Dark Benediction

by Walter M. Miller

  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."<
br />
  "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.

  "Circle around it once," he ordered.

  "You can't get in. They'll kill you."

  He doubted it. No one ever tried to enter, except the priests who carried small animals down as sacrifices to the great Sleeper. Since no outsider ever dared go near the shaft, the guards expected no one. He doubted that they would be alert.

  The cloister was a hollow square with a small stone tower rising in the center of the courtyard. The tower contained the entrance to the shaft. In the dim light of Phobos, assisted by yellow flickers from the cloister windows, he peered at the courtyard as they circled closer. It seemed to be empty.

  "Land beside the tower!" he ordered.

  "Asir—please—"

  "Do it!"

  The huffen plunged rapidly, soared across the outer walls, and burst into the courtyard. It landed with a rough jolt and began squeaking plaintively.

  "Hurry!" he hissed. "Get your straps off and let's go." "I'm not going."

  A prick of the knife point changed her mind. They slid quickly to the ground, and Asir kicked the huffen in the flanks. The beast sucked in air and burst aloft.

  Startled faces were trying to peer through the lighted cloister windows into the courtyard. Someone cried a challenge. Asir darted to the door of the tower and dragged it open. Now forced to share the danger, the girl came with him without urging. They stepped into a stair-landing. A candle flickered from a wall bracket. A guard, sitting on the floor beneath the candle glanced u¢ in complete surprise. Then he reached for a short barbed pike. Asir kicked him hard in the temple, then rolled his limp from outside. Men with torches were running across the courtyard. He slammed the heavy metal door and bolted it.

  Fists began beating on the door. They paused for a moment to rest, and Mara stared at him in fright. He expected her to burst into angry speech, but she only leaned against the wall and panted. The dark mouth of the stairway yawned at them—a stone throat that led into the bowels of Mars and the realm of the monster, Big Joe. He glanced at Mara thoughtfully, and felt sorry for her.

  "I can leave you here," he offered, "but I'll have to tie you."

  She moistened her lips, glanced first at the stairs, then at the door where the guards were raising a frantic howl. She shook her head.

  "I'll go with you."

  "The priests won't bother you, if they see that you were a prisoner."

  "I'll go with you."

  He was pleased, but angry with himself for the pleasure. An arrogant, spiteful, conniving wench, he told himself. She'd lied about Tokra. He grunted gruffly, seized the candle, and started down the stairs. When she started after him, he stiffened and glanced back, remembering the barbed pike.

  As he had suspected, she had picked it up. The point was a foot from the small of his back. They stared at each other, and she wore her self-assured smirk.

  "Here," she said, and handed it casually. "You might need this."

  They stared at each other again, but it was different this time. Bewildered, he shook his head and resumed the descent toward the vaults. The guards were battering at the doors behind them.

  The stairwell was damp and cold. Blackness folded about them like a shroud. They moved in silence, and after five thousand steps, Ash stopped counting.

  Somewhere in the depths, Big Joe slept his restless sleep. Asir wondered grimly how long it would take the guards to tear down the metal door. Somehow they had to get past Big Joe before the guards came thundering after them. There was a way to get around the monster: of that he was certain. A series of twenty-four numbers was involved, and he had memorized them with a stolen bit of ritual. How to use them was a different matter. He imagined vaguely that one must call them out in a loud voice before the inner entrance.

  The girl walked beside him now, and he could feel her shivering. His eyes were quick and nervous as he scanned each pool of darkness, each nook and cranny along the stairway wall. The well was silent except for the mutter of their footsteps, and the gloom was full of musty odors. The candle afforded little light.

  "I told you the truth about Tokra," she blurted suddenly.

  Asir glowered straight ahead and said nothing, embarrassed by his previous jealousy. They moved on in silence.

  Suddenly she stopped. "Look," she hissed, pointing down ahead.

  He shielded the candle with his hand and peered downward toward a small square of dim light. "The bottom of the stairs," he muttered.

