“Ready for me yet, Asir?” the squat man asked.
Asir hated him with narrowed eyes. The executioner was bound by law to wait until his victim requested his fate. But Asir remained ignorant of what the fate would be. The Council of Senior Kinsmen judged him in secret, and passed sentence as to what the executioner would do with the knife. But Asir was not informed of their judgment. He knew only that when he asked for it, the executioner would advance with the bleeding blade and exact the punishment—his life, or an amputation, depending on the judgment. He might lose only an eye or an ear or a finger. But on the other hand, he might lose his life, both arms, or his masculinity.
There was no way to find out until he asked for the punishment. If he refused to ask, they would leave him hanging there. In theory, a thief could escape by hanging four days, after which the executioner would pull out the nails. Sometimes a culprit managed it, but when the nails were pulled, the thing that toppled was already a corpse.
The sun was sinking in the west, and it blinded him. Asir knew about the sun—knew things the stupid council failed to know. A thief, if successful, frequently became endowed with wisdom, for he memorized more wealth than a score of honest men. Quotations from the ancient gods—Fermi, Einstein, Elgermann, Hauser and the rest—most men owned scattered phrases, and scattered phrases remained meaningless. But a thief memorized all transactions that he overheard, and the countless phrases could be fitted together into meaningful ideas.
He knew now that Mars, once dead, was dying again, its air leaking away once more into space. And Man would die with it, unless something were done, and done quickly. The Blaze of the Great Wind needed to be rekindled under the earth, but it would not be done. The tribes had fallen into ignorance, even as the holy books had warned:
It is realized that the colonists will be unable to maintain a technology without basic tools, and that a rebuilding will require several generations of intelligently directed effort. Given the knowledge, the colonists may he able to restore a machine culture if the knowledge continues to be bolstered by desire. But if the third, fourth, and Nth generations fail to further the gradual retooling process, the knowledge will become worthless.
The quotation was from the god Roggins, Progress of the Mars-Culture, and he had stolen bits of it from various sources. The books themselves were no longer in existence, remembered only in memorized ritual chants, the possession of which meant wealth.
Asir was sick. Pain and slow loss of blood made him weak, and his vision blurred. He failed to see her coming until he heard her feet rustling in the dry grass.
“Mara—”
She smirked and spat contemptuously at the foot of the post. The daughter of a Senior Kinsman, she was a tall, slender girl with an arrogant strut and mocking eyes. She stood for a moment with folded arms, eyeing him with amusement. Then, slowly, one eye closed in a solemn wink. She turned her hack on him and spoke to the executioner.
“May I taunt the prisoner, Slubil?” she asked.
“It is forbidden to speak to the thief,” growled the knifeman.
“Is he ready to beg for justice, Slubil?”
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 he classed as living. Have it done with. Eternity would be sweet in comparison to this ignominy. 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 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—”