“If it pleases the king, let them be stoned to death,” he said meekly. “You have the courage to insult me thus?” It was Quizquiz who replied. “That penalty is inflicted on petty thieves and like offenders, not on persons like these. The army shall have a new leader; for you, Tupichi, shall be stoned.” “Huascar, advance and let our ears drink in the thoughts that have been conjured by your fertile brain,” Villac Umu commanded in a croaking voice. Again the silence of expectancy pervaded the air. “My unworthy proposal is that the prisoners be boiled in a caldron of oil,” he said simply. “Your proposal is unworthy indeed. It blasphemes my ears. If you, Huascar, can think of nothing better than that, you do not deserve to be permitted to live. Space in the valley is limited and far too valuable to be occupied by such as you. Boiling in oil will be a fitting reward for your stupidity, and so it shall be.” “Let Toparca now be heard,” the high priest then announced. “Glorious one, who has honored me with this rare distinction, blind them with the point of a red-hot spear,” Toparca ventured. “Then set them free on the rugged peaks flanking one of the many craters, so that they will fall into the lake of fire that seethes and roars at the bottom.” “Come, come!” Quizquiz scolded impatiently. “You chatter like a monkey, or like a parrot that lacks the power to think. Words that mean nothing proclaim a brain that has lost its usefulness. You have pronounced your own sentence.” “Speak Zaron! It is your turn.” “I would hold them prisoner until the next exercises, then set them up as targets and let the youths of the nation try their skill at them with bows and arrows, or, if the king prefers, with spears and daggers. A living mark is more interesting to shoot at than some lifeless object.” “You will be a more fitting target than either of these, Zaron, but I doubt not that the density of your head will dull the arrows and turn them aside,” Quizquiz retorted with a chuckle, in which he was joined by Villac Umu. And so they proceeded. Each one of the luckless twelve was ordered to state his proposition, and the offering of each was spurned, often with sarcasm and ridicule. So each in turn was sentenced to the same punishment he had contrived to plan for the captives. Only one remained to be heard. “Soncco, speak quickly; I am fatigued with all this stupidity,” Quizquiz continued impatiently after directing a number of cutting shafts at Chapas, eleventh on the list. “Surely you possess wisdom, or at least so you have pretended. I have trusted you with important missions in the past, and I trust you still or I should not consent to listen longer to this idle gossip.”