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atop stacked bundles of wood to thrust toward the cloudy sky, reaching toward the falling drizzle that dampened the murmuring spectators.  
    The crowd parted, giving Paardrac more room than he needed to guide his prisoner to the stake. As he approached, Barryn noticed cloth sachets and bundles of flowers and herbs strung all around the stacked wood. Strange-smelling oils stained the pyre and formed small drops that clung to its surface, occasionally breaking free and splashing into the layer of fuel below. He knew the smell was foreign to him, but was too dazed to wonder what it was. He climbed meekly up makeshift steps onto the platform and let Paardrac tie him to the stake. The druid finished his work and deftly placed a stray end of the rope between the stake and the small of Barryn’s back, stealthily brushing it into the boy’s hand.  
    A horn blast silenced the nervously chattering crowd, and two ranks of white-robed druids holding torches aloft escorted Barryn’s mother, who was similarly clad. The druids circumambulated the area around the crowd and the stake, chanting names of spirits, forces and elementals. That done, the druids cut through the crowd and surrounded the menacing stake and its captive.
    The High Druidess opened her robe and let it fall to the ground, revealing her nude, blue-painted body. She closed her eyes, took three deep, measured breaths, and raised her arms toward the sky. “Let the powers of air purify us and guide our spirits before this work today begins,” she intoned in a strong, clear voice that stilled the assembled village.  
      She spread her arms at shoulder level. “Let the powers of fire purify us and guide our energy before this work begins.”  
    She dropped her hands to 45 degree angles,   hands open toward the ground. “Let the powers of water purify us and guide our emotions before this work begins.”
    The druidess circled her arms, palms up at her navel. “Let the powers of earth purify us and nourish our will before this work begins.”
    Barryn’s mother then began a complex series of incantations, eyes ablaze and face stony, in the ritual language known only to adepts. At intervals, the druids surrounding the pyre joined the incantation in unison, answering in the cryptic language when prompted during the ritual. The meaning of the chants was a mystery to the rest of the village, but Barryn knew the sacred language. The druids were hallowing a space into which Barryn’s spirit would be cast when the flames destroyed his body, a final purification that would draw the deva’s attention away from the village.  
    Banton walked up the steps built into the pyre and started to put a rope around Barryn’s neck. He avoided looking in the condemned boy’s eyes.
    “No,” Barryn said. Banton looked in disbelief at him. Barryn swallowed hard, briefly regretting throwing away his chance at a merciful death.  
    “Are you sure?”  
    Barryn tried not to look directly at Paardrac, but caught him in his peripheral vision. He had never placed so much trust in a single person before. Barryn shook his head. “If Ashara has claimed me, then I can meet her in the flames.”
    This elicited a gasp from those who heard. Banton put away the garrote and nodded. He turned and walked down off the pyre and rejoined the circle of druids.
    One of the druids unsheathed Wyrm Smasher, their ritual sword, and brought it to the High Druidess. She raised the ancient blade high above her head, thrusting it toward the steel-colored sky. “By the Mighty Ones,” she intoned, “by the spirits of air, fire, water and earth; by the Gods of our land and by the ancestors of our people; let the stain of the deva be cleansed from our midst!”
    She sliced downward with the blade, cutting the air with an audible swish . The druids stepped forward and touched their flames to the wood. The pyre erupted in spitting blue flames and acrid smoke that singed their robes, pushing them back in disarray.