” she said. “Perhaps he means to hang four days.”
“Let him then.”
“No—I think that I should like to see him beg.”
She gave Asir a long searching glance, then turned to walk away. The thief cursed her quietly and followed her with his eyes. A dozen steps away she stopped again, looked back over her shoulder, and repeated the slow wink. Then she marched on toward her father’s house. The wink made his scalp crawl for a moment, but then. …
Suppose she hasn’t betrayed me? Suppose she had wheedled the sentence out of Tokra, and knew what his punishment would be. I think that I should like to see him beg.
But on the other hand, the fickle she-devil might be tricking him into asking for a sentence that she knew would be death or dismemberment—just to amuse herself.
He cursed inwardly and trembled as he peered at the bored executioner. He licked his lips and fought against dizzyness as he groped for words. Slubil heard him muttering and looked up.
“Are you ready for me yet?”
Asir closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Give it to me!” he yelped suddenly, and braced himself against the post.
Why not? The short time gained couldn’t be classed as living. Have it done with. Eternity would be sweet in comparison to this ignomy. A knife could be a blessing.
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 hüffen 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.”
Welkir 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 hüffen!”
“You what?”
“Tokra gave me a ritual phrase
