But Asher gave no reply; he wasn't foolish enough to give one, as him saying anything would mean he was admitting to escaping and would mean that he had received the man's message. Besides, who said the kidnappers were only watching? What if they were also listening? Moreover, Asher hadn't ruled out the possibility of the man being a spy.
Thinking of all of this, Asher gave no reply; after the mission, if the man's so-called son was still alive, if none of the villagers had died of course, Asher would pass on the man's message. After all, it took nothing from him; he already had the map of the entire region engraved within his mind, and he could simply just fly there when he got the name of the village from the man's son, making the task trivial and insignificant in comparison to the larger objective at hand.