  The light seemed faint and diffuse—with a slight greenish cast. Asir blew out the candle, and the girl quickly protested.

  "How will we see to climb again?"

  He laughed humorlessly. "What makes you think we will?"

  She moaned and clutched at his arm, but came with him as he descended slowly toward the light. The stairway opened into a long corridor whose ceiling was faintly luminous. White-faced and frightened, they paused on the bottom step and looked down the corridor. Mara gasped and covered her eyes.

  "Big Joe!" she whispered in awe.

  He stared through the stairwell door and down the corridor through another door into a large room. Big Joe sat in the center of the room, sleeping his sleep of ages amid a heap of broken and whitening bones. A creature of metal, twice the height of Asir, he had obviously been designed to kill. Tri-fingered hands with gleaming talons, and a monstrous head shaped like a Marswolf, with long silver fangs. Why should a metal-creature have fangs, unless he had been built to kill?

  The behemoth slept in a crouch, waiting for the intruders.

  He tugged the girl through the stairwell door. A voice droned out of nowhere: "If you have come to plunder, go back!"

  He stiffened, looking around. The girl whimpered.

  "Stay here by the stairs," he told her, and pushed her firmly back through the door.

  Asir started slowly toward the room where Big Joe waited. Beyond the room he could see another door, and the monster's job was apparently to keep intruders back from the inner vaults where, according to the ritual chants, the Blaze of the Winds could be kindled.

  Halfway along the corridor, the voice called out again, beginning a kind of sing-song chant: "Big Joe will kill you, Big Joe will kill you, Big Joe will kill you—"

  He turned slowly, searching for the speaker. But the voice seemed to come from a black disk on the wall. The talking-machines perhaps, as mentioned somewhere in the ritual.

  A few paces from the entrance to the room, the voice fell silent. He stopped at the door, staring in at the monster. Then he took a deep breath and began chanting the twenty-four numbers in a loud but quavering voice. Big Joe remained in his motionless crouch. Nothing happened. He stepped
through the doorway.

  Big Joe emitted a deafening roar, straightened with a metallic groan, and lumbered toward him, taloned hands extended and eyes blazing furiously. Asir shrieked and ran for his life.

  Then he saw Mara lying sprawled in the stairway entrance. She had fainted. Blocking an impulse to leap over her and flee alone, he stopped to lift her.

  But suddenly he realized that there was no pursuit. He looked back. Big Joe had returned to his former position, and he appeared to be asleep again. Puzzled, Asir stepped back into the corridor.

  "If you have come to plunder, go back!"

  He moved gingerly ahead again.

  "Big Joe will kill you, Big Joe will kill you, Big Joe will kill—"

  He recovered the barbed pike from the floor and stole into the zone of silence. This time he stopped to look around. Slowly he reached the pike-staff through the doorway. Nothing happened. He stepped closer and waved it around inside. Big Joe remained motionless.

  Then be dropped the point of the pike to the floor. The monster bellowed and started to rise. Asir leaped back, scalp crawling. But Big Joe settled back in his crouch.

  Fighting a desire to flee, Asir reached the pike through the door and rapped it on the floor again. This time nothing happened. He glanced down. The pike's point rested in the center of a gray floor-tile, just to the left of the entrance. The floor was a checkerboard pattern of gray and white. He tapped another gray square, and this time the monster started out of his drowse again.

  After a moment's thought, he began touching each tile within reach of the door. Most of them brought a response from Big Joe. He found four that did not. He knelt down before the door to peer at them closely. The first was unmarked. The second bore a dot in the center. The third bore two, and the fourth three—in order of their distance from the door.

  He stood up and stepped inside again, standing on the first tile. Big Joe remained motionless. He stepped diagonally left to the second—straight ahead to the third—then diagonally right to the fourth. He stood there for a moment, trembling and staring at the Sleeper. He was four feet past the door!