Dark Benediction

by Walter Michael Miller

  When he opened his eyes he could see the low hills of Mars, sun-washed and gray-green with trees, trees brought down from the heavens by the Ancient Fathers. But he could also see the executioner in the foreground, sitting spraddle legged and calm while he chewed a blade of grass and waited. A squat man with a thick face, he occasionally peered at the thief with empty blue eyes—while he casually played mumblety-peg with the bleeding-blade. His stare was blank.

  “Ready for me yet, Asir?” he grumbled, not unpleasantly.

  The knifeman sat beyond spitting range, but Asir spat, and tried to wipe his chin on the post. “Your dirty mother!” he mumbled.

  The executioner chuckled and played mumblety-peg.

  After three hours of dangling from the spikes that pierced his arms, Asir was weakening, and the blood throbbed hard in his temples, with each jolt of his heart a separate pulse of pain. The red stickiness had stopped oozing down his arms; they knew how to drive the spike just right. But the heartbeats labored in his head like a hammer beating at red-hot iron.

  How many heartbeats in a lifetime—and how many left to him now?

  He whimpered and writhed, beginning to lose all hope. Mara had gone to see the Chief Commoner, to plead with him for the pilferer’s life—but Mara was about as trustworthy as a wild hiiffen, and he had visions of them chuckling together in Tokra’s villa over a glass of amber wine, while life drained slowly from a young thief.

  Asir regretted nothing. His father had been a renegade before him, had squandered his last ritual formula to buy a wife, then impoverished, had taken her away to the hills. Asir was born in the hills, but he came back to the village of his ancestors to work as a servant and steal the rituals of his masters. No thief could last for long. A ritual-thief caused havoc in the community. The owner of a holy phrase, not knowing that it had been stolen, tried to spend it—and eventually counterclaims would come to light, and a general accounting had to be called. The thief was always found out.

  Asir had stolen more than wealth, he had stolen the strength of their souls. For this they hung him by his wrists and waited for him to beg for the bleeding-blade.

  Woman thirsts for husband,

  Man thirsts for wife,

  Baby thirsts for breast-milk

  Thief thirsts for knife…

  A rhyme from his childhood, a childish chant, an eenie-meenie-miney for determining who should drink first from a nectar-cactus. He groaned and tried to shift his weight more comfortably. Where was Mara?

  “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—”

  “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 shell like a bettle’s, but its belly was porous and soft. It digested food by sitting on it, and absorbing it. The wings were bony—parchment stretched across a fragile frame. It was headless, and lacked a centralized brain, the nervous functions being distributed.

  The great creature made no protest as they climbed up the broad flat back and strapped themselves down with the belts that had been threaded through holes cut in the huffen’s thin, tough shell. Its lungs slowly gathered a tremendous breath of air, causing the riders to rise up as the huge air-sacs became distended. The girth of an inflated huffen was nearly four times as great as when deflated. When the air was gathered, the creature began to shrink again as its muscles tightened, compressing the breath until a faint leakage-hiss came from behind. It waited, wings taut.

  The girl tugged at a ring set through the flesh of its flank. There was a blast of sound and a jerk. Nature’s experiment in jet propulsion soared ahead and turned into the wind. Its first breath exhausted, it gathered another and blew itself ahead again. The ride was jerky. Each tailward belch was a rough lurch. They let the huffen choose its own heading as it gained altitude. Then Mara tugged at the wing-straps, and the creature wheeled to soar toward the dark hills in
the distance.

  Asir sat behind her, a sardonic smirk on his face, as the wind whipped about them. He waited until they had flown beyond screaming distance of the village. Then he took her shoulders lightly in his hands. Mistaking it for affection, she leaned back against him easily and rested her dark head on his shoulder. He kissed her while his hand felt gingerly for the knife at her belt. His fingers were numb, but he managed to clutch it, and press the blade lightly against her throat. She gasped. With his other hand, he caught her hair.

  “Now guide the huffen down!” he ordered.

  “Asir!”

  “Quickly!” he barked.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Leave you here and circle back to the vaults.”

  “No! Not out here at night!”

  He hesitated. There were slinking prowlers on the Cimerian plain, beasts who would regard the marooned daughter of Welkir a delicious bit of good fortune, a gustatory delight of a sort they seldom were able to enjoy. Even above the moan of the wind, he would hear an occasional howl-cry from the fanged welcoming committee that waited for its dinner beneath them.

  “Very well,” he growled reluctantly. “Turn toward the vaults. But one scream and I’ll slice you.” He took the blade from her throat but kept the point touching her back.

  “Please, Asir, no!” she pleaded. “Let me go on to the hills. Why do you want to go to the vaults? Because of Tokra?”

  He gouged her with the point until she yelped. “Tokra be damned, and you with him!” he snarled. “Turn back.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going down to kindle the Blaze of the Winds.”

  “You’re mad! The spirits of the ancients live in the vaults.”

  “I am going to kindle the Blaze of the Winds,” he insisted stubbornly. “Now either turn back, or go down and I’ll turn back alone.”

  After a hesitant moment, she tugged at a wing rein and the huffen banked majestically. They flew a mile to the south of the village, then beyond it toward the cloister where the priests of Big Joe guarded the entrance to the vaults. The cloister was marked by a patch of faint light on the ground ahead.